When I said I left early, I don't mean that I was going over to the station house to start my shift ahead of schedule. I work long enough hours as it is. It's just that I was tired of my own cooking and thought it would make a nice change to have a decent meal before going off to do battle with the Forces of Darkness for another night. So I left a note for my daughter Christine, who doesn't get up until sundown, and headed off for Luigi's, my favorite Italian restaurant. I would have invited Christine to come along, but she's kind of on a restricted diet.
They say that Luigi – known as "Large Luigi" to his pals, and with reason – used to be a button man for the Gambino family in New York, twenty years or so back. But he's a lawabiding citizen now, and I don't care how many guidos he popped back in the old days. All I know is, he makes one hell of a veal scallopini. You might say it's to die for.
I don't really like eating out alone. There was a time when I'd arrange to meet my partner for a pre-shift meal once in a while. Paul DiNapoli and I used to eat together at least once a week. After Big Paul died, my new partner, Karl Renfer, would sometimes have dinner with me. But in recent months, Karl's food preferences have changed, and he's not much interested in eating anything that doesn't have a letter in it – like O, A, or AB positive.
The most direct route to Luigi's from my place is through downtown. I figured the rush hour traffic would have slacked off by then, so it was probably fastest to take the direct route. Other times of the day, I'm better off sticking to the side streets – it's longer that way, but faster.
So, driving through downtown, I noticed a bunch of red and blue lights flashing on South Wyoming Avenue. At first, I thought it might be a fire, but then I saw the half-dozen black-and-white units parked in front of the Bank Towers, the tallest building in town – it's only fourteen stories, but this is Scranton, for Chrissake, not midtown Manhattan.
I hadn't heard the call that brought these cars here, because my police radio was turned off. I was off duty – it's allowed. And since I'd turned the radio off, it stands to reason that I should've just driven past the site of whatever shit was happening, and stay on course for Luigi's and the veal scallopini.
But curiosity, which has been known to be bad for felines, is often the downfall of cops, too. Little did I know that my own downfall was literally only a few minutes away.
I parked as close as I could get to the action, put my ID folder in my jacket pocket so that the badge was visible, and walked toward the yellow tape that was designed to separate the official personnel from the gawkers.
There was a uniformed officer standing just inside the crime scene tape, but his back was to me and his head craned upward, as if he was looking at the sky. I said, "Excuse me, Officer."
He turned around, already saying, "Listen, mister, you might as well – oh, hi, Sarge. Sorry." His name was Dietrich, but he looked about as Aryan as Michael Jordan. Short – just made the height limit, I bet – greasy black hair and pockmarked skin. But he wasn't a bad cop – if he was, I'd have known.
"What's going on?" I asked him.
"Aw, we got a jumper," he said. "Twelfth floor, on the ledge. See him?"
Now that I knew where to look, it wasn't hard to spot the solitary figure, his arms pressed flat against the concrete wall as if he was crucified there. He was at least two hundred feet away, and my eyes aren't what they used to be, but there was something…
A few dozen civilians were milling around, waiting for something exciting to happen. If the guy jumped, they'd probably be overjoyed – give them something different to talk about at dinner tonight. One of the gawkers had a set of opera glasses, of all things. He was looking at the solitary figure twelve stories up as if it was the second act of the fucking Barber of Seville. I stepped over to him and said, "Mind if I take a quick peek through those?"
Without looking away from the subject of his interest, he said, "Yeah, I mind. Fuck off."
I said, a little louder than before, "Would you prefer to rephrase that, or just spend a night in jail getting assfucked by a couple of guys named Bubba and Leroy?"
That brought the glasses down, all right. He turned to me, and I saw his eyes go from my face to the badge and back again. "Sorry, Officer. I didn't know… here." He handed me the glasses.
"Thank you."
I looked through the lenses and tried to orient myself. After a moment, I was able to locate the figure on the ledge and get my first good look at him. I looked for maybe fifteen seconds, muttered, "Aw, shit," then handed the opera glasses back to the douche bag they belonged to. I probably couldn't have got him a night in jail just for being a douche bag – fortunately, he didn't know that.
I went back to Dietrich. "Who's ranking officer on Scene?"
"That'd be Sergeant Noonan."
"You know where he is now?"
"Yeah, Sarge." Dietrich pointed. "He's just the other side of that squad car over there, I think."
"You mind letting me through? I wanna have a word with him."
"Sure, no prob."
Dietrich lifted up the crime scene tape and I ducked under it and headed in the direction he'd pointed to.
He was right. A few feet beyond the parked squad car, Sergeant Ron Noonan was on his police radio, not sounding too happy.
"No, sir, we can't get near him. None of my men is real anxious to go out on that ledge, and I can't order them to. Once the fire department gets here, it might be different, but now… Yes, sir. I will, sir. As soon as possible, sir. Noonan out."
He was replacing the radio on his belt when he noticed me. "Markowski," he said, with a careful nod. "What are you doing here? Nobody called for Occult Crimes that I know of."
"They didn't," I said. "I was driving by, and couldn't mind my own damn business. I'm not trying to get in your hair, Noonan, but there's something you ought to know, if you don't already.
"What?"
"Your jumper – he's a fairy."
He stared at me. "A fairy? But those faggoty things got wings, don't they? They can fly like a bird, supposedly. What's he doin' up there – fucking with us for laughs?"