James Patterson - The Quickie

"Nope. Not on my watch."

Through the open door between cars, I could see a hand sticking out of a sea of shattered glass. Blood was flecked on a white sleeve.

"What about Victor?" I said. "You…"

Mike put a finger to my lips.

"Fired on him after he shot at me. You remember what happened, partner?"

I winced. I couldn't believe it. Somehow I'd gotten from my normal life to here.

"That's the way it happened. He shot and then I shot," Mike repeated. "That way and no other way."

I nodded, looked away from Mike. "I hear you. I got it, Mike."

"They're here," a frantic voice called from somewhere outside the subway car. "They're in here."

"My dad was killed on a train just like this one," Mike said in a tired voice. "Just like this one."

Outside came the chop-chop of an approaching helicopter, then the sound of barking dogs.

"He used to take me and my brother fishing out on City Island," Mike went on. "My little brother was so hyper he flipped the boat on us one time. I thought my dad was going to drown him, but instead he just laughed. That's how he was. How I'll always remember him. With us hugging his big neck as he laughed like hell, swimming us ashore."

An awful sound ripped from the back of Mike's throat. Thirty, forty years' worth of grief.

"I always knew something like this would happen," he said. "Sooner or later."

I patted my partner on the elbow.

Then EMTs and cops and DEA agents all came flooding into the shot-up train car.

I DEFINITELY WASN'T DYING TODAY. It turned out I didn't need stitches, so the EMTs cleaned my wound, applied pressure to stop the bleeding from my cheek and left ear, and fixed me up with a small bandage. I sat on the edge of the ambulance, watching the fuss and thinking that I easily could have been killed in this train yard.

Trahan had finally called the Emergency Service Unit, the NYPD's SWAT guys, and a wagon circle of their diesel trucks surrounded the train yard's wheelhouse. There were K-9 units, aviation hovering, a platoon of detectives and uniforms. After Mike saw me go down, he'd called in a 10-13, "cop in dire need," and it seemed everyone on the force, except maybe the harbor patrol, had responded.

Lieutenant Keane hopped down from the train car where Victor Ordonez was still lying and came over.

"You did real good," he said. "The serial number on the gun beside our dearly departed friend in there matches. It was Scott's. Just like we thought. The Ordonezes took him out."

I shook my head and genuinely couldn't believe what had happened. In a weird way, it had actually worked out better than I could have hoped, or dreamed. Everything was going to be okay now. Despite the stalling, the omissions, the lies.

"Any sign of Mark, the pilot brother?" I asked.

"None so far," my boss said. "But don't worry, he'll turn up."

"Where's Mike?" I asked.

My boss rolled his eyes.

"IAB. Rat squad practically got here before the ESU. You'd think you getting hit might make a difference to them. Those shit-shoveling assholes think you shot yourself and dumped the gun maybe."

I kept my breathing normal, but only through intense concentration.

Meanwhile, my boss rubbed my back like a boxer's cornerman before standing him back up to fight.

"Why don't you tell this kid to get you over to Jacobi before the commissioner shows up. After the hospital, go home and unplug the phone. I'll keep the sewer rats away until you catch your breath. Give me a call sometime tomorrow. You need anything right now?"

I shook my head. I couldn't even begin to think of an answer to that question.

"You did real good, kid," my boss said before he left. "Made us all proud."

I sat there, watching him walk away.

The department had their shooter.

Paul was probably off the hook.

Brooke and her kids would be taken care of, as they ought to be.

I watched the blue NYPD helicopter skim over the razor wire at the rail yard's fence, then sail into the bright blue sky. Out of the corner of one eye I saw the CSU camera lights pop in the glassless window of the train car.

Everything had worked out okay, hadn't it? This was the end of the mess.

So why was I crying?

IT WAS SUNNY and cool the following Monday morning.

Standing at attention out on the steps of St. Michael's on 41st Street in Woodside, I was glad for the warmth of my dress blues, and for the body heat coming from the officers around me.

Though there were maybe three or four thousand cops on the cordoned-off street, waiting for the arrival of Scott's hearse, the only sound was the snapping of the honor guard's flag; the only movement, the billow of its bright stars and stripes.

The rattle of snare drums began at the first tolling of St. Michael's bells. From around the corner of the stone church came a forty-member contingent of the NYPD Emerald Society, the bagpipes silenced, the drummers sounding a funeral march on black-draped drums.

Behind them came a seemingly endless two-by-two line of motorcycle police, their engines crackling as they rode at parade speed.

When the sleek black body of the hearse finally slid into view, you could almost hear the lumps forming in thousands of throats. Presidents don't get put in the ground with more heart-wrenching class than an NYPD cop killed in the line of duty.

My muscles in my jaw stood out as I prevented myself from shaking, moving, breaking down completely.

From the limo that pulled to a stop behind the hearse, Brooke Thayer finally appeared. She was holding her baby and her four-year-old daughter.

A member of the honor guard suddenly broke rank and leaned into the limousine with an extended hand. Then Scott's two-year-old son finally emerged, wearing a black suit.

A black suit and his father's eight-point policeman's cap.

The Mass was excruciating. Scott's mother broke down during the second reading and his sister during the eulogy.

It was even worse when Roy Khuong, Scott's oldest friend and partner, told a story about how Scott had saved his life during a gun battle. He finished it by turning from the pulpit toward the crucifix and saying with a simple yet startling conviction, "I love you, Scott."

How I got through the rest of it, I'm not sure. People can survive amazing things. Look at that hiker who cut off his own arm with a pocketknife when it got stuck under a boulder. We are capable of anything, aren't we?

Well, I am. I know I am now.

They buried Scott in Calvary Cemetery on a high hill overlooking an unobstructed Manhattan skyline.

The mayor of New York gestured toward the city as he finished his graveside words.

"We ask that Scott do what he did so well in life. Watch over us, Scott. We will never forget your sacrifice."

Brooke embraced me like a vise after I had dropped my rose among the hundreds that buried the casket's varnished lid. She touched the bandage on the side of my face.

"I know what you did for me," she whispered. "What you did for my family. I can sleep now. Thank you for that, Detective."

I pulled the black lip of my cap even more tightly over my eyes to shield them, nodded stupidly, and then moved along.

I SAT ALONE IN MY CAR before leaving Calvary. I could see the flower-covered casket in my rearview.

When the skirl of the bagpipes started up, for a moment I again caught a heady gust of cologne and rain and grass. Felt again the holy, fevered heat of Scott's body in his bedroom. The strength of his jaw against my bare skin. I banished the forbidden thoughts like the demons they were as "Amazing Grace" sailed up above the gravestones.

Mistake, I reminded myself.