Chapter 5 - The Safehouse in Red Hook
The windshield wipers of the stolen Lincoln Town Car slapped a frantic, rhythmic beat against the glass as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge through the teeth of the three o'clock storm.
Manhattan rose behind us like a jagged wall of black glass and neon, while the East River churned into foam beneath the steel suspension cables.
Owen sat in the passenger seat, the seatback reclined thirty degrees to keep his blood pressure from tanking. He had pulled the Carhartt jacket over his hospital gown, the snub-nosed revolver resting safely between his thighs. Every few miles, his left hand would reach down to massage the deadened muscles of his quadriceps, forcing circulation back into his legs through sheer, stubborn repetition.
"Where are we going?" I asked, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my palms were bruised. "The police—"
"The police are divided into three precincts that answer to my brother and two that answer to the district attorney," Owen replied, his tone devoid of illusion. "If we walk into a precinct house, we will be dead in a holding cell before the morning shift arrives. Take the BQE toward Hamilton Avenue. We go to Red Hook."
"Who is in Red Hook?"
"Silas," Owen said simply. "My father's armorer. The only man in this city who doesn't check the stock market before he decides who to shoot."
Twenty minutes later, the Lincoln bumped over the uneven cobblestones of Van Brunt Street, turning into an alley of red-brick maritime warehouses that had stood since the Civil War. The air smelled of salt spray, rusted iron, and the low-tide rot of the Gowanus Canal.
We stopped before a heavy corrugated iron gate bearing a faded painted sign: VANCE MARINE REPAIR & SALVAGE.
Owen reached into his Carhartt pocket, pulled out the stolen phone he had lifted from the guard, and handed it to me. "Dial the number. Memorize it, then throw the phone into the harbor."
He rattled off ten digits without pausing.
I dialed. The line clicked on the third ring.
A gravelly, smoking-ruined voice answered: "Speak."
"Silas," Owen said, leaning his head toward the speaker. "The bread is stale, but the baker is home."
A heavy, suffocating silence hung over the line for five full seconds.
Then came the sharp sound of a heavy steel bolt being thrown back on the other side of the corrugated gate.
"Pull the car inside, girl," the voice rasped. "And turn your headlights off before someone sees that Lincoln's plates."
The iron gate rolled open on squeaking chains. I drove the car into the cavernous, oil-scented gloom of an old dry-dock shed, the gate slamming shut behind us with an echoing, concussive bang.
The headlights of an industrial forklift clicked on, blinding us with two beams of yellow halogen glare.
Standing behind the light was an old man in a greasy wool watch cap and a stained denim apron, holding an antique Winchester lever-action rifle leveled straight at my windshield. His face was a roadmap of burn scars and deep, nautical wrinkles, his white beard trimmed short against his collar.
The driver's door opened, and I stepped out with my hands raised. "Don't shoot! He's hurt!"
The old man ignored me. He walked past the front bumper, pulled the passenger door open, and stared down at the emaciated, pale figure sitting in the leather seat.
The rifle lowered slowly.
"They said you were dead, boy," Silas whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion that felt heavy enough to split the concrete floor. "They told the waterfront you were drooling in a bed while Julian took the cranes."
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Owen looked up, offering a slow, bloody grin that held forty years of Brooklyn venom.
"Julian was always a terrible accountant, Silas," Owen rasped, extending a trembling hand. "Help me out of this damn car. We have an empire to audit."
