Bronx Noir

by S. J. Rozan

  Back to this Ernie K. thing. Looking at it now I can understand that one of the reasons we hated him was that he was successful with women. All the girls we knew acted like he was a movie star, or something. Even my sainted mother would say, “He’s a fine figure of a man.” I won’t repeat what my father said, but most of the male population of the neighborhood agreed with him. And on top of that, he was a mean bastard.

  “There she goes,” Lefty said. “I told you she was a live one.”

  The redhead slung her big droopy purse over her shoulder and headed off into the park. Not many woman ventured into the park alone at this time of night, so I felt pretty sure Lefty was right.

  “I got a buck says he goes in less than ninety seconds,” Lefty said, holding his birthday watch up to the light. “He knows this one’s a hot number.”

  “I’m not up for the hunt tonight,” B.O. said.

  “Come on,” Lefty and I whined simultaneously.

  We’d been tracking Ernie K. all summer. The idea was to make a record of his on-duty romantic trysts and somehow use it against him. Our plan was to send an anonymous but very specific letter to NYPD Internal Affairs and get him transferred to the ass end of Staten Island, or further, if anything was further than that. But B.O. got cold feet, afraid that somehow it would get back that he was involved and indirectly hurt his dad. He said his dad always talked about how the department hated rats. Cops didn’t turn in cops.

  “We’ll turn his ass in,” I said. “Your name won’t even come up.”

  “Naw, I don’t mean that,” he said. “It’s just that my stomach isn’t good tonight. We must have gotten some bad beer.”

  “Beer is never bad,” Lefty said. “Food sometimes, beer never.”

  The sweet smell of anisette cookies wafted up from the Stella D’Oro bakery. When I looked up to breathe it all in, Ernie K. was gone.

  “It’s Howdy Doody time,” Lefty said.

  It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark. B.O. continued to express doubts, but Lefty and I kept moving. We knew Ernie took his prizes on an L-shaped route: east behind the mansion to the nature trail, then north past the lake and along Tibbetts Brook. Very romantic on a moonlit night, especially if you can ignore the sounds of the train and the roar of cars on the Major Deegan Expressway. Eventually he’d get to the black and silent heart of the park, where we were headed.

  Since we knew where they’d wind up we took a diagonal route. Straight across the parade ground, the soccer and rugby fields, to the cross-country course. We all ran high school cross-country and knew the world class course by heart. Across the flat to the cow path, then a sharp left and up through the woods, up along old Mohegan Indian hunting trails. It was a steep, rocky incline to the the top of Cemetery Hill, 150 feet above sea level. B.O. stopped twice to throw up. Not that unusual. Even sober runners do it on Cemetery Hill.

  The guidebooks call it Vault Hill, because Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first native born mayor of New York, built a vault there in 1776 to hide the city’s records from the British. Later it became the family burial grounds. Everybody around here calls it Cemetery Hill.

  We ducked through a hole in the fence, then weaved between the old tombstones, all of us sweating and gasping. My pulse was thumping in my neck and I was close to tossing some belly bombs myself. We crawled the last ten yards, the wet grass cooling us down. At the edge, we overlooked a small circular clearing against the hill, hidden by trees. We figured it was once an Indian camp that the guidebooks missed. Now it was Ernie K.’s love nook. We weren’t there ten minutes when we heard a woman laughing.

  “I told you he’d be in a hurry tonight,” Lefty said, as he checked his Timex with the glowing green hands and recorded the exact time for the accurate records of our planned indictment of a bastard cop. Shhh! B.O. reminded. We were above them, but only about thirty yards away. Our chins against the turf, we all clasped our hands in front of our faces, to block the sound of our breathing. Only our eyes showed over our clasped hands.

  We were far enough from roads and highways to hear the sound of crickets. The moon was close to full, so the place was lit like a stage play. We’d be able to see them better, but if we weren’t careful, they could definitely see us. Then we heard twigs and brush breaking, and Connie snorting. We spotted the yellow calvary stripe on Ernie K.’s uniform pants. At least the stripe was cool. Only mounted cops were allowed to wear it. Connie stopped in the middle of the clearing. Ernie K. twisted around, lifted the woman off the horse, and slowly let her down. The guy was powerful, I had to admit that.

  “It’s her,” Lefty whispered in my ear.

  “Who?” I said.

  “But don’t say anything to…” he said, pointing in B.O.’s direction.

  What the hell is that about? I wondered.

  The redhead stumbled around, more bombed than I originally thought. She put her shoes in her floppy purse and began dancing like a gypsy in the movies. Arms waving, hips swaying. Ernie K. tied Connie to a tree, as the dancing redhead began unbuttoning her blouse. I didn’t know a woman like this, how could Lefty?

  “Dance with me, Ernie,” she said, reaching around to unsnap her bra. Then she danced and danced, and stripped and stripped. Tossing her clothes onto her floppy purse. Until she was bare ass. Totally bare ass.

  I wish I could say we left around this point, because this part is a little embarrassing for good Catholic boys like ourselves. But no one would believe me. We never left. We always stayed to the bitter end. Give us a break; we were sixteen years old and this was the most skin we’d seen outside of National Geographic. Besides, most of the sex in Ernie K.’s nook was hidden by tree branches or blankets. Really. Well, usually. But not this night; this was Loew’s big-screen big, plus Technicolor and Cinemascope. All we needed was popcorn.

  “Bridget Fahey,” Lefty whispered.

  “No shit?” I said, way too loud, but the redhead’s louder singing drowned it out. I’d heard about Crazy Bridget, but couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. She’d left for California years ago, leaving only her reputation for wildness behind. The Fahey’s lived in Lefty’s building, so I believed him. And I figured if I didn’t remember her, then B.O. probably didn’t either. B.O. was the problem. The part I didn’t know how to handle. How could I tell him that this bare ass redhead was the older sister of Margaret Mary, the love of his life? But Bridget was already naked and dancing in the moonlight. The damage was done. I figured any notification could wait. Besides, the nuns always told us that some things are better left unsaid.

  Leather creaked as Ernie K. removed his gun belt and hooked it over Connie. He sat on a stump and began removing the high boots. This was special. Sometimes he didn’t bother taking his boots off, but crazy Bridget was singing in Spanish and shoving her ass in his face as she pulled off his boots, like some drunken scullery maid in an Errol Flynn picture.

  B.O. and Lefty were silent, and eerily still. I think we all sensed this was going to be a memorable night. For Crazy Bridget it could have been just an average night. Who knows? She bumped and grinded in the Bronx moonlight, imploring Ernie K. to hurry. The older guys in our neighborhood always smiled when they talked about Bridget. After she left, her younger sisters were kept close to the house, rarely straying from the sight of Mrs. Fahey, ever-present in her third-floor window. Lefty said that cloistered nuns had more freedom than Margaret Mary Fahey. But he never said it in front of B.O.

  Naked himself, Ernie K. stepped away from the tree stump and began an awkward, limping dance. It was obvious his bare feet were too tender for God’s pebbled earth. He moved in a slow yet palsied twist. Chubby Checker would have died of embarrassment. Finally Bridget put him out of his misery and moved toward him, arms spread wide, shaking her alabaster breasts. Moving right up against him. The slap of skin on skin. Ernie K. stopped dancing and wrapped her in his arms. B.O. pulled his hands down from his mouth, to keep his glasses from fogging up.

  “Over there, over there
,” Bridget cried, and pointed to a grassy spot right below us. She pulled Ernie K. by his arm. To right below us. We could have spit on them. With Bridget’s insistence the cop carefully laid himself down on the small patch of grass. But no sooner had he gotten down…she sprung up.

  “Wait right there, sugar,” she said. “I need something.”

  She ran back across the dirt floor of Kronek’s love nook toward her floppy purse. I figured she needed some woman thing, but I was more worried about Ernie K. If he leaned back to gaze at the stars glittering over the Bronx he would have been looking right into our faces. Instead, Bridget reclaimed all his attention.

  Because she came back waving Ernie K.’s gun.

  For the first time in my life I understood how certain moments play out in slow motion. It seemed unreal, half dream, half hallucination. Ernie K. had his hand in the air as if it would stop a bullet. Bridget came within a few feet of him and stopped.

  “Give me the gun,” he said.

  “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “This isn’t funny, Bridget.”

  “What’s my last name, you self-centered bastard?”

  “You don’t want to be doing this. Put the gun down, we’ll both walk away. No repercussions.”

  “No repercussions,” she said. “You don’t know the first thing about repercussions.”

  “I’ll never mention this to anyone,” he said.

  “I know that for sure,” she said. “You’ll never mention this to anyone.”

  I felt B.O. start to fldget next to me. He didn’t like stress of any kind. And this was big-time stress.

  “What is my name?” she said again.

  The cop, on his knees, had been slowly working his way up, but when he started to stand she fired the gun over his head. The muzzle flash lit Ernie K.’s face, showing it a sudden pale gray. But the sound, the shocking blast and its echo, caused the three of us to come off the ground. They had to hear it in downtown Yonkers. Ernie K. went to his knees, then lay flat out. We could see him trembling.

  “What is my last name?” she screamed.

  It was then that B.O. decided to be a hero. He stood up, yelling, “He’s a cop! You can’t shoot a cop!”

  They both looked up.

  “Witness, they’re witnesses,” the naked mounted cop said.

  “I’ll goddamn shoot anyone I please,” Bridget said.

  “But not a cop,” B.O. insisted.

  “Run for help,” Ernie K. said. “Say it’s a ten-thirteen.”

  B.O. turned to run. He knew the location of all the police call boxes in the park.

  “Fahey,” Lefty said. “Her name is Bridget Fahey.”

  And there it was, out there for all to know. B.O. stopped cold.

  “Mr. Trainor is right,” Bridget said. “And this conceited, arrogant police officer knows the Fahey name all too well, do you not? All too well.”

  Bridget circled Ernie K. Dust rose from her feet as she shuffled to put her back to us. Out of modesty, or a better shooting angle. I didn’t know which.

  “You shoot me and these kids will tell,” he said. “Every cop in this country will hunt you down.”

  “You exaggerate your popularity,” she said.

  “You can’t shoot a cop,” B.O. said.

  “Even one who had sex with a sixteen-year-old?” Bridget said. She said it to us. “A sixteen-year-old who happens to be my sister.”

  Bridget Fahey only had one sixteen-year-old sister: Margaret Mary. The same Margaret Mary who wore the pin of the Blessed Virgin on her school uniform. The same Margaret Mary who B.O. claimed as the love of his life. I felt my mouth go dry.

  “Shoot him,” Lefty said. “She has to shoot him, B.O.”

  “No,” B.O. moaned, and then he babbled something and stumbled backward, banging off Van Cortlandt tombstones. He started to run, with his hands over his face. His knee cracked into a rock and he went down. Lefty and I went after him. I picked up his glasses and yelled for him to wait, but he was gone, moving fast. Lefty and I were faster, but we couldn’t catch him. The second shot brought us off the ground again, and probably on record pace. Then we saw B.O. make a right on the cowpath and we sprinted hard. Lefty finally brought him down with an open-field tackle.

  B.O. was gasping, and crying, and trying to say something about hating us. I handed him his glasses and he smacked them away. But he should have put them on to see the naked redhead galloping toward us across the open field. Bridget came right at us, her hair flying in the wind. She brought Connie to a halt, then she tossed her purse to the ground. The bag was no longer floppy, but full and round. It hit with a thud.

  “She cut his head off,” B.O. said.

  “Oh, stop it, all of you,” she said, as she dismounted. She hadn’t had time to dress.

  Lefty pulled B.O. to his feet. We were only about fifty yards from the traffic moving on Broadway. Bridget stood in front of us, and we all stared at the ground. I focused on her painted toenails. Either dark green or black.

  “I didn’t shoot him,” she said. “God knows I wanted to. But it would only make things worse.”

  “If Ernie ain’t dead,” Lefty said, “he’s going to make us pay for this.”

  “He’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said. “He doesn’t want anyone to know a thing about this. He’ll make up some story. Like he went in the lake to save someone, and someone stole his horse.”

  “We’ll tell them the truth,” B.O. said.

  “He’ll say we’re the ones who stole his horse,” Lefty said, “and we’re lying to protect ourselves.”

  “My dad will believe me.”

  “Your dad will never know, Brendan,” she said. “This has to remain our secret.”

  “How do you know my name?” B.O. said.

  “I know all of you. I know Mr. Trainor, and you, quiet man,” she said, nodding to me. “But I know you best, Brendan. For all you might think ill of me now, I’m close to my sisters. And I will do all that is necessary to protect them. Understand me?”

  “He should be arrested,” B.O. said. “It’s rape. It’s statutory rape. Ask my father.”

  Bridget sighed heavily. I heard the old Yonkers bus, the Bernacchia line, chugging home. I wondered if they could see us out in the open field. Or would they even believe their eyes.

  “Look at me,” she said. “All of you. Look at my face.”

  That wasn’t going to be easy. I knew that if I looked up my eyes would be uncontrollable, caroming around in their sockets like loose pinballs. It hurt, but I looked up, and I’d never seen so many freckles in my life. Freckles everywhere. Everywhere.

  “I want you to listen carefully to me,” she said. “Especially you, Brendan.”

  “He should pay for what he did,” B.O. said.

  “We cannot have him arrested,” she said. “And after I leave here, none of us will ever speak of this again.” She took B.O.s hand. “I truly hate to tell you this, but Margaret Mary didn’t want to leave you this summer. She had to go away.”

  In that moment I think we all realized we had just acquired the first deep secret of adulthood. We understood it was a test of what kind of men we would become.

  “You know how this neighborhood is,” she said. “They’ll destroy Margaret Mary. That’s why she needs your loyalty and your unconditional love. And in a few weeks, when she returns, I want you to act like nothing happened.”

  “You got it,” Lefty said. “What do we do now?”

  She kept her eyes on B.O., as she handed Lefty Ernie K.’s gun belt. His revolver was back in the holster.

  “Wipe this clean and reload the two bullets,” she said. “Get rid of the empty cartridges. Then deliver this horse to Hagan’s bar. Say you found him wandering in the park. I want this man humiliated.”

  “We’ll do it for Margaret Mary,” B.O. said. He wiped his eyes with his shirt and put his glasses on. Then he took the gun from Lefty and reloaded. “I’ll toss the cartridges down the sewer,” he said. �
�Then I’ll tell my dad I found the horse in the park.”

  Bridget smiled and put her finger to her lips in a gesture of silence.

  “You okay, B.O.?” Lefty said.

  “Fine,” he said.

  “Take one last look,” Bridget said, and whirled around, a blur of red hair and freckles upon alabaster.

  We helped B.O. fold Ernie K.’s uniform and tie it to Connie’s saddle. She’d even kept his underwear. Bridget dug in her purse for her clothes.

  “We’ll take care of the humiliation part, Bridget,” Lefty said, but she’d already dressed and was running toward the subway.

  The nuns were right: Pursuit of a worthy goal takes you mind off your problems. I felt oddly relieved, as Lefty and I walked to the phone booth near the White Castle. I grabbed the phone book and began looking up numbers. Lefty, using an accent that sounded like no ethic group I’d ever heard, called the police to report a crazy naked man threatening people near the lake in Van Cortlandt Park. We called the Fire Department, the Parks Department, the Yonkers PD, the FBI, and every newspaper we could think of. We had to go get more dimes.

  In less than five minutes, a dozen emergency vehicles were searching the park. Their sirens were almost drowned out by the blare of car horns. traffic backed up at least three blocks on Broadway. They were all in a line behind Brendan O’Leary, who led Connie right square down the middle of Broadway. He actually looked even better than his happy old self. A man on a mission.

  THE PRINCE OF ARTHUR AVENUE

  BY PATRICK W. PICCIARELLI

  Arthur Avenue

  Frank Bernardo stood ramrod straight in front of the fulllength mirror in his bedroom for his daily self-inspection. It was a ritual before he left his apartment that he had not missed for as long as he could remember. The black silk suit draped perfectly on his six-foot frame; his alligator loafers shined to a deep gloss, his white-on-white shirt starched stiff as a pizza crust. He smoothed a red-and-black patterned sevenfold silk tie and pinched a perfect dimple under its Windsor knot. A silk pocket square picked up the red in his tie, and his diamond pinky ring shone like a thousand suns.