Miles Corwin - Kind of blue

There were still some elderly Jews left-like Levine’s mother-but Duffy noticed a number of Hispanic kids in diapers playing in front of the apartments and several surly black teenagers wearing blue nylon do-rags leaning against cars. On a few garage doors, he saw the spray-painted tags of the Mansfield Family Crips. Duffy walked up the brick path to the duplex Mrs. Levine rented, which was squeezed between two small apartment buildings, beige boxes with water stains beneath the rooflines. The duplex, with its red-tiled roof, wrought iron light sconces, and small courtyard, once must have had a stately elegance. But Duffy noticed that many of the tiles on the roof were split, the sconces were bent and nicked, and the wooden steps leading to the upper unit sagged in the middle.

Duffy glanced at the side of the duplex and noticed that all the windows were shielded with thick black security bars. He wiped his feet on the mat and, before ringing the doorbell, paused for a moment, rehearsing a few possible approaches, trying to decide which would be the most effective.

I just finished mumbling my way through the Bir Mat Hamazon — grace after the meal-when I heard the doorbell ring and Lieutenant Duffy call out, “Open up, Ash, I know you’re in there.”

My mother padded across the room and peered through the peephole. Then she quickly glanced at me with a pained expression, her eyes filling with an amalgam of anger and dread, and opened the door.

“Shabat Shalom, Mrs. Levine,” Duffy said, smiling. He reached for her hand and then patted it gently.

She glared at him.

“I learned a little Hebrew in the seminary when I had a class in comparative religion.”

“Very little, I assume.”

While he prattled on, trying to charm my mother, I sat slumped in a dining room chair. My temples felt like they were being squeezed in a vise. In an instant, I was transported right back to that street corner at 54th and Figueroa, where I saw Latisha Patton splayed on the sidewalk, her head encircled by a pool of blood, brain tissue and skull shards blown into the gutter. Why? Because of my stupidity. Or incompetence. Or carelessness. Or all of it. I felt as if I had killed her myself. For the past year I had been trying to bury the agonizing memory of that afternoon. And now, seeing Duffy brought it all back again. When I set my hands on my lap, I saw that I had left sweaty handprints on the wooden arms of the chair.

My mother glanced over at me for a moment. She could always read me better than any suspect. Turning to Duffy, she said in a loud whisper, “I wish you’d just let him get on with his life.”

She looked particularly small and frail at that moment. Pale and freckled, her bright red hair was so lacquered and spherical it looked like a football helmet. She had an energy that made her seem physically imposing, but when people stood next to her and realized she was only about five feet tall, they were always surprised. Of course, standing next to Duffy would make anyone look small and frail. He was six foot five and somewhere between burly and fat, like an offensive lineman a few years past his playing days.

“I just need a few minutes with your son,” Duffy said. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

I could see that my mother looked painfully confounded, torn between the desire to berate Duffy and the compulsion to offer him food. “You eaten?” she muttered through clenched teeth, as if the words escaped from her mouth against her will.

“Just had a delightful supper with my own dear mother.”

Duffy eased into a chair-encased in a protective plastic coating-across from me. When I smelled his breath-beer laced with Tic Tacs-I knew he had spent the past hour-not with his mother-but downing beers at El Compadre in Echo Park, a Felony Special hangout.

“But,” Duffy added, “I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee and perhaps a slice of your challah.” A loaf of braided egg bread was centered on the dining room table between a pair of dripping candles. “Sometimes Ash used to bring in sandwiches made from your delicious challah and he’d occasionally be kind enough to share them with me.”

She rolled her eyes and trudged off to the kitchen. I crossed the room and slumped on the sofa.

Duffy looked around the monochromatic living room, everything a pale celery green, including the walls, carpeting, porcelain lamps, faded silk lampshades, and chintz sofa. “Your mother must like green.”

“You must be a detective,” I said sarcastically.

“I guess she’s the obsessive type-like you,” Duffy said, smiling.

This was just like Duffy, I thought, to ignore my mother’s discomfort and my glare, and just make himself at home. I had always admired Duffy’s ability to strut into a South Central living room, filled with cop-hating gangbangers and, with complete confidence, toss off a quip, ease a tense situation, and begin asking questions. Maybe it was his size. He was a presence that demanded attention. Maybe it was because Duffy, with his ruddy complexion, empathetic sky blue eyes, wispy silver hair, booming voice, and hale, voluble manner reminded people of the friendly parish priest. The Irish lilt enhanced the impression. I had always thought that Duffy’s two years at a Catholic seminary when he was a teenager gave him a great advantage. One Salvadoran murderer who confessed later told me that talking to Duffy in an interview room was like whispering in a confessional to un padre con placa. A priest with a badge.

I first met Duffy at a homicide when I was a young patrolman in the Pacific Division and he was a detective. While the other cops were drinking coffee beside their squad cars, I wandered around outside the yellow tape and found a flattened. 40-caliber slug imbedded in a wooden porch column next door to the crime scene. Duffy was the primary detective on the case and the slug led him to the murder weapon, which led him to the murderer. After that, at homicide scenes, Duffy always asked me to help him conduct the searches and, on a few occasions, he let me interview peripheral witnesses. When he took over South Bureau Homicide-a division based in South Central-he brought me in as a detective trainee. When I got my shield, he threw me a party at the academy. Years later, when he made lieutenant, was promoted to Robbery-Homicide Division, and put in charge of Felony Special, I was one of his first hires.

It was pretty predictable that I would have a weakness for father figures, and Duffy was an obvious choice. My father, after surviving Treblinka, was so consumed with his own demons, so remote and tormented, that there was not much emotional capital left for his sons. But after the Latisha Patton debacle, when I really needed some paternal guidance and support, where was Duffy? All I got from him was a two-week suspension and a bureaucratic rebuke stuffed in my personnel file. Seeing Duffy now didn’t make me angry, just very sad, the betrayal so strong that I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. Many times during the past year I had envisioned how I was going to curse him out when I saw him again, how I was going to denounce him for caring more about covering his ass than taking care of his people, how loyalty meant nothing to him, how he was so consumed with ambition that he’d sell out every detective in the squad room for a promotion. But now, when I had the chance, I was too enervated to utter a word.

“I like your mother,” Duffy said. “I like her honesty. In the past, whenever we talked, she always said what was on her mind. Very different from the women in my family. Everything was always fine. No matter what. My older brother would show up for dinner, night after night, dead drunk, and almost pass out on the kitchen table. My mother and aunt would always manage to avoid seeing what was right in front of their faces.” Duffy, in a high-pitched brogue, impersonated them: “‘Our poor Brendan must be a bit sleepy again this evening. The poor lad is working too hard.’”