William Brown - The Undertaker

This was Rico Patillo's handiwork again. It was unlikely anyone knew I was here. After Boston, if they thought I was anywhere around here, they wouldn't have used a long gun, they would have surrounded the park with an army, because Charley was right. They wanted those flash drives and they needed me alive to get them. It wasn't the same for Charley. Maybe his TV time in front of the Hardin Commission spooked Rico and he wanted to make sure the lawyer never did talk. Maybe Rico wasn't taking any chances. When Jimmy finally did get out of Marion, it would be in a hearse. And the simplest solution to all those problems was to take Charley out, now.

Sandy's path and mine converged at the corner on MacDougal Street. I grabbed her hand and we ran up Fourth without breaking stride until we were two blocks west of the park. That was where I stopped and pulled her into a doorway to catch my breath.

“What happened back there?” she panted along with me.

“Somebody took a shot at Billingham.”

She wrapped her arms around me. “I was so afraid. You scared the hell out of me.”

“Not as much as it scared the hell out of Charley!”

“Is he okay?”

“Yeah. He was hit in the back by a sniper with a rifle, somebody up on one of the roofs. But the fat bastard was wearing a bulletproof vest, if you can believe it.”

“Has he got two more?” she asked.

“No, but he's got our umbrella.” I looked down at her, but she didn't find that very funny. “The bullet knocked him down and he probably peed in his pants, but he'll be okay. He thinks I saved his life and that's even better. He owes me now.”

“So they weren't shooting at you?”

“I don't think so. I think they were after him. So, let's get out of here.” I took her arm and we walked quickly toward Sixth Avenue, looking to all the world like two shadowy city stick figures heading home from work.

“What did he say?”

“This whole thing is about Panozzo's books, those damned flash drives. Tinkerton, Rico Patillo, Gino, Billingham, and even your pal Hardin have all been looking for them, because Billingham says there's a lot more on them than we think. They tie in all the other east coast families and they're dynamite, add in the payoff lists and they are raw power.”

“And he had no idea they were in your pocket, only a few feet away?”

“Maybe, but it seems I'm the rock everybody wants to turn over now.”

“So what are we going to do now?”

“See Hardin. He's our last chance.”

We reached Sixth Avenue and saw a sign for the subway. Unfortunately, there were two battered, New York City Transit Authority Police cars parked on the sidewalk in front of the entrance with their doors hanging open and light bars flashing. I put my arm around Sandy and we gave them a wide berth. Three exasperated white Transit cops in torn and disheveled blue uniforms were wrestling a huge and very angry black woman up the stairs. She must have weighed three hundred pounds, and she was wearing a short-short, orange, patent-leather mini-skirt, a tube-top that looked like she had been shoplifting basketballs from a sporting goods store, and a pair of chrome handcuffs. Kicking, cussing, and spitting, she was a load, as the two Transit cops pushed her up the last few stairs, dragged her over to one of the cars, and jammed her into the back seat.

One look told me the transit cops were far too occupied to notice two lovers hurrying to the subway. We made a hard right and hurried down the wet, concrete stairs to the station below. I slid a five-dollar bill under the ticket window, dropped two tokens into the coin box, and we scampered through the turnstile, taking the stairs two at a time to the northbound tracks. It was 5:40. The rush hour crowd filled the dimly lit cavern. I found a spot where I could put my back against the wall, pull Sandy up against me, and try to blend in. Fortunately, it wasn't long before a single, white headlight appeared down the track and we heard the distant rumble of an in-coming train. The sound grew louder and louder until the train burst from the tunnel and braked to a halt in front of us. We joined the surge forward and with a shove here and a wiggle there, we pushed our way inside the car. The only people who squeezed in after us were three college students and a couple of gray-haired housewives toting shopping bags. No suits. No sunglasses. No lawyers with Gucci shoes and Florida tans. As quick as it stopped, the car started up with a jolt. I grabbed a silver pole and Sandy grabbed me, wrapping her arms around my waist.

“That had better be your hands on my buns back there,” I whispered into the top of her head.

“I certainly hope so,” she looked up and gave me a forced smile.

At Penn Station, half the crowd got off and we let the tide carry us out onto the platform. I peeled off into an eddy as the doors closed and train rolled away down the tunnel. I looked around the narrow platform, but we were the only ones left who had gotten off. The others had disappeared up the escalator. I pulled Sandy close and held her very tight. Billingham was right. She was in a lot of danger and I had put her there.

“Hey. That's me you're crushing.”

“I know.” I held her like that for a good five minutes.

“When I get crazy mood swings, I can always blame it on PMS,” she muttered into my chest. “What's your excuse?”

Fortunately, a northbound local finally arrived and I didn't have to answer. We rode it up to Forty-Second Street and got off for keeps this time. If Manhattan was a zoo, then Times Square between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, when the nearby theaters had their curtain calls, was the monkey cage. That's where Broadway, Forty-fifth Street, and Seventh Avenue cross, opening up a wide, exciting space full of speeding cabs, ten-story neon billboards, buses, theater marquees, flashing lights, movie houses, discount electronic stores, hustlers, street preachers, pimps, hookers, the early theater crowd, vendors, bums, and every nut case the city has to offer. And a lovely, big crowd to get lost in.

We walked north on Broadway. When we passed the first brightly lit electronics store, Sandy pulled me over to the window. It offered everything from radios and camcorders to boom boxes, watches, pens, X-rated videos, and cameras. “You owe me something, remember?” She tapped her finger on the glass by the display of electronic thirty-five millimeter cameras. “Something you broke when you tossed me behind those garbage cans in Boston?”

“A new camera, huh?”

“Not just a new camera, Sandy wants one of those!” She pointed again. “A Pentax with a Vivitar 20 x 200 zoom lens. And it's going to run you about five hundred bucks before I'm done.”

“If it makes you happy, five hundred is no problem.”

“It'll take a lot more than that, but I'll start with the camera.” She looked in through the store windows and checked out the smug, hard-eyed, male Arab clerks standing behind the counters. “When we get inside, Talbott, you just stand there, look pretty, and keep your mouth shut. Got that?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, thinking any price would be worth it if it got this crazy woman off my back over the camera.

“'Cause Sandy's gonna give those turkeys a serious butt-whippin’.”

Twenty minutes later we came walking back out with the Pentax, the telephoto lens, a camera bag, three filters, and three high-capacity memory chips, all of which she had gotten for three hundred and ninety-five dollars, including tax, leaving the shattered wreckage of a half-dozen formerly cocky sales clerks in her wake.

“The Big Apple?” Sandy crowed. “Those clowns wouldn't last five minutes on Maxwell Street in Chicago, the old one or the new one.”

“Okay, you have your new camera, and a masterful performance it was,” I congratulated her. “Should I find you a Polish wedding?”