Ed Dee - The Con Man's Daughter

The next grenade came seconds later, as Babsie screamed at the police dispatcher: 'Ten-thirteen, ten-thir-teen." The dispatcher calmly asked, "Location?" The caller ID was unable to get an address from a cell phone. Babsie, who'd lived there all her life, didn't know the street number. "The North End Tavern," she yelled. "Palisade and Roberts. Ask one of the cops."

In the quiet after the second blast, she could hear Martha calling Kevin, repeating his name over and over in a detached and eerie voice. Babsie crawled through chunks of wet plaster and glass around the side of the line of booths until she reached a spot where she had a straight view of the front door. Water pouring from a broken pipe slapped off a table.

On her stomach, Babsie anchored her elbows on the floor and pointed the gun barrel at the light shining from outside. Zina would appear backlit, a decent target despite the smoke. The smoke was too thick to see the front clearly; she couldn't tell exactly where Kevin and Martha were. Just hang on for two minutes, she thought; the cavalry will be here. Two minutes. Her right hand was tightening up; her elbow felt swollen and numb. Eddie hurts his left; I do my right. Aren't we a goddamn pair?

Babsie heard footsteps walking on the glass, and no more sounds from Martha. The footsteps were slow and deliberate, not moving in a straight line. Pausing, moving, pausing, moving. From her shooter's spot, Babsie could see the front, but her view of the cellar door was from under a table. The heavy clouds lingered-the second grenade must have had a smoke component. Finally, she heard a siren in the distance.

The door to the cellar opened. From where she was, she could see only Grace's feet.

"Grammy," Grace called.

Babsie's hands slid on the wet glass and chunks of plaster. She rolled under the partition that separated the tables from the bar. The footsteps quickened.

"Honey," she said. "Go back where you were."

"I'm scared, Grammy."

Babsie got to her feet and ran toward the cellar door. Zina fired and missed. Babsie got to Grace first, picked her up, slammed the cellar door behind her. She ran down the steps as quickly as possible with wet shoes and the weight of a child in her arms. She knew if she could clear the steps and turn left, she'd be out of the line of fire; then she'd have the advantage. But the door opened as she was halfway down the shallow wooden steps that Kieran Dunne had built out of World War II ammunition boxes. She heard the gunshot, and made up her mind that a little bullet wouldn't be much more to carry. Then she heard a scream of pain. She turned, to see Zina clutching her thigh, then turning away, disappearing. Another shot was fired, then two more. Babsie hid Grace in a jumble of beer kegs and boxing gloves. She went back up the stairs quickly. Two more shots. Babsie kicked the cellar door open and moved into the open in the combat stance she'd been taught. Under a clock that Kevin had reclaimed from the demolished Yonkers Savings Bank stood a blood-soaked Martha Dunne, pointing a gun toward the front door. It was a gun so new, the price tag dangled from the trigger guard.

Zina was gone.

When Eddie arrived, only the medical personnel had finished their work. The Yonkers PD and FD, the NYPD and

ATF, and the FBI traipsed through the crime scene that had been the Dunne family bar. A tiny piece of shrapnel had pierced Kevin's throat; only the quick action of two Yonkers cops kept him alive. They'd carried him to their radio car and raced to St. John's Hospital.

A Yonkers Crime Scene team marked shell casings and traced the various blood trails. Kevin Dunne's blood was confined to one area at the window side of his prized mahogany bar. The telltale blood splatters that had dripped from the fleeing Zina Rabinovich indicated her route: from the cellar door, passing through the blood of Kevin Dunne, finally ending at the curb on Palisade Avenue. Technicians thought she'd been hit twice. A district attorney drove down from White Plains to decide how to handle Martha's unlicensed handgun problem. Martha was at St. John's with her husband.

"Kevin is going to be fine," Babsie said. "They got him there in time."

"How bad was it?" Eddie asked. He'd slept through it, not hearing of it until B. J. Harrington called him.

"Kev won't be singing 'Molly Malone' for a while," Babsie said. "Two or three little entrance holes. The one in his neck caused the major bleeding. It punctured something. He lost a lot of blood, but they got that under control. The rest is just sewing."

"My God," Eddie said, holding his face in his hands.

"He always wanted a battle scar anyway," Babsie said. "Now he's got it all: a war story to tell, a scar to point to. Couple a days, he'll be back here in bandages, holding court. A year from now, we'll be begging him to stop telling the story."

They were sitting in the "cheaters' booth." The one farthest back in the bar. It had been untouched. Grace sat on Babsie's lap, holding tight. They were waiting for her teacher from Christ the King to pick her up.

"Maybe we should keep her home," Eddie said.

"No," Babsie said. "She'll forget about this when she's with her friends."

"All because of me," Eddie said, looking at the ruined framed photographs, the plaques, the huge green-and-gold Sacred Heart banner that stretched almost the length of the shuffleboard table.

"Martha told me you'd say that," Babsie said. "Because you think the world revolves around you. She told me to tell you not to flatter yourself, that this was God's will, nothing more."

"I'm going to rebuild all of it," Eddie said. "I'll find somebody today to come in and clean up. Then we'll get a contractor in here. I'll make it better than it ever was."

"It's gonna cost," she said.

"I can find the money," he replied.

A pretty blond woman with a turned-up nose walked to the back with one of the Homicide cops. Eddie thanked her for coming.

"Ready, Grace," Rita Coughlin said.

"Go ahead, tell her," Babsie said.

"Knock, knock," Grace said, taking her teacher's hand.

After they left, Babsie went into the ladies' room to wash up. Her elbow continued to swell, her right hand getting stiffer as time went on. Eddie wanted to get to the hospital to see his brother. She could get it X-rayed at St. John's.

When she came out, Eddie was looking up at the walls. He'd taken down the picture of himself, the framed cover from Ring Magazine , and thrown it in the trash. Babsie heard a phone ringing.

"That's mine," she said. "Where the hell is it?"

She kicked stuff around the edge of the partition, where she last remembered having it. Investigators had moved the debris around, looking for shell casings and grenade fragments.

"That might be the hospital," Eddie said.

"Help me look," she said. The caller was persistent. Eddie dropped to his hands and knees to help her. They found it on the ninth or tenth ring.

"Boland," Babsie mouthed to Eddie. Then she turned her back on him and walked out of his hearing. Glass crunched under her feet. Her voice was a soft but intense murmur.

Eddie stayed on his knees amid the glass and wet plaster, examining the broken bits of his brother's dream. Sooner or later, the sins of Eddie Dunne devour everyone who loves him. Each one a victim of his careless life; all paying for the years he forgot about them, simply because the wine was flowing and the women were willing.

Babsie put the phone in her purse. Her complexion had turned a flushed red.

"Come on, get up," she said. "We're going to Coney Island Hospital."

"They find Zina?" he asked.

"No," she said. "They found Kate."

Friday

11:30 A.M.

Even a layman could tell that the scene in the Emergency Room of Coney Island Hospital was more frantic than usual. Men and women in blue scrubs carrying stethoscopes hustled past men and women in blue uniforms carrying guns. Word spread quickly that the shattered redhead strapped onto the gurney was the Yonkers kidnap victim, a nurse, the child of an ex-cop. A powerful emotional bond exists between cops and nurses. Constantly thrown together in the worst situations, they learn to protect and care for one another. Babsie could hear Kate's name being repeated over and over again in hushed, worried tones.