Robert Knightly: Bodies in Winter

‘No,’ he said, ‘it didn’t. Not before, and not afterwards.’

I hit him then, a right hand to the side of the face that drove him to the ground. When he didn’t get up immediately, I took a step back and waited for him to climb to his feet before continuing. ‘When you said nothing would happen if I took my case to the bosses, you were right. Being co-conspirators, they’d naturally have to protect you. But those tips you sent me? They’re part of the case file, and how I received them is already being questioned. You gettin’ this yet? Three days from now, Adele and I are going to meet with Ginnette Lansky to prepare our testimony before the grand jury. Ten days from now, Adele and I are going give that testimony. If we name you as the probable source of three of those tips, you will also be called to testify.’

I’d finally broken through. The anger dropped from Sarney’s face, the smug superiority too, as his dilemma became clear. If called to testify, Sarney could not hide behind his Fifth Amendment rights because he wasn’t being accused of any crime. That left him with a simple choice: he could swear that our conversation never took place, and expose himself to a charge of perjury, or he could name the bosses who’d conspired to bring down Linus Potter. Those bosses, they wouldn’t be happy about that.

Sarney twisted for a few minutes, standing before me on unsteady legs, one hand pressed to the side of his face. ‘What do you want?’ he finally asked.

‘First, I want a pipeline into the Puzzle Palace. I want to be able to come to you when I need help, and I want you to be seen with me in public. I want you to make a commitment.’

‘What else?’

‘I want a transfer to Homicide, Bill, the place where white knights go to die.’

Sarney’s laugh seemed genuinely amused, and perhaps a bit admiring, but his eyes had grown shrewd. ‘Are you telling me you can deliver Bentibi?’

‘I’m telling you those anonymous tips — all five of them — will remain anonymous. At least as far as we’re concerned.’

We were almost at the end now. It was time to finish up and go home.

‘You have to do your penance,’ Sarney explained, ‘and there’s no getting around it. You can’t shit on the bosses and expect to be rewarded.’

‘Even if certain bosses wanted me to shit on them?’

Sarney ignored the sarcasm. ‘And I can’t stop the rumors going around about you and your girlfriend being IAB snitches. Those rumors are comin’ from the PBA and that’s a world unto itself.’

‘Bill, are you telling me that you can’t deliver?’

‘No, I’m saying it’s gonna take time, and that it’s gonna be hard for you.’

The last part didn’t interest me. ‘How much time?’ I asked.

‘Nine months, a year.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘In the meantime, we’ll see about your rehabilitation.’ He shifted his weight, nodding to himself. ‘I’ll tell you this,’ he finally said, ‘it’s very good that you’re cooperating here. Certain people will be impressed.’

‘Well, let’s make them doubly impressed. Ten days from now, the Holy Name Society is throwing its annual dinner-dance at the Sheraton. Adele and I are gonna be there.’

‘And you want me to be there as well, to be seen with you?’

‘That’s right, Bill, and when I invite your wife to dance, I expect her to accept without hesitation.’

As Sarney considered the demand, his grin began to widen. Again, I sensed a degree of admiration, as if by playing his game, I was somehow flattering him.

‘OK, I think I can make that dinner.’ He reached out to touch my arm, a gesture as intimate as it was unwelcome. ‘And if you wanna dance with Rebecca, it’s fine, as long as you don’t ask me to dance with Bentibi. That’s one gesture I don’t feel up to making.’

This time, when I hit Sarney, his eyes rolled up in his head and he went over backwards, crashing to the floor. I stood over him for a moment, half-hoping he’d make some attempt to rise, but the man lay as unmoving as a corpse. I thought of Adele, then, waiting for me back in Rensselaer Village. When we’d finally uncovered Sarney’s contribution to the dramatics, her first instinct was to bury him. But she’d turned on a dime when I laid out my goal, and my plan to attain it. Her only moment of hesitation came after I announced my determination to confront Sarney alone.

‘I’m afraid you’ll lose control,’ she’d announced. ‘That you’ll do something you can’t take back.’

‘Are you saying that I shouldn’t lay a hand on him?’

‘No, I’m saying you should hit him twice, once for each of us, then get the hell out of his house.’

Mission accomplished, I left without a backward glance.

Though we continued to reside in Rensselaer Village, Adele and I were apart for days on end. Our hours were long, our working lives entirely separate. Adele was currently employed by the Queens District Attorney in the Major Crimes Bureau, while I’d been transferred to the 123rd Precinct on the southern tip of Staten Island and assigned to work the four-to-midnight tour. As often as not, by the time I returned home it was closing in on two o’clock in the morning and Adele was a shadow curled beneath the covers in a darkened room.

We’d compensated for our separate lives in a number of ways, one of which unfolded before me as I came out of the locker room at the Y on Twenty-Third Street. Adele had taken up swimming and she now stood at the edge of the pool, poised to make that initial leap. The idea (which had been presented to me as a done deal) was for us to spend more time in each other’s company.

If Adele had asked me beforehand, I would have told her that swimming is a solitary pursuit, perhaps the most solitary of all sports. But I hadn’t been asked and I now watched as Adele’s knees bent, as she leaned toward the pool, as her arms swung back, as she sprang up and out, as the muscles in her thighs and buttocks flexed hard before releasing an instant after she hit the water.

After three months of co-habitation, I’d come to realize that I’d never penetrate Adele’s essential reserve, that she would always be mysterious. This wasn’t an impediment to our relationship; like most males, I have little interest in expressing my innermost feelings, assuming I have any worth expressing. For Adele, though, reticence was closely connected to her determination to avoid a trivial life. The idea, from her point of view, was not to restrict communication. She wished only that the messages we exchanged be non-verbal. It was more of a challenge that way.

I watched Adele swim a few laps, my eye now critical. She was in good shape and she had stamina, but even allowing for her inexperience, I knew she’d never be a swimmer. For Adele, the water was an obstacle to be overcome through an effort of will. For born swimmers, on the other hand, there is no physical separation between flesh and water until the very end of a swim. And it’s the flesh that fails.

My thoughts, when I finally got into the water that night, were not of whales and penguins. They were of my lover and her husband, Mel. I’d been wrong about Mel. He did have feelings, which he expressed in a series of phone calls that began while Adele and I were still working the David Lodge case. Of course he loved her. Of course he couldn’t bear the pain of their separation. He would do anything, make any changes to his habits and personality, in order to recapture her affections. Of course.

Though utterly useless, Mel’s pleadings were sincere enough. Losing Adele had carried him back to the very pain that had originally shut him down.

I remember raising the question of whether Mel’s frequent calls had crossed the line and become harassment. Adele had responded with a sly smile and a toss of her hair.