by F. P. Lione
“Number two?” Sullie looked at me.
“Yeah, number two, he customer,” she said nodding rapidly.
“Listen, I don’t care who’s a customer,” he said dryly. “Can you pick out anyone who robbed you last night?”
She scanned the rest of the line. “Number five, but number two, he customer.”
“Was number two there last night?” Sullie asked her as he wrote down everything she said.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then we don’t care about number two.”
“Good thing it wasn’t one of the cops who was a customer,” Sullie said.
“You’re not kidding,” I said. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The lookout wanted to lawyer up right before the lineup, but Sullie told him he wasn’t waiting for a lawyer to do the lineup. We can let a lawyer be present for the lineup, but we don’t have to wait for him to get here to do it.
We went through the lineups with the two johns and the other pros. I talked to Rachel Katz again and finished up around 2:30. I had changed into street clothes earlier, so I didn’t have to go back down to the locker room before I signed out.
The day was warm and clear and felt about 75 degrees. My truck was hot, and I kept the windows down and snorted exhaust until the air conditioner kicked in. I almost went downtown, but I saw there was no traffic heading into the Lincoln Tunnel and went through Jersey instead.
I rolled down my window and lit a cigarette as I came in to Staten Island over the Goethals Bridge and got hit with the smell of the dump. It’s hard to describe the smell except that it smells like the dump. You have to be from Staten Island and surrounded by 2,200 acres of fifty years’ worth of rotting garbage to understand what I mean. I read in the paper not too long ago that the pile of garbage at the dump is higher than the Statue of Liberty at 225 feet. The dump has also evolved into its own ecosystem with forests and tidal and freshwater wetlands. Apparently, the dump’s in the path of the Atlantic flyway and the birds stop there every spring and fall as they migrate. They say you can see herons and other birds, but the only birds I ever see there are the seagulls screeching and circling like vultures on top of the mountain of garbage.
I got off at the Clove Road exit and took Bard Avenue over to the hospital. I parked in the visitor’s lot and saw Denise and Nick Romano smoking outside the emergency room doors. Denise and Romano started going out after my engagement party in the spring. They knew each other before that; they used to hang out in the bowling alley together. After my party things got serious pretty quick, and the fact that she brought him to the hospital for a family crisis shows it’s real serious.
“Nick Romano, long time no see,” I said with a smile as I walked up. I actually felt a little choked up. I guess I missed him more than I realized.
“Hey, Tony.” He shook my hand, then he hugged me and slapped me on the back.
“How you doin’, buddy? How’s FD?”
“Good,” he said. “I’m loving it.”
He looked better, happier, than I’d ever seen him.
“Good for you,” I said.
“Hey, Denise.” I kissed her cheek. “How’s Grandma?”
“Loving being the center of attention,” she said, rolling her eyes. “She’s healthy as a horse. Thanks for calling me back the other day,” she added sarcastically.
“When was that?” I asked. The last few days seemed to blur.
“It was Monday. I wanted to talk to you about Mom,” Denise said.
“What about her?” I asked, bracing myself. My mother’s been on the wagon for over a year, and I didn’t want to hear that she was drinking again.
“She’s been seeing someone, and I told her to bring him to the block party on Saturday.”
“I’m going back inside,” Nick said, probably thinking a fight was coming.
“You mean a boyfriend?” I asked.
“Just someone she’s been seeing. His name is Ron, he’s a great guy. I met him a couple of times, and he’s crazy about Mom.” She shrugged. “I’m hoping everyone will be happy for her, but she’s nervous about introducing him to the family.”
“Smart lady,” I mumbled. “Where’s she know him from, AA?”
“No, I think she goes to church with him,” she said and paused. “He rides a Harley.”
Denise sells Harleys for a living, so I could see how she’d think this was a good thing.
“What’s he, a biker dude?” I pictured a hairy, fat slob riding my mother around on the back of a hog.
“No, Tony, he’s a sweetheart. I think you’ll really like him.”
Just what I needed, my mother dating a sweetheart biker.
“Nick and I went up to see her last weekend, and he took us all to dinner,” she said as she put her arm through mine. “Come on, I’ll go with you to see Grandma. The doctor says she had an anxiety attack from stress, so it’s all your fault.”
“If it’s an anxiety attack why is she still here?”
“They’re waiting for the test results to make sure she didn’t have some mini stroke or something.”
The waiting room was filled with my relatives. Everyone was there—my father; his wife, Marie; my brother, Vinny; Christie, Vinny’s fiancée; Aunt Rose, who’s Grandma’s sister, and her grandchildren (and my cousins) Paulie, Gino, and Little Gina. Even Frank Bruno, my father’s partner from the police department, was there. They were competing with the volume of the TV anchored to the wall to hear each other.
I heard Aunt Rose yell to my father, “Vince, you’re over fifty now, you should have it checked.”
“Tony,” Frank Bruno yelled. “Glad you made it.”
“Hey, Frank,” I said, shaking his hand.
I was surrounded then. Aunt Rose and little Gina each kissed a side of my face. “Don’t worry, Tony,” Aunt Rose said. “I said the rosary last night, and I went to church this morning and lit a candle.”
Paulie got me in a bear hug, saying, “Grandma’s gonna be fine.”
My father got up and kissed my cheek, and so did Marie, which didn’t surprise me given the circumstances.
Hospitals and funerals are very serious things in my family. In times of sickness and death all ill is forgotten and the family bonds. Nothing was said about my wedding, Vinny’s bachelor party, or anything that would cause God to bring bad luck on my grandmother ’cause we weren’t getting along.
Vinny was cool, but he stood up and gave me a hug, and Christie smiled sweetly like everything was just fine.
Talk was limited to family stuff, everyone’s job, and the colonoscopy Aunt Rose had three weeks ago. She told us how she had to drink some pineapple-flavored drink and use suppositories and described a procedure that sounded like a sexual assault to me.
I jumped out of that conversation and asked Nick what he was doing over at FDNY. He’d finished training up at Randall’s Island last month and was telling me about his first fire. He was a probee, a probationary firefighter, working at a firehouse in downtown Brooklyn.
“It was a chemical fire on 4th Avenue,” he said, his face animated. “I wound up in the hospital having to get my blood oxygen levels checked. I fell asleep, and the next thing I know the department chaplain shows up. I’m thinking maybe this is worse than I thought and he’s giving me last rites. I tell him, ‘No disrespect, Father, but I don’t think I’m ready to see you yet.’ He laughed and told me it was just a courtesy, and then he tells me this joke about a lawyer going to heaven. It was pretty funny.”
“What was the joke?” Marie smiled, eyeing Romano up like a piece of meat.
“What? Oh, it was saying that a priest and a lawyer took an elevator up to heaven. The priest steps off first, and St. Peter says, you know, ‘Good job, welcome to heaven.’” He started turning red when he realized everyone was listening. “I’m not good at telling jokes,” he said.
“No, we want to hear it,” Marie urged, still smiling. “Come on,” she insisted, making a circular motion with her
hand.
“Okay. Anyway, the lawyer steps off the elevator, and a cheer goes up that rocks throughout all of heaven. The priest says, ‘Why does he get a welcome like that?’ and St. Peter says, ‘He’s a lawyer, we get so few of them.’”
He got a few good chuckles, and Marie cracked up. It was a cute joke, but it wasn’t as funny as she was making it.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Nick,” I said. “I guess you don’t miss the job.”
“I miss the guys,” he said seriously. “I didn’t think I would, but I do. Even Rooney, but don’t tell him I said that.”
“Tony,” Aunt Rose cut in. “What’s this I hear you’re having a block party Saturday? Why didn’t you invite us?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to come—”
“Of course we want to come! What should we bring?”
“Uh, whatever you want. We’re just grilling—”
“Oh, Grandma Rose, make your potato salad with the dill,” Little Gina said.
“I’ll get some steaks,” Paulie said, standing there in his velour track suit, cracking his knuckles. “I know a guy who delivers to the restaurants. I’ll give him a call.”
This went on and on. By the time they were done, six more people were added to the block party and we were having steaks, Aunt Rose’s dill potato salad, Little Gina’s eggplant parmigiano; Paulie’s wife was making a tomato and onion salad with the tomatoes from the garden; and Gino was bringing wine.
I finally got to go inside and talk to Grandma. She looked pale and thin, swallowed up in the hospital bed.
“Tony,” she said as I kissed her cheek.
“You okay, Grandma?”
“The doctor says I’ve been under too much stress.”
“So I hear,” I said.
“You have to make things right with your brother,” she said, squeezing my hand.
“Don’t worry about me and Vinny, everything’s fine,” I said, feeling like choking him.
“I hope so, Tony. Women come and go, but you only got one family.” She squeezed my hand again, her bony knuckles digging into my fingers.
I had to force myself not to get sucked into telling her I’d do what Vinny wanted. I talked to the doctor, who told me she was fine and they’d be releasing her. I kissed Grandma and went back and said good-bye to everyone in the waiting room.
By the time I picked up a meatball hero and battled the traffic on the way to my apartment it was 5:00. I ate my sandwich and called Michele, telling her I was going to bed and I’d call her before I went to work. I set my clock for 9:30 and passed out as soon as I hit the pillow.
Ten seconds later my alarm went off, telling me it was 9:30. I pulled my alarm clock off the nightstand by the cord and hit the snooze button, too exhausted to lift my head off the pillow. A second later it went off again, and I got myself into the shower. I was still groggy when I left at 10:15, and I had to stop at the deli on Lincoln Avenue for a cup of coffee.
I talked to Michele on the ride in. She was exhausted and was waiting for me to call so she could go to sleep. Traffic was clear through to Midtown, and I was changed and in the muster room by 11:15.
“How’s Granny?” Joe asked, handing me a cup of coffee that I didn’t take. I’d rather drink the coffee at the deli; I only drink the precinct rotgut in emergencies.
“She’s fine. The doctor said it was an anxiety attack, that she’s under too much stress.”
“Stress from you?” Joe smirked as he pinned his shield onto his uniform.
“That’s what I’m hearing.”
Walsh and Bruno came over to shake our hands, saying, “Great collar, guys,” as Hanrahan called, “Attention to the roll call.”
He gave out the color of the day (red) and the sectors and foot posts and ended the roll call with, “Good collar, Cavalucci, Fiore, Davis, and Garcia. Everyone did a great job, backed each other up, and apprehended five perps with four guns—”
“Three guns and a lighter,” Rooney yelled. “They were cooping in the place, that’s the only reason they got the collar.”
Cooping is hiding out somewhere on your post but not on the street. If I was gonna coop somewhere, it wouldn’t be a geisha house. You can get in too much trouble for that.
Hanrahan gave Joe and me notifications for the grand jury for Friday on the geisha house robbery. Normally we wouldn’t go until next week, but apparently the madam was leaving the country on Monday for three weeks. This actually worked out better, since we’d be working a day tour on Friday and could sleep the night before the block party.
After roll call we grabbed Bruno and stopped at the corner for coffee.
“Just coffee, Tony?” Bruno asked.
I gave him two bucks. “Get me a buttered roll.”
“Sounds good, me too,” Joe said, reaching for more money.
“I got it,” Bruno said, already heading into the deli.
He came out a couple of minutes later balancing the coffee. He handed me the coffee and pulled my buttered roll out of his pocket. I drove up to 44th and 8th and parked on the southeast corner while we had our coffee.
“Hey, Bruno, how’s your girlfriend?” Joe asked him. “She’s a nurse, right?”
“She’s good. She’s working twelve-hour shifts now, so she’s off a lot.”
“I’d rather work twelve-hour tours, wouldn’t you?” I asked.
“Yup,” Joe said.
“Definitely,” Bruno said.
“I don’t know why they don’t let us do twelve-hour tours. We’re here twelve hours half the time anyway,” Joe said.
“Because we’d be happy then, and we’d have businesses on the side like the firemen and make enough money that we wouldn’t have to be cops anymore,” I said.
“Things any better with your girlfriend and your mother?” Joe asked. Bruno’s mother hates his girlfriend.
“Not really,” he said. “My mother slipped a couple of times and called Bianca ‘Nicole.’ Nicole is my old girlfriend,” he explained. “Bianca says she does it on purpose, but my mother wouldn’t do that.”
“How long you seeing this girl?” Joe asked.
“Three years.”
“Sounds like a Freudian slip,” Joe said.
“What’s that?” Bruno asked.
“Don’t use big words, Joe,” I said, shaking my head. “It’ll only make it worse.”
“Robbery post 5,” Central came over the air.
“Robbery post 5,” Bruno answered.
“We got a call for a pedestrian struck—43rd Street between 8th and 9th in front of 325. Bus is ten minutes out.”
“10-4.”
Joe got on the radio with, “South David on the back, we’re right around the corner.”
We went up 8th Avenue and made a left onto 43rd Street. There were stores closer to 9th Avenue, then a driveway for a parking garage, and then an apartment building and an office building next to each other.
We pulled up to the driveway, not blocking the entrance to the parking garage. There was a white Suburban parked just past the entrance to the garage, and a male in his early twenties was sitting on the ground, leaning up against the apartment building. A woman was crouched down next to him, talking to him and looking worried. A man who appeared to be in his midfifties was standing next to her, and he turned as we pulled up.
“What happened?” Bruno asked as the three of us got out of the car.
“My wife and I were at the theater. We went to see The Producers, and I wanted to take my car out of the lot and park it on the street so we could walk around the city a little.”
This made sense, since the lot closes at midnight. I looked at the Suburban, noting the Jersey plates. They looked like money, and I pegged them as Bergen County.
“Where you from?” I asked.
“Maywood,” he said.
Like I said, Bergen County.
“Did you hit him?” Bruno asked.
“I was backing the car up, I didn’t see anyone around me, and wh
en I pulled forward I heard a bang on the rear quarter panel, and this guy”—he pointed to the man sitting with his wife—“is laying on the ground screaming that his leg hurts. I never saw him, officer. I didn’t even feel anything hit the car.”
Joe walked over and crouched down next to where the guy was wincing and moaning.
“So what happened?” I called over to him.
“I was crossing the street . . .” He stopped and winced. “I noticed the guy was backing up and I thought he saw me, but he didn’t stop. He hit me . . . Ahhh. I fell down.” He grimaced and held his leg and said, “They won’t even give me their name and address. I’m hurt . . . Ahhh. I can’t work like this.”
I could tell the husband was leery of giving this guy any information.
“Don’t worry,” Joe said. “We’ll make sure you get their information, we just want to make sure you’re okay. Where did you say it hurt?”
He pointed to his hip and the top of his leg.
He looked fine to me.
“Is everything okay?” an older man going into the apartment building stopped and asked.
“Everything’s fine,” Joe said.
“Ahhh,” he said again a little louder.
I looked at Joe, and he smirked at me. How fast could this guy have been going if he was parking the car? I’ve been hit worse playing ball in the street. In fact, I remember getting my foot run over once and not even going home until I finished the game. I wasn’t crying like this guy.
I heard someone call “Tony” behind me, and I turned to see the security guard for the office building next door.
“Hey, Louie,” I said, shaking his hand. “What’s going on?” Louie is short and Hispanic and has worked in this building for as long as I’ve been here.
He waved for me to come with him, and I followed him into the office building.
“Listen, Tony, he didn’t get hit by that car,” he said.
“How do you know, you see it?”
Louie smiled. “Yeah, I was watching it on the monitor.”
“Where’s the camera?”
“Under the awning,” he said and pointed to it outside the door. “We put the camera in when we were getting threats for some of the shows the models were doing. They were wearing fur, and the animal activists were up in arms, protesting and making a lot of noise.”