Rizzo laughed grudgingly. “Yeah,” he said, “really.”
She turned to face him fully.
“You know, Joe, it ain’t the end of the world if she goes on the job. There’s worse shit parents got to deal with.”
“Yeah. I’m aware of that,” Rizzo said. “But we’re talkin’ about my daughter, my little girl. Not some hypothetical kid somewhere. My little girl.”
Priscilla sighed. “I know, I know.”
Rizzo’s face animated, his cheeks flushing slightly. “No,” he said firmly. “You don’t know. You don’t have kids.” A pensive look came to his eyes.
“When my girls were little,” he said, “I’d tell them stories. Bedtime stories. When I was home to do it, that is. Carol was always the toughest. See, I’d make up the stories. I’d give them a choice: Ben the bear, Flipper the dolphin, or Lassie. Marie usually went for Lassie. Jessica bounced from one to the other. But Carol, she was tough. She’d pick combos-Ben and Lassie, Flipper and Ben-like that.” He raised his eyes back to Priscilla’s, pulling himself back into the car from those faraway nights. He smiled sadly. “You got any friggin’ idea how hard it is to make up a story with a goddamned fish combination? A fish and a bear? Or a collie?
“I’d have ’em all go waterskiing. On a river. Flipper pulling the other guys.” He laughed. “One time Carol asked me, ‘Where’d they get the skis, Daddy?’ ”
Amused, Priscilla asked, “I’m a little curious myself. Where did they get the skis?”
“Where else?” Rizzo asked. “Santa Claus.”
That brought a laugh from her. “Of course.”
He shook his head at the memory. “What I always wondered was, how’d they make the arrangements? To meet, I mean. What’d they do, e-mail each other?”
Priscilla opened the driver’s door and swung a long leg out of the car.
As he opened his door, Rizzo turned to her again.
“She can’t do this, Cil,” he said in a low voice. “It’s not right for her. It’ll hurt her.” Again his head shook. “She’s still my little girl.”
Priscilla pressed her lips, uncomfortable with Rizzo’s obvious pain.
“Yeah,” she said kindly. “She’ll always be your little girl, I guess.” Now her own mood turned sad, and she made a conscious effort to push it away. “I wish I had been somebody’s little girl. Damn, I wish I had. Wish I was. But, you know what? I handled it. I still handle it. Because I’m an adult now, Joe. Not a little girl. A woman.”
Priscilla climbed from the car, leaning back in to address him one more time.
“And so is Carol. What ever happens, however this plays out, she’ll handle it. Like a full-grown woman.”
Rizzo remained silent.
“Now,” Priscilla said, her voice businesslike, “let’s go do our job. Let’s go get real.” Then she added one last thing. “And by the way, Joe. Just in case it should ever come up. A dolphin is a mammal, not a fuckin’ fish.”
THE TWO detectives sat in high-backed upholstered chairs in the neat, sparsely decorated living room. Across from them on a plain black sofa, three civilians sat facing them.
“I have a question,” Rizzo said. “About the names.”
Twenty-nine-year-old Cornelia Hom nodded.
“I’m sure you do, Sergeant,” she said.
Rizzo continued. “I have your grandmother’s name as Hom Bik and your grandfather’s as Hom Feng. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Cornelia answered. “Hom is the surname. Chinese names are the reverse of English-surname first, given name second.”
Priscilla said, “So it’s Mr. and Mrs. Hom. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Cornelia said. “And, as I told you, they both understand English and speak some. They’re just more comfortable with me here, which is why I took off from work today.”
“Where is that, Ms. Hom?” Rizzo asked.
“Morgan Chase,” she replied. “On Broad and Wall Streets.”
“Okay,” Rizzo said, jotting it down. “Before we leave, I’d like all your numbers-home, business, cell. In case we need to contact you.”
Cornelia nodded. “Of course,” she said.
Rizzo looked at the elderly couple to Cornelia’s right. “You folks were robbed four nights ago,” he said. “I apologize for the delay in getting here. The case was originally assigned to the day tour the morning following the crime. The detectives who caught it have been in court since then, testifying on other cases, or were on regular days off. This morning, my boss reassigned the case to us. I checked the file. The first detectives assigned had done some preliminaries. This is the third mugging in the precinct in the last month. All elderly victims, always at night.”
Rizzo turned his attention back to Cornelia Hom.
“That’s unusual for this particular neighborhood. We don’t have a lot of street robberies in this sector of the precinct. The assigned detectives were looking at the other two cases, looking for a link. So, our visit here today isn’t the first police action taken. But, again, I apologize for the delay in getting out here.”
Cornelia Hom nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“The other two victims were Italian-American, so the common links were age, method, and time of assault,” Rizzo said. “So if they are linked, we’re not looking at a bias crime.”
“And the muggers?” Cornelia asked.
“Mugger,” he corrected. “Looks to be a lone operator.” Now Rizzo turned back to the elderly couple. “And just as you reported in your case, the perpetrator in the other two cases is also described as being Caucasian.”
Cornelia Hom nodded again. Both elderly victims smiled at Rizzo, then Priscilla, but remained silent.
“All right then, Sergeant,” Cornelia said. “Would you like to question my grandparents?”
Rizzo picked up his pen. “Yes,” he said. “If there’s a problem with language, I assume you can help out?”
She smiled. “I speak fluent Chinese in four dialects. I also speak Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and some Thai. At Morgan Chase, I’m the Eastern accounts liaison officer.”
“Okay,” Rizzo said, then turned to the victims.
“I was glad to hear you weren’t seriously injured,” he said. “Just pushed around a bit and, of course, badly frightened. You were seen at the emergency room and released, correct?”
“Yes,” Hom Feng said with a short nod of his head.
“Good,” Rizzo replied, smiling into the dark, friendly eyes, wide set in the old man’s weathered face.
“So,” he continued, “according to the Aided Report the uniformed officers filed, the incident took place on the corner of Seventy-first Street and Fifteenth Avenue, correct?”
Hom Fen frowned. “No,” he said with the same short nod. “Seventy-second.”
Rizzo rubbed at his eye, looking again to his notes.
“The cops who responded said Seventy-first in the report,” he said. “Is that wrong?”
Cornelia Hom leaned forward. “Is it of some importance, Sergeant?” she asked.
Rizzo nodded. “It could be. This happened at about nine-thirty at night, correct?”
Cornelia glanced to her grandfather.
“Yes,” he said.
“But Seventy-second Street, not Seventy-first?” Rizzo asked.
“Yes,” Hom Feng repeated.
Rizzo glanced to Cornelia, a question in his eyes.
She smiled at him. “Yes, Sergeant. They are old. But they are both sharper than I am. I may not know what corner I’m on, but I assure you, they do.” She turned slightly in her seat, facing her grandparents.
“May I?” she asked with a glance to Rizzo.
He sat back in his seat. “I wish you would.”
She spoke in rapid and precise lyrical Cantonese, eliciting a smile of pride on both elderly faces. It was her grandmother, Hom Bik, who responded. Her voice was strong and clear, also lyrical in her native tongue.