John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

It was after nine in the morning by the time she had woken from a drunken sleep, washed, taken a couple of Tylenol for the hangover, telephoned for a cab, walked the four flights down from her apartment and was waiting on the pavement. She saw them in her makeup mirror as she was checking her mascara, two black kids no more than thirteen or fourteen; not small, though. You had to know the streets to read them: a downward glance exchanged, a whisper, a nod toward her handbag. She waited until they were nearly upon her in a run, then turned, kneed one in the groin and with an open palm thrust straight fingers into the other’s windpipe. She had to step over them (one writhing, the other coughing, both amazed) to reach the cab that was drawing up to the curb. The driver barely stopped moving for her to get in, then accelerated away while she was still closing the door.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” The driver had a thick accent that Moira could not quite place. “I saw from across the street.”

She scowled. “Kids around here, you know-”

“I mean, they coulda had guns. Even if they didn’t have them, they could get them. Now they know where you live.”

Moira smiled. She never waited outside her own apartment house. The address she’d given to the taxi company was ten doors away. Streetcraft, you never really forgot it. She was pleased with herself. Love gave you the strength to fight back; experience gave you the technique. Come to think of it, forty-nine didn’t need to be such a bad age for a woman. I’ve found a man worth fighting for.

“What accent is that?” she asked the driver, to be polite.

“Georgian. Georgia, ex-USSR, not USA.”

Russian to her. When she was very young, the cabdrivers had sometimes been Russian, refugees from communism. Now they were Russians again, refugees from the new capitalism. It made you feel as if you’d lived through a condensed historical cycle in which everything had happened except civilization. She’d tell Charlie; he appreciated that kind of talk. They had a faxual relationship. She forgot which of them had thought up that bad joke. Love was weird. A daughter dead again, a hangover like a hatchet through the skull, about to visit a terminally ill ex-husband-and she felt terrific because she had a fight worth winning. Trust me, Charlie, I can explain. And don’t get killed, okay?

She talked to the driver about the Bronx-these days some of it was still like a circle of hell so famous they were selling tickets in purgatory-and looked out the window as they crossed the bridge into Manhattan. Traffic on the Harlem River crawled over slatecolored water shading up to light gray where the sun penetrated the clouds. Something about boats and rivers that didn’t change the way cars and roads did. She’d been proud of this city once, still was up to a point. There were angles and perspectives, traditions even, that were timeless and gave the illusion that you were part of something of permanent value. But the truth was, its soul was shriveling. It was dirty. She’d watched while bluntness gave way to rudeness gave way to hostility gave way to homicidal rage, all in about thirty years. When brutality became the only effective means of communication with your fellow citizen, it was time to get out. Hong Kong? You’d better do some explaining first, girl.

The daydream stopped with the cab at Mount Sinai. When she told them what room Mario was in, the reception became tangibly more polite. She stood in the elevator, fuming just a little with an old rage: Captain in the NYPD and he gets a five-thousand-dollar-a-night room in Mount Sinai to die in.

The anger faded, though, when she saw him. The dextrose IV drip that stood by the bed on a pole wasn’t hooked up to his body; the limpness of the plastic tube hanging down from it was a kind of analogue for the limpness of his two arms, which lay in parallel on the covers. She averted her eyes while she tried to catch up with the devastation that three short weeks had wrought on that fine body.

She bit her lip as she approached the bed. This was going to be more difficult than she’d expected. Damn it, women were different from men, no matter what they said. More than two decades before this womanizing crook had reached her, and she still didn’t know how to forget that; any man would have been able to kill that soft spot she felt opening somewhere in her guts, but she couldn’t. She sat down in one of the chairs by the bed. He’d lost a lot of his hair too.

“Thanks for coming.” The voice was thin and faint, the smile forced. She could see from his eyes, though, that his mind was still alert.

“I’m not going to say you look terrific, Mario.”

He lowered his eyes. “Just a scratch.” She smiled.

“I forgot to bring you flowers. I meant to; then two kids tried to mug me, and I forgot.”

“They still alive, those two kids?”

They laughed then, and tears came to her eyes. That had always been his secret, underneath the charm and good looks: It was the humor that women came back for. And maybe it showed a measure of courage, after all, to be joking at this stage.

“You were fast and mean, worse than any man. Everyone said so.” He put out a hand for her to hold. It was hard to believe how much that small movement seemed to cost him.

“I’ve slowed down a lot.”

Coletti shook his head. “I don’t believe it, not you. If I’d had one ounce of sense, I would never have let you go.”

“Don’t do this.”

“You were right, and I was wrong. The mob-” He tried to make a gesture like spitting. She nodded. “I understand. I don’t approve, but I understand. I’m not twenty anymore, I know how things happen to people. You couldn’t help being that kind of Italian-maybe.”

Coletti shook his head. He spoke with agonizing slowness. “Don’t soft-soap me. I had a choice, like anyone. You know what, my uncle was in the hospital, I was twenty-five, they’d shot him old style outside his favorite restaurant on Perry Street. It could have been a screenplay, it was that corny. When I sat on the chair near his bed, I told him I was gonna join. I said to avenge him, but I meant because I needed that machismo. He pointed to a bunch of roses they’d sent him in a vase. He said: ‘What you talk of is like that rose. It is very beautiful, but it can make you bleed.’ ”

Moira looked around the room. Sure enough, there were small mountains of flowers against one wall. Roses too. She sighed.

“Mario, honey, I don’t think I ever told you what I really had against you being in the mob.”

“It’s evil. You were a good Catholic. You were right.”

“Naw, I was just being holier than thou; it’s an old Irish debating trick. What I really couldn’t stand was the mob wives. So boring. The whole thing, I have to tell you, just bored the pants off me. You know, when your great-great-great-uncle went to see his uncle in his hospital bed way back in Palma di Montichiero when men were men, his uncle told that same story about the rose. It’s even in books now, Mario. It’s old.”

The ravaged face on the pillow creased up in a chuckle. “You still know how to hurt.” With effort he turned to look into her eyes. “Listen, the scam with the phony dental records? It worked. That’s how come I can die in peace. Don’t tell a fucking soul or they’ll waste you and her both.”

The effort had exhausted him. His head sank deeper into the pillow, a contented smile on his face. Moira swallowed hard.

“Why, that’s great, Mario. Gonna tell me the details now? You know how an old cop like me gets to be an evidence junkie. And I really didn’t appreciate being the mule, you know. If she hadn’t pleaded with me over the phone to do exactly as you told me-”