Serpe bristled. “I.A.B. sacrificed my career and my family, so the department didn’t have to-”
“Calm down!”
“Fuck you!” Serpe got up to leave. Now they were turning heads.
“Look, Serpe, I see you’re pissed, but sit back down. I’m asking you, please.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s lay the cards down here, right now,” Healy said. “Forget the dead snitches, even the cop, for the time being. You knew Abruzzi was using for years. You never came forward. Okay, maybe I understand that. He was your best friend, your partner. But when he started skimming coke and money off the top… Well, there’s a point where your loyalty to the department, to the other men and women who carry the shield, becomes bigger than your loyalty to your friend and partner.
“The truth is, Serpe, you fucked yourself. Now, if in your heart of hearts, you think I’m full of shit, well, stand up and walk away. We can go back to the way things were before last Saturday; you can put that chip back on your shoulder and I can look at you like any other scumbag cop who disgraced his uniform. You can be like that dickweed Hoskins and go on singing the praises of St. Ralphy till the cows come home.”
Joe Serpe didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He remembered the call. Rosemarie, frantic on the other end of the line. She couldn’t get the basement door open and Ralphy wouldn’t answer her. He knew he should just let her call 911 or he should do it for her, but he drove over to his former partner’s house that one last time. It was the Sunday before Ralphy’s sentencing hearing. Prison is no place for most people. It’s worse for a cop.
Rosemarie, white and shaking with fear, met him at the garage door. Rosemarie, who was godmother to his son. Rosemarie, who had spit in his face the last time they saw one another. She latched onto his forearm so tightly it felt like a prayer. She could not speak. He unfurled her fingers and told her to go upstairs.
Joe tested the basement door. It wouldn’t budge. He pressed his shoulder to it. It was barricaded. He didn’t bother calling to Ralph. In the garage, he found the pump action shotgun clipped beneath the workbench. Ralphy kept it just in case. Joe kept one in his garage as well. Along the way, most cops get threatened with this or that. In Narcotics, you take those threats more seriously.
Joe aimed the shotgun at where he guessed the hinges on the other side of the door would be. Cha-ching. Bang! Cha-ching. Bang! The door did not fall immediately away. He put the shotgun down and pressed his palms against the top of the door and pushed. The door swung up and smacked into his shins. Christ! Ralphy had moved the pool table against the door. Joe pushed the door onto the pool table slate and climbed over it. Ralphy was in his favorite recliner, the back of his head spread over the chair and the wall behind.
Remembering that day he found Ralphy was like a shiv in the back, and he let Healy know he wasn’t pleased.
“Why, goddammit?” he barked.
“Why what?” Healy asked.
“Why now, after all these years? Why tell me this?”
“My wife died six months ago.”
“That’s too bad, but what’s that got to do with-”
“Makes you rethink things,” Healy admitted, “when you lose somebody close.”
Joe thought of Vinny. “What happened?”
“Pancreatic cancer. She went quick.”
“Sorry.”
“Mary, that was her name. She was brave about it, but I could see in her eyes she felt it was so unfair. I wished she would have said it just once. Then maybe.”
“You’d be able to live with it.”
“Exactly.”
“My brother, Vinny-”
“The fireman?” Healy remembered him from court. A big, quiet fellow, but always there.
“Yeah, he died at Ground Zero.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I guess there’s a lot of shit we carry around with us,” Joe said.
The awkward silence returned, but it was worse now. What was the protocol? Who would leave first? Was there anything more that needed to be said? Joe Serpe made the first move. He threw a five dollar bill on the table and stood to go.
“I guess I appreciate your telling me,” he said, unable to look Healy in the eye.
“Thanks for hearing me out.”
“Should we shake hands?”
Healy smiled up at Joe. “I don’t suppose it would kill us.”
They shook, but to Joe it still felt slightly like treason. Scars may lighten, but never vanish. Healy lingered. He knew there was one more thing he should have said, that he would someday have to say to Joe Serpe, but the talk had turned to Mary and Vinny Serpe. He had missed his moment. Still, he hoped he would be able to sleep a bit better tonight.
Monday, February 23rd, 2004
T he flowers had turned black with truck soot, withered or frozen in the corner of the oil yard. The people from the group home had come the day after the kid’s funeral and laid them out as a memorial to Cain. It was a recent phenomenon, this building of makeshift memorials-flowers and crosses at the roadside wherever an icy patch and oak tree had conspired to introduce an immortal teenager to his Maker. To Joe Serpe’s way of thinking, a memorial was no more out of place at the scene of a murder than at the scene of an accident. They were equal wastes of time. He was quite sure God paid them little mind.
Even the bits and strands of yellow crime scene tape that remained had aged years in the week gone by since he and Frank had climbed into the tank and found Cain’s body. The cops had impounded the International and it was unclear when it would be returned. In a bizarre twist that only modern life can produce, Frank now needed that truck more than ever. Mayday Fuel was benefiting from what politicians would call the “sympathy vote.” The company’s phone was ringing off the hook.
Neighboring oil companies had picked up the slack, making Mayday’s deliveries until Frank could get his trucks rolling again. It had happened that way after 9/11. Some local oil companies were partially owned and manned by city firemen. Many were completely decimated. No one in the oil business had been wholly untouched by the events of that day. Some had drivers, like Joe Serpe, who’d lost relatives.
Joe went over to the makeshift memorial, kneeling down to try and read some of the cards Cain’s friends and housemates had left behind. He didn’t get the chance.
“Any news?” Steve Scanlon wanted to know.
Scanlon, a retired city fireman, owned Black Gold Oil. It was a smaller operation than Mayday’s and Steve kept his two trucks parked in the next yard over from Frank’s. Though they were competitors, proximity and terrorism had made allies, if not pals, of them. Steve’s partner and several of his friends had fallen victim that terrible day. Frank had volunteered to do all of Black Gold’s stops during the weeks following 9/11. Because of the cold weather and the small size of his fleet, Scanlon had been unable to return the favor this past week.
“No nothing,” Joe said. “The cops have a suspect, but they can’t find him.”
“Hear about the murder over by Babcock last night?” Scanlon asked.
“Another one, huh?”
“Yeah, another kid. Paper don’t say much, no details or anything. You think maybe there’s a connection?”
Joe was unwilling to speculate. “I don’t know what to think anymore. Let’s let the cops do their job and see what they come up with.”
“I guess you’re right,” Scanlon said unconvincingly. “Busy?”
“As a motherfucker.”
“Then I’ll let you get started. Be safe out there.”
“Yeah, you too, Stevie.”
“All right then.”
Scanlon walked quietly away. Joe was glad of it. Not only did he have a crazy day ahead of him, he had decided-in spite of his words to the contrary-that the cops had had enough time to do their work.
Joe was going to stick his nose in where maybe it didn’t belong. He owed Cain that much and, unless some horrible fate suddenly befell Mulligan, he had nothing left to lose.