Queens Noir

by Robert Knightly

  "Those guys? Nah. I'm here with my friend Lily." Who is over there with those gangsters, I'm thinking. Lily is studying her tiles, but even across the park I can tell she's watching me from the corners of her eyes. "I didn't know you were going to be playing here. You're really good."

  "Um, thanks ..." He's pulling the ends of the towel, rubbing it back and forth over his neck. "I uh ... I'm glad you're here."

  Before we can say anything else, he's called back into the game. The sun feels good on my face.

  And now, a couple of hours later, the sun is starting to set. The basketball game is winding down, without him for the last hour-Jimmy ended up leaving the game to come back to me on the bleachers, and we just talked about everything. He told me he thinks I'm the most mature sophomore he's ever met. I played it cool and did not tell him how I've been practically stalking him.

  Eric yells to him that it's time to go, and as he turns to leave he bends and quickly kisses me on the lips.

  "See ya at school!" He grins at me, then heads toward Union Street. I am too stunned to reply, so I just smile weakly at him.

  But as the two of them walk off with some of the other ball players, one of the spiky-haired guys struts up to him and bumps him with his shoulder, hard enough not to be an ac cident. It's my algebra classmate. Eric looks at him as if to say, What the fuck? but once he realizes who it was that bumped him, he just mumbles, "Excuse me."

  "Why you bump into me, man?" Algebra says. His voice is louder and shriller than I've ever heard it, but then again, he hardly ever speaks in class.

  "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Jimmy has his hands up the way basketball players do when they're trying not to foul out. Behind him, Eric Martinez and the other guys who were on the court stiffen. Smiles disappear as fists tighten. Jimmy backs away, holding his arms out from his sides to keep them at bay. His friends back off too. They're not stupid.

  "What's your problem? Get the fuck out of my face!" Algebra is clearly drunk and enjoying the moment of power, but he doesn't push it any further. He holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger out, and pretends to shoot Jimmy in the head.

  Back at the chess tables, Peter and his friends are chuckling amongst themselves. The mah-jongg tiles have been packed up and the table is littered with several more of those paper bags.

  An unfamiliar emotion washes over me as I watch Jimmy leave with his friends, who are no longer laughing and joking. My eyes burn with tears and the words come to mind: fear, shame, anger. There was just no reason for that, I'm thinking to myself. And this is what Lily thinks is so cool? I look over at her, now leaning languidly against Peter's arm. Her fingertips are at her lips and I can tell that she's as shocked as I am, but she's trying to hide it, to look grown-up and still perfect.

  "Let's go, Lil." I don't even want to make eye contact with anyone else. She nods and reaches for her bag, but as she slides away from Peter, he grabs her arm and pulls her toward him in a gesture that's meant to look gentle but isn't.

  "Don't leave me, Little Sister. It's early. We're going to a party. I want to show you off." He looks me up and down. Without his sunglasses his eyes look dead serious and kind of scary. "You can go home."

  "No, Tina's my best friend. I can't go without her." Lily shakes her hair as if to clear her head of cobwebs. "Where are we going?"

  "There's a party at Kuo's place, the Tulip. It'll be fun. We'll make a karaoke video." His voice is too sweet when he speaks to her.

  A lump forms in my throat. Even I've heard of that nightclub, the Yellow Tulip. It's always in the news; it's been raided several times for prostitution and there's a shooting there every other weekend. Of course, I can't say any of this. These are probably the people who do the shooting.

  "Isn't that a bar?" I ask innocently. "Lily and I can't go. We're not twenty-one."

  This makes everyone laugh. Except for Lily, who is staring at me as if I should spontaneously combust.

  "What? They know how old you are," I whisper to her.

  "No they don't," she hisses. She pulls me aside as darkness descends on the playground. Most of the group staggers out of the park, but Peter lights up a cigarette. His cell phone blares an electronic waltz and he answers it, leaning against the gate. The streetlights cast a shadow of the chain-link fence, crosshatching Lily's face.

  I whisper to her: "Lil. You can't be serious. Isn't he like thirty? He knows your dad, so he's got to know you're only fifteen. He's not someone you should be messing with."

  "Look. If you want to go out with a nobody, that's your problem. I think you can do better. But don't you ruin this for me. I really like him."

  "You mean, you like `Big Brother's' connections." I point at her expensive purse. "By the way, it's pronounced Loo-ey Vee-tawn." Her face twists, and she looks like she's going to cry. I've pressed her button. Her dad didn't always own his restaurant; he started out in the business as a dishwasher. "I'm really sorry. It's just-"

  "It's just that you're jealous," she states flatly. "They chased your little boyfriend away and now you don't want me to have any fun. Well, I'm sorry if they want me at the party and not you. Maybe we're just too different. Maybe you're not my best friend after all. Maybe you're nothing." She steels herself for a fight. The defiant set of her chin makes me think of her mahjongg partners.

  It's the liquor talking, I tell myself. I imagine what would happen if she were to go with them to the Tulip. Peter Wong and the drunk, sexy, teenaged daughter of his business associate. Algebra shooting invisible bullets with his thumb and forefinger. I imagine her beautiful hair splayed out across a dirty, beer-soaked stage.

  With a grace worthy of a professional athlete, I reach under her arms and tickle her. At first she looks at me as if I've gone crazy, but as she begins to giggle she realizes what I'm doing, and her laughter turns intense, and then furious. She tries to fend me off but she's too drunk and I'm too quick, having trained myself since childhood to know her weak spot. Laughing and sputtering uncontrollably, she can't even turn away from Peter when a stream of vomit erupts from her mouth and all over his Bruno Magli shoes. The look on Peter's face as he studies his sopping shoes, before he turns and walks away, says it all.

  The party is over.

  CRAZY JILL SAVES THE SLINKY

  BY STEPHEN SOLOMITA

  College Point

  hen the over-muscled hulk in the studded leather jeans smacks the fat guy in the polka dot sundress, the eight patrol officers gathered around the small TV in the muster room cheer loudly. The body builder is a prostitute, the fat guy a prominent New York politician. The video is evidence discovered in the apartment of an extortionist.

  Groans and cat calls greet the white guy's flabby thighs and flaccid penis when the hulk tears off his dress. When the fat guy turns to reveal a cotton-white ass the size of a watermelon, the boys nearly fall off their chairs.

  I'm the only woman in the room, Officer Jill Kelly, and I feel sorry for the fat slob in the dress. I wonder what it's like to be a City Councilman, a Catholic, a husband, a father, a transvestite in a hotel room with a leather boy. The truth is that I can smell his desperation. The truth is that some cop's gonna leak the tape and the fat guy's life is gonna drop out from under him like a body through the trap door of a gallows.

  "Jill? The captain wants to see you."

  "Thanks, Crowley. I need to get away from this."

  Bushy enough to conceal small game, Sergeant Crowley's eyebrows rise to form lush semicircles as he jerks his chin at the TV "I woulda predicted this was right up your alley."

  Captain McMullen's office is another world altogether, a quiet, clean world-unto-itself. Instead of peeling green paint, the captain's walls are lined with expensive paneling. Instead of scuffed linoleum, his floor is covered by a Berber carpet flecked with beige and gold. His walnut desk is big enough to land helicopter gunships.

  I close the door behind me, shut out the squeals of the fat politician, the mindless comments of my peers. Captain McMullen is nowhe
re to be found, but the man seated behind his desk is very familiar.

  "Whadaya say, Uncle Mike?"

  Deputy Chief Michael Xavier Kelly offers a thin smile. He has a very narrow face with a prominent jaw that dominates veal-thin lips, a button of a nose, and blue glittery eyes that rarely blink. Uncle Mike is Deputy Chief of Detectives and heads the Commissioner's Special Investigations Unit, an attack-dog bureau far more terrifying to ranking officers than Internal Affairs.

  "Jill Kelly," Uncle Mike squawks, "in the flesh." Thirtyone years ago, as a rookie on foot patrol, Uncle Mike took a bullet that passed from left to right through his neck. Now he can't raise his voice above a hoarse whisper. "Take a seat, Jill. Please."

  I do as I'm told. "So, how's Aunt Rose? And Sean?"

  "Fine, fine." Uncle Mike walks his fingers across the desk and over a bulging file. "I hear the boys have taken to calling you Crazy Jill."

  "I consider it a compliment."

  My admission evokes a raspy laugh, immediately followed by the most somber expression in his repertoire. "I came here for a reason," he announces. "Tell me, do you believe in redemption?"

  Ah, right to the point. I was a naughty girl, a girl in need of punishment, but now I can make it up. Just do Uncle Mike this unnamed little favor-which will not turn out to be little-and retrieve my working life. Uncle Mike will pluck me out of the 75th Precinct in the asshole of Brooklyn. He'll restore me to the Fugitive Apprehension Squad and the SWAT team. I only have to do this one little favor.

  It was last August and blazing hot. I was in an uninsulated attic, looking out through a window at the house across the way. The man in the house, George Musgrove, had butchered his ex-wife, then taken his three children hostage, naturally threatening to kill them as well. At the time, I was part of a SWAT team assigned to eastern Queens, a sniper, and my orders were to acquire a target a.s.a.p., then notify the boss. The first part wasn't a problem. When I came into the attic, George was standing in a bedroom window, completely exposed. He wanted out by then, but didn't have the balls to kill himself. That's what I figured, anyway. Just another suicide-by-cop.

  I had my partner call down to the CO and explain that I was thirty yards away with a clear target, and that I couldn't miss. But Captain Ed McMullan-known to his troops as Egg McMuffin-turned me down flat. The hostage negotiator, he told my partner, was confident. Musgrove would be talked out eventually. There would be no further loss of life.

  All through this back-and-forth, Musgrove stayed right there, right in front of the window with a cordless phone pressed to his ear. And I started thinking, Yeah, most likely he'll give it up without hurting the kids. Maybe even nine out of ten times he'll surrender. But when you consider what happens if he ends up in the wrong ten percent, a hundred percent is a lot better than ninety. I was in a position to guarantee those kids would survive and I exercised my options.

  If Uncle Mike hadn't intervened, I would have been charged with disobeying a direct order, and might have faced criminal charges. But that was Uncle Mike's way. Clan Kelly first became prominent in the NYPD a hundred years ago, when Teddy Roosevelt was Acting Commissioner. Clan Kelly is still prominent today. This was especially relevant to Uncle Mike, who fully expected to become the next Chief of Detectives. Obviously, the Kelly name could not be besmirched. We were a self-policing family and a Kelly could be punished only by another Kelly. Thus, at Uncle Mike's behest, my gold shield was taken away and I was exiled to the Seven-Five, there to languish until he needed a favor.

  As for me, I want back on the SWAT team and the Fugitive Apprehension Squad. I want both of those things and I want them bad enough to play along.

  "Anything I can do for you, I'm ready," I finally say. "You know that."

  "It's about your cousin, Joanna."

  "The Slinky?"

  "Pardon?"

  "That's what I call her, Uncle Mike. The Slinky."

  He bursts out laughing. "Yes, I can understand why you'd say that."

  Joanna Kelly embodies the concept of slender. Her fingernails are slender, her elbows, her teeth. On those rare occasions when I'm with her, I feel like the Incredible Hulk.

  "It wouldn't be so bad, Uncle Mike, if she didn't wear those dresses."

  He nods agreement, his narrow smile widening slightly to indicate genuine amusement. "Ah, the dresses."

  Joanna likes plunging, short-skirted designer frocks. When she attends family gatherings, male attention drifts her way like dust to a vacuum cleaner.

  "So what about Joanna?"

  "Paulie assaulted her last night."

  "I thought Paulie was in prison?"

  "He was paroled a week ago."

  "So pick him up and violate him. What's the big deal?"

  Paulie Malone is Joanna's ex-husband. He's an all-around knucklehead and he pretty much beat Joanna from the earliest days of their marriage until she finally called down the wrath of Uncle Mike and the rest of the Kelly clan. Then, within hours, Paulie was off the street, his bail denied, his lawyer made to understand that no plea bargain would be forthcoming. A short trial was followed by a conviction and a three-year sentence, the max for second-degree assault.

  "I could have him picked up eventually," Uncle Mike concedes, "but I'll tell ya, Jill, if he hasn't gotten the message by now, he'll never get it. He's incorrigible."

  "So what exactly do you want from me?" The words have an air of defiance, but my tone is resigned. Do it, or else: That's how I understand the offer.

  "Your cousin needs protection."

  "Only if you let Paulie stay on the street."

  "Okay, I won't argue. Joanna needs protection until Paulie is taken into custody."

  "You're telling me Paulie's not to be found?"

  "He never reported to his halfway house or his parole officer. His whereabouts, as we in the policing business like to say, are unknown."

  I look out the window at a nondescript street in a nondescript neighborhood. The stores on the other side of Pitkin Avenue survive from month to month. A barber who makes book, a candy store that hawks cigarettes smuggled in from Virginia, a cop bar named Melvin's Hideaway.

  "Jill?"

  "I'm still listening, Uncle Mike."

  "Then I'm still insisting. Joanna needs twenty-four-hour protection."

  "And you want me to do the protecting."

  "I think Joanna would be more comfortable with a woman, and you're the only woman I trust to do the job."

  The rumor in the Kelly family is that Uncle Mike continued to offer Joanna his support long after Paulie went to prison, that Joanna found a suitable way to express her gratitude. I'd never cared enough to check it out, but now it begins to make sense. Under no circumstances would Uncle Mike allow his main squeeze to be locked in, 24/7, with a male cop.

  "Am I gonna do this in uniform?"

  "Sad to say, the job doesn't provide bodyguard protection to battered women." He shakes his head. "I've arranged for you to take your vacation. Later, I'll make it up to you."

  I've got a big mouth and I say the first thing to enter my mind. "Ya know, I really wanna tell you to go fuck yourself."

  Uncle Mike leans forward, his blue eyes twinkling, "Well, darlin'," he croaks, "don't waste your breath. If I could, I'd already have done so." He gets up, comes around the desk, and offers me his hand. "Let's take a walk, Jill. I feel the need of some fresh air."

  He's right about the fresh air. Spring has penetrated the steeland-concrete heart of the city. Tight buds crown every twig, and weeds push up through cracks in the sidewalk. For a few minutes, I keep pace with Uncle Mike, who walks with his hands behind his back as if pondering some weighty matter. Then, mostly because I'm getting bored, I decide to give him a break.

  "You want me to kill him, Uncle Mike? That what you want?"

  "That's harsh, Jill."

  "If you were gonna bust him, send him back to the joint, you could just make Joanna disappear until Paulie surfaces."

  He bares his teeth and grips my sh
oulder, stopping me in my tracks. "The Kellys don't run," he announces. "Never."

  The effort to raise his voice makes him sound like a spooked chicken, but the point is clear enough. Paulie Malone has defied the Kelly family for the second time and he's not gonna get another warning. The other part, about taking him into custody, was pure bullshit.

  "That makes Joanna the bait." When he doesn't respond, I add, "And me the executioner."

  "Well, it won't be the first time, will it?" That said, Uncle Mike shifts gears. "Sooner or later, Paulie's going to kill her. We both know that, Jill. You may not like Joanna, but you can't deny that she has a right to her life." He takes a deliberate step, then another. "The sad truth is that I wouldn't trust anyone else in the family to handle this."

  I ignore the flattery. "What if he shows up without a weapon, Uncle Mike? You want me to shoot him down, maybe go to prison for the next fifteen years?"

  "Last thing on my mind." He reaches into his pocket, comes out with a battered .38, holds it up for my inspection. The grip, hammer, and trigger guard are wrapped with cloth tape. "I'll be able to control the post-shooting investigation. You just make sure this is laying on the ground next to Paulie and that you call me first." Suddenly, he takes my hand and grips it hard. His fingers are bony and cold. "Do this for the Kellys, Jill. Do it for us."

  Repulsed, I pull my hand away. "So where's Joanna living these days?"

  "She has a little house in College Point."

  Again, it makes sense. I got to know the small neighborhood of College Point well in the two years I worked at the 109th Precinct in Queens, my first assignment out of the Academy. The Point's white working-class population is protected on one side by the East River, on the others by a solid wall of industry. The Asian explosion in Flushing, only a few miles away, has barely made a dent in the community's ethnic makeup. To Joanna, who was raised in Howard Beach, the mix of Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews must seem like home.