A Darker Shade of Blood Read online

  We agreed, and Lucey left.

  I didn’t tell the Congressman-elect, but I planned to get advice from Al Flanagan and my father.

  Al Flanagan worked for the District Attorney in the Major Offense Bureau. We had worked together, and I admired his network of contacts and his toughness. In his world, everyone turned to him for help. He was often in charge of work outside his normal job description.

  My father, on the other hand, was a professional killer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was on Route 25A in East Setauket, right near where Nicolls Road ended. The Dining Car 1890 was made up of a bunch of railroad cars from the turn of the century. There was a central structure. Old people ate there for nostalgia. Young children came because they thought the place liked like a giant toy. The food was pretty good. Flanagan once told me he liked it because as a child he had set up train tracks and a whole toy community.

  Flanagan was late, so I ordered a coke and sat pretending I was back in Victorian times. I looked at the customers and stared out the window and at all the railroad memorabilia on the wall. I was hoping my railroad car would move, but the owners had decided to play it safe.

  “You look like a kid dreaming of riding through the countryside to freedom.”

  I looked up. I had seen Flanagan only weeks earlier but somehow his face looked redder, as though sickness was looking for a home there. He was one of those people who was five times as smart as he looked. He was perfect for law enforcement.

  “I’m not really dreaming of taking a train to freedom,” I said. “Cars, trains, planes, boats. You can keep them. I like walking. Not hiking. That’s going too fast, using nature to get someplace or to exercise. I like to walk slowly, stop, look at the flowers and the mountains and the sky.”

  “Hey, Ryle, here’s a tip. Don’t ever say that to another cop.”

  I shrugged. “You’re with the D.A. I hear they’re very sensitive in that office.”

  Flanagan nodded. “Sure we are. Just ask the criminals.”

  A waiter came over.

  Flanagan didn’t have to look at the menu. He ordered a sirloin steak and spent two minutes explaining exactly how he wanted it broiled.

  “Tell me you still serve Michelob in a frosted mug.”

  “We do, sir. It’s on draught.”

  “My mouth’s already watering.”

  “We have plenty of napkins for such emergencies, sir.”

  Flanagan smiled.

  I ordered some Sole Veronique, which came with white wine sauce, green grapes, and mushrooms. It was a French dish. This choice did not improve Flanagan’s impression of me.

  “What’s this emergency you mentioned on the phone? You turning your father in?”

  “My father is enjoying his retirement. He tends his garden.”

  “I’d bet he has bodies buried under that garden.”

  “Not a one has turned up yet, Flanagan.”

  “Okay. So, again, why am I here other than for the steak and your always enjoyable company?”

  “Let’s say I have a friend.”

  “That’s already hard to believe.”

  “Use your imagination.”

  “Okay. You have a friend who likes walking and speaking to the flowers.”

  “I didn’t say I spoke to flowers.”

  “You didn’t say you didn’t speak to them.”

  “So I have a friend.”

  “Is your friend you?”

  “No. I’m not ten years old, Flanagan. This friend is a real friend.”

  “Let’s say I believe you.”

  “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”

  “What’s wrong with your friend? Other than his choice of friends?”

  “Let’s say for...”

  We were interrupted by train whistles, chugs, and clickity clacks. We waited until the soft Dixieland jazz was piped in again.

  I continued.

  “Let’s say my friend is being blackmailed.”

  “And that’s why the Good Lord created police departments.”

  “My friend can’t go to the police.”

  “Ah. Your friend knows your father.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He can’t do the right thing and go to the cops.”

  “And your question is, what should he do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Frame the blackmailer for an unrelated crime. Plant heroin in his car and have a friend call the police saying they saw him put it there and say where it’s parked.”

  “You ever do that, Flanagan?”

  “Yeah. One time. Guy was guilty of a thousand crimes. We couldn’t get him for jaywalking much less the stuff he really did. He was dangerous to young women who lived alone. So we helped justice along. Gave justice a giant push. The gentleman is now enjoying all the pleasures of prison life upstate. I’ve heard he’s having a tough time. That brings me to tears.”

  “You could have gotten into a lot of trouble.”

  “Not with myself. I slept real good after that guy was dragged away.”

  “Let’s say I’m not going to frame the blackmailer.”

  “Then pay and hope for the best.”

  “That’s not much help, Flanagan.”

  The meals came, and we took some time out. Flanagan looked like a medieval warrior attacking a cow as he went after his steak.

  He stopped midway and said, “You want me to have the blackmailer arrested?”

  “On what charge?”

  “On the charge of being annoying. That’s three years in this state. The truth is, we should have done that to your father.”

  “He had lawyers who would have made your office look stupid. He is not the sort of man who backs down from a fight.”

  “No. I guess not. I told you once, I know cops who admire him. They look over his list of victims, the ones we know at least, and they say we should give the guy an award for sweeping the streets.”

  “I’m going to see him after we’re finished. Anything you want me to tell him?”

  “No. He’s retired. We can’t catch him now. Maybe there’s an afterlife. I don’t believe in it but I tell you, Ryle, when I see some of the criminals we’ve prosecuted I just have this basic hope that some kind of nasty punishment for eternity is there waiting for them. Anyway, what about your blackmailer?”

  “I’m first going to talk to the blackmailer. But I appreciate your offer to do an arrest. Let me see what’s possible and then I’ll be in contact with you if necessary.”

  We talked some more. It was football season so we talked about that. Flanagan told me some war stories and we talked about the case we had worked on together.

  Then I got up to leave to see my father.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Not every day, but as many as I could I would stop for a hot chocolate and a doughnut. Since the place I went was on the way to my father’s, I stopped in. My friend, Gypsy Davy, was sitting in his wheelchair outside the store.

  “Hey, Dave,” I said. “You feeling better?”

  “Comes and goes, Danny.”

  I didn’t know Davy’s last name. He once told me he had flown Hueys in Viet Nam and had been shot down near Da Nang. From then on, he lived his life in a wheelchair.

  When I was done with my hot chocolate and doughnut, I ordered an egg sandwich and a steaming hot cup of coffee. Then I took them outside and gave them to Gypsy Davy.

  “You keep doing this, Danny, people will think I got something on you.”

  “That’s okay, Dave. You look like you got that new coat.”

  “You gave me enough for two coats, but a man’s gotta keep warm inside too if you know what I mean.”

  “That liquor will kill you, Dave.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be happy when I go.”

  We said good-bye, and I was off.

  It was only when I was older that I realized my father never talked about his past. It was a kid in school, someone who liked pushing other kids, who told me my father had been a killer.
The schoolboy said my father had killed thirty-eight people although where he got that number I don’t know. I was confused when I first heard it. I was afraid to ask my father, so I spoke to my uncle. He said I should forget about it, that my father loved my mother and took good care of us, and that was what counted.

  In high school, I noticed some kids stayed very far away from me. I also noticed some girls who didn’t know me walked up to me and asked for dates. A teacher once mocked an answer I gave in English class. He apologized the next day.

  All this confused me until I decided it was time to talk directly with my father.

  He was watching a comedy show. I sat down and watched it with him. After it ended, I said, “Dad, can I ask you a personal question?”

  He sighed, as though he knew this conversation was inevitable but still one he didn’t want to have.

  So he didn’t.

  “I don’t talk about personal matters, Danny. You got trouble with somebody, you tell me. You need some money, you tell me. But the past, that stays in the past.”

  I didn’t want to say I disagreed with him, because I wasn’t sure if he believed what he even said about the past. I thought maybe he just didn’t want to tell me.

  Instead of hearing from my father, then, I began collecting stories from others. These stories might have been made up or misremembered or malicious lies meant to hurt my father, or the absolute truth. There was no way I could tell.

  My father shot a man just because he didn’t like the way the man looked. He shot a man who had fought with my father when they were both children. He was hired to kill an accountant, another killer, a doctor who had botched an operation, and a hundred variations of this basic story of my father as killer.

  One day my mother sat me down.

  “Danny, you’ve heard stories about your father, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. Not very good stories.”

  “I suppose not. He’s a good man. Those were different days. He came back from the war and he was not well. The only job he could get was hurting bad people. He never shot a woman or a child. He just shot bad people. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Remember that. Your father is very good to you, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know he would never hurt you?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I told her I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

  And she never talked of his past again.

  Some years after my mother died of pancreatic cancer, my father moved to Sag Harbor. He never dated another woman after my mother’s death. He never got over the fact that she wasn’t there.

  He chose Sag Harbor because it was quiet. There were maybe 2,000 residents in the winter and perhaps 10,000 in the summer. It was, after all, right near the Hamptons. I lived with my father when I was in High School. There were twenty-eight people in my graduating class.

  My father walked down to Main Street each morning When I walked with him, I noticed very few people spoke with him. Some suddenly realized they were going the wrong way and turned around. He’d get a paper. I knew he wanted to have a cup of coffee, but he knew his going into a restaurant would make some of the customers nervous, so he would take the paper and read it at home sipping his own coffee.

  We started the conversation in our usual way, with me bringing him up to date about my brother and sister and their families. They never spoke to him.

  Then he said, “What’s this about blackmail, Danny?”

  “Someone I know is being blackmailed.”

  “You mean Ken Lucey?”

  There was no point in lying to my father or evading his question. He was far too smart. I had a small reputation in politics as someone who could see around corners. I didn’t tell anyone, but I had inherited the skill from my father.

  “Yes, the Congressman-elect did something illegal, and someone else involved is now blackmailing him.”

  “You want to tell me the whole story?”

  I hesitated. I trusted my father, but if word about this got out, Lucey’s political life was over and so was mine.

  “The whole story is he paid a woman for her baby and now she wants money or she’ll tell her story.”

  He sat back. His eyes wandered over to the flowers. They calmed him, he once told me, the way the ocean’s roar did, the way his wife’s face once did.

  I looked at him. “How do I handle it? What do I say to her?”

  My father sat thinking for a few minutes.

  “What you say to her depends on her attitude, on what she says to you. So listen first. In the old days, no one would do that to a Congressman, even one not in office yet. The Congressman would send someone around.”

  “To kill her?”

  “To threaten her. But not in a nice way. A beating. A listing of the various punishments that awaited her if she spoke. We didn’t go around killing everyone. Not even everyone who deserved it. Anyway, at first be calm. Be her friend. You’re going to reach a deal. She’ll get some money. But, Heaven help her if she asks for more or ever talks.”

  “Then we’ll always have this threat hanging over us.”

  “And that’s why some blackmailers were killed.”

  “Can I speak with you after I’ve talked with her?”

  “You can speak to me anytime up until fifteen minutes after I die. I’ll have a few final words to utter after death.”

  “I bet you will, Dad.”

  “Did that girl ever come back? The one you like whose father had that store in Patchogue?”

  Rebecca Roth. I couldn’t say I loved her. I’d say my feelings overwhelmed me when I looked at her. She looked at me and had no such feelings. She left Long Island, and I didn’t know if she was coming back.

  “I don’t think she came back,” I said. “If she did she never called me.” My voice was sad.

  “Did you ever think of following her?”

  “Who are you? Dear Abby?”

  He almost smiled.

  We talked for ten more minutes.

  We hugged good-bye, and I decided it was time to have a little chat with the blackmailer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I got Ari and we drove over to the diner in Centereach where Marilyn Park worked.

  Route 25 was like a speedway, so going into a plaza or coming out back onto the road was always an adventure. It was more of an adventure when Ari drove. He hadn’t mastered the rules of the American road. I don’t think he had mastered the rules of any road. Sometimes a driver would follow us to yell at Ari, and then Ari would get out of the car. The other driver would take a look at Ari. It wasn’t the muscles, although that would have been enough. It wasn’t the way he stood. It was the anger waiting to explode.

  We had made it safely to the diner.

  The waitress, a tall blonde with a beehive hairdo that added another several inches to her height, led us to a table. She looked as interested in helping us as I used to look in school.

  “You want some coffee first?”

  “Is it hot?” I asked.

  “It’s coffee.”

  “Two cups,” I said.

  When she returned, I said, “We’re looking for Marilyn Park. I don’t see her around.” I had, in fact, never seen her, but Congressman-elect Lucey had shown me several pictures and lent me two.

  “She’s due back in forty minutes. So figure an hour or so. What can I get for you?”

  Ari ordered a salad, and I got a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate shake.

  “That stuff in the shake will kill you, Danny. You have to watch your sugar.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I need the sugar.”

  Ari just nodded.

  I stared across the table at him. He had been unusually quiet over the last few days, exercising too much, arguing about food too much, if possible even more aggressive in his driving, and sullen.

  “Talk to me, Ari.”

  “I’m trained to keep it all inside.”

  “You’re in Centereach, not Mossad headquarters. What can I do to help you
?”

  “When did you become a social worker, Danny?”

  I softened my voice. “You’re not as nice when you’re angry.”

  He slammed his open palm on the table, realized he had made too much noise when some of the customers turned around, and slumped back down.

  “I’m sorry, Danny. You were doing that on purpose. Being nice like sugar. Too nice. You were trying to provoke me.”

  “All my psychological tricks have been found out.”

  “I got a letter from my mother. She lives in Yavneal, which is near Tiberias. She said she was crying for me. Some of my friends came over and they asked about me, and she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t explain why I left Israel. In my family it is a great disgrace to abandon Israel. She feels the shame.”

  “You never did tell me why you left.”

  He shrugged. “It is a great weight on me.”

  “So let me help you take it off.”

  “It will take some time to tell.”

  “Listen, Ari. We’re sitting here. We can’t go anywhere else. We’re waiting for Marilyn Park. We have to do something with the time. Let’s use it to hear your story.”

  “It’s an important story to me. You won’t find it interesting.”

  “Try me.”

  “Some of it I can’t say without pain. I was leading a squad to kill terrorists. Don’t ask me where. Don’t ask me what group they belonged to. We were going to kill terrorists. We heard from a reliable source that the terrorists were in a small house somewhere. We were there before dawn ready to launch the raid.

  “There was a new recruit, a nice boy from New Zealand. He was very sincere. Some people, they’re Zionists where they live, but then they come to Israel and see the culture that’s different than their own and what they expected and they stop being Zionists. They go home. Not this young man from New Zealand. He was the perfect immigrant. He begged me to take part in the attack. The rules were he was supposed to stay with two others as back-up, to monitor the attack, and to maintain communication with the leaders of the unit. But he was so eager. And in Israel nobody is very good at following the rules. Everyone went up to me and begged me to let him go. I looked into his eyes. I figured after this he’ll have an exciting story to tell his grandchildren.