A Dark and Broken Heart (2 page)

Madigan looked at the men around him. Three pedo grunts out of Leavenworth on a day pass for cheap whiskey and cheaper whores. That was what he had. It didn’t get much worse than this.

“So we’re good,” Fulton said. “We’re here at eight thirty
precisely, out of here at eight forty. No later than nine thirty we’re on the corner of First and 124th, and then we’re on hold until we see that money go in the house.” He smiled. “And then, my friends, we are up.”

Williams reached into his bag, brought out a fifth of rye and four plastic cups. He shared the bottle between the cups, passed them around.

“To Joe DiMaggio,” Madigan said.

“Joe DiMaggio?” Landry asked.

Madigan smiled. “Anyone who can hit that many home runs and bag a babe like Marilyn Monroe deserves a toast every time I take a drink.”

Landry smiled. “To Joe DiMaggio.”

They drank. The cups and the bottle went back in Williams’s bag. Madigan was the only one to ensure he wiped his cup before he returned it to Williams.

“We’re done,” Madigan said, and he got up. He wiped down the seat, the edge of the table, everything he’d touched. He made his farewells and went out to the car. He looked for any more drugs in the dash; there was nothing but half of some white pill that could have been anything from aspirin to Benzedrine. Madigan licked it. More than likely a bennie, so he dropped it dry. He would either get a buzz or lose a headache, either which way was fine.

He drove a while. He parked ahead of some $9.99 All-U-Can-Eat chop suey joint and looked in the rearview. From how many mirrors in how many restrooms in how many bars had that worn-out face looked back at him? Too many? Or too few? Once, maybe a long time back, he’d been a handsome man, a man with a crooked smile and some kind of charm in his eyes. But now all he saw was the other side of himself, the darker side, the side that he hid from the world. Maybe he’d just lock himself in a motel room and drink himself to death. Maybe that would be simpler.

Madigan smiled at himself. “A-hole,” he said to the reflection, and then he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

He was hungry all of a sudden—cheap burgers and greasy fries kind of hungry.

2
WALKIN’ WITH THE BEAST

T
hings happen. Most of them bad. Too many things to remember. You forget the details, of course. Details are unimportant until they’re important, and when they’re important they’re vital. Life and death kind of vital. How you came to be where you are can never be attributed to one thing only. Like the destination never comes down to one facet of the journey, and if we’re talking about life then the destination you planned for and the destination you get are never the same damned thing anyway. And there is never one thing that causes you to lose control, to have your life become something other than your own. If there was one reason, then maybe you could go back and fix it. That’s what you keep thinking. You keep turning it over, like a video loop or something. But it’s not that simple. Nothing’s that simple. When you take a good look, even the simplest things are a great deal more complicated than they at first appear
.

Things color you bad. Takes more than a prayer and a promise to uncolor you. This stuff stains your soul. Deeper than that even. And for a while your mind can get all twisted around in figuring out how to go backward and fix things up. The drugs, the booze, the wives and the kids you messed up. And then—almost imperceptibly—you start to wonder if you can go forward and out the other side. It starts to make sense. You can’t get off the rollercoaster midflight. You ain’t never gonna jump clear of this thing. But maybe it stops somewhere. Or maybe you can do something to make it stop. And then you can get off
.

Comes down to it, profiling is a lie. It is bullshit. I am neither a loser nor a loner. I do not live with my mother. I have been married twice. I have four children from three different women. I am fertile, focused, and right now—right at this very moment—I am screwed. I am surprised every morning I wake up and find out someone hasn’t killed me. I can sell two different lies out of separate corners of my mouth at the same damned time. I saw a girl die three weeks ago. I knew she was ODing, and there was nothing I could do. I knew she wouldn’t make it to the hospital, and I knew I could never save her, and it’s things like that that
make me wonder what the hell is going on in this world. No one gave a damn about her. Not her dealer, not her pimp, not her mom or dad or brothers or sisters, and sometimes I wonder if I am going to die that way—forgotten, unknown, irrelevant. It’s that kind of thing that gives me nightmares, and, like Tom Waits says, it takes a whole lot of whiskey to make the nightmares go away. And I have nightmares. A lot of nightmares. And they’re getting worse. I gotta do this thing with these three whackos tomorrow. I gotta get this money and get Sandià off my back. I gotta get the lawyers sorted with the alimony, and then we’re good to go. I’ll get cleaned up. I’ll get straight. I’ll drink carrot juice and take vitamins and slow down on the booze, and I’ll stop chugging bennies like they’re PEZ. I’ll get a girl, a nice girl, and things’ll be good. I’ll have some money in my pocket, and we’re all gonna be fine an’ dandy. That’s what we’ll be
.

I think all these things, and then I think: Who the hell are you kidding? You think you’re gonna fool anyone with this, most of all yourself? You’re a dumb son of a bitch. Hell, you couldn’t pour piss out of a shoe if the instructions were written on the heel. Five minutes in your company is the best argument anyone could ever get for compulsory sterilization
.

And then I take a couple of bennies, maybe a Adderall or Desoxyn—whatever I can get—and it all kicks into life. I see things in a different light, and I think: To hell with it; it’s all gonna be fine. Balance it all out with some Klonopin or a Xanax or two, and I start to make sense of things. Things start to look less fractured, more straightforward. Get some drinks. Maybe the Cedar Tavern where they have that old bar that was saved from the Susquehanna Hotel. Go down there and hang out with the ghosts of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Vincent O’Hara, and then drive down to the Bridge Café for soft-shelled crabs and a hanger steak . . . World sure looks seven shades of different after that
.

I’ll do that tonight, but I’ll keep Jack Daniel’s—great friend that he is—at arm’s length. For tomorrow I need my wits and my wisdom. Tomorrow is the day when it starts to turn around one eighty and go in the right damned direction
.

It has to
.

Just for once, it has to
.

3
LIKE CALLING UP THUNDER

T
he inside of the Ford Econoline E-250 cargo van smells like a post-game locker room on a hot Sunday afternoon. Four men have sweated inside it for the better part of an hour, back and to the left across the junction, out of line of sight of the building. Vincent Madigan is up front, passenger side; Bobby Landry is behind the wheel; Laurence Fulton and Chuck Williams in back. Landry will stay in the vehicle, keep the motor running. Vincent Madigan will lead the assault, in through the back second-floor windows, coming at them like a tidal wave of shock and awe. That’s the ticket here. This is the free pass for the job. They’ll never expect it, and that element of surprise is the only damned thing they have. Madigan has a sawn-off three-inch Mossberg on a loop from his shoulder and under his overcoat. He has a .44 in back of his waistband. Williams has an M-16 in a canvas duffel. Fulton doesn’t like long-shooters, and has gone for a .45 and a .38. It’s going to be very noisy. And they plan to leave no witnesses.

By reckoning, by past experience, trusting everything that has happened before, Madigan expects four men in the house. The rear of the house is not where they keep their eyes. Eyes are always out front. Eyes look for the money, and when the money comes up, well, then—and only then—are they all eagle-eyed out back. These guys may be tough, but they’re not the brightest lights in the harbor. That, and the simple fact that Sandià owns the whole neighborhood and no one in their right mind would even consider robbing him . . .

But Madigan hasn’t got any room to maneuver; desperate situations call for desperate measures.

Madigan, Fulton, and Williams will be up on the roof of the outbuilding before the delivery’s even made. The outbuilding adjoins the property, its roof sitting beneath the window by three feet, no more. The way it goes is this: Landry’s out in the street. He sees the money going in the front. He radios Madigan, and
Madigan, Fulton, and Williams are coming through the upper floor as the money reaches the top of the stairwell. The four goons are dead in a hail of gunfire, and then the money goes out the back, along the alleyway beside the house, into the van, and away. Five minutes, tops.

Madigan closes his eyes. He feels the rush. He feels the punch of the thing in his lower gut. If this goes, then maybe there’s an out for him. If this dies a death, then regardless of whether he makes it out of the house there’s no chance. If he doesn’t get caught by the cops, Sandià will find him. And then there will be the inevitable conversation, and Sandià will torture Madigan for a month and leave his heart in a box on the sidewalk in front of the apartment where his kids live. This is what Sandià will do. This is the kind of man that he is.

Landry grips the wheel. His knuckles are white. Madigan watches him for a moment, and then he glances over his shoulder at Fulton and Williams. Any other day and he would be kicking the crap out of people like this for the money they owed Sandià. But today? No, not today. Today is different.

“We’re out of here,” Madigan says quietly, and such is the tension and anticipation in the van that they would have gotten that message had he only thought it.

Fulton opens up the back door.

Williams goes first. Blue jeans, tan work boots, a black jacket with the collar up against the cold. Over his shoulder is the duffel. It’s all in his eyes, his body language, his gait—the fear, but also the
need
to feel that fear.

Madigan nods at Fulton. Fulton does the two-fists-clenched,
I’m ready for this
gesture, and then he’s out the door as well. He follows Williams, is no more than ten feet behind him, and Madigan waits for a good five minutes. He allows ample time for them to walk back around the block and come up to the alleyway beside the house from the far side.

“Whatever happens,” Madigan tells Landry, “whatever you hear, whatever the hell you think might be going on in there, you don’t take off until I’m back. I don’t care if Zeppo comes back here with half his head blown off. I don’t care if half of Costa-fuckin’-Rica comes out of that house with Harpo’s head on a stick and his balls in a paper bag. You don’t go anywhere until I’m in here with you. You get me?”

“Hey—” Landry starts, and he smiles. He’s done this kind of
thing before. He knows the score. He knows what’s
meant
to happen and what
really
happens are sometimes as far from each other as north and south.

“Hey nothing,” Madigan says. “You just say, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. Groucho.’ That’s all I wanna hear right now.”

Landry nods. “I got it, man. I know the deal here.” He bangs the steering wheel with his palms a couple of times for emphasis, and then he grips it again like a lifeline.

“So we’re good?”

“We’re good, man. We’re good.”

Madigan tucks the leather loop of the Mossberg over his shoulder and buttons his overcoat. He jerks back the lever and the door opens. He steps down into the street and looks back one more time at Bobby Landry. He’s a young guy, only twenty-five. He has a thin film of sweat varnishing his forehead.

Madigan closes the van door and starts walking. At the corner, he glances back. The only giveaway is the thin cloud of fumes issuing from the van’s exhaust. In this neighborhood? Someone parked up in a vehicle with the engine running? Well, that person has something going on that someone else is going to disagree with, for sure.

Madigan nods one more time at Landry, and then turns the corner.

At the rear of the house, Fulton and Williams are already down on their haunches side by side, backs against the wall of the outbuilding. The roof of the building is no more than ten feet from the ground. A simple boost, and they’re up there. They sit quiet—all three of them—and Madigan can see the light in their eyes. He knows he has it too. It’s a light like nothing else. It isn’t fear, not exactly. Maybe it’s fear and excitement and anticipation all bound up together in that moment when you know you might die. Madigan has experienced it so many times it’s like one of the family. It’s something that regular folk will never understand. You could give it a name—could be the best damned name in the world—and people still wouldn’t understand it. Not even soldiers, because they’re not fighting two enemies. Here he has Sandià’s people, and he has the police. The
po-lice
. Screwed either way.

Madigan breathes deeply. It is cold. He exhales and watches his breath dissipate. His pulse is regular, his heartbeat too, and he feels the blood in his veins, thin like water. He did a couple of
Dexedrine earlier. Kicked things up a notch. He’s okay. He feels a balance. He did just enough, and it’s all good.

He checks the handheld. Can’t miss word from Landry in the van. That delivery arrives at the front door, and in that moment they’re up on the roof and over to the window. In that moment. No sooner, no later. The money coming in through the front door puts all eyes on the street. No one will be looking their way. These guys ain’t that good. And if they’re seen from a property that faces the rear of the building . . . well, this is the neighborhood. No one says a thing. Not a word. And sure as shit no one calls the
po-lice
. Down here it doesn’t work that way. This isn’t Gramercy Heights or Chelsea. This is East Harlem. Suck it up, motherfuckers; only way out of here is in a squad car or the coroner’s wagon.

Fulton goes to speak, but Madigan silences him with a shake of his head. Williams has got the bag laid out flat at his feet. It’s unzipped, and Madigan can see the dull sheen of the M16’s barrel. Fulton is a gangbanger, and Williams isn’t that far off. They want blood and mayhem. No class. No subtlety. They want to see people exploding. Fireworks in a butcher’s store. And when they’re done, they’re gonna want to go and screw teenagers. These are the kind of folks he’s now socializing with.