Shamrock Alley (27 page)

Surely any second he expected him to pop out of the candy store and start heading down the street on foot. Or maybe grab a cab and head toward Times Square or the Theater District. Yet Mickey O’Shay never left the candy store. Moreover, no one else
entered
—just a smattering of neighborhood kids. Was it possible that the kids were carrying money, that they were used as runners? It was possible, but Kersh thought they looked too young for Mickey to trust them with such valuable merchandise. Then was the money squirreled away in the candy store somewhere? In O’Shay’s apartment?

Just as night began to claim the city, John’s Camaro pulled up across the street from the candy store, his headlights on. After several minutes, Mickey stuck his head out of the candy store, coughed once into a balled fist, then began crossing the street. He moved with his usual swagger—one that suggested he watched too many movies where the bad guys were heroes and all the cops were dirty.

Mickey entered John’s car without saying a word. Around them, the sky was turning a bruised, deep purple. A few pedestrians were hustling home along Tenth Avenue, not a single one interested in the Camaro parked across the street from Calliope Candy.

John nodded toward the candy store.

“You should buy that joint, much time as you spend there,” he said. Mickey didn’t say a word.

“You got it?” John said.

Mickey produced another package wrapped in mint-green tissue paper, this one much smaller than the first. Mickey did not immediately hand it over to him. Instead, he kept it on his lap and pulled over one flap of the tissue paper, exposing the bills. There was a single banded stack inside—ten thousand in counterfeit hundreds. With one hand, Mickey dumped the package into John’s lap.

“Good,” John said, examining the bills. “Your guy does good work.”

“Where’s mine?”

John folded the tissue paper back over the notes and stuffed them into his jacket. He pointed to a crowbar on the floor by Mickey’s feet. “Gimme that,” he said.

Mickey shot a glance at the crowbar, then looked up at John. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

“The crowbar.” John opened his door, swung one leg out. He was struck by a blast of cold air. “Give it to me.”

Mickey just stared at him.

“You want your money or not?”

Mickey’s eyes lingered on John for a moment longer—then he leaned forward, grabbed the crowbar by its hooked end, and handed it over to John without saying a word. If Mickey had any reservations about handing him the crowbar—if for even a split second he thought John might use the tool to bang him over the head and drag him out into the street—his eyes did not show it.

He took the crowbar and stepped out into the street.

“Where you goin’?” Mickey called, not even the slightest tremor in his voice. As if he were speaking the words to convince John of trepidation he did not feel. He remained in the passenger bucket, his eyes focused on the parked car in front of him.

“Gettin’ your money, “John said, and walked over to the Camaro’s rear driver’s side tire. Kneeling in the street, he popped the hubcap off the wheel and peeled a small, plastic bag away from where it was taped inside of the hubcap. Leaning over the driver’s seat, Mickey watched him in the driver’s sideview mirror. John hammered the hubcap back into place and slipped back inside the car, slamming the door and tossing the crowbar on the back seat.

“Had to meet some people before I came here—didn’t want the coins on me. You see this car parked somewhere else next week, let me save you the trouble,” he said, flipping Mickey the plastic bag. “Don’t bother checking the wheels.”

Mickey rolled the plastic bag over in his hands. He took out the money, flipped through it with seemingly little interest, though he did not count it.

“Let’s talk about cutting down the price,” John said.

“I told you the deal.”

“I need a
new
deal.” He tapped the pocket of his jacket where he’d stashed the counterfeit. “This is good shit. I wanna keep buyin’ from you, Mickey, but you gotta get the numbers down. I’m payin’ you twenty points, I gotta make at least another five to make it worth my while. I can get a lot of action on this money, but not at twenty-five percent.”

“That ain’t my problem.”

“I’m just asking you to think about it, talk to whoever you need to … maybe we both talk to ‘em. I wanna keep doin’ business with you, Mickey.”

“Who are you?” Mickey said then. His tone wasn’t accusatory, wasn’t sardonic or laced with any trace of sly humor. It was a straight question. Mickey’s eyes lingered on him, awaiting an answer.

“What?”

“Who
are
you?” That same straightforward tone.

“I’m a guy lookin’ to make some money,” he said, switching to offense. “You ain’t interested in making money, in making deals, then tell me
who you
are.”

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Mickey nodded his head and said, “How many buyers you got lined up?”

“What do you care?” It was the appropriate response, yet he wanted to encourage Mickey to keep talking all the same, keep him asking questions. “I move around, make connections, meet people. Like I said—I can move whatever you got. And not just this shit.
Anything
. But the price’s gotta be right.” He sighed, put his hands on the steering wheel and faced front. A dark blue Pontiac eased past them along Tenth Avenue and turned left on West 53
^rd
Street.

Wheels were turning in Mickey’s head; John could see a flicker of thought working behind Mickey’s cold, shallow eyes. It was like a suddenly brilliant flame, long since starved of oxygen.

Yet Mickey was through chatting. “You need some more,” he said, opening the passenger door, “call me. We’ll talk about price then.”

“Let me ask you something,” he said, peering at Mickey through the door. “You always this friendly?”

Not even grinning, Mickey O’Shay shut the passenger door.

“He’s heading back to the store,” he said into the transmitter on the dashboard. “Must have one hell of a sweet tooth.”

He started up the Camaro’s engine but did not pull out right away. He remained, watching Mickey from the corner of his eye.

Kersh, roughly one block away, was also watching Mickey O’Shay. He watched Mickey shuffle onto the curb outside Calliope Candy, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his eyes on the traffic along the street. He looked like someone waiting for a bus. Then one of Mickey’s hands appeared from his coat. Kersh watched as he went to the pay phone outside the store, picked up the receiver. After sliding in some change, Mickey dialed a number and remained on the street corner with the receiver up to one ear. With the thumb of his free hand, Mickey scraped at his front teeth, his eyes still on the slow-moving traffic along Tenth Avenue.

“Who’re you calling now, buddy?” Kersh muttered to himself, adjusting the sedan’s rearview.

Mickey’s phone call was brief. After he hung up, he turned and sauntered back inside Calliope Candy. Kersh eased his head against the headrest, his mind lingering on Mickey O’Shay and the candy store. He might just drop in there tomorrow, say he’s grabbing some peppermints for his nephew or something. Just to scope out the place, see who was behind the counter. Ideas came quickly to him when he was able to envision his surroundings, when he knew the field on which his opponents practiced.

Kersh’s sedan remained parked along West 53
^rd
Street for some time afterward, the car’s driver curious to see if Mickey happened to split and head off somewhere. But Mickey O’Shay never came out of the candy store, and the night was quickly upon him.

Starting his car, he backed out of his parking space and onto West 53
^rd
Street, heading toward the Hudson. While readjusting his rearview mirror, he saw John’s Camaro drift across the intersection of Tenth Avenue and West 53
^rd
Street. A few cars followed close behind him. Three cars away, Kersh spotted a blue Pontiac Sunbird and felt a sudden needling in the pit of his stomach.

John was being followed.

The blue Pontiac Sunbird had completed two revolutions around the corner of Tenth Avenue and West 53
^rd
Street while Kersh had been on surveillance—probably more, but he hadn’t noticed. And now the car was following John down Tenth Avenue.

Headlights behind him caused him to readjust his rearview mirror again. He made a quick right onto Eleventh Avenue, the sedan’s engine roaring, and grappled with his cell phone. When he depressed the power button, the screen only glowed a dim green.
LOW BAT
blinked across the screen.

“Shit!”

He tried dialing John’s cell phone, nonetheless, but the call would not go through.
Goddamn cell phone
, he thought.
It’s got enough power to tell me the battery’s low, but not enough to make one stinking phone call
. He tried his radio to reach John, but John had turned his off. He could use his walkie-talkie and get in touch with Veccio and Conners, who’d also been on the surveillance … but then decided against it at the last minute. The best way to handle the situation was as indiscriminately as possible.

He spun down West 57
^th
Street toward Tenth Avenue, knowing full well the routes John would take to get back to the office. There was a jam at the intersection up ahead. Some ConEd guys in orange vests and blue helmets had busted half the street open here, and traffic had stalled to a standstill. Horns blared as discourteous drivers spun out into the open side of the street, cutting off less aggressive drivers. The traffic lights were not in Kersh’s favor. Slowly, he eased up a few feet behind a white van, his eyes scanning the intersection. He spotted John’s car in the confusion of traffic, trying to turn off 57
^th
Street. And a few cars behind him, Kersh could make out the blue Pontiac Sunbird.

Son of a bitch …

Squinting, he tried to make out the plates but couldn’t read the numbers. A young-looking white guy was behind the wheel, the car’s only occupant…

Damn …

It was probably nothing—perhaps just someone who had been looking for a parking space all day—and from what John had said, Mickey O’Shay did not seem like the sort of guy capable of orchestrating a tail. Still, it did not sit well with him. Bill Kersh would not take that chance.

Behind him, another bright pair of headlights reflected in the sedan’s rearview. Squinting, he pushed the rearview off at an angle, casting the reflection from his eyes, and watched as John’s Camaro slowly cut across the intersection and began to turn right. Several cars behind John, Kersh could make out the Pontiac edging toward that same direction.

He didn’t like the way the Pontiac was pushing its way toward the intersection, somehow more insistent than the other cars around it. Still, he could not make out the license plate.

Traffic was a large part of the city. Bill Kersh did not customarily dislike the traffic, and did not mind the city. Time spent in a jam was usually time to reflect and be alone. Now, however, he felt driven by a certain urgency, a certain gnawing at his gut. Sure, it was probably nothing—yet undercover agents had been tailed before. Why Mickey O’Shay would want to put a tail on John … Kersh understood that very well.

The lights above the intersection still had not changed. Two ConEd guys were trying their best to direct traffic around the source of the problem: a giant crater in the center of the street.

Let’s move
, a voice boomed in Kersh’s head, and he gunned the engine and lurched through the intersection. One of the ConEd guys shouted something, then dodged out of the way. Kersh blared his horn. The stream of cars already at a standstill in the middle of the intersection began to reverse or pull forward, as close to the sanctity of the curb as they could manage. A line of traffic cleared, and Kersh’s sedan slid quickly between the gap. Someone else shouted something obscene. Fists pumped the air. The sedan shuddered and lurched forward again, closing the gap of the intersection, the front end of his car desperate to pull through the jam and spill out on the other side of 57
^th
Street.