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And with that, Michael walked out of the room. I was shaking with anger. I tried to sit down, but there were swatches of cloth on the chair, left behind by Dewey’s tailor.

  I felt bad about endangering Ed and Dewey. I asked them to meet me in the conference room and told them I was sorry for almost getting Ed killed. Neither seemed concerned, and then Dewey said, “Look, Pepe had just killed Sprague, so we were going to have to pick him up anyway. It worked out just fine.”

  “Lieutenant Sprague, the dirty cop?” I asked. “When did he get killed?”

  “Yesterday,” Dewey replied. “Pepe went to his house in the morning when he was getting ready to go to work, slugged his wife when she answered the door, walked in and shot Sprague in the bathroom while he was shaving. Pepe’s a tough guy. He was on crutches and could hardly breathe when he blew Sprague’s brains out, all over the bathroom. That’s a tough guy, killing people while he’s on crutches and gasping for breath. I like that! I really like that!”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Don’t you read the papers? Michael made arrangements for Sprague to get a big promotion in the police department. Michael gave him all the credit for the Medalley case – the four spics we took down in Queens – hung it all on Sprague so he would get promoted. One of the little bastards we took down was Pepe’s son. Pepe Click-Click thought Sprague got his son killed and his promotion proved it. Just like Michael always says, when you’re guilty you assume the worst about other people. Michael could never forget a dirty cop. No need to go to court; what a mess that would be! Sprague died a hero. Pepe was just cleaning up early. Pepe was too hot-headed to have been any use to us anyway. Besides, did you see how ugly he was? I couldn’t stand to look at him.”

  It was all over, the big case that was really a small case, but really a big case. I had lost count of all the dead. Nothing had gone as planned, except that first night of the sting with Louie the G. That had gone like clockwork, but it set in motion a series of events that the devil himself could not create. I didn’t know Lieutenant Sprague that well, but could imagine crazy, ugly Pepe on a crutch shooting him in the bathroom all because Michael got him promoted. All these people dead … and all my fault.

  I had to get “organized,” as Dewey would say.

  Before I left the office I heard Dewey talking to Pike. Dewey complained that he didn’t want to go to the Medalley mansion the next morning to make arrests. It was Sunday and he had to go to church.

  Everyone, except Pike, knew this was nonsense. In the end Pike ordered him to go, but gave him his Cadillac to appease him, which was what Dewey wanted in the first place. Dewey was so smart and Pike so dumb that these pranks came easy. Dewey often tormented Pike and the other supervisors – to the never-ending amusement of the office. I heard Dewey tell Pike that he, Ed and Michael were going to the Medalleys’ mansion at noon to arrest them all, and he would take good care of his Cadillac.

  HOMECOMING

  Michael had already told me to stay home; it was over. Dewey told me the same thing, but I had to go. After all, Regina had hired me to protect her! This I had to do, not just for Regina or even Leah, but for myself. It was my fault that Jerry Ramirez was dead, the same way Mercedes got killed. In my drug-crazed mind Regina was a loving, beautiful woman, a mother who lost her innocent daughter. I had destroyed their home. I had killed Mercedes and ruined their lives. They had trusted me and now this trust was going to put them in prison or get them killed. I wanted to find Leah, tell her I was sorry and join her world, her peaceful, loving, simple world. None of this mattered to Michael. He could have Hermes, but not Regina and Leah.

  If I got there early I could get Leah out before all hell broke loose. I pulled up at the Medalley mansion at ten a.m. It was a bright, sunny, Sunday morning. As I drove through the gate I saw Hermes’ car parked in the middle of the driveway. The engine was still running. I walked in the front door and saw him slumped over in a chair, his white suit was wrinkled and spattered with blood. He got up from the chair, stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Do you know what I deed last night? Do you know what I deed?” he whispered to me.

  “No.” I mocked him: “Deed you go out drinking?”

  He was not impressed with my humor. “I keeled my brother. I keeled my leetle brother Orlando, me own brother.”

  It was odd that now he had an accent. I walked past him, past the fresh-cut flowers, the beautiful murals, the bubbling fountains – to find Regina.

  She was in the living room, wearing a magnificent gold-and-orange designer robe with green jade jewelry. I took her extended hand and we sat down for my “we must leave now” speech. Before I could start there was a horrible sound, so loud it echoed off the marble floor and vaulted ceilings. Over and over, there was a scream – “woo rahs, woo rahs” – like some kind of animal caught in a trap and in great pain.

  Suddenly the screaming was in the living room. Hermes crouched before us, one of the most frightening apparitions I had ever seen. His skin was completely red and his eyes bulged even redder. He squatted on the floor with clenched fists then jumped up and down like a giant red frog. Each time he squatted, he reached inside himself for all his strength to scream, “woo rahs, woo rahs.” The tendons in his neck stuck out so much his body seemed to lose shape. It was as if he was trying to lift a great weight each time as he squatted low and leaped up bellowing. Regina did not lose her composure for a second – but I did. I backed away from the screaming, hopping maniac and reached for my gun.

  Finally Hermes stopped, fell against a chair, and lay on the floor, looking up at us. He had ruined his voice, but still rasped “woo rahs, woo rahs.” Then, in a whisper, “Whores, whores, all whores.” Through his tearing, bloodshot eyes he glared at Regina. “Whores, they turned them all into whores.” He broke down crying, wiping his nose with his shirtsleeve and kneeling on the floor. “We were all proud, honorable, and now I have killed my little brother … then I find that all our honest people have been turned into whores, ratting and stealing from each other … turned into rats, rats for 90 Church! It’s your fault, you told me to kill my brother to protect the honor, you corrupted everything. Where is the glory now? Why did I listen to you? You are going to die, just like Orlando. I’m going to get a gun; you will die now, now!”

  Hermes rose to his feet and stumbled from the room, sobbing. He was coming back to kill both of us.

  I grabbed Regina’s hand and pulled her into Hermes’ study. I closed the study door and bolted it with the deadlock. We got behind Hermes’ desk and I grabbed the edge and pushed it over. It crashed in front of us on its side so we could hide behind it. Within minutes Hermes began banging on the door, screaming in Spanish. When he did speak English, all he could say was, “You fucking bitch! Let me in. I’m going to kill you. No one is going to protect you.”

  Regina was calm as ever. I pulled out my automatic and waited. Hermes continued to scream and bang on the door. Sooner or later he would find a way through and I had to be ready. With the extra clip I carried, I had twelve rounds to stop him and whomever he brought with him, but it didn’t seem enough.

  Regina held onto me like it was the proper thing to do in this type of situation. Then there was silence, a long silence. I thought Hermes had left, or perhaps was going around the side of the house to come in through the windows. I heard gunshots, a lot of gunshots, pistols, shotguns, on and on. Then silence. Regina and I waited in each other arms, waiting and staring at the door with my automatic pointed at whoever might come through it. But there was only more silence.

  Then all hell broke loose; the lock of the study door shattered into a thousand pieces, blowing chunks of wood all over the room, as the door banged open. Only a shotgun blast could cause so much damage so fast. I grabbed her hand and we retreated into the back room where I had seen her shadow on my first visit with Hermes. We stood in the sunroom holding each other, waiting for the inevitable. Then a black figure appeared; it was Michael in his floppy black hat and black suit, holdin
g his revolver, dead on, straight at me. I continued to point my automatic back at Michael, and then he said, “It’s over. It’s all over; she goes down now! They’re all going down. She goes down and so does your little friend!”

  “No, no!” I shook my head. “No!” And, as if I had sprung a leak in my brain, my mind filled with terrible images: the little boy in the wheelchair, the crying man without a hand at the pool, Hermes screaming and hopping about, Mercedes sitting in the car with her face blown off – the images kept coming and coming. Everything was my fault. I could not disappoint Regina. She was the only thing that made sense! She was the only thing that was decent! Somehow, someway if I could save Regina, all of this would be forgiven and forgotten. If somehow I could stop Michael it would help pay for all the things I’d done. Tears streamed down my face, but I managed to say, “No, I’ll kill you first, Michael. You’re not going to get her.”

  As we stood there pointing guns at each other, we heard Dewey in the next room with Hermes and Ed Silkey: “Herman, somebody told me there was a wall safe in here. Why, lookee here! Here it is! Aren’t you clever to hide it behind a picture? Why don’t you open it for us? No? No! Come on, Ed, let’s play catch with Herman.”

  Through the door I saw Hermes being thrown from one end of the room to the other, crashing against furniture, then the wall. I heard Dewey again, but in a high-pitched effeminate voice, “Look what you’ve done here, you’re breaking the furniture. Stop it, Ed, stop it.” Then there was another huge crash and Dewey’s high-pitched effeminate voice, “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve broken this beautiful table lamp. Look at this fine furniture. Stop it! Stop it!”

  Again Hermes went flying across the room, crashing into more furniture and glass, and then Dewey, in an even higher-pitched, mocking voice, said, “Stop it, Ed, you monster, you’re going to ruin all this nice furniture.” Then in a normal voice he said, “Take this asshole into the bathroom. Stand him in the shower. Beat him with the barrel of the shotgun. At least we’ll be able to save the carpet.”

  Michael and I just stood there, still pointing our guns at each other. Regina held me tight, so close that her tongue touched inside my ear as she whispered, “Kill him; kill him now before he kills you. He’s not your friend, I have millions; we’ll make a deal with the others, you’ll have Leah.”

  Then I heard Dewey’s mocking voice. “You see, Ed, now he wants to help us! Okay, Herman, if you insist, go ahead, show us what’s in the safe. How kind of you.”

  Then Dewey came into the room. He had a silver bowl in his hand. “You guys have got to try these flavored cashews; they’re great.” He dipped his fingers into the bowl, ate some and offered them to Michael. Michael ignored him. Then Dewey stepped between Michael and me and looked at my gun, now pointed at him. Still in his idiotic mocking voice, Dewey said, “Saaay, that’s a real pretty gun, never seen a blue gun that blue before. Where’d you get it? I bet it was expensive. Did someone give you that gun? Boy, I wish I had friends that gave me nice gifts.”

  Dewey’s face changed from a stupid, mocking grin to seriousness, and he said coldly, “Let her go, Michael, she’s just a stupid housewife in a cheap outfit. How do you think we’re going to report all this? Look what’s going on in the next room.”

  I could see Ed Silkey cleaning out the safe, stuffing money in a pillowcase ripped from the couch.

  Still looking at me, but talking to Michael, Dewey continued, “You see, Michael, when we got here we were too late. Regina had cleaned out the safe and run off, leaving poor Herman here to take the heat. She was cheating on him! You can’t trust these fancy women; it would be hard to find her in South America … Too bad she took all the drug money. Think about it Michael, it’s the only way we can write this up.”

  There was silence. Then Michael lowered his gun, turned away from me and said, “Okay, she walks.” Then he looked at Ed. “Ed, take her to the Idlewild airport, put her on the first plane to South America, buy her a coach ticket, one way.”

  I looked in Regina’s eyes and said, “You hired me for protection.”

  She stared back at me with disbelief. “I never hired you, Hermes did. He owed you money. I would never hire you; you were just another hard-on for my daughter.”

  Ed Silkey threw the bundle of money over his shoulder, then dragged Regina out of the room, headed for the car. Michael helped Hermes to his feet and followed Ed out through the broken door. Dewey, still eating nuts from the silver bowl, put his arm around me. I could still feel tears streaming down my face. I felt as if I had just awakened from a terrible dream. I wiped my face off.

  Outside on the front porch, in the bright sunlight, lay four bodies – the three house bodyguards and someone I had never seen before.

  Pike’s government Cadillac was in the driveway; the windshield and both side windows were shattered, and bullet holes dotted the hood. I looked at Dewey and said, “What happened here?”

  Dewey smiled. “You see, Michael knew you’d try to save Leah. She had you snowed just like the rest of those dumb spics. I staged that little scene yesterday over Pike’s car so you would hear us set the time. We needed a schedule. We knew you’d come early. We just waited for you down the road from the house. Then when we heard the screaming, we thought they were torturing you. Ed and I ran up to the side of the house, then Michael drove up in Pike’s car, and these assholes started shooting at the car. Ed and I took them all down from behind.”

  Michael pointed to my car. “Silkey, take her to the airport, off to South America with her.”

  I tried to comfort Regina. “Trust me, you’ll be free. Leah is safe, too.”

  Her cold gray eyes glared at me. “Trust you? Never! You’re a weak fool and a cokehead. You were just a hard-on for my daughter.”

  Silkey had heard enough. “Shut up and get in the car, bitch.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that.” Regina slapped Silkey across the face as hard as she could.

  Ed showed a slight twitch like avoiding the buzz of a fly. Dewey started giggling. With lightning speed Ed gave Regina an upper cut to the jaw that raised her off the ground. She landed on the hood of the car and slid down the fender like a rolling pile of mud. Dewey started laughing so hard he had to hold onto my shoulder. Then Ed grabbed her waistband and dragged her like a suitcase into the back seat. He got behind the wheel and started the car, waving good-bye to everyone, like he was in a parade.

  Standing on the porch next to the four dead bodies, Dewey looked at the bullet-ridden government car and yelled to Silkey, “Ed, when you get to the airport you’d better call Pike. Tell him there’s been an ‘incident’ at the Medalley house. No one got hurt, but a government car got damaged. He needs to get some people over here right away. He’s going to be pissed when he finds out it was his Cadillac that got trashed. This will be two this month for Pike. The Bureau doesn’t like that. They’ll probably ground him.”

  Silkey laughed and waved again. Then Michael, Hermes, Dewey, and I got into Hermes’ car and followed Silkey out of the Medalley estate.

  Michael was driving and I assumed we were going to the office; instead he turned off on Canal Street and headed toward Greenwich Village, where he pulled up in front of a small restaurant with a breakfast sign. Standing next to the front door I saw Agent Springfield, who had that smug, arrogant look of an FBI agent. When he saw us, he pulled out his gun and let it hang by his side. He talked into his lapel and I saw two other agents, not far from where we parked, react. Michael leaned over the back seat and said to Hermes, “This is where you get out. Someone is waiting. I think he’s going to buy you breakfast. Get out.”

  Still dazed, Hermes got out of the car. He walked slowly up to the restaurant door and Springfield opened it for him. I could see through the front window. Special Agent John McDermott was sitting alone at a table. When he saw Hermes, he stood up and waved to Michael.

  I got out of the car, too; I started to walk uptown through the hot Manhattan sun, on a “nothing goin
g on” Sunday morning.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SMALL-TOWN SPORT

  REHAB

  The Medalley case left my mind drifting. I couldn’t sort out all of the mistakes I’d made. I had no moral compass to guide me anymore. All I knew was that somehow, Michael had saved me … again. And I owed him, but I hated him for it.

  Weeks after the Bureau recognized me for my “brilliant undercover work” on the Medalley case, Michael came in early for the Monday morning agents’ meeting. Since Michael never came in the office before three-thirty in the afternoon, we all knew something bad had happened. Michael went into Blanker’s office; when he returned he was covering his face with a handkerchief, his eyes red and teary. He looked at us like he was lost, then walked out and down the hall to the elevators.

  Word spread quickly that Michael had been crying. The mood was like a funeral parlor when the agents assembled for the morning meeting. Blanker walked to the podium stone-faced. There was no “Good morning.” Instead, he said, “They shot Danny Cupp three times in the face yesterday at the boat dock.”

  Danny Cupp was Lollipop. Lollipop was the best. As Michael’s Mafia informant he had the most dangerous job in the world. I met him several times and he was incredibly handsome: blue eyes, blond hair, a great smile. When he worked undercover it was impossible for mob girlfriends or whores to hold back their deepest secrets. Michael encouraged him with this vile charm, so the case files were loaded with the fruits of his labor, harvested by lust and trust. Besides skimming a lot of drug money, no one really knew why Daniel Cupp was an informant or why he so often trusted Michael with his life. Michael always took a dedicated interest in protecting the identity of all his informants, but Lollipop’s death was very personal to Michael.

  Blanker gasped for breath, holding onto the podium with both hands. “No one volunteers information to us without protection. Do you hear? We have failed. He was killed on our boat, which is federal property, so the FBI’s on it. No one knows nothing. He was Michael’s number-one guy, responsible for many cases, including the Louis Turko case. Without Cupp, Turko’s going to walk.” Then he walked out.