Hooked (26 page)

I
t took Linc less than twenty minutes in the light traffic to drive to the hospital. He parked by Clauson’s car, and Harry rolled in right behind Linc. They hurried inside the emergency room, half-filled, even in the early morning hours.

“Doctors think he might have had a heart attack or a stroke,” Clauson said, “but it could be the cancer. They’re doing tests now. Whatever, he’s in bad shape.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He was unconscious when they brought him in. Paramedic said the blood spatter wasn’t from the accident. Russo didn’t have a cut on him.”

That meant someone else’s blood. Was it Tawny’s blood? Was he too late? “Any way to talk to him?”

Clauson didn’t even bother to answer the question. “If I hadn’t lost him—”

“Not your fault. I shouldn’t have let her go in last night. It didn’t feel right, and I let her go anyway.”

Clauson put his hand on Linc’s shoulder. “I’m going to find the doctor. See if there’s any change in Russo’s status.”

“You couldn’t have stopped her,” Harry said. “She saw Martell yesterday. Maybe he said something that got her thinking he killed the Dyson girl, and she wanted proof before she said anything.”

Linc stopped. He stared at Harry a long time, almost as if he were seeing through him. His heart almost stopped. “You…you knew Tawny was at Martell’s. And you knew Martell was dead. How?”

“It was all over the news, Linc.”

“No. Not initially. Last evening, when Dennis and I were on the way back from Martell’s
, I tried calling to tell you, but your phone went to voicemail, and I never got around to it. The news wasn’t made public until long after. I purposely told the guys at the 62 to put a lid on Martell’s death because it jeopardized Tawny. Then, when you called me back, you asked me if Tawny knew about Martell. Later, after the news broke, you said if Russo knew Tawny saw Reggie at Martell’s she’d be in serious trouble.” He shook his head. “Something like that. The detectives surely called Martell’s wife, and she called Russo. No one else knew. But you knew, Harry.”

Harry rarely lost his composure. Calm and steady. That was Harry. But Linc saw it now. The nervous reaction, the sputter.

“Someone must have called me. I don’t know. I can’t remember who.”

The picture forming in Linc’s mind was so preposterous he didn’t want to believe it. The man who meant the most to him, the beacon who’d saved him from being passed from one foster home to another, probably from one jail to another, had sold his soul to the devil. Dazed, he stumbled to a seat in the waiting room, his whole world collapsing inside him. Nothing made sense anymore.

Harry joined him. “It’s not what you think.”

“No? Then what is it? How did you know something you couldn’t have known? There’s only one way. Russo. He’s been ahead of us every step of the way. He knew Tawny would be at Cooper’s tonight. I sure as hell didn’t tell him. He knew enough to block Clauson’s car. I didn’t tell him that either.” Linc covered his face with his hands,
rubbed his eyes. He mustered the courage to face Harry. “How long?”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t go there, Linc. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Linc rocked in his seat, his stomach tied in a knot. “My God, you know where she is.”

“You’re way off base.” Harry’s face tightened, and he leaned into Linc. “Leave it alone, son. This has nothing to do with you.”

Linc struggled for breath. “It has everything to do with me. Where is she?”

“She’ll ruin your career, your life. You’ll be right back where you started when I took you off the streets.”

“Jesus, Harry. How could you? Russo of all people. What did he have on you?”

“Doctors aren’t talking,” Clauson said, joining the two men. He glanced from Harry to Linc. “Hey, did I interrupt something? Family business, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Linc said, staring at Harry’s gray face. “Family business.” He forced his gaze away to face Clauson. “Jim, do you mind. I need a couple of minutes more with Harry.”

Clauson shrugged. “No problem. You sick, Harry? You look terrible.”

“I’m fine. Give us a minute, will ya?”

“Sure. I’ll be over there.” Looking confused, Clauson sauntered over to the nurse’s station. He glanced once over his shoulder.

Harry leaned back in his chair, avoiding Linc’s eyes.

“Talk to me, Harry.”

Harry stared straight ahead, his breathing slow and steady. After a few minutes, he spoke in a dull monotone. “It was right after Davey died. You know the story, my son had been sick for over two years, in and out of hospitals, treatments, everything we could do to keep him alive. Insurance paid for most of the medical bills, but we were still left with an exorbitant amount. Out of my reach, really. I was just starting at the agency.” He glanced at Linc for the first time. “You don’t do this work for the money. You know what beginners make, and that was thirty years ago.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. “Russo was making his bones in his father’s organization. Hard to say now, but my bosses thought, as far as mobsters, he was one of the better ones.” Harry’s laugh reeked of sarcasm. “Now there’s an oxymoron for you, a good mobster. But Mario Russo was more a split personality, the good mobster―honest construction company, stayed out of drugs and prostitution to the detriment of the bottom line―but he was also the cold-hearted son of a bitch who could put a bullet between the eyes of anyone he perceived to betray him, without so much as a shred of remorse.”

Linc watched him, aware that every word Harry spoke drove a wedge into his heart and between them. Nothing in his life would ever be the same.

“We’d picked up Carlito Giavelli, an upper level mobster in Russo’s father’s band of criminals. He’d bartered his way into witness protection by promising to sing every song in the program: names, dates, the works. He was a piece of shit. I was on watch detail. Every one of us would have rather seen him get the chair—back then, that’s what it was. We had him in a safe house. Remember the case?”

Linc nodded, knowing now where this was going and why he’d heard the story from everyone but Harry.

“Russo picked me, not because I was young—the young ones are idealistic, eager to save the world from the bad guys. No, he picked me because he knew about Davey. Knew I was in over my head financially, about to lose my house, my wife, everything I owned, partly from lack of money, partly because I couldn’t cope with the loss of my
son. It was a one-time deal, he promised. My bills would be paid, and I’d be ridding the world of a lowly piece of scum.” Harry smiled. “Funny thing, I agreed with him. Giavelli was that and more. He once killed a rival for a woman by cutting off parts of his anatomy while the guy was still alive. Started with fingers, then toes, then hands. He saved the guy’s gonads for last. Then he watched him bleed out.”

Linc had heard the story and thought Giavelli was the type he’d want to practice the eye for an eye adage on. “So you told him where Giavelli was stashed.”

Harry nodded. “I made him promise not to hurt my partner. He agreed. But Brian had a sixth sense. He could smell trouble coming. Russo’s hired guns blew off the lock on the door and came in shooting. Brian was ready for them, but he didn’t stand a chance. They shot Brian, shot me, and shot Giavelli. It was a bloodbath.”

Harry’s eyes had filled with tears when he turned to Linc. “No one considered I had anything to do with the murder. Hell, I almost died from my wounds, but I’ve lived with that guilt for thirty years, always on the edge of turning myself in. I should have, but I didn’t have the guts. When Ruth died, I thought I could end the guilt. I can’t tell you how many times I put the gun in my mouth, but I didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger. I thought I could make up for it by being a good
agent, but Russo lied. I’ve been in his pocket ever since but only to give up some piece of shit who’d have been on the public’s dole in prison. Most of the time, I was happy to oblige, ridding the world of one more cancer on society. I never compromised what we might call the good guys, and I only took his money one more time, so I could send it to my partner’s widow. A lot of money, Linc, but it still didn’t make up for what I’d done. I’ll never come to terms with that.”

“No, I don’t imagine you could.”

“In my defense, I’ve been a good agent, done some good things. You know that. I’ve never helped put down anyone who didn’t deserve it. Never.”

Linc felt as if his insides had been torn out of him. “So you set yourself up as Lord and God over who lived or died, who deserved it and who didn’t, right, Harry? And what about Tawny? Is she dispensable? Does she deserve to die?”

“You deserve better,” he said without a moment’s hesitation, “and she doesn’t deserve you at all.”

“That’s not your decision to make, is it? Where is she?”

After a moment’s pause, he answered tentatively. “I don’t know. All I know is come six this morning, she won’t be able to incriminate Russo or anyone else. Let it go, Linc. It’ll be better for everyone concerned.”

“You mean better for you.”

“That too,” Harry said. “Though with Russo dead, there’ll be no one to enforce my debt.”

“Don’t be
so sure. Russo couldn’t resist passing on such a valuable asset to his family. A fed in his employ.”

“You owe me.”

Tears stung Linc’s eyes. He spoke through the lump in his throat with a harshness he’d never heard from his own lips. “No, you owe me. I wanted to be like you. You were my hero, Harry. Superman, Batman, and the Six-Million-Dollar Man all wrapped up in one package. Now I find out you’re none of those things. I never knew you at all.” He wiped a tear that crawled down his cheek, feeling no shame. “You’re no better than the people you’ve sworn an oath to protect us from.”

Linc walked away, confused and conflicted. He avoided Clauson’s gaze while he fought for composure. The agent worked under Harry, and until Linc figured out what he was going to do about his mentor, he’d say nothing to anyone.

“Any change in Russo?” Linc asked.

“No. What’s going on between you two?”

“Not now, Clauson. Talk to Harry. I’ve got something to do.” But when he turned to leave, Harry was already gone.

“I’ll get in touch if Russo wakes up and they let me talk to him,”
Clauson said.

Linc nodded. “I hope it won’t be too late.” He went outside to the parking lot, his insides shaking. His whole world had collapsed for the second time in his life, and it made no difference that he was a grown man rather than a child. He tried to put himself in Harry’s shoes, but every time he hypothetically slipped his feet into them, he felt the crush of reality. Harry had lived his professional life as a lie, carrying the heavy burden of a man’s death on his shoulders and in his heart. And now it had come full circle at the moment when he might regain his freedom from the bloodsucking bastard that
had held him hostage for thirty years. What bizarre irony.

Linc tried to keep from checking, but he gave in and glanced at his watch. Did he really want to see how close it was to six o’clock? Five thirty. Thirty minutes left. What could happen at precisely six o’clock? Something timed. A bomb?

Mike Russo was the younger of Mario’s sons and the less combative,
if
he hadn’t been awakened for the second time in one night.

“What the fuck do you want now?” he asked sleepily.

“You said you had no construction sites out of state right now,” Linc said.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Did you really need confirmation of that at five thirty in the morning?”

Linc ignored the question. “Are you tearing anything down, detonating any buildings. Explosives, wrecking balls, anything. Something that will take place at six this morning?”

“We don’t do demolition. We sub-contract to companies that specialize.”

“Have you sub-contracted a job then? Come on, Russo. An innocent person’s life is at stake.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“You’re asking me to incriminate my father.”

“
Look, your father is at Downstate Medical Center. He ran his car off the road. Doctors don’t know whether he had a heart attack, a stroke, or whether it’s the cancer, but he might not make it.”

“I…I didn’t know. No one’s called. Gotta go, Walsh. Gotta call my brother.”

“Wait. Where? I need to know, Russo.”

Another long silence. “Kearney. They’re taking down an old hotel and surrounding buildings to make way for a new hotel and large scale mall.” He mentioned the exit. “You know where I’m talking about?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Linc said. “Are they using explosives?”

“I don’t think so. They’ll use bulldozers and either a high-reach excavator or a wrecking ball for the old hotel.”

“Any way to stop them, delay the thing for a few hours until we can make sure no one’s inside?”

“You can try, but I doubt you’ll get anyone at the office to answer at this time of the morning, and the men are probably on the job already. I don’t have a cell number.” He gave Linc the name of the company and the owner’s name.