City Of Lies (49 page)

At the head of the stairs she turned left and stopped at the first door. This had been their room, herself and Garrett; had been their room from the point they took the house until Garrett left for the last time.

She opened the door slowly and stood there. She just looked; didn’t move; didn’t take a step inside.

‘I need the gun,’ she said. ‘I need the gun for a while. I’m going to take the gun because there’s something I have to do.’

‘But—’

Evelyn shook her head. ‘No questions . . . I don’t want to answer any questions. I want you to give me the gun and then I’m going to leave. If I’m not back within a few hours then you’ll have to figure out what to do by yourself.’

Evelyn extended her hand and waited until the gun was passed to her.

Her breathing was shallow, hesitant. She backed up and turned to the right, walked down the hallway to her own room.

Five, six minutes later, standing inside the front door, Evelyn Sawyer looked back towards the kitchen, the narrow hallway
alongside the stairs, the door to the right that took her through into the front room, the bay window that looked out onto Carmine. She looked at all the years of her life, the heartbreaks, the sorrows, the laughter, the anger and frustration, the emptiness, the tears . . . everything that had taken place within these four walls for the better part of four decades.

Everything of any worth was already gone.

She pulled her coat tight around her neck and opened the front door.

Once on the front steps she glanced over her shoulder, and then pulled the door shut.

She walked down to the corner, hands buried in her overcoat pockets, her face expressionless, inscrutable.

She didn’t turn back; knew that if she did she might lose her will.

Harper walked three blocks before he found a callbox.

Once inside he dialled the number. Had almost memorized it. Never felt so scared in all his life. Had never doubted anything so much.

The phone rang twice before he felt the urge to hang up. He steeled himself, clenched his fist, felt his knuckles whiten as he gripped the receiver.

‘Yes?’ Unmistakably Duchaunak’s voice.

‘It’s me.’

‘Okay . . . you spoke with them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘At the hotel.’

‘Who came?’

‘Freiberg and the girl.’

‘And they’re still there?’

‘No, they left.’

‘And where are you?’

Harper peered out through the glass of the callbox, rubbed a hole in the condensation. ‘I can see the top of the Western Union Building . . . there’s a store across the road called—’

‘It doesn’t matter. No-one followed you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t
think
so?’

‘Fuck, I don’t know. I’m doing what you asked me to do, okay? They came and saw me. I spoke with them. You said to call you . . . you asked me for my help and I’m fucking calling you okay?’

‘Okay, okay . . . I’m sorry, Mr Harper. So tell me what happened?’

‘Freiberg is going to meet with Ben Marcus tomorrow.’

‘You what?’

‘Ben Marcus . . . you know who Ben Marcus is, right?’

‘Yes, sure. Of course I know who Ben Marcus is.’

‘Right . . . so Walt Freiberg is going to see him tomorrow.’

‘Christ almighty . . . they
are
working together, aren’t they?’

‘Seems that way. They’re going to agree to something that was set up by my father. He was retiring. He was negotiating a deal with Ben Marcus before he was shot. Hell, it’s complicated, Detective. Anyway, bottom line is Walt goes and speaks with Marcus tomorrow. He tells him that I’m standing in for my father, that I have the authority to approve whatever deal is going down, and I make everything kosher for the things they’ve planned for Christmas Eve.’

There was silence at the other end of the line, and then, ‘Fuck! I knew it! I knew there was something. What is it? What are they planning?’

‘They’re going to pull several bank robberies simultaneously . . . several banks at the same time as far as I can figure.’

‘Which ones?’

‘I have no idea, not a clue.’

‘We need to meet,’ Duchaunak said. ‘I need you to come and see my precinct Captain—’

‘You must be outta your mind,’ Harper said. ‘You want to know what I think? I think someone’s watching me right now . . . I think someone has an eye on me right now and is going to tell Walt Freiberg that I went out to a callbox and spoke with someone. Who the hell am I going to call, eh? Fucking ghostbusters, right? Maybe they’ll think it’s you. They’re not going to tell me which banks. You want to know what else I think? I figure they might shoot me in the fucking head anyway. If they know I met with you and we went and spoke with your police captain then I can guarantee they’re going to shoot me in the fucking head.’

‘So what do you want to do, Mr Harper?’

‘I’m going to go do nothing. I’m going to let Walt Freiberg tell Ben Marcus whatever the hell he wants, let them sort out whatever they have planned, and then I’m going to get the fuck out of New York as fast as I can and leave you guys to sort out Christmas Eve. That’s what I’m going to do, Detective . . . unless, of course, you can think of anything better?’

Duchaunak was silent.

‘So, Detective . . . any better ideas?’

‘Call me if you get any word after the meeting tomorrow,’ Duchaunak said. ‘See if there’s any way,
any way
at all to get some idea of where they’re going to hit, and then call me after the meeting is over, okay?’

‘And what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Harper, I don’t know, but I have to do something, right?’

‘I think that would be a good idea, Detective . . . think it would be a very good idea for you to do something.’

‘Okay, we’ll speak tomorrow. You call me and let me know what happens.’

‘Detective?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The liquor store . . . the one where my father was shot. Where is it?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to know,’ Harper said. ‘I just want to know.’

‘Up near where you are now . . . half a dozen blocks or so north. Corner of Hudson and Vestry.’

‘Thanks,’ Harper said.

‘So call me tomorrow, okay?’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Mr Harper—’ Duchaunak said, but the line was already dead.

John Harper stepped out of the callbox and started walking, heading north, hands buried in his pockets, head bowed against the bitter wind that cut east from the river.

‘Scariest bunch of motherfuckers. . . no . . . no, I take that back,’ Neumann shouted. ‘You lot are the
ugliest
bunch of motherfuckers I’ve ever seen! Jesus Christ, it should be illegal for more than two or three of you to congregate in a public place. You’d be scaring kids and frightening old people into a lifetime of fucking nightmares!’

The laughter was riotous, good-humored, anarchic. The battle-field of voices; all parties attempting to be heard over everyone else was almost deafening. Seventeen people crammed into a barroom beneath a club on Mulberry, itself a block and a half from the police headquarters building in Little Italy – cornered like a rat between SoHo, Bowery and Chinatown. They were all there: Ben Marcus, Sol Neumann, Walt Freiberg on down. Two families, joined at the hip in some way, and yet the faces still running confrontationals and threatening one another like sandbox psychopaths.

Walt Freiberg stood just inside the doorway. Even as he’d entered, the gathered crews were shouting at one another, throwing jibes and spiked words, all in that half-drunk, couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude that seemed requisite for such meetings. Maybe they were shouting at Cathy Hollander, the only female present: the way she looked it seemed that none present would have had the cojones to challenge her directly. Had John Harper seen her he would have believed her to be someone else. She had on black jeans, a black sweater, a leather jacket over; her hair was tied back and her face free of cosmetics. Perhaps it was the light, perhaps the angle of her high cheekbones, but it seemed for a moment that she was wearing the shadow of a bruise on the right side of her face. Perhaps not. All in all it didn’t matter; noone would ask, and even if they had they would not have received an answer.

Times were such a gathering could never have happened; times were that people like Ray Dietz and Joe Koenig could not have entered the same room without one of them leaving horizontally. But now things had changed; whatever words and wars and personal vendettas had existed in the past seemed irrelevant in the face of what was to occur. Change had come, and those present would go with that change or leave quietly. Everyone wanted something from this, whether money, reputation, or the credibility to move elsewhere and have folks pay attention to what they had to say. Perhaps this thing was a way of exorcising the ghosts of the past and starting over. A couple of those present knew that they either participated, or there’d come an evening when they’d open a door to unwelcome, but not wholly unexpected, visitors, and their fate would be expedited much the same as Johnnie Hoy, Micky Levin, Mouse Jackson and Jimmy Nestor.

This was a world, in and of itself its own thing, and it had a way of dealing its own cards, ranking its own orders and obligations; violation of such agreements carried with it not a sense of shame or self-abnegation, but a justice so swift and thoughtless it appeared too brutal to have been designed by human beings. To complicate this world, to attempt any real depth of understanding of it, was to miss the point entirely. Men such as these lived and died within a life that the vast majority of people could neither have comprehended nor suffered. It was that simple.

Ray Dietz, beside him Albert Reiff and Victor Klein; the drivers – Maurice Rydell and Henry Kossoff, beside them Karl Merrett and Lewis Parselle. At the head of their table was Ben Marcus, standing to his left Sol Neumann, ever the consigliere, ever the Devil’s advocate. On the other side sat Joe Koenig and Charlie Beck, Larry Benedict, Leo Petri, and their drivers – Ricky Wheland and Ron Dearing.

Walt Freiberg and Cathy Hollander had been the last to arrive. Cathy hesitated just inside the doorway, and when Walt walked forward to greet Marcus she went with him, hanging a step and a half behind, almost a shadow.

‘Walter, Walter, Walter,’ Marcus chimed enthusiastically. ‘This is a great day, a special day for all of us. This day, my friend, has been a long time coming.’

Freiberg was grinning from ear to ear, squeezing himself behind the seated man along the edge of the table and finally standing before Marcus at the head.

Freiberg held out his arms and the men hugged. After a moment Freiberg released Marcus and took a moment to shake hands vigorously with Sol Neumann.

‘You look even better than last time I saw you, Sol,’ Freiberg said, and then mock-punched him in the gut. ‘You lose some weight, right? You lost a ton of fucking weight there, Sol . . . you look really good man, really fucking good.’

Neumann smiled like a cat, nodding his head. ‘I did, Walt, I did. I got one of these exercise things, these little gym things you put in your house you know? My wife, she tells me I’m going to get a fucking heart attack if I don’t do something, so what the fuck, eh? You have to make an effort, right?’

‘Cathy, sweetheart,’ Marcus said, and stepped aside to greet her.

Cathy Hollander smiled, took Marcus’s outstretched hands, and stepped towards him. They paused there for some moments, and then Cathy said, ‘You’re doing good, Ben? You’re taking care of yourself?’

Marcus laughed hoarsely. ‘Taking care of myself? When did I ever take care of myself? Take care of everyone else more like it!’ He shook his head. ‘No, I’m good, I’m okay.’ He looked away for a second. ‘Hell, I know things were never great—’

Cathy Hollander smiled. ‘Ben, it’s okay . . . things move on, right?’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘But I’m sorry about Edward . . . I am
so
sorry about Edward.’ Marcus turned to Freiberg, his face sympathetic. ‘Walt, I don’t know what to say. This has been a tough time for everyone concerned. We have this thing tomorrow, right?’

Freiberg nodded. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow, Ben, we’ll meet tomorrow and straighten out the details.’

‘And the kid is good?’

Freiberg smiled. ‘He’s fine, Ben . . . don’t you worry about him.’

Walt Freiberg looked directly at Marcus and said nothing for a second or two. Cathy Hollander felt a chill of unease across her skin, as if someone had opened a door and a cold breeze had crept in unawares.

‘So be it,’ Freiberg said, and then he smiled, and Marcus was smiling too, and then each of them turned to face the gathered crews. Marcus leaned towards Freiberg and asked him a question that Cathy Hollander didn’t hear. Freiberg responded, and Marcus nodded at Sol Neumann. Neumann stepped forward. Marcus and Freiberg took seats behind him and to the left.

‘Okay!’ Neumann shouted above the noise. ‘Okay, okay, okay . . . enough of the small talk and bullshit. We got a lot of things to talk about and we haven’t got much time!’

The room fell silent. It was almost eerie, the sudden cessation of noise and commotion.

‘Right then,’ Neumann said. ‘You all know each other too well already. Any of our people caught talking nice to any of the Bernstein crew is going to get fired!’

Laughter broke out in the far right-hand corner of the room and spread across both tables.

Cathy took a seat, on her left Joe Koenig. Ron Dearing handed over glasses, a bottle of Scotch, pushed an ashtray towards Cathy. The mood was more relaxed than Cathy had imagined it would be. Perhaps the calm before the storm.

Neumann remained standing. All eyes turned towards him, and for everyone present – regardless of their affiliation – Edward Bernstein was evident in his absence.

‘So we have these things to do,’ Neumann said. ‘We have sixteen people and four teams. We’ve been through this over and over, but we’re going to go through it again. Four teams of four, each team consists of the driver and three others. Two drivers from our people and two from Lenny’s.’ Neumann looked down at Freiberg. ‘Walt Freiberg . . . he’s here in Lenny’s place. We’re going to keep it simple. We’ve talked about this thing for long enough. Myself and Mr Marcus met with Lenny Bernstein on numerous occasions, and out of respect, out of acknowledgement for all that Lenny has done in this town, we’re going to keep it as Lenny’s family even though Lenny cannot be with us at the moment.’