Boots shut the phone down. Rose Orlac was on the checkout line and there were several customers standing behind her. As Boots watched, she shook out her blond hair, then bent forward to empty her cart. Instantly, as though someone had thrown a switch, a guy one line over riveted his eyes to her ass, his evaluating gaze so direct as to border on the socially unacceptable. Boots was hoping the man would say something rude so he could intervene, but the man looked away when Rose straightened.
Boots turned away as well, headed for the dairy counter. He would see Rose Orlac at church tomorrow, at which time he would make his interest known. Unless, of course, through some miracle, he ran into Jill Kelly first. According to Sergeant Gantier, Jill had once been on the SWAT team. Maybe she still had her equipment.
Ten hours later, Boots parked his Chevy on Richardson Street, several doors away from the address supplied by Flint Page. Unlike its closest neighbors, the building in question was not a tenement. Boots knew its six stories to house thirty-seven apartments, counting the super’s in the basement, knew there would be a lobby on the first floor instead of a narrow corridor leading to the stairs. He knew because, just a few years before, he’d had a girlfriend named Monica Charon who lived in the building.
Down the block, a group of teenagers danced to the Boricua rap pouring from a boombox. The boys were decked out in the latest hip-hop fashions, the girls in jeans tight enough to be a second skin. Across the street, four older men sat around a folding table, enjoying the warm weather and a spirited game of dominoes. When Boots pulled to the curb, the old men checked him out, instantly made him for what he was, then returned to their game.
Boots settled back on the seat. He was in no hurry. The Yankees and the Orioles were playing out the ninth inning and he was ten minutes early. If the Yanks won – which they were very likely to do, being up six runs – the week would be off to a good start.
The game concluded a few minutes later with a soft line drive to Alex Rodriguez at third base. Boots shut down the engine, then swung the door open. Out of uniform, he wore khakis and a sweatshirt in lieu of a three-piece suit, running shoes instead of boots. His off-duty weapon, a .32 caliber Seecamp, was tucked into a holster on his right ankle.
Eyes flicked to him as walked along the sidewalk, the dominoes players, the kids, faces in the windows, a man walking a pitbull on the other side of the street. Though Boots did not pass within fifty feet of any of these individuals, he could smell their collective relief when he turned left, pulled open the door to Page’s building and stepped into a small foyer. Ahead of him, the interior lobby was well lit and clean.
Boots rang the buzzer for 5D and got an immediate response.
‘Yo.’
‘Open up, Flint.’
‘Yowzah, boss.’
Inside, Boots crossed the lobby to the elevator. As he waited for it to descend, the front door opened and a man walked inside. The man was in his twenties, wearing a wife-beater t-shirt. He looked at Boots, repressed a double-take, finally decided to use the stairs.
Boots was still chuckling as he came out of the elevator to discover Page standing in the hallway, a door open behind him. Page wore a silky, hot-orange basketball uniform, the top large enough to fit a man twice his size, the shorts descending to mid-calf. A spider’s web of delicate chains, which might or might not be gold, encircled his throat.
‘Somethin’ funny?’ he asked.
Now that he had the man cornered, Boots wasn’t above slipping in a casual zinger as he walked into the apartment. ‘You joinin’ the circus, Flint?’
But Jimmy ‘Flint’ Page didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he closed the door behind Boots an instant before the overhead light went out.
Boots reached automatically for the nine-millimeter normally holstered behind his right hip. He was momentarily confused when his hand came up empty, but then remembered the Seecamp strapped to his ankle. An instant later, something hard and unyielding crashed into his forehead.
He hit the floor, barely conscious, blood already pouring into his eyes. The beam of a flashlight thrust out at him. It moved along his body from his feet to his head, then back to his chest. A kick followed, to the side of his face, then another to his hip, then another and another. Instinctively, he began to crawl on all fours, scuttling along like a crab. The flashlight moved with him, the feet, too. How many feet? How many attackers? With his eyes now filled with blood, he had no idea. Nor did he think he could get to the Seecamp. But submission wasn’t an option, either.
Boots turned suddenly and lunged backward. Purely by luck, the fingers of his left hand caught a hunk of fabric. He clamped down hard, locking his hand into a fist, then levered himself to his knees and drew his attacker toward him, all those years in the weight room finally paying off.
A pair of fists hammered at the back of his head, but he ignored them, as he ignored a kick to his ribs. Blindly, relentlessly, he swept the area in front of him with his free hand, back and forth, until his arm finally encircled a leg. Then he brought his left hand down to meet his right and twisted with all his strength.
The scream that followed was very loud, very shrill, and Boots drank it in as he spun in a half-circle to face the flashlight beam. His face was covered in blood now, blood soaked his eyebrows and eyelashes, blood filmed his eyes each time he blinked. But there had to be a hand attached to that flashlight, and if he could reach that hand, take the flashlight away, use it for a weapon …
Boots was so lost in his calculations that he never felt the gun when it was pressed to the back of his head. He heard it, though, heard the hammer ratchet back, and he froze. A second later, through a haze of red, he saw something long and black whip across the flashlight’s beam. Instinctively, he made an attempt to raise his shoulder, but it was too late. The club hit him on the side of the head just above his ear and he dropped to the floor, face first, unable even to break his fall.
SEVENTEEN
For the first twenty-four hours following the assault, Boots moved freely through a universe where time had three dimensions, like a fish swimming through a sea as dark as it was vast. He felt no anxiety, no fear, not even a sense of mystery. He was just there, in the sea, swimming.
Though he saw nothing, Boots occasionally became aware of sounds, the somehow reassuring beep of a heart monitor, a television playing at a distance, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes, voices near and far, male and female. But he was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to place these sounds in sequence, much less in context. Once gone, they were instantly consigned to memory, a flat and slippery mirror that offered no purchase whatever.
At one point, a female voice announced, ‘I’m just going to flush your foley, Mr Littlewood.’
At another, a male voice confidently declared, ‘In the greater scheme of things, the cranial injuries he suffered are mild. He’ll come around as soon as the swelling inside his skull recedes, probably tomorrow.’
Boots didn’t know to whom these statements were made, or even if they were made at the same time, though he found it odd that he felt no discomfort, physical or psychological. But one phrase – ‘in the greater scheme of things’ – did fascinate him, and he eventually applied this idea to Father Gubetti, whose voice came to Boots midway through an Our Father.
‘… dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.’
A former altar boy, Boots easily translated the Latin: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. This was old news and Boots didn’t scrutinize the words, or ask himself why his old friend was praying in Latin. But he knew, in the greater scheme of things, there was to be no forgiveness. Of that he was certain.
Andy Littlewood was equally unforgiving. ‘You’re no listener, Irwin Littlewood, not as boy or man,’ he declared, his tone bitter. ‘Tell me, when you rammed your thick skull into the wall, were you hopin’ the stone would crack? Or were you expectin’ Joshua to bring the wall down with a blowin’ of horns?’
; Perhaps, Boots thought, after his father drifted away, I did hope. Perhaps I did expect the wall to crumble. The admission didn’t trouble him. Nothing troubled him, not even visitations by each of the principal actors in the drama that had laid him low. Their voices swam up, crossed his path, continued on: Jill Kelly, Frankie Drago, Lieutenant Sorrowful, Vinnie Palermo, Inspector Corcoran, Flint Page. Boots noted their comings and goings without curiosity. There was no rush, not when he could move through time, side to side, up and down, backward and forward. No, there was always plenty of time when there was no time at all.
For the first ten seconds after Boots awakened, he simply continued on, unruffled, untroubled. But then his flesh turned on him, the pain seeming to rush into his consciousness from every cell in his body. He groaned as his left eye finally popped open, and for the first time he was confused. He tried to raise a hand to touch his right eye, unleashing another barrage of pain that left him nauseated.
‘Boots?’
Joaquin Rivera’s voice came from the right and Boots slowly turned his head to fix him with his left eye. He started to speak, only to realize that there was something in his throat, a tube that ran through his nose. Still, he managed a few words.
‘If I would’ve known it was gonna hurt this much,’ he whispered, ‘I woulda stayed in a coma.’
Joaquin laughed, then said, ‘I’ll get the doctor.’
Boots was unconscious before either returned, but this time, now that he knew the pain was out there, his mind was not untroubled. Nevertheless, he clung to a basic perception. There was no rush. He had all the time in the world.
An hour later, he opened his eyes again to discover a man next to his bed. The man wore a white lab coat and was young enough to be his son.
‘Doctor …’
‘Detective Littlewood? I’m Dr Chang. Are you finally with us?’
Boots ignored the upbeat tone. ‘My right eye. I can’t see.’
‘That’s because it’s swollen shut. Do you need anything for pain?’
‘Yeah. And this tube in my nose …’
‘The naso-gastric tube was inserted as a precaution. It’ll come out tomorrow morning.’ Dr Chang leaned forward to shine a light into his patient’s good eye. ‘Now, do you know where you are?’
‘In the hospital.’ Boots managed to raise a hand. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘You came in last night – Saturday, at eleven o’clock, a little less than twenty-four hours ago.’
‘And what’s the damage?’
‘We’ve taken multiple CAT scans of your brain and we don’t believe that you’ll suffer any long-term neurological deficit from your injuries. In addition, you have three broken ribs and extensive soft tissue damage, but these, too, will heal completely over time. Unfortunately, the damage to your right eye is more problematical. We’ll have to wait until the swelling recedes before we can evaluate your vision.’
Dr Chang glanced at his watch, then nodded to a nurse who entered the room. ‘We’ll talk again in the morning.’
Boots watched the nurse fit the point of a syringe into a port on his IV line, then depress the plunger. The wave of pleasure that swept through him was as brief as it was powerful. His good eye fluttered and he came close to achieving a genuine smile before he drifted away.
He smiled again, even while he slept, when he happened on a word that perfectly described the way he’d been gamed by Flint Page: elegant. The hang-up on the first call, as if Page had been interrupted by some villain who couldn’t know he was talking to a cop, allayed any suspicions Boots might have entertained. And the second phone call – the banter, the bargaining – was even more convincing. Flint had played his part well, right down to the orange basketball gear and the gold chains. There hadn’t been a single false note.
Nevertheless, elegant or not, the bad guys had made an error in judgment. They’d spared his life.
Boots woke up the following morning to find Lieutenant Sorrowful in a chair by the side of the bed. Levine skidded to the edge of the seat when Boots opened his eyes.
‘Boots, you OK?’
‘Never better.’
‘The doc says you’re gonna be all right.’
‘Fuck the docs. Is it Monday?’
‘Yeah, it’s Monday morning, eight o’clock.’
‘Did the Yankees win yesterday?’
‘What?’
Boots gathered himself. His throat was on fire, rubbed raw by the tube running down into his stomach. ‘The Yankees …’
‘Yes, the Yankees won.’ Levine’s small mouth worked itself into a tiny frown. ‘Do you remember what happened to you?’
Boots leaned back and made a show of it, letting his tongue work over his lips and his good eye jump to the ceiling before returning to Levine. Then he lied through his teeth. ‘The last thing I remember was entering an apartment on Richardson Street. That was about ten o’clock on Saturday night.’
‘Well, you got worked over real good. In fact, what the docs said, if you hadn’t crawled out of that apartment and knocked on a door, you might not be talking to me. Without treatment, you could’ve definitely died.’
‘The way I feel at this moment, I’d have been better off.’
Levine’s chuckle was strictly for the record. ‘Look, Boots, this is important. If you were injured in the line of duty, you’ll be on full pay until you heal up. You should take that into—’
‘I went to Richardson Street to meet Flint Page. Page claimed to know who pulled off the robberies last Wednesday.’
NYPD regulations demand that all confidential informants be registered with the Department. For any number of reasons, including the personal safety of the informant, the rule is largely ignored. But Flint Page was an exception. He’d ratted on so many of his pals, to so many cops, he had no more confidentiality to protect. Every detective in the Six-Four, including Lieutenant Sorrowful, knew his name.
‘Perfect,’ Levine said, ‘now you’re on easy street.’
‘Easy street?’
‘Boots, with your injuries, you could stay home for the rest of the year.’
EIGHTEEN
Levine’s exit was shortly followed by the arrival of Andy and Joaquin. Boots looked into his father’s eyes, found regret, fear, reproach and relief. Without the energy to address any of these, he turned to Joaquin, who seemed angry.
‘Get me a mirror,’ he said.
‘Boots …’ Andy Littlewood thrust himself into his son’s line of sight. ‘I don’t think …’
‘Jackie,’ Boots repeated, making an effort to get the words past his swollen throat, ‘get me a mirror.’
Joaquin left the room, returning a few minutes later with a small mirror borrowed from one of the nurses. Boots peered through his one eye at the tiny image in the glass. For a moment, he began to drift, but then he refocused long enough to take an inventory. His right eye looked as if somebody had stuck an egg in the socket. The lids were barely visible, and both eyes were the malignant red of a disfiguring birthmark. In addition, a pair of serious wounds extended across his forehead and along the right side of his skull, lacerations that had been closed with too many stitches to count. One side of his head had been shaved as well.
Boots was still taking inventory when Dr Chang entered the room. ‘You weren’t all that beautiful to begin with,’ he observed.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Chang began to draw the curtain around the bed. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us,’ he told Andy and Joaquin, ‘I’m just going to remove this tube from Mr Littlewood’s nose.’
‘How about the one in my dick?’
‘That’s called a foley catheter. I’ll remove it when you can sit up on your own, with your legs draped over the edge of the bed. Would you like to try that now?’
Boots made a valiant attempt to rise to a sitting position. He tried first with his abdominal muscles, but the pain in his ribs and back stopped him cold. He tried next to roll on to his side, then to use his
hands and arms, but it wasn’t happening. Finally, he dropped his head to the pillow, his face and hair slick with sweat.
Dr Chang pointed to the chair currently occupied by Joaquin. ‘A couple of hours from now, the nurses will put you in that chair. It’s going to hurt, Mr Littlewood, so I’d advise you to take your pain medication. The less pain you have, the more you’ll move around. The more you move around, the faster your recovery.’ Chan closed the curtain, then rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, let’s get to work.’
The naso-gastric tube running through Detective Littlewood’s nose and down into his stomach was held in place by a single piece of adhesive twisted into the shape of a butterfly. When Dr Chang deftly tore this adhesive away from the bruised and swollen tissue beneath it, Boots felt as though his skin had caught fire. Despite his best intentions (and his carefully nurtured self-image), he howled like a baby. Apparently unsympathetic, Chang next drew the NG tube from his patient’s stomach, up through his esophagus and out through his nose. By the time he finished, Boots was whimpering.
‘You ready for those pain meds?’ Chang asked.
Boots was, in fact, eager for his pain meds, and he continued to be eager as the day wore on. Nevertheless, when an orderly transferred him from the bed to a gurney prior to a CAT scan, and when a pair of nurses got him out of bed, walked him around the room, then sat him in a chair, his body shrieked in protest. He would be a long time healing.
The remainder of the afternoon passed in a blur. Boots was visited by a neurologist who restated Chan’s prognosis, and by an ophthalmologist who took no more than a step into the small ICU cubicle, but was nevertheless optimistic.
‘Try not to worry,’ she advised before heading back the way she’d come.
Already worried, he rang the nurse for his pain meds, then, once they were delivered, promptly fell into an image-saturated trance. He drifted for a time, again in a parallel universe devoid of apprehension. But he was more active now, and he skillfully manipulated these images, placing them in various relationships, one to the other, as he probed for a hidden treasure.
Dancer in the Flames Page 11