Кен Бруен - Tower

“I don’t work for anyone but my Uncle—”

O’Connor slapped my face hard.

“Don’t take that attitude with me, lad. That fat cunt you call your uncle has been in my pocket for five years. So maybe when the boyos cut his heart out and feed it to him, they can lay him beside you.”

“Harry’s been an informant for years,” Ira chimed in. “And one way or another, he’s a dead man.”

“That’s right, Todd, your uncle’s fucked. But for you, there’s a chance.”

I held the shield up. “You call this a chance?”

“No, lad, I call it an only chance. And you’re lucky to have it. How you’ve managed all these years to avoid arrest is beyond me. Had you been arrested, let alone convicted of anything, you’d be fucked as well.”

“How’s that?”

“Because we’d be hard pressed to get you on the job with a record, shithead,” Ira said. “So we’re making this an elevator ride for you.”

“Pretty cryptic for a cop, cuz.”

“Then let me explain it to you. You’re one of us or one of them. It’s up or down with no change of direction.”

“What if I choose them?”

“It’s your prerogative, I suppose,” O’Connor admitted. “But then you’d be the second person in your family to commit suicide.”

“Suicide?”

“Exactly so,” O’Connor said. “Cause even if you don’t take the offer, we’ll let it leak that you’re working for us and you’ll be dead.”

“That’s murder, not suicide.”

“You’re splitting hairs, lad. Either way, you’ll be dead.”

“Nice operation you guys are running,” I sneered.

“You think that stone cold Griffin would give you an option? Come on, lad, use that — what’s that expression, Ira — your Yiddisher ...”

“Yiddisher kupf,” Ira said. “Jewish head.”

“Yes, your Jewish smarts,” O’Connor translated.

Wasn’t being left with much of a choice. Nicky would’ve told them both to go fuck themselves and taken a swing at O’Connor. I wasn’t Nicky.

“I’ll do it.”

“Decisive, I like that,” O’Connor said, beaming like a new father. “Done at the speed of light. Appropriate, given our proximity.”

Somebody was bound to make an Einstein joke. Glad it wasn’t me.

“Do you like cheese steaks, Detective Rosen?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Ira will explain it to you on the ride back to your father’s house. Welcome aboard.” O’Connor patted my back. He knew I wasn’t about to shake his hand. He did, however, hold his left hand out to me. “The shield, son. You’ll have to earn it.”

Tossed it in my own puke and walked toward Ira’s car. Heard O’Connor laughing as I walked away.

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me.”

Cover story. Cover girl. Women are the perfect camouflage. You could have thought up a thousand elaborate excuses for why I had to leave Brooklyn, why I had to quit Uncle Harry’s, why I had to temporarily part company with Boyle and the boyos, yet none would have done the trick like the mention of a woman. Let me tell you something, it’s men that are the bigger suckers for love. Women look for love. Men look for pussy and stumble onto love. And Christ, when we stumble it’s an endless fall. Who do you think misses their first loves more, men or women? If you say women, you’re a fool.

So when I went to Boyle and told him I’d met someone and that I was moving to Philadelphia to be with her, he didn’t flinch. Fuck, not only didn’t he flinch, the man offered to get me in with some donkeys down Broad Street way. Politely refused, saying that if I was going to do dirt, it would only be on his behalf. Smiled like a proud father. Unnerved me, that smile. Never seen its like from my own dad. With the atmosphere surrounding my mom’s suicide and with Nicky earning like he was, Boyle didn’t give my leaving a second thought. Still O’Connor and Ira thought we should make a bit of a show of it, wanted to prove to Boyle’s crew that there was a girl and that I was smitten.

Didn’t have to pretend, for I was smitten, immediately, on the spot, even now. Met at a Starbucks up in Scarsdale: a town of well-to-do Asians and Jews pretending to be Biff and Muffy at the club. Not the kind of place you’d be apt to find Boyle, Griffin or Nicky sipping Pinot Noir by the pool or quietly clapping by the tee box and shouting, “Well struck!”

“You Rosen?” she asked, coming up behind me.

“Last time I checked.” I made to stand.

“Don’t bother. I’m Velez, Leeza Velez.”

God, just thinking about the first time I saw her gives me that odd sensation, a cross between nerves and nirvana. She was about five foot five with elegant curves, straight sable hair that hung just slightly over her shoulders. She had bright brown eyes, a nose and jaw line that plastic surgeons could only hope to reproduce, and a dangerous mouth. Her teeth were even and white, her lips plush but not extravagant. The combination made for an electric smile, make believe though it was.

“Kiss me!”

“What?”

“We’re in love, remember?”

Kissed her awkwardly, like I had a mouth full of braces. Felt about twelve years old.

“Christ, you’ll have to do better than that,” she said. “If we’re being watched, they’re gonna think you’re either a liar or half a fag.”

So I folded her in my arms and kissed her hard on the mouth, my tongue slipping effortlessly between her lips. If she was surprised or displeased, she didn’t show it. Didn’t have to see her in workout clothes to know she was well muscled and strong. Could feel her power. When I pulled back, noticed that in spite of her name, dark skin and vaguely Hispanic features, there was another kind of mojo at work in her.

“Puerto Rican, but not one hundred percent,” I said.

“You taste my kiss and tell me the percentage of spic in my blood? It’s blood, asshole, not red wine.”

“Am I right or what?”

“We’re all mongrels in this country. It makes for beauty and barbarity.”

“A philosopher.”

“A U.S. Marshal. I’m here to keep you safe and watch your ass, not kiss it. I’m not here to suck your dick or wash your clothes,” she said, all the time smiling. “Do we understand one another?”

Smiled back with no pretense. Held my fingers a few inches apart. “So I’m sure you have a file on me this thick, but I don’t know anything about you.”

“What you wanna know?”

“Puerto Rican and...?”

“This shit again!” Caught a glimmer of mischief in her eye. “Guess!”

“Irish.”

“Yeah, some of that.”

“Russian.”

“Some of that, too.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Probably.”

“If this is an NYPD gig, why is a U.S. Marshal involved?”

“Cooperation between agencies.”

“Bullshit! Even subway fare jumpers know the Feds and the NYPD cooperate about as well as hyenas and lions. You guys must be getting something out of it.”

“We think Griffin killed one of our witnesses,” she said. “We don’t stand for that.”

Bought us some coffees and she told me how things were going to work. This wasn’t a debate or a negotiation. This was give and take. She gave. I took. She talked. I shut up.

She’d already set us up in an apartment in Philadelphia over by the University of Pennsylvania. It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood, but it was one that would be within our means. We would tell the world that she worked as an administrative assistant in the bursar’s office. When we’d decided to move in together, she had gotten me a job with the university as a maintenance man and I’d had to undergo a few weeks of training before I could take the job.