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10 X 7: SLANTE'
Category: Casefile;
humor. E-mail: rossprag@fgi.net
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It happened as Terry Fitzcarren was about to turn into Ballou’s for the evening’s final brew.
Initially, Terry thought he’d been blindsided. Stars had blossomed in his head, like they had after that piece of shit Joe Hannihan kicked him upside the skull with those heavy biker boots he wore to look macho. All because Terry’d been caught putting it to Joe’s little sister, what’s-her-name. But here, Terry had felt no collision of hardened, steel-reinforced leather against his temple, no jaw-slamming jolt as baseball bat or tire iron encountered tissue and bone.
Then there
was the blinding light. Terry had heard of folks who’d seen such a light as
they hovered
between life and death, had listened vaguely to the priests yammer on about
the illuminating glory of God. Long before he could legally buy his first
pint, Terry had known the Miranda-Escobedo warning far better than The Lord’s
Prayer or his Hail Marys, so he had discounted
the possibility St. Peter was awaiting him with a Harp’s
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For information on leprechauns, visit: |
Lager and a bowl of pretzels. Even if he believed in such things as angels that looked like Roma Downey (like to polish her halo, Terry mused), Ellen Fitzcarren’s youngest long since had recognized any trip he was taking was going to be straight to the furnace room.
Terry’s
eyes began to clear, and he realized he was standing in the middle of some
field, maybe upstate
Terry felt something scurry over his soft leather wop loafer, which by the way had been effed-up by the boggy soil on which he’d been standing. He looked down, yelped, and jumped about six times higher than he’d ever managed in that prick Coach Jacobs’ eighth grade P.E. class. The thing that had trespassed on Terry’s shoe scuttled off under a bush that didn’t look like nothing that ever grew in the neighborhood.
"
Fuckin’ shit," Terry breathed, checking all around him for more of
the crab-sized cock-a-roaches. They must’ve taken him somewhere like
He glanced up at the too-blue sky to see if some rain was moving in. That would seriously fuck up his new shoes.
Instead of clouds, however, Terry Fitzcarren saw teeth, lots of them, and the wet, black hole behind them...
" Fuckin’ shit," Terry reiterated. Considering his blood alcohol count, it was a reasonably eloquent assessment.
Sir Kenneth Rees-Petrie nearly ran his Rover into the corner anchor of the main research tent, then barely remembered to put the scarred vehicle into park. He barked his chin on said stake as he stumbled toward the open flap.
Meadors and the students
were huddled around the large worktable at the tent’s center, watching intently
as D’Onofrio, one of the Americans hired under
the
"This is it?" Rees-Petrie rasped, nudging his way through the group. No one asked how his permit negotiations had gone at the capital, how the turbulent plane trip back to camp had been. For once, the knighted and eccentrically garrulous paleontologist wasn’t center stage, and for once, he didn’t care. "You found this where now?"
"Grid 12-D," Meadors murmured, as if afraid to disturb the object before him. "Where we uncovered the Megalosaurus jawbone."
Rees-Petrie reached for the worktable to steady himself. "That can’t conceivably be--"
"But it is," stated D’Onofrio, who’d never once allowed the scientist to finish a sentence, and who reveled in some "musical" group misspelled Phish. "And there was no sign of geological shift. You carbon date this fucker, I’m betting he’s gonna match the jawbone. And from the dinosaur shit we found in the vicinity and the scratches I’ve found on the temples, he might’ve been killed by the same jawbone."
Rees-Petrie was too stunned either to chide D’Onofrio for his utterly inexcusable language or his identification of coprolites as "dinosaur shit." "This is entirely insane. It not only would predate Leakey’s findings by eons, but it defies all known theories of saurian and mammalian evolution." The scientist stopped dead and leaned in, coming nearly nose-to-occipital with his crew’s find. "Bloody hell. This is Homo sapiens ."
D’Onofrio grinned as Meadors frowned anxiously. "That’s why we didn’t dare give you details over the radio, Kenneth. You can even see rudimentary evidence of modern dental work. But this skull undeniably came from the same Jurassic strata as the Megalosaurus remains."
"Show him the other," urged D’Onofrio, like some oversized, shaggy five-year-old playing doctor. "You are gonna fucking LOVE this."
Rees-Petrie finally glared disapproval at his student, but he fell back into a trance as Meadors unwrapped a previously ignored parcel a few inches from the human skull which had rested impossibly for hundreds of centuries under the African topography.
It was a small metal disk, in remarkably good shape and clearly machine-tooled. Rees-Petrie gawped. "No, you didn’t find this..."
"Right by the skull," D’Onofrio crowed. "It’s a watch – I mean, the back of a watch. I’d say solid gold. Get it under the lamp – here, you’ll need a magnifier."
Rees-Petrie snatched the glass from the impertinent Yank and squinted at the hieroglyphics inscribed on the back of the acid-cleaned disk.
"To Terence Fitzcarren, with, with..." the paleontologist recited, awestruck.
"I think it’s ‘love,’" Meadors ventured. "’With love and best wishes from Uncle Liam.’ Kenneth? Kenneth, you don’t look at all well."
"He’s fucking stroking out," D’Onofrio yelled, and the last terrifying sight Rees-Petrie saw before darkness descended was the hairy giant lunging to perform CPR..
J.
John Doggett would’ve sworn the fluorescently green basement office actually brightened with the entrance of Special Agent Carey Hallinger . Just tall enough, just trim enough, every hair perpetually in place, teeth straighter and whiter than The Almighty normally allowed. The suit, as always, was flawless and impeccably draped – fashionably elegant enough to make even A.D. Kersh nod unconsciously in approval, but conservatively quiet enough to allay any suspicions about Hallinger’s income.
"John, man, you look great," Carey grinned, grabbing Doggett’s paw and squeezing his upper arm. "This assignment looks like it’s really agreeing with you."
Doggett pondered this. He had wound up here in the cellar, surrounded by aliens and chupacabras and spatial anomalies and lake monsters about a 2 ½ years ago, charged with locating the missing keeper of the X-Files, Fox Mulder. He’d kept his word to the Bureau and, more importantly, to Mulder’s partner, and had been ready to return to the world of mundane crime and inhumanity when Mulder had abruptly quit, Agent Scully had taken maternity and, with Mulder’s re-disappearance, isolated herself in a classroom at Quantico. Doggett could’ve let them close the Files, could’ve walked away, could’ve taken back his simple life of cops and crooks. Would’ve been easy after Mulder’s tribunal and escape. Except he’d promised Mulder he’d carry on, at least until he could sort through the morass of "extraterrestrial" forces and genetically manipulated monstrosities and shadowy conspiracies he’d inherited with the grainy UFO poster behind Mulder’s – his – desk.
Miles to go before I sleep, Doggett mused, recalling a poem he’d somehow retained from grade school. John Doggett was not a poetic man, but he understood you stayed on The Job until the job was done. He nonetheless had never felt as constantly out of his depth, fumbling with the imponderable and implausible amid first Scully’s convert’s zeal and then Monica’s wondrous belief in the unseen and unimaginable. On the other hand, he hadn’t had nearly as much time over the past year to dwell on Luke’s horrifically needless death, and some sunlight had begun to illuminate the spare and monastic life he’d whittled out for himself. Did this job down the Rabbithole actually agree with him?
"Goes without
saying you look terrific, too, Carey," Doggett smiled, gripping his old
Carey deferred Doggett’s self-deprecation with a warm, scolding chuckle. Chief among Agent Hallinger’s "faults" – a movie star face, a training film image within the Bureau, a drop-dead gorgeous/professionally brilliant wife, two cherubic kids out of a network sitcom – was that he was an honest-to-god nice guy. He’d been at Doggett’s side constantly during the investigation of Luke’s murder and the child’s funeral, and had commiserated over Doggett’s divorce until Doggett had politely and subtly drawn away. As he had from nearly everything and everyone except The Job and his closest colleagues, now narrowed to Scully, Monica, and Skinner with the recent demise of Mulder’s friends, the resourceful and ultimately self-sacrificing Gunmen.
"Well,"
Carey sighed. "You must’ve read about the archeological find a couple weeks
back in
Doggett
nodded cautiously. Terry Fitzcarren had been a
low-echelon
"Well, somehow,
because this punk was with one of the
"Bumped heads with him and his people a couple times," Doggett said. From made men on the NYPD to non-corporeal spirits in the bowels of the J.Edgar Hoover Mausoleum, he reflected. "Doesn’t sound like Tony’s style, though. Shit, doesn’t sound like anybody’s style I know."
"Which is
what brings me here," Carey said hopefully. "Way you and your partner wrapped
those numerology murders and you saved those folks in the
"Jellyfish."
"Yeah. Way I figured it,
if there was any chance of clearing this thing, you’re my guy. See,
there’s two things the press doesn’t know. Number one, the archaeological
team in the
"Yeah?"
"Uh, that Fitzcarren was gnawed to death by something big – bigger than anything walking around now."
Doggett’s brows rose, Scullylike. "Number two?" he asked slowly.
Carey chewed at the inside of his cheek. "Well, there may be a couple of related homicides."
"Related to this?" Doggett asked, incredulously. "How?"
"I brought some photos, if you’re interested," Carey offered, pulling a sleeve of slides from his jacket.
Doggett began to dig for Mulder’s antiquated projector.
**
"Richard
‘The Swordfish’ Fraternelli," Carey narrated as
the first slide displayed a man. Or what had been one, Doggett thought, grimacing.
Looked more like Richard "The Flounder." "He
was one of Soprano’s collectors, about as low on the totem pole as you can
get. He was supposed to meet some of the boys in Flatbush for dinner, wound
up falling in the middle of the street in front of the restaurant, punched
a three-foot-deep hole in the asphalt. Nothing on the block was more than
four stories, and the coroner insists Fraternelli
fell from a height of at least 30,000 feet. So we start looking for a helicopter,
maybe one of the competing families wants to send a message to Tony, air
mail. It was easy to find out – you know how tight they’re watching the
Doggett frowned. Two years ago, he would have felt floored, totally bamboozled. Now, he felt resigned, frustrated that Richard Fraternelli had fallen literally into his lap.
Carey clicked
the projector remote. Another obviously mobbed-up man appeared onscreen, festooned
with too much gold jewelry and wearing an expensive polo shirt and khakis.
A tall drink was on the patio table next to the man’s chaise lounge. The
man’s face looked like a
"Jesus," Doggett exhaled. "They fucking nuke this guy?"
"Ramon DeColta, runner for one of the Venezuelan cocaine families. His brains were cooked inside his skull. Eyeballs were like a couple of Swedish meatballs. And get this. We asked maybe did somebody do a job on him with a blowtorch, maybe one of those gas heat blowers. Coroner says no, this was radiation."
"Nuclear?" Doggett exclaimed, coming off the edge of his desk.
Carey smiled sadly and hopelessly. "Solar, John. Solar."
"What the f—"
"What we said, too," the handsome agent empathized.
"I don’t
want a pickup," Doggett said through his teeth for the fifth time. "I don’t
like pickups, I can’t parallel park a pickup, I
don’t want to haul some monster truck through
The girl
hadn’t yet broken contact with her computer screen. "You know, you’re really
getting a great deal on the
"You’re
not listenin’," Doggett growled, the native New
Yorker emerging from deep inside him. "I don’t want a
freakin’
The nightmarish
complications of the trip might have amused rather than infuriated Doggett
had Monica been along. But Special Agent Reyes had gotten hung up on what
had looked like a simple Satanic slaying in
The clerk’s fingers had been playing her keyboard during his entire discourse. Now she looked up for the first time with a beaming smile. "You’re in luck. We gotta Dodge Grand Caravan."
Doggett’s right hand twitched toward his jacket, where his shoulder holster would’ve been if he hadn’t packed it.
"You want the insurance?" the clerk inquired.
Doggett shook his head wearily. "I feel lucky."
**
" Lemme get this straight," Doggett said slowly. "You gave away my room?"
" Nooo," the impeccably dressed desk clerk responded patiently. "You failed to request a late check-in, and we have four, no, five, major conventions in this borough alone this week."
"I gotta confirmation number," Doggett complained. "I’m FBI, you’ve got that on your computer."
"I sympathize," the balding young man offered, a sympathetic look momentarily flitting across his pink face. "However, you failed to request a late check-in, and we were forced to offer your room to someone else."
"What else you got? I just need a place to crash. Anything."
"Well, we have one VIP suite open, but of course..."
"I’ll take it."
"But it’s $350 a night."
"Gimme the key." Two years of chasing other-dimensional entities and shape-shifting Indian holy men and manbat/batman/bat things had rendered Doggett immune to Bureau bean counters. And after accusing Deputy Director Kersh of everything evil conspiratorial deed of the last 20 years, possibly excepting John Travolta’s last few movies , the agent doubted his supervisor would lean too hard on him about raiding the hotel’s minibar and watching a few naughty nurse movies on Spectravision.
"But, sir, we like to keep the VIP suites open for, well, visiting VIPs..."
"How about VAPs?" Doggett asked calmly.
"What?"
"Very Armed People? You gotta policy for them?"
"Need any help with your bags?"
"They got
lost at the airport," Doggett informed him, slumping against the desk. "Just
give me a
"Will do." A phone warbled
at the clerk’s elbow. He grabbed the handset. "Yeah?
Oh...Oh. Oh, my. Yeah. Do that." The desk clerk cradled the phone and looked
nervously at the disheveled agent. "You have a 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan? It
seems the attendant had a little accident in the parking garage. You know,
those things are terrible for getting around in
**
The alarm erupted as Doggett finally located the fire exit. He’d successfully evaded the platoon of faceless aliens who’d tried to blowtorch him, but a couple of genetically engineered supersoldiers, led by his old buddy Knowle Rohrer, were close on his heels. His heart pounded as he threw open the metal door.
"Hi, Daddy,"
Luke said, an eager smile breaking his blue-gray face as the alarm drilled
into his father’s brain. "You said we could go to
John Doggett bolted upright in bed. The phone rang again and again, and finally, sweating, his heart thumping against his thoracic ribs, the agent fumbled it off the hook.
"Good morning,"
a robotic voice greeted. "It is now
Doggett was on his feet as the phone crashed to the floor.
"Room OK,
John?" Carey asked as they cruised past a seemingly interminable string
of row houses, pizzerias, delis, groceries, industrial supply houses, and
more row houses. The familiar sights of
"Hah?"
Doggett asked, tearing his eyes from the pizza stand where he and his buddies
used to hang out until he’d left for
Carey shook
his head as a native cut him off, delivering the standard
"Nephew Terry settled for dangerous. Five assaults, two with intent, on his sheet, all kicked by his uncle and the family consigliere , a sharp old coot who’s been with the family since Eisenhower. Stupid kid, always wanted to throw gas on the fire. Not surprising he bought it young."
"Little more surprising he bought it gettin’ mauled by Barney’s tougher cousin," Doggett suggested.
"Little," Carey murmured.
**
The Breath of Cork, a brick-fronted pub wedged between a women’s boutique and an insurance office, was Liam Fitzcarren’s base of operations. The almost impossibly deep room beyond the solid wood door was dark, comfortable, and permeated not unpleasantly with the smell of yeast, hops, and whiskey. Though it was early in the morning, a couple of guys in street department coveralls hurled darts and traded obscene observations about an unidentified female coworker.
Liam Fitzcarren was ensconced in a rear booth, a steaming cup of black coffee sending plumes to the stamped tin ceiling. On the bench across from him was an ancient man, bushy white hair neatly combed in waves, eyebrows like restless wooly worms, an expensive but vintage three-piece suit draping smoothly over his skeletal shoulders.
"My sympathies on your nephew’s death," Carey offered, scooting in next to the old man.
Liam nodded, a small smile on his face. "Ah, that’s very kind of you, Special Agent. What I like about the boy, William – we may not often see eye to eye, but always a gentleman, he."
The senior man smiled in kind. Doggett waited for Fitzcarren to slide over, but the stocky man didn’t budge. He sighed, and hauled a chair over from a nearby table."
"Mr.
Fitzcarren, this is Agent John Doggett, from the
Liam glanced over and extended a clean and exquisitely manicured hand. Doggett pumped it once. "And an unusual case it is, too, eh?"
"That’s an understatement," Doggett said neutrally. He glanced at the old man. "And you are...?"
The gentleman smiled, the Mona Lisa number. " Cragan O’Mara, sir. A pleasure, I’m certain. I’m what you might call the family retainer, though I’m quite afraid I don’t retain as much as I used to."
Carey snorted cheerfully. "Stow the blarney, Cragan. Mr. O’Mara here is either one of the most skilled attorneys in the five boroughs, or one of the luckiest."
"I’d prefer to believe the former, but my honor forces me to confess to the latter," O’Mara chuckled.
It was an immodest pass at modesty, but it was the elderly lawyer’s odd tone that brought Doggett to attention.
"You oughtta come over to Justice – we could use you," Carey suggested. Doggett was beginning to wonder about his friend’s familiarity with this mobster and his well-dressed mouthpiece. The old guy was charming, and Doggett knew cops and mobsters shared a certain occupational affinity. And it was too soon after he’d discovered the truth about Luke to be totally impassive in the company of organized criminals...
"So," Fitzcarren interjected, "I’m always happy to help my federal government in time of need, especially if we can find the son-of-a-bitch killed poor Terry."
"You told Homicide the last you saw your nephew was right here, night he disappeared," Doggett said, happy to be done with the amenities.
"That’s correct. My associates and I were celebrating a legal victory."
"Any problems? Arguments between your nephew and anybody?"
Fitzcarren shook his head impatiently. "I’m sure you’ve already had a look at Terry’s sheet, and you know the boy has a touch of Irish temper."
Doggett’s eyebrows rose. "You’re a master of understatement today."
Fitzcarren’s eyes narrowed, and Carey started to cough, but Cragan O’Mara cackled. "Come now, Liam. You and I both know the boy was no candidate for sainthood or even altar boy. But no, Agent Doggett, the evening proceeded without major conflict."
"Major conflict?" Doggett inquired.
O’Mara’s blue eyes twinkled, and the agent could swear they became clearer. "What a perceptive fellow, this one. All right, Agent Doggett, you caught me in a sloppily constructed web of mendacity. The boy had a mouth on him, and little respect for his elders or betters. Liam, unclench that granite chin of yours. Friends, family, and associates alike, we’d come to ignore young Terry’s excesses. He was going a bit heavy on his drink, and one of the boys observed as how his consumption might lead him to an early demise. Terry took personal umbrage at this, but beyond a little bluster and crowing, no physical harm came to either party."
"And who was the other party?" Doggett asked blankly.
"That would be me, as a matter of fact," O’Mara smiled. "I suppose I should know better than to try to staunch the foolish fervor of the young."
"You think
Cragan here bludgeoned Terry, booked the two of
‘em on a flight to darkest
"Nobody’s
accusing anybody," Carey assured the mobster. "We want what you want, Liam
– the guy that killed your nephew. You know of anyone in any of the other
families that would have a reason to kill Terry?"
"Those fuck--, pardon my French, Carey," Fitzcarren said. "Those Sopranos – you know the boy had a run-in with one of those hoodlums a few years back."
Doggett suppressed a smile at the irony of Fitzcarren’s indictment. "You know Richard Fraternelli? Used to work for the Soprano organization?"
"Guy ripped a hole in the sidewalk in front of that eye-talian restaurant? Yeah, the arrogant smartass actually came in here looking for a job after Tony Soprano let him go. I told him politely to perform an unnatural act upon himself."
"I was a bit more circumspect," O’Mara added, unnecessarily. Almost purposefully unnecessary, Doggett thought.
The agent persisted. "Ramon DeColta?"
Fitzcarren’s eyes flicked to his attorney, who sat smiling and motionless, and shook his head. Must’ve had business dealings, Doggett concluded. But how would Fitzcarren jockey DeColta under a giant magnifying glass, like an ant ready for broiling?
"I’m afraid you’ve exhausted my supply of insight," Fitzcarren said, rising. "Cragan and I have a meeting down at City Hall, a zoning issue, so we’ll say our goodbyes now. You want, William will set you up. My tab, William," the mobster shouted to the bar as O’Mara slid carefully from the booth. The attorney’s expensive wingtips gleamed in contrast to his vintage suit and the surroundings.
"You mind we ask William a few questions?" Doggett asked.
Fitzcarren grinned sadly. "Last I knew, William answers questions without authorization from myself or any other man. William, you help these fellows as a favor to Terry, hear? Anything you remember, right?"
The burly bartender nodded once. Fitzcarren nodded with finality, O’Mara with amiable courtesy, and Carey with confusion. Doggett blinked his farewell.
"May you find what you’re looking for, and may it be what you seek, Agent Doggett," O’Mara murmured. The crime boss and the lawyer took their leave, opening a blinding hole of outdoor light that sealed tight on their heels.
"What was that, John?" Carey demanded. "It was almost like the old man was trying to make a point. To you. And did you have to come on so strong with Fitzcarren? I have to keep my relationships solid in this town."
"Let’s talk to the barkeep," Doggett suggested, striding to the long expanse of dark wood. William placed a white towel and a newly polished stein on the bar. He looked to Doggett as if he’d been stamped out of that mold all New York bartenders used to pop out of before mixing frozen, syrupy cocktails had become the trend. "William...?"
"Healy," he said. "’Can I help you with?"
"Night Terry Fitzcarren disappeared, any trouble?"
"’Bout like Mr. Fitzcarren said," Healy murmured. He smiled slightly. "Gotta keep your ears open and your mouth shut, kinda heavy clientele we get here. Terry always went through his belligerent drunk stage early in the evening, and if he didn’t get socked, or he didn’t sock somebody, or one a’ Mr. Fitzcarren’s boys didn’t sock somebody for him, Terry’d usually mellow into a whiny mope by ten or so. How his uncle won’t trust him with more of the business, how the chicks today are all lezzies ‘cause he can’t get laid, how the world’s just generally screwin ’ him over."
"Didn’t like him much, huh?" Doggett asked.
William shrugged. "You make your own luck, ‘cept Terry never wanted to waste the energy to do it. That night, he’d got all pissed off ‘cause one of the guys was ragging him how he was gonna drink and smoke himself into a early grave. He starts rantin’ and waving his arms, tellin’ everybody how he’s gonna outlive us all. The old man finally shut him up."
"Cragan?"
"Yeah, he just smiles at Terry, that shit-eatin’ smile a his, and says, ‘May you live to be the oldest man in this room.’ He’s always spoutin’ some corny old Irish toast or blessing or some such crap. Well, Terry didn’t have enough brain cells left by that point to come up with anything, so he just staggered out." William chuckled at the memory.
"You remember the night Richard Fraternelli came in here?" Doggett changed tracks.
William
frowned for a second. "Didn’t get his name, but that must’ve been the Italian
guy came in. See, we usually don’t get anybody
in here from any farther south than
Looking for a job, Doggett reflected. "Did it get physical?"
"Nah, the guy was a little shit-faced, but he knew not to fuck with Mr. Fitzcarren or the boys. He started talking kinda loud, like you do when you wanna punch somebody but you know better? Well, Mr. Fitzcarren just talked him down quiet-like, and suggested he go home to dry out. Even asked if I’d call the guy a cab, and Cragan sent him on his way with some more genuine Irish folk shit."
"OK. Ramon DeColta."
William didn’t seem to lose his composure, but his eyes shut down. "Nah, don’t ring a bell."
"Don’t ring a bell, huh?" Doggett smiled. "I’da thought DeColta would’ve ‘stood out.’"
" Mighta been off that night," the bartender suggested.
"Yeah. Look, William, I’m not gonna start talking about bringing in health inspectors and checkin’ to see if your license covers after-hours, ‘cause I’m sure you or Fitzcarren or whoever’s paid off the appropriate municipal officials," Doggett said pleasantly but purposefully. "But if I start lookin ’ at this bar, your ownership papers, any illegal activity taking place on these premises, and Mr. Fitzcarren finds out it was you who brought all this federal heat down on him, I don’t think he’s gonna bring out the good whiskey for your wake."
"We’re not looking to burn Fitzcarren," Carey added hastily, swallowing a "for now." "We just want to know why DeColta came in here."
William paused a beat, and then sighed. "OK, but you gotta keep this confidential. All I’m gonna say is DeColta and Mr. Fitzcarren were discussing a business deal, and Mr. Fitzcarren didn’t like DeColta’s terms. There were a few what-you-call veiled threats, and DeColta and his guys left. No guns, no problems, OK? That’s it."
Doggett
waited, but William had turned into a
"John?" Carey inquired. "Hey, man, you all right?"
Doggett snapped to, but when he turned to his friend, he had a strange look in his eyes. "Yeah. Sorry, Carey, I, uh..." As he’d emerged from the barroom darkness, it had all flooded back: Regali’s parting words at the bar; Doggett pursuing the hood outside, his hand on his holster, ready to do what?; Regali sprawled on the sidewalk with Follmer standing over him, revolver still hot and Regali’s blood spattered across his natty suit. Skinner had managed to keep Doggett’s involvement in the shooting as quiet as it could be kept. "Ah, I was just thinking about the ‘killings,’ if that’s what we wanna call them."
Carey wasn’t letting it go. "Jesus, John, you’ve been acting spooky ever since we left headquarters. Where the hell are you?"
"I’m fine," Doggett stated so conclusively that Carey backed off a step. "Look, the two things the victims have in common is Liam Fitzcarren and this bar. But what could that mean? I mean, Terry was part of the organization, part of the family. And how did a bunch of mobsters pull off three such bizarro murders? I’m sure they got the money, but how do you hire the muscle to sic a giant, seemingly extinct carnivore on one man, drop a second one on the street out of thin air, and fry a third with solar radiation?"
He looked over at Carey, who was staring incredulously at him. Doggett had fallen into a rhythm of thinking with Monica and Scully, and he’d forgotten how offbeat it sounded to other cops. "About lunch, don’t you think? Let’s get a slice and a soda, my treat."
**
"How you and the spawn of the devil gettin’ along?" Doggett inquired, keeping one eye out for Carey and trying to sound nonchalant.
"John,"
Monica greeted in that serenely pleased manner her partner found to be balm
for the soul. "I’m afraid we washed out here. The livestock killings turned
out to be for some frat initiation rite, not some satanic ritual. I’m catching
the first plane out of
"Well, you’re probably bushed..." Doggett began. The line was silent – Monica’s gentle persuasion. "Actually, I could use your help here. The agent I’m assigned to is starting to look at me like I’m ready for a jacket with one sleeve and rubber wallpaper."
"It would
seem to be a perk of the job," Monica said. He could almost see her smiling,
and it calmed him, somehow. "I should be in
"Only if you wanna come," Doggett insisted.
"See you." The line broke, and Doggett unconsciously squeezed the phone. It warbled alarmingly, and his heart jumped.
"Agent Doggett?" Patel’s low voice asked. The young man had taken, if not filled, Scully’s slot as the X-Files’ forensic specialist of choice. "It’s me. I had a look at your victims, and I can honestly say I am totally at a loss. I ran the bite marks on Fitzcarren’s body against every animal large enough to have inflicted the injury, and nothing even came close. Except some fossil teeth I examined at Georgetown University.
" Fraternelli’s injuries were more, ah, conventional: He actually appears to have died of cardiac failure, which is common enough in fall victims. But, given the condition of his body, I could find no evidence of him struggling or having been restrained in any way, which I might have expected if he’d been taken on an evening helicopter ride."
"No helicopters were up anywhere near that part of town," Doggett supplied. "That’s been confirmed."
"Well, then," Patel breathed. "As for DeColta, he had suffered injuries that might be consistent with one who’d spent his summer about two planets closer to the sun. I checked to see if the burns might’ve been caused by radioactive exposure, but he exhibited no other physiological symptoms of radiation poisoning. In short, Agent, you are up the creek without benefit of forensic insight."
"Thanks, anyway," Doggett sighed, clicking off as Carey came out of the fast food restroom they’d located.
"That your partner?" the Organized Crime agent asked, rubbing vigorously at the mustard stain on his otherwise immaculate tie. Carey was distracted, as if this trivial misfortune had upset his equilibrium.
"Agent Patel – I asked him to do a post-mortem on the vics."
"I imagine the guys already did a pretty thorough workup, given the circumstances."
Doggett shrugged. "Thought Patel might see something new."
"So what did he see?"
"Ah, nothing."
Carey smiled that maddeningly sympathetic smile of his. "Oh, well, something’ll pop up. Let’s go make a few housecalls."
2:32 p.m.
"He did something to him, that Irish flauta de hijos ," Rosarita DeColta spat as she set a plate of sugar-dusted pastries before the agents and quickly crossed herself. "I just know it. Those criminals killed my Ramon."
Standing in an apron in the spacious living room of her son’s luxuriously ill-gotten home, wearing a doubtlessly extravagant diamond necklace and a designer housedress, Ramon DeColta’s mother seemed unaware of the irony of her indictment of the Fitzcarrens. The universal battle cry of the doting mother – "He’s a good boy."
"How do you think they might’ve done that?" Doggett asked patiently.
"How do I know?" the fashionable, gray-haired senora snapped. " Prob’ly one of those satellite laser beams I seen on the TV. Those Fitzcarrens, they got loads of money, the Sopranos, too. Everybody’s getting’ all high-tech, with the Internet and the cell phones and the fax machines. Maybe they figure it’s cheaper just to buy some surplus killer satellite than to pay out all that money on hitmen ."
"Uh, we’ll look into that," Carey suggested.
Rosarito’s eyes narrowed. "You think I’m muy loco , a little crazy, huh? Well, let me tell you, Mr. Bigshot Federal Cop, you grow up like I did in one of the villages a thousand miles from the nearest indoor bathroom, you’d know there are loco things going on around us every day you can’t even see if you had Superman’s x-ray glasses..."
Doggett started to correct her on the superheroic inaccuracy, but she was on a roll.
"My papa, he saw the chupacabra at our window one night, waiting to snatch my sister from her bed. One time, I saw my dead uncle digging in our garden – just like that boy in the movie." She crossed herself once more, whether for the dead uncle, herself, or Haley Joel Osment, Doggett didn’t know.
"You, ah, found the body, right?" he ventured.
Rosarita turned gray and back to Maybelline pink. "It was as if they’d barbecued him alive. I could hear his skin crackling, like frying meat. And he just kept screaming, as if the devil himself would take him. I didn’t tell those pinchi policia , those dumb cops, but that’s how I knew it was those criminals who were always bugging my Ramon."
The report hadn’t mentioned DeColta saying anything before he died. "What did he scream?" Carey asked.
Despite the horrific circumstances, she had their attention now, and she crossed her fleshy arms with satisfaction. " Omerta."
**
"
Omerta," Carey murmured as he expertly and calmly dodged an NYC cabbie
pulling an abrupt three-lane change in downtown
"Yeah, but wait," Doggett said as Carey screeched to a halt to allow a jaywalking homeless man to pass. The man grinned toothlessly and flipped the agents off. " DeColta was a Colombian. Why would he have used an Italian mob term like that?"
Carey shrugged. "Maybe he was trying to say an Italian mobster had killed him. One of Soprano’s guys, maybe."
"I don’t buy it. He’s bein’ fried alive, probably goin’ outta his mind. He’s gonna be that roundabout about who killed him? If it was one of Soprano’s guys, why not yell, ‘Soprano’? I mean, it’s not like the hitter matters; Soprano put out the hit. If it was a hit. And the same for Fitzcarren. I mean, if it was a hit. Oh, crap, I don’t know what I mean."
"So what
did ‘omerta’ mean?" Carey posed, pulling into
the
"I’m getting’ a migraine," Doggett sighed.
The assistant district attorney Carey wanted Doggett to meet was a tall, thin, Lincolnesque man named McCoy. McCoy’s serious demeanor gave way to a dry smile as he considered the Fitzcarrens.
"Extraordinarily lucky," McCoy said. "We’ve had them up on a few local charges, trying to make something stick long enough to put Liam away, but something would always break in his favor. Some juror we had pegged to convict him would choke on a piece of hot dog, a crucial piece of evidence would just vanish from police inventory, the jury would fly against all logic and just cut Liam loose. Incredible luck. The same was true of his father, Seamus, and, I heard, his grandfather, too. Cragan’s been representing the family for nearly 50 years."
"What about
this Cragan guy? The lawyer," Doggett asked.
"He must be really good, huh?"
McCoy started to nod, then frowned. "You know,
not really, when I think about it. As I recall, he’s not particularly adept
with case law, and his closings are based more on colorful cultural aphorisms
and appeals to sentiment than on the facts of the case. Half the time lately,
he’ll just stop in the middle of a motion, like he’s lost the thread of
what he’s thinking. Of course, he’s somewhere between 80 and 150. It’s amazing
he’s had such an impressive win record."
"Amazing," Doggett moaned unconsciously. He was getting an uneasily familiar feeling...
**
As soon as Carey called it a day to head back to the suburban Eden he’d created on Long Island, Doggett high-tailed it back to the Breath of Cork. A late afternoon crowd of regulars and wilted business types crowded the stools and booths, and William was still at the stick, aided by a tall, redheaded kid trying unsuccessfully to grow a mustache. Doggett claimed a spot at the bar
"Whatever’s on tap," the agent ordered as William eyed him inscrutably. "Look, this is important. Can you recall specifically what Cragan O’Mara said to DeColta when DeColta left the bar the night before he died?"
William squinted as he drew Doggett’s beer. "Boy, I can see it in my head... Fitzcarren had told DeColta he wasn’t interested in doing business with him – I don’t know what that business was..."
"Of course."
"And then DeColta turns to the goon came with him and says somethin ’ in Spanish that didn’t sound real complimentary. They grab their coats, and Cragan, who’s been grinning the whole time, says to DeColta, now, lemme see... Yeah. ‘May the sun shine warmly on your face. ’ Somethin’ like that. Like I said, blarney bullshit. Hey, you OK, man?"
Doggett had slumped onto a stool, and his face had paled considerably. He’d hoped William would’ve told him Cragan had told DeColta to kiss his wrinkled old Irish ass or take a flying leap at a shamrock or some such crap. He looked warily up at the bartender. "An’ what did he tell Fraternelli, the other guy got killed? No, wait; lemme guess. ‘May the road rise up to meet you.’"
William cracked a surprised smile. "Wow, man. How’d you guess that?"
"Years of law enforcement experience," Doggett mumbled, miserably, draining his beer in a few long gulps. He tossed a dead president on the scarred bartop and blundered into the late afternoon sun.
A scan of the Yellow Pages – miraculously intact in a streetside booth a block from the pub -- pointed Doggett to a nearby Internet café. As he sipped at the plain, non-decaf, non-latte, non-flavored coffee he’d threatened the cashier to get, he summoned up Google and launched a Boolean search. Hundreds of listings emerged, from learned university studies to bawdy limericks to amateur remembrances of Uncle Eamon’s favorite toasts. Doggett filled several pages of his notebook, sighed, and typed a new phrase into the search engine.
Again, the resulting urls were of sharply varying quality and credential, but as he surfed from page to page, the coffee in Doggett’s gut began to take on a life of its own.
**
"A what?" Monica asked, trying to suppress the incredulity in her voice.
"You heard me," Doggett said, yanking his socks off and settling into the plush armchair next to his hotel bed. He shifted the phone to his other hand. "I know it sounds stupid, but we got three impossible deaths, and so I’m just sorting out the possibilities and the impossibilities.
"All three of the vics talked to Liam Fitzcarren shortly before they died, and they weren’t exactly pleasant encounters. All three encounters were in Fitzcarren’s favorite bar. And this lawyer, Cragan O’Mara, was in the vicinity each time.
"Then we got the murder methods, if you wanna call ‘ em that. O’Mara tells the first vic, ‘May the road rise up to meet you,’ and sure enough, it does, so to speak. The second time, it’s another old Irish saying, ‘May the sun shine warmly on your face.’ Next day, the victim gets a sunburn a tanker truck full of No. 400 sunblock wouldn’t have stopped."
"John..."
"No, Monica, wait. The third guy, Fitzcarren, the one sleeping with the dinosaurs, he gets a little soused, starts mouthing off. This old shyster tells him, ‘May you live to be the oldest man in the room.’ Now, where those scientists found Fitzcarren, wouldn’t that make him the oldest man in existence? Of course, I don’t think the kid’s uncle would’ve had anything to do with his murder, so that means the lawyer’s working on his own. At least in the last murder."
"John," Monica said, this time more quietly but firmly. "Granted, I’ve learned to open my mind to the most extreme possibilities, and you’ve really come a long way toward acceptance, as well. But, John, this is like saying Tinkerbell jolted Fitzcarren with her magic wand, or accusing the Big Bad Wolf of huffing and puffing and, well, you know what I mean. A leprechaun ?"
"When DeColta got fried, he kept yelling something," Doggett persisted. "His mom thought he was screaming, ‘Omerta!’ Probably’d been around mobsters too long. What if he was shouting, ‘O’Mara!’? His mom’s a superstitious old gal: What if DeColta realized Cragan O’Mara had put a curse on him at the bar?"
"I thought those old Irish toasts were supposed to be blessings. A leprechaun, John?"
Doggett
sat up. "Look, I’m just trying to think like Mulder
would. This O’Mara, he’s been working for three generations of the
Fitzcarren family for a half-century. He’s not a particularly great
lawyer, but he always manages to get Fitzcarren
off. And there’s his shoes."
The line was quiet. "His shoes," Monica finally stated.
"Bear with me for a minute. I surfed up some stuff about leprechauns on the web. The word came from the Irish ‘leith phroyan,’ which means ‘one shoemaker.’ Quote: ‘Their clothing is never extravagant. Their footwear, however, is a source of pride, and every leprechaun possesses the very finest he can make. O’Mara was wearin ’ this suit looks like he got it for Harry Truman’s inauguration, but you shoulda seen his shoes. They were gorgeous, like some kinda work of art or something."
"John..."
"Look, the
"
"Yeah, that thing. OK, now, don’t most folk legends and superstitions have some kind of basis in reality. People started eating kosher because all the pork back then was full of worms and the shellfish would rip you up from the inside. Now it’s a religious practice."
"So much for Red Lobster tonight," Monica said. "John, this doesn’t seem like you. I mean, I can understand if their were some sort of scientific rationale for this. But magic, John? Leprechauns?"
"What would a leprechaun be, Monica? I mean, if there was such a thing? Maybe some kind of genetic fluke or something? Maybe from ‘way back or something, some race or culture that’s been breeding true for centuries. You remember Oliver?"
"Like I’d forget. You’re
saying you think this ‘leprechaun’ is some kind of psychokinetic genetic mutant?
John, Oliver was capable of altering his immediate environment, of moving
objects and humans. What you’re talking about is the ability to move a human
being through time, to control the power of the sun. Look, my
flight’s at
The corner of Doggett’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. "Yeah. Sure. Think I’ll get a burger sent up and watch a little HBO. Have a safe flight."
"Sweet dreams," Monica murmured. Doggett’s smile widened: Only his partner could get away with that line without hitting his gag reflex.
The agent fell back on the bed, located the bedside remote, nearly yanked the alarm clock and telephone over before realizing the trusting hotel staff had tethered the remote to the bedside table, and balanced himself on the edge of the bed as he flipped on the TV with both hands .
"Aw, crap," Doggett moaned as Terminator II popped into view. Hated that sci-fi shit, especially the hokey android cop chasing Edward Furlong like a German shepherd after the mail truck. He clicked on to the next channel, where a redheaded cartoon in a green hat and jacket held forth.
"Frosted lucky charms...They’re magically delicious...They’re magi -- "
Doggett punched the off button and tossed it across the room. Or tried to, forgetting it was fastened to the table and ducking as it whipped back at his head. He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Was I going through some kind of middle-aged crisis these days, Doggett pondered, what with the new dreams about Luke and this theory Mulder probably wouldn’t even accept. Might as well suggest a genie had microwaved Ramon DeColta, he groaned.
His eyes popped open as his cell phone warbled. "Doggett," he barked.
"John, you better get over to the Breath of Cork," Carey Hellinger breathed. "We got another one."
"Holy shit.
Another mob guy?"
"You could say. It’s Liam Fitzcarren
. At least, according to the witnesses."
The Breath of
Doggett immediately grasped Carey’s meaning as he badged his way into the pub. The NYPD boys had brightly illuminated the bar’s interior with halogens, and even from the door, Doggett could see the gory blast pattern toward the back.
"John," Carey greeted, a grimace on his handsome face. "You may want to just observe from the bleachers, at least for a few minutes. It’s pretty bad."
"Looks like
they fragged him or something," Doggett marveled
in horror. "Anybody else dead or hurt?"
Carey shook his head. "Amazingly, no, unless you count getting splattered
with large, wet fragments of your boss. The others at the booth and around
him say Fitzcarren just blew up – or should I
say, out."
Doggett was happy he hadn’t the opportunity to order up the room service pizza. "What do you mean? He just busted like a balloon?"
"He was just drinking his Harp’s, joking around with his boys, Miller Time for mobsters, when suddenly he starts to turn red and then purple. They thought he was having a cardiac episode or something, but then he started swelling up."
Doggett placed a supporting elbow on the bar. "Swelling up?"
"Yeah. Just like a balloon. One of the witnesses said his hands looked like Mickey fucking Mouse’s, right before he blew. Sorry."
Doggett waved it away. "And he just blew up."
"He just blew up."
Doggett stared at the carnage in the back, then turned back to his colleague. "Carey, was O’Mara with him when it happened?"
"Naw, lucky. Poor old bastard probably would’ve stroked out right there. William said he left a few minutes before Liam’s, ummm..."
"Inflation?" Doggett ventured.
"Jesus, John."
"Sorry, Carey." The agent rapped on the bar, capturing William’s attention. The bartender regarded the Fitzcarren-strewn pub and crossed himself before nodding to Doggett.
"Terrible thing, sorry," Doggett empathized. "You see it."
"Shit, yes," William said, the words emotional but the tone casual. "Went up like a pot roast with a cherry bomb inside."
Doggett’s gut flopped. "O’Mara left just shortly before, right? I thought he usually closed the place."
"Said he was feeling a ‘bit puny." William chuckled at the ostensibly unintended pun. "Said his piece to Mr. Fitzcarren and the boys and tottered out."
"What did he say to Fitzcarren, William?" Doggett demanded, leaning almost nose-to-nose with the big man. "When he left, I mean."
William sighed, sucked at his teeth for a second, then sighed again. "You talk about irony, man. Cragan waved that goofy tweed cap a’ his at Mr. Fitzcarren and said, ‘May you be full to burstin’ with good fortune and health.’ Bet he’ll wish he could take that back."
"Might just take you up on that bet," Doggett murmured grimly.
Cragan
O’Mara residence
Central Park West
"Ah, Special Agent John Doggett," O’Mara sang, delighted. The lawyer, draped in a velvet smoking jacket, swung his townhouse door wide to admit the cop. "This is indeed as welcome as it is unexpected."
"Is it?" Doggett grinned. The situation certainly wasn’t amusing, but he believed O’Mara was honestly happy to see him. "You seem awful chipper, considerin’ your buddy and I assume best-payin ’ client just got splattered all over the Breath of Cork."
O’Mara pursed his lips, but his eyes remained bright. "Ah, and I’d venture poor William’s going to have to scrub mighty hard to get poor Liam off his barstool tonight. Please, please, I’ll see if I can’t muster up some fine Irish whiskey I’ve squirreled away for hardworking policemen and such."
"No thanks," Doggett declined, following O’Mara back to a richly appointed den behind the front room. The attorney lowered his aged frame into a Kelly green leather wing chair and indicated a twin chair for his guest. The agent glimpsed walls full of ancient bindings, brightened by an impressive selection of yellow National Geographics . "Look, Mr. O’Mara, I don’t know what your involvement is in these murders lately, but I gotta say your behavior’s not helpin’ you."
"Pardon an old man’s impertinence," O’Mara said, ducking his head slightly. "But, truth to be told, Liam had been a might too full of himself lately, and perhaps it was good he finally let some of it out."
"Jesus, O’Mara," Doggett sputtered. "The guy was your friend."
"Was he, now?" O’Mara posed, tufted eyebrows rising as if it were an interesting but highly unlikely possibly. "Actually, I’d quite tired of the man and his unsavory lot. He was no better than a thug, and he’s caused more than his share of misery and heartbreak in his life, him and his kin."
"How’d you do it?" Doggett asked, mouth going dry. "Just what the hell’s going on here, O’Mara?"
The attorney leaned back and snagged a bottle of obviously expensive liquor from the table beside him. He tipped golden liquid into an equally pricey glass. "My dear half-brother Eamon passed on a few weeks back now. A wonderful fellow, he was, even though we surely had our differences, Eamon and I."
"What?"
"He was my last blood relative in this world, you see," O’Mara continued, sipping his drink. "My last tenuous connection with Mother Ireland. And with that connection severed, I found myself questioning the sum total of my life’s work."
"As a lawyer?" asked Doggett, his brain and gut growing warm with the whiskey.
O’Mara chuckled as he regarded Doggett. "You familiar with Luke?"
The agent’s glass stopped halfway to his lips. He set it down emphatically. "What did you say?"
"Luck," O’Mara repeated carefully. "L-U-G-H. The Sun God of the ancient Celts. Pagans they were, but they were the fathers of a grand tradition. For centuries upon centuries, me and mine have carried on that tradition, serving and teaching."
"Teaching?" Doggett mumbled, his tongue growing fur.
O’Mara leaned forward. "Those that fancy themselves a bit more clever than the next fellow. Those whose love of gold blinds them to the pain of others."
"Like Fitzcarren?"
"Good man," O’Mara said.
"‘The leprechaun’s promise of gold always proves hollow,’" Doggett recited from the Internet. "‘The leprechaun always employs clever tricks in his granting of wishes, often resulting in the embarrassment or injury of the one who expected a bounteous reward.’ What happened, Mr. O’Mara? You been workin ’ for three generations of Fitzcarrens , gettin’ ‘em off on robberies and murders and racketeering and probably worse, and nothin ’ ever happened. Suddenly, guys are getting’ fried and squashed and nibbled to death by dinosaurs. What the hell happened?"
O’Mara was staring straight ahead. "Good old Eamon. No one left now but my own self." He glanced up at Doggett. "Oh, my, beg pardon, John. Well, I’ve always been more lucky in my practice of the law than adept, but I have to confess I would question any chain of evidence linking me to such unusual crimes."
Doggett rubbed his eyes. "So I take it you’re not gonna turn yourself in?"
"I would favor my chances in a court of law. However," O’Mara sighed, "a man’s code is a man’s code. You have caught me fairly and unquestionably, and I therefore have a contractual obligation to discharge."
Doggett’s jaw dropped open as he processed the attorney’s statement. "You gotta be shittin’ me," the agent finally laughed. "I gotta warn you, offerin’ a cop a pot of gold constitutes bribery."
O’Mara grinned and waggled a finger. "You’re a good man, John Doggett. You’re certainly more deserving of good fortune than the mongrels with whom I’ve kept company over the past half-century. There are no strings attached: This is the way it’s been done for ages, and I would advise you to accept your good luck."
Doggett planted his palms on the arms of the wing chair and rose unsteadily to his face. "So all I gotta do is ask you for a million bucks or world peace or to be invisible, and you’ll make it happen?
"Ah, now, you’re just having one on an old man. Actually, John, I’d already made my decision this morning to extend you my services, absolutely free of charge. That’s exceedingly rare for me and my kind, and unheard-of for a lawyer."
Doggett peered down at the gentle-looking man for any sign of malice. He saw none, but the agent still searched his memory for any indication that he’d won the Cragan O’Mara Sweepstakes. Then he remembered.
"’May you find what you’re looking for, and may it be what you seek.’ And what do you think that might be, Mr. O’Mara?"
O’Mara smiled cryptically. "Ah, the joy of good luck is in having it turn up like an unexpected guest on your doorstep."
"Yeah. Well, I’ll probably be showing back up on your doorstep some day, once I figure out what you did to those guys."
"Ah, well, then. Say, you’re Irish, aren’t you, in the dim recesses behind that badge and gun of yours?"
"My dad’s side."
"Then if you’d please, I’d like to toast your continued success in the service of Uncle Sam." O’Mara tipped his whiskey.
Doggett chuckled, shook his head, and lifted his own glass. "And may the Devil know you’re dead a half hour after your soul’s in Heaven."
O’Mara’s eyebrows rose. "Now, there’s a thought."
**
Doggett bolted from a dreamless sleep, his throat dry and a rim of sweat on the back of his neck.
What I’m looking for, he thought. He couldn’t do that , could he?
Oh, hell, no, John. He can only Fed-Ex guys back a few million years and blow up crime bosses at will.
Jesus, Doggett, you still think he’s a leprechaun? Kersh would have you shipped off to the Home for Bureau Burnouts. Mulder would probably sign the papers.
"Daddy?"
Doggett’s chest locked, and he was unable to speak. The tentative little-boy query from the hallway was followed by a timid knock, low on the hotel door.
"Daddy?" the small voice repeated. "It’s me. I kinda got lost, but I’m back now."
A resolutely pragmatic man, Doggett had pondered the impossibilities on numerous occasions. I’m still asleep, lying next to Barbara, as my subconscious tortures me, compresses what seems to be years of horrific fantasy into nanseconds of sleep. Despite the irrefutable evidence, there’s been a misidentification of the body – it’s somebody else’s child, God forgive me. Luke’s fate is not determined by a chance toss of the coin, the convergence of two monsters in human disguise...
The story came back to Doggett. "The Monkey’s Paw" – a creaky old horror tale he’d read back in high school. An old couple, a tragically dead son, a mummified monkey’s paw with mystical powers. The couple had made a single hasty wish with the blessed (cursed) paw, and were terrified to hear the thing their son had become in death knocking at their door. The parents wished the son-thing away before they could see what damp earth and worms and mold had done to him. He couldn’t do this, Doggett told himself; he couldn’t think this is what I’d want, how I’d want it.
"Daddy, lemme in. I was scared. It was dark there. I’m cold."
The leprechaun always employs clever tricks in his granting of wishes, often resulting in the embarrassment or injury of the one who expected a bounteous reward. Doggett fumbled for the bedside light, knocking it off the table. The knocking became more persistent.
"Daddy, let me in!"
"Luke," Doggett called. It came out as a hoarse whisper. The agent kicked at the blankets, the bedspread, and stumbled across the carpet, barking his shin on his suitcase as he felt his way toward the door. The knocking was sharp, frantic.
"Daddy," the child cried.
Doggett yanked at the doorknob, nearly wrenching his shoulder as the door refused to give. His brain kicked back into low gear: He turned the bolt violently, threw back the door block.
"John," Monica breathed as his stricken face appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, a gym bag slung over her shoulder. Behind her, a redhead boy, maybe five, maybe six, glared resentfully at Doggett. "I was concerned about you, so I drove on up —"
"What’re you doin’ in our room?" the kid demanded.
Agent Doggett slumped against the door jamb.
The door to the next room swung open. "Kevin," a disheveled woman snapped, relief and fury twisting her voice. A tall man, hair a bedtime tangle, appeared behind her shoulder.
"Damn it, Kevin, what the hell are you doing?" the man choked out, reaching the boy in two strides and pulling him into his arms. The mother joined them, staring suspiciously at Doggett.
"We told you not to go exploring," she scolded Kevin, wrestling with tears. "Anything could’ve happened to you. You could get hurt. You could..." She glanced again at Doggett; he understood the implication. Only too well. The family disappeared into their room with a slam and the muted sounds of love and anger.
"I oughtta give those two a good piece of my mind," Doggett growled, slumped against the doorway and breathing raggedly. "I oughtta report ‘em . Anything can happen. Anything. They got no idea..."
"John," Monica murmured.
"One day, your luck just runs out," Doggett babbled. "Fate treats you kindly until the minute you turn your back, the minute you let your guard down..."
"John,"
Monica said, more firmly, grasping his forearms. "He’s OK. It’s
"The minute you let your guard down..." Doggett pled, looking nakedly into her face, two wet trails moving down his gaunt cheeks. Monica pulled the cop to her, cradling the Marine’s head, silently reassuring the agent.
"They got no idea," Doggett whispered into his partner’s damp shoulder.
Cragan
O’Mara residence
Central Park West
He looked as if he’d been prepared by the priciest mortuary in Manhattan, sitting up in his ancient bed, shoulderblades against plush down pillows, a copy of James Joyce in his liver-spotted fingers, a beatific near-smile on his pink, creased face. As if his demise was the successful culmination of a magnificently elaborate prank.
"His housekeeper came in, found him like this, and called 911," Carey told Doggett as they gazed down at the late Cragan O’Mara. "The sergeant at the precinct had heard about Fitzcarren last night – shit, who hasn’t? – and his lieutenant gave me a yell. Looks natural, but I’ve asked the M.E. to run some tox screens, look for any sign of monkey business. God knows, nothing would surprise me in this case."
Carey stopped, regarding the small grin on Doggett’s face. He looked to Monica, whom he’d been casually checking out since she and her partner arrived at the townhouse. Her face was blank.
"Probably just his time, my guess," Doggett shrugged. "Maybe his luck just ran out."
Carey Hallinger looked oddly at him. "Well, where do we go from here? I don’t know why, but you almost had me believing the old guy was responsible somehow. I’m gonna call in to the A.D. – be right back."
After Carey disappeared, Monica wheeled around, a smirk on her face. "OK, John. What’s up? You look like you and the deceased here are sharing some kind of boy’s club secret."
"It’s just something I said to him last night," Doggett smiled, remembering his toast and how O’Mara had reacted to it. With Fitzcarren gone, the last of his line, O’Mara’s life work was done. You stayed with The Job ‘til The Job was done, and then you moved on, the agent mused. "Between you and me, I still think he did this, all of it. Look at that collection of National Geographics out there: Bet the last issue had something about that expedition found Terry Fitzcarren’s body. He had to be pretty sure the body'd turn up, or he wouldn’t have done it that way."
"What way?" Monica probed. "How do you think he did it, John?"
"Ah, doesn’t matter now," John said. "Probably best to let it go. After all, it’s not likely they’re gonna pin the killings on the wrong guy, right?"
Monica gazed at him for a moment longer, shook her head with a sigh, and gave him a light, fond slap on the arm before leaving the bedroom. They’d stayed up all night, talked about the case, life, the universe, and both were close to exhaustion.
At one or two points, Monica had dozed off on Doggett’s shoulder, and he used the time to ponder the meaning of Cragan O’Mara’s blessing upon him. Now, for the moment willing to let it go, to ignore the inconsistencies, talked out and cried out, the warm feeling of Monica’s fingertips brushing with his forearm, the light dawned. Doggett looked down at the serene man in the bed.
"And may peace be with you," he murmured.