Shamrock Alley (55 page)

None of that will happen. I’ll take them to the car, and they’ll be grabbed
.

“Where are we going?” he heard himself ask again. His own voice sounded very far away.

Beside him, Jimmy said, “We told you.”

“To the money,” Mickey added.

“Stay with them, Tommy,” Kersh said. He was leaning forward in the passenger seat, one hand pressed to the dashboard, his eyes still squinted into slits. The traffic along Belt Parkway was heavy, and he didn’t want to risk losing sight of the Cadillac. “Look—they’re taking that exit.”

“Where the hell are they going?” Veccio muttered. “Not back to the city …”

“No,” Kersh mumbled, his eyes glued to the taillights of the Cadillac. Off the exit ramp, the sedan nearly bottomed out as it spilled out onto the street, and the smell of burnt tires filled the car.

The Cadillac made another turn and Veccio stayed with it, two cars behind. The rain was coming down harder now, blurring the glare from the headlights and streetlights across the windshield like an abstract painting.

“What street are we on?” Kersh said.

“Uh …”

“What are they doing all the way out here?” Kersh muttered. He picked up the walkie-talkie and radioed the units back on Mermaid Avenue. “They’re still moving,” he said. “Everyone sit tight. They have to come back your way to complete the deal. We’re on them.”

They sped by a row of shops, the multitude of lights washing over their faces and deceiving them as to the actual distance they were traveling behind the Cadillac. Up ahead, a traffic jam at an intersection filled the night with the incessant blast of car horns and the revving of disquieted engines. Kersh watched the Cadillac swerve around the mess of cars and jam itself up against a curb. The Cadillac paused for a moment, caught behind a line of other cars, then somehow managed to negotiate its way through the confusion. It hopped the curb and took off. A second car, provoked by the Cadillac’s actions, attempted the same feat, but wound up getting stuck at an angle on the curb. Very quickly, the Cadillac’s taillights started to ascend up the street and into the darkness.

“You gotta move this thing,” Kersh said, keeping his voice calm.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Veccio said, sounding irritated at the whole situation. “Look at this asshole …”

Up ahead, Kersh continued to watch the taillights of the Cadillac dwindle into the night until they disappeared completely.

“Damn,” he muttered, trying to keep his voice calm … while his fingernails cut into the dashboard.

It took them several minutes to work their way through the traffic jam at the intersection, and when they finally broke free, the Cadillac was nowhere in sight. Veccio pushed the sedan up the street, letting off the accelerator until the car slowed to a moderate speed.

“What now?” Veccio said.

“Drive up this street,” Kersh suggested. “Maybe we’ll see them.”

“Damn …”

“It’s all right,” Kersh said. “John knows what he’s doing. Looks like he was right, too—they must have a second stash down here somewhere.”

“I don’t like this,” Veccio said.

“Turn down this street,” Kersh said. “I think …” He froze, his eyes widening, his heart seeming to pause in his chest. The only sound was a small, ceaseless ticking in his left ear.

In a faint, miserable whisper, Bill Kersh said, “Holy shit…”

Looking out the window, his hands still gripping the console in front of him, John watched the lights of Brooklyn whiz by. The rain was steadily growing stronger. Outside, the night rumbled with the thunder, and a brief flash of lightning lit up the horizon.

The Cadillac was heading along the northbound lane of 65
^th
Street.

He recognized the area, having grown up just a few blocks from here—the lights of the liquor store and the all-night convenience store at the end of the block, the unchanged string of houses on either side of the street. The Cadillac rolled up 65
^th
Street impossibly slow, and every house was suddenly familiar as well—every street corner, every stoop, every lamppost, every crack in the pavement, and every fire hydrant. With the fluid momentum of the vehicle came the increasing discomfort of being in such familiar territory with these animals.

John knew the area, knew the people. Mickey and Jimmy’s counterfeit could be stashed anywhere and with anyone. When John had been growing up, this particular area had been a burgeoning network of smalltime criminals. Over time, the network had become a thriving metropolis of gangsters, hit men, and thieves.

Jimmy Kahn’s Cadillac bumped along the pavement and came to a jerky halt at a traffic light. Theirs was the only car at the light. With his hands still on the console, John could feel the engine oscillating through the dashboard. Through the windshield, the glow of the car’s headlights illuminated the shower of rain.

Glancing down toward Jimmy’s lap, he could see the handle of a gun protruding from Jimmy’s waistband.

Staring at the traffic light, he thought it would never turn green.

And then it did.

Behind him, one of the back doors swung open and Mickey sprang out into the night. The door slammed, causing John to jump, and he spun around to see Mickey through the passenger window hustling quickly across the empty street and disappearing into the blur of sodium lights along 65
^th
Street.

“The hell—” John spun around in his seat as Jimmy jerked the Cadillac’s steering wheel in a complete circle and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. The car leapt forward and peeled through the intersection, its rear tires fishtailing along the wet pavement. The headlight beams washed along the storefronts, and the pungent stink of exhaust fumes filled the car.

Confused, John turned and stared at Jimmy, who was racing back down 65
^th
Street toward the parkway. The speedometer needle was steadily rising.

“What the fuck you doing?”

“Where the fuck’s your money? “Jimmy said. “You tell me right now.”

“Back at Nathan’s. What
is
this? Where the hell’s Mickey going?”

“Deal’s off. We’re taking your money. If you got a problem with that,” Jimmy said, “you’re dead. And so is your wife.”

The words struck like a hammer. He was aware of a steady heat creeping up through his legs, spreading throughout his body, and coursing down the length of his arms. He could feel his body begin to tremble, to overload, and his ears went fuzzy, filled with cotton.

“Mickey don’t hear from me in twenty minutes,” Jimmy continued, “that means the deal’s gone bad, and Mickey’ll do some damage.”

Around him, the world spun on its side.

“You and your wife don’t gotta die over someone else’s money.”

Then something burst inside him. He sprung at Jimmy Kahn in a frantic, unthinking reflex, fingers clawing, arms flailing wildly. With all the force he could muster, John slammed the heels of his hands against Jimmy’s face, tearing at his face, his eyes, felt the solidity of the man’s flesh, the bone beneath, the texture and feel and temperature of the man’s skin. The assault was unexpected, and Jimmy’s head jerked to the left, spiderwebbing the window and leaving behind jagged streaks of blood and hair.

Jimmy’s hands jerked the wheel, and the car lurched forward, swerving into oncoming traffic. The lights of the city seemed to spin all around them, distorted and made ridiculous by the rain-slicked windshield.

John grabbed two handfuls of Jimmy’s hair and repeatedly slammed his head into the window until the glass finally shattered. Freezing rain and biting wind burst into the car. He could feel granules of glass pelt his face, wet with rain, freezing in the blinding wind. One of Jimmy’s hands came off the steering wheel; he began clawing blindly at John’s face.

Leaning over the seat, John slammed his own foot down on the accelerator. The car blasted through traffic. Letting up, John slammed the brakes. The car spun wildly, and Jimmy cracked his head against the front of the steering wheel.

John took one hand and grabbed Jimmy around the neck, squeezing until he could feel the lifeblood coursing through Jimmy’s veins, then jerked the man’s head forward, repeatedly slamming his face against the car’s steering wheel. Jimmy uttered a strangled moan, coughed up a gout of blood across the dashboard and instrument panel, and shot a flailing hand upward, clawing blindly at the ceiling.

Before them the oncoming traffic split down the center, headlights cascading around them on either side in undulating streamers of light, horns blaring, tires screeching atop the wet pavement. He felt the tires catch, lose ground, spin ineffectually, then shoot the car forward like a missile. The lighted façades of innumerable storefronts were suddenly large and real all around them. There was a rattling crash, and the Cadillac hopped the curb on the opposite side of the street. A sound like a gunshot rang through the night as one of the front tires exploded, propelling the vehicle forward and to one side. The lights of a single storefront washed across the windshield in a dizzying blur—then brick—then street—then more lights.

There was a bone-crushing crash as the Cadillac advanced over the sidewalk and ran straight into the front of a pharmacy. The car was jarred to a sudden standstill while a shower of concrete and glass rained down upon it: large bricks and pieces of debris slammed the crumpled hood, windshield, and roof in a tumultuous concussion as a waft of white dust surrounded the vehicle.

The force of the crash sent both him and Jimmy against the dashboard, and he felt a sudden burst of pain flare up along his ribcage and upper thigh. His head jerked forward and rebounded off the dashboard, and a fantastic display of carnival colors blossomed beneath his eyelids. The driver’s side door burst open, and he was hammered by freezing rain.

Pressing a clawed hand into Jimmy Kahn’s face, John reached down and tore Jimmy’s gun from his waistband, then scrambled up over Jimmy’s body and out onto the sidewalk.

He started to run.

“Jesus!” Kersh shouted. “Tommy!”

Veccio spun the sedan’s wheel and the car jumped lanes, sluicing through the wet street. “I see it. Jesus
Christ!”

The sedan shuddered to a stop against the curb and a wall of people, bundled against the weather, stood like spooked cattle around the partially destroyed front of a pharmacy. Kersh already had his door open and one foot on the ground before Veccio could slam the sedan into park. Too many people, too much confusion. Kersh struggled through the crowd, scraping shoulders and elbows and knees, until he broke free to the inner circle of onlookers and stopped, his heart banging furiously against his chest.

The Cadillac they’d been tailing was here, driven front-first into the building. The car’s hood was crumpled like an accordion, and steam and the smell of burnt rubber filled the air. The driver’s side door flung open.

Kersh withdrew his gun and approached the vehicle.

Jimmy Kahn lay motionless behind the wheel, one leg slumped out onto the sidewalk, the left side of his body soaked in a cocktail of sleet and rain and blood. His face and scalp, too, were covered in blood and lacerated in a number of places. But he was still alive.