Chapter 1 - THE MAN I CALLED FOR HELP
The first time Walter Hallowell threatened to break my arm, Manhattan was blacked out for war.
It was November 1943, and every window on West 109th Street had been covered in heavy curtains because people said even one careless light could guide an enemy submarine somewhere beyond the coast.
The city was darker than I had ever known it.
But my apartment was worse.
My front door had already been kicked half off its hinges.
Broken glass covered the floor.
One chair lay on its side.
And my landlord was standing over me with murder in his eyes.
“Give me what your dead brother hid,” Walter said, “or I’ll break the other arm too!”
His hand drove into my shoulder.
My back struck the iron radiator.
Pain flashed from my elbow to my fingertips.
I dropped hard to the floor.
For a second I could not breathe.
Walter pointed at the old Philco tube radio sitting on the shelf across the room.
“That thing.”
I stared at it.
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
The radio had belonged to my brother, Tommy.
He had given it to me six months before he died.
Nothing special.
A dark wooden cabinet with a cracked corner, two large dials, a cloth speaker cover stained by cigarette smoke.
Tommy had repaired radios before the war.
He could make dead circuits sing again.
After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the Navy and eventually came back to New York wearing a uniform he rarely spoke about.
Then, three weeks earlier, the Navy notified us that Thomas Dempsey had died in what they called a dockside accident.
No details.
No body for viewing.
Closed casket.
I had been grieving too hard to question any of it.
Until Walter started tearing my apartment apart.
He moved toward the shelf.
I scrambled across the floor.
My right arm screamed every time I put weight on it.
The rotary telephone was near the kitchen wall.
Walter kicked a broken piece of door aside.
“Don’t.”
I grabbed the receiver.
“Put that down.”
My fingers slipped on the dial.
I knew only one number.
Not the police.
That would have been sensible.
Instead, I called the man Tommy had once told me never to trust.
The line clicked.
A voice answered.
“Lucardi residence.”
“My name is Clara Dempsey.”
Silence.
Then another voice.
Older.
Lower.
“I know who you are.”
I recognized it immediately.
Salvatore Lucardi.
Most people downtown called him Don Lucardi when they thought no policemen were listening.
He owned import warehouses, restaurants, produce companies, two garages, and according to every rumor in Manhattan, several businesses that did not appear on tax forms.
I had met him once.
At Tommy’s funeral.
He stood in the back of the church wearing a charcoal overcoat and silver tie.
He left before anyone could ask why he was there.
Now I gripped the receiver while Walter ripped loose another piece of splintered wood.
“Mr. Lucardi…”
My voice shook.
“Please. He found the radio.”
The silence on the other end lasted less than a second.
Then Lucardi asked:
“Is Walter Hallowell in the room?”
My blood went cold.
I had not said Walter’s name.
“Yes.”
“Stay alive.”
The line went dead.
Walter saw my face.
“Who did you call?”
I said nothing.
He crossed the room.
I backed away.
“Who?”
Then his expression changed.
Not fear yet.
Recognition.
“You called him.”
Walter rushed toward the shelf.
He grabbed Tommy’s radio with both hands and ripped at the back panel.
Wood cracked.
Screws scattered.
“What are you looking for?” I shouted.
“Something that should have been mine three weeks ago.”
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Walter froze.
Not police footsteps.
Too many men.
Too measured.
Three silhouettes filled the shattered doorway.
Salvatore Lucardi stepped in first.
Fifty-seven.
Silver hair beneath a dark fedora.
Charcoal overcoat perfectly buttoned.
No hurry in him at all.
Two suited men stood behind him.
He removed his hat.
Then he saw me on the floor holding my injured arm.
His face changed by almost nothing.
That was worse than anger.
Walter backed away from the radio.
“You brought him here?”
I looked between them.
“You know each other?”
Neither answered.
Lucardi walked past Walter as if he were furniture.
He stopped beside the damaged radio.
Reached behind the loosened panel.
His fingers found something.
He pulled out a tiny sealed metal cylinder no longer than his thumb.
My breathing stopped.
Walter went white.
Lucardi turned the cylinder slowly.
Then looked at Walter.
Then me.
“Your brother didn’t hide this from Walter, Clara.”
He slid the cylinder into his palm.
“He hid it from me.”
And in that instant, I understood the worst part of what I had done.
May you like
I had called a dangerous man to save me from another dangerous man.
I just didn’t yet know which one my brother had feared more.
