Allegiance (Joe Logan Book 4) (11 page)

Sonny
stopped and put the Nissan in Park. Dusty got out and walked briskly to the main doors of the hospital.  He couldn’t contact Nick by phone.  Something was wrong.  But with another two cars now in the area, cruising like sharks, he was sure that Logan and the woman would be contained.  He was not to know that fifty yards away on the busy sidewalk, Logan watched him exit the car.

Sonny just stayed where he was, parked illegally.  If he was moved on he would just circle the block until Dusty came out.

The driver’s door was pulled open as Sonny checked the rearview mirror and, with no time to react, he was knocked sideways over the center console by a devastating blow to his left side.  Had his spleen not been protected by his ribs, then it would have most likely been ruptured, such was the impact of the fist, that caused him to cry out like a kicked cat as he collapsed with his head on the passenger seat.

Logan removed the key from the ignition and then reached over to quickly, professionally search the man and relieve him of his holstered pistol, his wallet and cell phone.

To anyone passing it would appear as if Logan was just leaning over in the car and talking.  And most New Yorkers minded their own business and didn’t get involved. Even if they thought that something was off beam, ninety-nine out of a hundred citizens would look the other way and keep walking.

Within five seconds Logan had checked the guy’s driver’s license.  “It’s your lucky day, Gilmore,” he said to Sonny.  “My name’s Logan, and I want you to tell Quaid that I stopped by to talk with you.  Tell him that I’ve eye-balled him, and could just as easily have taken him out.  He needs to know that this is his one and only chance to back off.  If he keeps coming at me he’ll die.  That’s a promise.  Whatever security he has won’t be enough to save his skin.  If I’m followed I’ll know it, and that will mean that he’s too dumb to take good advice.  Are there any other assholes looking for me?”

“Two cars,” Sonny said, knowing that if he lied he would suffer for it.

“Makes and color?”

“I think they’ll be in a dark-blue Kia Optima and a gray Toyota Prius.”

As Sonny stopped talking, hard, scarred knuckles smashed into his temple and dazed him.

Thirty seconds later a street cop opened the Nissan’s door as Sonny was attempting to push himself up into a sitting position.

“You okay, sir?” patrol officer Hal Fletcher said, noting that the man was obviously dazed and in pain.

“I just got mugged,” Sonny said.  “A young Hispanic guy pulled the door open, slugged me and stole my wallet.”

Hal accepted that.  There was no smell of alcohol on the man’s breath.  “Best go in the hospital and get checked out,” he said.  “You’ve got one hell of a lump on your head.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sonny said.

“Your call, sir.  You’ll need to drop by the precinct and give a statement.”

“I’ll do that.”

The cop nodded.  Decided not to take details or get involved.  He was hungry and tired, and didn’t need the hassle.  “Stay parked till you feel fit enough to drive,” he said, then ambled off.

Sonny took a few deep breaths and reached for the key.  It was missing.  Logan had taken it.  He was stuck where he was.  Quaid would be pissed.

Sure that he was not being followed by anyone on foot, Logan walked back to the corner, crossed 26
th
Street and entered the coffee shop.  Margie was sitting at a table in a far corner nursing a cup.

Sitting across from her, Logan caught a waitress’s attention and ordered coffee.  He then told Margie what had transpired as he removed bills totaling four hundred bucks from the wallet he had taken from Sonny Gilmore.

“Will Arnie be safe?” Margie asked.

Logan nodded.  “Yeah, I’m the person of interest now.  It’s us that need to watch our backs.”

“I can’t find the words to thank you enough,” Margie said.

“No need for words,” Logan said.  “Arnie would have done the same for me.”

“That’s true.  He really missed you when you quit and left the city.  Where have you been?”

“Everywhere and nowhere, Margie.  I like to keep on the move.  I spent too many years of my life with a sense of duty ruling my every action.  I climbed out of bed for every shift and got involved with other people’s misfortune.  Crime isn’t going to stop happening, it’s never-ending.”

“But that’s what you’ve done now; got involved with our problem.”

“You and Arnie are as close to family as I’ve got.  I’m implicated by choice, not because its part of my job.  Every now and then I walk into situations that I get caught up in.  But this one is special, because you’re both more than strangers in trouble that I decide to help out.  This is as personal as it gets for me.”

“You’re a good man,” Margie said and got up walked around the table and gave him a crushing hug.

Logan smiled.  It wasn’t something that he did very often.

“How do we stop them from coming after us?” Margie asked.

“By persuading Patrick Fallon to call his dogs off.”

“You think that you can?”

Logan nodded.  “After I’ve dealt with Quaid, I’ll talk to Fallon.  Convince him that it would be in his best interest to quit while he still can.”

Logan paid the check, and as they approached the door he stopped and watched as a gray Toyota Prius passed the coffee shop at not much more than walking speed.  There were two guys in the front, and they were scanning the street.

After another four vehicles had gone by, Logan steered Margie out, across the sidewalk and the street, to keep near the store fronts with a wall of milling pedestrians as a shield between them and the watchful eyes of the searchers.  He had to lean forward, hunched to make himself appear to be smaller. Being well above average height was in many ways an advantage, but not in a situation when he did not want to be seen.

After only fifty feet they entered a side street and made their way back to the garage.  Della and Benny were relieved to see them approach the car.

“How did it go?” Della asked Margie.

Margie smiled.  There were tears in her eyes.  “They think that Arnie is going to make it,” she said.  “He isn’t in a coma now…well, he is, but it’s drug-induced while the swelling to his brain goes down.”

“That’s great news,” Della said.

“I hope that when he’s back on his feet he’ll give me a break for bein’ responsible for what happened to him,” Benny said.

“If you thought it was just a meet for them to get information from Arnie, I think he’ll understand that you were pressured into arranging it,” Margie said.

“Yeah, but I lied to him,” Benny said.  “He thought I’d be at the pier on my own.  I was scared of what they’d do to me if I didn’t con him into turnin’ up.”

Margie almost felt sorry for the young man.  He seemed to feel genuine guilt for putting Arnie in harm’s way.  A part of her wanted to hate him, but she realized that he was just someone who got by anyway he could, and that her husband had used him and even paid him as a conduit between the law and what Arnie always referred to as scumbags.

Logan walked a few yards from the car and took the cell that he had confiscated from Sonny from his pocket, found Quaid’s number and made the call.

“Yeah, Sonny.”

“It’s not Sonny.  I left him a little worse for wear in the Nissan.  I also took the key, so you’ll need to call one of your other lapdogs to give you a lift.”

“Logan?”

“Who else?”

“You’re on borrowed time, pal.  Give up what you have on a certain party and leave the city or I―”

“We both know that the certain party is Patrick Fallon, and I’m anything but your pal, Quaid.  Any threats you were about to make are not worth the time it would take you to think them up.  I’m only calling you to inform you that I know all about you, Dalton and Trask.  I know that you won’t back off, so I want you to be aware that I’m your worst nightmare.  You just don’t know it yet, but will very soon.”

“That’s big talk, Logan.  We’ll find you, and when we do I will personally cut your balls off, stuff them in your big mouth and sew it shut.”

Logan chuckled and ended the call.  He didn’t even bother to switch the cell off, just wiped it and dropped it on the concrete floor and returned to the car.

Dusty had not been able to locate Nick.  He had walked past an examination room, unaware that Nick was inside it being checked out.  The call stopped him in his tracks, and after he had spoken with Logan he made his way back out to the street.  Sonny was still there, sitting behind the wheel of the car with a lump the size of a goose egg on the side of his head.

“Boss,” Sonny said as he opened the door.  “Logan appeared out of nowhere and cold-cocked me.”

Dusty clenched his teeth, and the muscles in his cheeks hardened and bulged.  He had the urge to take his gun out and gut shoot Sonny.  The busy street was all that saved his driver’s life.  He breathed in deeply through his nose and exhaled slowly from his mouth three times, and felt a tad calmer.

“Logan just called me on your fucking phone,” Dusty said.  “Told me that he’d taken the car key.  Do you have a spare?”

“Not with me,” Sonny said.

“You’re a complete waste of space,” Dusty said as he used his own phone to call Jake Demski, who was driving the Optima, and told him to meet him outside the main doors.  “Stay with the car.  I’ll get the key to you.  And then drive it back to my place.”

“Okay,” Sonny said.

“What did you tell Logan?”

“Nothing,” Sonny lied.  “He just hit me, took the car key and my wallet and gun, and told me to tell you that he’d seen you arrive, and that he could have taken you out, and that this was your only chance to back off.”

The Optima slid to a stop next to Dusty.  He climbed in the rear and told Jake to take him home.

Logan was now much more than a minor problem to be dealt with.  He had become a dangerous threat of the worst kind; a man on a mission with the bit between his teeth and the background and experience to hit and run with impunity, thus far.  Until he was eliminated, none of them could afford to feel safe.  Having the manpower was of no practical use against an enemy that they could not locate.

Back at the apartment, Dusty told Jake Demski to stay with him.  He felt relatively safe.  There was a CCTV camera mounted at an angle to cover the corridor and the elevator.  Logan could not get to him here, but he had no intention of staying behind locked doors and under siege.  He phoned Max and spelt it out; that they had a driven and extremely capable man on their case.

“You think he could be just talking the talk to make us back off?” Max said.

“No.  He knows that we won’t let it go, and so he’s decided that attack is the best form of defense.”

“That’s not acceptable, Dusty.  Find him and kill him.”

“Easier said than done.  He was a Marine, then a homicide detective.  By all accounts he vanished without trace.  No one he knew has any idea what became of him.  He cut all ties and became a ghost.”

“He isn’t a fucking ghost now.  He’s in the city.  A big guy like him should be easy to find.  I want the word on the street.  Offer whatever reward necessary to whoever locates him.  He’ll be staying in some fleapit hotel under an alias.”

“Do you want him alive?”

“No.  Get the flash drive and any copies he has of it, and then whack him.”

After Max had rung off, Dusty made coffee and a dozen phone calls. He put the word out across the city.  Someone would want to pick up the bounty he had put on Logan.  Now all he could do was wait, and dream up the most brutal scenarios he could imagine of what he would personally do to the man who was causing them so much trouble.

Della
drove.  Margie was sitting next to her, and Benny was in the rear.  They had dropped Logan off on Park Row within sight of 1 Police Plaza, then crossed Brooklyn Bridge, heading back to the motel on Staten Island.

Logan had only taken a copy of the flash drive with him.  He walked along the sidewalk and stopped at the hot dog stand that he had used two or three times a week, back when he’d been a homicide detective.

“Do my old eyes deceive me, or can that be Joe Logan standin’ there as big as a tree and about to order the best dog in the Big Apple, which means the best dog in the world?” Ric Angelo said with a cheek-stretching grin on his wrinkled face.

“Hi, Ric,” Logan said.  “Load me up a chilidog.  The smell of your cart has given me an appetite.”

“So what brings you back?” Ric said, handing Logan the dog, the grin now gone from his face.  “Because of what happened to Arnie?”

Almost word for word the same question that Hoagy Marks had asked him
.  “I guess a little nostalgia kicked in.  I was going to visit with Arnie and Margie for a couple of days.  I didn’t know about what had gone down till I got here.”

“How is he?”

“Could be worse after catching a bullet in the head.  Looks as though he’ll make it, but they don’t know if he’ll be the way he was.”

“So you’re on it, right?” Ric asked.

“Unofficially, yeah.  I’m going to have a word with whoever’s heading up the case, but I doubt they’ll know as much as I do.”

“I hope you get the sonofabitch, Logan.  Arnie is top of the heap in my book.”

“And in mine, Ric.  Take care my friend.”

“And you.  The streets can be mean.”

“Don’t I know it,” Logan said as he ambled off, demolishing the dog before he reached the entrance to what a lot of cops still called The Puzzle Palace.

Logan entered the building and made his way through a crowd of people to the long desk that was manned at intervals by uniformed officers.  It reminded him of a check-in for a major airline.

“Yeah?” a young female cop said.  She looked a little wild-eyed and flustered.  Hadn’t grown into the job yet.  Another few weeks and she would learn to concentrate on one problem at a time and not let much of anything hassle her.

“I need to see the lieutenant assigned to oversee the squad investigating the attempted murder of Detective Arnie Newman,” Logan said.

“And you are?” Officer Gwen Mercer asked.

“Logan.  I used to be a homicide detective here.”

Gwen made a call.  Told someone what he had said, listened to the reply and cradled the phone.  “An officer will be down to talk to you shortly, if you’d like to take a seat,” she said to Logan.

He was still waiting fifteen minutes later, not sitting but standing in a corner near an archway watching the stairs and the elevator doors.  His heart sank a little when he saw Lieutenant Travis Reynolds appear at the bottom of the stairs and make a beeline for him.

“If I had sore eyes, then the sight of you back in this building would definitely not alleviate the pain of seeing you again,” Travis said by way of greeting.  “Say what’s on your mind and then get the hell out of here.”

Logan had five inches on him, so looked down into his narrow face and smiled.  “You haven’t changed, Reynolds,” he said.  “You always were a supercilious jerk in a cheap suit, with a second asshole that masquerades as a mouth.”

“And you were always a loose cannon. You and your sidekick Newman careered around the city streets like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, in an old pool Ford instead of on horseback.”

“Be careful what you say about Arnie,” Logan said in hardly more than a whisper.  “Being a desk jockey, white shirt cop with no commendations doesn’t impress anyone.  You were always easy to just ignore.  But if you badmouth my ex-partner again I’ll hit you so hard that you won’t wake up for a week.”

Travis couldn’t help himself from swallowing hard.  He knew that Logan would back up his words.  He always had in the past.

“We’re all sorry about what went down,” Travis said.  “But Internal Affairs are looking at Newman.  Being at the pier was on his time, unofficial. A known felon was shot dead.  It looks like he had a meet.”

“So IAB jump to the conclusion that Arnie was what, on the take?” Logan said, now finding it hard to remain calm.

“You know the procedure.  They need to be sure that he wasn’t mixed up in any criminal activity.”

“He was meeting his CI, who’d been coerced into luring him to the pier.”

“By whom?”

“One of Fallon’s mob.  Arnie had been digging.  There were at least four murders that he believed Fallon was behind.”

“There was no proof to link the man who will almost certainly be the next mayor of New York to any crime.  All Newman had was circumstantial evidence that no DA in his right mind would have taken seriously.  Fallon has a lot of clout, Logan.  And he also has cast-iron alibis for the murders that you’re talking about.”

Logan reached into a pocket, withdrew the flash drive and held it out.  “I only came to give you this,” he said.  “I expect you to check it out.  And it’s only a copy.”

Travis took it.  “What’s on it?” he asked.

“Enough of what you deem to be circumstantial evidence to merit another very close look at Fallon.  And there are the names of lowlife that work for him: Max Dalton, Dustin Quaid and Jack Trask.  Trask shot Arnie.  He’s in a clinic recovering from wounds that he got when Arnie returned fire.  I’ve put details on a separate file for you to read.”

“And what do you propose to do?” Travis asked, and immediately added.  “Don’t tell me.  I’m sure that you’d lie.”

Logan said nothing, just turned to leave.

“Wait,” Travis said.  “I need to know where I can contact you.”

“No you don’t,” Logan said.  “I’ve got your number if something comes up I think you should know.”

“You’ll probably get yourself killed, if you go it alone.”

“Maybe, but I know you wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.  And one way or another about sixty thousand New Yorkers die every year, so I wouldn’t make a blip on the statistics.”

Back out on the street, Logan decided to take the subway down to Battery Park and catch a ferry to the island.  It amazed him that the Staten Island ferry service was still free. Very little in this age of greed came cheap, and almost nothing but the polluted air was free of charge.  He considered that maybe his decision to quit the city and crisscross this great land, usually with no fixed destination in mind, was so that he could appreciate the beauty of the mountains, wildlife, forests, deserts and a way of living that seemed to move at a snails’ pace compared to the people and vehicle-packed cities that no longer held any fascination for him.

As Logan walked out of 1 Police Plaza, Travis Reynolds followed him to the door and made a call to the detective squad room upstairs as he watched Logan head south along the sidewalk.

“Put Ellery on,” Travis said to Detective Third Grade Paulie Neilson.

Within seconds Dave Ellery was on the line.

“Remember that big ox Logan?” Travis said.

“Yeah, why?”

“He just walked out the door.  Get your ass down here and tail him.”

Dave grabbed his coat and hurried down to the first floor.  Saw Reynolds at the door and strode over, jostling his way through people that were in his way.

“There, up at the corner,” Travis said to Dave.  “See him?”

“Yeah.  Whadya want me to do?”

“Stick like glue, but don’t get made.  Logan is sharp.  We need to know where he’s staying.  I’ll get Neilson to catch up with you to track him. You can keep in touch by phone till he reaches you.”

Dave crossed the street and kept Logan in sight.  He knew how to tail people, but was glad that he would be part of a two-man team, so that they could be positive that the mark didn’t get chance to see the same face twice.

Logan took time to have a cup of coffee in an Italian café that he had always enjoyed using, back in the day.  The aroma of the roast coffee beans, Parma ham and cheeses was a magical and almost intoxicating mix to him. Some things took you back, like it or not.  Smells, sights and sounds dug past memories from cobwebbed corners of your mind; good, bad and ugly ones.  They surfaced unbidden from the subconscious to make you smile or sadden you.

“Long time no see, Detective,” Carlo Minardi said, approaching the table that Logan had chosen to sit at; one with a view of the street through the plate-glass window that was partially obscured by the gold leaf writing that proclaimed in large fancy script that this was Minardi’s Bistro.

“I’m just a civilian now, Carlo,” Logan said.

“Once a cop always a cop,” Carlo said with a beaming smile on his broad, mustachioed face.  “And you were one of the few that didn’t expect free coffee, even though it was always reassuring to have cops in my establishment.”

“So let me have a gratis one now for old times’ sake,” Logan said.

“You got it, Detective,” Carlo said and headed back to the counter.

Dave Ellery was pleased to see Logan enter the bistro.  It gave Paulie time to catch up.

“How’re we gonna play it?” Paulie asked.

“With you as lead,” Dave said.  “Logan knows me.  I’ve put on a few pounds and lost some hair, but he might recognize me.  I’ll keep on the other side of the street, up ahead of him.  You stay well back.”

It was little more than a sideways glance, but Logan saw the paunchy figure pass between parked vehicles directly opposite, unable to refrain from taking a quick look, even though all he would see were reflections, due to Minardi’s interior being low lit to generate a warm, homely ambience for patrons.

He recognized the detective.  It was Dave Ellery, looking just as ugly as he always had been; fatter and going bald, but unmistakable.  That meant Reynolds would have sent at least two after him.  One would stay well back, and Ellery would keep up ahead.  They would be in phone contact, but because he knew they were tailing him, losing them was a given.

He let them sweat.  Had another coffee, then asked Carlo if he could leave by the rear door.  It led out into a yard and an alley behind it.  Losing them had been easy, once he knew that they were following him.  At the end of the alley he poked his head out and looked both ways.  There was no sign of Ellery, so he set off down the street, took the first left and decided to take the subway.

Dave Ellery was waiting at the corner of the block and got lucky.  He stepped out just in time to see Logan walking in the other direction.  Phoned Paulie and told him to follow, saying that Logan had obviously decided to take precautions and had left the bistro by the rear door.

Logan saw the globe lamps denoting a subway entrance and went down the stairs; used a booth to buy his fare and walked over to a turnstile to swipe the card and continue to the five-hundred feet long platform, where he used one of the tiled support pillars to hide from view.  He was sure that he had lost the tail, but took nothing for granted.  Being head and shoulders taller than average commuters was a drawback when endeavoring to remain unseen.

The sound of a train approaching was music to his ears.  He’d almost forgotten the unmistakable noise of metal-on-metal as the wheels thundered over the rails, and the clanking of the cars as the train blasted free of the tunnel to screech to a stop.  He took one last look towards the turnstiles and then stepped quickly forward as the doors slid back with a loud hiss.

Dave and Paulie made it to the nearest car and entered it as the doors wheezed shut.  Their run of luck was holding.  Dave had caught a glimpse of Logan a split second before he was swallowed by the stairs leading down to the station.  And Paulie had seen the big man step onto the train.

Logan took a seat and looked straight ahead, not really aware of his own reflection in the window opposite as the train plunged into the tunnel like a rat in drainpipe.  A couple of teenage girls were just a few feet from him, talking loudly about some boy band, debating which of the unattainable pop group would be their first choice to fuck.  It saddened Logan that a great many of today’s generation were so disappointing with their crude vocabulary and small-mindedness.  But he supposed that there were an equal number that would have more about them and go on to enjoy productive, worthwhile lives.  And who was he to judge?  He was just a guy that had done what he did for many years and then opted out and headed for the hills.  He had nothing material to show for his life, by choice.  His most valuable possessions were memories, which he didn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on.

When he reached the terminal at Battery Park and boarded the ferry, he did not notice Paulie Neilson a couple of dozen passengers back from him.  Nor did he see Dave Ellery, who had given a guy on the subway twenty bucks for a sweat-stained Boston Red Sox ball cap, and was now wearing it and keeping his head angled down so that the bill hid his features.