The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  I drove to Greely Avenue and got us home by 5:00.

  8

  The light was blinking on my answering machine when we came in. I hit the Play Messages button, hoping Michele had called.

  I heard my grandmother’s voice over the machine. She’s getting more deaf by the day, and I heard heavy breathing for a couple of seconds before she said, “I didn’t hear a beep. Tony, it’s Grandma. Aunt Rose fell and broke her hip this morning coming out of 7:30 Mass at St. Michael’s. She’s in the hospital, and she’s having a hip replacement tomorrow. Call me and I’ll give you her room number so you can go see her. I love you very much, and call me back. It’s Grandma,” she said again before she disconnected.

  My grandmother talks in short bursts with the authority of a drill sergeant. I picked up my cordless as the machine beeped and the next message came on.

  “Tony, this is Denise,” she said, talking loud and fast. “I’m sure you got the call from Grandma about Aunt Rose. Grandma just wants us to go see Aunt Rose because it makes her look good having thoughtful grandchildren. She wants to show Aunt Rose that we’re better than her grandchildren. Remember when Cookie’s kids only showed up for five minutes at Grandpa’s wake and then went across the street to Dee’s Tavern and came back wasted? That made Aunt Rose look bad, and now Grandma wants to put her face in it by showing what good grandchildren we are. Grandma and Aunt Rose hate each other. Don’t go just to score a point for Grandma and feed the insanity that has been perpetrated in this family for three generations.” She stopped and took a breath. “Call me when you get in.”

  Where does she get this stuff? I thought.

  Cookie is Aunt Rose’s daughter, my father’s cousin. She has two brothers, Uncle Henny and Uncle B, which is short for Biaggio. Henny’s a bookie, and Uncle B runs numbers for him out of the bar he owns on Clove Road. Cookie’s pretty nice, but her husband’s upstate in jail for attempted murder. She swears it was a bar fight that got out of hand, but it’s been my experience that stabbing someone in the chest with a broken bottle is usually attempted murder.

  Fiore was looking at me with a puzzled look on his face when the machine beeped again.

  “Tony, it’s Mom.” She cleared her throat. “Uhmm, I was wondering if you had any time this week. I’d like to talk to you if it’s possible. If you’re too busy to come up, I can come down there. Maybe we can have dinner.” She paused. “Call me when you get in and let me know. Thanks,” she added and hung up.

  I took my phone book out of the drawer next to the refrigerator and looked up the number. I glanced at the clock while I dialed, then I remembered that the schools were closed this week. She works as a cook in a small elementary school in the West End of the Pocono Mountains. I heard her say “Hello” on the second ring.

  “Hey, Mom, it’s Tony,” I said.

  “Hi. Thanks for calling back,” she said and waited a beat. “So, how are you?”

  “Good,” I said. “Is everything alright?”

  “Yes, everything is fine. Did you get my message?”

  “Yeah.” What is this about?

  “It’s supposed to snow on Friday, and I thought I’d come down tomorrow night and talk to you.”

  “Uh, okay,” I said, puzzled. “I’m working double tours for the next couple of days. I get home around this time, but I’m gonna have to get some sleep.” I tried to think of how I could swing this.

  “What time do you sleep until?” she asked.

  “About 9:00 or 9:30.”

  “I’ll only need about an hour—what if I pick up some dinner and get there for 9:00?”

  “Sure. That’s fine,” I said.

  “I’ll stop at Giardino’s and pick up some ravioli.”

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  “I’ll see you then,” she said. “Be careful tonight.”

  I called Denise back, but got her machine and left her a message. I called Grandma back and told her I couldn’t get to Aunt Rose for a couple of days, but I promised to send some flowers. I jotted down the room number, along with the phone number for Hylan Florist, so I could call in the morning.

  I got a pillow and blanket for Joe. He took the couch and I slept in my room, setting the clock for 9:30. I woke up first, groggy and disoriented. I hit snooze but remembered I had to leave for work in an hour and shut the alarm off. I called Angie’s Pizzeria and ordered a pie with meatballs and ricotta and jumped in the shower. I woke Fiore up at 9:50 and told him the pizza was on the way.

  Fiore was running late; he talked to Donna for about fifteen minutes before he jumped in the shower. He ate two slices of pizza and took the third with him, munching on it as I drove down Father Capodanno Boulevard toward the Verrazzano Bridge.

  It was 10:30. The sky was cloudy, and a fine mist shrouded the air. The temperature was still above freezing, probably in the high thirties, but if it dropped, black ice would cover the roads.

  “This is good,” Joe said around a mouthful of pizza.

  “Goodfella’s is better, but they’re expensive,” I said. “They make a vodka sauce pie with fresh mozzerella that’s delicious.”

  “Vodka sauce? That’s different. There’s a pizzeria in Sayville that makes a good buffalo wing pie. Hot wing sauce, breaded chicken cutlet, fresh mozzy, and blue cheese dressing. I love it, but my mouth burns from the hot sauce,” he said.

  “Burns your stomach too; that hot sauce runs right through me.”

  “So what happened Christmas Eve?” he asked. “We got some time now, no interruptions.” I was driving up Lily Pond Avenue, heading toward the Brooklyn-bound ramp of the Verrazzano.

  “You sure you want to hear this? You just ate.” I said.

  “I’m fine.”

  I started with Christmas Eve dinner.

  Joe and I were on the West Side Highway now. We went through the Gowanus Expressway without hitting any traffic. One lane was closed in the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, and we got behind someone actually doing the speed limit, which slowed us down some. Fiore didn’t say anything at first, just sat staring ahead looking at the dashboard.

  “Have you spoken to Michele since then?” he asked.

  “She called me Christmas morning. I was supposed to go out to the Island to spend the day with her and her parents after we opened gifts,” I said. “She said she had some things to think about, and she needed time. I haven’t heard from her since.”

  “Well, you can’t blame her,” he said.

  “Joe, it’s not my fault the way my family acts,” I said indignantly.

  “I didn’t say that. You can’t control how they act. But I can understand Michele not wanting to be involved with them,” he said honestly. “If it was me, I wouldn’t bring my kids over there.”

  “So you’re saying you wouldn’t see your family?” I asked. “I wouldn’t put up with that,” he shook his head. “I definitely wouldn’t make my wife and kids put up with it.” He paused. “How’d you get home?”

  “Denise took me home,” I said. Then I told him about Denise yelling at my father and throwing her keys at Marie.

  “She hit her?” Fiore said, shocked.

  “Nailed her right in the head,” I said. “Hey, we put the fun in dysfunctional.”

  “Good,” he said. “What am I saying?” he added, shaking his head.

  We had parked the car and were walking across 9th Avenue, toward 35th Street.

  “I don’t understand why you and your sister keep going to all these family dinners, they always end up this way,” he said.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Why put yourself through that?”

  “What about my grandmother?” I asked.

  “What about her? She’s not innocent either, Tony—what’s in your heart comes out your mouth. It’s very obvious she had a lot to say about Michele, and she treated Stevie terrible.”

  “She’s never acted like that before,” I said.

  “You should have stuck up fo
r the both of them,” he said. “And for your sister.”

  “I did stick up for them. And Denise starts in all the time. She knows how they are, yet she baits them every time,” I said, fuming. “She should know better.”

  “Why should she know better, but not them?” He stopped walking. “You got this backward, buddy. They’re the ones who are wrong.” He started walking, leaving me standing there. “Come on,” he said when he saw me standing there. “We still have to change and get upstairs.”

  He sounded like Michele.

  We ran into Jimmy Murphy outside the precinct, smoking a cigarette. He worked the four-to-twelve Madison Square Garden detail.

  “Hey, Tony,” he said, shaking my hand. “How’s Denise?” He met Denise on a Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago at the Rangers-Montreal game at the Garden. She had gotten a couple of nosebleed tickets from a pharmaceutical rep she knows. Murph helped us out, moving us all the way down behind Montreal’s bench. After the game, he took us back by the locker rooms so Denise could get some of the players to sign the little Ranger hockey stick she bought at the concession stand.

  “Your sister’s a knockout,” he said, smiling. “Can you hook me up?”

  “My sister’s a knockout? I’ll knock you out,” I said. “Stay away from my sister. I thought you were married,” I added, remembering a wife and kids.

  “I’ve been divorced for three years. Where you been? My wife’s remarried. She married the CEO of some communications company and lives in a mansion out in East Hampton. Probably pays more in real estate taxes than we make in a year.”

  “Then you should know how women are and stay away from them,” I said, hating all women, especially long-legged schoolteachers with cute little four-year-old sons.

  Murph was a nice guy, good cop. We see him pretty often while we’re on our way in and he’s finishing his tour. He had about ten years on the job. He was about six feet tall, brown hair, blue eyes. I didn’t know he got divorced. I met his wife a couple of times, good-looking girl. Denise commented that he was a nice guy. She wanted to know why I didn’t work the Garden detail so I could get her in to see the Knicks and the Rangers all the time.

  “No, seriously,” Murph said. “I liked your sister. Is she seeing anyone?”

  “Forget it, Murph, I’m not setting you up with my sister,” I said, walking toward the stairs.

  “Why not?” he asked after me, sounding insulted.

  I waved him away. Fiore gave me a puzzled look and said, “What’s wrong with Murph going out with your sister? He’s a nice guy.”

  “Yeah, imagine what he’ll be like when she gets done with him,” I said. “That’s all she has to do, bring home a divorced Irish cop. I could just hear my father saying that his grandchildren would be half Italian, half ashamed. Besides, I don’t want anyone at work knowing about my family, or my business.”

  Roll call was uneventful except for when the new XO (executive officer) addressed us. Most precincts have captains as their CO (commanding officer) but our command, because it’s so busy, has an inspector, which is a higher rank. The XO is second in command and carries the rank of captain. He’s been here a couple of months, but the XO works day tours, so we rarely see him.

  Sergeant Hanrahan was sharp enough to scan the room before starting the roll call. If someone who was expected in wasn’t there, he didn’t say their name. The captain doesn’t know who’s supposed to be there anyway, so no one gets in trouble for being late.

  He was young for a captain, maybe late thirties, stocky build with dirty blond hair. He had a round, friendly face and he introduced himself as Captain Lysorgowski. He had a brisk manner, walking quickly to the podium and addressing the roll call. He went through the usual blah-blah-blah, I’m new here, honored to be working with you, all the bull they give you right before they nail you.

  “It’s no secret that the morale within the department is at an all-time low.” He scanned the room for nods, he got a couple of half nods. “I think a lot of the problem is how the public perceives us. They need to see that we’re here to help. We need to treat the public better. If we treat the public better, they in turn will show us more respect, bringing up morale among cops.”

  He waited for support, but all he got were blank faces around the room. He seemed more naïve than arrogant, like he really thought if the public showed us more respect, we’d be happy.

  “Oh gimme a break, are you kidding me with this garbage?” Rooney bellowed, but the captain interrupted him.

  “Does someone have something to say?” the captain asked. “Do you want to come up here and say it?”

  “I said it,” Rooney announced.

  “Then come up here,” the captain said.

  “No problem,” Rooney said, stomping up to the front. He stopped at the front, standing in line next to McGovern and O’Brien.

  “No, come up.” The captain gestured to the podium. I guess he thought Rooney would be intimidated, but he wasn’t. He went right up to the front and faced the roll call.

  “I don’t think the problem is us treating the public any better; we treat the public fine. That won’t bring up morale. Paying us a decent salary for a day’s work would bring up morale.” A cheer came up from the roll call, with whistles and boot stomping.

  “Come on, Mikey!”

  “Wait a minute.” Rooney held up a hand, quieting the ranks. “If I was to ask how many people here had to work a second or even third job to pay their bills, I bet almost every hand in this room would be raised. We’re tired and beaten down, and all we get is grief from you guys.”

  Calls of “Yeah,” “Give us a raise,” and the old reliable “This job sucks!” came from around the room.

  Fiore surprised me by piping up and adding, “I think everyone here does their best to treat the public with respect. We do our jobs and we try to do them right, but every time we come here, all we hear is what we’re doing wrong. I’m not saying public opinion isn’t part of it, but most of it comes from the fact that we do everything you ask of us and we don’t even have a contract. Our last contract the department gave us zeros, which shows us how much they think we’re worth.” Fiore surprised the captain by asking him, “Do you have kids?”

  He looked taken aback, but shook his head yes.

  “What happens to a kid when you keep telling him he’s no good? He starts keeping his head down, shuffles his feet, loses his confidence. That’s the same thing that happens here. All we hear about is what we do wrong, and you know what? We do a lot right, but we never hear you talk about that. And it’s not like the sergeants are always browbeating us—this comes from the Brass.” Fiore seemed embarrassed when everyone started clapping, but everything he said was true.

  The captain was nodding his head like he understood what we were saying. He probably just got back from some meeting at the Ivory Palace (Police Headquarters) and he was told by the Brass that low morale was our own fault. And this is how to straighten us out. He left it alone after that, talking about the upcoming year, how New York is expected to have a record number of tourists in the city in 2001.

  According to him, more than 40 million visitors are expected to spend more than 17 billion dollars this year. The majority of it would be concentrated in our command and the North command. They projected a 3.1 percent increase in growth in the visitors market, and the hotels in Manhattan were expected to be at 85 percent capacity. I pictured all the walking 61s out there, complaint reports waiting to happen. All it meant to us was more robberies, pickpockets, grand larcenies, and scams.

  I’ve seen so many scams over the years. The old three-card monte, I can just hear them: “I see red, I see black.” They have ten people in the crowd working with them to entice the tourists walking by into the card game.

  The parking lot scams are hysterical. Some skell will stand outside a parking lot and collect twenty bucks from the cars coming in and give the drivers ticket stubs he found on the street. Then the skell runs away before the p
arking attendant comes out to warn the drivers they were duped. The skells do the same with taxis. They ask your destination and tell you to give them twenty bucks because that’s the fare. They put your luggage in the cab, put you in the cab, and take off with your money. Sometimes the cabbies will chase the skells off if they see what they’re doing, but most times people don’t realize what happened until they get to their destination and the cabbie demands their money.

  My all-time favorite is the beer bottle bump, where an un-suspecting tourist is bumped into by a skell, breaking the bottle on the sidewalk. The indignant skell starts getting loud, demanding money for the beer that he waited all day for. It’s usually water in the bottle, but the tourist is usually too scared or embarrassed and just throws the skell a five or ten to cover it.

  The captain ended the roll call by thanking us for doing such a good job. I guess his morale speech didn’t turn out the way he planned, and he looked uncomfortable as he dismissed us. I stopped at the radio room to sign out my radio and talked to John Conte for a couple of minutes before I headed out.

  We stopped for coffee on the corner of 9th Avenue and parked in our usual spot, an empty parking lot on 37th Street with a nice view of the Empire State Building, still decked out for the holidays in red and green lights.

  Central called us with a job from South Adam’s sector. We knew from listening to the radio that they were handling an accident with injuries on three-nine and Park.

  “South David,” Central called.

  “South David,” Fiore responded.

  “We have an open door alarm at 89 East 43rd Street, cross streets Madison and Vanderbilt.” Which is across the street from Grand Central Station.

  “Do you have a firm name?” Fiore asked.

  “Negative, it just says open door alarm,” Central responded. An open door alarm means the door was accessed and tripped the alarm.

  I took Madison Avenue and drove north to 44th Street, coming around the block. When I got to 43rd Street I drove slowly, looking for any open doors or broken windows with gates up.