Sons of the City

by Scott Flander

  Jeff gave a soundless laugh.

  I sat down in a chair next to the bed and told him about how I found the shell casings on the roof.

  “You’re here because of what happened at Hotshot,” I said. “I’m very sorry, Commissioner.”

  He shook his head, like, forget it.

  “One thing you don’t have to worry about,” I said. “We’ll take care of Bravelli for you.”

  Jeff tightened his lips a little.

  “You’re worried,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “About me.”

  His mouth twisted into a give-me-a-break look.

  “About the rest of the squad.”

  He nodded.

  “Getting hurt like you because of how I’m handling all this.”

  He nodded again, solemnly.

  “So you think I should just forget about Bravelli?”

  Jeff considered that for a moment, then shrugged. I thought about telling him that a commissioner couldn’t be indecisive, but I figured what the hell, he’s in the hospital all shot up, I’m not going to bust his balls. Anyway, I was the one who had to come up with the answer, not him.

  My next task was to tell Ben Ryder that his daughter had absolutely no desire to talk to him. I called his office, they said he was giving a luncheon speech to the Urban League at the Bellevue Hotel in Center City.

  When I slipped in the back door of the banquet room, the Commissioner was behind a podium on the dais, spreading his deep, silky voice across the room. Several hundred black men and women, seated at large round tables, were just finishing their lunches, and waiters and waitresses in beige uniforms were coming around with silver coffeepots and large trays of pie slices.

  The Urban League was a collection of the most powerful blacks in the city—politicians, business leaders, heads of various organizations. And the Commissioner was assuring them that the Police Department was doing all it could to prevent a full-scale riot in West Philadelphia.

  “We’re trying to get the word out that we want to work with the African-American community,” the Commissioner was saying. “This is a partnership. We need to trust each other.”

  Around the tables, Philadelphia’s black movers and shakers, the men in conservative suits, the women in red or white dresses, listened intently. But they had crossed arms and stone faces, and I had a feeling they didn’t believe a word he was saying.

  As I watched the Commissioner, I wondered whether he really believed he could get through to these black leaders, or whether he was just going through the motions. I couldn’t tell.

  Finally, he spotted me, and I pointed to the door, meaning I needed to talk to him outside. He nodded and went on with his speech. I found a spare chair near the back corner, next to a makeshift bar. A blond girl in an apron was trying to wrestle a cork from an oversized bottle of white wine. Her mouth, painted with bright red lipstick, was half open in the effort, revealing a well-chewed wad of gum wedged between her upper and lower back teeth. She was wearing heavy makeup, though she didn’t need any.

  Girls who grow up with money and education can keep their looks for a long time. But girls like this, from rough-and-tumble neighborhoods, only have a few years, maybe from high school to their first kid. Then they lose their looks fast, and by twenty-seven seem tired and haggard and don’t even bother to cover up the dark circles under their eyes. I was sorry to see this girl waste her brief moment of beauty under a pound of makeup.

  “Mind if I sit down?” I asked her. She finally popped the cork out, and nodded at the chair.

  “You with him?” she asked, glancing up at the Commissioner. She was chewing her gum again.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  On a low table between me and the bar was a large white plastic container filled with ice and a lone bottle of Rolling Rock, dripping with condensation. I glanced at the girl.

  “Go ahead, take it,” she said. “But I need three bucks.”

  “Maybe later,” I said.

  She shrugged and we both looked up as the audience erupted in applause. The Commissioner had finally stopped talking. He said “Thank you” a couple of times, looked directly at me, and then headed toward the side door.

  “Gotta go,” I said to the girl, and slipped back out the door.

  The Commissioner was anxiously waiting for me in a wide hallway. “You’ve talked to Michelle?” he asked.

  I nodded. We found a brightly lit conference room that was all set up for the next day—in front of each chair at a long table were little notepads, hotel pens, and small dishes of hard candy. I half sat on the edge of the conference table.

  “You want to sit down?” I asked, pointing to a padded chair.

  He shook his head no. “You see her today?” he asked.

  “Last night,” I said, and told him about my visit to her apartment.

  “She won’t listen to me,” I said.

  The Commissioner looked at me, his jaw tight. “This never would have happened if you had come to me right away.”

  What could I say? That I should have dimed out his daughter from the start? He finally sat down, plopping heavily in one of the blue-cushioned swivel chairs around the table.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said. “Right before I came over here, I got a call from the Philadelphia Post. Actually, from their gossip columnist, Jay Bender. He was asking about Michelle.”

  “In what way?”

  “He told me there’s a woman reporter on the paper who saw Michelle working in a beauty shop in Westmount and recognized her. Apparently they went to high school together.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “He said Michelle pretended not to know who the woman reporter was. But the woman told Bender, and now he says he’ll probably write about it in tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Saying that the Police Commissioner’s daughter is hiding out in Westmount under an assumed name.”

  “And that’s supposed to be a big story?” I asked. “You know how it is, they just want to sell newspapers.”

  “So what’d you say?” I asked.

  “I asked Bender not to run the story. He wanted to know why, I said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you.’ He didn’t like that.”

  “How come this reporter and Bender can’t figure out that Michelle’s working undercover?”

  “I don’t know. Because media people are stupid? From what I’ve seen, most of them have no common sense at all, no understanding of how the world operates. And they certainly don’t understand cops.”

  “Maybe you should just tell them what Michelle’s doing.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t trust these people one bit—they’re gossips, that’s what they do for a living. You think they wouldn’t let it out somehow?”

  “So are they going to run the article?”

  “Bender said he’s going to leave it up to the paper’s editor. I’ve already put in a call, I think I may be able to convince him.”

  “Michelle needs to know about this.”

  “Can you get word to her?”

  I shrugged. “Like I said, she won’t listen to me. Maybe you can give it a shot.”

  “How? You said she’s not going to call me.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “But I think I’ve figured out a way we can get you two together.”

  That evening, Commissioner Ben Ryder collapsed in his office and was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, a few blocks from police headquarters. There was a press conference at Jeff, with hospital officials saying the Commissioner had suffered an apparent heart attack. There were unconfirmed reports that a priest had been brought in. Radio stations were running updates every fifteen minutes, and the mayor issued a statement saying the city’s prayers were with its police commissioner.

  About 8 p.m., I watched as Michelle stepped off the elevator at Jeff’s Cardiac Care Unit. She looked around for a moment, spotted the nurses’ station, then hurried over. I had bee
n sitting in a small waiting area off the main hallway, watching the desk through a potted plant. Michelle was wearing blue jeans and a white blouse and no makeup at all, as far as I could tell.

  One of the nurses pointed at the Commissioner’s room. It had a large window facing the nurses’ station but the blinds were drawn, and the door was closed. Michelle walked to the door, put her hand on the metal handle, then froze. She cocked her head and slowly turned and looked right at me. Then she wheeled back around and opened the door.

  I walked over and leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, listening. My eyes met those of an older nurse, who was sitting at the station, watching me impassively. All I heard inside were muffled voices, and then the door opened. Michelle didn’t look even remotely surprised to see me standing right there.

  “You might as well come in, too,” she said. “No reason to hide out in the hall.”

  I stepped into the room and closed the door. The Commissioner was sitting on a ledge near the back window, which looked out into the night at another wing of the hospital. He was wearing street clothes—tan slacks, baby blue button-down-collar shirt. The bed was neatly made, unused. Nearby was the chair where he had sat waiting for Michelle. Within reach, on a low table, was the hardcover book, a police novel, he had been reading.

  “This was your idea, wasn’t it?” she asked me.

  “Yes, it was,” I said. “I was hoping your father—”

  She turned back to him. “And you think this is a funny trick? Making me think you were about to die?”

  “I’m sorry, honey, it was the only way to see you. I talked to your mother today, she said you haven’t been returning her calls, either. Michelle, you’ve been worrying us both to death.”

  “Did you tell Mom what I’m doing?” “Of course.”

  “And you don’t think that’s going to worry her even more? This is why I didn’t want to say anything to you.”

  Michelle turned to me. “And I can’t believe you’re conspiring with him against me, Eddie.”

  “We’re not against you,” said her father. “We had to let you know about this Post story.”

  “What Post story?”

  “Didn’t a reporter come into your shop?” he asked.

  Michelle stared at her father. “That was Holly Troutman. She’s going to write a story?”

  “It’s going to be in Jay Bender’s gossip column,” her father said.

  Michelle shook her head in anger. “I can’t believe they’re going to write something.” “Is it definite?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” the Commissioner said. “I got the editor on the phone, he was a real jerk. I told him that if the story ran, my daughter’s life would be in danger. You know what he said? He said this was about the tenth time I’d tried to get a story killed, and each time I used the same ‘excuse'— he called it an ‘excuse'—that someone’s life would be in danger.”

  “Is that true?” Michelle asked her father.

  “No, it’s absolute bullshit. I’ve called that editor about stories no more than four times in, what, the two years I’ve been Commissioner? Did I tell him cops’ lives were in danger? Of course—if you don’t say something like that, they don’t give a shit, they just put whatever they want in the paper.”

  “So now he doesn’t believe you this time,” Michelle said.

  “No. He was a real jerk about it.” “So when’s it going to run?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  We were all silent, thinking. Michelle nodded, like she was making up her mind, then said, “I’ll be all right.”

  “What do you mean, all right?” her father said. “Once they find out who you are …”

  “You don’t have to worry, I know what I’m doing.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You want to tell your father about how you’re getting married to Mickey Bravelli?”

  “What?” the Commissioner yelled.

  Michelle’s eyes narrowed at me. “You can’t keep your mouth shut for five minutes?”

  “I’ve heard enough,” the Commissioner said. “We’re going home, now.”

  Michelle looked at her father for a moment, then walked up and hugged him.

  “Daddy, I’m glad you’re OK. I was really worried.” She kissed her father on the cheek, and then reached for her purse. I figured she was going to get a Kleenex, but she took a couple of quick steps and was at the door.

  “But the next time you’re sick,” she said to her father, pointing like a schoolmaster, “you better damn well be sick.”

  She took one last look at me and just shook her head, and then before either of us could move, she was out the door.

  “Michelle!” the Commissioner called, and he burst out the door after her. I was right behind, and together we watched Michelle slip into the elevator and quickly press the button. We were still ten feet away when the doors gently slid closed.

  That was it. That was our last shot. Michelle wasn’t going to listen to me. She wasn’t going to listen to her father. And if that story appeared in the Post, she’d never survive.

  There were no more options to explore, no more possibilities to exhaust. I left the hospital and went straight to my house, and then straight to the closet, and pulled down the box of Christmas tree ornaments. And then I had Junior Vicente’s gun in my hand.

  I got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and sat down at the kitchen table to look at the gun. It had a purpose now. It had a reason for being so precisely designed, so carefully made.

  I had figured that if I ever reached this point. I’d be consumed with self-doubt, maybe too paralyzed to move. But it turned out to be just the opposite. I actually felt freer than ever. Bravelli was just a bug that needed squashing.

  The phone rang, it was the Commissioner.

  “I’m going to have a plainclothes detail watch Michelle twenty-four hours a day.” he said. “I want you to tell me where she’s staying.”

  “If anyone sees them …”

  “You think I’m going to let that happen?” he almost yelled. “This is my daughter we’re talking about.”

  I knew he was right, Michelle was going to need protection.

  “The apartment’s at 7728 Locust,” I said. “Third floor. Make sure they never let her out of their sight.”

  “Let me worry about that, OK, Sergeant?” He hung up.

  Ten minutes later, he called back.

  “She’s not there,” he said. “If she came by after the hospital, she’s already gone. Where else would she be?”

  “How about her old apartment up on Rhawn?”

  “I’ve got a car there now. Theresa says she hasn’t seen Michelle all week.”

  “I don’t know where else to look.”

  “Let me know if you get any ideas. I’m going to have people watch both apartments, just in case.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “I should have had someone keep an eye on her from the moment she left the hospital.” I thought he was going to say something else, but he stayed quiet for a few moments, then hung up again.

  I knew I could solve the whole problem once I found Bravelli. I paged Doc. Maybe he would know where the asshole was.

  He called me back a minute later.

  “What are you doin’ at home?” Doc asked. “You sick?”

  “No, got the night off. I’m looking for Bravelli. Any ideas?”

  “Yeah. Sagiliano’s. That’s where I am, watching the alley.”

  “Bravelli’s out there?”

  “No, but his white Lexus is,” Doc drawled.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, I was standing next to Doc, looking out the alley window of the insurance office. The Lexus was still there. Lanier was inside the bar, too, Doc said. Doc’s walkie-talkie, picking up the sounds of the alley from the hidden microphone, was set up on a filing cabinet next to us.

  I had Junior Vicente’s gun in my side waistband holster. It was the only gu
n I had with me, it was the only gun I would need. The last time I stood at the window, I wouldn’t have been ready to use it. Things change.

  Not that I was going to put a bullet in Bravelli’s head with Doc watching. I had no desire to spend the rest of my life sharing prison showers with musclebound apes who hated cops. But once Bravelli left Sagiliano’s, I could follow him, see where he went. I could wait for the right moment.

  As I looked out the window, I tried to calculate how long it would take to run downstairs, jump in my Blazer, and get to within sight of the alley entrance. Too long, I decided. It’d be better to wait in my truck near the entrance to the alley.

  “See ya, Doc,” I said.

  He turned to me in surprise. “Where you goin'? You just got here.”

  “I think I’m a little too tired for a stakeout. I had to work pretty late after what happened to Jeff.”

  “Suit yourself. What’d you want with Bravelli, anyway?”

  “Nothing, forget it.”

  Great, I thought. What’s Doc going to think when Bravelli turns up dead an hour from now? Murder was turning out to be a lot harder than I thought.

  “I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to make sure we were keeping an eye on him. And obviously you are.”

  I was heading down the hall toward the secretaries’ desks when Doc called me back.

  “Wait, Eddie,” he said.

  When I rejoined Doc at the window, Lanier was standing in the alley next to the Lexus. He had on blue jeans, a maroon polo shirt, and sneakers, and if he was trying not to look like a cop, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

  “He just came out,” Doc told me. “We’ll see what happens next.”

  We didn’t have long to wait. The back door of Sagiliano’s opened, and Michelle emerged, wearing a short black dress and heels. She was clearly surprised to see Lanier.

  “You’re Michelle Ryder, aren’t you?” Lanier asked.

  My heart froze.

  “Who?” Michelle asked.

  “What are you doing here, Michelle?”

  “You’re mistaking me for someone else,” we heard her say. Their voices were tinny, but clear. “I don’t know who you are.”