Broken Sky

by Saurav Dutt

“Sean leave it as it is….” Andie trailed off.

  “And you expect me to..to..be happy while you let this…prick Ben come to your house and play with my kid? You heard Peter, he doesn’t even like the asshole” Sean replied.

  “If this is going to work, we have to cooperate with each other…” Andie conceded, averting her gaze from Sean who was staring straight at her now, inching closer to her.

  “I told you I still loved you last night..” Sean whispered, placing his hand on her shoulder. She paid it no attention, tilting her neck and carefully brushing it away as she looked up at him.

  “I’m sorry Sean…” Andie swallowed hard “but what I feel for you now just isn’t love…not anymore…”

  Sean felt his lips quiver, the muscles in his face contorted and he was unable to raise the forced smile he was trying desperately to summon. He let his hand drop to his side, trying hard to meet Andie’s gaze but she turned away. He glanced around him, focusing in on the television screen, wondering when he would see his son playing his favourite video game again.

  “My lawyer will send you the documents in the post” he growled as he yanked open the drawing room door. His ears seemed unable to translate any sound, he saw Andie’s lips moving but he could not hear a word. He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked up. Through the darkness he could see Peter sitting there. They looked at each other, unable to communicate and Sean knew that he had heard everything. He wanted to stretch out his arms, smile as he saw his son run down the stairs and to be wrapped up within his embrace but he couldn’t summon the strength to.

  “You don’t have to go now…” Andie said “it doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “Like what?” Sean snapped, barely keeping his anger in check “civilised and neat…all so goddamn neat just because you fucking want it to be?”

  Before Andie could reply the doorbell rang, the monotone ring reverberating through the whole house. “I’m leaving now, I’ll get it” Sean said. He wrenched the door open and saw Ben staring there, a bouquet of roses tucked under his arm and at that moment he was drawn to the glossy twinkle of Ben’s shoes. He looked at them momentarily and then back up at Ben’s face, noticing the abject disappointment written all over it, realising that he and Andie weren’t alone. “Andie..” Ben said, looking right through Sean “I didn’t know you had plans with him today.”

  “She doesn’t…” Sean interrupted “and you can talk to me…Bennie…I’m standing here, I’m not a mirage.”

  “Right…” Ben frowned, still staring at Andie, searching for an answer.

  “Sean…was just leaving” she replied as Ben stepped through the entranceway, beaming a ear to ear smile and forking over the bouquet as he planted a kiss on her cheek.

  “Ben?” Sean asked with a smile.

  “Yeah, whaddaya want?” Ben replied, barely hiding his consternation.

  “It was nice meeting you..” Sean said, pulling back his arm and landing his fist squarely on Ben’s jaw, flooring him with one swift punch. He stood over him and smiled, turning his heels and walked straight down the driveway.

  As Andie watched Sean stomp off, stuffing his hands angrily into his pockets as he walked away, she thought of her father.

  As she helped Ben up, closed the door and looked up at Peter sitting there abjectly, pain and disappointment written all over his tear stained face, she remembered herself when she was younger. She remembered sitting there just like he was doing now, feeling sick to her stomach and crying effortlessly, waiting for her mother to return when she walked out the door all those years ago, somehow knowing she would never return, knowing exactly what he was thinking as he sat there now. And as she helped Ben to her feet, wiping the blood from his bottom lip, she began to cry.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He knew the timing was off. Pollard had sunk two cans of baked beans into his oversized khaki army jacket and was sure the overweight blonde lady down the aisle had seen him do it. “Hey..” he whispered through the crack of light between the shelf of cans in front of him. “What the hell is it?” she hissed, her own concentration disrupted as she dropped a handful of Hershey bars onto the ground.

  The supermarket was preparing to close for the evening. The aisles were scattered with one or two remaining customers, some with baskets packed to the brim with discounted loaves of bread, confectionary and assorted items. Others were walking around aimlessly, killing time. And then there was the cop out of uniform standing twenty feet from Pollard watching him closely, hoping, and praying he wasn’t doing what he looked like he was. Officer Megan Fellows was tired, irritable and only came in to buy some smokes. But she had noticed the short, balding man with the broken spectacles circling the same aisle for the past fifteen minutes. Then there was the army jacket, probably three times his size; an obvious giveaway.

  “How much did ya get? I’m done, let’s beat it” Pollard whispered again, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being watched. She struggled to pull up the broken zip of the torn dark overcoat she had fished out of an alleyway skip. Looking to her side, she noticed the aisle was completely clear. “Pollard..” she said “get your ass over to this side, I need some help.”

  “What with?” he shot back.

  “The pockets of this damn thing are torn; I can’t hold a damn thing.” she snapped.

  Pollard shifted uncomfortably on the spot, his abdomen shivering as he felt the cold surface of the beer cans he had stuffed down his pants press against his groin. As he bent over, pretending to study the bottom shelf, and as he swiftly concealed another chocolate bar up the sleeve of the coat, his spectacles slipped down the bridge of his nose and landed on the floor.

  He heard the bounce of steel rebound against the hard ground as it fell and the sound of glass cracking. “Hey you….stop what you’re doing” a voice called out to him. It was low, husky and accusatory. Pollard immediately knew it was a cop.

  He pretended not to hear, and knelt down to pick up the glasses only for the Hershey bar to slip out from his sleeve and fall against the side of his left shoe. Then another bar, and another. “I’m talking to you man…” the voice repeated, more urgent this time. Officer Follows had now moved forward carefully, studying Pollard as he knelt there frozen to the spot. One hand was hovering precariously above the rim of his spectacles and the other still tucked in within his coat sleeve, tightened and gripping the cuff of the jacket tightly within its grasp. Without the glasses he was blind as a bat.

  “Pollard, what the hell are you doing?” she demanded, her eye squeezing through the cracks between the cereal boxes she had made and she could then see, through the corner of her eye, Officer Fellows approaching him with the sleek grace of a panther studying its prey. She glared at the cop’s hands, observing that one was placed in front of her and the other deep within her jacket pocket. “Pollard?” she repeated, realising that her voice was cracking with fear. Her instinct told her to run, knowing full well he would chase after her if he could, but this time she couldn’t move.

  “Raise your hands sir, I’m a police officer, take your hand out of your pocket right now..” Officer Fellows warned as she flashed her badge, her other hand remaining in her own pocket, gripping the handle of her Glock 19. She inched forward, carefully studying Pollard’s posture, his lack of eye contact. She could smell the booze on him all the way from the top of the aisle, his grubby face and glazed reddened eyes giving out all the wrong signals. “I can’t see a thing, my glasses…” Pollard replied, narrowing his eyes so that he could make out she was maybe ten to fifteen feet away from him. “Just raise your hands, sir” came the nonchalant reply “don’t worry about the glasses.”

  “No.” Pollard scowled, seeing only the blurred vision of a figure approaching him. He fumbled around for his glasses, discerning from the corner of his eye that she had now stopped some ten feet away. Officer Fellows calmly took her gun out of her jacket pocket, clasping the handle as she aimed for his leg. She realised her palms were sweaty, tre
mbling and she was certain Pollard’s concealed hand clutched a weapon. “Sir, I will request again that you raise your hands” she repeated, quickly brushing the beads of the sweat off her forehead with her trembling finger before returning it to the handle of her gun.

  “Let me pick up my glasses.” Pollard shouted back, his voice barely disguising his disgust at being told what to do.

  “No, raise your hands, NOW…”

  “I said NO…”

  Officer Fellows swallowed hard, she cocked the hammer back, not wanting to shoot, not knowing if her shaking hands would stiffen so that her aim would return. Pollard turned his back slightly to her, one hand now placed on the ground and the other still stuffed in his jacket pocket. Another Hershey bar slipped out, the cold exterior of the beer cans continued to press against his stomach. Turning his head slightly to the left, he could make her face out through the crack of light between the boxes on the shelf. He saw the fear in her eyes, her pupils dilated, her lips quivering with fear. Pollard smiled at her as he began to straighten his back.

  A shot rang out; a warning shot aimed less than a foot away from Pollard. He fumbled and landed straight on his ass, one hand tucked awkwardly against his posterior and the other still stuck in his pocket. Officer Fellows couldn’t discern which hand was where, whether a weapon was obscured, whether he was going for it or not. She stepped closer, the wisps of smoke rising from the muzzle of the gun. “Please…” she croaked “don’t make me do this, just stand up and face me and put your hands in the air.” she added as Pollard continued to beam a smile towards the space on the shelf.

  She rose to her feet, dropping the assortment of candy bars, biscuits and drink cartons within her grasp, and ran down to the end of the aisle as fast as her feet could take her. “Pollard…Pollard….Pollard” she whimpered as she ran, her heart beating within her chest, slamming against her rib cage as she felt her head throbbing and aching. No sooner had she turned the corner, she heard the shot ring out. It sounded like a bolt of lightning crashing through her skull. She glimpsed Pollard slump to the ground, clutching his chest. His pudgy five foot one frame collapsed within the oversized jacket he was wearing and she saw the cop standing there with the smoking gun, frozen to the spot.

  “Pollard!” she screamed out, falling to her knees. Her head was throbbing in pain, the sound of the gunshot rattling around her skull, ricocheting throughout her cranium as she struggled to discern what had happened. She rose to her feet, running past the officer and collapsing at Pollards side. She saw that his face had immediately turned pale, the glow of his red cheeks sapped of life as he struggled to breathe.

  “Pollard, you can’t leave me…” she sobbed as tears trickled down her cheeks “what the hell were you doing?”

  “Here…” Pollard gasped with a crooked smile as his hand held out a candy bar “this is it…I got it for you…” He coughed as spittles of blood oozed out from his mouth and ran down his lip. She embraced him, kissed him on the cheek and stroked his face. She looked up at Officer Fellows who was standing there in disbelief, the gun still smoking in her hand as her eyes drifted off. “I…I thought he was going for a gun…I didn’t know..I swear” came her response as the other store customers began circling around.

  “Hey..” Pollard whispered as he motioned for her to lean in close “you gotta promise me one thing”

  “Anything…” she replied, a tear running down her cheek and falling onto his “tell me…”

  “Your daughter” he mumbled “remember you said we’d look for your daughter…you have to do that now, you have to do that now..stop fucking around.”

  His eyes closed, a breath escaped and she felt the life go out of him. She held onto his body, her eyes trailing off into the distance. The pain in her head was gone, there was only silence. She heard her heart beating slowly, rhythmically, and all she remembered then was the overwhelming feeling of sadness that enveloped her as she let his body fall from her arms.

  * *

  John sucked in the smoke from his cigarette, letting it swirl around the roof his mouth before it escaped through his nostrils. He let the pen fall against the paper just one more time, hoping it would unsettle at least one of the two Internal Affairs officers sitting opposite him. He stared up at the clock, barely ten minutes had passed since the interview had commenced and yet it felt like hours. From the corner of his eye he noticed Durning staring a hole through him, he couldn’t miss his fat and sweaty figure huddled against the wall, listening intently to every word being uttered.

  “Detective..” one of the investigating officers murmured as he barely hid his impatience “confirm your name for the record.”

  “Detective John Cassini…” came the bored reply.

  “My name is Jimmy Russo.” the same officer explained with a jagged movement of his lips that suggested either a disdainful frown or a forced smile, it was hard to discern which.

  “What is that exactly?” the other officer asked with what was clearly a smirk. He was burlier, with a double chin that seemed to hang from his jowls and spread itself all over the desk, first stopping only to drape his massive gut which seemed to squat on the edge of the table as he sat there twiddling his thumbs.

  “What do you mean?” John answered as he noticed Russo shuffling through the same manila envelope he had noticed Agent Pearce with earlier.

  “I mean, what’s your ancestry, your name? What is that Turkish or something? Italian?” the larger officer repeated glibly, clasping his hands in front of him, resting them atop his swollen belly.

  “It’s Greek…” John sighed, flashing a mild look of disgust at Durning.

  “So I’ve introduced myself, and my colleague here is Officer Dzunda” Russo said in his raspy voice as he took a prolonged sip from his cup of coffee “y’know it says in your file Detective, that at one point you requested a transfer to IA…”

  “Yeah” John replied with a blank stare “but then I came to my senses.”

  “You know why this is happening don’t you?” Dzunda interrupted “you could say it’s your colourful social life.”

  “What taking a drink or two? I wouldn’t be the first cop to do that, or the last.” John replied as he took another drag from his cigarette.

  “Captain..” Dzunda cut in, twisting his neck around to Durning in the corner “we came into this room and your Detective was smoking, he lit another in our presence..you haven’t once chastised him for either since we’ve been in here.”

  “Yes, yes…I’m sorry” Durning gulped, looking on while John grinned like a Cheshire cat.

  “Don’t be sorry; just don’t allow it in future, smokers should smoke outside the premises.” Dzunda rolled his eyes before returning his attention to John who promptly stubbed out the cigarette on cue.

  “Considering your relatively young age, in your forties…” Russo mused, running his finger down the sheet of paper he was studying “impressive department credentials during your time in the Bronx, tough division, couldn’t have been easy..”

  “It wasn’t.” John answered.

  “No doubt that’s what led to your divorce and your drinking, all those AA meetings.” Dzunda smiled.

  “Yeah” John answered “Captain here helped me with all of that, got me above board, then when he transferred here, I considered it after a while and took the plunge to join him.”

  “Except Manhattan can be lonely for a fish out of water.” Russo interjected.

  “Yeah, you could say that.” John smiled.

  “Your record suggests you’re a bit of a lone wolf, detective” Russo continued, letting the envelope drop to the table, his eyes still fixed on John “you get results, but you’re a bit of a mystery around the precinct, people will vouch for your record, but they can’t really vouch for your character.”

  “Captain Durning can..” John shot back.

  “After who he discovered in your flat, that assertion is now up for debate, don’t ya think?” Dzunda raised an eyebrow.

&
nbsp; “Look” John sighed “she was just this woman on the street, I used to pass her every morning coming to work..or every other morning or so..I don’t even remember which…she would move around, sometimes she’d be on Madison Avenue, other times she’d move off ‘cause cops would move her along, other times she’d be on different streets..and then one day we just struck up a conversation..”

  “Detective, is she an informant?” Dzunda frowned.

  “No.” John replied.

  “Then what do you have to talk about with this tramp exactly that takes up so much of your time?” Dzunda smiled.

  “This is New York” John answered “people talk to people on the streets, no matter who they are..I guess you’re not from here are you?”

  “I have an interesting statistic here” Russo cut in, clearing his throat as he picked up a note pad from the table and flicked through the pages “your punctuality at the precinct, particularly during the last three weeks..four actually… has been nothing short of horseshit. Sometimes up to 45-60 minutes late three days running, you live, what two or three blocks away? It’s a ten minute cab journey even in cross-town traffic…I’m just gonna hazard a guess here Detective, but I bet you’ve spent your mornings talking to this woman haven’t you…getting late for work, that is unless you were getting up late after a night with her in your bed..”

  “That’s unsubstantiated bullshit..” John replied through gritted teeth.

  “Is it?” Dzunda countered “who knows how many nights you were shacked up with Gina Rossi of all freakin’ people; if you wanna hang around with transients, if that’s how you get your kicks, then that’s your business detective..but when you’re sleeping with an FBI informant whose made off with Dennis Rossi’s cash..well that’s another thing entirely..”

  “You have no verification she is Gina Rossi or she isn’t” John replied “all you’ve got are some Polaroid’s, a suitcase full of money and a likeness…and even if she is who you think she is, how did she manage to escape an FBI safe house, and more importantly why would she? She’s been off the radar for years….you have to consider the fact that you at IA, the FBI, have all mistaken this street tramp for something she ain’t.”