Sons of the City

by Scott Flander

  “Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

  Nick pulled her the last three feet to the bathroom and threw her through the door. She fell to the floor with a groan, and I expected Nick to slam the door shut. But instead he stepped into the bathroom with her, and then slowly closed the door behind him.

  “Oh, shit,” said Buster.

  The girl started screaming again, not in anger now, but in fear, panic.

  “Susie!” yelled Mono, trying to get past Jeff.

  I ran to the door and grabbed the handle. Locked.

  “Open up, Nick!” I yelled. “Open up.”

  The girl’s screams were getting louder and they were mixed with panicky sobs. It wasn’t a heavy door, I knew I could break it down. I gave the computer to Doc, backed up a couple of steps, and launched into the door with my shoulder. It popped open and there was Nick, pressing himself against the girl’s bare breasts, trying to pull down her jeans. I caught a glimpse of the orange bikini top, wadded up on the floor.

  “Nick!” I yelled. I tried to pull him off her and then Jeff rushed in and together we got him away from the girl, and out of the bathroom.

  The girl was crying hysterically, covering her breast; with her arms. I swung Nick around, and his eyes were jus empty, like there was nothing in there at all.

  I turned to Buster, who was at my side. “We got to ge him out of here, now.”

  Buster and I each grabbed one of Nick’s arms and hurriec him through the double doors toward the front, with Doc carrying the computer, right behind. Mono was yelling “You motherfuckers, you’re all dead! I’ll fuckin’ kill every last one of you.”

  We pushed through the work room, carrying Nick quickly along. Mono was trying to get a glimpse of Nick’s nameplate, but we were moving too fast.

  “I want this one’s name,” Mono was yelling. “What’s his name?”

  We were almost at the front door, and Mono stopped short and yelled at me with tremendous fury.

  “What’s his fuckin’ name, North? You tell me his fuckin’ name.”

  I didn’t even turn to look at him, I just got the door open and pushed Nick through, and then we were all spilling out onto the sidewalk, into the soft light and warm breeze of the late afternoon.

  When we got back to our cars, I waited with Nick on the sidewalk until the others drove off. Then I turned to him.

  “Fuck you, Nick,” I yelled, and sent my fist flying into the side of his face. He fell back onto the sidewalk, more astonished than hurt.

  “What the fuck were you doin’ back there?” I yelled down at him. “Do you really not care whether all your friends go to jail?”

  He got to his feet.

  “If that girl files charges,” I said, “we’re all going to jail for attempted rape. You know that, don’t you?”

  “C’mon, you saw what she did to me …”

  “Shut the fuck up. I’d love to file a report on you, Nick, I really would. But that would automatically mean an investigation. And at the very least, we’d probably all get fired.”

  Nick was silent now.

  “The only thing going for us,” I said, “is that if Bobby Mono gets Internal Affairs in there, that place’ll be shut down. Fortunately for us, it’s a fucking bookie joint. We’ll go down, but he will, too.”

  “So he might keep quiet?”

  “You better fucking pray he does, Nicky. And in the meantime, you’re off the street. Forever.”

  “Eddie …”

  “You might as well take that fucking uniform off right now, Nick. Because as far as I’m concerned, you’re never going to put it on again.”

  I had told Doc I’d meet him at OC headquarters so we could look at the computer, but I didn’t go over there right away, I was too upset to even think. I drove around for half an hour, replaying the whole scene again and again, cursing myself for not being able to stop Nick. How did I let him get so far out of control?

  Finally, my breathing returned to normal and my head cleared a little, and I drove over to Arch Street. Lanier was off that day, so we didn’t have to worry about him walking in.

  When I got there, Doc was in his windowless office, hooking up his own keyboard and monitor to Bravelli’s computer. There was a knock on the open door, and Lanier stuck his head in.

  “Hey, guys, what’s cooking?”

  “Thought you were off, Captain,” Doc said.

  “I am, I’m not supposed to be here, I just came by to pick up some papers.”

  Maybe Lanier was simply trying to be friendly. Maybe he still somehow believed that one day I’d be his pal. On the other hand, by now Bravelli had probably heard we had his computer. And that meant Lanier might know, too.

  “Doc’s just taking a look at my computer,” I said, trying to sound bored.

  “Really, what’s wrong with it?” Lanier asked. He stepped into the room. “I might be able to help.”

  “Thanks anyway, Captain,” said Doc. “I think we have it under control.”

  Lanier didn’t take the hint. “Mind if I watch? Maybe I can learn something.”

  Doc shook his head no. “This could take a while, Captain. I’m sure you got better things to do.”

  I turned to Lanier. “I got to be honest with you, Captain. There’s some very personal stuff on this computer. It’s bad enough having Doc look at it, I’d rather not have anyone else see.”

  “What do you mean, personal?” Lanier asked with a smirk. “You been downloading porn? Hey, I’m a big boy.”

  He just wasn’t going to leave. I stood there staring at him, waiting for him to turn around and walk out the door. Finally, he did.

  I closed the door and turned to Doc. “Is he still trying to find out who Bravelli’s new girlfriend is?”

  “You tell me. Ever since that night he was listening to your two cops on the radio, he hasn’t brought the subject up. Not once.”

  “That was a week ago, Doc. You think he knows?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Eddie. The man’s hard to figure out.”

  It didn’t take long for Doc to discover there wasn’t much on Bravelli’s computer after all.

  “Looks like he got rid of everything but his program files,” Doc said, disappointed. “And he wiped it all clean.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means Bravelli knows more about computers than I gave him credit for. There’s nothing here.”

  He was still playing around with the computer, but I was ready to leave. The whole scene at Hotshot was for this?

  “Wait a second,” said Doc. “Bravelli’s got a Web browser here.”

  “I assume you think that’s good.”

  Doc looked at me with his sly Texas smile. “Let’s see if Mr. Bravelli has mail.”

  Doc called up the browser, got on the Internet, and clicked a box to download any new E-mail. Two messages were coming across, both sent the day before—after the computer was already at Hotshot.

  Doc opened the first. It read:

  You? What’s this world coming to? Seriously, Congrats. Sure, I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it.

  Then the second:

  This is wonderful news, Mickey. And no I’m not jealous (well maybe a little). I can hardly wait to meet Lisa. She sounds like a wonderful girl. I guess she ‘d have to be to want to marry you! (Just kidding.) How did you ever get her to say yes? (Kidding!) Love, Jill

  Doc turned to me. “Did you know about this?” I read the second message again, and then for a third time.

  “Did you?” Doc asked.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to answer.

  SEVENTEEN

  That evening, I got another call, this time from Max. Bobby Mono, he told me, had died of a heart attack. “You go into Bobby’s store this afternoon?” Max asked me.

  “Possibly.”

  “With some of your guys?”

  “Possibly.”

  “And one of them tried to rape his granddaughter or somethin'?” />
  “Yeah, possibly.”

  “Well, you must have really yanked his key chain, Eddie.”

  Right after we left, Max said, Mono started suffering severe chest pains. Someone called an ambulance, but he was dead before they could get there.

  “The big guy’s after you now,” Max said. “He ain’t too happy about Bobby, and he ain’t too happy you ran off with his computer.”

  “What do you mean, he’s after me?”

  “He’s got a contract out on you. That’s why I’m calling, to give you the tip-off.”

  “You happen to know whether the girl’s going to file charges?”

  “From what I heard, the big guy told her not to, he said nobody goes to the police on this one. He’s gonna handle it his way.”

  “OK, Max, I appreciate the call.”

  “It’s like what they say, Look before you leap.”

  “OK, Max.”

  “So before you leap, you know, look where you’re goin'. OK?”

  “Yeah, Max. OK.”

  An hour later, the Commissioner called district headquarters and left a message for me.

  “Can you come up to my house tonight?” he asked when I called back. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  He wouldn’t tell me what it was about.

  “I’d rather go over that with you in person,” he said. “Could you stop by as soon as possible?”

  Ben Ryder lived in the Far Northeast, a part of Philadelphia designed to fool people into thinking they were living in the suburbs rather than the city. It was a vast expanse of single-family homes and row houses stretching to the Bucks County line, and was a particularly appealing place for cops and others who would have fled Philadelphia if they could.

  Most cops would never live in Philadelphia if there wasn’t a residency requirement for all city employees. Cross the city line and you got less crime, better schools, cheaper car insurance. Many of the houses in the Far Northeast were nicer than in other city neighborhoods, but many of them also cost more than the average cop could afford.

  When Patricia and I were looking for a house, we went up as high in Northeast Philadelphia as we could, as far away from the crime and grime as possible. Our price range for houses got us only as far as Oxford Circle. A comfortable neighborhood, but nothing like the tantalizing Far Northeast.

  The Commissioner lived so far up in the Far Northeast he was practically out of the city. His backyard ended at Po-quessing Creek, which marked the Bucks County line. That’s how you could tell he was a city employee. As police commissioner he had the money to make it to the very last yard of the city, but even he couldn’t get across that line.

  The Ryder house was a light blue, three-bedroom rancher, an average, everyday suburban house, nothing fancy. I was surprised to see my Chevy Blazer in the driveway. Actually, it wasn’t my Blazer—I was driving that one—but it was the same year, same model, same black with red trim. There was one big difference—his had a million antennas. Probably $10,000 worth of radio and cellular telephone equipment in there.

  The Commissioner met me at the door. When I saw him I realized I had been expecting a maid or a butler or something. On the job, a Police Commissioner always has a couple of aides around. People to get him coffee, or to run down to the corner and get a newspaper, or to act like pompous assholes when a captain or some other commander calls. Stuff like that.

  But the Commissioner opened the door himself, it was just him. He was still imposing, but he had a relaxed, friendly look, and for the first time I thought of him as just Michelle’s dad. He shook my hand and invited me in, and as he was closing the door he noticed the identical Blazers in the driveway.

  “Either you’ve got a black Blazer,” he said, “or mine just fuckin’ gave birth.”

  He led me through the living room into a den. I guess I sort of expected it to look like his office at Police Headquarters—giant shiny desk, giant leather chair, American flag by the window. Not that I’d ever been in his office, or would ever see the inside of any commissioner’s office in my lifetime.

  On one wall of the den, over the couch, were a couple of framed prints of ducks. But on the other wall was the evidence I had been looking for that this was not the house of an ordinary person.

  Four sleek televisions sat side by side on a long, black metal stand. Next to them, on another long stand, were three telephones—two black, one red—a powerful police scanner, two portable police radios in rechargers, and three or four portable telephones, all recharging. The fucker was wired up.

  He pointed to the couch and said please sit down, and then he sat in an upholstered chair across from me. For a moment, he seemed like any other cop at home.

  “Where’s Michelle?” he asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sergeant, I don’t want any bullshit from you. I want to know where Michelle is.” “Why do you think—”

  “I said no bullshit. I know what Michelle’s been doing, Sergeant. I know she’s in Westmount, and that she’s working undercover. Doing what, I can’t imagine. But I do know you’re involved.”

  I kept my mouth shut, and watched his eyes get angry.

  “Did you put her up to it?” he asked. “Because if you did …”

  “I didn’t put Michelle up to anything,” I said. “That better be the truth.”

  “From what I know of Michelle,” I said, “it’s pretty obvious she does what she wants to, not what people tell her to.”

  I was hoping the truth of that would calm him a little, and it did.

  “Just tell me where she is,” he said.

  “Can I ask you where you’re getting your information?”

  “Theresa Fox.”

  The Commissioner told me he had been trying to get in touch with Michelle for the last couple of weeks. Usually he’d leave messages at her apartment in the Northeast, and she’d call him back in a day or so. But lately she hadn’t returned any of his calls, and he started getting worried. Last night he had stopped by the apartment and got the landlord to let him in. There was no sign of her. He knocked on neighbors’ doors. No one had seen Michelle for several weeks. That got him really worried.

  He went back into the apartment and just sat there until Theresa came home, and then he started questioning her. Theresa said she hadn’t heard from Michelle, but from the tone of her voice, her hesitations, the Commissioner knew she was lying. He had interrogated hundreds of suspects during his career, and Theresa was no match for him. She eventually told him that Michelle was on some kind of undercover investigation in Westmount, though she didn’t know what it was about or where Michelle was staying. Theresa did know that I was helping her.

  I listened as the Commissioner laid all this out. When he was finished, he said, “Now you tell me what’s going on. And no bullshit.”

  I had promised Michelle I wouldn’t tell her father, but I didn’t think I had to keep that promise any longer. She was in over her head. And I needed all the help I could get.

  “She is working undercover,” I said. “Though it’s her own personal investigation. She wants to find out what Mickey Bravelli knows about Steve.”

  The Commissioner’s eyes widened and his mouth half dropped open. “Michelle is undercover in the Mafia?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Has she made contact?”

  “You might say that.” I gave him a brief account of the past few weeks, how she had become Bravelli’s girlfriend. I left out the part of her planning to get married to Bravelli, though. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that.

  “Jesus,” the Commissioner said when I had finished. Then, almost in a whisper. “This is my fault.”

  He was silent, looking at the wall. I waited.

  “I’m getting her out of there,” he finally said, turning back to me. “Where is she?”

  “Westmount.”

  “I know that. Where in Westmount?” “She has an apartment there.” “Where? I’m going to go get her.” “If
she’s not home,” I said, “you’re going to blow her cover, and maybe get her killed.” He took a deep breath.

  “Commissioner,” I said, “let me talk to her first, I’ll tell her you know what’s going on, that you want to see her.”

  “All right, we can do it that way,” he said, relieved that I was willing to cooperate. “But I’m counting on you. We’ve got to get Michelle out of there.”

  The Commissioner was saying “we.” That was a good sign.

  EIGHTEEN

  For the next two days I tried, without success, to reach Michelle. She wouldn’t talk to me on the phone at Angela’s, she wouldn’t answer my pages. There was only one other way to get in touch with her.

  On the third day, I went to work in civilian clothes—jeans and a dark green polo shirt—and didn’t bother changing into my uniform. I explained to Lieutenant Bowman that I was going to spend the evening talking to black community leaders, and I figured there’d be less tension if I wasn’t in uniform.

  Bowman nodded his approval. “Smart thinking, North,” he said. I told him I was going to use my Blazer rather than 20-C, my patrol car, and he said that was a good idea, too.

  Jeff and Mutt overheard our conversation.

  “Hey, Sarge,” said Jeff. “We can’t get our car to start, mind if we take yours?”

  “You want 20-C? Knock yourself out.”

  As soon as it was dark, I drove into Westmount, and headed down Locust. I slowed as I passed Angela’s—the beauty shop was dark, though the lights were on in Michelle’s third-floor apartment. I had planned to get out and ring her bell, but the sidewalk was more brightly lit than

  I remembered. That wasn’t good, I might be easily recognized.

  A small light came on in the beauty shop; a woman was walking around inside. I caught a glimpse of her face—it was Michelle, alone. I quickly swung my Blazer around the block, and into the alley behind the shop. I knew each store would have a back door, I was just hoping I could figure out which one was Angela’s. There was one that said “Correri’s Fruits,” and the next one over was a red-painted emergency exit. It had to be the one. I rapped hard on the door.