The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  He was clean-cut and looked like what we call black Irish, black hair, dark eyes. Maybe he was a Westie, one of Hell’s Kitchen’s Irish mob. He was wearing a button-down denim shirt over a black turtleneck, jeans, and cowboy boots. He was full of powder from his airbag and looked soaked with sweat in spite of the cold.

  The female was petite and pretty, with shoulder-length blond hair and a big purple egg on her forehead. She was about five foot four and wore jeans and high-heeled black boots. She was also wearing a black turtleneck, but she had on a long black sweater coat. She looked like money, even with the egg on her head and airbag powder all over her. She had gotten out of the Suburban and was crying quietly as she stared at the crushed cab.

  Fiore and I had started toward the cab when I saw one of the FTU rookies whacking his arm up and down on the driver like an axe. It looked like it was taking a lot of effort for the baby-faced rookies to hold the guy down. You could see the fear and excitement in their faces as they scrambled all around him. I almost laughed as the two Irish guys and a Spanish female tried out their Academy cuffing technique. I shook my head and pictured the newspaper with “How Many Cops Does It Take to Cuff a Perp?” splashed across the front page.

  In theory, if you’re holding your cuffs properly, you hold the chain in the palm of your hand and close your fist. If you do this, one cuff will be coming out the top of your hand, and the other will come out the bottom. The bottom part of the cuff is stationary, and the top part swivels. In one swift motion, you’re supposed to hit the wrist with the swivel part of the cuff so it would swing around the wrist and lock the cuff into place. This would give you control of the cuffed hand even if the perp is moving. The more he moves, the more you twist, and the cuffs cut into his wrist.

  It was comical to watch the rookies attempt this maneuver. Two of them were sitting on the driver’s back, while the other one slammed him over and over on the wrist with the stationary end of the cuff. The perp was yelling and bucking like a horse. “Get off me!” he kept yelling, and the rookie was so excited, he didn’t realize he was hitting the perp with the part of the cuff that doesn’t move.

  I walked over and grabbed the cuffs out of his hand.

  “Give me those,” I barked at him. “I don’t have time for this.” I cuffed the perp while the other two held him down.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said, embarrassed.

  “Who are you calling sir? Do I look like an old man to you?” I asked, up in his face. Did I look that old?

  “No, sir,” he said, then corrected himself. “Sorry, no.” I remembered he was just out of the Academy and had to call everyone sir. That’ll wear off.

  “Watch him,” I said to the one whose cuffs I took. I pointed to the female who had been in the Suburban with the perp. She was still standing by the cab, crying. Her nose was red now, and she was huddling into her sweater.

  “One of you watch her, and the other start directing the northbound traffic around the cars,” I said to the other two FTU cops.

  Traffic was backing up in all directions, and rubberneckers were slowing down whatever traffic could get through. The exhaust from the cars was coming out in streams of smoke from the cold, while the plumes of hot air from the subways underneath came through the manhole covers. There was a red and white rubber smokestack on the southwest corner of 34th Street. Con Edison uses them to redirect the steam from the subways as they work underground.

  The female rookie babysat the perp’s girlfriend while the other rookie stood in the middle of Madison Avenue, facing south, and directed the northbound traffic east on 34th Street toward Park Avenue.

  The intersection of Madison and 34th had scaffolding around the buildings on the northeast and northwest corners. The scaffolding that the cab was pushed into on the northeast corner didn’t collapse, but I’m sure it weakened the structure. Once the cars were moved, we would have to rope it off so no one walked under it. It would be a fixer, a post that you’re stuck on until you’re relieved. A fixer can be a DOA, crime scene, hospital with a prisoner, targeted location, any thing like that. Someone would have to sit on it until a city engineer checked it out. Then the scaffolding company would have to come and fix it, but it wouldn’t be my fixer or my problem.

  The North Sergeant said over the radio that he was coming to the scene at 34th and Madison. He also said that two other vehicles had been hit by the black Suburban, making it a total of seven cars and one city bus that this clown hit.

  I zipped up my jacket as Fiore and I went over to the cab. I approached the side of the car that was hit, and Fiore went around to the other side. The passenger sitting next to the door in the backseat was dead. The left side of his face was full of blood, and his head was slumped to the right. This gave me a clear view of the wound, and I would say he probably died at impact since half his head was gone. He must have been facing the other passenger since the force of it hit him in the back of the head. I hoped he never knew it was coming.

  The windows had exploded on impact, and the twisted metal door went into the passenger. I tried not to look too much at him, but a superficial once-over told me he was in his late thirties, with short dark hair. He was wearing a long, black wool coat and a light-colored scarf, now stained red. The guy next to him was also motionless.

  The cabbie was moaning in a Middle Eastern accent, “The light was green, the light was green.”

  I opened the driver’s door and said “Easy, buddy” while I shut the ignition off. The cab wasn’t running any longer, just a series of clicks from the engine. “Tony, this guy is still alive,” Fiore said from the other side of the car. He walked over to the second cab that was hit, and I saw him open the back door, checking on the passengers. I nodded my head and asked, “What’s up?”

  “They’re a little banged up, but they’ll be alright,” he said.

  There were other cars at the scene now. Sergeant Hanrahan and the first ambulance arrived simultaneously. I told the EMT, “The passenger behind the driver is dead, but the other is still alive.”

  The EMT gave a quick check to the first passenger, confirmed he was dead, and called his partner. He and his partner started to work on the other guy. They gave me his info from his passport and got him into the ambulance, then left the scene within a couple of minutes to take him to Bellevue. Another ambulance arrived, and this pair of EMTs went over to the driver of the first cab.

  I walked over to the second cab. The driver was screaming about the damage done to his cab and wanted to know who’s gonna pay him for all the money he won’t be making tonight. His passengers were three pros on their way uptown. Pros is short for prostitute and is pronounced the same way. EMS got the first two pros out of the cab. The first one was in a powder blue nylon dress with black boots and stockings and a black leather jacket that came to her waist. Her hair was short and spikey, blond on the ends and black at the roots.

  The second one was dark skinned with long black hair and was wearing a short, white rabbit fur coat over a thigh-length leopard dress. Her black stockings had a run in them, and her black stiletto heels were scuffed.

  The third one was taken out on a backboard. She had a nasty gash on her forehead, and her nose and mouth were bleeding as well. She was wearing a red dress in the same cheap nylon material as her coworkers. She wore a fake fur coat that may have been white once; now it was an ugly shade of gray.

  They weren’t homeless pros. They had enough money to share a cab, but they were pretty sleazy looking. No escort service here.

  Fiore was talking to them, calming them down while he got their information for the accident report. They were banged up and crying. The first two walked to the second ambulance, the third pros they put on a stretcher. I wondered who was gonna pay them for the money they wouldn’t be making tonight.

  Sergeant Hanrahan walked over toward Fiore and me. “What happened here?” he asked.

  “This is the yo-yo they were looking for in the north for leaving the scene. The guy’s hammered, he
bounced off the FTU car, we saw him hit a livery and these cabs. He played bumper cars for about twenty blocks before nailing the cab. One guy is dead, the other is likely to die.” I nodded my head toward the perp. “Look at him,” I said with disgust. He was still carrying on, yelling at the rookies.

  His girlfriend had stopped crying and was now complaining that she was cold. She was on her cell phone and at the same time telling the female rookie that she wanted to go home.

  “Officer!” Hanrahan said to the female rookie watching the perp’s girlfriend. “Cuff her.” He nodded toward the perp’s girlfriend.

  “What?” she screamed. “What did I do? Hey, I’m talking to you!”

  The boss ignored her as he walked over to the sergeant from the North. The North Sergeant looked like a boozer to me. He was about five foot eleven with thinning red hair and blue eyes. He had a bulbous nose with broken blood vessels in it and deep lines in his face. He looked fifty but might have been younger. He told Sergeant Hanrahan to let the rookies handle the arrest and said something tasteless about them losing their virginity. When the boss smirked, he added, “I’ll have the FTU Sergeant respond to the south and help them with the paperwork. We’ll let her handle the accident report.”

  I had gotten the badge number of the EMS guy who took the “likely to die” to Bellevue, I would need it for the accident report later. Even though we were getting everyone’s name, address, social security number, license, registration, and insurance, we’d all end up back at the precinct anyway.

  “Hey, Tony,” Hanrahan said. “Search the DOA (dead on arrival), see if he’s got any personal belongings or anything of value to voucher.” He meant money, jewelry, passport, ID, cell phone, drugs, anything like that. “Do you have gloves on you?” he asked.

  “I should have them in my trunk,” I said while I walked back to my RMP.

  The initial commotion of the accident had worn off, and I was starting to feel the cold. My ears were stinging, my nose was starting to run, and my fingers were getting numb. I blew on my hands, then pressed them over the tops of my ears to warm those up a little as I walked back to the car. I didn’t want to put my leather gloves on because they would make it difficult to search the DOA, plus I didn’t want to get blood on them.

  I opened the RMP’s trunk and found an opened box of latex gloves with a couple spilled out around the box. There was also a spare tire, orange traffic cones, flares, tire chains, a crumpled brown paper bag, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, and a five-gallon can of house paint. Someone probably took the bat off a perp. I picked up the can of paint and shook it. It felt full. It said “premium interior latex, pastel base” on the front and had a number written in magic marker with a splash of green paint on the lid. I looked at the color, decided I wouldn’t paint anything in my apartment with it, and put it back in the trunk.

  I took the crumpled paper bag with me and pulled on the gloves as I went back to the cab. I couldn’t open the dead guy’s door, so I went around to the passenger side of the cab. I wouldn’t sit on the backseat, so I perched myself at a weird angle by putting one foot on the seat and the other in the passenger side footwell. The smell of blood was strong inside the cab, slightly reminiscent of our butcher shop in Dongan Hills. The smell doesn’t bother me anymore. When I first came on the job, I almost fainted the first time I saw a lot of blood, but you get used to it after a while.

  I pulled up the guy’s sleeve on his left hand and took his watch off. I held it up to the light to get a better look. It was stainless steel, with a silver face and a black leather band. It said VERSACE on the face and looked pretty valuable to me, but what do I know? I found the pants soaked in blood and dripping on the seat of the cab. The wound had bled out onto the seat. It was dry in the front, but it was still wet as it ran down the rivets in the leather toward the back between the seat. I pulled an Italian passport, a black leather wallet, and a wad of cash out of his front and back pockets. My gloves were getting sticky as the blood dried on them, and they were adhering to the wallet as I moved it.

  I put everything in the brown paper bag at the farthest end of the seat. I had to lift his head to check his neck for chains, and of course he was wearing one. I pulled the fastener around to the front because I didn’t want to wrestle with the head to take it off. The gloves were making my hands clumsy, and it took me a couple of tries to get it off. I didn’t look at the face, I didn’t want to remember it. I knew the eyes were closed, but other than that, I couldn’t tell you what he looked like. One less face in my nightmares.

  Fiore was talking to the sergeant when I walked over.

  “I got his valuables,” I said, holding up the bloodstained bag. “I checked all his pockets, wrist, fingers, and neck. He’s got an Italian passport.” I tried to remember how this would be handled. I was pretty sure it would go upstairs to the detectives, who would contact Intel (Intelligence), and they in turn would contact Interpol.

  “Tony,” the sarge said, “you and Joe go back to the house and give the info to the North Sergeant on the DOA, the likely to die, the pros, and the cabbies. And do me a favor, type up the voucher report for the DOA’s property.”

  “You got it, Boss,” I said.

  It was now almost 1:15 a.m. The cabbies and the pros had all been taken to the hospital. Someone from Highway was there to do an analysis of the accident. He was taking pictures when Fiore and I left. One of the FTU would sit with the body in the car until the coroner came to take it.

  When we got back to the precinct, the FTU Sergeant, a female from the North, was at the front desk, talking to Lieutenant Coughlin. Vinny Begaducci, or bag of donuts as we call him, wasn’t at the desk, but I could hear him telling the FTUs to control their prisoner, who was screaming “Get these cuffs off me!” from one of the cells in the back.

  “Hey, Lou,” I said. “Sergeant Hanrahan’s got us vouchering the DOA’s property and wants us to the give the info on the two cabbies that were hit to the North Sergeant for the accident report.”

  He nodded. “Give the info to the FTU Sergeant here,” he said, pointing to the female sergeant, a skinny redhead with freckles, talking on the phone at the desk. “Vinny,” the lou called, “get vouchers for the DOA’s property.”

  “Hey, Joe, Tony,” Vinny said as he came in carrying a handful of perforated computer sheets, still attached, “I think you guys got a hit.” He walked back behind the desk.

  “James O’Connor.” Vinny read off the sheet. He gave a West 51st Street address. “Twenty-eight years old. Let’s see, we got robbery, attempted robbery, attempted murder, eight assaults?” he read off. The guy was probably professional muscle, a leg breaker who collects vig for a loan shark. (Vig is a mob term for interest on loans to a loan shark.) He had no warrants.

  Joe and I went into the muster room to voucher the property. I put some newspaper down on the old metal desk and pulled two new rubber gloves on, snapping them like a proctologist for effect. I asked Joe to write down the property as I read it off.

  The voucher, or property clerk’s invoice, is used to record arrest evidence or to record a DOA’s property. Joe checked off “decedent’s property” while I read off the items I found on the DOA.

  “One gold-colored chain, approximately fifteen inches.” Joe wrote while I set the chain on the newspaper. The reason I don’t say “one gold chain” is because if I go to trial and some lowlife defense attorney puts me on the stand, he looks for something like this. I say it’s a gold chain, and it turns out it’s only gold plated, or not gold at all. Then the attorney has a field day with me, saying I switched the chains, and I’m a thief and his client is innocent. Or he says “How do you know it was gold, are you a metallurgist?” and wastes two days of testimony making it look like I’m a dirty cop and it was conspiracy against his client.

  “One silver-colored watch with a black band,” I continued, “with the word VERSACE written in black letters on the face.”

  “One Italian passport.” I gave the number
. “With the deceased’s name ‘Francesco Costo.’” It said that he was from Rome.

  I counted off the money. “Three thousand, four hundred and seventy-nine dollars in U.S. currency.” The money was soaked through with blood and would probably have to go to the lab even though it’s not evidence. I can’t voucher it like that.

  “One black wallet. One Italian driver’s license.” I named his credit cards, four in all, and opened the billfold and pulled out a white, blood-soaked piece of paper.

  “It looks like our DOA was a Mo,” I said, still reading.

  “Why do you say that?” Fiore asked, looking up from the passport he was trying to read without touching it.

  “A blood test report.” I held it up. It was from a laboratory on Third Avenue and was checked positive for the HIV virus. “He’s got the monster,” I added.

  As soon as I said the word Mo I felt heavy, like I did something wrong. Mo is short for homo and is usually what I say to describe someone who’s gay. Fiore doesn’t say it, but he’s never said anything when I do. That’s probably because when he first became my partner, I used to use some really nasty adjectives to describe people just to see if I could get a rise out of him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look funny.”

  “Nothing,” I said.

  In some ways life was less complicated when I didn’t have a conscience. I guess I had one when I was a kid and lost it somewhere along the way. Since I met Fiore, it seems to have come back. Not that it isn’t good, it’s just that it changes who I’ve been for a long time.

  Now I’m feeling guilty for calling the DOA a Mo. There was a hotel passkey for one of the big hotels right in Times Square. Those rooms are booked for this time of year at least a year in advance. He was probably doing that once-in-a-lifetime trip to experience New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Then the poor schmuck gets whacked in a cab by some drunk on 34th Street without getting to see the ball drop. Another New York vacation moment. We got a million of them.