“We should run!”
And so they shouted as they ran, hand in hand, madly laughing, “Strega!”
“Strega!”
“Strega! Strega! Strega!”
TWO
SISTERS IN ARMS
4 YOU’RE NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS
The element of danger seems to make the policeman especially attentive to signs indicating a potential for violence and lawbreaking. As a result, the policeman is generally a “suspicious” person. Furthermore, the character of the policeman’s work makes him less desirable as a friend, since norms of friendship implicate others in his work . . .
The element of authority reinforces the element of danger in isolating the policeman. Typically, the policeman is required to enforce laws representing a puritanical morality. . . . The kind of man who responds well to danger, however, does not normally subscribe to codes of puritanical morality.
—Jerome H. Skolnick “A Sketch of The Policeman’s ‘Working Personality’”
OCTOBER 22, 1959
0700 HOURS
Going forward wasn’t the only option, Marie knew, but she hadn’t seen this coming. This wasn’t just a step backward, but to the side. When she was told she’d have matron duty in the First Precinct, she was afraid that she was being punished for something. Confused, too, because she didn’t see the point. The First, which covered the lower tip of Manhattan, was the financial center of the country, maybe the world. During daylight hours, it was swarming with stockbrokers, lawyers, clerks, secretaries, and every kind of worker bee; come sundown, most of the streets were so empty you could almost hear the crickets. Cops in the First were highly visible and rarely necessary. Marie was used to tasks that were difficult, delicate, even disgusting; it had been a while since she’d been told to do nothing. She’d been spoiled, in a way. So many city workers were like state inmates, looking at time as something to kill.
Marie had been on a shoplifting detail for the last month, and she’d made some nice grabs at the perfume counter at Gimbels. It wasn’t the kind of caper that made for a gripping episode of Decoy, but it was a nice change from the degenerates, and she came home smelling better than when she left in the morning. In time, an opportunity to advance would present itself; of that much, she was certain. That there also existed a possibility of reversal—back to weary clockwatching with the hard cases and lost souls behind the bars, as one graveyard shift blurred into another—was sickening to contemplate. This was just a one-day deal, wasn’t it? It had to be. Few policewomen visited the inspector as often as Marie did, dropping by to ask advice on a case, or to announce its victorious conclusion. But Mrs. M. was busy with meetings for an address to the League of Women Voters for a day before Marie managed to get in to see her.
The inspector greeted her in an off-the-cuff manner, without raising her eyes from the letter she was drafting. She didn’t seem angry, but Marie relied on her for plain speech, even more than she did for praise. Mrs. M. had always been generous with explanation. Commands—arbitrary and absolute as lightning strikes—were the ordinary form of communication between ranks; for many bosses, to ask a question was an act of insubordination. Mrs. M. was wonderfully different in that way, as in so many others. But Marie hadn’t heard any explanations, or accusations. Or thunder. She hadn’t heard anything. “Does it present a problem for you, Marie?”
“No, not at all.”
Mrs. M. folded her note and slipped it into an envelope. “I thought it might be convenient to be downtown in the morning.”
“Oh?”
When Mrs. M. looked up, pride told in her gaze. Reaching into a stack of papers on the side of her desk, she extracted a teletype message. “It’s Medal Day.”
Marie blurted out, “Really? What am I getting?”
“Not you, my dear,” said Mrs. M., as her face fell, barely and briefly.
“For once! No, this citation is for Patrolman Serafino Carrara, of the 44th precinct. There are no other Carraras assigned there, and I checked to see he hadn’t been promoted or transferred.”
Marie was less abashed by her assumption that the accolade was for her than her obliviousness to Sid’s achievement. Again, Mrs. M. knew what to say.
“There are so few marriages where husband and wife are both police officers that it doesn’t bear generalization. Most policemen tell me they don’t talk about work at home, aside from the occasional amusing anecdote. So much of what we do isn’t fit for discussion around the family dinner table.”
“When I do see my husband, work is the last thing we want to talk about.”
That was no exaggeration. Marie’s tours changed often and usually ran late. Patrolmen worked a cuckoo-clockwork of days, four-to-twelves, and midnight shifts, with weekends that might be Tuesday and Wednesday one week, Wednesday and Thursday the next. Marie wondered how they managed to keep track of time.
“I think that may be the wisest approach,” said Mrs. M., pleased with how she’d rearranged the conversation. “And since you may presume that he escaped this ordeal unscathed, would you allow me to boast on his behalf?”
“Please do.”
“He is being given the Medal of Valor.”
Marie was bowled over. Department commendations began with the citation for Exceptional Police Duty, and then Meritorious Police Duty, and then a couple others before ascending to the Medal of Valor. Only the Combat Cross and the Medal of Honor were higher, and the latter was awarded posthumously, as often as not. Marie had won several EPDs, and other awards were pending. But she had once picked up Sid’s handcuffs by mistake in the morning, and they were rusty, thick with lint. Their approaches to the job differed as much as their schedules did. Setting aside her second-class status, Marie had come to realize that she and Sid didn’t have the same job at all. They shared an employer, but no common notion of what they did, or why they did it. Sid had a gig; Marie had a calling. He did as little as possible to collect his salary, while she gave more than she knew she had to give. Hadn’t Mrs. M. once said that policewomen and patrolmen be complementary, as husband and wife? Still, their paychecks were the same. No other job in the country did that, as far as Marie knew; few employers saw any injustice, holding that men needed to earn more, as heads of the household. Neither Sid nor Marie regretted their respective approaches. In time, both met enough of the other species—the slugs and the strivers—to see that while each thought the other peculiar, neither was unique. Still, the Medal of Valor . . .
Mrs. M. read from the page: “‘On August 9, 1958, at 0530 hours, in the vicinity of Depot Place and the Harlem River, Patrolmen Serafino Carrara and Michael O’Shaughnessy did effect the rescue of a person who attempted suicide by drowning, at grave personal risk to their safety.’ Do pass on my sincerest congratulations.”
“I will, Mrs. M. Thank you.” Marie didn’t know what else to say. Where to begin? Good for Sid! And what was good for Sid had to be good for her, for them. Though the incident had occurred a year before, she was sure he hadn’t mentioned it. Sid never gabbed about the Job, not from the first, when Marie was still a secretary. She might never hear the story in any greater detail than what was summed up on the teletype. She was desperate to learn more, and not just—not mostly—because she found it so difficult to believe that her husband could be a hero. Hadn’t that been what she’d been praying for?
“And I’ve given you matron duty at the First, so you’ll be free to take a meal break at 1000 hours and come to headquarters for the ceremony. They have been notified. In the event that you are in charge of a prisoner, call me, and I’ll arrange someone to fill in for the hour.”
“Thank you, boss. But why—”
Mrs. M. waved away the question. “Because quiet days never happen when you need them to. Marie, if I sent you to the Central Park Zoo, you’d catch someone trying to steal one of the elephants. Besides, do you have any pictures of the two of you together, in uniform?”
“No, I don’t think so. When I graduated from the Academy,
he wore a suit.”
“Very well, then. If there’s nothing else . . .”
THE FIRST WAS a squat gray stone box on the East River. Old Manhattan was at the southern end of the island, a jumble of alleys and broken half-blocks jimmied into place, like mosaic tile; the symmetries of the city grid, clean and square, began farther uptown. Though Wall Street was only two blocks away, the smell of money was less distinct than the scents of river bilge and fish from the market on Fulton Street. Marie arrived in her pigeon gray suit, with her uniform on a hanger over her shoulder. The sergeant at the desk was plump, young, freckled. “May I help you, Ma’am?”
“Policewoman Carrara. Did Inspector Melchionne call?”
“Yeah, we heard. Congratulations to your husband. I guess you can get dressed in the ladies’ room. I hope you brought something to read, to pass the time.”
Marie thanked him and went on as directed to the door that was marked, in faded gilt letters, LA I S. Inside, the flaking plaster was painted an unwholesome shade of green, but the room was clean. She didn’t cringe at the idea of setting her purse down on the linoleum floor. Some women put their uniforms on at home, to avoid the trouble of finding a decent place to change at the precinct. No patrolman ever did, and not just because they had locker rooms. The men didn’t want to be recognizable as cops to their neighbors, let alone to strangers on the subway; the blue suit inspired too many questions, too many complaints. Not so with matrons: one told Marie that she were usually mistaken for a military nurse or stewardess. Once she dressed, she checked herself in the mirror. The suit looked as if it were put together by an amateur carpenter, bulky in some places, pinched in others; it accumulated around her like scaffolding. Every time Marie put it on, she wanted to lobby Mrs. M. to change it, to make it more practical and comfortable. The instant she took it off, the thought left her mind. She wanted to wear her own clothes at work, like a detective.
Once the day platoon spilled out into the street, Marie went to the empty muster room to flip through the newspapers that had been left on the table between the cigarette machine and the shoe buffer. She was tetchy and bored. She could offer to type or answer phones for the detectives, she supposed. It was almost nine when she went up to the squad, where she was told that they already had a man on light duty. The detective wasn’t rude, but he blocked her from even seeing inside, as if she were selling encyclopedias, door to door. She told herself that she probably had little to learn here, anyway.
As she made her way down the hall, a stocky Irishman with red-blond hair and a flushed face whistled at her from the landing. He wore a black leather car coat over a fisherman’s sweater. A toothpick twisted in his mouth as he bared his teeth. “You in town for a while, honey? Or is this just a layover?”
“Excuse me?”
“‘Fly the Finest, Fly TWA.’”
A stewardess joke. Hilarious. “Oh, shut up.”
The Irishman seemed as delighted by her annoyance as he would have had she been dazzled by his wit. Another man, also in a leather jacket, with a white turtleneck, arrived behind him and shoved him ahead, up the next flight of stairs. He was olive-skinned, with dark hair and eyes. A paesan?
“Leave her alone. She works for my friend, Inspector Melchionne.”
Yes, a paesan. The second man shrugged an apology—What am I gonna do?—before continuing upstairs. Marie wondered who they were, what they did. The men’s lockers were usually downstairs, and detectives wore suits. She waited until she heard the door shut before she tiptoed up to read the frosted glass door panel:
NARCOTICS BUREAU
DEPUTY CHIEF INSPECTOR EDWARD F. CAREY
COMMANDING OFFICER
Marie gulped for air and raced back down, forgetting to be secretive. She hadn’t known that Narcotics was here. She’d somehow supposed they were in an underground hideaway, beneath the subway tunnels. They borrowed policewomen on occasion for undercover work, and she supposed she’d get a chance with them sooner or later. Now, she couldn’t visit without looking like she just got the stewardess joke, and found it sidesplitting. Layover! You’re talking about sex! To be seen as a little slutty, a little slow, was not the impression she cared to make. Still, the discovery gave her something to think about. When she bid adieu to the sergeant, the walk uptown lifted her spirits. The morning was cool and clear.
Most of the offices described as being in headquarters were across the street, in “the Annex,” a drab former candy factory on the northeast corner of Center and Broome. Headquarters itself was quite grand, an ersatz palazzo with a great green dome and ornately carved stonework, wholly occupying a small, wedge-shaped block. The south end was wider, and the north had two small, paw-like extensions, so that if you pictured the dome as a head, it was sphinxish, in a way. Lard-assed, inscrutable, and curiously lovely, it seemed to Marie to be an appropriate home for the institution. She went inside to the auditorium, but she kept to the aisle and didn’t take a seat.
The front rows were filled with cops in their dress uniforms, with long woolen coats and white gloves. Behind them were families in packs, with generations represented from infancy to near death. Many of the cops didn’t have family there, aside from maybe a wife or a radio car partner, but the ones who did almost made it a second wedding. Marie had never been to this ceremony. Her awards had been of the lower order, and Mrs. M. had given them in her office, improvising remarks to create the sense of an event. Marie was so happy for Sid, and grateful—as ever—to Mrs. M. She heard the bagpipes lowing in a far corridor and looked out over the rows of blue hats to see if she could spot Sid. She couldn’t.
When Marie felt a hand squeeze her arm, she turned to find her sister at her side. Dee wasn’t in uniform, but in a perfectly tailored suit in a hound’s-tooth check. She was always decked out in the latest styles from Luigi’s friends in the garment district. Marie was delighted to see her. “Honey! You look—”
“Shh!”
Dee reacted as if they were about to be caught talking in church. Marie laughed—she felt the same way—but she pressed on with her effusions. “You shush! You look gorgeous! Are you working? Why—”
“Why do you think? I called Mrs. M. at the office earlier, and she left a message for me, saying to meet her here. And I am working, I have a new—”
The pipers entered the auditorium, their martial bray filling the room. The women straightened up at the sound, and then Dee leaned over to finish her sentence. “A new assignment, for the Brooklyn DA. They need someone to translate Italian wiretaps. I’m not allowed to say any more.”
Marie rushed to hug her, in part so that Dee couldn’t see her face, as she was unsure of the emotions that might show. Of the four sisters, Dee and Vera had loving marriages, while Ann and Marie had thriving careers. It wasn’t as if they’d signed a treaty, but some notional fairness about their lots in life made it easier for them to get along. Marie was happy for Dee—she really was—but she was envious as well. If the DA had a job for an Italian-speaking woman, shouldn’t the line for the job start . . . behind Marie? “That’s just wonderful, Dee, I’m so proud of you. You must be thrilled.”
“I am. I hope I never have to put on that uniform again. Why are you—”
“Mrs. M. arranged a day tour at the First, so I could come to the ceremony. Sid’s getting a medal.”
“What? Really? You, I could see, but—Sid? Really?”
“Shh!”
The ceremony was about to begin. After the invocations, patriotic and priestly, Commissioner Kennedy took the stage and began his prepared remarks. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my great pleasure to welcome you here to recognize these officers, and the exceptional deeds they have performed. And yet I wonder if exceptional is really the proper word, given that they occur every day—every hour, perhaps—a fact often overlooked by the press.”
Kennedy was a remote and austere figure, even by the Old Testament standards of the upper echelons. He was a man of absolutes, intolerant of misbehavior
, within the department and without. Every Christmas, he’d order dozens of transfers of sergeants and lieutenants, utterly at random, to disrupt patterns of holiday gratuities. Modish and sociological explanations for juvenile delinquency were of no interest to him; criminals were not to be coddled, no matter their age. Cops who fell short could expect no quarter. There hadn’t been a major scandal in the department since the business with the bookmakers ten years before that wound up driving Mayor O’Dwyer from office. The fact that O’Dwyer was once a policeman had not been an asset to his reputation. Kennedy had been public in his fight with Mayor Wagner to increase police salaries, which had won him some admiration among the troops, but it was undercut by his ban on moonlighting. That Kennedy was married to a Jewish woman, the former Miss Hortense Goldberg, also made him a peculiar figure to the rank and file.
“Please refrain from applause until all awards have been handed out.”
As the names were read, the officers rose and took to the stage, saluting the commissioner and then shaking his hand, as the department photographer shot the portrait. Awards were given to one man or two; credit wasn’t divisible among larger numbers, apparently. Kennedy recounted a succinct précis of each feat, usually in a single sentence. Most of the incidents involved gunfire—bank robberies that were intercepted, killers who went down with a fight. Otherwise, there were children pulled from burning buildings, lovelorn women and bankrupt men yanked from ledges. Sid and his partner had the only rescue from the water. Once the last cop left the stage, the crowd burst into fervent applause, and Marie took part with no less enthusiasm. Dee clapped listlessly.
And then Dee took hold of Marie’s arm, leaning close, so no one else could hear. “I thought Sid couldn’t swim.”
Marie blenched. That was one of the reasons she wanted to hear more about the story, and one of the reasons she didn’t. The citations were as terse as telegrams; you’d think the Job was paying by the word with its compliments. Maybe the partner—O’Shaughnessy?—had impulsively jumped in to save the man, and Sid kept his wits, wading in with a rope, so they weren’t swept away. Not that they gave out the Medal of Valor for risking rope burn. Marie didn’t know how to respond. Was she a cop here, a wife, or a sister? She couldn’t be all three, not at the same time. Not even two out of three.
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