The Deuce Read online

  I went to wash up, and Fiore had Darrell put in the holding pen. Fiore ran his name and found out that our Good Samaritan was working up a pretty good resume. He was convicted of petit and grand larceny in ’96, graduated to robbery in ’97, and did six months for robbery in ’98. This latest charge would introduce him to hard time.

  Since I was taking the collar, I was buzzed in to the arrest processing area. I went straight through to the holding pen area so I could watch Darrell while I did my paperwork. I sat at the table to the left of the pen. The holding pen was a big black cage, about twelve feet long by about six feet wide with a bench inside running the length of the cage.

  I noticed the perp was wearing a blue Nike T-shirt. Fiore must have given it to him.

  “Your partner’s all right, man,” Darrell called from the cell.

  I ignored him.

  “Yo, you didn’t have to puke on me, I was just trying to help the guy.”

  I won’t repeat what I said to him. Needless to say he was nothing but respectful after that. He dropped the small talk and asked for a soda and candy bar, which I got for him. He was asleep as soon as he finished eating.

  The rest of the night went without incident. I stayed in the precinct, got a bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll from the deli at the corner, and slept for an hour. I felt a little better and left at 10:00.

  I was going to head straight home, but instead I went over to the bar on 9th Avenue to face the guys. I had changed into shorts, sneakers, and an oversized T-shirt to hide my gun. I drove my Pathfinder, putting my NYPD parking plaque in the windshield. The sky was cloudless, the sun hot, with temperatures already in the mid-eighties.

  The bar is out of the confines of my command, so technically I wouldn’t get in trouble for drinking there. It’s a small neighborhood bar that used to be a real dive. In the spring they had put red brick on the front with green shutters and brass lights; now it’s just a dive on the inside.

  The interior was dark until my eyes adjusted. The bar is a narrow L shape, running along the left side with stools all through. There is a shuffleboard table in the back with a joker poker and a pinball machine.

  Rooney, Garcia, and Connelly were the only ones left when I walked in. They repeated their laughs, gestures, and other nonsense for a full ten minutes. If all this were happening to someone else I would have laughed right along with them. The truth is I was humiliated. Rooney started calling me Ralph. Actually it came out Rrraaaalph, like vomit. Funny guy. I wondered what other names they’d come up with by Sunday. Since I’m usually the “name man” I doubted they could come up with anything as creative as I could have. I’m famous for making up names. I named Alvarez and Rivera “Rice and Beans” for their partiality to Spanish food, Frankie Mazza and Billy Chin “Cheech and Chong” (Italians call anyone named Frank “Cheech”), and two female partners in our squad “Cagney and Lacey.” All the names stuck. In the back of my mind I was making up names I hoped no one would call me.

  I had two beers and tried to talk to Rooney about Fiore. Tried is the key word—Rooney had been drinking for two hours and was feeling good. He was a big Irishman, wavy light brown hair, blue eyes, and a deep hearty laugh. Built like a linebacker. Nice guy too, I liked him. He’d been friendly with Fiore’s old partner, Mazella.

  “Mike, what do you know about Joe Fiore?” I asked.

  “Great guy, real super,” he said.

  “What’s so great about him?”

  Mike seemed to think about this, scrunching up his face in concentration before he answered. “He’s a real gentleman. Nicest guy you’re ever gonna meet. He worked with Mazella since he came to the South. Nothing ever bothers him, he’s easy to work with. He won’t bother you about the God stuff unless you ask him.”

  I groaned. “Not one of those.” If Fiore was a Jesus freak, he was gonna have a field day with me. I drank, I smoked, and I slept around. You name it, I did it. I wondered what he thought of me already.

  “What kind of God stuff?” I asked. “Are we talking snakes and poison, or just pious self-righteous stuff?”

  He laughed. “I don’t know, good guy stuff. Always helping out, letting you know he’s praying for you, crap like that. He won’t bother you, Tony, he’s probably praying for you right now.” He waited a beat and added, “Praying you’re not gonna be his partner anymore!” With that he cracked up laughing again, ending his laugh with dramatic gagging and retching sounds.

  I rolled my eyes.

  I left not long after that, walking out into the morning heat, squinting at the sun. At that time of day most traffic was inbound to the city. I took the West Side Highway downtown, passing the meat-packing district and the Chelsea piers and seeing the World Trade Center buildings in the distance. I took the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel since the Brooklyn Bridge is always backed up. I caught some construction but still reached the Verrazano Bridge in record time, twenty-four minutes. I took the lower level of the bridge and sat in traffic for an extra five minutes, then drove one minute home from the bridge. An even thirty minutes. I time myself every day; I don’t know why, just a quirk that I have.

  I live in an old section of Staten Island called Shore Acres, nestled between Fort Wadsworth and Rosebank on the East Shore. The strait of water that runs along the side of my house was called the Narrows. It ran under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, connecting upper and lower New York Bay. My parents were native Islanders; my grandparents moved here from the Lower East Side in 1940. Before the bridge was opened in 1965 the Island was pretty rural. My grandfather had the house built when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother. The house sits at the end of the block, right next to the water. My grandfather worked on the docks and the boats all of his life, and he loved the sea. I’m a lot like him. I love the water. I grew up running along the waters of the Narrows, sneaking into Fort Wadsworth, playing in the underground passages, fishing under the bridge.

  Fort Wadsworth is one of the oldest military bases in the country, named after a Civil War general. Along with Fort Hamilton on the Brooklyn side, it has guarded the entrance to the Narrows for centuries. It goes back to the Revolutionary War. It’s a Coast Guard base, but it’s open to the public. It has the most awesome view of the bridge. You can walk up on the bluff and see the whole harbor—it looks like a postcard. They have a section where you can see the stages of the bridge being built. I don’t remember a time when the bridge wasn’t here, but most people were sorry to see it go up.

  My house is an old colonial at the end of Harbor Road. Most of the houses are older, built on oversized lots that sell for a fortune now. Giant old oak trees grow along the street, buckling the sidewalks, but the trees taper off as you get near the beach. I live in the last house on the block and have access to the beach. My house faces the Verrazano, but the other houses across the street keep us from getting a clear view. We have a bay window in the front of the house and a set of French doors leading out the side to a deck we were building. The kitchen has a big window in the back, giving us a view of the water on three sides.

  By the time my parents got divorced, the house had become run down. I guess they were both so miserable that the house wasn’t a priority anymore. After they both moved out, my brother and I renovated the house; the last thing we did was add the deck and new French doors. The flooring was almost done, and we just had to add the railing. We wanted to finish it for our Fourth of July party the following week, and it looked like we’d make it. My brother, Vinny, invited our dysfunctional family for a barbecue, along with our closest family friends. Since the divorce, we haven’t had a family gathering that didn’t end in fights, drunken dramatics, and other domestic incidents.

  Vinny has never grasped the idea of inviting our parents over separately. He likes to think of us as one big happy family. That was never gonna happen. When I was a kid I thought I had the perfect family. Then my father announced one night over dinner that he and my mom were getting divorced. He hadn’t bothered to tell my mother; I guess he j
ust wanted to say it once and get it over with. I never knew they were unhappy—they never said anything about it. I was in college then, partying with my friends and seldom home. My father had made detective in the fifth precinct and had an affair with Marie, who was a PAA in his command. PAA stands for Police Administrative Aide, civilians who do clerical work for the department. She was twenty-two years old at the time and married to an ironworker. Her husband was smarter than she thought; he had her followed by a private investigator and called my mother with the goods about the affair.

  My mother didn’t take it well. She had spent all her married years taking care of her family. She had never worked before and had no job skills, just a high school diploma and a lot of domestic experience.

  I think my father came around a lot at the beginning to lessen his guilt. My sister Denise was sixteen and Vinny was fourteen, and they took it hard, but I was almost twenty so it didn’t affect me the same way. Then my mother stopped him from calling the house, and if she found out we saw him she would cry and carry on that we didn’t love her. I don’t know what she expected us to do.

  My father moved back and forth a couple of times when Mom tried to kill herself. She didn’t try too hard—she’d swallow a couple of pills and pretend to faint, or cut her wrist enough to draw blood but not enough to need stitches. Just enough to get attention. My father would be full of guilt and come home for a while. He finally moved out for good and supported her for a few years until Marie cut it off. That’s when my mother took up drinking. She had always been a social drinker, but after my dad cut her off she got serious. When Vinny was twenty-one she went to live with Aunt Patty in Pennsylvania, in the Pocono Mountains. She got a job in the cafeteria of an elementary school, which gives her benefits and a pension. My mother is very bitter and makes it hard for anyone to be around her for any length of time.

  My father has changed just as much. I can’t believe he’s the same caring father I had as a kid. He had been a family man. Church on Sundays, company for dinner, fishing, camping, baseball, he was always home with his family. Now you can barely get him to commit to dinner for birthdays or holidays. He sees my grandmother, but I rarely see him.

  I heard the phone as I unlocked the front door. I dropped my gym bag and keys and crossed to the kitchen to pick up the cordless. The house was hot and stuffy, so I opened the side doors and stepped out onto the deck to say hello.

  “Tony, is that you?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, it’s me, Grandma.”

  “Are you coming for dinner tonight? I made fish.” On Fridays she always made fish.

  “I’ll be there, Grandma.”

  “Good, and don’t forget to tell Vinny to bring the bread.” Vinny’s girlfriend’s family owned a bakery.

  “I’ll tell him, Grandma,” I said.

  “Come at 6:00, and I love you very much and I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I’ll be there, and I love you too,” I said and hung up.

  My grandmother is my favorite person in the world—eighty years old with a sharp mind and a constant smile. She still works as a sales “girl” in a religious store, taking two buses a day to get into Brooklyn. She sells statues, crucifixes, and other religious objects. When I became a cop she gave me a St. Michael medallion to wear with a prayer card to stick on the inside of my hat. She always gives me angel pins to wear on my uniform and pictures of dead saints to put inside my undershirts. I never wear them but don’t have the heart to tell her. She is also the best cook I know, and I eat at her house at least once a week. She lives in a rent-controlled apartment in Clove Lakes. She’s smart, tough, and spunky. I wish I could meet someone just like her, only younger.

  I felt better after talking to her and went inside to the fridge. I grabbed a slice of cold pizza and went back out to the deck to watch the water traffic. The bright sun was dancing off the reflection of the slow-moving current. Some of the ships were already coming into the harbor for the celebration on the Fourth. I lay down on a lounge chair on the finished part of the deck. I closed my eyes, listening to the screech of the gulls. In the distance I could hear the beep-beep of a truck backing up. I must have dozed off. I woke up sweating with my exposed skin burning from the sun. I downed two glasses of water and went up to bed.

  I slept until about 5:00, putting the air conditioner on full blast. I’ve never understood why we do that—make our house sixty degrees in the summer and eighty degrees in the winter. I showered and changed, finding myself alone in the house again. My note for Vinny to bring bread was still on the kitchen table, and it didn’t look like he had been there. He’s not home much; his girlfriend lives in New Dorp and he’s always there.

  I drove to my grandma’s apartment building, parking in the spot reserved for 4A. That may sound rude, but I know for a fact that 4A doesn’t have a car. I park in his spot every time I’m here. I saw Vinny’s Jeep parked in 2C and hoped he remembered the bread.

  My grandmother lives on the ground floor of a red-brick six-story apartment building full of mostly senior citizens. My grandparents moved here five years ago when my grandfather had a stroke. He died last year.

  I stood in the front vestibule and rang 1C. Grandma buzzed me in to the lobby, and I could already smell the food, a hint of garlic and tomatoes. Vinny and his girlfriend, Christie, were already there eating antipasto when I came in. They remembered the bread, Italian with seeds and plain semolina.

  My grandmother gave me a kiss and a bear hug, ushering me to the table. She must’ve gotten her hair done that day. Every week she has it teased, curled, and sprayed until it looks like a dish of rotini on top of her head. She had it tinted a peach color and accented the look with gold balls hanging from her ears. She wore red shorts, a white blouse, and gold slip-on shoes. She smelled the way she always does, a combination of garlic and hairspray.

  I took a dish and was piling mushrooms, peppers, and olives on it when the door buzzed.

  “That’s your father,” Grandma announced and buzzed him in.

  I wondered how she knew it was him until I saw she had her TV tuned to the “lobby” station. If you were bored enough you could spend your evenings monitoring the activity in the front of the building.

  A minute later Marie and my father came in bearing pastry and giving cheek kisses all around. My father hugged both Vinny and me and kissed Christie on the cheek. Marie looked about twelve, wearing a pink sleeveless shirt and white shorts, with her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. My father wore a tight black T-shirt, faded jeans, and work boots. He’s a good-looking guy for his age. His hair is combed back with some kind of grease that hides the gray, and he has piercing blue eyes that everyone but me seems to have inherited. At fifty-two he’s still built, thinner than I am but with well-defined arms and a flat stomach. Tonight he looked uncomfortable, not meeting anyone’s eyes as we sat down. Since we hardly ever see him, I wondered why he was here.

  My grandmother had made clams, mussels, and shrimp in a red gravy with linguine. There was also broccoli rabe with garlic and oil and a green salad. We were interrupted again when the buzzer rang; we all turned to see my sister, Denise, standing in the front vestibule crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue at the camera.

  It’s funny that no matter how old you get, when you’re with family you automatically revert back to your childhood routine. I was the hothead, Denise the screw-up, and Vinny the baby. Denise and I are more alike, in the sense that we’re tough and aloof. Vinny is innocent. His eyes are the same as Dad’s and Denise’s but rounder with a perpetual surprised look to them. He’s about five-nine, with a small build. He has the same dark, almost black hair that we have. He doesn’t work out with weights, but he runs three and a half miles a day on the South Beach boardwalk.

  My sister, Denise, has always been different. Not really a screw-up, just kind of aimless. She’s never held a job for long, and loses interest easily. She signs up and drops out of college or trade school at least once a year. So far she’s been to se
cretarial school, bartending school, beauty school, and dog grooming school, never having graduated from any of them. She gets a job, gets an apartment, loses the job, and moves back in with Vinny and me. She’s never gone out with any guy who wasn’t a meatball, and I’ve even had to tune up one or two that dared to slap her around. She’s four years younger than me, never married, and in our very Italian family is considered an old maid. She swears she’ll never get married and ruin her life for a man like my mother did. She resents our father, yet he is the first one she runs to when she’s in trouble. He, in turn, sends her over to me. She hates Marie passionately and doesn’t bother to hide it.

  Denise came in wearing denim shorts that were tiny enough to offend and a tight white tank top. Her long, dark hair hung straight past her shoulders with a zigzag part in the middle, and her blue eyes were heavy on the liner. She is tall with long legs and a Victoria’s Secret model’s build. She is usually pretty conservative when it comes to clothes, but when she knows she’s going to see my father, she’ll wear something to get a reaction out of him. When she’s dressing the way she was now, a fight is pretty much on the menu. I reached for the wine. This was gonna be a long dinner.

  We barely started the meal when Marie informed us that they had been in court that day. I could feel acid building in my stomach over this particular topic.

  “Where’s Mom?” I sighed.

  “She went home with Aunt Patty,” my father said. “She’s not too happy.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked tiredly. “And why is that, Dad?”

  My parents have been involved in a lawsuit for the past two years. When they got divorced they used my father’s lawyer, a friend of his who got out of the department on three-quarters and went to law school. He never put the issue of the sale of the house in the divorce decree. My grandfather, my mother’s father, had sold my parents the house for ten thousand dollars when they got married. My mother felt the house was rightfully hers, regardless of the fact that she no longer lived there. My father’s beef was that he supported her and paid the bills on the house for so many years. Quoting Marie, he said, “It was part of the marital assets.” Marie wanted the house sold and the money split. My mother wouldn’t sell, and the issue finally wound up in front of a judge.