Reed Coleman - The James Deans

“Thank you, Larry,” Katy said, reaching for my hand. “You’re right. We have a lot to talk about.”

I pushed the box toward Larry Mac.

He winked, pushing it back. “You hold on to that. Try it on for size.”

We finished our drinks in a sort of peculiar silence. Standing up to leave, I noticed that my barely smoked cigar had put itself to sleep. Larry had meant it to be a kind of victory cigar to celebrate my return to the job. It was good, I thought, that I hadn’t smoked it. There was nothing to celebrate, not yet.

The silence followed us from the Blind Steer home to Sheepshead Bay. Katy understood without needing to be told that there was nothing simple or easy about the decision with which I was now faced.

To the casual observer, even to some participants, all silences can seem equal. But there are differences in silence as there are in darkness. The absence of sound or light reveals little about what has caused the silence or the dark. There is a difference between a broken bulb and a moonless night, no? So it was with my silence. Katy understood one piece of it, the piece I gave her access to. There were, however, layers and textures in my silence to which she was not privy. Once before, in 1978, at a restaurant in Bay Ridge, I’d been offered a detective’s shield. And though there was much about the current offer that bore no relation to that situation, there were certain undeniable similarities impossible for me to ignore.

Rico Tripoli, the closest friend I ever had or was ever likely to have, had brought me into the case of Katy’s missing brother. At the time, it seemed like a perfect fit. Both parties, the Maloneys and myself, were just desperate enough to take a chance on each other. The Maloneys had exhausted all conventional options in the search for their son. As for me, I was just retired, in terrible pain from my second surgery, and flat out of ideas on how to raise the money for my share of the business. I think I would have tried almost anything. But Rico, as it happened, hadn’t brought me in to find Patrick at all. No, I had been brought in to play the foot, to be used as a conduit to leak information that would ruin my father-in-law. Ultimately, I managed to both find Patrick and ruin his father’s career, accomplishing the latter without exposing his family to the pain and embarrassment my users had intended for me to unleash.

Understand this, I despise my father-in-law, Francis Maloney Sr. He is a cruel, calculating bastard who, through God’s mysterious grace, helped create my wife. I haven’t lost a second’s sleep in five years over his loss of political sway, nor would I shed a tear on the day of his death. But the notion that my best friend, a man whom I had trusted with my life, had set me up and betrayed our friendship for career advancement has plagued me every day since. Rico’s handlers had wanted to gift me with a shield for my keeping my mouth shut and a job well done, kind of like rewarding a dog with a treat for giving his paw and rolling over. I took a pass. I didn’t do tricks.

In spite of the quiet in the car, it was noisy in my head. I kept telling myself that this time it was different, that Larry wasn’t like our old precinct mate, Rico, that he was high enough on the totem pole not to sell me out. I told myself that it was different this time because I had done good for the right reasons, like when I found Marina Conseco. Not because I felt guilty or threatened, but in spite of those things. Sure, luck had played a part. It always does.

It wasn’t luck I was worried about. I was worried about me. That, I decided, was what this apprehension and jitteriness was all about, not the past, not betrayal. Was I up to it? Could I handle the job after so long away? For years I had wanted that shield so badly I could taste it. Now, with all that had gone on, the miscarriage, the second store, did I really want it anymore? My father-in-law, of all people, had once warned me to watch out what I wished for. Did wishes, I wondered, have a shelf life? How long after you stopped wishing could they come true?

I slept like a baby. There were no ominous dreams in which Larry morphed into Rico or the cigar girl into Brightman’s wife. There were no dueling pistols in the humidor, nor was my father-in-law dressed like a jester. He did not cackle or forewarn. I don’t think I dreamed at all.

When I got up, Katy talked around Larry’s offer. Eventually we’d get around to discussing it, but there was little doubt she would tell me to follow my heart. As it had once led me to her, she knew to trust it. She also understood I needed to speak to Aaron first of all. Dealing with my big brother would be a more complicated affair. Beyond the obvious issue of our business partnership, he had never really approved of my being a cop. It was Aaron who breathed the biggest sigh of relief when I was put out to pasture. I had every reason in the world to believe he would not be so accommodating as my wife if I chose to go back.

“I’m going to-”

“I know where you’re going, Moe. Kiss your brother for me.”

I was around the corner from City on the Vine when fire engine sirens began blaring. I pulled to the right. So did the guy behind me, but instead of pressing his brake pedal he used my back bumper to slow his forward momentum. Several decades past the age when I considered cars something worth fighting over, I got out of the driver’s seat calm as could be. Besides, it had only been a hard tap. Unfortunately, the guy who hit me was in his early twenties and in no mood to deal with reality or responsibility.

“Why the fuck you stop so short? What the fuck you-”

I put my palms up. “Whoa. Take it easy.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to take it easy,” he barked, leaning over the nose of his car. “Look at this shit.”

Frankly, I didn’t see what shit he was talking about. Beyond the old dings and dents in my bumper, there didn’t seem to be any fresh damage. His bumper, though pretty well flush to mine, did not appear any the worse for wear.

“I’ll pull up a few feet,” I said, turning toward the front of my car.

He grabbed my arm. “Wait a second, motherfucker. You ain’t running on me.”

He had just taken two big steps over my patience threshold. I yanked my arm toward the point where his thumb and index finger met, easily freeing myself, grabbed my old badge out of my back pocket, and shoved it into his face.

“How’s your eyesight, asshole? Can you seen that well enough?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-”

“This moment here is when you shut up. Like I said, I’m going to pull up a few feet so we can see if there was any real damage done.”

This time, he didn’t grab me. Even if he was so inclined, he was too busy rubbing his face to make sure my badge hadn’t left a permanent impression. I inched the car forward. When I returned to the back of my car, the other guy was on his knees now rubbing his front bumper instead of his face.

“Everything looks okay,” he said sheepishly. “Why don’t we just forget about this, okay?”

Then he mumbled some other words that seemed to run together. Something funky was going on with my ears. It was just like that day in Joe Spivack’s office. I noticed distinct sounds rising out of the din: a jackhammer, the squeal of truck brakes, a guy begging quarters and cursing people when they said no. Then it all fused together.

“Hey, hey, Officer,” he prodded, gently shaking my arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I said.

“What you staring at? Your eyes look kinda weird. You bang your coconut or something? You sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance?”

“Your license plate,” I mumbled.