Our Lady Of Greenwich Village Read Free Page B

compared to Fogarty’s peccadilloes.” Unfortunately, a just reprimand and a statement in support of Fogarty’s skill had created a nickname that at first had been reduced to Pecker and then Peck. Fogarty had suffered silently, if not saturninely—which was his natural state—and had just about survived all his contemporaries, including Collins, who was killed one evening soon after when he had emerged from the old News Building on East 42nd Street under the influence and fell into an open subway grate. A loner in his personal life also—he was another one of those eternal Irish bachelors—Fogarty, his legs shot, had pulled his green eyeshade over his forehead, and retired to the City Desk and the telephone. Even with all the newspaper strikes and labor strifes, the News could not get rid of him. “Never met a buyout he liked,” they said about Peccadillo Fogarty. He was known to be judicious, circumspect, and cheap. Nothing got by Fogarty. He wasn’t about to let a congressman whom he didn’t particularly like get by him either.
    â€œNo, I’m not going to let that rag scoop me, Tessa. How much?”
    â€œIf Swift’ll offer three hundred to shut me up, another three hundred from you sounds fair.”
    â€œOne hundred sounds fairer,” replied Fogarty.
    â€œTwo,” shot back Tessa.
    â€œOne-fifty. Take it or leave,” snapped Fogarty. He loved it. If there was one thing he hated more than shady congressmen, it was crooked cops.
    â€œOne-fifty. You’re all heart, Fogarty,” said Tessa.
    â€œThat’s me,” replied Fogarty. There was silence on the line.
    â€œI’ll take it,” Tessa finally replied.
    â€œI thought you would,” said Fogarty. Tessa didn’t know it, but Fogarty always gave his tipsters $150. It was in his petty-cash budget. “Just don’t go away. I’ll find Cyclops and send him over. I got forty minutes before the four-star final closes. I’ll try to find him.”
    Fogarty knew exactly where Reilly was. He dialed Hogan’s Moat.
    â€œCyclops Reilly. Telephone!” Zeus, the ursine Moat barman, called out over the crowded Friday night bar. Reilly was in great shape. He was sure that he was about to get laid and he didn’t particularly want to be disturbed.“Yeah?”
    â€œCyclops, it’s Fogarty. You got to help me.”
    â€œWhat you want?”
    â€œJackie Swift was just brought into St. Vincent’s with a heart attack.”
    â€œBig deal,” said Reilly, who looked like a pissed-off Richard Widmark. As he cradled the phone on his shoulder, he pushed his slicked-back blond hair into place and played with one of his out-ofstyle Elvis sideburns.
    â€œHe was fucking his chief of staff when it happened.”
    â€œThe chief of staff a boy?”
    â€œNo. Of course not,” said Fogarty, although the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Reilly was good—if you could keep him away from the booze and the broads. “Cyclops,” said Fogarty in desperation, “we live in the Age of Clintonian Fellatio. This could be big.”
    â€œThe Age of Clintonian Fellatio,” said Reilly, laughing. “You’re beginning to sound like Eric Fucking Sevareid. I like that, but I bet Clinton’s getting more pussy than JFK ever got.”
    â€œYou think?” said the skeptical Fogarty.
    â€œWhat’s the big deal?” stammered Reilly. “Is there a story here?”
    â€œThere is,” said Fogarty, “if New York City’s most reactionary Republican congressman is having sex with someone other than his wife or his hand.”
    â€œGood point,” conceded Reilly.
    â€œLook, we got the scoop on this one. They bribed your cop friend Tessa three hundred dollars, and he called and filled me in. Get up there, please, Cyclops, and get me a statement from Drumgoole for our last orgasm, which closes in thirty-five