He was assigned to the big one, in the thick of the action, where both of us belonged. I should have been with him. I was Anti-Crime, for God’s sake, I should have been assigned—
Or should I? Did I really want to spend my work nights prowling New York’s underground skid row, trying to get information from men and women too zonked out to take care of legs gone gangren-ous, whose lives stretched from one bottle of Cool Breeze to another?
Hell, yes. If it would bring me one step closer to that gold shield, I’d interview all the devils in hell. On my day off.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.
What did Lomax think — that mingling with winos would topple me off the wagon? That I’d ask for a hit from some guy’s short dog and pass out in the Bleecker Street station? Was that why he’d kept me off the big one and had me walking a rookie through routine Graffiti Patrol?
Was I getting paranoid, or was lack of alcohol rotting my brain?
Manny and I had gone to our respective locker rooms to suit up.
Plain clothes — and I do mean plain. Long johns first; damp winter had a way of seeping down into the tunnels and into your very blood. Then a pair of denims the Goodwill would have turned down.
Thick wool socks, fisherman’s duck boots, a black turtleneck, and a photographer’s vest with lots of pockets. A black knit hat pulled tight over my red hair.
Then the gear: flashlight, more important than a gun on this assignment, handcuffs, ticket book, radio, gun, knife. A slapper, on oversize blackjack, hidden in the rear pouch of the vest. They were against regulations; I’d get at least a command discipline if caught with it, but experience told me I’d rather have it than a gun going against a pack of kids.
I’d forgotten how heavy the stuff was; I felt like a telephone line-man.
I looked like a cat burglar.
Delgado and I met at the door. It was obvious he’d never done vandal duty before. His tan chinos were immaculate, and his hiking boots didn’t look waterproof. His red plaid flannel shirt was neither warm enough nor the right dark color. With his Latin good looks, he would have been stunning in an L. L. Bean catalog, but after ten minutes in a subway tunnel, he’d pass for a chimney sweep.
“Where are we going?” he asked, his tone a shade short of sullen.
And there was no respectful “Sergeant” at the end of the question, either. This boy needed a lesson in manners.
I took a malicious delight in describing our destination. “The Black Hole of Calcutta,” I replied cheerfully, explaining that I meant the unused lower platform of the City Hall station downtown. The oldest, darkest, dankest spot in all Manhattan. If there were any subway alligators, they definitely lurked in the Black Hole.
The expression on Probationary Transit Police Officer Manuel Delgado’s face was all I could have hoped for. I almost — but not quite — took pity on the kid when I added, “And after that, we’ll try one or two of the ghost stations.”
“Ghost stations?” Now he looked really worried. “What are those?”
This kid wasn’t just a rookie; he was a suburbanite. Every New Yorker knew about ghost stations, abandoned platforms where trains no longer stopped. They were still lit, though, and showed up in the windows of passing trains like ghost towns on the prairie. They were ideal canvases for the aspiring artists of the underground city.
I explained on the subway, heading downtown. The car, which rattled under the city streets like a tin lizzie, was nearly riderless at 1:00 a.m. A typical Monday late hour.
The passengers were one Orthodox Jewish man falling asleep over his Hebrew Bible, two black women, both reading thick paperback romances, the obligatory pair of teenagers making out in the last seat, and an old Chinese woman.
I didn’t want to look at Delgado. More than once I’d seen a fleeting smirk on his face when I glanced his way. It wasn’t enough for in-subordination; the best policy was to ignore it.
I let the rhythm of the subway car lull me into a litany of the A.A.
slogans I was trying to work into my life: EASY DOES IT. KEEP IT
SIMPLE, SWEETHEART. ONE DAY AT A TIME. I saw them in my mind the way they appeared on the walls at meetings, illuminated, like old Celtic manuscripts.
This night I had to take one hour at a time. Maybe even one minute at a time. My legs felt wobbly. I was a sailor too long from the sea.
I’d lost my subway legs. I felt white and thin, as though I’d had several major organs removed.
Then the drunk got on. One of the black women got off, the other one looked up at the station sign and went back to her book, and the drunk got on.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk.
ONE DAY AT A TIME. EASY DOES IT.
I stiffened. The last thing I wanted was to react in front of Delgado, but I couldn’t help it. The sight of an obviously intoxicated man stumbling into our subway car brought the knowing smirk back to his face.
There was one at every A.A. meeting. No matter how nice the neighborhood, how well-dressed most people attending the meeting were, there was always a drunk. A real drunk, still reeling, still reeking of cheap booze. My sponsor, Margie, said they were there for a reason, to let us middle-class, recovery-oriented types remember that “there but for the grace of God…”
I cringed whenever I saw them, especially if the object lesson for the day was a woman.
“Hey, kid,” the drunk called out to Delgado, in a voice as inappropriately loud as a deaf man’s, “how old are you?” The doors closed and the car lurched forward; the drunk all but fell into his seat.
“Old enough,” Many replied, flashing the polite smile a well-brought-up kid saves for his maiden aunt.
The undertone wasn’t so pretty. Little sidelong glances at me that said, See how nice I am to this old fart. See what a good boy I am. I like drunks, Sergeant Gallagher.
To avoid my partner’s face, I concentrated on the subway ads as though they contained all the wisdom of the Big Book. “Here’s to birth defects,” proclaimed a pregnant woman about to down a glass of beer. Two monks looked to heaven, thanking God in Spanish for the fine quality of their brandy.
Weren’t there any signs on this damn train that didn’t involve booze? Finally an ad I could smile at: the moon in black space; on it, someone had scrawled, “Alice Kramden was here, 1959.”
My smile faded as I remembered Sal Minucci’s raised fist, his Jackie Gleason growl. “One of these days, Gallagher, you’re goin’
to the moon. To the moon!”
It wasn’t just the murder case I missed. It was Sal. The easy partnership of the man who’d put up with my hangovers, my depres-sions, my wild nights out with the boys.
“Y’know how old I am?” the drunk shouted, almost falling over in his seat. He righted himself. “Fifty-four in September,” he announced, an expectant look on his face.
After a quick smirk in my direction, Manny gave the guy what he wanted. “You don’t look it,” he said. No trace of irony appeared on his Spanish altar boy’s face. It was as though he’d never said the words that were eating into me like battery-acid A.A. coffee.
The sudden jab of anger that stabbed through me took me by surprise, especially since it wasn’t directed at Delgado. No, you don’t look it, I thought. You look more like seventy. White wisps of hair over a bright pink scalp. The face more than pink; a slab of raw calves’
liver. Road maps of broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks. Thin white arms and matchstick legs under too-big trousers. When he lifted his hand, ropy with bulging blue veins, it fluttered like a pennant in the breeze.
Like Uncle Paul’s hands.