Chapter 5 - The Cold Dock on 4th Street
The 4th Street dock was a relic of the city’s industrial past—a long, rotting pier extending two hundred yards out into the black, churning waters of the Hudson River.
Corrugated iron warehouses lined the shore, their rusted roofs groaning under the weight of the falling rain. There were no streetlights here. The only illumination came from the headlights of two heavy SUVs parked in a wide semicircle facing the water, their bright white beams cutting through the gloom.
The black sedan pulled to a smooth stop between the two SUVs.
Leo stepped out first, opening Arthur’s door while holding a wide black umbrella over the roof.
Arthur stepped into the rain, turning to offer his hand to Clara.
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking at his broad, calloused palm. His skin was warm despite the cold air. She placed her small hand in his, and his fingers closed around hers with a gentle, firm certainty that anchored her to the damp earth.
In the center of the blinding headlight beams stood Marco.
Beside Marco, lying on his knees in the wet gravel and mud, was Derek.
His hands were tied behind his back with thick plastic zip-ties. His face was bruised—his lip split wide, his left eye swollen shut—and his rain-drenched clothes were covered in dark river silt. He was shivering violently, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps as he stared up at the towering figures around him.
When the heavy leather boots of Arthur Moretti crunched against the wet gravel, Derek’s head snapped up.
"Please!" Derek shrieked, his voice high, pathetic, and stripped of every ounce of the cruel confidence he had displayed at the restaurant. "Please, man! I didn't know! I didn't know she was with you! I swear to God I didn't know!"
Arthur walked slowly to the edge of the light, stopping five feet from the shivering man. He didn't pull a weapon. He didn't raise his fist. He simply stood with his hands resting casually in his coat pockets, looking down at Derek as if he were a minor inconvenience scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
"She wasn't with me," Arthur said quietly. "She was working."
"I was just talking to her!" Derek sobbed, tears cutting pale tracks through the mud on his cheeks. "We have history! Ask her! Clara, tell him! Tell him we used to live together! Tell him I just wanted my money!"
Clara stepped out from behind Arthur, wrapping the heavy dark coat tighter around her shoulders.
Derek’s swollen eye locked onto her. "Clara! Please! Tell this crazy bastard to let me go! I’ll leave the city! I’ll go back to Ohio! You’ll never see me again, I swear to God!"
Clara looked down at the man who had tormented her for three years.
He looked so small now.
Without the safety of an empty apartment, without the silence of a dark street, without the power to isolate her from help, Derek was nothing more than a pathetic, cruel coward begging for his life in the mud.
"You promised you would leave six months ago, Derek," Clara said, her voice remarkably clear, echoing over the sound of the falling rain and the churning river. "You promised if I gave you my car savings, you would never come near my job again."
"I was desperate, Clare Bear!" he wept. "I owe people! They're gonna kill me if I don't pay!"
Arthur turned his head slightly to look at Marco. "Who does he owe?"
Marco pulled a small black notepad from his pocket. "He owes forty thousand dollars to Jimmy 'The Viper' Kelly’s illegal sports book in Queens. Kelly put a warrant out for his kneecaps yesterday morning."
A cold, terrible smile touched the corners of Arthur’s lips.
"Jimmy Kelly," Arthur repeated softly. He turned back to Derek. "You took a debt from a Queens loan shark, and you thought you could collect it by shaking down a waitress in my restaurant?"
"I didn't know!" Derek screamed. "I didn't know who owned the place!"
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Arthur stepped forward, stopping directly in front of Derek. He reached down, grabbed Derek by the lapels of his wet jacket, and hauled him up until they were eye to eye.
"Now you know," Arthur whispered into his ear.
