by Mark Dawson
“It sounds perfect,” Carter said.
“All right, then.”
Carter looked at his watch. It was an excuse: he knew he had plenty of time before he had to report for roll call, but he was finding it increasingly claustrophobic in this small room. It wasn’t hot, but he could feel the slickness of the sweat on his back, across his palms and between his fingers.
He closed his fist and held it up; Acosta bumped with him, then did the same to Shepard.
“Good work,” he said again as they went to the door. “I mean it.”
“See you around,” Carter said, waiting for the door to be unlocked and opened for him.
Carter went outside into the short space between the two doors, opened the wooden door all the way and stepped out into the relative normality of the bodega. The men and the woman Acosta had dismissed were waiting there, and they filed back inside without a word to them. There was an old woman at the desk, trying to negotiate a discount on the basket of shopping she had collected. Carter didn’t dawdle; he walked straight out, crossed the sidewalk and then the street and, finally, slipped into the car. He had started the engine before Shepard had crossed over to join him, and, as soon as his ex-partner was inside with him, he put the car into drive and pulled quickly away.
“Fuck,” Shepard breathed.
“Tell me about it.”
“I thought he was gonna pop us.”
“Me too.” Carter realised he was driving aimlessly. “He’s a sadistic fuck. He enjoyed that. You see the way he smiled at me?”
“Where we going?”
“You wanna get a drink? I need to get my nerves under control before I go in for my shift.”
“Sure.”
Carter turned the wheel and headed north. He’d drive them to Callahan’s. They could get a beer and something to eat. He needed something to calm the unsettled feeling he still had in the pit of his stomach. Acosta was a scary dude, and Carter didn’t scare easily. He paid well, though. Carter reached up and patted the bump on his jacket where he had stuffed in the bundle of cash. That was just as well. It was the only reason Carter would consider putting himself in close proximity with such an unpredictable, capricious, devious piece of shit.
45
Milton rode north until he arrived in Cypress Hills again. He rolled to a stop on Danforth Street, opposite the Blanco household. He took off his helmet and noticed that a black garbage bag had been left next to the trash cans outside the house. He guessed that it contained the detritus from the night before.
He crossed the sidewalk, opened the gate and knocked on the door. Manny answered it and stood aside to let him in. Milton saw that his assumption was correct: the house had been scrupulously tidied.
Manny saw the mark on Milton’s face. “Please say I didn’t do that.”
“It’s just a bruise,” Milton said. “Forget it.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, the colour rushing to his cheeks. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“Forget it,” Milton said, uncomfortable with raw emotion. “You don’t need to apologise.”
“Of course I do. You saw me at my worst.”
“Have you been to a meeting?”
“Haven’t been able to. I had to tidy up—the police came. I didn’t want the place looking like a mess. They spoke to Freddy and now I don’t want to leave him on his own.”
“Where is he?”
“In his bedroom,” Manny said. “On his PlayStation. I wanted to talk to you before I go and get him.”
“That’s probably for the best. Look—do you want to go to a meeting?”
Manny nodded and then looked as if he was going to start crying.
“There’s one tonight. Seven. I go to it sometimes.”
Manny shook his head. “What about Freddy?”
“Bring him. You know what he needs now? He needs to see you trying again. He needs you to be strong, Manny. You’ve got to show him you’re not going to give up.”
“I know.”
“It’s Al-Anon. Seriously—you should bring him. It’ll help him understand.”
Manny nodded and limped over to the kitchen counter. “I’ll think about it.” He inclined his head towards a coffee maker. “You want a drink?”
“That would be nice.”
Milton watched as Manny worked, setting up the filter basket, filling it with coffee grounds, pouring a carafe of water into the reservoir. He was wearing his prosthetic now, and Milton might not have noticed without the knowledge that it was there. There was a limp, but it wasn’t obvious.
Manny turned and Milton couldn’t look away from his leg in time. “You didn’t know about my leg?”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s the reason I had to leave the Rangers. Medical discharge.” He chuckled humourlessly. “No one wants a one-legged soldier.”
“What happened?”
“Kandahar,” he said, as if that was all the information that Milton would need. “There were four of us out on patrol near the airfield. Two Brits, me and a translator. We were in a Land Rover. Roadside bomb. We got flipped over. The door sheared off and ended up taking half my leg with it. And I was lucky. Both of the Brits had their tickets punched.”
Manny spoke in the same matter-of-fact way that Milton had heard in other soldiers who had suffered similar injuries. It was part of the job; Manny had just been unfortunate. But, nevertheless, it went a long way toward explaining why he had resorted to the bottle: bitterness, a sense of grievance, an angry lament for opportunities lost. Milton understood now why Manny had reacted the way he had about the sneakers. He would have felt like a failure.
Milton wanted to apologise, but, as he tried to find the words to broach the subject, Manny interrupted him with his coffee.
“You were there last night?” Manny asked him as he passed him a mug.
Milton nodded. “I found him in the bathroom. It was pure coincidence. I only realised that he was your son when we got to the station. I saw the shoes he was wearing.”
“I should’ve been there,” Manny said. “But I fucked up. I was angry. I couldn’t deal with what was going on across the road. Then Freddy gets into trouble with them; they steal the sneakers he saved up so long to get. It was so unfair. Made me feel so useless. I do okay with the leg most of the time, but it just made me remember how I felt when they brought me back here. Like I was half the man he needed me to be. My old man, he would’ve gone over there with a shotgun. I didn’t have the guts to do that. Probably couldn’t have, the way I am now.”
“I get it,” Milton said.
Manny didn’t hear him, or ignored his reassurance. “So I got myself into a mess. It seemed like everything I was doing to stay sober was a waste of time, so I went to the bar down the street and started drinking. I forgot about Freddy. Forgot about my boy.” He started to sob. “We were supposed to go to the game together, and I clean forgot it. If I’d been there, maybe none of this would’ve happened.”
“You can’t second-guess it,” Milton said. “You messed up. We all do. Now you just accept it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. And what happened—it is what it is. Freddy’s involved now, for better or worse. I am, too. We just need to get him the support he needs.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’? This isn’t your problem, is it?”
“I’d like to help.”
“How?”
“I have experience in this kind of thing.”
He glanced at him, momentarily wary. “Police?”
“No. Army, just the same as you. But I’ve been able to help people in bad situations before.”
He was about to respond, but he stopped, his mouth hanging open. “Hold on,” he said. “The guys. Across the road. Was that you?”
Milton could have lied, could have denied it, but lying felt wrong. “Yes,” he said.
“What did you do?”
“I watched the house. I worked out who the top guy was and I followed him home. I was there whe
n he got back on Saturday night. And we had a chat about the location of his business.”
“A chat?”
“I can be persuasive, Manny.”
“Jesus,” he said. “What were you doing in the army? Special Forces?”
“I was in the SAS,” he said, hoping that would be enough to forestall any further questions.
Manny looked glumly down at the floor.
“Look,” Milton said. “I didn’t do it because you couldn’t. I did it because I could, and because it was the right thing to do. That’s it.”
“That’s not enough. You don’t even know us.”
Milton paused, finding the right words. “It’s the ninth step,” he said. “I’m trying to make amends for things I did a long time ago. This is how I choose to do it. Either way, whatever happened happened. It’s done. There’s no point beating yourself up about it. You have to think about Freddy now. You’ve got to work out the best way to get him through this.”
46
Polanski drove back into Brooklyn. He thought about what he had heard from Freddy Blanco and John Smith. It was obvious that something was being held back. He didn’t want to push the boy too hard for fear of making a difficult situation even worse, but he knew that they would have to speak to him again.
He drove to the bureau, parked his car and made his way along the sidewalk to the entrance.
Haynes was just on his way out.
“Can I get a minute, Sarge?”
“Sure,” Haynes said. “I was just going to get a coffee. You want one?”
There was a café across the road, and Haynes indicated it with a nod.
“No, thanks,” Polanski said. “I’ve got too much going on.”
“You don’t got five minutes for a coffee? Come on.”
Polanski couldn’t really say no. Haynes had been his patron for as long as he’d been in the bureau, and that was almost as long as he’d been in the NYPD. He was the reason that Polanski was still a cop at all.
Polanski had come out of the academy and been assigned to the Seven Seven, a precinct every bit as challenging as the Seven Five, perhaps even worse back in the day. There had been a shortage in the borough command office, and Polanski and the other rookie who had been assigned to the precinct were sent there to pitch in. Polanski had been put on the switchboard and told to answer the phones. There had been one midnight tour when a call had come in, a cop saying that he needed a tow truck to come and get rid of an abandoned car. Polanski had called a twenty-four-hour towing company and had forgotten all about it. The next day, though, the owner of the company had come into the station house, found Polanski and handed him two twenty-dollar bills. It was a gesture of thanks, the man explained, and a reminder that he was always looking for jobs.
Polanski, who had fancied himself as having an entrepreneurial bent, continued to refer business to the company and had continued to receive a similar reward for every job passed on. It was only when the bureau began an investigation into another cop in a neighbouring precinct that culminated in the arrest of the business owner that things started to look tenuous. It turned out that the owner had been running the same scam with cops the length and breadth of Brooklyn, and, in exchange for a pass, he gave all of them up.
Haynes was working at the bureau and had recognised Polanski’s name. He had seen to it that his part in the scam was suppressed, but only on the condition that he transfer to the bureau to work with him. Polanski remembered the conversation that he’d had with Haynes and his father. The two older men had sat him down after dinner one Sunday and told him how it was going to be: he would transfer or resign. Polanski had pleaded to be allowed to stay where he was, but both men had decided that would be impossible. He had demonstrated that he could not be trusted on the street. He would have to do his penance, working with Haynes to root out graft and corruption. In the end, after he had thought about it, he realised that was no choice at all.
Polanski followed Haynes to the coffee shop and found a table. Haynes went to the barista and ordered, then brought the coffees back and set them down.
“So?” he began. “What happened with your CI?”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” he said. “There was a murder last night. In the restroom at Euclid station. Did you hear?”
Haynes shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“The dead guy was González.”
Haynes paused. “Your informant?”
Polanski nodded.
“You’re kidding?”
“I wish I was. I’d been working on him for the last three months. I had to push hard to get him to trust me. I promised him a new identity, full immunity, the whole nine yards. All he had to do was give me Acosta and whoever he’s been working with in the Seven Five and that would’ve been that.”
“He was ready to give them up?”
“That’s what he told me. I just had to get him off the street.”
“Jesus. Did you tell anyone other than me?”
“No.”
“Do you think you’ve been followed?”
“No. I would’ve noticed.”
“What about your phone?”
Polanski stared at him. “You think it’s been tapped?”
“Maybe. I’ve seen it happen. These are cops, Aleks. They know what they’re doing.”
“What do I do now?”
Haynes put the cup down. “You got anything else?”
Polanski nodded. “I got a kid who might have seen the killers. He’s thirteen. He saw two guys just before he went in and found the body.”
“He get a good look at them?”
“He says he didn’t, but I don’t know if I buy it. I think he’s scared.”
“What’s his name?”
“Freddy Blanco. Lives with his old man up near Cypress Hills.”
“So work on him. Maybe you can get back to them that way.”
Polanski nodded.
“And be careful,” Haynes added. “Get a different phone. And don’t talk to anyone else about this. Cops talk to cops. You know that. We got detectives in the office who know the guys at the Seven Five. Keep it close to the vest—it’s safer that way.”
47
Milton rode to Sutter Avenue and the station house for the Seventy-Fifth Precinct. He parked his bike and walked the area. The precinct house took up the entire block. It faced onto Sutter and was bounded on either side by Essex Street and Linwood Street. There was a line of cars in front of the building, parked at right angles with the road. There was a yard at the rear of the building, accessed by gates on both Essex and Linwood. Even with the parking in the front and at the rear of the building, there was still not enough space for the patrol cars and private vehicles used by the staff to get to work. As a result, the police had taken over vacant lots of land in the nearby vicinity. There were police cruisers parked on a lot on the other side of Essex Street, and others were jammed nose to tail into spaces that were barely big enough for them.
Milton went back to the station house. The first floor was built in brick, with the second and third floors accommodated within a dun-coloured concrete block that was larger than the building beneath it and seemed to have been lowered atop it. The windows were narrow and the ones at ground level were barred. The entrance was through two sets of adjacent steel-plated double doors beneath large shining metal letters that read 75th PRECINCT – POLICE DEPARTMENT – CITY OF NEW YORK.
Milton turned his attention to the buildings on the opposite side of the road.
There was a white clapboard house, free-standing from the rest of the block and separated by two narrow alleys. The door was protected by a wide awning and the windows were protected by decorative grilles. The neatly tended plants outside the property suggested that it was occupied, and Milton quickly dismissed it as unsuitable for his purposes.
There was a second house to the right of the first. It, too, showed obvious signs of habitation from owners who cared about their property: this o
ne was separated from the street by a recently painted gate and a whitewashed wall topped with ornamental spikes. Milton dismissed that property, too.
Next was a large block of four buildings. The three to Milton’s right had been turned into apartments and looked in good order. The property on the left of the block was mixed use. The ground floor, 1013 Sutter Avenue, was the Golden China takeout. The two floors above the yellow awning that advertised the restaurant looked to be in a state of some disrepair. The window frames were rotten with faded and peeling paint, the glass in two of them replaced by plastic sheeting. The pediment at the top of the building was stained and crumbling, and the telephone wires that ran to a pole on the other side of the road had worked their way loose and hung limply.
It looked promising.
Milton walked north on Essex Street. There was a one-storey brick building behind the block that contained the Chinese restaurant. It was derelict, with metal sheets fixed over the windows and blocking the doorway. There was a narrow alley between it and the building to its right, and Milton walked up to it. A decorative gate blocked the way ahead, but it was open and Milton was able to walk through. The alley was the width of a car and, beyond the derelict building, it allowed access to the yards at the back of the buildings on Sutter Avenue. They were demarked by a crumbling brick wall, and Milton was able to haul himself up so that he could see over the top of it. Each of the buildings was equipped with an external fire escape, a zigzagging ladder that climbed all the way to the top with landings on each floor.
The yard behind the restaurant was in an awful state: it had been concreted over, but weeds had pushed through the cracks. Trash had been dumped there too, with empty cardboard packaging and cans and trash cans that overflowed with rotting food. A plump rat, gorged on the fetid remnants, slunk away as Milton approached.