The Crossroads

by F. P. Lione

  I couldn’t go forward because there was a pole in front of me, so I slammed the car into reverse and it stalled out on me.

  “Oh come on,” I said as I hit the steering wheel. “What a piece of garbage.”

  “Just put it in park and start it up again,” Fiore said calmly.

  “Ya see, this is the kind of crap I hate,” I said, aggravated. By the time I started it up again and backed the car out, Rooney was moving eastbound on 40th Street, approaching 6th Avenue.

  I heard Rooney on the radio telling Central he’s following a stolen vehicle, giving them his location.

  “South Sergeant to Central,” Hanrahan radioed.

  “Go ahead, South Sergeant,” Central responded.

  “What is the vehicle wanted for?”

  “It’s a 16 vehicle, Sergeant.”

  “Central, is that unit in pursuit?”

  I heard Central raise Rooney, “South Eddie, are you in pursuit?”

  Silence.

  “South Eddie, are you in pursuit?” Central asked again.

  Silence again.

  “South Eddie, this is South Sergeant, what is your location?” Hanrahan sounded all business, but I could tell he’s wondering if he should call this off before someone gets hurt. The streets had already been plowed and salted, but there’s always ice patches.

  I turned north on 6th Avenue and went eastbound on 42nd Street. Bryant Park sits behind the Manhattan Library, which is on 5th Avenue. The park is two blocks long, and 41st Street doesn’t cross through.

  Rooney radioed in, sounding pumped up.

  “South Eddie to Central. The Maxima just lost control of the car and crashed into a cement bastion by the guard house at Bryant Park.” He waited a beat, then added, “They’re running northbound through the park!”

  As we headed east on 42nd Street, we were looking into the park, which was now lit up from all the snow. John Wilson and his buddy were running toward us, while the two females attempted to follow them.

  I stopped the car, and Fiore and I got out. We took our cuffs out and stood by the car. We could see the smoke from the other side of the park, where the Maxima was now folded up like an accordion. The sidewalks in the park were semishoveled, with a thin coating of snow on them. These two knuckleheads were cutting across the park through the deep snow.

  “They’re making this too easy,” I said, leaning against the car.

  “Should we go after them?” Joe asked.

  “Nah.” I lit a cigarette. “Rooney and Connelly are on the other side.”

  The two females gave up and were attempting to hide behind some bushes midway through the park. We were twenty feet away from Wilson and his buddy, and we could hear them breathing. The snow was making them pull their legs up with each step.

  “He looks like he’s using the stairmaster,” Joe remarked as Wilson fell down. I heard the other one say, “Come on, keep moving,” and Fiore and I cracked up laughing.

  The other guy was taller and thinner than Wilson, about five foot eleven, maybe 180 pounds. Wilson was wearing a yellow down bubble jacket with black trim, making him look like an oversized banana. His buddy was wearing jeans and a green hooded fleece jacket. He leaned on his knees to catch his breath while waiting for Wilson. Wilson got up and started running again, bumping into his friend as he shot past him.

  They ran another ten feet and looked up to see Joe and me smiling at them. I took a drag off my cigarette and waved to them. I saw the look of panic cross their face and saw Wilson’s eyes dart to the left to see if they could cut over, away from us.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I called to them. “You got nowhere to go.”

  Wilson looked to the left again, then put his head down. They tromped the rest of the way through the park. When they got to us, we threw them up on the wrought iron fence that surrounds Bryant Park. We gave them a fast toss; I took Wilson, Joe took the friend.

  “What were you thinking?” I asked Wilson.

  “I didn’t know the car was stolen,” he said. He wasn’t crying this time. The last time I locked him up, he cried like a baby and crapped in his pants. He was alone then. I doubted he’d do that with his buddy here.

  “If you didn’t think it was stolen, why’d you take off?” I asked.

  “I didn’t take off. I was taking my boy downtown to some clubs when you guys started chasing us,” his voice quivered a little.

  “Not only were you driving a stolen vehicle, now you smacked it up,” Joe threw in.

  Wilson put his head down with nothing else to say.

  Joe radioed Central, “Central, this is South David. No further, we have two under at the north side of Bryant Park.”

  “South David, that’s gonna be 0107 hours,” Central said, indicating it was 1:07 a.m.

  “10-4.”

  Rooney and Connelly were on the other side of the park, with the stolen car. Rooney radioed us, “South David, you guys need a hand?”

  “No, Mike, we’re gonna bring ’em over there,” Joe answered. Hanrahan pulled up on the other side of the park and radioed Central that he was 84, on the scene with South Eddie.

  We put Wilson and his buddy, Alan Bronsky, in the car and drove around to 41st Street, where Rooney and Connelly were.

  “What about the two females that were with you? Did they know the car was stolen?” I asked them.

  “No, we just picked them up. They wanted to go to clubs with us,” Alan said.

  “What are their names?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Wilson shrugged and looked at his buddy. “Tara and Danielle, I think.”

  I pulled up behind where the Maxima had crashed. Hanrahan was there with Noreen, his driver, and Rooney and Connelly were walking back into Bryant Park toward where the two females had been crouching behind the bushes.

  “Mike, Jimmy,” I yelled to them. “What are you doing?” I asked when they turned around.

  “We’re gonna try to find the other two,” Rooney yelled.

  “Forget it, we got our two keepers. Let the other ones go,” I said. Technically we should be locking up the two females for being in the stolen vehicle. But probably they didn’t know the car was stolen, and in this situation, stupidity isn’t a crime.

  I crouched down and looked back to where they were hiding behind the bushes, but I didn’t see them. “They’re gone. How hard do you want to look for them?” I told the boss.

  “You got the driver?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Alright,” he nodded. “Take the two of them back to the house.” He looked over at the smashed Maxima and said, “Is anyone injured?”

  “Nah, just their pride,” I chuckled.

  “See if they want to go to the hospital.”

  I walked back to the RMP and stuck my head in the driver’s side window. Wilson had his head down, and his buddy had his head back, staring at the roof of the car and taking deep breaths.

  “Hey, Einstein,” I said to Wilson. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

  He shook his head no. “I can’t hear you,” I cupped my hand behind my ear.

  “No,” he mumbled.

  “What about you?” I said to the other guy.

  He looked up at me. “No,” he said miserably and smacked his head back against the seat.

  “No, Boss, neither one wants to go to the hospital,” I told Hanrahan.

  “I’ll meet you back at the precinct then,” Hanrahan said, getting in his car.

  I got back in my RMP and heard Hanrahan calling for a department tow to bring the stolen car back to the precinct. Fiore called Central to tell them we were going back to the house with two under.

  It was 1:40 when we brought Wilson and Bronsky back to the precinct, stopping at the desk to check in with Lieutenant Coughlin.

  “Whaddaya got?” he asked without looking up, in his usual jaded tone.

  “Two for grand larceny of an auto,” I said.

  He peered over his glasses. “
Where’s the vehicle?”

  “Sergeant Hanrahan’s having it towed from Bryant Park.”

  He nodded and grunted, looking back down at his paperwork.

  Joe and I did the pedigree sheets, then locked our guns up behind the desk before being buzzed into the back where the cells are.

  We took the cuffs off Wilson and Bronsky, searching them again to make sure we didn’t miss any drugs or a weapon. Joe got the info on the car for me, when it was stolen, where it was stolen from, and who the owner was.

  We found out the car had been reported stolen thirty hours ago from Napier Avenue in the Bronx. Because of the time frame and where it was stolen from, I can’t prove Wilson actually stole the car. I was gonna charge him with grand larceny of an auto, but it would probably get banged down to criminal possession of stolen property.

  “Officer Cavalucci, do you think they’ll hold us downtown past New Year’s?” Wilson asked from the cell.

  “Probably not,” I said. Even if he’d be there till February, I wouldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to hear him crying about it.

  I finished the paperwork about 3:30 and got verification back on the prints from Albany by 4:00. We put Wilson and Bronsky back in the RMP to take them downtown. Joe radioed Central, telling them we had two to MCB (Manhattan Central Booking), which we call The Tombs.

  We went crosstown, taking the FDR Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge exit. We whipped around Center Street over to Baxter Street, which leads to the back of The Tombs.

  We parked on Baxter Street and took the two perps over to the automatic metal gate. The gate is big enough to drive a bus through and opens into an area that is sealed off with a second metal gate in front of us.

  The guard hit the button, and the gate went up and closed behind us once we were inside, sealing us in the gated courtyard. The guardhouse was to the left of us, so Joe and I went one at a time to lock up our guns and mace.

  The guard buzzed the second gate, and we marched the prisoners through. We walked down a flight of stairs and came out into a long hallway. Cells ran the length of the hallway on the left, and the right was a cement wall all the way down to the end of the hall, where the Corrections Officer (CO) sits. There is a white line down the center of the hallway that the perps aren’t supposed to cross.

  We said hello to the CO and processed our paperwork. A second CO came out wearing rubber gloves and had Wilson and Bronsky empty their pockets. He also had them remove their belts, shoelaces, and jewelry and place them on the floor in front of them.

  He put them on the wall and searched them again. While they were on the wall he went through their property on the floor. He told them to pick up their property, and they followed him to the back of the cells.

  We said good night to the CO at the desk and walked back out the way we came in. We drove back uptown, getting to the precinct by 6:00 for our meal.

  We slept for an hour and stayed inside for the last fifty minutes of our tour. Joe went out with the day tour for the bomb detail; he said he’d rather get a full tour of overtime since he wouldn’t be going home anyway.

  Since I had to wait until 9:00 for the ADA, I changed into my street clothes and went into the lounge to take a nap. My cell phone rang at 8:30, and I saw my sister Denise’s number flash on the display.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hi, Tony, it’s Mom,” I heard my mother’s voice.

  “Still here, huh?” I said, amused that she and Denise lasted this long together without killing each other. I heard Denise saying something in the background.

  “I want to ask him first,” my mother said, her voice away from the receiver.

  “Ask me what?” I asked.

  “Denise wants me to meet Michele and Stevie. She said they left Christmas Eve without Stevie’s presents. She wants to pick them up at your grandmother’s so she and I can drive out to give them to him,” she said.

  I’d forgotten about the presents. They were the last thing on my mind that night.

  “Denise doesn’t even have Michele’s phone number, let alone know where she lives,” I said, panicking at the thought of my mother going out to meet Michele.

  “Denise called information for the address and phone number, but I wanted to call you first to see if it was okay.”

  My mother sounded sincere enough, and I appreciated that she called to ask me first, but I didn’t think it was a good idea for Michele to see any more of my family this week. Maybe in a couple of years.

  “You there?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking,” I said. I was quiet for a minute and said, “Let me call her first and see what she thinks.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” my mother said. “Why don’t you call her and give us a call back?”

  I sat there thinking what to do. If I called them back and said Michele didn’t want to see them, they’d be insulted, plus my Jiminy Cricket conscience was telling me not to lie. On the other hand, if I let them go out to see her, I wouldn’t be there to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. I dialed Michele and figured I’d see what she wanted to do.

  “Hey,” I said when she answered.

  “I’m beginning to forget what you look like,” she joked.

  “Same here.”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Still at the precinct. I had a collar, and I’m waiting for the ADA to get in.”

  “What was the collar?”

  “Grand larceny of an auto,” I said.

  “Better than the bomb detail.”

  “You ain’t kidding. Listen,” I dove right in, “my mother just called me. She’s still at Denise’s, and she wants to meet you.”

  “Okay,” she said cautiously.

  “You don’t have to meet her,” I said. “I told her that I’d call and ask you. She and Denise want to bring Stevie’s Christmas presents out to him so she could meet the both of you.”

  “So she’s still at Denise’s?” She sounded surprised.

  “Yeah. Last time I talked to them, they were doing their nails.”

  “I want to meet her,” she said with conviction.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I said. “If she doesn’t act right, is it gonna cause more trouble between us?”

  “Tony, the way your family acted isn’t what caused trouble between us—you thinking there was nothing wrong with it was the problem. I don’t want to get into this now anyway. I think we should talk face-to-face about it.”

  “You really want them to come?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Alright, hide the knives and I’ll tell them how to get there.”

  “When will we see you again?” she asked, softer. “Probably not till after New Year’s.”

  “That’s too long,” she said.

  We talked for a few minutes more, giving each other the goo-goo “I miss you,” “I miss you too” crap. Sometimes I think it’s better that we don’t see each other too much. Otherwise I’d be tempted to talk her out of those morals she’s so bent on sticking to. Not that I don’t agree, but I’m still tempted.

  I called my mother back and gave her Michele’s number and directions out to Long Island. I fell asleep in the lounge until 9:20, when Lisa Mazza, the assistant desk officer, barreled in.

  “Cavalucci, ADA’s on the phone,” she yelled in. She’s a big Brooklyn girl, divorced with a couple of kids, and nobody I’d mess with. I never tangle with a woman I’m not sure I can take in a fight.

  “Thanks, Lisa, I’ll be right up,” I said.

  When I got upstairs, the phone at the desk had the receiver lying on its side next to it.

  “Cavalucci,” I said as I picked up the phone.

  “Officer Cavalucci, hi, this is ADA Ahearn,” he said.

  “How you doin’?” I asked.

  “Fine. So tell me what happened?”

  I went into it about following the car from 44th Street and recapped the story for him. I left out the part about Thompson giving them up ea
rlier.

  “How long ago was the car stolen?” Ahearn asked.

  “We got it on the printout that it was thirty hours previously, out of the Bronx.”

  “Did any of them make any statements?”

  “Wilson did, just that he didn’t know it was stolen.”

  “What about the two girls, there were two girls in the backseat?”

  “Basically it sounds like they didn’t know anything about it. They thought they were going clubbing with those two yoyo’s and the car belonged to Wilson. They took off anyway; we never got them,” I said.

  “I think we’ll probably knock this down from GLA to unauthorized use. How much do you think the car was worth?” he asked.

  “It was a late-model Maxima, definitely more than three thousand,” I said. “They smashed it up, so I don’t know what it’s worth now.”

  “Then we’ll probably keep the criminal possession,” he said, meaning criminal possession of stolen property. “Just fax me down the paperwork, and I’ll fax you an affidavit to sign. What’s the fax number there?”

  I rattled it off to him.

  I finished up about noon. The day was bright and clear. The sky was cloudless, but the temperatures were in the teens. I walked out to my truck to find it plowed in with half a foot of snow frozen to the windows, hood, and bumpers. I started the truck to warm it up and used my shovel to dig myself out. There was an icy wind blowing, and my face and ears were stinging as I worked. It took me almost a half hour to get the snow off my truck and burrow a path into the street. I took the West Side Highway downtown, and except for a lane closure outside the Battery Tunnel, there was no traffic all the way home.

  16

  The message light was blinking on my answering machine when I got home. I tossed my keys on the counter and charged up my cell phone while I played it.

  “Tony, it’s Grandma,” she said. She waited a beat and said, “I guess you’re not home, but I need to talk to you. I want you to come for dinner tonight. I’ll make breaded steak.” She paused again. “Call me and let me know if you’re coming. I love you.”

  Normally I wouldn’t blink if my grandmother called me, but after the way she acted Christmas Eve, I wondered if I was walking into an ambush. On the other hand, it might give me a chance to find out what the deal was with everyone about Michele. I decided as I dialed the phone that if my father and Marie weren’t going, I’d go talk to her. I already knew Denise wouldn’t be there, so that slimmed the chances of a brawl.