The Lucifer Messiah (9 page)

The little dance routine of theirs had gone on long enough.

He had left Sean and Maggie at his apartment, against his better judgment. She had told him that their long-lost friend had awakened the previous night, for a short time, but he had not stirred much since. Maggie had stayed the night, resting in a chair beside the couch. Vince, for his part, had gotten very little sleep.

He needed to figure out what Sean was into. Whatever it was, he was sure it wasn't good. When he found the rat-man watching him surreptitiously from across the street for the second day in a row, the deal was sealed. Sean was in big trouble, and he knew that he might be too, pretty soon.

He played it calm. This was his backyard, his neigh
borhood. He knew Hell's Kitchen backward and forward. Some stranger wasn't about to outwit him on his own turf.

First he had to lull the pursuer, draw him in closer, make him think he had nothing to worry about. Then he would turn the tables. The rat-man was about to get a free tour of the West Side.

It lasted for hours, well past noon. Vince moved deliberately, never looking like he was meandering, even though that was all he was doing. The whole time, he made sure to keep his pursuer in the corner of his eye. He hit four pubs, three stores, a pair of churches and a diner. He even paid a visit to Sacred Heart, where he'd gone to school as a kid, and hardly ever since then. Old Father Gallagher was still there, still doing the rosary, and still as big as a house.

Then it was time for the move.

Vince knew a place, on the corner of West Thirty-Eighth and Ninth. It was a deli, next to a bar, but it hadn't always been two places. When he had been on the job, the bar had been twice as big. The owner, Jimmy O'Connor, had fallen on hard times during the War, some investments hadn't panned out, and he'd been in the lurch for some cash. A buddy of his, Dirty Mike Sullivan, had stepped in and bought out half of the place. Without a liquor license, he'd converted his side into a sandwich shop.

But the division was largely cosmetic, and Sullivan had paid off a few inspectors to skirt the building code violations his arrangement had created. One of them, in particular, was that the two places shared one cellar.

Vince knew both men. He ducked into Dirty Sully's
Deli, happy to see that the owner was behind the counter. It was no problem for him to slip downstairs, and over to the other side of the twin establishment.

The rat-man waited outside for well over fifteen minutes, Vince could see him from the window of the bar next door. He could tell the odd-looking figure was getting frustrated. The Spanish guy finally ventured into the deli, but he exited only a moment later, clearly agitated. He walked south.

Now it was Vince's turn.

He waited until the rat-man was distant, but not too far away. Then he left the bar, and blended into the crowd, a hat borrowed from Dirty Mike low over his forehead. He followed the man over to Times Square, then into a subway, and onto a downtown car. That was the hardest part. Trying not to be noticed on the train. Luckily it was more crowded than usual.

The rat-man got off in the Village, at West Fourth Street. Vince hated that part of town, hated the whole area around NYU, but he got out anyway. He needed to see where the guy was going.

It didn't take long. Just out of the subway, the Spanish-looking stranger took a left, then a right, and then another left. The path led to a small side street just outside of Washington Square Park.

The rest of the neighborhood was trendy, which was why Vince hated it. Most of the kids who circulated around there, the artists, the musicians and the students, they weren't
real
New Yorkers. Not the way Vince thought
of them, anyway. Some were from the city, sure, but most were imports, and even those who were locals didn't know his city, his life.

This one block, however, looked like the
avant-garde
attitude had skipped it entirely. There were no coffee shops full of pretentious Bohemians, no tiny storefronts selling fake antiques. Just a row of dingy, poorly maintained buildings, and a lot of trash that hadn't been picked up in a while.

The rat-man moved quickly to a nondescript two-story building, with a plain stone-gray facade. There were no windows, but a small hand-painted sign above the door said Bleecker Street Haven in black letters.
That's weird,
Vince thought,
since I'm not on Bleecker Street.
But that wasn't the only thing that bothered him.

He knew the place. He just couldn't remember how, or why.

The law offices of Preston, Howe & Stephens occupied the entire twenty-third floor of a fairly new office building in the mid-fifties on Madison Avenue. It was a part of town that a man like Salvatore Calabrese rarely got to in his line of work. He had dressed in his finest Italian suit for the occasion.

J. Rutherford Preston, Esquire always wore expensive suits, with monogrammed cuffs and a diamond-accented gold tie tack. Behind his mahogany desk, with the obligatory
green-shaded lamp and a scattering of papers, three framed degrees decorated the wall. At the center, raised a notch above the rest, was his license as counselor and attorney at law of the State of New York, flanked by twin certificates from Yale, one a bachelor's degree in economics, and the other his
juris doctor.

He got up from his red-velvet chair when his secretary buzzed. It was just past one o'clock, and he had been dreading this client all day long. He fidgeted as the door opened, trying hard to keep from shaking visibly when the corpulent man with the grim reputation stepped into his office.

Indian Joe was beside him, dressed just as sharply, but with hair longer than Preston had ever seen on anyone, male or female. He caught himself lingering just a moment. He prayed that neither man had noticed.

“Good day, sirs,” Preston said, knocking his waste-paper bin with his knee as he stepped out to shake the hands of both. Only Sam obliged.

“Good day to you, and thank you for seeing me. I realize that a man such as yourself must be quite busy. In light of that, I do appreciate your recent efforts on my behalf,” Calabrese said, somewhat quietly as he sat down. Joseph remained standing, and silent, beside him.

Preston had not met either man before, having only dealt with intermediaries during their course of business. He knew them both by reputation, though; the type of men who were the reason he had taken up real estate law, rather than criminal law. He sat down himself, already impressed at the polished manner of the man he'd heard had once
made a sandwich while watching his men dismember a delinquent debtor with a hacksaw.

“I have very good news for you, Mr. Calabrese,” Preston began, his mouth cotton-dry.

“The only kind I ever like to hear, Mr. Preston,” Sam joked. He knew how nervous the lawyer was in his presence, and it amused him.
If only he knew the real truth,
he thought.

“The transfer of title to the Pier 33 property is all but completed. And the previous owner has asked me to extend to you his thanks at how generous an offer you made. I suspect he might have parted with the land for less, unused as it has been for so long, and in such an undesirable location.”

“All the same, I prefer to pay more for my piece of mind,” Calabrese answered.

Preston wasn't about to argue. He smiled, shuffled a few documents on his desk, opened a folder and passed some papers to Sam.

“Well, if you sign there and there, Mr. Calabrese, that will just about seal the deal, so to speak.”

Sam scanned the documents briefly, scribbling something illegible in the three places where his name was required.

“Now, if you'll permit me, I'd like to go over the basics of the parcel one last time. Metes and bounds and zoning restrictions and all that.”

Sam nodded.

“As you know, the area is really rather large, though it has sat vacant for most of the last twenty years. A lot of that likely has to do with the surrounding neighborhood, that
section of the waterfront is notorious for prostitution and street crime, really quite seedy. While under-developed, considering the nearby lots, you have to remember that it is zoned exclusively for industrial use, docking and storage facilities, that sort of thing. No wild parties, in other words.”

Preston laughed, but Sam remained stoic.

“Right. Well then, do you have any questions for me?” the lawyer asked.

“When do we close?”

“Within twenty-four hours. I'll meet with the bank people this afternoon and we'll settle the loose ends. All I need from you is the check we discussed.”

Sam shook his head, and Mr. Preston almost wet his shorts. He was relieved when Joseph produced a large briefcase and handed it to his boss. Sam put it on the table, and snapped it open. Inside were bound-up stacks of hundred-dollar bills. Lots of them.

Mr. Preston felt some beads of sweat form on his forehead, but he couldn't bring himself to reach for his hankie.

“Are you certain you'd like to pay cash, Mr. Calabrese?”

“I am.”

“Very well, it's just that, with a sale of this magnitude, well, that's just an unusual amount of cash to have all in one place.”

“Are you saying I should be worried? You are
my
lawyer, aren't you, Mr. Preston?”

“Indeed. I'll see to this immediately,” Preston answered, fighting back his urge to throw up.

“When can we move in?” Calabrese asked.

“Almost right away. To be absolutely safe, I'd say you could begin moving in by tomorrow afternoon. But to be honest, no one would notice if you went over there right now,” Preston replied.

“That will be fine,” Sam said as he got up and motioned for Joseph to exit with him. “Not a day too soon, in fact.”

“Vincent? I don't see the likes of you for almost two years, then I got you poking your head in on me twice in as many days? To what do I owe this occasion?” Pat Flanagan said, with a smile on his face, as always.

He was in his office at the precinct, shades drawn, stale coffee and doughnuts on his cluttered desk. His tie was undone, as usual. The room was small, but Vince had never had an office during his time as a cop, so the mere fact that it had a door impressed him. His old buddy had made detective since their time walking the beat.

“I went by a place downtown earlier today. Thought you might know something about it,” Vince answered, clearing off a pile of newspapers from the only other chair in the room and taking a seat.

“Yeah? Where's that?” Flanagan answered, offering a doughnut.

“Down in the Village, the
Bleecker Street Haven.
You familiar with it?”

Flanagan looked sideways at his ex-partner. He knew
the place too.

“What the hell were you doin' down there?”

Vince said nothing. He merely stared, his face blank like a stone.

It was the same icy stare Flanagan had seen him use hundreds of times. That was part of what had made them such good partners. Vince was the quiet type; he only spoke when he had something on his mind. Pat, on the other hand, most people who knew him wondered if he was ever going to stop talking.

“Alright, alright. Yeah I know it. Flophouse, beggars and bums shack up there for a while. At least that's what they say, anyway.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin'. Just that the place's got kind of a weird reputation, if you follow me.”

“Weird how?” Vince's attention was now snared. “Why the hell do you care about this Vince?”

“Let's say it's for a friend, huh?”

Flanagan smiled. Vince realized he might already know more than he was letting on, but he still trusted the big Irishman.

“Your friend wouldn't have anything to do with the recent
troubles
in the Calabrese crew, would he?”

Again, Vince said nothing. Flanagan knew better than to try to wait out his laconic Italian friend.

“Okay, whatever you say buddy. Bleecker Street Haven, huh? That place has a rep on the street for making people go away. People check in, so to speak, and never
check out. Been like that for years now, since before the War, easy. Pretty low profile, though, for the most part.”