Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

was either going to be the best partner I ever had, or a loose cannon and a fucking liability. Right then my money was on the latter.

I said to Pro, “Who killed Nelson Hernandez?”

“Jeez, Detective! Buy a girl a drink! Give her a kiss. Straight away you got your dick out!”

Vito appeared with a tray and set out the coffee on the table. He poured two cups and left. I said, “Who killed Nelson Hernandez, Pro?”

He looked into vegetable drink and made a long “Tssss…” sound. “I don’t know. That kid was getting above himself, know what I mean? We hadn’t had the Bronx for a long time. The fucking Albanians had the Bronx. But who the fuck wanted the Bronx anyway, right? Then the Mexicans start moving in. Next thing you got drugs and prostitution going down, and suddenly the Bronx is a desirable property. So we talked to the Families in New York. They said they wasn’t interested. So we went in and we started taking control, imposing some order and system…” He creased up his face like it was a disgusting shame what they found there. “You know, it was a fucking mess. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on, who was making what, where it was going. It was a disaster. So we moved in.”

“But Nelson didn’t want to play ball,” Dehan said.

“Nelson was out of his fuckin’ mind. We talked to him nice, made him a nice offer that he could live with and we could live with. The little punk says he’s gonna think about it. He’s gonna think about it. He says he has connections with the Ángeles de Satanás, some bunch of fucking bikers tied to the Sureños, and he’s got to discuss it with them. So we arrange another meeting. We’re gonna pop the motherfucker, you know. We made you a fuckin’ offer, you punk. You fuckin’ asshole. You think you can say no to the fuckin’ Mob?”

His face had gone red, and he had a vein pulsing in his head. He cleared his throat and sank back in his chair.

“Anyway. So it turns out the motherfucker set us up. Instead of us popping him, he ambushes us and takes out three of the boys. Tony, Angelo, and…” He thought for a while, making a round-and-round motion with his finger.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Go on.”

“It fuckin’ matters. Frankie. It was Frankie. Anyway, so he ambushes us with superior numbers and kills four of our boys. So—and here we come to the part about what we want.”

He finished his drink, placed the glass on the table, and smacked his lips.

“We had a man in the 43rd.”

“Mick Harragan,” Dehan snapped.

Pro considered her a moment, then said, “Yeah, Mick Harragan. We looked after him, and he looked after us. So we told him to keep an eye on Nelson, watch his movements, and set him up so we could punish the motherfucking punk. So he did. Or he said he did.

“He told us Nelson had a poker night with his cousins. Every week they would get together, have some drinks, and play cards till the early hours. It was in a back room in a house off Randall Avenue in Hunts Point. It was just them. On this particular night they would have a stash of takings from the rackets. He didn’t know how much, but it would be several hundred grand. All we had to do was go in and pop ’em.”

“So what happened?”

“We got there at two thirty a.m., and the place is crawling with cops. Fuckin’ cops everywhere!” He turned to Dehan. “No offense. But there were. There were fucking cops all over the fucking place. Nelson was already dead.”

I finished my coffee. It was cold.

Dehan spoke my mind.

“Pro, you’ve brought us an awful long way to tell us practically nothing. How does this help us, and what do you want from us?”

“I’m coming to that.” He held up his hands like he was going to confess to something. “Those were not good times for us. We’d taken some bad knocks from the Feds, we’d lost some territory, there were thousands of fuckin’ immigrants coming in taking our business. They were bad times. So the Bronx right then was a vacuum…”

I glanced at Dehan. She’d picked it up too. Sam had used the same expression. Pro went on.

“There were other people interested in moving in on that territory. And one of the gangs that was up and coming at that time was the Chinese Triad. It was a long way from Chinatown, but they figured they could move in and control the action. There were Chinks seen there that night, and they were probably as keen to get rid of Nelson as we were. Why were they there? Why that night? Now…” He paused and took off his shades to look at me. “The one man who knows the answer, the one man who knows what happened that night, is Mick Harragan. And what I want, what Mr. Vincenzo wants, is Mick Harragan. Because I am goddamn sure that he set us up the first time, and he sold us out again the second time. And it just so happens that Mick fuckin’ Harragan disappeared the night Nelson was killed.”

“What do you mean he disappeared? He retired to Florida.”

“Did he? Have you tried to contact him there? Let me tell you, Stone, Mick Harragan ain’t in Florida. He ain’t nowhere. Mick Harragan has disappeared into thin air, along with Nelson’s stash.” He shrugged and pulled a face. “Maybe it was the Chinks, maybe it was Mick. Either way, we want Mick.”

“What do you mean, you want Mick? You think we are going to find him and hand him over to you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes and shook his head.