The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  His specialty was robbery. He had four of those mixed with grand larceny, petit larceny, and two assaults. He’d done time, going upstate twice. This would send him back there. His sheet was marked recidivist.

  I locked up my gun again and went to the gated metal door that led to the back by the cells, holding the rap sheet and the two coffees for Fiore and the perp.

  I stopped in front of the door, by the red sign that said “Stop. No Firearms Beyond This Point” in white letters. There were three other printed signs: “All Prisoners Must Be Handcuffed When Leaving Cell Area,” “All Prisoners Must Be Handcuffed When Entering Cell Area,” and “No Weapons Are Allowed Beyond This Point.” It seemed like overkill, but what do I know?

  “Terr, can you buzz me in?” I asked.

  “Only if you say please,” she said.

  “Terr, can you buzz me in please?” I said dryly.

  I went through the doorway. Ahead was the fingerprint scanner with a bulletin board over it giving instructions on how to use it. There was a bottle of Windex and some wipes on the machine to clean off the smudges, and a box of latex gloves so we didn’t have to touch the prisoners and catch who knows what from them.

  I made a right through a small room, which is where we keep the paperwork for fingerprinting and arrest processing. It’s mostly for misdemeanors because they don’t go through the system.

  There’s a desk and a chair, with a phone on the wall next to the desk. Next to the phone is a stairway that leads up to a row of cells. There’s about twenty cells up there that used to hold the overflow of prisoners from The Tombs downtown. We would hold them there until they were ready to be arraigned. They’re mostly empty now and are used by Narcotics, Peddlers, and Street Crime when our regular cells are too full.

  Straight ahead are two sets of doors. Above one door is the “Welcome to Oz” sign, the last thing the perp sees before the cell door clanks shut.

  Joe was sitting at the table across from the cells, filling out the paperwork on the arrest. I gave Joe both coffees. The perp had fallen asleep in the cell and was snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

  Joe made a call to Manhattan Robbery to see if they wanted to come down and do an interview. If they had any open cases with his MO (modus operandi), they’d come down and talk to him. They can also check to see if there are any warrants that aren’t in the computer and any court dates this guy may have missed. We call them anytime we get a robbery, I’ve hit before with them. They took the info on the perp, but they didn’t want to interview him.

  “I’ll do the complaint report, aided card, and the supporting dep, and I’ll type up the voucher,” I said, taking the supporting deposition from the complainant to go with the weapon and the money the perp took from the ATM.

  “Thanks, Tony,” Joe said. He yawned. “I could use the coffee.”

  The supporting deposition is used for robberies, burglaries, and grand larceny where the complainant is signing that the property taken from the crime is theirs and stating the approximate value. If five computers were stolen from a store, the store owner would sign that yes, they’re mine, and they’re worth fifteen hundred bucks each. This has to be signed by the complainant in front of the desk officer.

  I went back out to the muster room to find EMS was finished working on the complainant. I got the EMS and bus number before they left. They said he’d be fine, and I went over to where the complainant still sat rumpled and bewildered. I did the aided card first, taking a couple of Polaroids of the cut on his neck and the bruises on his throat. I did the complaint report next. He told me he had been drinking after work at one of the Irish pubs on Broadway. He was on his way down to Penn Station to catch the train home. He said there was no one in the ATM when he entered and he didn’t notice anyone outside, so the guy must have come in behind him. He said he was grabbed from behind; the guy’s arm came around his chest, pinning his left arm down. The guy’s other hand had the knife to his throat.

  “What were his exact words?” I asked, copying it down verbatim.

  “Give me your money and your card.”

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  “He took the one arm off me, keeping the knife at my throat, and grabbed the money, stuffing it in his pocket. He grabbed me again, that’s when you saw him.” He was getting choked up.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He said, ‘Shut up, don’t say nothin’ or I’ll cut you.’”

  I was still writing when he asked, “Will I have to testify?” That seemed to scare him.

  “If he doesn’t plead guilty, you’ll have to. You definitely have to testify before the grand jury. The ADA will give you a call,” I said.

  I took him to the desk and had him sign the supporting deposition in front of Lieutenant Coughlin.

  “Officer, thank you,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m so embarrassed by this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, thinking what a moron he was for being drunk in an ATM late at night. He should have just painted a bull’s-eye on his back.

  “You okay to get home?” I asked.

  “I’m getting a cab home,” he said.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  I typed up the property vouchers for the cheese cutter knife, a copy of the complainant’s ATM card, and the five twenty-dollar bills the perp stole. I put them in the property clerk’s envelope and gave them to Joe. The money is evidence now, but the DA’s office will cut the complainant a check for the stolen money.

  I was done, so after I gave Joe the paperwork, I went downstairs to the lounge to get some sleep. I had nothing but broken sleep for the past couple of days, and it was catching up with me.

  The lounge was empty. I shut off the lights and took off my shirt, vest, shoes, and gun belt, hanging all but the shoes on the pegs above the cushioned foam benches. I muted the sound to the ESPN channel and closed my eyes.

  I slept soundly until Joe shook me and said, “Ton, it’s time to go back out.”

  I looked up at him, disoriented for a second. I sat up, groggy, and stared at the floor.

  “Come on, Tony, get dressed; we’ll get some coffee,” Joe said, looking exhausted himself.

  The clock said 4:55. I went through the motions of putting on my shirt and vest. I put the clips on to hold my gun belt stationary to my belt. I tied my shoes and shuffled up the stairs after Fiore.

  It was still dark outside. I alternated between shivering and yawning in the cold RMP. I put the heat on while Fiore ran into the deli on 9th Avenue for coffee, but it just blew cold air on me.

  Fiore came out with two coffees and the Post, and I drove to 37th Street to park. I drank my coffee and smoked two cigarettes before I felt alive again.

  Fiore was reading the paper, and I sat there scanning the block, thinking about Michele and Stevie. I was thinking about calling her when I got home, but I didn’t know what to say. It’s been my experience with women that when they want you to see something their way, they don’t bend on it. If I called her and said she’s making a big deal about my family, it would only make it worse.

  “My father’s gonna love this,” Fiore said, still reading.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Listen to this: ‘The first professional baseball teams to play in Brooklyn in forty-three years will be named the Brooklyn Cyclones.’ This will be the first team in Brooklyn since the Dodgers left back in the fifties. They had a contest to see who came up with the best name.”

  “What are they, the rivals of the Staten Island Yankees?” I asked.

  “Yup, the Mets own them. They’re a class A team in the New York-Penn League. Their inaugural season will be 2001. They’re building a sixty-five-hundred-seat stadium in the old Steeplechase Park in Coney Island.”

  “Not bad. The Staten Island Yankees’ park is beautiful,” I said. It was on the waterfront in St. George, with an awesome view of the harbor and Manhattan.

  “I’m gonna see about getting some tickets for
Father’s Day. It says the season is mid-June to Labor Day. I’ll take my boys, maybe we’ll take them to Nathan’s after the game,” Fiore said.

  “Bring your gun,” I said. “The place is dangerous—at least it was when I was there.”

  “You did your FTU there, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t bring my kids there,” I said. My father never took us to Coney Island. He didn’t like it, and maybe that clouded my judgment when I got there as a rookie. I remember my father saying, “You’ll definitely get an education there; the place is a friggin’ cesspool.”

  “It’s been rundown since we were kids,” Fiore said. “My father still brought us there. He loves Nathan’s.”

  “You can get Nathan’s hot dogs anywhere,” I said.

  “He says it’s not the same. He’s right, they taste better there,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, take your life in your hands for a freaking hot dog.” I shook my head.

  “My father didn’t go just for the hot dogs. He used to get their chicken chow mein on a roll. You ever have that?”

  “Nope, I don’t eat Chinese food in a hot dog joint.” “Neither do I,” he said.

  “Joe?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered, half listening as he read.

  “I want to call Michele today, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to upset her,” I said.

  “You asking my advice on your love life?” He chuckled. “You’re in better shape in that area than I am,” I said, feeling pathetic.

  “Tony, just tell her the truth.” He put the paper down. “Tell her you never had to deal with your family before with anyone but yourself. And even then you drank yourself through it. The truth is you don’t know how to deal with them.” He shrugged. “You’re willing to step back and let God guide you, aren’t you?”

  “Well yeah, I guess so,” I said, picturing an old man with a shepherd’s hook waving me on behind him.

  Joe continued, “There’s nothing wrong with stepping back until you’re ready to deal with them. You need wisdom, so look in Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. It says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.’ Your own understanding isn’t working here. You need God’s help.”

  I wondered for a second how God would do against Marie, forgetting for a minute that he could handle himself.

  “Has anything changed there in all the years you know them?” Joe asked.

  “Honestly it wasn’t this bad before Marie came into the picture. I’m not saying my family was perfect, but we got along better.” I paused. “So you think I shouldn’t see them at all?” I asked.

  “Maybe you should limit the time you spend with them until you’re better prepared to deal with them,” Fiore said.

  “It just surprises me that I never saw a lot of this before,” I said.

  “Well, the Bible says the truth will set you free. God’s Word is truth, and it tells us in Romans 16:17, ‘Note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them.’ The reason you didn’t see it before is because you kept doing the same thing with your family and expected things to change. Until you do something different, nothing’s going to change.”

  Central interrupted us with a call for an alarm on 39th Street, which turned out to be a wrong address. Then we got a call for a man with a knife on 8th Avenue, but no one was there when we got there, so Joe marked it unfounded to Central.

  10

  About 7:00 we got a call for a suspicious person. Central gave us an address for a deli on 7th Avenue between 37th and 38th Street. The sun was up now and the sky was clear, the calm before the storm if we got that nor’easter they’d been promising all week.

  It was a Greek deli. There was a six-by-three-foot counter with a cash register and rows of gum, candy, and cough drops. To the left of the register was the chip rack, and behind the register, the cigarettes and the lotto machine.

  I could smell the food cooking. The breakfast special was bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll for a buck fifty. A Spanish guy in a white apron and black hair net was behind the grill, frying bacon. There was a long deli case separated into three parts. The first part had salads, potato and macaroni, stuffed grape leaves, marinated tomatoes, and grilled vegetables. The grilled chicken with spinach looked good. I could see the chunks of browned garlic and grated cheese on it.

  The second deli case was cold cuts; it looked like the full line of Boars Head. The third case was empty. I guess it was for the hot food that wouldn’t come out until later in the day. There were stacks of premade Greek salads on top of the glass case. I guess if you wanted to pick up your lunch in the morning, you wouldn’t have to wait for it later.

  We spoke to a female who was working the register. The deli might be Greek, but the workers were Spanish.

  “Did you call the police?” I asked. She was in her late thirties, her hair twisted up neatly behind her head.

  “Yeah,” she said, her accent pegging her as New York Spanish. “I called.” She pointed toward the back of the deli. “I think she needs help.”

  A woman was sitting on the floor in the corner, in front of a glass refrigerator. She had her arms around her knees and her head down. Fiore and I walked toward the back of the deli. I could see she was dressed kind of shabbily, a waist-length wool coat with lint on it, faded black pants, and black sneakers. Her glossy black hair was long and pulled back in a pony tail. She looked up at us for a second before putting her head back down. I could see from her facial features that she was Mexican. She looked young, maybe twenty years old.

  “What happened?” Fiore asked the cashier.

  “I don’t know, something about her boss touching her,” she said.

  “Does she work here?” Fiore asked.

  “No, I think she works at one of the sweatshops up the block,” she said.

  “Can she speak English?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Can you interpret for us?” I said.

  She called someone else to work the register for her. We were getting curious stares from customers. I could see them hesitate when they saw us in the back of the store, then go about their business.

  As we got closer, we could hear her crying quietly, weeping really, a low, mournful sound. I crouched down and tapped her on the shoulder, making her jump out of her skin. She looked up at us with big scared eyes.

  “Miss, are you okay?” I asked.

  When she didn’t answer, I looked over at the cashier and indicated my head toward the girl. The cashier rattled something off in Spanish, and the girl nodded and sniffed out a response. They talked back and forth in rapid-fire fashion, and I could pick out a couple of words like orden grande, entranous officina, Marisol Suarez, which I guessed was her name, and attacko.

  “Okay,” the cashier said. “She works in a sweatshop down the street. She went to work early because they have a big order going out. The boss called her into the office and attacked her.”

  “She needs to explain exactly what he did,” Fiore said.

  The cashier started talking again and the girl opened up her coat, keeping her head down. I could see her shirt was ripped and her neck was bruised. There was a bloody scratch that had welted up on her chest. She closed her jacket and started crying again.

  “Was she raped?” I asked.

  “No,” the cashier said after they spoke again. “She got away, but he grabbed her and did other gross things, the pig.” She shook her head.

  “What other gross things?” I asked.

  The cashier shook her head. “Grabbing himself, making gestures.” She showed us a couple of classics favored by perverts everywhere.

  “Ask her how she got here,” Fiore said.

  The cashier nodded and listened, then said, “She ran to the door, ran outside the office, and grabbed her coat and left. She said she didn’t know where to
go. She looked in the deli and saw that I was Spanish and asked if I spoke Spanish.”

  “Ask her how long she’s worked there and if she plans on going back,” I said.

  They spoke again, and the cashier said, “She just started working there two days ago, and she’s not going back.”

  “Can she point him out?” Joe asked.

  The young woman looked scared but nodded and said, “Si.”

  “Tell her not to be afraid—we’ll stay with her the whole time,” I said. She nodded again at this, and I helped the girl up. We told the cashier to get the address for us. It was on 37th Street, but this is the garment district and there are sweatshops everywhere.

  Joe got the cashier’s information, name, address, and home and work phone numbers in case she had to testify later on to what she saw and what was said when she interpreted. Joe called Central to give them the address we were going to and put it over as an assault in the past. We put the victim in the car and drove down to 37th Street and made a right. The address was halfway down the block, and we parked two doors down.

  I pointed to the building, and the victim nodded, “Si, Si.” I motioned her out of the car, holding the door open for her.

  It was a twelve-story, light sandstone building situated in between a sewing machine store and a fabric wholesaler. We walked into the building through the vestibule and down a short hallway. Two elevators were on the right, and when I hit the button, a door opened. I pointed to the panel, asking her which floor, and she pointed to the eleventh floor. I pressed the button for 11, but it wouldn’t light. I realized it had been locked off. I stepped back out of the elevator and looked at the key panel above the elevator button on the wall.

  “He keyed it off,” I said to Joe.

  “I guess we’re not going up this way,” Joe said, motioning her out of the elevator.

  We tried the stairwell door next to the elevator, but it was locked. Now we were starting to get mad.

  “Maybe there’s a freight elevator,” Joe said.

  We walked back out of the building, motioning her along. To our left was the sewing machine place, but to the right, in between the fabric shop and this building, was an extended wall and an opening with two metal doors. On top of the door on the archway it said “Freight.”