A Black Sail Read online

  Taylor took a left on Walnut and another on Main Street, walking downhill all the way, gravity pulling him toward the Hudson River and the station. The streets of the little river village were already dead at 7:30 p.m. Most of the shops on Main were closed, except for one dive bar and a restaurant called the Whistle Stop.

  A northbound train let off commuters getting home late from long workdays or dinners after work; the train platform was soon empty and quiet. Nobody but Taylor was going back into the city at this late hour.

  He considered his short but informative visit to Carl Collucci’s house. Liam O’Malley, furious at the death of his daughter, blamed Collucci and his bosses. What did O’Malley know about their business? What had he heard from his daughter? How much would he tell?

  O’Malley was a solid lead. Pissed-off people wanted justice. Pissed-off people often talked to get it.

  In itself, there was also something odd about Collucci agreeing to the interview, like he honestly wanted the murder solved, like he was a normal guy dealing with terrible trouble. That didn’t make sense if the man already knew a drug war with a Chinatown tong got his wife killed. Anyway, the mob never asked for help, not from the law or the press. They settled things on their own—with lots of bodies all over the place. Collucci’s weird behavior—normal if this situation were normal—needed explaining. Unanswered questions were the path to a story.

  Every second light bulb on the train platform was out. Taylor wasn’t sure anymore who ran this railroad. He called it the New York Central because that name was painted on the engines. But that line was dead, as was the Penn Central. Was it Conrail, maybe? The collapse of the railroads had been such a minor affair compared to New York City’s financial death spiral, he hadn’t kept up.

  The dead lights were a curiosity rather than a worry in the suburbs. Crime hadn’t bled here from the city. That’s why so many had fled New York to Dobbs Ferry and other Westchester towns. And Jersey and Rockland and Long Island.

  An Amtrak express out of Albany moaned twice from the north, and minutes later, flew through the station at twice the speed of a commuter train, trailing a wash of newspaper, plastic bags, and other garbage.

  He called into the office and got Nicholson, the night man. Another exile from the Messenger-Telegram, he was supposed to spend the overnight shift pulling stories off the UPI and AP printers and fielding calls. Taylor was pretty sure he spent most of the time sleeping. This hunch was based, in part, on Cramly’s complaints that the rolls of wire stories were never organized according to newsworthiness, or at least, based on any standard Cramly understood.

  Nicholson yawned halfway through giving Taylor a message he should call Samantha at her office.

  He hung up the payphone, pulled out more change, and dialed. “Thought it was going be a long night at the Woolworth?”

  “Caught an employee taking stock. Trunk of her car was full of stuff. Figured I’d solved their problem. At least this week. Saw your note. Is everything okay out there?”

  “Well enough.” He told her about the interview and fracas at Collucci’s house. The southbound sounded its high whistle from one station up the line. “I’m going out to Flushing. I want to find out what O’Malley knows or suspects. What his daughter knew about her husband’s activities. Before he gets arrested for tonight or does something else stupid.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I can handle—”

  “Mobsters plus the FBI. And these O’Malleys coming in loaded for bear. Backup is a smart idea.”

  “All right. And company is an excellent idea.” Taylor knew Samantha could handle herself. He’d seen it when she was a cop. And after. Then there was having someone to watch his back. That alone was worth not arguing. “Meet me at Grand Central. The clock at eight fifteen.”

  He hung up. The train pulled in. He boarded a car stinking of cigarettes and chemical toilet. He went one car back. No toilet and just a hint of stale cigarette smoke.

  He started to smile as soon as he walked across Grand Central’s grand concourse toward Samantha. Leaning on the counter at the information booth, she had on jeans, an airy light-blue cotton blouse, and despite the heat, a blue blazer to hide her Colt Detective .38. Her auburn hair tumbled down the back of her jacket.

  After he kissed her, she took his hand and they both walked.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Supposed to be a late night anyway. Murder or shoplifting. You know which one I’d chose.”

  “You’re wasted on the stuff Lew Raymond has you working.”

  They left the concourse and turned toward the steps for the subway.

  “It’s work. I’m happy to have it. Least I’m investigating something. I’m not getting all mopey about my job. You do enough for the both of us.”

  “Ouch.”

  They hustled down the two flights to get the No. 7, last stop Flushing, and boarded a train after waiting about three minutes.

  “We won’t be there until after nine,” Samantha said. “That’s late to be banging on someone’s front door.”

  “After they showed up and banged on a mob guy’s head, I’m hoping they’ll be glad it’s us and not the cops or Fronti family soldiers. My gut says get to them quickly. There’s no telling what Collucci’s organization will do after tonight. They don’t like their guys getting beat up.” He flipped through his notebook, a habit whenever he sat still. “O’Malley said something that got me thinking. He told Collucci that women are supposed to be kept out of business.”

  “They are, right? Mob wives don’t get hit.”

  “Yeah, I know. You know. O’Malley, he said it with real certainty. Like maybe he’s in the same business?”

  “So … daughter of Irish gangster marries Italian gangster. Are there still Irish gangsters?”

  “I don’t know, Callahan, are there?”

  “Funny.” She punched his arm hard enough to hurt. “It’s still a guess.”

  “Which is why it’s good I have until next week. Right now, this story wouldn’t make it into True Crime Detective. Even for them, not enough facts. There’s the big story here about a drug war—if it’s true. I’m nowhere on that. A drunk cop’s fuzzy theory about a killing doesn’t a story make.”

  “How do you nail it all down?”

  “I’ve set a meeting tonight with Jersey Stein of the Manhattan DA’s office. Eleven in Chinatown. Figured we’d be done and back from Queens by then.”

  “He agreed to meet you so late?”

  “This time, he insisted. Usually I have to beg. Something’s going on.”

  “Long night. The tall ships arrive tomorrow.”

  “Don’t remind me. The worst kind of busy work that I don’t need.”

  The train rumbled on toward Flushing on elevated tracks over the lit streets and expressways of Queens. Samantha leaned her head against his shoulder and he caught the clean soapy fragrance of her Prell shampoo. She wasn’t for dousing herself in bottled smells, which was fine with Taylor. He lifted his arm and pulled her close. She was soft—far softer than you’d expect when you saw her up against a bad guy.

  They walked along Roosevelt Avenue and took a left to cross Northern Boulevard into the confusing crosshatching of numbered streets, numbered avenues, and numbered places that made up the bulk of residential Flushing.

  The commercial streets had been well lit, but now their walk got darker and quieter—a worry since few areas in the city were safe from street crime. These days, you could get mugged pretty much anywhere. Samantha had her .38 and Taylor the little .32 in an ankle holster. Problem: Taylor was a terrible marksman. The gun served more as a memorial and security blanket than real protection. His brother Billy had given Taylor the gun during Billy’s last leave home from Vietnam. Billy had gone back to ’Nam and run through the jungle with bigger, deadlier weapons, and one day disappeared into the thick tropical air. MIA in 1972. Still listed as MIA, and the war more than a year over for everyone, even the Vietnamese. Amer
icans had forgotten it. Or were trying. Was Taylor also—if only a little bit?

  He and Samantha turned onto 145th Street. They walked its dark, silent length—all one block of it. The house number they were looking for wasn’t here. These streets confused Taylor, and he’d grown up in Queens. He checked his notes. Collucci had said 145th Place. He led them one street over to find it, also a block in length and running parallel to its sister.

  “That’s so helpful.” Taylor closed his notebook. “Streets and places the same number right next to each other. Numbered avenues cutting across them all. How does anyone keep it straight?”

  The lights were on at No. 26, a narrow two-story house separated from its neighbor on one side by the exact width of a driveway, and on the other, by not much more than three feet. Mrs. O’Malley—she didn’t offer a first name—answered the door in a black dress that appeared far too heavy for the hot, sticky summer air. Gray hair with the slightest tinges of red was pulled back in a tight bun. Her expression shifted from suspicion to worry after Taylor said he’d been at the Collucci house when her husband stormed in. She invited them to take a seat on the divan.

  Taylor and Samantha settled on a couch covered in a transparent plastic slipcover that squeaked as they sat down.

  Mrs. O’Malley lowered herself onto a similarly covered ottoman placed in front of a purple armchair, though she crouched more than sat, poised to leap up in an instant. “I didn’t want him to go over there. Is … is everyone okay?” She folded her hands in her lap.

  “One of Mr. Collucci’s associates got smacked a few times,” Taylor said. “Pretty hard. I imagine the Dobbs Ferry cops will call it assault, particularly as they don’t have much else to work on. The quieter the town, the bigger the crime. Your husband and son—I assume it was your son,” she nodded, “left before the locals showed. You’d know if your son-in-law had an interest in reporting what happened.”

  “No, no. None of us want to see it reported. We don’t want any of this in the papers.”

  There were two kinds of people in the world. The first believed they couldn’t do a thing about what turned into news. These were your average citizens, mainly, people like Mrs. O’Malley. Different from the other kind—the politicos, cops, and villains who believed they could. They usually threatened to call his editor or punch his face. On occasion, bullets were an option. Taylor being Taylor, the threats would make him go at a story even harder. Mrs. O’Malley’s fear made him want to be as gentle as possible.

  “I’m sorry about the loss of your daughter. It’s terrible.” He waited. She let him wait. “If we could understand what went on tonight. Why.”

  “Losing Bridget has hit Liam terribly hard. He’d had a couple. Insisted on going upstate to confront Carl. I couldn’t convince him not to. I did try.”

  “Did your husband and Carl get along before all this?”

  Mrs. O’Malley looked straight into Taylor’s eyes. Something seemed to animate her, an intensity that wasn’t anger, but different from the passiveness she’d shown so far. Her voice tightened and rose in volume and pitch. “I know what everyone thinks … so you listen to me. Bridget and Carl met at Queens College. She was studying to be a teacher. He was going to go to law school. Did go to law school. They fell in love. Who stands in the way of that? We didn’t know about his family. Not until we met them and couldn’t help guessing. Bridget … she insisted Carl was going to stay away from his family. They both made promises. He would practice law. Which he did after one year at a company in Yonkers. They got married and were happy. Now she’s dead. How can anyone be happy? We can’t. Carl can’t. He’s destroyed. More violence won’t do anyone any good.”

  Her eyes were clear. Taylor’s instincts told him he could push all night and this woman would insist—getting angry in the process—that this was the true story of her daughter’s life, of how she ended up in the marriage that, it seemed, got her killed.

  “When will your husband and son be back?”

  “Not for a while.” The fire in her was dying. “They’ll be at Mulligan’s on Northern Boulevard. He’s crushed by Bridget’s death. He had too much to drink. You understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. I want to ask him a couple questions.”

  She showed them to the door. She had the look of someone who had not just lost control of one news story, but everything in her life. Taylor wanted to help her. The only way he knew how was to find out what happened to her daughter. That would bring her more pain. It was almost guaranteed.

  Chapter 5

  Samantha didn’t say anything as they walked. A streetlight caught the gunmetal blue of her eyes. Wary. A dangerous sort of beauty. She’d easily adapted to the way he worked. While still a cop, she’d figured out early on an interview was more than a conversation. It was serious business. As such, she rarely interrupted when she was with him, and if she did, she found a way to keep it in the flow. This was a special skill. Not every cop had the talent for getting information out of a witness or a suspect. That was why the stupid ones beat the crap out of them instead. In the months since they’d met, she’d worked hard to learn exactly how a reporter’s techniques differed from a cop’s. In many ways, her new job was more like Taylor’s. She didn’t have a badge or the force of the law on her side anymore.

  Mrs. O’Malley hadn’t told him anything that explained why Bridget Collucci ended up dead in New York Harbor—killed in such a brutal fashion. She did claim Collucci was a legit lawyer. That went against the theory he was part of the Fronti crime family. He shook his head slowly. He didn’t know nearly enough yet.

  Tomorrow, Friday the 2nd, the first tall ships arrived in New York Harbor from Newport. Everyone at City News, including Taylor, had assignments to get to where people were viewing the ships, interview New Yorkers, and describe the whole splendid scene. Man-on-the-street stuff, the sort of feature he hated. The man on the street told you exactly what you expected, which meant it was never news. He’d have tolerated the assignment if he didn’t have a real story to work. One woman murdered was far more important to Taylor than the grandest pageant to arrive in beleaguered, busted, crime-infested New York City in decades. This was the kind of story he’d always gone after—the story of a victim no one else knew about.

  Once on Roosevelt Avenue, he found a booth that still had a phone book hanging from a chain. He looked up Mulligan’s. It was a few streets over at 149th.

  The bar heaved with a big Thursday-night crowd. “Got to Get You Into My Life” played loudly from a jukebox and mixed with people yelling to be heard in several clusters and clots of conversation. The odors of sweat, tobacco, and beer mingled, not unpleasantly—at least for a lover of bars. Taylor was one of those. The drinking weekend in New York traditionally began Thursday night and went on as long as any particular drinker could keep going—all the way until Wednesday morning for some. Then it started all over again. Eyes followed Taylor and Samantha to the bar. Northern Boulevard might be the busy main drag through the large neighborhood of Flushing, but the drinkers here, like in any New York bar, knew the locals. Knew who belonged in their place.

  Taylor ordered a Rolling Rock pony, as the seven-ounce bottles were called, and Samantha asked for a Schmidt. He left four singles on the bar, a big tip because he was planning to ask the bartender about the O’Malleys. Wasted money. Reflected in the mirror behind the bar was O’Malley at a table by the wall. No sign of the son, Tommy.

  Taylor went over with Samantha right behind. A glass and a bottle of Jameson sat on the table. O’Malley’s chin rested on his chest. Taylor doubted he was deep in thought. The stick O’Malley had used on Lucco leaned against the wall.

  Samantha appraised it. “A shillelagh. An Irish walking stick.”

  “More like an Irish hitting stick, from the way he used it.” Taylor turned around one of the chairs at the table and sat.

  “Oh they’re good for that too.” Samantha also took a seat. “See the knob at the end.” She pointed to the ligh
t-colored bulb at the top of the thick black rod. “Sometimes they fill it with lead. For a bit more smack.”

  “The way it knocked that goon to the ground, I believe it.”

  O’Malley’s head slowly rose. Tellingly, his eyes flicked to his weapon, though his hands remained in his lap. “You were at the house. Carl said you’re a reporter. Whaddya want with the death of my daughter?”

  “I was on the Harbor Precinct launch when the police brought her up.”

  “Give the man a fuckin’ prize.” The words slurred slightly. “Doesn’t mean I have to let you play vulture.”

  “I’m sorry about—”

  “Fuck off. You’re not sorry about anything.”

  “Least I want to tell her story. Cops, they’re worried about the perpetrator. The victim is a set of stats they pass on to the DA.”

  O’Malley poured two inches of Jameson into the glass and put it away in one gulp. This conversation wasn’t going to remain coherent for long, and information you got from drunks wasn’t worth a shit. A story was about the details, the facts. Drunks were bad at those.

  “Still think you’re full of shit. Don’t give a shit about the cops either. Go away.”

  “Why do you think your daughter was killed?”

  “Don’t have a clue.”

  “At Collucci’s, you made it sound like there’s a connection with his family. A narcotics detective told me Collucci might be associated with the Fronti organization. And you talked about keeping women out of the business. What business did you mean?”

  O’Malley’s hand gripped the shillelagh but his eyes were looking not at Taylor, but over the top of his head. Too late, Taylor realized there was someone behind him. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into Taylor’s neck. Time to get worried.

  “My son has returned from the pisser at the perfect moment,” O’Malley said. “Because you’re pissing me off. Sticking your vulture’s nose into my family business.”

  Taylor couldn’t help himself. “I get that this is about families.”