turned the girls against me. They never call or write and when I make plans to visit, they’re always away.”
“Why not sell the house? Even with the downturn in the market, you could get big money for it.”
“What would I do with my boat? You know how much it would cost me to keep her somewheres else?”
I dropped it and turned on news radio. I could see the conversation was upsetting him and I needed him to be on his game. On the other hand, a bit of surliness probably wouldn’t hurt since I had no intention of making nice to the people on Martyr’s list. If we needed to twist arms, we weren’t going to do it metaphorically. I told Jimmy as much. He didn’t blink.
The radio filled the car with the usual background noise. Retailers were hoping for a big holiday shopping season. There was that phrase again. There was a war in Iraq. No kidding? Another one in Afghanistan. Gee, I almost forgot. John Lennon was dead for twenty-six years. I paid attention to that story. Lennon used to shop at City On The Vine when he wanted to buy gifts of fancy wine for friends. I remembered the time he came into the store near closing and playfully ripped Paul McCartney’s songwriting skills. I keep the picture of John and me on the wall in my office. I hadn’t looked at it for a very long time. I needed to look to remind myself that time passes and we leave things behind, even some things we shouldn’t. Then, I thought, that wasn’t really true, not for me. That’s what other people did. I never really leave anything behind, ever. On more than one occasion, I wished I could.
What I didn’t hear on the radio was anything new about Sashi Blunt-stone. I knew Sarah hadn’t lied to me, but I wondered if she had been lied to. It was pretty clear to me that Max and Candy weren’t exactly reliable and were fairly desperate. Generally speaking, that’s not a good combination. Was it possible they were so hard up for money that they concocted the ransom demand just to squeeze cash out of their friends? Everyone else seemed willing to use Sashi’s disappearance to their own ends, why not her parents? In my life I had seen the best in people, but I’d seen plenty more of the worst. If Max and Candy had manufactured the ransom demand, it would set an all-time low and would go a long way in convincing me that the bottom is much deeper than the top is high.
Then my cell phone rang and McKenna saved me from myself.
“Yeah.”
“Your hunch was right on, Prager. They paid fifty grand. Dropped it in a garbage can up in a state park in Huntington.”
“Why aren’t I hearing about it on the news?”
“We’re going big with it tomorrow: a 1:00 PM press conference, new AMBER Alerts, whole nine yards. You wanna be there?”
“Nah. I’ve been a part of those circuses before and it always comes back to bite me.”
“I figured I’d ask.”
“And I appreciate that. Aren’t you even a little worried that this may force the guy’s hand? He may panic and-”
“Wasn’t really my decision. The brass took it upon themselves to make the rest of the world think we’re doing something besides chasing our own tails. Anyway, my bet is the kid’s dead and no matter what we do or don’t do, it won’t matter, but maybe this way we can at least flush the bastard out of hiding.”
I said, “You may be right.”
“But what if I’m not?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? If it’s any comfort to you, McKenna, I know what that particular purgatory is like.”
“I’ll let you know if it helps. By the way,” he said before I could click off my Bluetooth, “if you think I believe in hunches, look under your pillow tonight and maybe you’ll find five dollars.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you should thank your daughter for standing up and you have my word I’ll keep her name out of this.”
He hung up.
“What’s going on?” Jimmy wanted to know.
“I guess I might as well tell you since the story’s gonna hit tomorrow.”
“What story?”
“Sashi Bluntstone’s disappearance was a kidnapping after all. There was a ransom demand and a partial payoff that the parents didn’t bother telling the cops about. We better get lucky tonight, because things are about to change. The cops are gonna try and flush the kidnapper out.”
Jimmy fell silent. He understood what I understood. This might be our last best chance to make things happen before all hell broke loose.
Well, so much for brick manor houses and nice suburban homes on secluded streets. John Tierney’s place gave shitboxes a bad name. Way at the ass end of Gerritsen Beach, the water lapping at the back deck, the deep color of the siding more a product of black mold than of dark paint, the rickety old house looked to be a single snapped nail away from total collapse. Jimmy took one look at the state of the house, the aluminum foil covering the upstairs windows and the plywood covering what should have been the downstairs windows and doors, and said: “Abandoned?”
“Seems that way,” I agreed, but shook my head no, pointing up at the nearest utility pole. It didn’t take an electrician to see that somebody had hacked into the local electrical supply and cable service. “Come on, let’s go,” I said loud enough for anyone in the house to hear.
We got in the car, drove down the block, and turned the corner. We parked.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Jimmy said. “If this is the guy’s address, why’s he living like a squatter?”
“Good question. Let’s go get some answers.”
Two minutes later, Jimmy Palumbo and I were working our way back down the street on foot, using parked cars and light poles for cover. When I reached the corner of the vacant lot abutting Tierney’s shithole, I cut towards the water and crept along the shore towards the back deck. From there, I moved to the side porch. I hadn’t grown up very far from here. In fact, I didn’t live more than ten minutes from where I now stood, but Gerritsen Beach had always been a bit of a mystery to me, kind of like Breezy Point in Rockaway. My dad used to call Breezy Point the Irish Riviera because it was a tight-knit enclave of cops and firemen on the water at the western end of Rockaway. It was a different world. This part of Gerritsen Beach had been blue collar Irish when I was a kid. And not unlike Jimmy Palumbo’s house, the places around here had access to the water and the Atlantic was just on the other side of the Belt Parkway.
The plan was for me to get into the house and either grab Tierney or flush him out into Jimmy Palumbo’s welcoming arms. Too bad Tierney had different ideas. When I was about two steps up on the stairs to the side porch, a human tornado bowled me over, sending my. 38 flying and my head bouncing off the railing.
“Fuck!”
Then there was a splash. I turned and saw someone swimming furiously in the dark water. With my brain rattled and night having fallen, keeping track of the swimmer wasn’t easy. Jimmy tore past me, dropping his Sig by me as he went. Christ, I thought, he must have been tremendously fast for a big man when his knees actually worked. There was another splash, a louder one, and he too disappeared into the darkness. I got up, brushed myself off, collected the guns, and tried to get my head back on straight. I was too old for this shit. I had a nice lump under my hair, just above my right ear. Less than a minute later, Jimmy emerged from the water, dragging the exhausted John Tierney by the scruff of his neck.
“Come on, bring him inside.”
The interior of Tierney’s place was a time capsule, an eerie cross between a crypt and cathedral. It reeked of mold and mildew and it was cold enough so that we could see our own breath. The furniture was turn-of-the- century stuff, but in immaculate shape. The seat cushions were protected by heavy duty plastic slipcovers that had yellowed with the years. There were delicate lace curtains hanging on the inside of the boarded windows, dusty fringed lampshades, and white lace doilies under porcelain knickknacks. And there were crucifixes… everywhere. Jesus Christ suffered a lot in here. His passion was the central design theme. Every available inch of wall space was covered in paintings of haloed saints, all with appropriately beatific smiles and prayerful hands. Only these saints all bled from the ears and their eyes were solid black. John Tierney’s handiwork, I imagined. We dragged Tierney upstairs, but he was getting some of his strength back and struggled a bit. One smack in the back of the head from Jimmy calmed him right down. Tierney babbled incoherently and crossed himself constantly. The babbling was a jumble of Latin prayers sprinkled with a few recognizable words, names, and phrases. He seemed rather fond of the
