Shamrock Alley (26 page)

Surrounding him stood a number of small, two-story shops behind which larger tenements loomed. Canvas awnings shook in the wind. A sushi restaurant’s neon lights attracted his attention, and he worked his eyes over the store’s front—the shaded plate of window in the door, the arabesque design etched onto the glass. Sodden balls of discarded newspaper were swept up in the wind and carried away like tumbleweeds along the sidewalk.

His eyes peeled, he inched the car up to the intersection and parked across the street from Calliope Candy. Lights were on in the store, but the shades were pulled. A number of cars were parked here, leaving spaces along the curb like gaps in a smile. If he squinted and caught the cars in front of him at the right angle, John could see that no one was seated in any of them. Relaxing in his seat, he cracked the window two inches, coaxed a cigarette from his jacket. The frigid air wasted no time in violating the car’s interior. He spat his gum out the window, silently cursing the cold, and lit the cigarette with a book of matches he kept in the car’s ashtray. Took two long drags. The car filled with blue smoke. Casually, his eyes drifted again to the row of shops. Specifically the candy store.

A block or two behind him, Kersh sat in his sedan, his eyes undoubtedly trained on John’s taillights. And somewhere up ahead, Tommy Veccio and Dick Conners sat together in another car, listening to Kersh’s occasional radio broadcasts.

Abruptly, like a phantom passing through a wall, a figure emerged from the darkness and began shuffling across the street in John’s direction. Silhouetted against the dull lights of the candy store behind him, the figure walked with its head down, shoulders hunched, straggly hair fanned out by the wind.

Mickey O’Shay.

“There he is,” John intoned, directing his voice toward the dashboard and the cigarette lighter that was not a cigarette lighter. “Looks like he came out of the candy store.”

As Mickey came within five feet of the Camaro, his stride stuttered and he appeared temporarily indecisive as to whether he should gain access to the passenger seat by going around the
front
of the car or the
rear
.

“Fucking dope,” John muttered. In his head, he could almost hear Bill Kersh laughing.

Finally, quick as a whip, Mickey swaggered around the front of the car and yanked the passenger side door handle so hard John though it might just break off. Mickey wasted no time occupying the passenger seat, and slammed the door like someone impressed by sharp, insolent noises.

“You got a thing with slamming doors?” John commented.

Mickey just grunted and adjusted himself in his seat. He looked as though he were having some difficulty getting comfortable.

“Cigarette?” John offered.

“No.”

He caught a glimpse of Mickey’s face in the glow of streetlights and, through the strands of wet hair, he could see Mickey’s eyes were bloodshot and muddy, that his lips were dry and peeling.
Probably just finished stuffing shit up his nose
, John thought, then turned away before his lingering gaze made Mickey uncomfortable.

“Shitty weather,” John said, trying to engage him. Yet Mickey O’Shay did not feel like being engaged.

“You got your end?” Mickey said. “Let’s see it.”

“Mickey, you got the shit or what?” He was through playing games and never showed his end first.

Working his peeling lips together, Mickey stuffed a hand into his coat. He extracted a brown paper lunch bag, its lip folded repeatedly. Mickey unfolded it and pulled out a brick-sized package dressed in mint-colored tissue paper. He handed the package to John, who set it in his lap, unwrapped it. Inside were the counterfeit hundreds, fresh and banded just as the others had been. John plucked one of the stacks from the pile, felt it, examined it with one hand. He tossed his cigarette out the crack in the window and flexed the stack with both hands.

“This the same stuff as before?” he asked.

“Exact same.”

“It’s good quality. All your shit this good?”

“All of it. Now let’s finish the deal.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out the envelope containing his money. He held it out, and Mickey’s fingers were quick to snatch it, pry it open.

“Count it if you want,” he said, “but it’s all there.”

“I ain’t worried about it.” There was a serenity to his voice which, to John, said:
It’ll be counted eventually. And if you’re short a single bill, I’ll come gunning for you personally
.

Slapping a stack of the counterfeit money against his thigh, John said, “How much of this can you get?”

The right corner of Mickey’s mouth pulled up in a smirk. His eyes looked distant, far away. He flossed the base of his nose with one finger. “As much as you want,” he said. “You want more, bring your money. But I don’t meet nobody else. Neither do you.”

“Fair enough.”

“You think about rippin’ me off—”

“I got no interest rippin’ anybody off. I’m a street guy, not a jerk.” He folded the tissue paper back over the counterfeit bills. The traffic lights at the intersection changed, and a steady stream of headlights washed past the car, distorted by the rain and sleet. “Long as there’s no bullshit.”

“You still bitchin’ about what happened on Thanksgiving?” Mickey said suddenly, his voice raised up a notch. “Get over it.”

John inwardly shuddered, suddenly too aware of the transmitter designed to look like a cigarette lighter sitting on the dashboard two feet away from Mickey O’Shay’s face.

Christ
, he thought, picturing Kersh leaning forward in his sedan, making sure he’d heard Mickey’s words correctly.
I’m gonna hear it from him now
.

He was careful not to let the curve throw him. In his seat, Mickey sat like someone awaiting bad news from a doctor. His face was slack, sullen, and almost too dark.

John quickly moved forward. “You think you could put together a smaller package for me by tomorrow night?” he said. “I got another buyer interested.”

“How much?” Mickey turned to watch the traffic through his window.

“Not sure yet. Maybe ten grand.” He was hoping to flush out some information on Jimmy Kahn with a second buy-through, although given Mickey’s distaste for small talk he didn’t think it would be easy. At the very least, he wanted someone eyeballing Mickey, tailing him if he left the area to pick up the counterfeit.

“That it?” Mickey said.

“For now,” he said. “I gotta make some calls first. Gimme a number where I can reach you. I’ll call sometime in the afternoon and let you know the deal, give you a couple hours to pick up your end. Things work good, we’ll make money together.”

“We’ll see,” Mickey mumbled, now looking straight out the windshield. His left hand dipped into his coat, scrounged around, came out with a pencil. He tore off a section of the brown paper bag and jotted down a phone number. “Here,” he said, passing John the number. “It’s the number to the candy store. For when you need to reach me.”

“What, you
live
there?” John chuckled, looking over the phone number then stuffing it into his jacket.

“Best place to reach me,” Mickey said. “I ain’t around, you leave your name.”

“That guy your personal answering service?” he said, jerking his head toward the candy store.

Mickey just nodded at the slip of paper with the store’s phone number on it now in John’s pocket. “Somethin’ comes up,” he said, “call that number, let me know.”

“What about knockin’ the price down?”

Mickey bit the inside of his cheek, stifling a laugh. “Yeah, sure. Because I like you so much.”

John flexed his hands on the steering wheel and shrugged one shoulder. “You’re a little high,” he said, pressing Mickey, curious to see if Mickey had the authority to drop the price if he wanted. He watched his eyes, tried to read them, studied the ticks at each corner of his mouth.

“You don’t like it, hit the bricks.”

“Think about it.”

“Tomorrow night pans out,” Mickey said, “you’re lookin’ at the same deal. Twenty percent. Bottom line.”

John slipped the counterfeit bills back into the paper bag and tossed it behind him on the back seat. “Good doin’ business with ya,” he told Mickey.

“We’ll see,” was all Mickey said. And a moment later, he was dodging traffic along Tenth Avenue and heading back toward the candy store.

Back at the office, Kersh was upset. A man of lesser integrity would have been irate, his voice raised, his hands no doubt balled into bloodless white fists. But Bill Kersh was not that man. He sat on the corner of his desk, the hem of his rumpled slacks hitched too high above his socks, one foot—the one off the ground—twitching uneasily. The knot of his necktie was pulled away from his collar, the tie itself twisted like a contortionist. The look on his face was that of a disappointed parent.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Kersh said.

John sat in Kersh’s desk chair, labeling evidence bags. On the desk, still wrapped in the mint-green tissue paper and stuffed inside a brown paper bag, was $100,000 in counterfeit hundreds.

“I knew you’d get bent out of shape,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“So tell me,” Kersh said. “This guy rings you Thanksgiving morning and you meet him without calling me? Without calling the
office?”

“It was Thanksgiving. Most of the guys weren’t even in. Besides, there was no time. I was late getting there as it was. What the hell would calling the office have done?”

“At least someone would have known where you were,” Kersh said. “It was careless. It was
stupid.”

John slapped the evidence bag down on the desk and looked up at Kersh. “He was fronting me the money. What the hell was I supposed to do? Turn him down? ‘No thanks, Mickey, I don’t feel like pickin’ up free money today’? Come on, Bill, you’re talking nonsense.”

Kersh slid off his desk. He lingered for a moment with his head facing the darkened bank of office windows, his meaty hands stuffed into the pockets of his slacks. “What about your report? What are you going to say about this in your undercover report?”

John frowned, shrugged. “I was planning to leave it out.”

“Oh,” Kersh said. “Oh. Okay.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and pressed them on top of his desk. Bending down, he cut the distance between their faces in half. “Let me explain something,” he said. His voice was not harsh, not preachy. It was Bill Kersh’s normal cadence—half simplicity, half heart.
“This is not how we do things
. There are rules we follow and reasons we follow them. This is not a game. I don’t need you running around the streets playing Batman.
You
don’t need that.”

“I think you’re getting a little carried away. Relax. It worked out, didn’t it?” He offered Kersh a crooked grin—what Katie called his “kiss-my-ass-grin.”

Kersh straightened his back, sighed, and folded his arms. The button on his left wrist cuff had fallen off, allowing the cuff to hang open. Tonight, he was bothered by more than just the fact John had left out the details of the Thanksgiving Day meeting. Tommy Veccio had reported in, explaining that he’d kept an eye on Mickey O’Shay all evening, but O’Shay had gone nowhere—just between his apartment and the candy store, and that was it. Which meant the money had to have been in either O’Shay’s apartment or Calliope Candy.

“John,” Kersh began, “this is a job. A little different than most, maybe, but it’s still a job. Doctors operate with the proper equipment—they don’t waltz into the O.R. clutching a handful of knives and forks, ready to go to work. That’s just not the right way. I’m telling you from experience. You think something’s worth it, but it’s really not.” He rubbed the side of his face. “I just want you to do this like the professional you’re supposed to be,” he said, then added, “like the professional I know you
are.”

John pushed back in his chair and didn’t say a word.

“Rules,” Kersh said. Unfolding his arms, he turned and headed toward the office door. “I’m getting some coffee,” he said. “You want?”

“I know what I’m doing,” John said, and watched Kersh walk out of the office.

T
HE PURPOSE OF THE SECOND BUY-THROUGH
with Mickey O’Shay was primarily to allow Bill Kersh to sit on him and watch where he went to pick up the money. The problem was Mickey O’Shay went
nowhere
. It was just as Tommy Veccio had informed Kersh prior to the first buy-through: “This guy goes nowhere, Bill. He hangs around the street corner, the candy store. That’s it. And another thing,” Veccio added, a tinge of humor in his voice. “This guy looks like an extra from an old Jimmy Cagney flick. I’d be surprised if he’s got two brain cells to rub together and make a spark. He supposed to be some sort of big deal or what?”

It went down the same this time, too. Mickey O’Shay slipped from his apartment in the early part of the evening, crossed the street to Calliope Candy, and remained inside until John showed up for the buy. Kersh, his sedan parked further west along 53
^rd
Street, sat with his back facing the candy store. Over the years, he’d developed a rather inconspicuous and effective method of backward surveillance: by utilizing the sedan’s rearview and sideview mirrors, he was able sit casually behind the wheel and see all the action without ever having to face the suspect. From the sedan, he watched Mickey and could not believe the hood did not have to go to pick up the money.