Orange juice,” says Alto, turning to the bartender. He has his NYPD shield in his right hand, in case the cocktail virtuoso thinks about making him wait. The badge has the desired effect and the elaborately mustachioed bartender pauses in his twirling of a silver shaker long enough to pour a good-sized glug of freshly squeezed orange juice into a tall glass. He adds two straws, a spray of mint, and a paper umbrella, places the creation on a plastic tray, and brings it over to where Alto has slumped down in the chair opposite McAvoy.
“On the house,” says the bartender, smiling. He reveals teeth that are no strangers to hand-rolled cigarettes.
“Kind of you,” says Alto.
“And you, sir? Another?”
McAvoy looks at his coconut shell, and for a moment it makes him think of a hollowed-out skull. He is unaccustomed to such grisly imaginings and shakes the thought away before he visibly shudders. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“I love your accent,” says the bartender, taking the empty shell. “I went to Edinburgh once. Wonderful city, though it’s all uphill. What is it they call New Year? Hogmanay? Best party of my life . . .”
McAvoy feels a sudden urge to take the man’s face in his fist and close his mouth. He wants him to go away. Wants to shake Alto by the ankles until everything he knows comes tumbling out of his mouth like coins from a pocket.
“Really? I went to university there for a while. Beautiful city and very welcoming. Do you think you’ll go back?”
McAvoy hears himself speaking and hates himself more with every word. Just once, he would like to find the strength of character to be rude. Alto comes to his rescue. “We’ll catch up later, sir. For now, my friend and I need some privacy.”
The bartender gives a nod. He understands. He’s seen it all before. He walks away without another word.
“Why do you indulge them?” asks Alto, removing the flamboyant additions to his drink and dropping them on the tabletop. “It’s okay to tell people to fuck off.”
“Courtesy,” says McAvoy without thinking about it. “Manners. Basic niceness. I don’t like being rude. Boarding school put the varnish on the lessons of my father.”
“You’ll never get any peace.”
“Okay, I’ll be rude now. What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The files Trish is going through. That’s some proper police work. People have investigated Molony before and you’ve given them to a virtual stranger. And why aren’t you raiding Molony’s house? How did you get me a sit-down with the leader of the Mob? I might be a stranger but I didn’t come down the river on a water biscuit, my friend. Who’s got their hands on my steering wheel?”
Alto looks as though he is about to protest, then stops himself. He removes his glasses and polishes them on his napkin. When he puts them back on, his eyes look crisp and clear.
“I haven’t been totally honest,” says Alto, and gives in to a laugh at the level of understatement. “Where do I begin, Aector? You know I have a connection to the Italians, that much I’ve been honest about. But, look, this business works on favors. And when I was in Homicide, Pugliesca and Savoca were good friends to have. We were concerned about who was killing street dealers. We were preoccupied with innocent people getting caught up in the fallout from organized crime. We had a sort of arrangement . . .”
“A deal?”
“Not a deal,” says Alto defensively. “Not for money or anything like that. But when they could, the Italians slipped us a name or two. They helped make sure that bad people got put away. They didn’t inform, never gave evidence, but they were useful.”
“And in return you turned a blind eye,” says McAvoy quietly.
Alto shakes his head. “You don’t get it,” he says. “Making a case stick—it’s years of manpower. It’s wiretaps and warrants and so much money you could weep. You don’t turn a blind eye—you just prioritize differently. And that’s what I did at Homicide South. The feds were responsible for bringing down the Mob and I was just a detective who had some good contacts. Hell, I was invited to mobsters’ weddings and baptisms. And you hear things. If people get drunk enough and relaxed enough, they talk. And that’s when I heard about the man who helped them hide their money. Some lawyer. Some ex-priest who’d sold his soul to the Mob. That was it, I swear to you, but when I left Homicide I had no reason not to rock the boat and I did a little digging. Hugh, too. We thought he would be a good collar. Everybody loves taking down a lawyer, don’t they? We unearthed something that we didn’t know what to do with. Seminary records, psychiatric reports, medical files. We got down a few layers and found a name.” Alto looks McAvoy in the face. “I got warned off. It was subtle, nothing you could point to and call a threat, but I would get home and my wife would tell me she had heard noises, or that she felt she’d been followed on her drive to work. Files saved on my computer just vanished. I started getting all the shittiest jobs. Detectives I’d never met before were suddenly getting partnered up with me and they had accounts at racetracks and bars all over the city where there was always good credit for a man with a badge. I started drinking. I drank a lot. And after that I didn’t care much about a lawyer who was helping the Mob hide their cash because my wife had left me and I was a drunk who nobody listened to anyway. It took me a long time to get myself together and then suddenly I’ve got you in front of me with stories about dead Irishmen and devious priests. I used you for Murray Ellison. I got the collar that mattered. So I wanted to repay you by helping out, and as soon as I did any digging I found the arrows pointing to Peter Molony. The same Peter Molony who had almost undone me when I first started digging. I didn’t know whether to tell Hugh or Pugliesca or the feds. So I’ve done nothing. I’ve bumbled along, hoping you would do it all for me, and I’ve sent everything I’ve got to your boss because she seems strong enough to make the decisions I can’t.”
Alto’s shoulders slump. His lips become a tight line.
“She will,” says McAvoy quietly. “So will I. And if you ask me honestly, I couldn’t tell you whether I think you’ve done good or bad. But I know that there’s a way to do something important, and I think you want to help me.”
Alto looks at him. Manages a flash of a smile.
“You need to pick up Molony,” says McAvoy decisively.
Alto shakes his head. He sits back in his chair. “Forget that a moment. Listen to me, Aector. I’m going to tell you something and I’m going to trust you to do nothing stupid with the information, okay? I think we know where Valentine is.”
McAvoy spreads his hands. His skin is prickling. He feels as though it is snowing inside the bar, as if everything has turned and switched and he is sitting in the middle of the street at a metal table, chatting with a friend in the face of onrushing traffic.
“Tell me.”
“He was never there,” says Alto, sighing. “Cairo, I mean. Never with Brishen and Shay at the scene of the attack.”
McAvoy cocks his head. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands so just sits on them, like a schoolboy frightened of getting into trouble for picking his nose.
“The man we picked up,” says Alto. “His name is Zav. He’s Chechen. A soldier for Sergey Volotov. The Chechens and the Ukrainians are all part of the same lovely party at the moment. Things are peaceful out at Brighton Beach. We don’t even know what to call most of the motherfuckers who run that part of town. Just think of it as Russian Mob, and you’ll get halfway there. Anyway, this afternoon Zav succeeded in chewing through the arm of a friend with whom he had been tortured in a Brooklyn basement. Zav was also the passenger in the car that picked you up last night. The description he gave of his captor matches what Polina said—an older Italian male with poor teeth and bad skin. He shot Zav full of holes and asked him a lot of questions about the night Shay was killed. Zav held out for a time but eventually he broke. And now Zav can’t go back to Volotov. So he’s come to us. The feds have arrived and I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to talk to him again. But I had him alone for long enough to ask about that night. He’s holding back until he gets the right deal from the feds but he’s in a fragile state and he responded to a bit of pressure.”
McAvoy scratches at his beard. Gray dust spirals down like snow.
“There was a fight,” says Alto. “An underground boxing match between Helden and Byki. High stakes, big purse.”
McAvoy starts to shake his head, refusing to believe Brishen Ayres would allow his protégé to involve himself in the brutality of the underground circuit. Then he stops himself, knowing his own preconceptions to be self-erected barriers between himself and the truth.
“It went the distance,” says Alto. “It wasn’t as open-and-shut as everybody expected. After fifteen rounds the crowd started getting bored. There were complaints. The organizers decided to spice things up. They told Ayres his man had to take the gloves off. It was going to be bare-knuckle. Ayres said no, but Helden didn’t want to let his coach down and he pulled the gloves off. Went after Byki like a madman. Some of the crowd started getting involved. That’s when Valentine stepped in.”
McAvoy looks at the tabletop. The drips of spilled drink look at him like a melted face, ghoulish and dead-eyed.
“Valentine laid out two of the Chechen boys in the crowd. The whole thing broke down. Ayres, Helden, and Valentine had to run for their fucking lives.”
McAvoy can picture it. Can scent the whole damn scene, with its sweat and blood and smelling salts, its reek of male skin and beer.
“Zav watched it all,” says Alto. “They’d enjoyed every moment of it, even if there was no clear winner. There were no plans to take out Ayres. Helden had fought well.”
“Until . . . ?”
Alto gives a halfhearted laugh. “Valentine came back a while later. Walked straight in, bold as you like. He was bleeding from the mouth. He was high on something. And he demanded the prize money.”
McAvoy feels his heart beat faster, as though it is swelling in his chest. He can picture his brother-in-law so clearly. Wishes he could not.
“One of the Russian captains told Valentine he admired him for having balls of solid rock, but warned him he had better fuck off. Valentine didn’t do as he was told. He pulled a gun.”
“A gun? Where did he get a gun?”
“Zav claims that he must have taken it from one of the Chechens during the bout. Either way, he put his gun to the head of one of the men present and threatened to blow his brains out if he wasn’t paid.”
“Did they care?” asks McAvoy, shocked.
“They wouldn’t have, but the guy he happened to be threatening was Chebworz Khamzateyev,” says Alto resignedly.
McAvoy looks blank. “I’m sorry . . .”
“His father is about as high up in the Obshchina as you can get.”
“The what?”
“The fucking Chechen Mafia,” says Alto testily. “He’s important, okay? He’s the son of an important man and he’s pretty ruthless himself. And Valentine put a gun to his head.”
“Christ.”
“Christ indeed. These fucking Irish! They’re just not scared.”
“Ronnie, tell me the rest.”
“Valentine must have realized he was onto something because the mobsters dropped their guns. Zav saw his captain throw an envelope of money at Valentine’s feet. But Chebworz wasn’t frightened of him. Called him an Irish pussy. Told him to shoot him if he had the balls. Valentine slapped him in the mouth with the gun. He picked up the money and ran.”
McAvoy realizes he is bouncing on the balls of his feet beneath the table. He feels as though he is watching the whole thing unfold before him.
“And?”
“They went after him,” says Alto. “Chebworz in the lead, threatening all sorts of things. That’s when Brishen and Shay Helden arrived.”
McAvoy puts his head in his hands.
“Zav saw them shouting for Valentine to jump in the car. Chebworz shot him.”
“Shot Val?”
“Clipped him, Zav says. Valentine fell and Chebworz’s men grabbed him. So Brishen drove straight at them. Chebworz took the brunt of it. Helden jumped out, grabbed Chebworz, and threw him in the car. Valentine made a run for it, but then the bullets started flying and Brishen drove out of there like the tailpipe was on fire.”
“With Chebworz in the car?”
Alto nods. “It got messy very quickly. The Chechens picked up Valentine within the hour, limping and bleeding and still threatening them with all kinds of hell.”
“And the others?”
“The Chechens rallied the troops. They were all set to unleash unholy hell on the Irishmen. Then Brishen got in touch with his contact—the man who had set up the fight. He told him to get the message to the Chechens that they wanted Valentine returned unharmed and all the money he was owed.”
“And what did the Chechens say?”
“They said yes. Culturally, they admire that kind of thing, if you’ll forgive the generalization.”
“So what happened?”
“They arranged a meet that same night. Neutral place in the Village. The Chechens showed, the Irishmen didn’t.”
“This was the evening of the shootings? The night Shay died?”
“By the time they were due to meet the Chechens, we know for certain that Brishen and Shay were already miles upstate, being shot to pieces by whoever did this to them.”
McAvoy is breathing heavily. He gives in to a fit of coughing as he aggravates his wounded throat.
“Next morning, Chebworz phoned his father from a rest stop about eight miles from where all this shit went down. He’d got himself free. He demanded they come and pick him up. He’d been thrown in the trunk and driven upstate. Been gagged and tied. Next thing, he’s hearing curses and shots and the trunk is thrown open by a young Italian male who must have been Luca Savoca. From the way he tells it, the Italians had no fucking clue he was there. Only found him because they were looking for a tire iron. Luca dragged him out on some forest road. Blackness and snow and trees and two Italians pointing guns in his face. Brishen and Shay were on their knees, hands behind their backs, battered and bleeding. Brishen’s face was a mess—a hole where his nose should be. Chebworz saw it all. When they pulled the gag free, he started cursing the Italians—telling them he was important and that if this was a setup, there would be war. Luca just laughed. Started hitting him. Showed him the blade he had used on the bleeding Irishmen. It broke down. Shay ran. Chebworz ran, too. Shots were fired. They went after him. He got the upper hand and rammed Luca onto a tree. Left the other guy bleeding. Then he ran. Ran until he reached a rest stop and called his men.”
“And the people he left behind?” asks McAvoy softly.
“The older Italian must have tidied up as best he could,” says Alto.
McAvoy takes a moment to digest it all. “So they still have him. Valentine.”
“If they haven’t cut off his hands, face, and feet and dumped him in the river,” says Alto, who suddenly looks apologetic. “That’s their MO. That’s what they do.”
“But they could still have him,” says McAvoy, hardly moving his jaw.
“Zav says that as of last night, Valentine was still alive, but who knows what’s happened since then. It’s clear that whatever relationship was blossoming between the Chechens and the Italians, something has gone horribly wrong.”
“How much can we trust what your witness is saying? Maybe the whole thing was a setup. If Brishen was short of money, they could have found a way to lure the Italians to the middle of nowhere and then Cheb could have killed them. Or Brishen took some money from the Italians to grab Chebworz. The Irishmen may just have been collateral damage.” He locks his jaw. “Why won’t people just stop lying?”
Alto smiles contritely. “Either way, we no longer have an informant in the organization. The feds may have moles in the Italian Mob, but if they do, they’re not sharing that information with NYPD. This whole thing will be bundled up into an organized crime investigation and you and I will have nothing more to do with it. If we raid Molony’s place, we may find nothing but a lot of dust and some name tags.”
“And Valentine . . .” protests McAvoy.
“Could be anywhere,” says Alto kindly. “Or nowhere. All we have is the word of one Chechen soldier who will do and say anything to save his own life.”
McAvoy rocks in his chair, trying to find the words to express himself. His face flushes. “Where was the fight?” he asks, and his accent becomes more pronounced. He sounds like a Scottish chieftain wanting to know who raided his clan’s land. “Where does Chebworz hang out? All we have to do is put some pressure on him. They have no need for Valentine. If we could guarantee there would be no prosecution—”
Alto gives a harsh laugh. “No prosecution? This is the Chechen Mob. They’re not scared of anything. There’s no benefit to them admitting they’ve got him. There’s nothing in it for them.”
McAvoy looks long and hard at Alto.
“You’ve already helped me a lot,” says McAvoy. “I can’t ask you for any more. So I won’t ask you to tell me where I should go to find Chebworz. I’ll just blunder around, asking people who look vaguely Russian, and eventually, somebody will tell somebody else and I’m sure they’ll come and find me. That way, your conscience will be clear.”
Alto shakes his head. “Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. There are a dozen ways to get an address. My colleagues at home have a special relationship with some of your colleagues. So don’t trouble yourself.”
Alto looks pained. “You can’t just go and ask them if they’ve killed him.”
McAvoy finds himself smiling, even as his heart races and he feels fear wrap around his insides. “He’s my wife’s brother,” says McAvoy. “He’s why I’m here. Everything else is none of my business, however much I feel the urge to make it so. If there’s a chance of taking him home with me, I’ll take it.”
“They’ll kill you,” says Alto flatly.
“Why? I’m no threat. I don’t want to arrest anybody. I just want to clear up a misunderstanding.”
Alto looks at his glass, clearly wishing it was full to the brim with something that would pitch him into a coma.
“What about Molony?” says Alto. “Everything we saw there this afternoon. Valentine’s tooth. This is so much bigger than a fight gone wrong.”
“Yes, it is,” says McAvoy. “And you can investigate all of it. I’ll help, if you want me to. But right now, Valentine is what matters. In fact, no, my wife is what matters. Valentine is an angry little rat without a redeeming feature, but bringing him home will make Roisin happy, and that’s all I bloody live for, so that’s what I’m going to try and do.”
Alto takes a notebook from his pocket and scribbles an address. “Don’t do it,” he says, standing up and looking at McAvoy as if he is saying good-bye to a prisoner. “There are better ways.”
McAvoy folds the paper and puts it in his pocket.
“The apartment,” he says. “Molony’s. There’s enough to pick him up. Somebody shot Brishen and Shay. Whether any of it is to do with Molony is something I can’t answer, but I don’t think we’d be particularly good police officers if we didn’t ask questions about the names, the ashes, and his link to Brishen. My boss reckons you’re using me. I hope not. Either way, I can’t just wash my hands of all this blood and dirt. Neither can you.”
Alto gives a curt nod. He leaves without another word. As the door bangs behind him, another flurry of shredded angel wings fills the bar.
McAvoy unfolds the piece of paper. Gives the tiniest nod. He knows, for a fraction of a second, who he is and what he is for.
A minute later, he leaves the warm embrace of the Pink Pug and steps into blackness and snow, yellow lights and swirling trash.
He turns to face the gale, feeling the last of the ash and bone lift from his skin to tumble away upon the screeching wind.