by F. P. Lione
“Yeah, me too,” Joe said.
“If I’m not seeing Michele anymore, maybe I shouldn’t keep going to that church.”
“What does that have to do with it? Who are you going there for, God or Michele?”
“What do you think?” I snapped at him. “But she was there first.”
“So what? Is that your church? Is it the church that you’re supposed to be at?”
“I guess so. There’s no place else I want to go.”
“If this is your church, then this is where you have to be. When you feel God guides you to a church, you stay, even if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to run into her, or Stevie. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. He loves me, and now he’s gonna get hurt when I’m not around.”
“Whatsamatta with you? Why are you talking like this is already over?” He looked surprised.
“‘Cause I’m a friggin’ wuss, upset about someone I’m not even getting any from and worrying that I won’t be in church on Sunday.” I laughed at the irony of it.
He laughed too. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Just pray, and read your Bible—”
“And let God guide you,” we said at the same time, only my voice was mimicking.
“Are you making fun of me?” he looked a little insulted.
“No, but you’re perfect and always pray and read your Bible.”
“And I get it on a regular basis.” He said it so normal that I almost missed it.
I barked out a laugh. “Captain America has a sense of humor? What’s next? Dancing?”
“You’re a funny guy,” he said.
“I’m pathetic,” I said.
“No you’re not. At least you’re not drinking.”
“But then I’d be drunk and wouldn’t care.”
“Eventually you’d have to sober up,” he looked at me. “Do you feel like drinking, or are you joking?”
“I’m joking—don’t I sound like I’m joking?” I held my hands up.
“I can’t always tell with you.”
“I’m not gonna drink, don’t worry about it.”
“Seriously,” he said. “Don’t get off track. I’ve been through times where I’m bummed out about something and I don’t feel like praying or reading the Bible. But those are the times you need it most. Read through the Psalms. David wrote most of the Psalms when he was under pressure, being hunted by people who hurt him and wanted to kill him. He turned to God, and God called him a man after his own heart.”
“Didn’t he get in trouble for doing someone else’s wife?” I asked.
He shook his head and smiled. “Yes, David did do that, and he had her husband sent into the front lines of battle so he’d be killed. But David isn’t our example, Jesus is. So don’t go pointing your fingers at him, thinking what he did was okay.”
“Getting back to reading the Bible,” I said. “I’m not avoiding it on purpose. I’m trying to get into it, and then I get distracted and put the TV on.”
“It’s easier to escape into TV or a book than to press into God. Pray about calling Michele to ask her what’s going on.”
“We’ve been working every day, and when I had time off this week, my mother was there. In fact,” I looked at my watch, “too early to call. I want to see how my sister made out last night.”
“She won’t be working today. What does she do again?” Joe asked. My sister, Denise, changes jobs so often it’s hard to keep track.
“I think she’s selling motorcycles,” I said. “There’s a Harley-Davidson place on Bay Street that gave her a job. I don’t know how many bikes you sell in December, so how bad could she screw it up?”
“I don’t know why you always give her such a hard time. She’s not a screwup, she just hasn’t found her niche yet. When she does, she’ll stay with it.”
“If you say so,” I said doubtfully.
We sat talking and drinking coffee in the car until about 7:20. The sky was brighter now, but the snow was still falling steadily. The radio was unusually quiet, with only one alarm for South Charlie the whole time. We drove back to the precinct and parked across the street. The front steps and sidewalk were shoveled and salted, and a couple of day tour cops were outside smoking.
We stopped to talk to the day tour guys on our way in. When we walked in, Hector was inside the front doors with a mop and bucket, wiping up the dirty snow near the entrance. The desk was busy now. Phones were ringing, keys were being dropped off at the desk, where they would be hung beneath the designated number of the RMP they belonged to. The radio room was busy, with the day tour signing out their radios and the midnight tour returning theirs. Fiore and I didn’t return ours, but we did get new batteries since we’d be going back out.
Romano wasn’t back yet. He would get stuck on that fixer. He was supposed to be relieved by the day tour, but if we were short cops, he wasn’t a priority. Later on, they’d hold someone over from the day tour to do the four-to-twelve and relieve him.
Sergeant Hanrahan was at the desk, talking to the sergeant from the day tour.
“Hey, Joe, Tony, are you still doing the parking garage detail?” he asked.
“Yeah, Boss.”
“Good, we’ll go out after we see the training officer.” Victor Santiago, the new training officer, was holding his paperwork and talking to some of the midnight guys. He had props with him, a four-foot rolling TV stand with a 36-inch television and VCR combo set up on top of it. The stand was high enough to be seen from the whole room.
Sergeant Hanrahan gave the fall in command as he walked into the muster room.
“If anybody is interested in some OT, they’re looking for bodies to stay,” he said. “After training is over,” Hanrahan continued, “I’ll have the roll call for everyone to sign out once I know there’s enough coverage for the day tour.”
Hanrahan would be staying; he was running the parking garage detail. Most of the volunteers for OT were there for the parking garage detail and any fixers not covered.
Sergeant Hanrahan backed up to give Santiago the platform. Calls of Aaaarreeebbaa! and other Latino type slurs filled the room.
O’Brien started singing the Mexican hat dance as good as any mariachi player. Then he took his hat off his head and tossed it on the floor to dance around it while snapping his fingers on the side of his head. Santiago was getting embarrassed, half laughing and looking intimidated.
“How’s everybody doing this morning?” he said as Rooney used an orange traffic cone as a megaphone, puckering his lips and ripping out gas sounds so we couldn’t hear what Santiago was saying.
Rooney put the cone behind him as the room erupted in hysteria and Santiago turned red. Sergeant Hanrahan, who had been writing, looked up to see who did it, and I saw a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.
“The reason we’re here this morn’” Santiago tried again as Rooney let out another long and juicy one, making us laugh even harder.
Santiago tried one more time as Rooney did it again, and he gave up and started laughing himself. He tried to just keep talking, going neck and neck with Rooney on the megaphone. The squad finally settled down, hearing only half of what Santiago was saying. A couple of seconds later Rooney was at it again, singing the Mexican hat dance song. The rest of us threw our hats on the floor and danced around them, snapping our fingers until Hanrahan laughed and said, “That’s enough, this is important.”
The training was about bomb threats and incendiary devices. Santiago went into it a little about what to look for over the next couple of days with New Year’s Eve coming up. He mentioned those of us working the garage details, and what to do if we found such a device. He went into suspicious property first, any containers, luggage, duffle bags, or packages not immediately discernable by appearance. Like if someone leaves a suitcase in the middle of Penn Station, we’d call the bomb squad. It’s usually nothing, but we can’t take the chance with New Year’s upon us. We have to try to determine the owne
r, see if anyone saw who left it, hold whoever discovered it for questioning, and evacuate a thousand feet around the unattended article. Once we evacuate the area, we get to a landline and call Central, with a separate number for Central that’s not 911. We are not to use our radios or cell phones under any circumstances as they could trigger the incendiary device to explode. We’d most likely call the desk at the precinct first, and let them call Central.
If we ever do find what we know is a bomb, the first thing we do is look for a secondary device. That’s how these psychos work. They use a second, hidden device to throw us off and try to blow us up while we stand away from the first one.
He turned on the video, and we heard it say that a supervisor will respond and begin a level-one mobilization. A command post is set up in the evacuated area and prevents entry of persons into the area.
Until a supervisor gets there, the person in charge is the senior member of service, or whoever has the most time on.
Usually we’d walk out of a training video, but it was New Year’s Eve week and we knew the city had been getting threats. Most of this stuff we know, but in recent years the city has picked it up a notch. Terror threats were becoming more commonplace, and since our command packs the most people into a couple of city blocks, we should know what to look for. The video lasted about fifteen minutes, then we filed out.
“Wait for me and I’ll give you a ride over to the detail,” Hanrahan said as Rooney, Joe, and I came out. Hanrahan went back to the desk and spoke to the sergeant and lieutenant, asking if they needed any extra bodies from the midnight tour.
When we got outside, the snow was still coming down hard and fast. A couple of store owners on the block were shoveling snow into the street, but a lot of businesses were closed.
Today’s garage was across from the one we were working the other day, on the south side of 43rd Street. Hanrahan dropped us off to relieve Rice, Beans, and Carl Beers again. They talked to us for a couple of minutes, saying the garage was dead most of the night, with just a couple of cars this morning.
When they left, Rooney stayed at the garage entrance, Joe went down the block to check on Romano and see what he wanted for breakfast, and I did a perimeter check.
When I got back upstairs, a woman in a wool cap and pea-coat was talking to Rooney. As I approached, I heard him say, “I can’t leave my post. If you want I’ll call someone.”
“What’s up, Mike?” I asked.
“The woman over there,” Rooney pointed to a woman about twenty feet from us near the corner of four-three and eight, “is confused. She’s asking her,” he points his thumb at the woman next to him, “where she works.”
“She asked me if I knew where she worked and do I know where her job is. When I asked her where she worked, she said she didn’t know.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” I told Rooney.
The woman in the peacoat came with me as we approached a white female, late twenties with red hair and blue eyes. She didn’t look skelly; she was dressed in black jeans, a red turtleneck sweater, and a multicolored scarf under a black wool coat. She was clean but looked a little out of it. She paced back and forth, walking in one direction, stopping, then turning around and going back the other way.
“Can I help you, Miss?” I asked, leaning in a little so I could see if she smelled like booze.
“I don’t know where my job is,” she said, looking confused. “Do you know where you are?” I asked.
She looked around and shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think I work around here.”
She was pale, and she looked like she was sweating. She wasn’t having seizures; I’ve seen enough epileptics to know what a seizure looks like. I wasn’t sure if it was drugs, or maybe she was an EDP.
“What do you want me to do for you?” I asked as a thought hit me. “Are you diabetic?” She nodded yes as she went down like a rag doll. Rooney, who had been watching from the parking garage, took a couple of steps toward me.
“Mike, get me some orange juice,” I called to Rooney as I picked her up. I leaned her up against the building, trying to keep her out of the snow as Rooney trotted into the deli next to the garage. He came back about three seconds later with a small carton of Tropicana.
We made her drink about half the carton, and within five minutes she was fine. We found out she was a receptionist at 1501 Broadway, and she was running late and rushed out of her apartment without eating. She had planned on grabbing something when she got off the train, but it was too late. She thanked us profusely and asked for our full names. People do that sometimes, then write in to the Daily News or the New York Post to mention we helped them out.
It was after 9:00 now, and she was supposed to be in by 8:30. I walked her to work and spoke to her boss, telling him why she was late. She thanked me again as I left. She looked better now. Someone had given her a roll, and there was some color back in her skin.
“Officer Cavalucci?” she said as I waited in front of her desk for the elevator.
“Yeah?” I turned around.
“Are you married?” she said as she smiled at me.
“No.”
“Got a girlfriend?” She tilted her head.
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly.
“Well, if you find yourself sure you don’t have a girlfriend, maybe we could have a drink sometime.”
“You got it.” I smiled. She was pretty, but I don’t know about the passing out thing.
Fiore was at the garage with Rooney when I got back.
“I’m going to get breakfast,” he said. “Nick’s stuck on that fixer, so I’ll pick him up an egg sandwich and some coffee. What do you want?”
“What’s Romano crying like a girl ’cause he’s gotta stay?” I chuckled.
“Nah, he’s alright. I explained it to him.” Fiore started talking with his hands. “I told Romano he should be thankful he’s making OT sitting in a chair doing nothing when he could be outside with us, freezing his tail off. He can always raise us on the radio if he needs something.”
“How’s the freak in the coffin?” I asked.
“The door was closed. Nick said he came out about 7:30, dressed all in black, and left.”
“Nick’s probably gonna get stuck there all day,” I said.
“He’ll be fine,” Joe said, then added, “So what do you want for breakfast?”
We all had egg sandwiches and coffee, and Joe went back to the hotel to give Romano his breakfast. After breakfast, when Rooney took a break and went into the office to sleep and Joe did another perimeter check, I called my sister.
“Hello.” She sounded upbeat.
“Hey, it’s Tony,” I said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m still at work. I’m at a detail on 43rd Street.”
“Oh, everything okay?” she asked.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Did Mom come there last night?” I thought maybe my mother changed her mind and drove back to Pennsylvania instead.
“Yeah.”
“So what happened?” I wondered what was up since I never have to pull information out of Denise.
“Nothing. We had a long talk, straightened some things out, and now we’re doing our nails.”
Doing our nails?
“She’s still there?” I asked.
“Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a blizzard outside. We would have gone to the Korean place on Bay Street where I usually get my nails done, but I’m sure they’re closed,” Denise said. I heard my mother saying something in the background, then Denise said away from the receiver, “Under the sink in the bathroom.”
“So it went good? What did you talk about?” I asked.
“A lot of things. Listen, Tony, can I call you later? We’re in the middle of doing our nails, and I just put a movie on.”
“Sure, no problem,” I said. I went to say something else, and Denise said, “Okay, bye,” and disconnected before I had the chance. I hit the end button on my cel
l phone, feeling a little blown off. I was about to shut the phone off to save my battery when it rang. The display showed Michele’s number out in Long Island, and I looked at it for a second before I hit the send button.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hi, it’s Michele,” she said cautiously.
“I know.” I smiled, glad that she was the first to break down and call. “I was gonna call you today.”
“How are you?” she asked.
“Good, a little tired. I’ve been working a lot of OT this week.”
“Is Joe with you?”
“Yeah, he’s here.” There was an awkward silence. “About Christmas Eve,” she started.
“I wanted to apologize to you about it,” I cut in. “I shouldn’t have made excuses for my family—they were wrong.”
“And I shouldn’t have put you in the middle of me and your family. I was wrong about that,” Michele said. “I’m sorry too.”
“Before you, I never had to deal with them about anyone else,” I said.
“They’ve never met any of your other girlfriends?” she asked dryly.
“They’ve met a couple; I guess Kim was around them the most.”
“Did they have a problem with her?”
I had to think about that. Kim and Marie actually got along pretty well, but I didn’t think I should mention that. “Denise didn’t like her. I don’t know about the rest of them. Honestly, I’ve never seen them act like that before. I’ve been talking to Joe about it, and he pointed out a few things I never noticed about them before. I mean, I noticed them, but they didn’t bother me,” I said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to see things when they’ve been in front of us all our lives. I’m not trying to make you mad at them, Tony, but I felt like you were dismissing what they were doing as harmless, and it isn’t. I was surprised that the only person you gave any responsibility to in this was Denise.”
“That’s because she knows how they are and she lets them suck her in every time. She always lets them get her mad, and they love it. It makes her look wrong because she’s the one who’s screaming and throwing things.”
“She didn’t scream or throw things when we were there,” Michele said a little sharply.