Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (love books to read .TXT) 📖

the operation just to protect his life, so he can walk away afterwards scot-free.”

She finished her sandwich without answering and then sat for a bit picking crumbs from her plate. Eventually, she nodded and said, “I agree.”

I sighed. “Good.”

Twenty-FOUR

There are no benches in Ferry Point Park. It’s more like a stretch of wilderness by the river that humanity hasn’t destroyed yet. I was sitting on the bank, watching Dehan down on the pebbles looking out at the cold, black river. It was nine fifty. We’d had a meeting with the captain at seven AM and, though he was approaching the end of his tether, he also knew he had no choice but to give me what I wanted. And he had.

At three minutes past ten, Dehan turned and stared past me at the entrance to the park. Her face went hard and she said, “Not good.”

I turned and looked. There was a man walking toward us. It wasn’t Bishop Bellini. It was Conor Hagan. He stopped beside me, with his hands in his pockets, and looked out at the stygian water.

“Imagine meeting you two here.”

I didn’t say anything and he sat next to me on the bank, studying my face.

“I figure I owe you, Stone.”

“You don’t owe me a goddamn thing.”

“That’s not for you to decide, is it? That’s for me to decide.”

Dehan took three or four unsteady steps over the pebbles to stand on the moss, a couple of feet away or three. Hagan studied her a moment. She said, “Where is Bellini?”

“He’s alive.”

“If you feel indebted to me, Hagan, stop the killing.”

He gave a lopsided smile. “You think I can stop the killing? No man, or woman, can stop the killing, Stone. You should know that.”

Dehan snapped, “So you brutalize and murder Sadiq, and then Bellini, and then Vincenzo tortures and murders three of your people, and you take four of theirs, and where does it end, Conor? You have the power and the influence…”

“Stop.” He didn’t shout. He didn’t even raise his voice. He said it quietly. “I have read my Kant and my Russell, and my Nietzsche, Detective Dehan, I don’t need a lecture on ethics, or morality. And I am not here to discuss my actions with you. I have evaluated the situation and I have made my decisions.”

“Why are you here, Hagan?”

He turned to me. “I told you, I figure I owe you a debt, and I want to pay it off.”

“How?”

“These bastards stole a lot of money from me, money that I had intended to help homeless and dispossessed people, and orphaned children.” He glanced at Dehan. “And before you come in with one of your wisecracks, Detective, I don’t expect to praised or admired for it. In fact, I’d rather nobody knew about it because it’s bad for my image. But I actually think it’s the least any man in my position should do.”

He turned back to me.

“What really pisses me off is that those twisted, perverted bastards used my money to fund their sick fucking operation. Now I want my money back, and I will get it back, plus twelve years fucking interest.”

Dehan narrowed her eyes. “How are you going to do that?”

“I have something Vincenzo wants.”

“The bishop.”

“He knows that if he ever wants to see that little shit again in one piece—and I mean that literally—he needs to pay me back what Bellini, Sadiq, O’Neil, and Harragan stole from me.”

Somewhere overhead, a sea gull cried havoc and laughed. I looked at my shoes a moment.

“Okay, first, there is a name that is notably absent from your list. Second, how does any of this pay back your supposed debt?”

“You’re talking about Vincenzo and Harragan’s man at the Bureau.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming to that. Here is how I am going to pay you back, Stone. I’ve arranged a meeting, at the abandoned Fish Fare warehouse on Coster Street. They give me my money, they get what’s theirs returned to them. I have demanded that Vincenzo be there personally, as well as your man from the Bureau. Show up, with the 7th Cavalry, at ten PM tonight, not a minute before, storm the place, and you will get your prize. Show up early, Stone, and you get nothing. I guarantee it.”

“I want Bellini alive, Hagan.”

He spread his hands and shook his head. “You say that like I had some say in the matter. I am just giving you information, do with it as you will.” He stood. “You have a good day.”

And he turned and walked away across the park toward Emerson Avenue. Dehan watched him go, and when he was out of the park she said to me, “Son of a bitch! He did not incriminate himself once. Not once!”

I smiled and shook my head. “He knew one of us had a wire. Whatever Bellini told him, he knew that we were not bent and this was a sting.”

“You think he’s on the level?”

“In as much as a man like Hagan is ever on the level, yeah.” I stood. “Let’s go see Frank, then we’ll go see the captain about this raid.”

It was a grim sight. It’s a truism, but when you’re a detective in the Bronx for twenty-five years, you get to see some pretty dark things. But nothing really prepares you for seeing the skeletons of fourteen young girls, all murdered in cold blood, laid out on a table in order of size from smallest, aged eleven and twelve, to oldest, aged about twenty.

I saw Dehan waver as we stepped through the door.

“You going to be okay? You want to wait outside?”

She was pale, but she shook her head. “I’m okay.”

Frank approached us across the room. He looked businesslike, but glanced apologetically at Dehan.

“I’m sorry, Carmen,