Shamrock Alley (49 page)

“You wanna try this again, Tressa?” Jimmy said from the front seat. “You know something about this guy, you tell us now.”

She cursed at him and began clawing at the door handle. Mickey hit her again in the face.

Jimmy pulled the Caddy down a narrow alley off Tenth Avenue, between clusters of blackened tenements. The front of the car nailed a group of tin trash cans, sending them scattering down the alleyway, and Jimmy Kahn cursed under his breath. A light went on in one of the tenement windows and Mickey stared at it, smoking his Camel down to the filter.

The car came to a jerking halt, and Jimmy pulled himself quickly from the vehicle. Tressa’s door was open, and Jimmy dragged her out, one hand over her mouth. She still had plenty of fight left in her, and as Jimmy carried her around the front of the car, she kicked her legs and beat at Jimmy’s arms with her fists.

Mickey climbed out of the car, grinning, and skulked down the alley.

“Fucking help me,” Jimmy growled at him.

With some difficulty, Mickey grabbed Tressa’s legs and slammed her ankles together. The girl’s body went rigid with pain, her eyes rolling back in their sockets, all her energy suddenly drained.

Behind them, half hidden in the shadows at the rear of the tenement, a dark shape materialized and uttered something in a deep, inarticulate voice.

Jimmy barked something in return and then, with Mickey’s help, swung Tressa around the side of the building. They carried her quickly through a small yard and up a flank of stone steps. The large figure stepped beneath the light of the porch, and Irish’s features came into relief. Wrapped in a bright green windbreaker and a Coors Light mesh baseball hat, Irish flung open his door and waved the boys inside with one meaty hand.

“Come on, come on …”

Tressa administered another strong kick, freeing herself from Mickey’s grasp, and nearly clocked him in the face with her foot. Again, he grabbed her ankles and squeezed down on them, feeling the contours of her bones through her skin.

“Bitch,” he growled. He had little patience with the uncooperative.

Inside, the lights seemed too bright and the strong smell of fresh coffee filled Irish’s kitchen. The second Irish shut and locked his door, Jimmy and Mickey dropped Tressa on the kitchen floor. She hit hard, slamming her head against the tile, but wasted no time in trying to escape. Like a trapped animal, she spun onto her stomach and began scrambling on all fours toward the locked kitchen door. Jimmy lifted one shoe and placed it gently on the top of her head, impeding her progress. Grinning, Mickey just watched.

“Why don’t you make some more goddamn noise?” Irish muttered, unzipping his windbreaker and tossing his Coors Light hat on the counter. There was a small transistor radio beside the sink. Irish turned it on, found a loud rock station, and cranked the volume. Turning to Jimmy, he pointed toward the living room. “Get her out of the kitchen.”

Mickey bent and grabbed Tressa’s legs, pulled her across the kitchen floor. She struggled to turn over on her side, and her shirt came up over her waist, exposing soft, white flesh. She clawed at the tiled floor like a cartoon character getting sucked up into a vacuum cleaner, and the sight made Mickey laugh.

Jimmy followed them into the living room. An armchair stood against one wall, its cushions stained with blood. It had been the chair Ray-Ray Selano had been sitting in the night Jimmy shot him. Now, Mickey managed to hoist Tressa off the floor and into the chair.

She immediately clung to it, the way cats will cling to the lip of a basin of water to avoid taking a bath. Her eyes were wide, her pupils practically nonexistent, and her entire body shook with fear.

Irish poked his head into the room. “You guys want some coffee?”

“Bring me a knife,” Jimmy said.

“Don’t start cuttin’ her up,” Irish told him. “This ain’t no goddamn slaughterhouse, Jimmy.”

Mickey lit another cigarette and leaned against the wall opposite Tressa Walker. He watched her with little appreciation. To him, this entire ordeal was a goddamn waste of time. It didn’t matter to him what this bitch said about Esposito now—the bum was already in the middle of everything. Jimmy, on the other hand, had worries of his own. He liked to play everything out—another skill he’d learned from the Italians, Mickey supposed—and he despised operating without every single bit of information. He’d changed in the past year, Mickey understood. Jimmy had become more calculating, more industrial, more tedious. Mickey had no appreciation for tedium. There was nothing Mickey O’Shay hated more in the world than the slowing down of an operation. And for some reason, this guy Esposito was driving Jimmy crazy … which, in turn, was driving
Mickey
crazy. A year ago and Jimmy would not have bothered with shaking Tressa Walker down—they would have moved ahead on the deal with Esposito, and that would be that. If things came to blows, what would it have mattered? But the Italians had brainwashed his partner, had somehow instilled upon him the importance of doing things
heedfully
, and Mickey had no patience for such bullshit. All the deals they had worked together in the past, and Jimmy Kahn was finally starting to push his buttons.

Irish entered the room holding a six-inch carving knife by the handle. He handed it over to Jimmy without looking at him, his eyes glued to the squirming young girl in the bloodstained armchair.

“Who’s she?”

“Frankie Deveneau’s girl,” Jimmy said, placing the knife on an end table. Its purpose was intimidation, and it seemed to serve that purpose well: the girl’s eyes were drawn to the knife as if by magnetic force, and something deep inside her seemed to give. “She’s the one who brought this Esposito to us.”

“This Esposito smell funny?” Irish asked.

“Could be a snitch,” Jimmy said, staring directly at Tressa. “Is that right?” he asked her, raising his voice a notch. “That fucker a snitch?”

“I’m done with this,” Irish said, licking his lips and sauntering back into the kitchen. From over his shoulder, he called, “Remember—don’t cut her, Jimmy.”

“We won’t need to do shit,” Jimmy said, kneeling down beside the armchair, “as long as you answer our questions.”

Tressa Walker no longer resembled the girl Mickey had picked up. Her face was red and blotchy, her eyes squinting into watery slits. Her teeth rattled in her head as if with feverish chills, and great tracks of sweat ran down her face. In her lap, she twisted her fingers together forcefully enough to crack the knuckles.

“Calm down,” Jimmy told her. Then looking at Mickey, Jimmy said, “Calm her down.”

“The fuck you want
me
to do?”

“Christ …” Jimmy stood and backed up against the wall. “Tressa … Tressa …” He must have repeated her name twenty times before her sobs subsided. Beside him, Mickey picked up the knife from the table and proceeded to scrape the filth from beneath his fingernails with the blade. Continuing, Jimmy said, “Where’d you meet John, Tressa?”

Her bleary red eyes darted from Jimmy to Mickey, then back to Jimmy again. In a quiet voice, she uttered, “Huh-high school.”

“How’d you introduce him to Deveneau?”

“Uh …” She didn’t seem to understand the question. She began to tremble harder, her fingernails digging into the chair’s armrests.

“You brought him to Deveneau, right?” Jimmy said.

“Yes …”

“Where’d you meet him—where’d you meet John—before bringing him to Deveneau?”

“Brought him … to … Jeffrey Clay … first,” she managed.

“Whatever,” Jimmy barked. “Where the fuck did this guy John come from?”

She began crying again.

Hands on his hips, Jimmy turned away, rubbing his chin with one hand.

Mickey had had enough. Let Jimmy impress Angelo Gisondi and the rest of the Italians on his own time; this was utter bullshit. He crossed over to Tressa, who began squealing and tried to pull herself from the chair the second she realized she was in for some trouble. Mickey was on top of her quickly, though, pressing one knee into her hip and preventing her from moving. He grabbed her face as he’d done in the Cadillac, eliciting from the girl a hot shriek of terror.

Holding her firmly, he locked his eyes with hers. “Who is he?” Mickey whispered, pushing his face into hers. He could smell sour sweat rushing off her in waves. “Who is he, who is he, who is he?”

Behind him, Jimmy turned to watch. He’d folded his arms and was leaning against the far wall now, a look of frustrated anger on his face. Mickey glanced at him once, disgusted, then turned back to the girl.

Mickey slapped her across the face. Her head whipped to one side, her sweaty, matted hair brushing past Mickey’s face.

“Who is he?” It had become a gruesome litany.

Another slap, whipping her head in the opposite direction. Too pained, too stunned, she was no longer making any sound.

“Tell us who he is,” Jimmy said from against the wall.

The sound of Jimmy’s voice broke a vessel of heat within Mickey’s spine, and he could feel a boiling tension race through his entire body. Grabbing Tressa’s left hand, Mickey hoisted her from the armchair and propelled her across the room. She sailed with the subordination of a rag doll onto the carpet, her fingers immediately clutching the rug, her shoulders hitched beneath the thin fabric of her coat.

“Come on!” Jimmy shouted at the girl, his shadow suddenly enormous across her supine body.

Mickey kicked her along the ribs, and she cried out and rolled onto her side. With her teeth clenched together, she made a sound like a rush of air leaking from a punctured car tire. He shouted at her, not realizing he was partially fueled by his frustration with Jimmy Kahn, and relented only when Tressa curled into a fetal ball and pushed herself against the wall.

“We’ll keep this up all night if we have to,” Jimmy promised her. “Tell us who he is. Is he a snitch? A cop? Is he the fucking Pope?”

“Better yet,” said Mickey, “who are
you?
You a fucking snitch, Tressa? You a fucking snitch?”

She managed something inaudible.

Mickey bent and yanked Tressa up off the floor by her coat. Her legs were too weak to support her weight, and she slumped like a wet cloth in his arms. She managed to stand after a moment, her hair matted to her face, her breath coming in whimpers. Open-handed, Mickey cracked her across the face, and she stumbled backward against the wall. When she tried to run, he grabbed her by the back of her coat and dragged her back toward him. She struggled out of her coat and ran for the front door. In her panic, she struck the door with her face and chest, her hands grappling for the doorknob. But the door was locked, and she could go no further. Instead, she pressed her head against the knob, dropped to the floor, and continued to cry.

Mickey stalked over to her and grabbed her by the hair. She immediately rose to her feet. Like a caveman, he shook her by the hair.

Her right hand was swollen and looked broken; she clutched it to her chest, a trickle of blood running from one nostril, dotting her shirt. Tressa’s knees buckled and she dropped to the floor again, leaving Mickey standing above her clutching a fistful of sweaty hair.

Mickey stepped on her ankle. She moaned and squirmed along the carpet, articulating no words, her moans nonetheless pleading and pathetic.

Jimmy Kahn stepped beside Mickey, looking down at her body. “You better start thinking of the right thing to say,” he told her, “before it’s too late and you can’t talk at all.”

For a moment, she looked as if she were going to speak. One hand came out, her fingers grazing the material of Mickey’s pants. She whispered something, her voice wet now with blood and trembling with fear. Mickey crouched, his right hand snaking around the back of her head and pressing his fingers into the soft flesh of her neck. With a jerk, he brought her face against his, almost cheek-to-cheek. Heat came off her in dreamy oscillations, and her hair was damp to the touch.

“What?” Mickey said, breathing into her face. Her entire body shook within the grasp of his right hand, quaking. She was like a newborn bird, hatched from the egg, blind and helpless and vulnerable. His heart began to race at the notion. “What? Tell me …”

There was blood smeared across her mouth. She pursed her lips wetly, blood running down the side of her face.

With all the power she could muster, she swung her fisted right hand around and slammed Mickey in his bruised, swollen cheek.

Grievous, agonizing pain blossomed like fireworks in the dark sky of his body, shooting from his face to the back of his head like a bolt of lightning. A moment later, his fingers closed on the flesh of her neck with such force that he could feel the blood coursing through her body. He hoisted her to her feet, and she refused to stand. Supporting her with one hand, he brought a fist to her face once, twice—repeatedly. There was no screaming—only the pummel of packed meat—and each retraction of his fist brought with it the crimson tendrils of fresh blood.

Jimmy’s hoarse, angry voice came from directly behind him: “Mickey!”

With a heave, Mickey sent Tressa Walker across the room. For a moment, it seemed as though she would catch her footing … but then her legs gave out completely and she fell toward the wall, face first, and came crashing down against the radiator. Tumbled. Shook. Rolled and slammed against the carpet, unmoving.

The contrail of a bright red shooting star smeared the side of the radiator.

And the room was silent except for the strained respiration of two men.