Beyond Blue

by Austin S. Camacho

  Sandoval was short, barely five feet six, but that had never bothered him. Anyone can be tall. But it takes brains to be rich.

  He had a face like polished teakwood, his teeth even and very white, and his long-lashed eyes were the kind that men found a little disquieting and women loved to talk about getting lost in.

  Rafe pulled his Adidas sport glasses down over his face, against the sun which now burned into his eyes as he cut left onto Linden Boulevard toward JFK International Airport. He checked the lowest of the three small dials set into the blue face of his Breitling Chrono Avenger. When you pay more than three grand for a watch, you use its features. That morning, it was tracking his elapsed time. Time was money and money had always been the driving force in his life, especially since he had come from his native Colombia to the United States.

  He had come with only two hundred dollars and the clothes on his back, but with an ability to speak perfect English, courtesy of the nuns at his childhood parochial school. He quickly realized that his ability to speak English, along with his charm and native intelligence, made him the perfect choice to help other new immigrants navigate their way through the maze of bureaucracy and government that was the United States. At first, he charged small fees, then bigger as he moved from unknown to well known. His business cards now referred to him as an “expeditor,” and he had no shortage of Central American clients who needed help to relocate, to set up businesses, or just to deal with American bankers. He knew that most people with just a nodding acquaintance of him thought he was probably a drug dealer. But why bother with crime? This was the United States, and anyone could get rich if he was smart and willing to work.

  If only he could convince his dumb kid brother, Hector, of that. He had promised their mama that he would take care of Hector, but the young brother was a little bit of a hothead, a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes. Still so far, not so bad. He had kept Hector out of trouble and the boy was young and could still learn.

  Rafe had gotten him a job at JFK Airport, working in baggage security. Then, to everyone’s surprise, some stupid retired cop had gotten himself suspended when drugs were found in his locker and Hector got a surprise promotion. Now he was a security shift boss at one of the airport’s terminals. Mama was proud; Hector even had people working under him.

  That thought made Rafe smile. One of those people working for Hector was a beautiful Afro-Latina and this evening, for dinner, Rafe planned to show her the most romantic time. He looked at his watch again.

  It was 6:45 a.m.

  At that moment, on the Upper West Side, Patsy Gorman was making her regular breakfast specialty, French toast that somehow burned at the edges while remaining sullenly liquid in the center. Paul Gorman ate it without complaint every morning, but that did not mean he had surrendered and fled the scene of battle.

  “Hey, Patsy,” Gorman called from the bathroom where he was dragging a brush through his vibrant crop of thick, dark hair. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Should I alert the media?” she called back.

  “Very funny,” he said as he walked through the kitchen doorway. “No, here’s what I was thinking. Instead of the cleaning lady coming in twice a week to help straighten the apartment, why don’t you have her come in every morning just to cook breakfast, seven days a week? And you do your own cleaning?”

  Gorman wandered to his chair at the head of the table in floppy slippers and the silk bathrobe Patsy gave him for Christmas their first year together. Patsy, at the electric range, was wearing light blue silk pajamas that were loose fitting but that, somehow, she still made seem incredibly erotic.

  She turned to him and smiled. “Do my own cleaning? And perhaps break a fingernail?”

  “Some have survived it,” Gorman said.

  “There’s more to life than survival.” She walked behind his chair and draped her arms over his hulking shoulders, gently rubbed his chest, then rested her head on his. Nearing forty, Patsy Gorman was twenty years younger than her husband but she still had the face and figure of a teenager. A teenager who has become the kind of beautiful a woman becomes when she has known love all her life, does not need to watch her diet, and has retained her natural auburn hair color without resorting to dyes. Her voice in his ear was breathy and warm.

  “Suppose one evening I am giving you your usual full body massage. And suppose further that I have roused you to a code orange state of maximum readiness and I am now ready to lower my pulpy, whorish carmine lips to your body and awwwwk! What ho! Smelling strangeness! You see a broken fingernail and the magic vanishes in an instant flare of revulsion. And suppose in that instant you realize I am not this wonderfully desirable love bunny you thought I was but a tired old house frau, with nails broken from scrubbing the baseboards. Varicose veins ready to bulge through my skin at a moment’s notice. Saggy ugly orangutan arms. Anna Magnani without hormones. Oh, what a sight.”

  “I’d be willing to chance it,” he said.

  She darted her tongue into his right ear. “Really?” she whispered. He covered her hands on his chest with his own hands.

  “God, you are a savage,” he said.

  “Yes.” She tongued his ear again. “Yes, yes, yes. Molly Bloom without morals. Yes I said, yes I will, yes, yes, yes.”

  “Screw the cleaning lady. Bring on the French toast. I’ll eat it off your belly.”

  “Syrup?”

  “Whipped cream, elderberry jam and oyster-essence ice cream.”

  “Now you’re catching on.” She slipped her hands out from under his and padded back toward the electric range.

  “Ooops, I wouldn’t want to burn it.”

  “How would anyone know?”

  “I would know. Great chefs always know when they have missed the mark, no matter by how little.”

  She used a Teflon-coated pancake turner to flip the French toast, put her hands on her hips and stared down into the griddle. “How can you eat this shit? You must really love me.”

  It was his turn. He stood behind her, pressed his body against hers and cupped her breasts from behind. “Yes, yes, yes, Molly Bloom.”

  “Then screw breakfast. How about a blow job?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  And the telephone rang. Gorman looked at the cell phone on the kitchen counter.

  “Big decision,” Patsy said.

  “No decision at all,” he answered. “Fie on telephones. Fie, I say.”

  “Tres gallant,” she said. “Liar.” She handed him the telephone, pushed the skillet back off the heated burner and slipped away to give him a little space while he was on the phone.

  “Hello, Gorman?”

  His brows pressed tighter together above his deep-set, brooding eyes. He immediately recognized the high scratchy voice that sounded like a school blackboard that had learned to communicate pain, and said, “Yes, Miss Sanchez,” with precise articulation.

  “Oh. Sorry. Mister Gorman. Hey, did I interrupt anything?”

  “Would it matter?” Gorman asked.

  “Naaaaah. I just call ’cause I like to listen to that big phony politician’s voice of yours.”

  “Did you call me at this god-awful hour just to criticize my voice? You? Of all people? The human glasscutter?”

  “Yuk, yuk, yuk. No, I just got a chance to sneak away from baggage for a while. I wanted to tell you that my boss here, the one I think is crooked, I’m having dinner tonight with his brother.”

  “Why his brother?” Gorman asked.

  “His brother is this kind of rich guy. Too rich, if you ask me. And I think if they’re hanky-pankying here with drugs, rich brother is involved.”

  “I don’t know, Ruby. It might be a whole new can of worms you’re opening,” Gorman said.

  “Look, we’re dead-ended and I can’t find out anything unless I get closer. But I just wanted to bring you up to speed first, just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “Just in case. What do I know, in case of wha
t? What do you think, I’m a mind reader?”

  “I want to talk to you first. When and where?”

  “Ten o’clock? The coffee shop at Madison and 63rd?”

  “I’ll be there,” Gorman said.

  “God willing and creeks don’t rise twixt here and home, so will I,” the chalk-on-slate female voice answered. She paused and said, “You sure I didn’t interrupt anything?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “This is a civilized household, unlike those you’re used to.”

  “You’re lying,” she said. “But listen, I know you don’t go into the office until 8 o’clock. You’ve got time.”

  “What, barely an hour? That’s hardly enough time,” he said.

  “I’ve seen your wife, white boy. Dream on.”

  The phone clicked dead in his hand.

  Paul Gorman laughed aloud.

  “The remarkable Ruby Sanchez?” Patsy asked him.

  “The one and only.”

  “It’s kind of early for her to be pestering you, isn’t it?”

  “I think she’s worried about something,” Gorman said. “Not that she’d ever admit it but…”

  “She’s on a drug case, isn’t she?”

  “At JFK. We had that retired Port Authority cop out at the airport who got suspended because they found drugs in his locker. Not enough for a criminal case but enough to can him. He came to us, swearing that he was framed. Ruby’s still trying to find out if it’s true. She thinks there’s something more going on and she can’t figure out what.”

  “You think she’s afraid?”

  “Patsy, this is a woman who’s walking around with a bullet in her spine and might die anytime. I don’t think there’s anything left in the world that she’s afraid of. She sure as hell isn’t afraid of me. So if she’s a little concerned, well, we’ll just have to see.”

  He put his arms around Patsy and hugged her. “By the way,” he said, “Ruby said something else.”

  “Oh? What was that?”

  “She said I had enough time before I had to go to work. So I should go inside and make wild, insane, passionate love to you.”

  “She didn’t really say that,” Patsy said.

  “No. But I could tell she was thinking it.”

  Patsy took his hand and led him from the kitchen. “I love that girl,” she said. “Don’t let anything happen to her, Paul Gorman.”

  “I won’t.”

  Chapter Two

  The lettering on the office door read simply: B.B.I. Nothing more. No names, no invitation that one should step inside, no explanation. Just B.B.I.

  When Paul Gorman pushed the door open and stepped inside, Gunny Robinson knew without looking at his watch that it was exactly 8 a.m. give or take a minute. Gorman was always on time; his face always impassive. Gunny was half-convinced that if Gorman had been involved in a shootout minutes before in the building’s lobby, his face as he stepped into the office would deny everything.

  Gunny had worked for some impressive men in the Marine Corps, but he placed Gorman in a class of his own.

  “Morning, Gunny,” Gorman said in his deep voice. “I trust you had a good evening.”

  “No worries, sir.”

  Gorman just nodded. He never slowed once he was in the door, but headed directly to his own inner office. As was his habit, he hung his Burberry raincoat in its closet, shifted his charcoal-colored suit jacket until it settled on him just right, then spent a few seconds at the window that would be at his back when he sat at his desk. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Gorman’s office, on one of the upper floors of the brick faced skyscraper at 140 West Street, afforded him a perfect view of what was now known as Ground Zero, site of the opening skirmish in what was now a declared war against terror. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, many hundreds of companies scurried around for space nearby, and within weeks, every available office in the area had been rented. Gorman did not know how The Boss had managed to rent even this small suite of offices, but in the depths of his soul, he understood the meaning of the location, and he paid his respects every morning.

  After a moment, he returned to the outer office where he poured his own coffee into a small plain white mug that he took from an overhead shelf. He liked having a sugar bowl with real sugar in it. This morning a few grains of sugar lay on the counter beside the cups. He brushed the loose grains into his hand and dropped them into the wastebasket.

  Gunny Robinson followed him back into his inner office.

  Gunny was a big man who managed to make his tan lightweight suit look like a uniform. His face was sepia, with the gentle rounded features that most people would associate with professional wrestlers from Samoa, although his own family actually hailed from the tiny Pacific island of Tonga. He rubbed a beefy hand back across his shaved scalp as he ordered his mind to give the morning report.

  “All right, Gunny, what’s new and exciting?”

  “Just moving ahead on the old stuff,” Gunny said. “Mason and Steele are still working on that crooked lawyer, Jerome. Ruby Sanchez reported…”

  “I’ve heard from Ruby. In all her screeching glory,” Gorman said. “What’s Chastity doing?”

  “She just got back from vacation and said she’d be in later.”

  “Fine. I’ll see her then. We’ll go over all the rest of the stuff later. Who are our visitors?”

  Gunny smiled and said, “How’d you know we had visitors?”

  “Somebody spilled sugar outside. You would have cleaned it up.”

  “Okay, that accounts for ‘visitor.’ You said visitors. Plural.”

  “Two extra cups are gone from the shelf. Stop grilling me, Gunny. Who’s here?”

  “They’re on duty now but I got the precinct to give them a pass for a couple of hours. You know one of them, sir. Vinnie Giles from the 87th Precinct. We had him a year ago.”

  “Giles,” Gorman repeated. “Compact sort of guy, brush-cut blond hair? Brooklyn tough guy, right? Bensonhurst, I think. Should be taking his detective test soon. He back in trouble?”

  “No sir, I just checked the precinct and my sources say he’s cleaned up his act. Salt of the earth. He’s here about his partner.”

  “A referral.” Gorman nodded. That was where their business was supposed to come from. “What do we know about the partner?”

  “Under your left hand, sir.”

  Gorman looked down at a manila folder labeled “Brooks, Alexander” and opened it. As he glanced at it, he asked. “Whatever happened to that girl I told you to hire?”

  “A receptionist?” Gunny asked. “Still looking for the right person. It seems if they’ve got a big enough brain, they’ve got too big a mouth.”

  “Keep looking. Harder from now on,” Gorman said. “Even if you are a control freak, you’re just too valuable to be jumping up every time the…”

  On cue, he was interrupted as the telephone rang. Gunny grinned and headed back to his outside desk. Gorman shook his head and focused on the contents of the folder before him.

  The information was sparse. Alexander Brooks seemed to be a good cop, but some people in the precinct said lately he seemed to be drinking too much.

  Gunny had added some personal notes that he obviously got from Brooks’ partner. Brooks looked like a simple, blue collar guy and a hard worker with no trouble on the job. But his family life seemed to be a mess. Gorman sighed. Family problems were a regular story with beat cops, probably one of the reasons they outpaced America in divorce and suicide.

  In the outer office, Gunny Robinson picked up the ringing phone. “BBI,” was all he said.

  A deep voice whispered, “I need your help.”

  Gunny touched a button, starting a tape recorder hidden within his desk. “Yes, sir. And how did you get this number?”

  “I was told to say I got it from one of my friends, one of my very finest friends, and that I need to see Mr. Gorman.”

  A small smile moved Gunny’s tan face
as he recognized the “finest” reference to the NYPD. “You in trouble, Mr…?”

  “The worst kind,” the whisperer replied. “And for now I think I’ll keep my name to myself.”

  “Fine. I can give you an appointment this afternoon at…”

  “No, I can’t come there. Too dangerous. Gorman will have to meet me.”

  Gunny talked, was answered and was still listening intently when Gorman came out of his office. When he hung up Gorman asked, “Something important?”

  “Just routine office business, boss,” Gunny replied. “Nothing that need concern you.”

  “You neither,” Gorman said. “Hire that receptionist.” He paused a second to make sure the message registered, then said, “Okay, then, let’s go meet our first contestant, shall we?”

  In the small conference room, the two uniformed policemen put down their coffee cups and stood, as if a superior officer had just entered. Gorman immediately recognized Giles but he was more interested in the other policeman. Brooks’ face looked blotchy and his eyes seemed watery. There was a sullen show-me look on his face, as if he had been forced to come to this meeting.

  His partner, Giles, mustered a smile when he saw Gorman. At six feet tall, he was Gorman’s height, but he seemed slight next to Gorman’s bulkiness which was not weight, but size.

  “Hi, Mr. Gorman. Remember me?” When Gorman nodded, Giles said, “It’s good to see you again. After you helped me out, you told me that if I ever knew another cop who was up against it, I should let you know. This is my partner, Alex Brooks. I thought he should talk to you.”

  “Yes,” Gorman said, taking the chair at the head of the table, and waving the two patrolmen to sit. Gunny stood in the open door so he could get the outside telephone if it rang. “It might be a good idea,” Gorman said. “What seems to be the problem, Officer?” he asked. He tried to make his voice soft and reassuring because just by his constant fumbling with his coffee cup, Brooks was showing that he was under stress.

  When Brooks was silent for a moment, Giles began, “He’s starting to drink too much.”

  “Not you,” Gorman said, waving a dismissive hand at Giles. “Let Alex speak for himself.”