The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  “No, she waited till after you left,” I laughed.

  “Who did she throw something at?”

  “Marie—she hit her in the head with her keys,” I said, my voice rising.

  “Good for her! Marie had it coming.”

  “I can’t believe you said that, Miss Time-Out advocating violence?” I mocked.

  “Miss Time-Out also believes in a whack on the bottom when it’s appropriate, and trust me, Marie was due.”

  “My mother came over to see me last night,” I said, not wanting to talk about Marie anymore.

  “Really?” she said, surprised. “Why?”

  “She wanted to tell me she went to rehab last summer and she’s been sober since.”

  “Wow. That’s a twist.”

  “Yeah, I know. She came to give me the twelve-step ‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done to you’ speech.”

  “Well thank God, this is good news.”

  “I guess. She looked good. She seemed sincere enough,” I said. “Time will tell.”

  “I can understand you being hesitant after her track record, but you have to admit it’s a step in the right direction.” She paused and said, “Things are changing, Tony, but they can’t all change at once. I just didn’t expect it from her end.”

  “What about us?” I asked. “Three times with my family and you throw in the towel? I thought you were tougher than that.”

  “I am. But I have Stevie to think about. Trust me, if it were just me, it wouldn’t matter. He was getting anxious there. They were criticizing everything he did, and he wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  She was getting angry, so I cut her off. “I know he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I’m sorry. I love him, and I love you. I’d never hurt either one of you—you know that, don’t you?”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Don’t change the subject, and answer the question,” I said, my voice getting sharp.

  “I know that you wouldn’t hurt us, Tony, but they would. And that’s why they have to be a consideration.”

  “Listen to me,” I said, my voice rising, “if you’re not comfortable going there, we won’t go there. I’m gonna talk to them about how they acted, but they’re not gonna listen. Maybe my grandmother will, but Marie and my father are how they are.”

  “I know they are. I’m trying not to get my feelings hurt that they don’t like me or my little boy. I can’t put Stevie in that position again, Tony, I won’t let them hurt him.”

  “He won’t be anywhere near them, at least not until they learn how to treat the both of you, okay?”

  “Okay. So where are you?” she asked again.

  “Doing some overtime at a parking garage.”

  “Why there?”

  “We’re checking the cars as they come in, keeping the garage secure for New Year’s.”

  “I was watching the news—there’s some concern about terror threats again. Do you have to work New Year’s Eve?” She sounded worried.

  “Yeah, I can’t get out of it. It’s my RDO (regular day off), so I’ll be at one of the details.”

  “Which one?”

  “I’ll find out tonight; they have to give us advance notice.”

  “I don’t like this,” she said.

  “I’ll be fine. Joe will be with me. If it looks like anything’s gonna go down, I promise we’ll get out of there.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Sure,” I lied. “We can leave whenever we want.” She didn’t say anything, and Joe’s words “There are no lies that are okay with God” came back to haunt me. So I told her, “I can’t leave the area, but I can go off post if I need to.” Which is basically true.

  We talked for a little while longer. Stevie got on the phone for a couple of minutes, asking why I haven’t been out to see him. I promised him I’d be out after New Year’s. Realistically I’d be working till then. I promised Michele I’d call her later and hung up as Rooney was coming out of the booth.

  “Hey, Tony,” he growled. “Don’t think I forgot about what you did with the radios last night. I saw you laughing when I fell.” Rooney gets nasty when he doesn’t have his coffee.

  I busted out laughing. “You should have seen your face. It was hysterical!”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t catch you’”

  “With what, a snowball? You can’t even throw anymore; we’re gonna need a new pitcher for the softball team.”

  “I pitch just fine. I threw out my arm,” he said as he lit a cigarette.

  “Next time don’t bust my chops about signing out my radio to impress Yolanda. I always sign out my radio,” I said.

  “I wasn’t trying to impress Yolanda!”

  “Don’t worry, after the fall you took, I doubt she was impressed.”

  We spent the rest of the day taking turns napping in the parking attendant’s office. Dominick DiSanto, Craig Jensen, and Jimmy Flaherty, the day tour guys, relieved us at 4:00. We took their RMP back to the precinct. The snow was falling slower now, the flakes fatter and fewer than before.

  We stopped at the deli, picking up chicken cutlet heros and minestrone soup. I got the chicken cutlet with mozzy and sliced hot cherry peppers; Fiore got his the same but with roasted peppers. Rooney got the cordon blue, chicken with ham and melted swiss.

  We went downstairs to the locker rooms to change. I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and sat down at the table in the lounge to eat. I picked the lima beans out of my minestrone before I ate and watched Miami Vice reruns until I passed out on one of the benches.

  I woke up at 10:15 to the sound of Fiore’s watch beeping. “You taking a shower?” he mumbled, shutting the alarm off.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Wake me up when you’re done.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  I went into the locker room to change. I wrapped a towel around my waist and dug my old blue flip-flops out of a bag in the bottom of my locker. I grabbed soap and shampoo and headed to the bathroom, my shower shoes clicking against my feet as I walked. We all keep a supply of necessary items in our lockers: shampoo, soap, Q-tips, deodorant, toothbrush and paste, blow dryer, brush, and extra clothes in case on days like today we’re stuck here.

  The bathroom is a white-tiled room, now a dingy shade of gray. It has two stalls, two urinals, two sinks, and one shower on the other side of the wall next to the sink. While Hector cleans the bathroom, he won’t touch the shower.

  I put my stuff on the shelf on the wall outside the shower and hung my towel on the hook next to it. There’s an ancient green and mold shower curtain that goes straight across the front of the shower. The shower has a white base, and the walls are enclosed with small tile encrusted with black mold. On the floor was half a bar of gold soap and the wrapping from a bar of Dial. I took my soap from the plastic travel case I use and tried not to look at the hair, mold, and melted soap around me. The shower was so disgusting that I stood under it without moving, trying not to touch the floor, wall, or shower curtain with any of my exposed skin.

  There’s a guy from the four-to-twelve who cleans the shower sometimes. He gets so disgusted with it that he bleaches the whole thing. A week later it’s just as dirty as it was before, so I don’t know why he bothers.

  I woke Joe up when I was done, and he trudged over to the shower in brown shower shoes and blue gym shorts, with his towel around his neck. He carried his essentials like I did.

  Joe came out about ten minutes later, and we were dressed and upstairs before roll call.

  15

  I had finished my coffee and had a cigarette before Sergeant Hanrahan’s fall in announcement. He was looking a little worn out, walking around the muster room, giving out the New Year’s Eve detail assignments before the roll call. Our squad had our RDO (regular day off) on New Year’s Eve, and the department has to give us 48 hours’ notice before they change our tours. Either way, we knew we’d be working New Year’s.

  “Hey, Tony, Joe,” Hanrahan said a
s he approached us. “I need you to sign next to your name.” He held out the white detail roster to Joe and me.

  “We’ll be meeting at four-seven and Broadway at 1345 hours, and the detail starts at 1300.” Which means we have to be suited up at 1:00 in the afternoon, ready to go over to 47th and Broadway to muster up at 1:45. In reality we’d be mustering up by 2:00, getting our assignments.

  The week before New Year’s is always busy, and the overtime was taking its toll on a lot of us. He gave out the sectors and the foot posts, checking to see if we had enough bodies to cover the tour. The roads were still a nightmare, and both the Metro North and Long Island Railroads were running on limited schedules.

  “Does everyone know what their assignments are for New Year’s Eve?” he asked, scanning the room to make sure. He didn’t mention not to bang the day on New Year’s’it’s an unspoken rule that if you call in sick on New Year’s, you better be in a coma.

  While Hanrahan was doing the roll call, Sergeant Yu walked around the muster room and gave out notification slips, probably for court. He paused when he saw Joe and me, and I saw him craning his head around Garcia to see my name tag. He’s not our sergeant, so he didn’t know us personally.

  “Cavawucci?” he asked. He seemed to have problems pronouncing Ls.

  I nodded and waved. He tapped Garcia and had him hand Joe and me the notification slips.

  “Look at this, RDO Grand Jury notification.” I smiled. It was for January 2, which meant we’d be getting OT before working that Tuesday night.

  Sergeant Hanrahan wrapped it up with, “Be careful driving out there. The temperature is below freezing. Some of the melted snow is probably frozen over, and I don’t want any accidents. Remember, it’s Friday night, New Year’s weekend, and a lot of people are in town for the holiday. They’re already partying, so be careful, it’s probably gonna be busy.”

  The snow had stopped hours ago, leaving us with clear, cold skies. The temperatures had dipped into the twenties, freezing the snow that was still left on the ground. In 48 hours Midtown would be packed with a million people, and the snow would have to be removed by then. The mayor gave a press conference from the city’s emergency bunker in the World Trade Center, telling everyone that the city is ready, and come enjoy the New Year’s weekend.

  The tow trucks were already out towing parked cars from snow lanes. Sanitation had 350 salt spreaders dropping 200,000 tons of salt on the streets of the city, and 1,275 garbage trucks had plows mounted on them. The airports called in reserve workers, keeping the runways clear with thousands of gallons of anti-ice chemicals. The mayor went on to say that the Police Department would be keeping officers on overtime duty beginning tonight if we get anymore snow and replacements can’t report in. It was news to me. I was hoping to get at least some sleep in my bed before New Year’s.

  The main thing, the mayor said, is New York is not letting a little snow stop the festivities—we got through Y2K last year and had the best New Year’s celebration in the world.

  That may be true, but there was still snow everywhere. Store awnings, newsstands, mailboxes, traffic lights, and marquees had it piled on top of them. It was frozen to the turret lights and the roof of our RMP. Sidewalks were still not shoveled, and cars were buried under a foot of snow. The wind was blowing now, sending showers of powder off buses and cabs onto the cars around them.

  We had stopped for coffee and buttered rolls and drove up 8th toward 42nd Street to take a look at the Deuce before patrolling our sector. As we stop at the 42nd Street and 8th Avenue light, I see one of my favorite felons crossing westbound on 8th Avenue. I let the car go into the intersection to scare him a little. He jumps back and puts his hands out in an angry “What’s up?” stance. Then he saw me smiling at him and he bopped over, smiling.

  “Officer Cavalucci,” he said as he came over to the driver’s side of the car. He shook my hand and nodded at Fiore. He was a male black, late twenties, about six foot two, with short black hair. He was expensively dressed, new black leather jacket, baggy jeans, designer Yankee hat turned to the side, and gold earrings in both ears.

  “Hey, Mr. Thompson, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, just chillin’.”

  “Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you,” I said, hoping he hadn’t been upstate doing time. I locked him up once. He snatched some money out of someone’s hand he was supposed to be getting a cab for. He wasn’t a bad guy, I hoped he was staying out of trouble.

  “I’ve been working clubs.”

  “Bouncing?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m working uptown.”

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “I’m meeting someone over at Port Authority.”

  “You staying out of trouble?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “Yeah,” he said as he smiled and leaned toward the window. I smelled leather and his cologne. He pointed to me as he said to Joe, “This guy’s a good guy.”

  “This guy?” Joe nodded his head toward me. “You sure?” “Yeah, I’m sure. Listen, Officer Cavalucci,” his voice dropped lower. “I’m gonna do you a solid.”

  “What’s up?” I leaned my head out the window.

  “There’s a car parked on 44th Street, right around the corner. A black Maxima. There’s two guys,” his voice lowered again and he looked around, “let’s just say it’s hot, and they’re trying to sell it.”

  “Around the corner just off 8th?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Just off 8th, but don’t mention me.” “Mention who?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” He smiled and shook my hand.

  I threw him a wave as I continued on 8th Avenue. I turned left on 45th Street and went around the block to 44th Street. I drove slowly down the street, spotting the Maxima close to 8th Avenue. We drove past the car without pausing, while Joe copied down the license plate number. I took a right on 7th to 43rd, made another right, and parked on the southeast corner of West 43rd and 8th Avenue, a block down from where the car was.

  There was no computer in our RMP, so Fiore called the desk and had them run the plate number for us. It came back 16, which is stolen. We sat and waited on the corner. We couldn’t see the car from where we were, but whoever drove it would have to pass through the intersection.

  As we were sitting there waiting, I saw two guys and their dates crossing the opposite corner from us, going northbound on 8th Avenue.

  “Look who it is,” I chuckled. “You remember him, Joe?” I pointed to the bigger of the two guys.

  Fiore studied them, “No.” He shook his head, still studying him. “Who is he?”

  “You don’t remember him? That’s John Wilson. We locked him up last summer, and he had you gagging out the window after he let loose in his pants in the backseat.” I laughed harder now. “You almost puked from the smell.”

  “He looks different.”

  “He’s fatter for one thing, and his hair was blond.” I watched him as he waved his hands around homeboy style, showing off to the girls.

  “Oh no, I hope he’s not the one who stole the car,” Fiore said. “Ya think?”

  “Nah, not his style. He’s just a dealer.”

  As I said that, he and his buddy started walking faster, in front of the girls, and turned left at 44th Street, out of sight. A minute later the black Maxima pulled into the intersection of 44th and 8th, driving eastbound. Wilson was driving, his buddy in the passenger seat and the two girls in the back.

  “I’m not up for this,” Fiore said with feeling. He grabbed his radio and said, “South David to Central.”

  “Go ahead, South David.”

  “We’re following a possible 16 vehicle, New York plate.” He gave the number. “We’ll need another unit, no emergency.”

  “Central, this is South Eddie. We’re five blocks out,” Rooney responded.

  The Maxima was driving eastbound on 44th Street and made a right on 7th Avenue, through Times Square. They drove southbound past 42nd Street, and I saw them
stop at 40th Street on 7th Avenue, in front of the New Fashion School. I gave them a little distance, falling three cars back with no lights on. As I was driving on 7th Avenue, I told Joe, “Find out where South Eddie is.”

  “South David to South Eddie,” Fiore put over the radio.

  “South Eddie,” Rooney answered.

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Westbound, from four-one and six.”

  Fiore and I were coming up to 40th. As we approached 40th and 7th, I saw the Maxima stopped at the light.

  “Don’t look at them,” I told Fiore. “I’m gonna pull up in front of them at the light and pretend we’re looking for someone.”

  I pulled up on the left in front of them, into the crosswalks. Joe looked west, and I looked east, like we were looking for someone else. In my peripheral vision I saw Wilson sit up straight.

  “I think he might need a diaper change now,” Fiore said, his expression blank.

  Now technically when we spot a stolen car parked, we’re supposed to impound it and wait with it until it’s towed to the precinct. That way the car can be returned to its owner intact. But grand larceny auto is a good collar, and Wilson just doesn’t learn.

  Joe had his radio down next to his leg so it looked like he was talking to me and said, “Sector Eddie, where are you now?”

  “Westbound on 41st, passing Broadway.”

  I kept my head straight ahead, but my eyes were on the rearview mirror. I saw Rooney coming down the block behind me. “It’s about time,” I mumbled to Joe as I watched Rooney approach the Maxima.

  “Just pull up behind them,” Joe told Rooney over the radio.

  As Rooney pulled up behind them, I put my lights on. I pulled our car to the right and in on an angle, blocking the front of their car. Rooney put his lights on at the same time I did, but he didn’t pull his RMP up close enough to the Maxima for us to box them in.

  Now Wilson knew we had him, and he panicked. He backed the Maxima up and turned the wheel, with his tires hitting the curb. He punched the gas, going around us with his tires spinning on the ice. He fishtailed as he pulled away and took off through the now green light. Rooney took off after him, whooping his siren down 40th Street.