Precinct 19
Page 32
“Oh, good lord no. We wouldn’t want to dirty up their premises.”
Ciffo met Tommy Keenan on the steps outside the station.
“What’s the good word, Tommy?”
“It’s a boy.”
“No kiddin’?”
“His name’s Tony. Anthony Keenan.”
“For me?”
“Why not?”
“Tommy, how is it going back on real duty, huh? You got things straightened out, or what?”
“I’m getting a transfer, Tony.”
“To what?”
“Desk job downtown. Regular hours, home for dinner every night, weekends off.”
“What about the Nineteenth?”
“I’ll probably never be around.”
“This all your idea?”
Keenan shrugged. “There was a time when I thought I could never give up this stuff. Now I got to get used to it and I am. Funny how you can adapt. But to answer your question, no it’s not all my idea.”
Ciffo waited, said nothing.
“Tony, I had to get out of the life or I’d lose Mairead and the kids and it’s as simple as that. She told me I was killing myself and maybe I was. Maybe I’m not supposed to be a cop. It’s not what I planned on, God knows.”
“What’s the desk job?”
“I’ll be in public information at Police Plaza. Brochures, community meetings, press releases, that sort of thing.”
“Think you’ll like it?”
“It’s indoors and there’s no heavy lifting.”
“Yeah, well,” Ciffo said, “but will you be happy?”
“Like I was here? Hell, man, I was miserable. More miserable and self-destructive than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Mairead pointed this out to you?”
“Of course. Shouldn’t she?”
“Sure.” Ciffo lit a cigarette. “What about the other one, the hobby cop we don’t see around here anymore?”
“She’s over with.”
“Mairead know?”
Keenan smiled. “Mairead knows.”
“Well,” Ciffo said, glancing at his watch, “it’s your muster. Happy trails. When do you leave?”
“This is it, my last day in the One-Nine.”
Ed Smith and Ruth had lunch in an Italian restaurant near the United Nations. Ruth arrived first, bursting with curiosity.
“Well, did he offer the job?” she asked. Ed hadn’t managed to sit down yet.
“How hard did you have to work on him?”
“He likes my work. I had to lobby some, but he pretty much goes on my recommendation on most things.”
“Well, he did this time, too, apparently.”
“Oh, Ed, I’m so proud of you.”
Ed Smith, director of security at a hospital. Big salary, big office, no sweat.
“We’d be working at the same place. What would you think of that?”
“What would I think of it? I was the one who suggested it.” She had to touch his face to make him look at her. “What’s wrong with you? You’re happy, aren’t you? Didn’t we talk all of this all the way through?”
“We talked about us, what we thought about our divorce and what happened to each of us over the years,” Smith said. “I’m not sure we did any listening, either of us.”
“I thought you were in the same place I was,” Ruth said. “You seemed to be. It seems to me that we were pretty objective about this situation for the first time in our lives.”
“Maybe that’s just what the problem was.”
“What problem?”
“The problem of objectivity. I’m not sure it has anything to do with human relationships.”
“Look, are you going to take the job or aren’t you?”
“Ruth, if I take the job, I’m doing something I don’t want to do except for what will make you happy. If I take the job, I’m saying that you’re right about my future and I’m not so sure you’re entitled to make that decision any more than I’m entitled to decide something like that for you.”
“You’re not going to take it.”
Smith looked past her, out to the East River that glimmered an oily blue between the buildings lining the street to the water’s edge.
“Let me tell you something. I don’t believe I fit in some objective world. I happen to think that one person is just as likely to be right, or wrong, as another.”
“You’re not going to take the job?”
“No. Shall we order now?”
Ruth sighed. “Well, I really didn’t think so. I hoped a hell of a lot, but I knew it wasn’t realistic. What’ll you do now? Go back to your bums?”
“Probably not. I need a change. I’ll see what’s around.”
“But you’re staying with the department?”
“Yep.”
“And I’m supposed to get used to that?”
“That’s up to you. I’ve waited.”
“I love you, Ed.”
Chapter 21
“Mrs. Rotare?”
“Yes?”
“It’s your secret admirer.”
“My secret admirer? Who can that be? I’m just an overweight old lady. I haven’t had any beaux in years.”
“How the hell are you today?”
“Well, I’m feeling pretty good, Tony. How are you?”
“It’s May and May is one of my favorite months of the whole year and I’m going off to the Cayman Islands to scuba dive and I deserve every minute of it.”
“I’m happy for you. But you be careful with those island girls down there.”
“Hey, I ain’t misbehavin’ and I’m savin’ all my love for you. Like the song, right?”
“Tony, I want to tell you something maybe you already know because lots of other people tell you this.”
“Shoot.”
“You’re a good cop, Tony Ciffo. And a good man. So why don’t you find yourself a nice girl and marry her and make yourself some little boys just like you?”
“This city isn’t big enough, that’s why.”
“Oh, I suppose it’s none of my business. Tony, you’re good to call me like you do. I got to go now and so do you. ’Bye for now and say hello to Jeanie.”
“I will. ’Bye, love.”
He pulled the Fuego into a very tight spot on East Sixty-seventh between Lexington and Park.
“Here we are, Jeanie. Another day of savage amusement in store for us.”
They climbed out of the car, a little stiff after running on the beach pretty much the entire afternoon. The first beach trip of the season. The water had been far too cold to enter, but the sun was hot.
There was an hour’s worth of paperwork to do and then Ciffo and Truta hit the street. The early evening would be one of the year’s best.
After an especially long winter season and a freak snowstorm in April, New Yorkers walked about the streets as if they were mole people trapped for years in darkness.
They were driving west on Seventy-third Street, past a block of terraced apartment houses. Ciffo looked up and saw a couple seated at a table, a candle between them.
“Look at that!” he shouted. Truta slammed on the brakes.
“What?”
“Up there. I think I’m going to go up and serenade them.”
“Jesus, you’ll drive them back inside. You want to ruin everything for them?”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
They drove on toward Park Avenue.
“… three, four … five,” Ciffo said.
“What are you counting?”
“The number of couples walking along holding hands. That’s what I like to see. Love in the city. Makes my job one whole hell of a lot easier, love does.”
About the Author
Thomas Adcock (b. 1947) is an Edgar Award–winning novelist and journalist from Detroit. Since 1985, Adcock has written over a dozen short stories and anthologies, in addition to his popular crime thrillers starring New York–based detective Neil Hockaday. Adcock was i
nvolved in PEN International, The Mystery Writers of America, and cofounded the North American chapter of the International Association of Crime Writers. He currently resides in New York.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright 1984 © by Thomas Adcock
Cover design by Jason Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-6004-2
This 2020 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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THOMAS ADCOCK
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