Chapter 6 - Debts Paid in Blood
The following night, the rain had turned into a thick, clinging fog that rolled off the East River, swallowing the streetlamps along Third Avenue.
At the Lawson residence in Forest Hills, the lights in the study were still burning at two in the morning.
Arthur Lawson sat behind his desk, a bottle of rye half-empty beside his telephone. Across from him stood his brother, Thomas Lawson, a former deputy commissioner who still carried himself like a man who could clear a room with a badge.
“You’re out of your mind, Arthur,” Thomas snarled, pacing the oriental rug. “You gave him fifty grand? You sent the boy to Chicago like a dog with his tail between his legs? Castellano is seventy years old! His family is old news. The Feds have been leaning on the Five Families since the eighties—they don't have the teeth they used to.”
“You didn't see his eyes, Tom,” Arthur whispered, staring into his amber glass. “You weren't in that diner.”
“I don't need to see his eyes! I know the law. Derek was in an altercation with an illegal or an undocumented worker. A simple assault charge. Six months probation, maybe a fine. We could have buried it in the municipal court before the papers got wind of it.”
Thomas stopped at the desk, leaning down until his face was inches from Arthur’s.
“I’m calling the precinct captain. We’re going to run health inspections on Castellano’s three restaurants every day for a month. We’ll have the liquor authority pull his license for the lounge on Fourth. Let the old bastard see what happens when he shakes down a Lawson.”
Before Arthur could answer, the heavy leaded-glass window of the study exploded inward.
Thomas hit the floor, shards of glass raining down on his camel-hair vest. Arthur screamed, knocking the rye bottle onto the carpet.
Two men in dark windbreakers climbed through the shattered frame before the sound of the breaking glass had even echoed away down the street. They carried short, heavy wooden clubs—the kind used by dockworkers to secure cargo lines.
Thomas reached frantically for the drawer where Arthur kept his snub-nosed revolver, but a boot came down on his wrist with a sickening crack.
“Mr. Thomas Lawson?” one of the men asked. His face was obscured by a dark wool scarf pulled up to his nose.
“I’m—I’m a former commissioner!” Thomas gasped, clutching his broken wrist to his ribs. “You touch me and every cop in Queens will hunt you down—”
The club struck him across the collarbone. The bone snapped with a sound like a dry branch underfoot.
The second man walked around the desk to Arthur, who was curled into a ball behind his leather chair, weeping openly.
The man didn't hit Arthur. He simply reached down, picked up the telephone receiver, and set it on the desk. Then he drew an envelope from his pocket and laid it beside the telephone.
“What is that?” Arthur sobbed.
“That is the title to Derek’s car,” the man said through the scarf. “Mr. Vincent says he does not want it anymore. He says the smell of your family is in the upholstery.”
The man tapped the desk twice with the end of his wooden club.
“The fifty thousand to the hospital was the price for the girl’s face,” the man added. “This visit is the interest on your brother’s big mouth. If we hear Thomas’s voice on the radio, or see his name on an inspection report, we will not come through the window next time. We will come through the cellar while you are asleep.”
May you like
Thirty seconds later, the study was empty again, save for the wind blowing the cold rain through the broken glass, fluttering the lace curtains like ghosts.
***
