“I understand. I do understand. We’ll try to help if we can. I’ll get you what you need.”
Tony arranged for me to use the office of an agent who was out of town, and he said it was okay if I wanted to start a dialogue with an FBI researcher-analyst named Monnie Donnelley.
“I already talked to Monnie,” I told him.
“We know you did. Monnie told us. We cleared it for her now. Officially.”
The next couple of days, I pretty much lived in the FBI building. Turned out, the Bureau had quite a lot on Michael Sullivan, the Butcher. His file included dozens of photographs. One problem was that the photos were five to seven years old, and there didn’t seem to have been any contact with Sullivan recently. Where had he disappeared to? I did learn that Sullivan grew up in a part of Brooklyn known as the Flatlands. His father had been a real butcher there. I even got the names of some old contacts and friends of Sullivan’s from his days in New York.
What I read of Sullivan’s backstory was curious. He’d attended parochial schools through tenth grade, and he’d been a good student, even though he never seemed to work at it. Then Sullivan dropped out of school. He took up with the Mafia and was one of the few non-Italians to break in. He wasn’t a “made man,” but he was well paid. Sullivan earned in the six figures when he was in his early twenties and became Dominic Maggione’s go-to hit man. His son, the current don, had never approved of Sullivan.
Then something strange and disturbing to all concerned started to happen. There were reports of Michael Sullivan torturing and mutilating the bodies of victims; murdering a priest and a layman accused of misconduct with boys at his old grade school; a couple of other vigilante hits; a rumor that Sullivan might have murdered his own father, who disappeared from his shop one night and whose body had never been found to this day.
Then Sullivan seemed to completely disappear off the Bureau’s radar screen. Monnie Donnelley agreed with my assessment: that Sullivan might have become somebody’s informer in the Bureau. It was possible that the FBI, or the New York police, was protecting him. Even that Sullivan might be in Witness Protection. Was that what had happened to Maria’s killer?
Was he somebody’s snitch?
Was the FBI protecting the Butcher?
Chapter 92
JOHN MAGGIONE WAS A PROUD MAN, too showy at times, too cocksure, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t usually careless. He was aware of the current situation involving the mad-dog hit man his father had used back in the day—the Butcher, an Irishman of all things. But even his crazy old man had tried to eliminate Michael Sullivan once he found out how dangerous and unpredictable he was. Now the job would be done, and it had to be done right away.
Sullivan was still on the loose, Maggione knew. As an extra safeguard against him, he’d moved his family out of the house in South Brooklyn. They were living at the compound in Glen Cove on Long Island. He was there with them now.
The house was a brick Colonial, waterfront, on a quiet cul-de-sac. It had its own dock on the channel and a speedboat, Cecilia Theresa, named after his first child.
Although the compound’s location was well known, the gates around the place were secure, and Maggione had doubled his bodyguards. He felt good about the safety of his family. The Butcher was only one guy, after all. Realistically, how much damage could he do? How much more damage?
Junior had plans to go in to work later in the morning, then make his regular stop at the social club in Brooklyn. It was important for him to keep up appearances. Besides, he was sure he had things under control now. He had assurances from his people: Sullivan would be dead soon, and so would his family.
At eleven in the morning, Maggione was swimming in the indoor pool at the compound. He’d already done thirty laps and planned to do fifty more.
His cell phone began to ring on the chaise longue.
Nobody else was around, so finally he climbed out of the pool and answered it himself. “Yeah? What?”
“Maggione.” He heard a male voice on the line.
“Who the hell is this?” he asked, even though he knew who it was.
“This happens to be Michael Sullivan, chief. The nerve of the cheeky bastard, huh?”
Maggione was quietly stunned that the madman was actually calling him again. “I think we better talk,” he said to the hit man.
“We are talking. Know how come? You sent killers after me. First in Italy. Then they came near my house in Maryland. They shot at my kids. Then they showed up in Washington looking for me. Because I’m supposed to be a loose cannon? You’re the loose cannon, Junior! You’re the one who needs to be put down!”
“Listen, Sullivan—”
“No, you listen, you asshole punk bastard. You listen to me, Junior! There’s a package arriving at your fortress right about now. Check it out, chief. I’m coming after you! You can’t stop me. Nothing can stop me; nobody can. I’m crazy, right? You try and remember that. I’m the craziest bastard you ever met, or even heard of. And we will meet again.”
Then the Butcher hung up on him.
Junior Maggione put on a robe; then he walked out to the front of the house. He couldn’t believe it—FedEx was making a delivery!
That meant that the crazy bastard Sullivan might be watching the house right now. Was that possible? Could it be happening, just like he said it would?
“Vincent! Mario! Get your asses out here!” he called to his bodyguards, who came running from the kitchen holding sandwiches.
He had one of his men open the delivery box—out in the pool house.
After a couple of nervous moments, the guy called out, “It’s pictures, Mr. Maggione. Not exactly Kodak moments.”
Chapter 93
“WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND HIM, SUGAR.”
A woman named Emily Corro had just finished her morning therapy session with me, and she’d gone off to her teaching job, hopefully with a slightly better self-image. Now Sampson was on my cell phone. Big John didn’t usually get excited, so this had to be something good.
Turned out, it was.
Late that afternoon, the Big Man and I arrived in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. We proceeded to locate a neighborhood tavern called Tommy McGoey’s.
The neat-and-clean gin mill was nearly empty when we walked inside. Just a tough-looking Irish bartender and a smallish, well-built guy, probably midforties, sitting at the far end of a well-polished mahogany bar. His name was Anthony Mullino, and he was a graphic artist in Manhattan who’d once been best pals with Michael Sullivan.
We sat down on either side of Mullino, pinning him in.
“Cozy,” he said, and smiled. “Hey, I’m not going to run out on you guys. I came here of my own free recollection. Try not to forget it. Hell, two of my uncles are cops here in Crooklyn. Check it out if you want.”
“We already did,” Sampson said. “One’s retired, living in Myrtle Beach; one’s on suspension.”
“Hey, so I’m batting five hundred. That’s not so awful. Keep you in the Big Leagues.”
Sampson and I introduced ourselves, and at first Mullino was sure he knew John from somewhere, but couldn’t place where it might be. He said he’d followed the case of the Russian Mafia head called the Wolf, an investigation I’d worked on while I was at the Bureau, and which had played out right here in New York.
“I read about you in some magazine too,” he said. “What magazine was that?”
“I didn’t read the story,” I said. “In Esquire.”
Mullino got the joke and laughed in a way that was like sped-up coughing. “So how did you find out about me and Sully? That’s kind of a stretch nowadays. Ancient history.”
Sampson told him a little bit of what we knew—that the FBI had done audio surveillance on a social club frequented by John Maggione. We knew that Maggione had ordered a hit on Sullivan, probably because of the Butcher’s unorthodox methods, and that the Butcher had retaliated. “The Bureau asked around on Bay Parkway. Your name came up.”
Mullino didn’t even wait for Sampson to finish. I noticed that when he talked his hands were in constant motion. “Right, the social club over in Bensonhurst. You been there? Old Italian neighborhood. Mostly two-story buildings, storefronts, y’know. Seen better days, but still pretty nice. Sully and I grew up not far from there.
“So how do I fit in again? I’m a little confused about that part. I haven’t seen Mike in years.”
“FBI files,” I said. “You’re his friend, right?”
Mullino shook his head. “When we were kids, we were kind of close. That was a long time ago, guys.”
“You were friends into your twenties. And he still keeps in touch,” I said. “That’s the information we were given.”
“Aw, Christmas cards,” Mullino said, and laughed. “Go figure that one out. Sully’s a complicated guy, totally unpredictable. He sends a holiday card now and then. What else is going on here? Am I in trouble? I’m not, am I?”
“We know that you have no association with the mob, Mr. Mullino,” Sampson said.
“That’s good to hear, because I don’t, never did. Actually I’m a little tired of all the bullshit slurring against us Italians. Bada bing, all that crap. Sure some guys talk like that. Know why? Because it’s on the TV.”
“So tell us about Michael Sullivan,” I said. “We need to hear whatever you know about him. Even things from the old days.”
Anthony Mullino ordered another drink—seltzer water—from Tommy McGoey himself. Then he began to talk to us, and it came easily for him, the words anyway.
“I’ll tell you a funny thing, a story. I used to be Mikey’s protector in grammar school. Immaculate Conception, this was. Irish Christian Brothers. In our neighborhood, you had to develop a pretty good sense of humor to keep out of fights every other day. Back then, Sullivan didn’t have much of one—a sense of humor. He also had this mortal fear about having his front teeth knocked out. Thought he might be a movie star or somethin’ one day. I swear to God that’s true. Verdad, right? His old man and his mom both slept with their store-boughts in a glass of water by the bed.”
Mullino said that Sullivan changed when they were in high school. “He got tough, and mean as a snake. But he developed a pretty good sense of humor, for an Irish guy anyway.”
He leaned in close to the bar and lowered his voice. “He killed a guy in ninth grade. Name of Nick Fratello. Fratello worked at the newspaper store, with the bookies. He used to hassle Mikey all the time, break his balls strenuously. No reason. So Sully just killed him with a box cutter! That got the attention of the Mafia, of Maggione in particular. Maggione Senior I’m talking about.
“That’s when Sully started to hang around the social club in Bensonhurst. Nobody knew what he was doing exactly. Not even me. But suddenly he had money in his pockets. Seventeen, maybe eighteen years old, he bought a Grand Am, a Pontiac Grand Am. Very hot wheels at that time. Maggione Jr. always hated Mike because he’d gotten the old man’s respect.”
Mullino looked from Sampson’s face to mine, and he made a gesture like What else can I tell you? Can I go now?
“When was the last time you saw Michael Sullivan?” Sampson asked him.
“Last time?” Mullino sat back and made a big show of trying to remember. Then his hands started flapping around again. “I would say it was Kate Gargan’s wedding in Bay Ridge. Six, seven years ago. That’s my last recollection anyway. Of course, you guys probably have my life on audio and video, right?”
“Could be, Mr. Mullino. So where is Michael Sullivan now? The Christmas cards? Where were they sent from?”
Mullino shrugged and threw up his hands, as if he was getting a little exasperated with the conversation. “There were only a couple of cards. I think, postmarked in New York. Manhattan? No return address, guys. So you tell me—where is Sully these days?”
“He’s right here in Brooklyn, Mr. Mullino,” I said. “You saw him two nights ago at the Chesterfield Lounge on Flatbush Avenue.” Then I showed him his picture—with Michael Sullivan.
Mullino shrugged and smiled. No big deal—we’d caught him in a lie. “He used to be my friend. He called, wanted to talk. What could I do, blow him off? Not a good idea. So why didn’t you grab him then?”
“Bad luck,” I said. “The agents on surveillance had no idea what he looks like now—the baldie haircut, the seventies punk look. So now I have to ask you again—where is Sully these days?”
Chapter 94
MICHAEL SULLIVAN WAS BREAKING the time-honored customs and unwritten rules of the Family, and he knew it. And he understood the consequences all too well. But they had started this foolishness, hadn’t they? They’d come after him, and they’d done it in front of his kids.
Now he was going to finish it, or maybe he would die trying. Either way, it had been a helluva ride for him, helluva ride.
Ten thirty on a Saturday morning and he was driving a UPS truck that he’d hijacked less than twenty minutes earlier. First FedEx, now UPS, so at least he was an equal opportunity jacker. The driver was in back, trying his best to recover from a slit throat.
There was a picture of his girlfriend, or wife or whatever she was, on the dash, and the lady was almost as ugly as the dying driver. The Butcher couldn’t have cared less about the incidental murder. He felt nothing for the stranger, and truthfully, everyone was a stranger to him, even his own family most of the time.
“Hey, you okay back there?” he called over the rumbling, rattling noise of the truck.
No answer, nothing from the back.
“I thought so, buddy. Don’t worry about it—the mail and whatnot must go through. Rain, snow, sleet, death, whatever.”
He pulled the big brown delivery truck up in front of a medium-size ranch house in Roslyn. Then he grabbed a couple of bulky delivery boxes off the metal shelf behind the driver’s seat. He headed to the front door, walking fast, hurrying like the Boys in Brown always do on TV, even whistling a happy tune.
The Butcher pressed the doorbell. Waited. Still whistling. Playing the part perfectly, he thought.
A man’s voice came over the intercom. “What? Who’s there? Who is it?”
“UPS. Package.”
“Just leave it.”
“Need a signature, sir.”
“I said, leave it, okay. Signature’s not a problem. Leave the package. Bye-bye.”
“Sorry, sir, I can’t do that. Real sorry. Just doing my job here.”
Then nothing more over the intercom. Thirty seconds went by, forty-five. Might need a plan B here.
Finally, a very large man in a black Nike sweatsuit came to the door. He was physically impressive, which made sense since he’d once played football for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins.
“Are you hard of hearing?” he asked. “I told you to leave the package on the porch. Capisce?”
“No, sir, I’m Irish American actually. I just can’t leave these valuable packages without a signature.”
The Butcher handed over the electronic pad, and the big ex-footballer angrily scrawled a name with the marker.
The Butcher checked it—Paul Mosconi, who just happened to be a mob soldier married to John Maggione’s little sister. This was so against the rules, but you know what, were there really any rules anymore? In the mob, government, churches, the whole messed-up society?
“Nothing against you personally,” said the Butcher.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
“You’re dead, Paul Mosconi. And the big boss is going to be really pissed at me. By the way, I used to be a Jets fan. Now I go for New England.”
Then the Butcher stooped down and slashed the dead man’s face over and over again with his scalpel. Then he cut his throat, crisscross, right on the Adam’s apple.
A woman popped her head into the living room, dark hair still in curlers, and she started to scream. “Pauli! Pauli, oh my God! Oh, Pauli, oh, Pauli! No, no, no!”
The Butcher did his best little bow for the distrau
ght widow.
“Say hello to your brother for me. He did this to you. Your big brother killed Pauli, not me.” He started to turn away, then spun around. “Hey, sorry for your loss.”
And he took another little bow.
Chapter 95
THIS COULD BE IT. The end of a long and winding road after Maria’s murder.
Sampson and I took the Long Island Expressway to the Northern State, then headed all the way out to the tip of Long Island. We followed Route 27 and finally found the village of Montauk, which until that moment was just a name I’d heard and occasionally read about. But this was where Michael Sullivan and his family were hiding out according to Anthony Mullino. Supposedly they had just moved here today.
We found the house after twenty minutes of searching unfamiliar back roads. When we arrived at the address we’d been given, two boys were tossing a bloated-looking football on a small patch of front lawn. Blond, Irish-looking kids. Pretty good athletes, especially the littlest guy. The presence of kids could make this a lot more complicated for us though.
“You think he’s staying out here?” Sampson asked as he turned off the engine. We were at least a hundred yards away from the house, and pretty much out of sight now, playing it safe.
“Mullino says he’s been moving around a lot. Says he’s here now for sure. The kids are the right age. There’s an older boy too, Michael Jr.”
I squinted to see better. “Car in the driveway has Maryland plates.”
“Probably not a coincidence there. Sullivan was supposed to be living somewhere in Maryland before he and his family made their latest run. Makes sense that he was close to DC. Explains the rapes there. The pieces are starting to fall together.”
“His kids haven’t seen us yet. Hopefully Sullivan hasn’t, either. Let’s keep it that way, John.”
We moved, and Sampson parked two streets away; then we got shotguns and pistols out of the trunk. We hiked into the woods behind a row of modest homes, though still with a view of the ocean. The place where the Sullivans were staying was dark inside, and we hadn’t spotted anybody else so far.