The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

He was about forty feet away from me. I raised my gun up now so I’d have my sights on his chest. In the distance I heard the screeching of tires, but I paid no attention to them.

  Up until this point my only thought was getting in front of him to trap him. Now he was bearing down on me. The bag in his right hand was pumping up and down in time with his moving legs. I could hear his labored breathing, his face still a shadow in a camouflage jacket. I had about eight to ten seconds till he’d be on me.

  This is the moment the department can never get you ready for no matter how much tactical training you have—that split-second decision you have to make on your reaction to his action.

  I wanted to let this guy know I’m not here to play games with him. I decided if he tried to run around me, I’d holster my gun and tackle him down. The seconds are short and the options are few. For him, he’d be in one of two places tonight, dead or in jail. For me, if I hesitate, he stabs me or I shoot him. Not looking good for either one of us at this point.

  I decided right there that I’d be the one going home at the end of the night. If he raised his hand with the bag, I was gonna shoot him, more than once. Perps have been known to keep coming with a knife even with a couple of bullets in them.

  “Drop the bag!” I yelled, my gun aimed at his chest as I looked straight at him.

  When he saw the gun in my hand, he stumbled down to a walk. He had a hood on. I didn’t see that before. It was one of those nylon ones that roll into the collar of the jacket. It was pulled tight around his face, circling his features.

  Our eyes locked, his wide and dark, almost black. I didn’t see fear in his eyes, more like uncertainty. Not good.

  My right arm was extended, straight out with my left hand cupped under my right hand holding my gun. I had both my eyes open, with my gun sights on his chest.

  “Drop the bag now!” I yelled again, taking slow steps toward him.

  He was tired now; he’d been running since 38th Street and 6th Avenue, pausing only for a couple of seconds at the statue in Herald Square, then running down here.

  Steam was coming from his nose and mouth. I didn’t know if he was thinking of dropping the bag or coming at me. The only thing I was thinking is, He has a machete in that bag.

  I was about ten feet away from him now. I could see the sweat on his face and the whites of his eyes as he stared at me. I looked down at his hand for half a second and saw him tighten his grip on the bag.

  I heard the screech of tires again, and in my peripheral vision I saw a sector car turn the corner off Broadway with the turret lights on.

  I gave him my last command: “I’m not going to tell you again, drop the bag now!” I closed my left eye to pinpoint my sights. I saw his eyes widen, and I was vaguely aware of someone talking. He stopped and began to turn to the right, then he flew forward, facedown onto the sidewalk.

  I had forgotten about Fiore. He came up from behind the perp and tackled him to the ground. As soon as Joe had him down, I closed in the last couple of feet. I stepped on the perp’s hand holding the bag, careful not to step on Joe’s hand holding his right elbow. I used the arch of my foot on his wrist so he couldn’t move his hand.

  I heard the acceleration of the sector car approaching from Broadway. South Adam was on the scene first, with Rooney coming next from 7th Avenue, and the sergeant behind him.

  I holstered my gun and reached down to grab the bag. I threw it to the side, a couple of feet away. Joe took the wrist from under my foot and cuffed him. I moved to kneel on his neck to keep him pinned, pushing down on his upper back so he couldn’t move.

  “Give me your other arm,” Joe said, breathing heavy but still giving a clear and precise command. As Joe cuffed his other wrist, I came off his neck.

  “Everyone okay?” Sergeant Hanrahan asked.

  “We’re fine,” Joe said as he grabbed one of the perp’s elbows and I grabbed the other.

  “Come on, get up,” Joe said as we got him to his feet. He got up, keeping his head down, still breathing heavy.

  I lit a cigarette. I noticed that my hands were shaking. I took a deep drag and blew out the smoke in relief that Joe and I would be going home tonight.

  Joe called Central to “slow it down” so no one else would be rushing to the scene.

  Garcia got out of his RMP, stuck his head in the rear window, and said something in Spanish to an older woman sitting in the backseat. She peered out and pointed at the perp, nodding furiously as she rattled off in Spanish.

  We’re allowed to bring the complainants to the place where we stop the perp so they can make a positive ID. Technically he wouldn’t be under arrest until she made a positive ID. We’re not allowed to bring a suspect we have in custody back to the complainant’s location, because the courts feel we’d be swaying the complainant. It’s been argued that since victims are upset, if we bring a suspect to them and say, “Is this the guy?” they’re more likely to say, “Yeah, that’s him” about anyone we produce. The only exception to the rule would be if a victim is seriously hurt and likely to die and can’t be brought to the location to identify the perp.

  Garcia walked back to Joe and me and confirmed, “This is the guy.”

  I picked up the bag and pulled out a machete. It was about two feet long with a black handle and metal blade.

  “Was she cut? This looks like blood.” I showed the stained blade to Joe and Garcia.

  “It does look like blood,” Garcia agreed. “No, she wasn’t cut.”

  “I wonder whose blood this is,” I commented.

  The sarge saw us looking at the knife and walked over. “Whaddaya got?”

  “Looks like blood,” I said, showing him the blade.

  “Hers?” He indicated his head toward the car where the complainant sat.

  “No,” I said.

  “We’ll let the lab figure it out. Don’t put it back in the plastic bag,” Hanrahan said.

  “Are you guys looking to collar?” Garcia asked.

  “No, are you looking?” Joe asked.

  “It’s a good collar.” He sounded excited.

  “Robbery two, Merry Christmas,” I handed him the bag and the machete.

  Usually with something like this, it’s an unwritten rule that whoever catches the perp gets the collar. Since neither Joe nor I wanted overtime tonight, we could give the collar to Garcia. The ADAs (Assistant District Attorneys) don’t come in until 9:00 a.m. anyway, and Christmas Eve would slow the arrest process down, so he could drag it out to a full tour of overtime. Sometimes in a situation like this there would be a fight about it. South Adam got this as a pickup and it was a good collar, but Joe and I caught the perp. If I had shot the perp, nobody would have wanted it ’cause it would lead to a whole slew of investigations.

  Joe, Garcia, and Davis searched the perp, finding money in the inside pocket of his jacket. Joe counted out three hundred in new, crisp twenties.

  “She said he took three hundred off her,” Garcia said, taking the money as evidence. “Boss,” Garcia called to Sergeant Hanrahan.

  “Did she ID him?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Yeah, besides the machete, he had the three hundred bucks she said he took.”

  The sarge looked at me, “Who’s taking the collar?”

  “Garcia wants to take it.”

  He nodded, “Noreen and I will take the complainant. Put the perp in Garcia’s car.”

  When Garcia and Hanrahan left, Joe and I hung out with Rooney and Connelly for a few minutes, going through what happened with them.

  We went to the all-night deli at the corner of 35th and 7th for coffee. We sat in the car outside the deli, drinking our coffee and talking about the machete perp.

  I looked over at Joe and said, “When you ran up and tackled him, I heard you talking, but you were talking too low for me to hear what you were saying.”

  He shrugged, “Yeah.”

  “Who were you talking to? You weren’t talking loud enough for the perp to understand you.” I lit another
cigarette, my third in the last twenty minutes.

  “I was praying.” He said it like it was nothing.

  I thought about that for a minute. I wasn’t praying. I wasn’t thinking about anyone—not God, not Fiore, not Michele, not Stevie—just if I was gonna have to shoot that guy. I wondered why I didn’t pray.

  “Didn’t that distract you?” I asked. I wondered if stopping to talk to God would blow my focus.

  “Not at all,” he said and paused. “If anything, it helps me concentrate. When I was running down after him, I was praying, asking God if he was carrying a knife. I asked God to help me, and when the perp ran under a streetlight, the light caught his right arm and I saw the outline of the machete.”

  “I couldn’t tell from where I was if he had a knife, I just took it that he did,” I said.

  “Then once I saw the knife, I knew he was coming down at you, and I didn’t want him to stab you. So I asked God to help me take him down before you got hurt or had to shoot him. He was so intent on you with the gun, he forgot I was behind him. He slowed down some, but I was still running and hit him full force. Hurt my shoulder a little too,” Joe said as he rubbed his right shoulder.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be sore tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t even think to pray. Why is that?” I never seem to be as good at this as Joe is.

  “It’s not something that happens overnight—you develop in it.”

  I nodded, not sure I wanted God in my head while I’m trying to work. “Hey, what’d you think about that stuff they were saying last Sunday at church?” I’d been wanting to ask him about that.

  “What stuff?”

  “The stuff about the star the wise men saw in the East. Pastor was saying it appeared in 6 BC. How would he know that?”

  “Tony, I’m sure it’s a historical fact. The star was never seen before that,” he said.

  “I always thought it appeared the night Jesus was born,” I said. “Oh,” I added, remembering something else about it, “he said that the wise men didn’t go to the stable and see Baby Jesus. He said they went to the house when he was older.”

  “That’s in Matthew, chapter two,” he said with a nod.

  “I know where it is, I read it with Pastor last week. I just always thought that on Christmas Eve, the wise men went to the stable because they saw the star over where the manger was,” I said, still surprised at the information.

  “And?” he asked.

  “I never heard it that way before, and I’m having a hard time being convinced.”

  He looked at me like I was nuts. “Let me get this straight: You’re having a hard time believing what you read in the Bible over some Sunday school story somebody told you?”

  “I never heard it before,” I said defensively. “No one in my family ever heard it that way either.”

  “I never heard it any other way,” he said, “so I don’t have a problem with it. I can understand it throwing you a little, but I believe what the Bible tells me. Most people think there were three wise men too, but the Bible doesn’t say how many there were, just that wise men visited Jesus.”

  “It’s not throwing me, but are you sure it’s true?” I know it seemed like a little thing, but it made me wonder what else I was wrong about.

  “It’s true. Ask Pastor to show you where he got his information. He’ll tell you.”

  It was about 2:45 now. The street was quiet, the stores on 34th Street were all closed. Even though it was a Sunday, they’d all be open bright and early for Christmas Eve. I picked up the newspaper, reading an article about mad cow disease in Germany.

  “Did you know Germany has over fifteen hundred kinds of sausage?” I asked Joe.

  “What are you reading?” He laughed.

  “About mad cow disease in Germany. It says that there’s fifteen hundred kinds of sausage, most made with pork and beef, and that the average German consumes…” I scanned the article for my place, “…fifty-five pounds of sausage a year. That’s more than the Italians.”

  “Yeah, but I bet we eat more than fifty-five pounds of macaroni a year,” he said.

  That was probably true. “It says they use cow brains for sausage—we don’t do that?” I asked, horrified at the thought.

  “Not that I know of. Let me see that.” He took the paper from me and read through the article.

  “I’m glad I’m eating fish for Christmas Eve,” I shuddered.

  “Me too.”

  We sat in the car, talking and reading the paper, until 3:15 when we got a job.

  “South David,” Central called.

  “South David,” Fiore answered.

  “We have a 54 unconscious at three-nine and eight.”

  “10-4.”

  We took 35th Street to 8th Avenue, driving north up to 39th Street. A male white was laying facedown over the subway grating on the southwest corner of 39th Street.

  He appeared lifeless when we walked up to him. His head was facing 8th Avenue, resting on top of his folded arms.

  I’d seen him around; he’s usually across the street near the liquor store on the southeast corner of 39th Street. He was wearing dark pants and a stained, green plaid thermal jacket. One leg was pulled up close to his body, the other was stretched out with the shoe half off. He was wearing old sneakers, one with no lace in it, the other was knotted in a couple of places to hold it together.

  He was lying on the subway grating so he’d catch a blast of heat whenever a train went by underneath him. There was a rumpled paper bag next to him with a pint of Thunderbird sticking out of it.

  I put my gloves on while Joe tossed the bottle into the garbage can.

  I nudged him with my foot. “Hey, buddy, you alive there?”

  He moaned.

  “Come on, get up,” I said, kicking his foot with my boot.

  Before I met Fiore, I would have stepped on his ankle with my boot. A good stomp in the ankle will put a spring back in their step. EMS will usually rub their sternum until it annoys them awake, I find that takes too long, so I gave him another kick in the foot.

  “Hey, buddy, come on, wake up.” He moved a little, so I nudged again. “Hey! Let’s go.”

  “What? What?” he moaned, his head still on his arms.

  “Hey, oh come on, wake up.”

  “What?” He picked his head up and looked at me, bleary-eyed. When he saw we were cops, he said, “Oh come on.” He tried to sit up and slowly got his upper body off the grating, resting on his hands. He fell back down, rolling over onto his arms again.

  “Police, let’s go, you can’t lay here.” I love repeating myself. He sat up again, trying to focus his eyes on me.

  “You can’t stay here, you gotta get up.” He stared at me, but I didn’t think anything sank in.

  “Come on, Joe, let’s get him up,” I said to Fiore.

  We hauled him to his feet, each of us taking an elbow. “What are you doing? No, let me sleep,” he slurred.

  “He’s not steady on his feet,” Joe said.

  I gave his arm a little jerk and said, “Come on, you gotta walk, wake up.”

  We would have taken him home to sleep it off, but he was too wasted.

  “He’s not gonna be able to walk out of here,” I said. “I think he lives in one of the apartments on 9th Avenue, but I don’t know which one.” We lowered him back down to the ground, where he passed out again.

  “He can’t lay out here, he needs to go to the hospital,” Joe said, getting his radio.

  “South David to Central.”

  “Go ahead, South David.”

  “Is a bus responding?”

  “Yes, two-minute ETA.” (Estimated time of arrival.)

  In a couple of minutes EMS, or Emergency Medical Services, was on the scene, a male and female we’ve answered jobs with before. The female smiled when she saw the drunk. “Charlie!” she yelled. The drunk looked up and smiled at her. She was nice, always friendly to whoever she’s picking up. She looke
d to be in her late thirties. She was a little chubby with short, black spiky hair.

  “You know him?” Fiore asked her.

  “We see Charlie all the time, right, Charlie?” He looked up and smiled at her again. Her partner was a little older than she was, maybe forty. He was about five foot ten, heavyset with brown hair and square, wire-rimmed glasses.

  “I think he lives on 9th Avenue,” I told them.

  “Yeah, he does,” the male said.

  “Charlie,” she called as she rubbed his chest. Charlie kept pushing her hand away. “Come on, Charlie, let’s get up.” He sat up and smiled at her again, then his head rolled back with a bonk.

  “We’ll take him,” she said, grabbing him under the elbow. “If you guys want to make it 55, go ahead.” A 55 means ambulance case, no RMP required, so we wouldn’t have to fill out an aided card or go to the hospital.

  Joe and I thanked them and waited while they got Charlie onto a chair. We had no other jobs, so we parked in the empty lot on 37th Street. Joe took a nap, and I sat smoking and reading the paper.

  We went back to the precinct at 5:00 for our meal. We slept on the benches in our uniform pants, having taken off our belts, guns, vests, jackets, and turtlenecks. Joe set the alarm on his watch for 5:55 and spent ten minutes trying to wake me up to go back out.

  We stopped at a bakery on 8th Avenue and 30th Street and got coffee and Babyface cheesecake. We sat in the car outside the bakery while we ate. It was quiet, no commuters were out, and only the 24-hour delis, bagel stores, and bakeries were open.

  “So what’s on the agenda for today?” Joe asked.

  “I’ll stop at the jeweler on my way home,” I said. “I’m not coming out to go to church today. Michele’s driving in later to go to my grandmother’s for dinner.”

  “Gonna be traffic.”

  “I know, I told her to expect to be in the car for a few hours. The Long Island Expressway is a nightmare on a holiday.”

  “The Long Island Expressway is a nightmare on any day,” Joe remarked, then added, “So you’re just picking up earrings, or are you gonna surprise her with a ring?”

  “It’s still too soon, my family would freak,” I said, picturing my father shaking his head and telling me I’m crazy.