Angel

‘Even so, Kevin, I do wish you’d come in from the outside. Couldn’t you get yourself a desk job?’

Her brother threw back his head and roared, obviously highly amused by the sheer absurdity of her suggestion.

‘Oh Rosie, Rosie,’ he gasped at last in a strangled voice, as the laughter began to subside, ‘I could, but I won’t. You see, I don’t want to, honest I don’t. What I actually do for a living is the centre of my life. Jesus, Rosie, it is my life.’

‘You take your life in your hands every day of the week, Kev, hunting down murderers, crooks, criminals, and drug-dealers, who are the worst, to my way of thinking. They’re certainly the most dangerous – violent, brutal.’

Kevin was silent.

She pressed, ‘Well, they are, aren’t they?’

‘Damned right they are, and you know how I feel about those fucking bastards!’ he exclaimed harshly, although he kept his voice contained, trying to be circumspect, having no wish to draw attention to himself.

After a moment’s pause, he said, ‘Listen to me, Rosie, almost all crime centres around narcotics these days. And I loathe and detest drug-dealers – all cops do. They’re the scum of the earth, dealing death around the clock. They’re even killing little kids now for profit, selling crack and coke at the school gates, getting seven-year-olds hooked on dope. Seven-year-olds, Rosie, and to me that’s unconscionable! It’s my job to destroy these foul specimens, these…these…animals. My mission is to nail the sons of bitches to the cross, bring them to justice, get them behind bars, hopefully on a federal rap. That way, they’re in for five years minimum, usually much, much longer, depending on their crimes. And don’t forget, there’s no parole in the federal system, thank God. Personally, I wish we could lock ‘em up and throw the keys away. For ever.’

His mouth compressed into a grim line, and a hardness settled on his face, making him suddenly look much older than his thirty-four years. ‘Doing what I do is very important to me, Rosie. I think, I hope, I make a difference in this world, fighting crime the way I do. In any case, it’s the only way I know how to keep my sanity,’ he finished, reaching out, squeezing her long, slender hand resting on the red tablecloth.

Rosie inclined her head, knowing exactly what he meant. It had been silly of her to think he would ever change his job. He was just like their father. The New York Police Department was the centre of his existence. In any case, Kevin had been on something of a crusade for the past six years – because of Sunny.

Their beautiful Golden Girl was a victim. Bad drugs had scrambled her brains. That’s why she lay in a hospital bed in a mental home, catatonic, a lost soul. Lost to herself. Lost to them. Lost to Kevin, who had loved her so.

Sunny would never recover, never be herself again, forever a vegetable, rotting in that place in New Haven, where her two sisters and her brother had been forced to put her out of their own desperation. It was costing them a fortune to keep her in the private home, but they had told Rosie they could not stand the thought of her being locked away in a state mental institution, and neither could she.

She had always believed that Kevin and Sunny would marry, and they would have, if it hadn’t been for the drugs that had turned Sunny into a zombie. None of them knew how she got hooked on drugs in the first place, how she slid into such fateful abuse of them, or who had kept on supplying her. Somehow it had just happened. But the seventies and the eighties had been the drug decades, hadn’t they? Pot and hash, pills and poppers, uppers and downers, coke and skag, or smack, as Kevin called heroin. Some addicts were stupid enough to compound their habit by mixing drugs with booze, and inevitably that spelled death at some point in their already ruined lives.

Perhaps Sunny Polanski would be better off dead than living the way she is today, Rosie thought, and felt a shiver trickle through her.

Rosie had never been interested in drugs, had only ever once taken a few puffs on a joint years before, had instantly felt sick to her stomach, had wanted to throw up. Gavin had been furious with her for accepting the joint at the party they were attending together, and he had lectured her relentlessly about the danger of drugs for days afterwards. She had not needed to hear his dire warnings; she knew how dangerous drugs were. Poor Sunny hadn’t known and that was the tragedy.

‘You’re thinking about Sunny,’ Kevin said softly, breaking the silence, zeroing in on her thoughts as if he could read her mind.

‘Yes, I am,’ Rosie admitted, hesitated briefly, then asked, ‘Have you been to see her recently, Kev?’

‘Three months ago.’

‘How was she?’

‘Just the same. Nothing’s changed.’

‘I thought I might go to New Haven before I go back to Europe to –’

‘Don’t!’ he exclaimed sharply, and then shook his head, looking chagrined. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be snappish, but you mustn’t go see Sunny. She won’t even know you’re there, Rosie, and you’ll only upset yourself. It’s just not worth it.’

Merely nodding, making no response, knowing it was better not to argue with him, Rosie decided that perhaps he was right. Maybe it would be better not to visit Sunny as she had planned. What would it mean to her, poor thing? Sunny wouldn’t even know she was in the same room, and anyway, there was nothing to be gained, nothing she could actually do for her old friend to make her existence better. In all truth, she would only create yet another worry for herself, if she saw Sunny in the pitiful state she was in today. It would be another problem she was unable to solve, and she had enough of those as it was.

Taking a sip of water, Rosie straightened up in the chair and gave Kevin a faint smile.

He smiled back. But there was a sadness in his smile and a great deal of pain in his eyes. Rosie knew the pain was a reflection of a deep sorrow that ran through to the very core of him. And it was a sorrow that was almost unendurable. She suppressed a sigh, hurting inside for her brother.

Yet she also knew that Kevin was resilient and courageous and would keep going, no matter what. Continuing to look at him, she realized that his heartache about Sunny had done nothing much to mar his looks, and neither had the life he led as an undercover cop. Her brother was the most handsome of men, with the kind of glamour usually associated with a movie star; he was husky in build, strong and very masculine.

This evening, Kevin’s resemblance to their mother was very marked. Moira Madigan, who had come from Dublin to New York as a young girl, had been born a Costello. ‘I’m Black Irish,’ she had constantly told them as children, sounding very proud of her heritage. According to their mother, the Costellos were descended from one of the Spanish sailors who had been wrecked off the coast of Ireland at the time of Elizabeth I, the Tudor Queen, when King Philip of Spain had sent a great armada of ships to invade England. Some of the Spanish galleons had foundered on the rocky coastline of the Emerald Isle during a violent storm, and the crews had been rescued by Irish fishermen. Many of the survivors had settled in Ireland, and it was a Spanish sailor called José Costello who had been the founding father of the Costello clan. At least, this was the story their mother told, and they had been brought up to believe it was the absolute truth. As far as they were concerned, it was.

And certainly no one could deny that Kevin Madigan was Black Irish since he had Moira’s raven hair and sparkling eyes as black as obsidian.

‘You’re very quiet, Rosie; a penny for your thoughts.’

‘I was thinking how much you looked like Mom tonight, Kevin, that’s all.’

‘Mom would have been so proud of you, proud of your great success as a costume designer, and so would Dad. I remember how Mom used to encourage you with your fashion drawings and sewing when you were still a little kid.’

‘Yes, I do too,’ Rosie said, ‘and they would have been proud of us both. I guess we turned out all right…we’re healthy, sane, doing what we want to do and being successful at it, and that’s what they wanted for us. Dad would have been especially proud of you. You’re carrying on the Madigan tradition as a fourth-generation cop. I wonder, will there be a fifth-generation Madigan to follow in Dad’s footsteps and yours?’

‘What do you mean?’

Rosie regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, ‘Isn’t it about time you started thinking about getting married, having kids?’

‘Who’ll have me?’ he shot back, laughter reverberating in his voice. ‘I can’t offer a woman much, not with my job and living the way I do.’

‘Don’t you have any girl friends, Kevin?’

‘No, not really.’

‘I wish you did.’

‘Look who’s talking. What about you? There you are, sitting in that ridiculous situation, and for all these years. Gavin’s right, it is time you sorted out the mess in France.’

‘Is that really what Gavin said?’ Rosie asked, staring hard.

He nodded. ‘It sure is. Gavin thinks you’re wasting your life, and so do I. You’d be better off moving on now, coming back to the States to live. And maybe here at home you might find a decent guy –’

‘Talking of France,’ she cut in peremptorily, ‘are you coming over for Christmas? You promised.’

‘I know I did, but I’m not sure that I can…’ His voice faltered, and fortunately he was saved the trouble of making a string of excuses as the waitress appeared at their table. She carried a tray laden with dishes of the Irish stew they had ordered, and was all set to serve them dinner. Glancing at her, Kevin flashed her a warm smile. ‘And if it’s not the lovely mavourneen with our food,’ he said, radiating his special brand of Irish charm, a charm most women found irresistible.

Watching him, Rosie thought: What a waste of a beautiful man.

SEVEN

The bar was called Ouzo-Ouzo and it was located on the Bowery not far from Houston Street.

The neighbourhood was not particularly salubrious, but then Kevin Madigan had grown accustomed to the disreputable in his four years as an undercover cop. It seemed to him that he spent half his time in murky hideaways such as this, waiting for every kind of lowlife to bring him what he wanted – namely information of some kind or another.

He mused about this situation now as he nursed his beer in a bosky corner of the little Greek hole-in-the-wall on the outer fringes of SoHo and Greenwich Village. He was sick to death of places like this, there was no getting away from that fact. On the other hand, such places were essential to him. Where else could he have his meetings with the sleazy characters he had to do business with?

It was exactly a week ago tonight that Rosie had suggested he come in from the cold, get himself a desk job with NYPD. He had laughed uproariously that night, but now he wondered if she might be right. This thought hardly had time to take hold before he dismissed it. A desk job would bore him. Worse, it would kill his soul.

When he was out on the street his adrenaline pumped like crazy. He was full of vitality and on top of it all, ready to go the whole nine yards, capable of dealing with anyone and anything that came flying at him. He knew that any job other than the one he had would do him irreparable damage, and not even his sister could convince him otherwise.