Lopez looked up at Nick, crying, to see if he was going to hit him again, too. Nick didn’t.
“How do you know she’s your kid?”
“I just know.”
Maybe he did. It didn’t matter. Nick had demanded to know more, and now he wanted to know less. He didn’t want to know why Lopez walked in the park, what he wanted to remember, whether it was penance or pornography. Old times, old times. There was no reason, only rhyme. Nick told Lopez that they should all forget what happened today, that if he didn’t press charges, none would be pressed against him. Lopez agreed. Nick left the room and called Napolitano, telling him that everyone could go home.
Esposito was due back on Valentine’s Day. All the predictable jokes were made about who would buy chocolates, where he and Nick would go for a romantic dinner. It was part of the ordinary back-and-forth of the Job, the guy-world of men paired, nearly literally, at the hip. Perez started on about buying roses, until Garelick glared at him, and Perez realized he might have trespassed into genuinely sensitive territory. Nick didn’t hold it against him. As for Esposito, Nick had missed him for his own sake, but also because as one bad turn had followed another in those cold, dry months, Nick had come to believe in Esposito as a talisman, who would bring back warmth to the days, awaken the earth with rain. As for himself, Nick wasn’t sure whether the other detectives saw him as someone under a dark cloud or as the cloud itself. He was eager for Esposito’s return, and supposed Valentine’s was more auspicious than April Fools’.
Luck was something not discussed around Nick. Napolitano had two stabbings in a row in which the perp dropped his wallet at the scene, leaving his photo ID in each case. He crowed that this was the kind of thing that happened to Esposito, but when Nick agreed, laughing, Napolitano turned away too quickly, as if the contrast were too painful to witness. Nick went out with Garelick to a DOA in a single room, an old man whose only company was a listless goldfish. When Nick picked up a gluey tube of medication to identify his ailments, he saw the instruction, “Apply twice daily to lesions,” and flung it away. He scrubbed his hands until they nearly bled. When he tried to shake a few flakes of food into the fishbowl, the top popped off the container, burying the goldfish beneath a crust of crap. The fish didn’t seem hungry. Garelick picked up the bowl and walked to the back, and Nick heard a toilet flush.
When the brick from the rooftop missed Nick’s head by three feet, and Lieutenant Ortiz’s by ten—the lieutenant had come out with Nick on a case, in a clumsily touching effort to probe for suicidal tendencies—Nick doubted the brick-chucker had intended him as the target. Whatever the circumstance, the lieutenant was satisfied by the scramble back to the car—dignity diminished but skull intact—that Nick’s will to live remained avid. On the ride there, the lieutenant had asked him how he was feeling, had assured him he could call whenever, if he needed to talk. It was not the kind of conversation for which he had much aptitude, and Nick respected the effort, despite the odd tone of precondolence. Was that a word? On the ride back, the lieutenant shifted in his seat and looked out at the sky, as if the weather threatened lightning.
They had been right to worry about him. Nick had begun to try on the idea of not being there, and it fit him like a bespoke suit—the feel of it, the look, were unexpectedly becoming. He stared into the mirror and imagined no reflection; he liked what he saw. Not quite, not yet. Nick didn’t want to kill himself, as such; he just didn’t want to live. He was held in check to some degree by the taboo of it, but more because of a fussiness and laziness in dealing with the practicalities, and he put it off, like taxes.
The walk to City Island had ruled out cold water, and hanging had a copycat aspect after Maria Fonseca. He decided against the apartment, on the admittedly ironic terms that it was too depressing even for suicide. Days after, he would be reported as a foul odor and found in a bunk bed. The gun was obvious. That was the cop’s way. It was always right there. That was that, then; the other details he could determine at leisure, or not. The sense of outright self-dominion was a novelty for Nick, and it pleased him, as did the irony of the inspiration, the little lamp of black light burning in the window. As he’d discovered with the recent interrogation of Ivan Lopez, he could accomplish more when he cared less.
This newly ruthless spirit of investigation prompted Nick to visit Michael Cole. Michael had also undergone a transformation, had become someone else. It would be good if they could talk. Could Michael explain his own causes and origins, his influences and metamorphic leaps? People could change, and maybe Nick hoped they could change more than once. He didn’t see the harm in asking, or rather he was not troubled by the possibility of harm. And Nick was not motivated by curiosity alone. It would have made more sense had his concern been clinical, a desire only to capture a glimpse of something that he did not understand. But there was also a muddy impulse to make amends, in a vaguely twelve-step, check-the-box fashion. The impulse was not religious, in that his religion was not vague on the matter. There were no loopholes for contingencies, no points for saying you were sorry in advance. Killing yourself was the worst thing you could do, and you shouldn’t do it. Nick was in a strange state, persisting in the idea that the answer could change the question. He was a missionary without a mission.
Nick wanted to say hello to Michael, say he was sorry, see what there was to be seen. He never thought that deep amends were owed Michael, on his own account; Nick had assisted in the delivery of tragic misinformation, but it had been wholly a homegrown, homemade catastrophe. Nick would apologize, but he wanted Michael to understand, for both to benefit from the larger perspective. He knew it was a stupid idea as soon as he knocked on the door. Michael would not explain himself like an exhibit in a museum. What were the missing museums again—Indians, coins, explorers, what else?
“Who?”
“Hello?”
A woman answered, older-seeming than Nick but probably not, hard-worn and maybe half-drunk. Her sour breath extended past the threshold, and she wore a new bathrobe of thick blue fluff, the price tag sticking out the neck, that made her seem bonier, the worse for wear. Because Nick disliked her instantly, he strained to be polite, appear interested, and she caught him in his effort. She looked at him as if he were a door-to-door salesman, shifty and shoddy. Which was only half-true, at best. And who was she to talk?
“What you want?”
“Is Michael here?”
“No. You police?”
“Yeah.”
“What you want with Michael?”
“Just to talk with him.”
“Yeah, right. When you people just wanna talk, people end up dead, in jail. You got a card? I’ll let him know….”
The request for paperwork made Nick realize his other mistake in visiting. There was litigation pending between him and the family, which would drag on for years. It would not be wise to document his interference. And then he smiled. Even as he was entertaining thoughts of annihilation, he was still afraid of a lawsuit, as if they’d dig up his bones to put them under oath.
The woman mistrusted Nick’s smile as he shook his head, turned away. “He knows who I am.”
A few nights later, as he was heading home, going up the stairs to his apartment lobby, a gunshot chipped the sidewalk. When the shot hit, Nick stopped for a moment. Yes, he does know who I am. A few pigeons lifted off from nearby roosts, wing tips softly flapping like polite applause; they were disturbed, but not much. Nick was nearly calm. He almost wanted to wave or give Michael the finger, but he resisted the instinct. He unhurriedly put his key in the lobby door and went in. Inside the apartment, he went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and sat down at the table. He took out his phone but hesitated before calling 911, savoring the company of his new problem. It was a good one: Could he be sure it was Michael? An assumption about a Cole brother was what had begun this whole crazy game. It had been far more obvious that Malcolm had been shot in the projects that night. There had even been evidence of it, wit
h the ID. By comparison, this was sheer intuition, and Nick didn’t place much faith in his instincts of late. It was not as if he couldn’t have set extraordinary efforts in motion, by informing superiors that a fanatic had dedicated himself to the assassination of a New York City police officer. Maybe Michael was the one who’d graffitied “G-Had” in the lobby. A guaranteed attention-getter, that one was.
But only attention was guaranteed. A reaction did not mean a result, at least as desired. Nick could not control events, could not predict the consequences. There would be a big fuss, yes, but the only certain outcome would be that he would have to leave the apartment. The proof problems with this shooting were the same as with Michael’s attack at Miguelito’s funeral. Even if everyone knew, no one had seen, no one could say. Moving out was inevitable. The risk would be reduced, and the rule about living where you worked would be enforced. Nick wanted change in his life, but moving promised only headache, the same depression at five times the expense. He did not need new furniture, a view of another alley. Something would break soon, and it might not be him. Esposito would be back at work tomorrow; he would know what to do.
The strangest part was that Nick was grateful for the blundering ambush. He was flattered by it, in that Michael was one of the few people Nick could think of who thought he mattered very much. His first thought was that Michael knew what Nick wanted, wanted to help—Penny for your thoughts?—and his second was how funny it was to think so. His third thought was that he was glad Michael had missed. He had been tempted, tested; for now, with help, he had passed. An enemy had given him purpose, when friends and family had failed. Michael had made life interesting again. After that night, Nick took to coming and going through the alleyways behind the building, never through the front door. He would tell Esposito. Esposito would know what to do.
Esposito was greeted with cheers when he came back to the squad. Everyone stood and gathered around for handshakes and backslaps; he did a bounce-step from leg to leg to show he was fully healed, whole and ready. He looked better than before. He had lost weight and wore a new suit, a gray pinstripe; he had an eager, almost belligerent grin that sought to banish whatever doubts there might be about his fitness beyond the physical. Lieutenant Ortiz looked at him fondly, then peeked over to Nick with surreptitious hope. With the alpha here, the pariah might return to normal, and the pack would be restored to balance. The mood of festive relief lasted five minutes. Esposito sat down at his desk, and when he stood up, there was gum stuck to the seat of his new suit.
“Shit! Dammit! Who’s the slob who did this?”
The guys crowded around as if he’d been hurt again, remembering it, maybe, or just chagrined that the homecoming had been spoiled.
“Ah, what a shame!”
“Alcohol will get that out.”
“A new suit, too. What a pain.”
“Ice works, too, I heard.”
“All right, all right, enough already,” said Esposito, shaking off his moment of pique. The attention was a little much, even for him. “Everybody, stop staring at my ass. What works? Alcohol and ice? Hmm … Can you think of a place where we can get both?”
He looked over to Lieutenant Ortiz, who waved him away. “Espo, take your partner and go out and get drunk. We’ll hold down the fort. No sense in jumping right back in.”
“You sure?”
“That’s an order.”
“Then, you won’t have to tell me twice. Let’s hit it, Nick.”
Esposito picked up his overcoat with one hand and grabbed Nick’s arm with the other, leading him out the door. “Good to be back, guys. Great to see you all.”
They drove down Broadway to Coogan’s. It was mid-afternoon, chilly, the sky pale and papery, and the darkness of the pub was consoling. When Esposito headed toward the bar, Nick steered him to a distant table in the dining room; there was a modest crowd at the bar, men alone and in pairs, predawn shift workers from the construction trades and casual alcoholics, opinions at the ready, anxious to share. Nick didn’t know what he wanted to say, but he didn’t want anyone to hear it. Esposito took a pint glass of ice and a tumbler of vodka into the bathroom, returning after five minutes. Passing waitresses were enlisted to examine the results of the cleanup. One suggested peanut butter. Another brushed his seat with her fingertips, then gave it a cheerful slap.
“Looks shipshape to me,” she said.
“God bless your family,” he called after her, watching as she walked away. He turned to Nick and smiled. “I’m back.” He raised a glass, and Nick tipped his. Tink. The smile did not leave Esposito’s face when he asked, “Are you?”
“I never left.”
“Sure you did, Nicky boy.”
“Yeah.”
“What is it, your father?”
“Yeah.”
“And your wife?”
“Yeah.”
“And Daysi?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s bad about her, that’s tough. Her kid, though—what else is she gonna do, you know? Family comes first.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“What?”
The waitress was near—too near—and Esposito made a little circle in the air. Same again. He called after, “Plus whiskey! Two each! Irish!” He patted Nick on the shoulder, and they did not talk again until the drinks were delivered.
“Are you okay, Nick?”
“You’re an Esposito.”
“What?”
“Esposito, D’Amico, Donodeo. All of the names, I told you about. I got one now. The ‘family comes first’ thing—I’m an only child, I have no children, my parents are dead, and I’m in the middle of a divorce. It’s not an outlook that does a lot for me. What’s the Irish version of the name, O’Nobody?”
Esposito pursed his lips and considered. He raised his glass, and they drank.
“Sorry, pal. I guess I could have put it another way. But what’s done is done. Your father, God rest him. Your wife? You know better than me, but it sounds like that’s done, too. If you wanted to be with her, you’d be with her. You know where she lives. You could fight this, but you ain’t fightin’. Past is past. But Daysi? Not past, not done, not in the hands of God. Your hands, and you still got a fighting chance there, Nick. Now that the ex is out of the way. What’s he facing, ten years, at least?”
“Is it ten?”
Nick had avoided learning any of the particulars, but he surmised that an airport grab by the Feds was not for a misdemeanor. “Did you have a hand in that?” Esposito hesitated before he said no, and then realized the one word would not be sufficient. “No. The short answer is no. I didn’t slip a bag of dope into his pocket before he got on the plane. But you and me both know how this works, Nick. Old files fall by the wayside, cases get dusty, warrants get accidentally deleted from the computer. Maybe by my asking around about it, making a couple of calls, it was brought up to date.”
Nick considered the admission. He didn’t like Esposito’s intrusion, but it had been minimal and honest, a legitimate fix to a glitch in the system. Otegui’s arrest had finished the relationship with Daysi, but the alternatives were worse. What if he’d arrived safely, what then? Would he have told Daysi she had to go back with him? Would he have tried to force her? He hadn’t flown up to have a man-to-man with Nick, to tell him he’d better take good care of her, to be supportive and listen to her needs. No, Nick decided, there were no options but an ending, and this end was less bloody than the others. When he nodded, Esposito sighed with relief.
“I don’t think you should just write it off, anyway. Give it a little time. Then check back in with her again. The snot-nose kid, he’s still gonna be in the picture, but you’re never gonna catch a break with teenagers anyway.”
“No.”
“Not even RJ. Boy, I know I’m in for a rough five years with him, maybe ten.”
“No.”
“You gotta get something out of this, Nick. You always do. You gotta.”
“No. That�
�s you, Espo, that’s your line.”
The eyebrows went up, alert to the possibility that the remark carried a hint of accusation; they descended again, in sympathy. Nick didn’t like that either, but he knew he ought to take whatever he could.
“Yeah. It’s my line,” he said, “But you can borrow it anytime. Anything else going on, Nick? Not that you need any other reason, to be pissed off at the world.”
“Matter of fact, there is. It doesn’t bother me too much. It probably should…. Anyway, I figured I’d tell you when I saw you.”
They were at Rikers Island within the hour. Esposito drove with one hand and held the phone in the other, not yelling, but his voice rising in volume from the brusque introduction—“Yes, this is Detective Esposito.”—to subsequent demands to get to a boss, then dropping back down to sweet talk for the next round of secretaries. “Honey, don’t I know you? Listen, you gotta do me a favor, it’s important….” All the hustle-muscles that had lain slack and fat for the past months came alive as if they’d trained for the moment. He made arrangements and rearrangements, talked his way past gates. It was late in the day for visitors, late in the day for unscheduled inmate movements. After months of neglect, Malcolm was not happy. He’d learned that Esposito had been out with an injury, but it was of small consolation. He had plans of his own. Like most informants, he saw himself as a partner more than an underling, and to be ordered here to answer demands had broken the illusion. No more covert ops and coded messages; this was a yank of the leash. He shot Nick a brief, baleful glance, reverting to his old role, as if Malcolm were still outside, king of the corner, and Nick was the dull constable ambling by. Nick couldn’t say he liked the sight of him, either. Esposito did not trouble with any of the familiar banter. “Malcolm, what’s up with your brother?”
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