Chapter Seven - The Ties that Bind

Sullivan's Irish Pub in Queens, NY - Thirty Eight Hours Missing

The sign in the window of Sullivan's Irish Pub said CLOSED, but that didn't stop Sam, Martin, and Danny from peering in the front window anyway. The chairs were on top of the tables and the place was deserted except for two men...the older of the two was standing behind the bar and the younger was straddling a bar stool in front of him. Seeing the three agents looking at them from the sidewalk, the older man nodded to his younger counterpart and continued drying off the freshly washed beer glasses in front of him. Sam smiled and waved as the younger man ambled off his stool and moved to open the door for them.

"Hey, Mikey." Samantha said warmly as the door to the pub was opened for them by NYPD Detective Mike Sullivan.

"How's it going, Spade?" Mike returned her grin as he stepped aside to let the agents into the dusty darkness of his parents' pub.

"I can't complain."

"You never do." He gave her a once over with his eyes and then grinned mischievously. "Looks like the F.B.I. agrees with you."

"It does. Just like the force has always agreed with you." Sam flirted back, following him to the bar with Danny and Martin right behind her. "These are agents Danny Taylor and Martin Fitzgerald. Guys, this is Mike Sullivan."

"Nice to meet you both." Mike said, shaking hands with Danny first, and then Martin. "This is my father, Frank Sullivan. Owner and barkeep of this fine establishment."

Frank, Sam, Martin, and Danny all nodded their greetings. Frank eyed them skeptically and then said, "We don't usually shut down like this in the middle of the day. The lunch crowd has already been calling wanting to know how long we're going to be closed. Let's get this over with so that we can get back to business." Frank Sullivan let them know right away that he was a no-nonsense, get down to business kind of guy...which is what made him such a good cop.

"Pop," Mike said, throwing an exasperated glance in his father's direction, "they're okay. Samantha is a former cop."

"Then she should know better than to come here." Came Frank's terse reply.

Ignoring his father's foul attitude, Mike offered the trio some stools at the bar to sit on. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Speaking of the lunch crowd, are you hungry? My mom's back in the kitchen cooking up some specialties for today. We've got all the Irish delicacies covered on our menu. Corned Beef and Cabbage, Fish and Chips, Shepard's Pie, Irish Stew, Guinness Wings..."

"Guinness Wings?" Samantha asked, looking over the menu Mike handed her.

"My pop's secret recipe. We pour a few bottles of Guinness directly into the BBQ sauce before coating the chicken wings."

"We're on duty, detective." Samantha teased.

Mike grinned at her. "Then I recommend the Bangers and Mash."

"What," Danny asked skeptically, "are Bangers and Mash?"

Mike transferred his grin to Danny and said, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you aren't an Irishman? Because all good Irishman know Bangers and Mash."

"Cuban." Danny answered, looking over the menu that Samantha just handed him.

"Bangers and Mash is pork sausages with mashed potatoes." Martin told Danny. "When made right, they are heavenly."

"My wife makes them right. She makes her own sausages." Frank joined the conversation, leaning down to put the clean glasses below the bar. "And the wings don't have enough alcohol in them to affect you. We have cops come in here all the time on their lunch break."

Not wanting to offend Frank Sullivan before they got the information they needed, Samantha requested an order of the Guinness wings for the three of them to share. As Mike went into the kitchen to put in the order, Samantha turned her attention to Frank. "I hear you started out walking the beat in Hell's Kitchen. Tough assignment."

Frank eyed her warily for a few moments and then finally said, "Not really. I grew up there. It's where I wanted to be. Iced tea?" When Martin, Sam and Danny nodded, Frank busied himself pouring them something to drink as he continued to talk. "Our biggest headache was trying to keep drugs out of the neighborhood. From the youngest age, the kids of Hell's Kitchen were told it was wrong to steal from anyone from the neighborhood. Street muggings were rare and the price for mugging one of the elderly was steep. The cops that worked the neighborhood knew we served a violent clientele and we were there to tend to the physical and psychological wounds of the people who lived there. We listened to battered wives who never pressed charges and gave words of comfort to frightened children who didn't know what the hell was going on. We tried to balance out the violence in their world by talking baseball and books with the kids and tried to guide them away from the fast money and easy times offered by King Benny." Frank put the glasses of iced tea up on the bar and said, "There were some cops that took the payoffs that King Benny offered, but not all of us. We were, however, careful not to stray outside the framework he had set up in the neighborhood. We knew his laws were there long before we arrived and would be there long after we were gone. We were always aware that there were a number of situations over which we had no control."

"It had to be frustrating to try and work against that, being from the neighborhood and all." Danny said, taking a sip of his tea.

Frank nodded and said, "I didn't stay long. As soon as I had taken my knocks as a rookie, I transferred out."

"But you continued to live there?" Martin asked.

"It's tough to raise a family on a cop's salary in this city." Frank said as Samantha nodded. "Rents were low in Hell's Kitchen and I grew up as one of them. There was a respect in that, so everyone looked out for my kids and left us alone for the most part. But, I eventually moved the family out here to Queens."

"But not before your sister and her kids stayed with you while Pauly Caruso was in prison." Samantha remarked as Mike came back out into the bar.

"Which brings us around to the real reason for your visit, doesn't it." Frank said dryly.

"It's nice when it works out that way, isn't it?" Danny remarked with a smirk on his face. The sarcasm caught Frank off guard, but he seemed to appreciate it and returned Danny's smirk.

"Angie giving you the runaround?" Mike asked, settling down on the bar stool next to Samantha. "Tough cookie, isn't she?"

"She demands respect." Frank corrected him, his love and admiration for his niece apparent in his eyes. "She's just like her mother that way. They don't take any shit, those women."

"So we've found out." Martin said, sipping his tea.

"We need her help and..." Samantha began, but Frank cut her off.

"She's not going to tell you anything about that part of her life." He said, looking Sam in the eye. "We haven't been able to get a straight answer out of her since she was 16 years old. And we're her family...she trusts us. You're the Feds. You don't stand a chance and I don't think we can help you. Mikey knows her better than anyone and even he couldn't get anything out of her." Frank shrugged and a defeated tone crept into his voice, "Eventually, we learned to stop asking the wrong questions."

"What are the right questions?" Sam asked.

"About the Caruso's?" Mike asked, and then snorted. "There are no right questions. Only secrets and lies. And pain that has been buried so deep that it may never surface."

"What did they do to her?" Danny asked quietly.

Frank shook his head. " We may never know what really happened. The damage that was done while she lived in that house was long lasting."

"The girl I knew is nowhere to be seen in the woman she's become." Mike said, his tone sad and almost distant. "She used to laugh all the time. You could hear her laugh for miles around and it just made you smile. It was the sound of someone who was truly happy. She smiles now, but I haven't heard her laugh in a long time."

"They ruined her like they ruined her mother." Frank said suddenly, turning away from them so they couldn't see the pain that had come over him reflected in his eyes. But they could hear it in his voice as he continued, "Tried to kill her spirit." Frank was quiet for a few moments and no one said a word, allowing the man a moment with his grief. The fact that he couldn't save his sister from that life and wasn't there when she died weighed heavily on his heart. After a moment, he turned back around and said, "But Angie has fought every day to make sure they didn't win the battle for her soul. She's dedicated her life to saving the children of this city."

"I just don't think she's ever been able to really save herself." Mike added.

"She's risen above it, though. Thrown off the Caruso name, disassociated herself from that side of the family, and has tried to live a life dedicated to bringing some good into this world." Frank said, shaking his head, "It just shouldn't have to be so hard for her, you know? She's survived through enough pain and sorrow to last her twenty lifetimes."

"Why did they leave your home and move back in with the Caruso's?" Sam asked, gently trying to steer the conversation back to something they could use.

"Pauly was in and out of prison for practically their whole marriage. The first time, when Angie was a baby, Rosie stayed at the compound. But the next time he went in, about eight years later, she showed up on my doorstep one night with Eddie and Angie in tow. She didn't offer any explanations and I didn't ask. I was just hoping that it was her first step in leaving that life behind. She assured me that we would be in no danger if they stayed with us and it would only be for a few months."

"It turned into five years." Mike laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

"Must have been tight quarters." Danny remarked.

"To say the least." Frank agreed. "But those were good years. Eddie and Angie flourished here with us. I think Rose liked having me around as a male role model for Eddie..."

"...one that wasn't a cold blooded killer." Mike added, raising his eyebrow.

"The kids were really close." Frank continued, nodding at Mike. "And safe. I knew where they were at all times and Rosie seemed to lose all the tension she carried in her shoulders since marrying into that mess."

"We even formed an unholy alliance with King Benny." Mike said, goading his father. "He had a soft spot for Angie. He called her his felicita italiano...Italian delight."

"Which never made me happy." Frank said, a stern tone to his voice. "I kept telling the kids to stay away from King Benny's place, but it fell on deaf ears. It was too mysterious for them to resist." Frank shook his head again and said, "But when Pauly got out of prison, they went back to the dark side. I tried to convince Rose to stay, but she said that her children needed to be with their father."

"We thought that after Big Pauly died that Aunt Rose would come back. We were living in Queens by then, but she stayed in Bedford." Mike said.

"Why do you think that was?" Danny asked.

"I think she was scared." Frank said, matter of factly. "I always suspected that Tony and Joey called for the hit on Pauly because he was in more of a position to take over the reigns of the family business. I guess there is no honor between brothers in the mafia, no matter what they say about a la familia."

"How did Angie and Eddie handle their father's death?" Martin asked, intrigued by the whole story.

"Big Pauly Caruso was a dangerous man with a sinful past and a criminal record. But he was the only father they had. And they loved him. As only children could." Frank leaned over the counter and looked out the window of his pub. "And I guess he loved them too, in his own way. He showered them with expensive gifts to make up for all the time he wasn't around for them. His death was the beginning of the end of our Angie. The Angie that we knew. And when Rose died a year later, it was all she could take. Angie moved herself out of that mansion and set herself up at a fancy Manhattan boarding school. We couldn't convince her to come live with us, but she came around to visit more often. Then with college, and medical school, and her residency, we saw less and less of her. She buried herself in her studies and in medicine." Frank Sullivan's voice choked up as he said, "By then, it was too late. We couldn't reach her anymore. There was an emptiness in her eyes that had never been there before. She wouldn't let us in or tell us how to help. We had failed to save her from what she learned in that house."

"What about Eddie?"

"When Angie got out and Eddie stayed, we were shocked." Mike answered, giving his father a moment to collect himself. "He was a good kid. Never in a million years would I have thought he would follow in his father's footsteps. And I never thought he would cut off ties to Angie. They were each other's strength and lifeblood."

"He didn't sever ties with her." Danny said, looking from Frank back to Mike. "They've been in contact since she left."

Mary Sullivan emerged from the kitchen at that moment with their chicken wings. She set them up on the bar and said hello to the agents. Danny dug right in to the wings. "Wow." He said, licking his fingers. "Those are fantastic."

Mary smiled her thanks and approval as Mike, Danny, Sam, and Martin enjoyed her creation. But she knew that the conversation going on out here in the bar area was disturbing. It was written all over her husband's face. "Frankie," she finally said, "I need you in the kitchen. We need to go over the inventory."

Frank grabbed a wing and followed his wife into the kitchen. Once they were gone, Mike said, "I'm sorry we couldn't help you more. But Angie would never tell us what happened in that house. I think it was her way of protecting us. From what...God only knows." He shook his head again and said in a quiet voice, "Whatever happened, it turned Eddie into a hardened criminal determined never to let anyone have power over him again. And it made Angie realize that an honest life may not offer much excitement, but it pays its dividends in freedom. But the freedom she enjoys comes at a high price for her soul. As fabulous as I think Angie is, I would give anything in this world to have that little girl I once knew back. I wish I the world had been allowed to see what that girl could have become." The tears welled up in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Looking at the door his parents just exited through, he continued, "And it cost my mother and father countless hours in prayer, searching for answers to questions they were always too afraid to ask. It was so hard for them to watch Eddie turn into a stone cold killer, stripped of feeling and robbed of all that was sweet about the little boy who ran carefree though this neighborhood all those years ago."

"He's missing, Mikey." Samantha said gently, watching the color drain from his handsome face.

Mike put his arms up on the bar and buried his face in his hands. Danny, Sam, and Martin just sat there helplessly as they waited for him to process what was happening. Finally, Mike looked at them and asked, "Does she know? Does Angie know he's...missing?"

Danny nodded and Mike swore under his breath. "I'll talk to her. Get her to tell me something. But you've got to help her, Sam. You've got to call in every favor you know to find out what is going on. He was all she had left. I mean, she had us. But it wasn't the same as with Eddie. And if something happened to him, there's no telling what she will do."