Seven Ways to Die

by William Diehl

  So he took three weeks off, buried his wife, and his kids helped him gather her clothes for Good Will. And when they left, Frank went back to work. He hired a cleaning lady twice a week, ate most of his meals at Chauncey’s, the precinct hangout, and did his drinking there.

  Booze crept up on him. Soon he was closing the bar at night, having a shot to get started in the morning, eating lunch alone so he could sneak a drink or two to get through the day. It was his precinct captain who finally suggested that he take a thirty day paid leave and go into rehab. The suggestion surprised Rizzo. On his way home that night he bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, put it in the cupboard and quit drinking.

  Four months later, Cody offered him a dream job—second in command of the TAZ, with a promotion to go with it.

  He had been clean and sober for 2,017 days.

  He got a glass, poured himself a glass of ginger ale, went in the living room and turned on the television set. When the remote turned up nothing of interest, he put on the DVD of “West Side Story” and as the overture began, he slumped down in his easy chair and let memories envelope him like a warm blanket.

  Δ

  Bergman was on his second cup of coffee when he looked up from Handley’s journal and realized that the last of La Venezia’s customers were paying their bills. He checked his watch: Eleven-ten. He had been so focused on the book he had lost track of the time. The kitchen had closed at eleven. He marked his place in the journal and hurried to the desk.

  “Sorry,” Bergman said. “Time got away from me.”

  “No problem,” Tony said. “And how did the homework go?”

  “So-so. You know what they say, win some, lose some.”

  “Sorry. Maybe it was too noisy.”

  Bergman laughed. “No, Tony, maybe the food was too good.”

  The little man chuckled and glanced down at the bill. “I see you took my advice about the special. Che

  pensa?”

  “Magnificent. It floated into my mouth.”

  The little man beamed.

  “I get to have my taste at the end of the day,” Tony said. “Something to look forward to.”

  He looked at the sizeable tip, which more than covered the discount Bergman had received.

  “You spoil my waiters,” Tony said.

  “That’s not possible, Uncle Tony, they spoil me.”

  “Grazi’,” Tony answered with a smile. “Buona notte, Sergeant.”

  Δ

  Throughout their dinner, Cody had purposely avoided business and Amelie had followed his lead by keeping her sardonic sense of humor in play. They had talked about everything: mutable subjects that flowed naturally from one to another; about music, about movies, about Japan and Idaho; about parents, wolves, and falcons. They laughed a lot about Jon Stewart and the lunacy of politics. They talked about why neither of them ever married: Amelie lived with a musician who insisted she put her career on hold while his progressed; so she walked. Cody had the opposite problem: He was engaged to a wealthy, young woman but his unpredictable hours did not fit into her social schedule, so she eloped—but not with him. He read about it in the newspapers. Later she told him he was too damned secretive about his work, and she got bored being stonewalled. Enough time had passed for them to brush off the experiences without regrets. It was a comfortable evening.

  About the only thing they did not discuss was Raymond Handley.

  But as Cody turned into 73rd Street, the specter of Handley became palpable again. He sensed her fear creeping back as they turned into the driveway; the kind of fear fueled by the unknown, by rampant imagination; by the dark at the top of the stairs, a shadow moving in a dark corner, a squeaky floor in a room above.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her as he helped her out of the car. He checked both doors on the first floor when they entered the brownstone, rattled Handley’s door, and then checked the rooms in her apartment, the closets, even looked under the beds.

  “Clear,” he said, dropping her keys in her hand.

  They were standing in the apartment doorway, a foot or so apart.

  “Cop talk, huh?” she said, leaning forward an inch or so. “Brief and to the point.”

  She leaned forward another inch but he didn’t take the bait. He stared down at her, started to say something. But changed his mind.

  “Get your cordless phone and look out the front window,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow, make sure you’re okay.”

  And he left.

  She got the mobile phone and went to the window. He was standing on the sidewalk, talking into his cell.

  He had dialed the north RR car and Vinnie answered.

  “It’s Cody. Where are you?”

  “East side, near 65th.”

  “Good. Come to Handley’s brownstone. I got a nervous witness here.”

  “Five minutes.”

  Cody looked up and she was staring down at him and he held up a forefinger and pointed to his phone. She waited. Five minutes crept by and a black sedan pulled up. A young Asian got out and Cody talked to him for a moment and he nodded. Then her phone rang.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi. Say hello to Vinnie, one of the crew. He’ll be parked in your driveway most of the night.”

  “Cody?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I had a great time. Thank you.”

  “Me too.”

  “Maybe, uh…maybe next time dinner’s on me.”

  He paused a moment, looked up at her and said, “Sleep well. Here’s Vin.”

  She saw him hand the phone to the young Asian who looked about eighteen. “Hi, Miss Cluett,” he said. “I’m here if you get nervous. Please write down my number.” She fumbled around in her purse, found pencil and paper, and jotted it down.

  “Thank you, Vinnie. Please call me Amelie.”

  “Gotcha.”

  He rang off and she watched Cody get in his car, pull out of the driveway, and leave.

  It was 11:49 p.m.

  Δ

  Cody drove back to the Loft and checked the car in then took the elevator up to the nerve center. Charley was sitting by the elevator door when it slid open. He sniffed Cody’s legs and then raised his nose to his waist and sniffed his jacket.

  “He smells your wild friends,” Si said without looking away from his computer.

  “He’s smelled them before.”

  Si continued banging away on his computer. “He’s been sitting there for ten minutes,” he said. “He walked over there five minutes before I heard the garage doors open.”

  Cody reached down and scratched Charley’s ears. “His ears are as good as his nose. I tooted the horn when I was coming down West Broadway.”

  Si stopped working and looked over at Cody and Charley. “You know how many horns are tooting on West Broadway right now?”

  “He knows my touch.”

  Si shook his head and laughed as he turned back to his keyboard.

  “What’re you chasing, Si? I know when you’re after something.”

  “It’s bad medicine to talk about it until it shakes out.” He stole a glance at the clock. “We’ve had tough ones before, Micah. It’s only been twelve hours and fourteen minutes since this show started. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “You’re gonna keep Charley up. He can hear your mind working all the way over at my apartment.”

  “Good. He snores.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Cody and Charley always walked the few blocks to his place on Lispenard Street, swinging over to a small arrowhead-shaped area of trees near the intersection of Sixth Avenue and West Broadway, where Charley often met up with Hoover, a black lab, owned by a young artist named Harrison. The two dogs liked to roughhouse together. But that was usually about ten p.m.

  “We’re too late tonight,” Cody told the dog who seemed to understand, sniffed the trees, and peed on a couple before they walked the two blocks back to their apartment.

  Cody walked into the bedroom, pulled off his
jacket and laid at the foot of the bed. Charley approached it with nose twitching and smelled every inch of it, then sat down beside the bed and stared up at Cody.

  “Don’t worry, pal, nobody can take your place. Anyway, I think you’ll like her.”

  He stripped off his clothes and took a quick shower. When he came back, Charley had pulled the jacket down on his pad and was curled up sleeping on it. Cody got in bed, set the clock for six a.m. and clicked off the light.

  Just another Friday night in the Garden of Eden, he thought as he began to doze off. Except tonight the clock was running. And he knew he was thinking something he would not say aloud:

  Somebody else was going to die before they got another clue.

  24

  Saturday, October 27

  As was their custom, Cody and Charley ate breakfast at Waldo’s at 6:30 then, it being Saturday, jogged up Mulberry St. toward Grand. Cody was wearing sweats with a bottle of water sticking out of his back pocket. Their destination was Sarah Roosevelt Park where they always found another dog or two to play with.

  Cody knew the park well. His first partner was Harry Ellison, who had been on the force for twenty-three years and was not happy saddled with a rookie, particularly one who wore a ponytail and was laughed at behind the hand of just about everyone in the Fifth Precinct. But after a few months, Ellison, who was divorced, came to admire Cody’s quiet attitude, his intuition and quick response, and his eagerness to learn from a veteran cop. When Cody moved on, they remained close friends, eating dinner once a week and catching an occasional movie. When Ellison volunteered to join the Search and Rescue squad, Cody spent time watching Harry work with Charley, a cadaver dog and Harry’s new partner. Although he graced Cody with an occasional wag of his tail, Charley was a one-man dog and Harry was the man.

  It was an accepted fact that Charley had the best nose in the business.

  Then came the morning of September 11, 2001.

  Δ

  Charley and Harry had been on the chaotic scene before the second tower fell, had spent exhausting hours combing the deadly ashes at Ground Zero, crawling through its surreal depths, seeking victims in the twisted remains of the Trade Center. On the fifth day nobody was surprised to hear Charley’s urgent bark. It was only after he continued for almost five minutes that a firefighter followed Charley’s cries and found Harry, crumpled in the wreckage, with Charley standing beside him, refusing to leave despite the smoking ashes that scorched his feet.

  Ellison was DOA, felled by a massive coronary. His companion had to be carried out, his feet so badly burned he could not walk.

  Cody found them both in an ambulance; Charley, his head lying on Ellison’s shrouded body, his sorrow a low wail, wrenched from his heart.

  “Nobody can get near them,” the medic told Cody. “The vet’s on his way over with a shot for the dog.”

  “I’ll take care of the dog,” Cody said.

  “He’s got to be put down, Captain.”

  “I said I’ll take care of the dog,” Cody repeated, his anguish underscored by anger.

  “Look at his feet, sir. He’ll never walk again.”

  “Then I’ll carry him,” Cody said, climbing into the ambulance.

  Charley’s eyes shifted slightly and his lips curled back from his teeth. The wail turned into a snarl.

  Cody sat down next to him and slowly reached out to him. He held his hand a few inches from Charley’s nose, watched it quiver, saw a flicker of recognition in his black eyes. Cody moved his hand slowly back to Charley’s neck, and began to pet him as he whispered in his ear.

  “It’s okay, pal, let him go. I’m here to take you to a safe place.”

  And Cody called Dave Fox.

  Δ

  For two months Charley lay close to death while Fox, using a mutable combination of antibiotics, native American herbs and experimental drugs, labored to cure his edematous wounds; another three months before the dog could stand on his own; still another three of laborious physical rehabilitation before he could walk, and then only with uniquely padded boots to protect his paws.

  Throughout the lengthy and painful recovery, Charley lived with Cody, surrounded by his toys and Ellison’s favorite jacket, thick with his scent; things Cody had gathered from Harry’s apartment after the funeral. Before he was well enough to walk, Cody patiently carried him to the Loft every day where he slept in Cody’s office, curled on the jacket; took him to surrounding parks to bond with other dogs and to bathe in restorative sunlight; washed his paws with balms, liniments and anodynes at night. The crew talked to him, sneaked him bones and other treats, devotedly welcomed him into the family.

  Finally, one night as Cody was dozing off, he felt Charley warily slip on the bed and curl up beside him.

  Cody was the new man in Charley’s life.

  And he still had the best nose in the business.

  Δ

  As Cody and Charley headed up Mulberry, Cody’s cell phone rang. It was Rizzo, who was running recon in the south end with Annie Rothschild.

  “You anywhere near Hester and Mott?” Rizzo asked.

  “Yeah, I’m on Mulberry about to cross Hester.”

  “We’ve cruised past Jimmy Farrell twice. He’s sittin' in front of the Venezia, sideways in his patrol car with his feet on the sidewalk. Been there about ten minutes.”

  “Probably grabbing a smoke. You know how they are about smoking in the cars.”

  “Thing is, it bein’ Saturday, I had Vinnie check the Five roster and Jimmy’s not on duty today. Seems a little funny is all.”

  “I’ll trot by. Charley and I are headed for the park. It’s on the way.”

  He signed off and they moved the block down Hester to Mott. Farrell, Captain of the Fifth, was still sitting there. Wearing jeans and a heavy sweat shirt, he was unshaven and was lighting one cigarette off another with a smoked-out butt between his feet. His eyebrows were welded into a worried frown.

  “Hey Cody,” Farrell said, surprised to see him. “Hi Charley.” He scratched the dog’s ears.

  “Everything okay?” Cody asked. “You look a little ragged.”

  “I feel a little ragged. We had a farewell party for one of the guys last night and I’m a little hung over. So who calls me at six-fuckin-thirty? Mama Crosetti. Tony didn’t come home last night. She can’t find a key to the place. So I send a car to pick up Ricky and bring a key. He lives out in Forest Hills. They should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

  The drapes were pulled across the door and windows.

  “I checked the back. The place is locked up and there’s no lights on. I banged on the door a couple of times but I got nowhere.”

  “You got any needles? Let’s go in.”

  “Seems a little drastic. Tony probably lay down on the sofa after they closed and fell asleep. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time. Meanwhile, I feel like I been hit on the head with a fuckin’ night stick.”

  Cody looked up Mott Street and saw Rizzo’s cruiser half a block away. He called them on his cell and Annie answered.

  “Swing by slowly and hand me a pair of lock needles, two pairs of gloves, and a flashlight.”

  “Okay. What’s wrong?”

  “Probably nothing. We want to check to make sure.”

  The black car slowed down as it approached and the window slid down. Rizzo handed Cody the gloves, needles, and light.

  “Sure you don’t need any help?” Rizzo asked.

  “Nah. Uncle Tony didn’t make it home last night. Probably asleep on the couch. Just circle the block until we check it out.” He handed the light to Farrell, “Stand behind me, Jimmy, so nobody sees me busting into the place.”

  “Okay. Nobody around, anyway, it’s too early. Can I have a swig of your water?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Cody was an old pro at using needles. He stuck each of them in the keyhole and worked the hook until he felt the tumblers click. The door opened and Cody, Charley, and Farrell entered the darkened restaura
nt. It was warm and the lingering aroma of garlic and herbs greeted them.

  “Stay right here,” Cody said, closing the door behind them. “Where’s the light switch?”

  “Right here,” Farrell answered, reaching behind Cody and flicking on the lights to the main dining room. He was careful not to touch the switch pad, in case it held prints. The dimmer switch was set on low and soft light bathed the room. To their right was the main dining room, to the left, the bar with the stools upside down and lined up on top of it, beyond it the door to Uncle Tony’s office. The wall beside his office closed off the kitchen with its two swinging “in” and “out” doors to prevent waiters from head-on collisions. Straight ahead of them was the maître d’s desk and behind it, the cloak room, and farther to its right, a hallway leading to the private dining room and the rest rooms. Cody flicked on the flash, swung it slowly until the finger of light pointed at the office door.

  “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Cody said, handing Farrell a pair of gloves and reaching down and loosening his jogging shoes. “Take off our shoes, put on the gloves, and you follow directly behind me. We’ll go to the office first.”

  “Is all this necessary?”

  “SOP.”

  “Christ, if he is sleeping and we cruise in there he’ll probably have a damn heart attack.”

  “Let’s hope that’s all it is.”

  “Jesus, Micah, you always were the cautious one.” Then he yelled, “Hey, Uncle Tony, it’s me, Jimmy. You in there?”

  No answer.

  “Well, shit.”

  “Follow me. Charley, heel.” They walked single-file, following the finger of light to the office, the dog close beside Cody. As they neared the door, Cody stopped abruptly and Farrell bumped into him.

  “What?” Farrell said.

  The light beam was focused on a coat rack on the opposite wall of the office. A black coat was hanging on it with a black fedora perched on top.

  “That his?” Cody asked.

  “Yeah, I’d know that hat anywhere.”