Strangled - Brian McGrory [156]
And then came the crash. It was surprisingly close to me, a few yards ahead, a fierce, sharp collision, as if something had just been flung across the room. Immediately afterward, a gun discharged. It was so close that I could see the flash of light from the muzzle. I could smell the explosion. Then silence. I was flat on the floor, holding my breath to mute any sounds.
About twenty seconds later, I heard commotion about ten yards away, a strange voice yelling some indecipherable words, and then another gunshot, followed by a scream of agony. Out of the mayhem, Hank’s voice cut through the darkness. “Hit the lights,” he yelled.
I bolted for the door, the narrow band of my flashlight illuminating the way. I stumbled across one cluster of boxes, and then another. When I got to the wall, I felt frantically around for a switch, found several, and flicked them all upward. Immediately, the room was bathed in harsh light, revealing Hank Sweeney kneeling atop a middle-aged man sprawled haphazardly on the ground, his head pushed against some empty boxes, his left thigh oozing blood.
Hank looked hard at the guy and said, “Wait a minute, I know you.” He still had that smooth voice, though his next motion didn’t seem quite so calm. He raised his fist and cracked it down on the guy’s nose, causing a veritable explosion of blood. The man was actually reduced to tears as Hank called out, “Let’s go.”
Vinny Mongillo was already up and about, seemingly recovered from his close call. The three of us got to the back door in unison. Hank flicked the lights back off and we all filed outside. My cell phone said 11:27.
On the loading dock, I asked, “Who was that?”
Hank replied, “Goddamned police captain, one of the commissioner’s top yes-men. Maybe I should say henchmen. Seems like the commish has been going to extremes to block your story.”
As I let that little shard of information sink in, Mongillo asked, “No luck with the letter?”
I shook my head. Hank said, “We’ve got to give it up.” He pointed to a car turning from Clarendon Street into the alley and added, “The writing’s on the wall. We’ve got to get out of here.”
The writing’s on the wall.
This jarred something deep inside my head, or maybe it wasn’t that deep. Maybe it was something that had been precariously floating along the surface of my mind, something I couldn’t quite piece together.
All truths are easier to understand once they are discovered.
That was Paul Vasco, in his miserable little room on that miserable Friday that Edgar Sullivan died at the hands of a gunman in the Beacon Hill CVS, and I was just now starting to sense what Vasco meant.
You want to get it in writing, young man. That’s the best advice I can give you.
That gem, courtesy of the famous H. Gordon Thomas, pretty much summarized what I had been trying to do right here. But it occurred to me that I had the wrong execution of the right idea. It was as if I had just heard a clap of thunder in my brain.
I turned to Hank and all but yelled, “What’s the zip code of police headquarters?”
The car was pulling down the alley now, into a space in front of the bay.
Hank told me.
“Hold this person off,” I called out as I slipped back under the garage door.
I could hear Hank hissing, “Wait,” as I groped my way farther inside.
Once in, I flicked on my penlight, got myself to the row of canvas baskets, and found the one marked with the zip code at police headquarters. There were about a hundred envelopes inside, and I furiously picked up a stack and sorted through them, throwing the ones that