Walk on the Wild Side Read online

  Sledgehammer screamed and that seemed to be Matteo’s cue as he opened the door and filled the entrance.

  Fattie looked from Kane to Matteo, then back. “Who are you guys?” Sledgehammer was cradling his broken arm.

  “Him?” Kane jerked a thumb at Matteo as the enforcer stood next to him. “He works for the Cappucci’s. They send their greeting and I think my friend here has an offer to you from them that it would behoove you to listen to and accept. For me, I just want my friend left alone.”

  “Why you wasting words with these mutts?” Matteo asked, not bothering to get caught up in the conversation. “They ain’t got the brains to listen.”

  “You don’t have the brains to count,” Fattie said. “There’s four of us.”

  “Three and a half,” Kane said.

  As with any brawl, it started fast. Wrench and Crowbar swung their tools toward Matteo as Fattie reached for the gun under his shirt.

  The Crowbar hit Matteo’s cast and cracked it, while the enforcer punched Wrench in the face, knocking him backward and out of the fight with that one blow. Then he turned to Crowbar, hitting him across the face with the remains of his cast. The nose crumpled and blood flowed.

  Kane let Fattie pull the Saturday Night Special and aim it at him. He put his hands up. “Easy, easy. Don’t shoot.”

  “What the—” Fattie began, but Matteo sucker punched him on the side of his head, the sound a solid thunk and he dropped like a stone.

  “I thought you were a tough guy,” Matteo said to Kane as he took two steps forward, snatched the crowbar out the man’s hands and used it to break the man’s kneecap, adding that misery to the broken nose. Broken Arm had declined to participate and was backing away.

  Matteo pointed at him. “Don’t fucking move. You tell your boss when he wakes up that you kick up to the Cappucci’s now. Fifteen percent. Don’t fucking skim. Got it?”

  Broken Arm nodded.

  “Come on,” Matteo said to Kane.

  MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN

  Kane farewelled a content and slightly contemptuous Matteo as he got out of the Caddy, who was working his cast-less arm. Kane looked at the nondescript office building. It was twenty stories high, settled in among contemporaries in midtown. Entering the lobby, a directory indicated a number of law firms, a dentist, a couple of insurance companies and one international shipping firm.

  Kane shook his head: the Agency was anything but subtle or imaginative. He took the stairs to the fourth floor. The door had a sign for ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL stenciled on it. Kane entered and the reception area was empty. But a door to the left was partly open and a man in a three-piece suit came out, a fake smile plastered on his face.

  “Can I help you?” The suit was off the rack so the bulge of the shoulder holster was obvious.

  “Did you guys want to be early in the phonebook?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Advanced,” Kane said. “Could have gone with A-A-A International.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for Trent.”

  “We don’t have anyone here by that name.”

  “I think you were with him on the pier,” Kane said. “You had the Uzi, if I remember rightly.”

  The man frowned, as if trying to recall how many piers he’d been on armed with an Uzi, while trying to come up with a lie. The possibility of smoke coming out the ears was distinct. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m afraid you’re in the wrong place.”

  “No, he’s in the right place.” Trent stood in the doorway directly ahead. His jacket was off and his thick, black glasses were perched on top of his head. “Come on in, Kane. Finally decided that cooperation was the better part of being smart?” Trent was of medium height, bulging in the wrong places. His face was red and puffy. A cloud of smoke was in the room behind him.

  Kane entered the office and Trent shut the door behind him, then sat behind a bland, grey metal government issue desk. A stack of brown folders rested on one side. TOP SECRET stamps covered the top one as if some five-year old had been given free rein with the stamp.

  “The machine got you doing office work?” Kane asked.

  A cigarette was curling smoke from a packed ashtray and Trent claimed it, taking a deep drag. He pulled his glasses down and his eyes were masked by their dark tint.

  Kane sat in the chair facing the desk.

  “It’s not all glory,” Trent said.

  “Not much of a cover.”

  “True,” Trent agreed. “Especially since you’re here. How did you get the address?”

  “Phone book.”

  “We’re not in it.”

  “You’re in mine.”

  “Ah,” Trent said, “it doesn’t matter. Whatever happened to those Irish terrorists you were so worried about? I haven’t seen anything in the papers other than the cops finally caught that Sam guy.”

  “What happened is you haven’t seen anything in the papers,” Kane answered. “And you won’t.”

  “Really?” Trent nodded. “Very nice. Did you put them on a plane back to the land of potatoes and futile resistance?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Trent laughed. “You are something else, Kane. Glad you’re working for us.”

  “I’m not. I gave you the photos of Westway you wanted and you gave me nothing. So that was a gift from me to you.”

  “That’s a theory,” Trent said.

  “Why did you give the chop shop up to NYPD?” Kane asked.

  Trent frowned, as if trying to figure out what Kane was referring to. “Oh, you mean that place in Hells Kitchen? Yeah. I needed a favor from a cop and I had to give him something. Why do you care?”

  “Because you used that as leverage on me to get Damon’s West Side highway material and I gave it to you. You didn’t keep your end of the deal.”

  “There was a pressing issue,” Trent said. “It’s not like I gave you up. You know how it works.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Remember what Kissinger said a couple of years ago when we cut off aid to the Kurds and stopped arming them against the Shah and Saddam Hussein? ‘Covert action should not be confused with missionary work’. I don’t know what kind of op you’re running out of that diner, but you need to toughen up.”

  “Why did you tell the cops to use the Kid’s name?”

  “’Kid’? What kid? Oh, you mean Ryan, your little faggy friend?”

  “That was shitty of you and stupid. The Kid got beat up because of what you did.”

  “Is he breathing?”

  Kane stared at the CIA agent, recalling the first time he’d met the man in the military prison in Long Binh, where Trent had had Nung mercenaries beat him up, trying to determine who’d killed the double agent, Ngo.

  “You’re a crude man,” Kane said. “We made a deal and you broke it. Don’t come to me again.”

  “Calm down,” Trent said as he lit another cigarette with the scant remains of the first. “It’s business. There was a larger matter at stake I had to deal with right away.”

  “What was that?”

  “You don’t have a need to know.”

  “Did you pull my military records?” Kane asked.

  Trent wasn’t surprised at the sudden change of topic. “No. Not yet. Are you interested in getting that discharge changed? I can—”

  “My records are gone from the Archives.”

  Trent frowned. “How do you know?”

  “Someone was looking for them.”

  “Who?”

  “Caitlyn.” Kane watched Trent’s face for any recognition but there was none.

  “Who?”

  “You sound like a fucking owl,” Kane said. He got up and walked to the desk. “This is my city, Trent. You’re just a visitor. You shouldn’t have gotten my friend hurt.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No. I don’t do threats.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To let
you know, I know. Also, to learn.”

  “What did you learn?” Trent stubbed out the cigarette and lit another one.

  “That you’re clueless. I knew you were stupid in Vietnam. Your lack of knowledge about Quinn doubled down on that. But you truly are out of touch.”

  “Hold on, Kane,” Trent said. “Who do you—”

  But Kane was out the door, letting it swing shut behind him. The guard was waiting, watching, but not acting. Kane left the building and headed south.

  MEATPACKING DISTRICT, MANHATTAN

  Plaikos and Thao were seated in a front booth with a good view of the stub of the High Line on the opposite corner and both streets. The diner was otherwise empty.

  “Mister Kane,” Plaikos greeted him as he walked in.

  Kane indicated for the older man not to get up, particularly since his left leg below the knee consisted of a mahogany peg, the result of a plane crash in Vietnam in the very early stages of US intervention when he worked for the CIA. He was a West Point grad, class of 1941, slightly below average height, but compact, still weighing the same as he’d as a cadet. Leaving the CIA he’d stayed in Federal employ, becoming the Archivist at the Military Academy which is where Kane had first me him when he was a cadet.

  “Sir,” Kane said as he pulled a chair up to the end of the table.

  Plaikos put a black metal briefcase on the table, dialed a combination, opened it just enough to retrieve the requested ledger and place it in front of Kane. “As promised.” It was a leather-bound book, half-an-inch thick.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “May I inquire what you plan to do with it?”

  “Someone asked for it, sir,” Kane said.

  “Our friend Trent from the Agency?” Plaikos asked.

  “No, sir. That’s part of what I want to talk to you about. A lot has happened recently.” That was quite the understatement. Kane gave the ex-CIA man a summary of taking out the Irish terrorist on Ellis Island. Then he told him about Caitlyn, who wasn’t Caitlyn.

  “There’s also the problem of the Navajo coming after me,” Kane added, not quite an afterthought. He briefed Plaikos on Crawford and what he’d learned about Crawford, Makin Island and James Roosevelt.

  When he was done, Plaikos was quiet for several moments, processing it all. Then he handled it like an after-action review. “First. Good job on stopping the attack.” He nodded at Thao. “You too, sergeant.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kane said and Thao bowed his head in thanks.

  “There’s a lot to unwrap,” Plaikos said. “Let me work backward from what you said. I don’t know this Crawford, but that’s not surprising. He’s a civilian. But he obviously has reach, if Trent told you to stay away from him. Yes, Director Bush is also Texas oil, so there’s that connection but what you’ve learned about Makin and FDR’s son is more significant and deeper.

  “I met James Roosevelt twice. He’s made the rounds. He spent some time after Makin with General Donovan in the early days of the OSS. By the time I officially joined the OSS after the war, Roosevelt had moved on, but I heard stories. He was wired in to the Kennedy’s via Joe Senior, the family patriarch, before the war. Together they did some shady dealings regarding bootlegging. It’s been said that behind every wealthy dynasty is a great crook and for the Kennedy’s that was Joseph Senior. The Roosevelts were already a famous and rich family before James or even FDR.”

  “Guess none of my ancestors were great crooks,” Kane noted.

  Plaikos seemed reflective. “Tacitus said: ‘Chief among the forces affecting folly is lust for power, the most flagrant of all the passions.’ Once one treads in the halls of power, nothing is black or white. There are shades. Someone can do good but also bad. Great presidents who are generally lauded, also did terrible things. Lincoln exonerated a corrupt army quartermaster at the bequest of a crony in his state party. That quartermaster later was instrumental in the deaths of hundreds after he was bribed to crowd former Union POWs aboard a faulty steamship on the Mississippi at the end of the Civil War.”

  Kane knew Plaikos had a keen interest in the historical arcane, but it served a purpose in keeping him grounded after a life in the dark world of covert ops.

  “Let’s not forget,” Plaikos continued, “that FDR allowed the internment camps, a black spot on our nation’s history. I had a classmate whose relatives ended up in one, yet he served our country faithfully. James Roosevelt was involved in that, not as a patriot but working with certain shady elements in order to seize the land of Japanese-Americans for their own profit.” He came back to the specific topic at hand. “Before the war, James Roosevelt lobbied to get Joe Kennedy appointed to the Court of St. James by his father. I’d say Roosevelt is still well connected and if he’s Crawford’s rabbi, that would add to the reason Trent told you to back off.”

  “I’m not going to be able to do that,” Kane said. “He keeps sending his Flint Boys after me.” And Truvey, he thought, but didn’t add.

  “How many are left?”

  “Four,” Kane said.

  “What’s your plan?” Plaikos asked.

  “I haven’t had time to work one up,” Kane said. “I’m still gathering intelligence. But I think I need to go on the offensive. Cut the head off.”

  “Take out Crawford?” Plaikos asked. “Sounds like that won’t stop the others. It would make them more determined.”

  “One of them, the eldest, Yazzie, has said he’s done with the feud. And now that I know Crawford shot his father, that should turn him against his foster father. I don’t imagine they discuss it at family gatherings. They’ve been brainwashed by Crawford with a mixture of Christianity and Navajo customs, some of which Crawford invented, like this blood feud.”

  “Why do you think you can change someone whose mind has been corrupted?” Plaikos asked.

  Kane spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t have many options.”

  “True,” Plaikos allowed. “Crawford shooting Yazzie’s father is rather extreme. The Marine Raiders walked on water after their stand on the ‘Canal and the Makin Raid. I can see why any rumor of surrender was buried. That early in the war there was too much negative news after Pearl, the Philippines, Wake Island and the other defeats. The War Department propagandists seized on anything even remotely positive.” He shook his head. “At the time I was hiding in the jungle in the Philippines and there’d been no good news there since the capitulation on the Rock. We heard about the raid via the wireless from Australia and it gave us some hope.”

  Plaikos was referring to General Wainright’s surrender of the garrison to the Japanese, a dark day in American military history, along with the subsequent Bataan Death March. Plaikos, of course, had not followed orders and surrendered, but had taken to the jungle and joined the Filipino Guerillas where he waged war until MacArthur fulfilled his ‘I will return’ promise after having bugged out on his command.

  “I’ll ask around about Crawford,” Plaikos said. “See how insulated he is. As we know, Trent tends to exaggerate both his abilities and his knowledge.”

  “I’d appreciate it, sir.”

  Plaikos took a drink of water, then put the glass back down. “Of more interest is this woman who says she’s not MI-6 or CIA, yet seemed quite knowledgeable about the IRA and your activities here in the city.” He indicated the ledger. “Did she say why she wanted it?”

  “She said it might give insight into whose two million dollars burned up in Damon’s factory,” Kane said.

  “Ah, money,” Plaikos said. “Indeed, the root of all evil, yet the fuel for society.” He had his hands on the table, his bulky West Point ring glittering. He indicated it with his other hand. “I know you think I brought up Lincoln and the sinking of the Sultana just to make a point, but my great-grandfather, class of 1862, was on that ship. He’d been a prisoner at Andersonville in Georgia. Suffered terribly. But when he was released, he was determined to get home. Along with others who could walk, they made it from Georgia to Vicksburg. Only to
die on the Mississippi because of corruption and politics that seemed far away in both time and distance. There are always deep connections. Both deliberate and random. There’s more to all this, William.”

  “I get that feeling,” Kane said, “but what it is, I have no idea. It would be nice to know who Caitlyn works for. She did say they had a mandate, one that proscribed what they could and couldn’t do.”

  That caught Plaikos’ attention “A mandate? She used that exact word?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Curious, very curious. I’ve heard that term before. Years ago. Do you remember that book I showed you when you visited last month?”

  “Bodyguard of Lies?”

  Plaikos nodded. “I told you that the book itself was part of that very Bodyguard of Lies it was about, concealing the true nature of covert operations in Europe during World War II while giving enough truth to be believed but also misdirection. Have you ever thought about it, William? All these secrets, all these spies, all the manipulations and double-crosses and triple-crosses? You just saw some of it: the CIA, at least the part Trent knows, wasn’t aware that Quinn was here in the States working deep cover for MI-6. Then those FBI agents thought they were working Damon when he was really working them.”

  “It’s amazing anything gets accomplished,” Kane said.

  “What’s actually even more amazing,” Plaikos said, “is that more things don’t go wrong. Sadly, while the Academy preaches an allegiance to a higher code of duty, the reality is different for many graduates. This is true across the board in the world of politics and power. There are always those in key positions who put their own interests ahead of the greater good.”

  Thao spoke up. “What is the ‘greater good’, sir?”

  Plaikos nodded. “Good question, Thao, but let’s not get lost in the dark woods of philosophy. Let’s say what is best for the country as opposed to individuals, especially corrupt ones.”

  Thao acknowledged the reality. “Yes, sir.”