“I got a buck says he goes in less than ninety seconds,” Lefty said, holding his birthday watch up to the light. “He knows this one’s a hot number.”
“I’m not up for the hunt tonight,” B.O. said.
“Come on,” Lefty and I whined simultaneously.
We’d been tracking Ernie K. all summer. The idea was to make a record of his on-duty romantic trysts and somehow use it against him. Our plan was to send an anonymous but very specific letter to NYPD Internal Affairs and get him transferred to the ass end of Staten Island, or further, if anything was further than that. But B.O. got cold feet, afraid that somehow it would get back that he was involved and indirectly hurt his dad. He said his dad always talked about how the department hated rats. Cops didn’t turn in cops.
“We’ll turn his ass in,” I said. “Your name won’t even come up.”
“Naw, I don’t mean that,” he said. “It’s just that my stomach isn’t good tonight. We must have gotten some bad beer.”
“Beer is never bad,” Lefty said. “Food sometimes, beer never.”
The sweet smell of anisette cookies wafted up from the Stella D’Oro bakery. When I looked up to breathe it all in, Ernie K. was gone.
“It’s Howdy Doody time,” Lefty said.
It took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark. B.O. continued to express doubts, but Lefty and I kept moving. We knew Ernie took his prizes on an L-shaped route: east behind the mansion to the nature trail, then north past the lake and along Tibbetts Brook. Very romantic on a moonlit night, especially if you can ignore the sounds of the train and the roar of cars on the Major Deegan Expressway. Eventually he’d get to the black and silent heart of the park, where we were headed.
Since we knew where they’d wind up we took a diagonal route. Straight across the parade ground, the soccer and rugby fields, to the cross-country course. We all ran high school cross-country and knew the world class course by heart. Across the flat to the cow path, then a sharp left and up through the woods, up along old Mohegan Indian hunting trails. It was a steep, rocky incline to the the top of Cemetery Hill, 150 feet above sea level. B.O. stopped twice to throw up. Not that unusual. Even sober runners do it on Cemetery Hill.
The guidebooks call it Vault Hill, because Stephanus Van Cortlandt, the first native born mayor of New York, built a vault there in 1776 to hide the city’s records from the British. Later it became the family burial grounds. Everybody around here calls it Cemetery Hill.
We ducked through a hole in the fence, then weaved between the old tombstones, all of us sweating and gasping. My pulse was thumping in my neck and I was close to tossing some belly bombs myself. We crawled the last ten yards, the wet grass cooling us down. At the edge, we overlooked a small circular clearing against the hill, hidden by trees. We figured it was once an Indian camp that the guidebooks missed. Now it was Ernie K.’s love nook. We weren’t there ten minutes when we heard a woman laughing.
“I told you he’d be in a hurry tonight,” Lefty said, as he checked his Timex with the glowing green hands and recorded the exact time for the accurate records of our planned indictment of a bastard cop. Shhh! B.O. reminded. We were above them, but only about thirty yards away. Our chins against the turf, we all clasped our hands in front of our faces, to block the sound of our breathing. Only our eyes showed over our clasped hands.
We were far enough from roads and highways to hear the sound of crickets. The moon was close to full, so the place was lit like a stage play. We’d be able to see them better, but if we weren’t careful, they could definitely see us. Then we heard twigs and brush breaking, and Connie snorting. We spotted the yellow calvary stripe on Ernie K.’s uniform pants. At least the stripe was cool. Only mounted cops were allowed to wear it. Connie stopped in the middle of the clearing. Ernie K. twisted around, lifted the woman off the horse, and slowly let her down. The guy was powerful, I had to admit that.
“It’s her,” Lefty whispered in my ear.
“Who?” I said.
“But don’t say anything to…” he said, pointing in B.O.’s direction.
What the hell is that about? I wondered.
The redhead stumbled around, more bombed than I originally thought. She put her shoes in her floppy purse and began dancing like a gypsy in the movies. Arms waving, hips swaying. Ernie K. tied Connie to a tree, as the dancing redhead began unbuttoning her blouse. I didn’t know a woman like this, how could Lefty?
“Dance with me, Ernie,” she said, reaching around to unsnap her bra. Then she danced and danced, and stripped and stripped. Tossing her clothes onto her floppy purse. Until she was bare ass. Totally bare ass.
I wish I could say we left around this point, because this part is a little embarrassing for good Catholic boys like ourselves. But no one would believe me. We never left. We always stayed to the bitter end. Give us a break; we were sixteen years old and this was the most skin we’d seen outside of National Geographic. Besides, most of the sex in Ernie K.’s nook was hidden by tree branches or blankets. Really. Well, usually. But not this night; this was Loew’s big-screen big, plus Technicolor and Cinemascope. All we needed was popcorn.
“Bridget Fahey,” Lefty whispered.
“No shit?” I said, way too loud, but the redhead’s louder singing drowned it out. I’d heard about Crazy Bridget, but couldn’t remember ever seeing her before. She’d left for California years ago, leaving only her reputation for wildness behind. The Fahey’s lived in Lefty’s building, so I believed him. And I figured if I didn’t remember her, then B.O. probably didn’t either. B.O. was the problem. The part I didn’t know how to handle. How could I tell him that this bare ass redhead was the older sister of Margaret Mary, the love of his life? But Bridget was already naked and dancing in the moonlight. The damage was done. I figured any notification could wait. Besides, the nuns always told us that some things are better left unsaid.
Leather creaked as Ernie K. removed his gun belt and hooked it over Connie. He sat on a stump and began removing the high boots. This was special. Sometimes he didn’t bother taking his boots off, but crazy Bridget was singing in Spanish and shoving her ass in his face as she pulled off his boots, like some drunken scullery maid in an Errol Flynn picture.
B.O. and Lefty were silent, and eerily still. I think we all sensed this was going to be a memorable night. For Crazy Bridget it could have been just an average night. Who knows? She bumped and grinded in the Bronx moonlight, imploring Ernie K. to hurry. The older guys in our neighborhood always smiled when they talked about Bridget. After she left, her younger sisters were kept close to the house, rarely straying from the sight of Mrs. Fahey, ever-present in her third-floor window. Lefty said that cloistered nuns had more freedom than Margaret Mary Fahey. But he never said it in front of B.O.
Naked himself, Ernie K. stepped away from the tree stump and began an awkward, limping dance. It was obvious his bare feet were too tender for God’s pebbled earth. He moved in a slow yet palsied twist. Chubby Checker would have died of embarrassment. Finally Bridget put him out of his misery and moved toward him, arms spread wide, shaking her alabaster breasts. Moving right up against him. The slap of skin on skin. Ernie K. stopped dancing and wrapped her in his arms. B.O. pulled his hands down from his mouth, to keep his glasses from fogging up.
“Over there, over there,” Bridget cried, and pointed to a grassy spot right below us. She pulled Ernie K. by his arm. To right below us. We could have spit on them. With Bridget’s insistence the cop carefully laid himself down on the small patch of grass. But no sooner had he gotten down… she sprung up.