“Can I hold it?”
Rizzo extended the badge, pressing it into Frankie’s hand.
“As a matter of fact,” Rizzo said, “you should hold it. After all, this is official police business you’re helping us with. Like a deputy, sort of.”
Priscilla watched as Frankie raised the badge tentatively to his eye level, studying it, his face glowing with happiness. She pursed her lips and shook her head slightly, saddened. She glanced at Rizzo, but his face, neutral, remained on Frankie.
Frankie lowered the badge, holding it tightly in both hands.
“I went to Shea Stadium once,” he said, some pleasurable memory swirling to the forefront of his thoughts. “When it used to be there.”
“You root for the Mets, Frankie?” Rizzo asked.
Now Frankie appeared confused. “Mets?” he said, frowning. “I think so.” After a pause, his smile returned. “Mets,” he repeated. “They play baseball.”
Rizzo nodded, glancing at Priscilla. She gave a small shrug in acknowledgment of the look, but remained silent.
Aware that stress could trigger a seizure in the man-child, Rizzo very gradually moved the conversation to the business at hand.
“So, Frankie, were you here last Thursday?” he asked. “Last Thursday night, around nine-thirty?”
Frankie frowned, dropping his eyes to the badge he held, running his finger across the embossed surface.
“I don’t know,” he said flatly.
Priscilla leaned forward, laying a gentle hand on Frankie’s right shoulder.
“Do you know what day today is, Frankie?” she asked.
He raised his eyes from the badge to meet hers. He looked confused.
“It isn’t day,” he said with an assertive shake of his head. “It’s night.”
Priscilla nodded. “Yes, Frankie, of course. You’re right. It is night. Do you know what night this is?”
His lips turned down, and he dropped his eyes from her. For a moment, shame sat heavily on his shoulders, but then, suddenly, he brightened. He laid Rizzo’s badge carefully on his lap, then rummaged through his pants pockets.
Pulling out a chainless pocket watch, he smiled up at Priscilla and pointed to its large, round white face, the Roman numerals contrasting in bold black relief.
“When this hand is here,” he said, pointing carefully to the crystal, “and this hand is here, I go home.”
Priscilla glanced at Rizzo. Turning to Frankie, she smiled kindly and patted his shoulder.
“Good, Frankie,” she said. “That’s very good.”
Frankie smiled proudly and returned the watch to his pocket, again taking Rizzo’s badge in his hands.
Rizzo ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “Okay, Frankie,” he said gently. “Let me ask you this: Did anything happen over there? Over by that corner there?” Rizzo pointed a casual thumb over his shoulder, indicating the intersection. “Did anything bad happen over there that you can remember?”
Tension began to enter the man’s eyes. Frankie glanced over his shoulder to Priscilla. She smiled and gently squeezed his arm.
“It’s okay, Frankie,” she said. “You can tell us.”
He swallowed hard, glancing once more at Rizzo’s badge, gripping it more tightly, then began to rock gently back and forth, his breathing becoming shallow.
“I didn’t do it,” he said softly.
Rizzo nodded, leaning closer.
“Of course you didn’t, Frankie,” he said. “But… did you see it?”
Frankie looked quickly from one detective to the other, then back to Rizzo’s badge, then, lastly, into Priscilla’s face.
“One of the bad kids,” he said to her. “One of the gang kids. He pushed the people from China. They fell down. He ran away. I think
… I think… he took their money. Their money for food.”
“What’s his name, Frankie?” Rizzo asked gently.
Frankie’s face saddened. “I don’t know. I don’t know all their names.”
“Whose names, Frankie?” Rizzo pressed.
“The bad kids,” Frankie said softly. “The Rebels.”
He again looked from one cop to the other. Slowly, a smile came back to his lips.
“You use money to buy food,” he said, proud of this wonderous knowledge. “You use money to buy food.”
Rizzo slammed the car door closed and slipped the key into the ignition.
“Most people,” he said, twisting the key and bringing the engine to life, “get made heroes by death. Not some great thing they do. Just by death.”
Priscilla tugged at her shoulder harness, searching for the buckle in the darkness of the interior.
“What?” she said.
Rizzo shrugged, scanning the sideview mirror for traffic.
“We all know we’re gonna die eventually, Cil, but we still get up every day, go to work, play with the kids, brush our teeth, pay our taxes, all that shit. Even though we know we’re gonna die. That’s what makes us heroes, knowing that death is waitin’ for us.”
He turned to Priscilla. “But Frankie, he probably don’t even know. Doesn’t really know he’s gonna die. But that kid, he’s a hero anyway. Even outside his own little fucked up universe, he’s a real fuckin’ hero.”
Priscilla smiled. “Joe, that don’t even make sense, but, I gotta tell ya, I know exactly what you mean.”
Rizzo nodded, turning his attention back to driving, easing the Impala from the curb.
“You ever have some kid ask to see your badge, hold your badge, and then not ask to see your gun in the next breath? Ever?” He shook his head sadly. “That kid Frankie never even thought to ask about the gun. It don’t interest him.” Again Rizzo shook his head. “Maybe all of us shoulda got less fuckin’ oxygen at birth. Maybe we’d all be too stupid to find shit to fight wars over. Too stupid to kill each other.”
“You may be right,” Priscilla said. “Better fuckin’ world it woulda been, that’s for sure. We coulda been just a bunch of two-legged deer, or a bunch of catchers in the rye, just like Frankie is.”
Rizzo looked puzzled. “ ‘Catcher in the rye’? Like the book?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Priscilla said, turning and gazing through the window to the slowly passing, darkened streets.
“I don’t get it,” Rizzo said. “What, did you talk about that book last night at your class? What’s it got to do with Frankie?”
Priscilla turned back to face him. “Don’t get me started on last night, Partner. Don’t get me started.”
Rizzo swung his eyes back to the road, smiling. “Sore subject? What happened, dog eat your homework?”
Priscilla hesitated, and after a moment Rizzo glanced her way.
“Was it that bad? You gonna clam up on me about it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The guy who teaches the class, his name is Thom Carlyle. Ever hear of him? Wrote a bunch of novels all the critics loved but nobody bought. Not that he gives a shit, his family is old money. Anyway, he comes up to me after class, tells me how good my stuff is, how impressed he is. Wants me to come to his place Saturday night for a party he’s throwing. Lots of writers, agents, editors, people like that. He wants to introduce me to his literary agent. He thinks she can help me.”
“Well,” Rizzo said, “I can see why you’re so pissed off. Imagine the nerve of the son of a bitch, tryin’ to help you out like that.”
“That’s not the issue, Joe. He leads into this invite by tellin’ me how he originally didn’t even want to accept me into his fuckin’ class at all. Says my entry submission was weak-how’d he put it?-‘Rankly amateurish.’ ”
“But he took you in anyway.”
“Oh, yeah, he took me. Right after he got a phone call. Seems like Karen’s old man knows a board member at the Y, so the wheels got greased for me and my weak entry submission.”
Rizzo widened his eyes in mock surprise. “I’m fuckin’ shocked. You mean, shit like that really happens? Wheels get greased? There goes my last shred of faith, right out the fuckin’ window.”
“I don’t wanna discuss it,” Priscilla snapped. “Shouldn’ta brought it up. Leave it at this, it just pisses me off, okay? Karen shoulda known better than to go to her old man behind my back. What am I, the little black poster child? The charity of the fuckin’ week? What?”