Chapter 5 Ben Gray

5

Ben Gray

The All American Diner sat across the street from Gray's precinct. If he wasn't a cop, he wouldn't have gone near the place. The stars and stripes covered almost every available surface, invariably beneath laminate. The table tops. The menus. Even the floor. It was an assault of Americanness. And that's the way some people liked it.

Not Sergeant Ben Gray.

This country hadn't given him or his old man so much as a dime. A flag doesn't put food on the table. Of course, most of his brother cops were patriots. It came with the territory. And Gray learned to keep his true feelings about his country to himself. That kind of talk ended in broken bottles and bar stools flying through the air – most of them in his direction. So he kept his mouth shut. He ate the eggs and drank the coffee in the All American Diner with his fellow officers before their shift, and didn't say shit.

And he had quickly figured out a way to make his own dime. And it wasn't with overtime either.

Gray sat at the counter, the only surface not covered in the Star-Spangled Banner. Same seat. For eighteen years. Staring at the same eggs on his plate. The only other people in the diner were cops, or the odd tourist. The place never got that busy.

The door to the diner opened and a large man in a thick leather jacket and blue jeans walked into the place to a rousing reception. Every cop in the precinct knew Mick Buchanan. Former lieutenant. Retired these past ten years. Gray looked over his shoulder, saw Buchanan's car parked outside – Mercedes S Class. Only a few months old.

And he knew Buchanan hadn't bought that car with his pension.

Buchanan waved, said hello and shook hands with a few cops, then made his way to the vacant stool beside Gray. He was a huge man with a big face, and hands that could make basketballs look small when he held them. The stool groaned as it accepted his weight. To an outsider, he had a genial air about him. To an insider, this was a man that you feared. For the past five years, Buchanan had run New York's Finest – one of the largest criminal organizations in the city. He had a piece of almost every pie, because what criminal doesn't like police protection, and he ran their own independent operations too.

‘How's the desk life treatin' you, Ben?' asked Buchanan.

‘I'm bored shitless. I got two years left before they can punch my ticket on the pension and then I'm free and clear. Like you.'

‘I heard,' said Buchanan, lowering his voice, ‘you had some trouble the other day.'

Gray's stomach tightened.

‘No trouble. I had to let an arrest go. Stupid, really. The lawyer, he had evidence on our friends in the towing company and he had my arrest sheets. He knew all about it. Instead of him bringing all that shit up in open court, I fumbled the arrest. I don't want that shit out in the open.'

‘He had evidence?'

‘He had a thick file of documents.'

Buchanan nodded. ‘You remember what happened with the speeding-ticket thing?'

Gray nodded. Almost thirty cops had lost their jobs over what seemed like a small scam. It had hit Buchanan's organization financially, and some cops went to jail – the cops who'd conveniently lost a speeding ticket for a small payment.

‘You remember Sykes and Kovax?' asked Buchanan.

Both of these men were also indicted for the ticket-fraud scheme. But they didn't get to trial because they were also part of New York's Finest.

What Buchanan feared the most was not rival criminal gangs – he feared his friends above all else: the cops who were up to their necks in the organization and knew who ran it from the ground up and how. Because cops can't do time in prison. Didn't matter if they got six months for taking a bribe, or six years. Prison time for an ex-cop is a death sentence. So they make deals, and they rat on their friends. It's survival.

‘What happened to Sykes and Kovax was a goddamn tragedy,' said Gray.

‘They got . . . depressed , you see.'

Sykes and Kovax were officially declared suicides. They ate their own guns. At their homes. On the same night. And their wives collected their pensions. But Gray and other cops in the organization knew better. Buchanan was terrified Sykes or Kovax would make a deal with the FBI and get a new life in witness protection in exchange for testifying against Buchanan and bringing down the whole house of cards. So he made sure they kept their mouths shut.

‘I don't like liabilities, you know? You're not feeling depressed, are you?'

‘No way. Look, it wasn't just about me. Flynn could have evidence on every one of us who get kickbacks from towing. He was tight with the other tow companies, brought a driver from each one of them to court.'

‘Shit. I fuckin' hate defense attorneys,' continued Buchanan. ‘This guy, he used to be a conman. That's the word on the street. Eddie Fly they used to call him. I don't want no defense attorney walking around with evidence that could expose our business. The towing don't pay as much as the girls, or the coke, but hey, it don't matter. They got Al Capone on tax fraud. We'll cool the tow trucks, eat a couple of hundred grand in losses. That don't matter to me. I just don't want this fuckin' guy poppin' up in court threatening my cops. When cops are feeling vulnerable, they do stupid things. They talk to the wrong people. Then they get . . . depressed.'

He held Gray in his gaze for a long time. Staring him out. Making sure Gray was solid. Gray felt like he was going to throw up, but he held firm. He had no choice.

‘We're not just losing money on the tow trucks now. There's not going to be any girls shipping in any time soon. You heard what happened to Grady Banks?'

‘He got arrested for kidnapping upstate. I heard some bitch put Butch in the hospital.'

‘Do you know what bitch? Her name's Bloch. She works for Flynn.'

‘No way?'

‘Grady was a Nazi fuck, but he kept those girls coming in. We made a hundred thousand on every skirt. This is costing too much money.'

‘Flynn threatened us. In open court. We should do something about this guy,' said Gray.

‘He's an attorney,' said Buchanan.

‘He's dirty. Didn't you say he used to be a conman? There could be all kinds of people he's pissed off. I don't want this asshole coming after us. We should get the bitch, Bloch, too.'

‘If you're going to kill a snake, you don't chop it up from the tail – you take the head off first. Job done.'

Buchanan slapped Gray on the back, friendly, but with force.

‘I think it's time we sent a message. You come after one of us? We come after you. I'm putting the word out. We can't take chances these days. And I want you to be there, personally, to make sure the message is delivered. You understand?'