Kiss Her Goodbye (2 page)

Now it was the city's turn to pass in review and it did a lousy job. Nothing had changed. No sudden sense of déjà vu—the smells were the same, the noise still grating, the people out there looking and waiting but never seeing anything at all. If they did, they sure as hell didn't let anyone know about it.

Going over the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, the sounds and smells brought the city up closer and I was almost ready to crawl back into it by the time my cab turned off the East Side Highway. A few drops of rain splattered on the cab's windshield and I put my hat on. Up here it didn't feel out of place.

At the curb in front of the Pub, I passed a twenty and a five over the seat and told the driver to keep the change. For a second I caught his eye in the rearview mirror, a bald black guy with a graying beard that had a big blossoming smile in its midst as he said, "You been away, Mike?"

That's New York. The first native you see puts a finger right on you, as if he were your best buddy, and it almost makes you want to revamp your negative thinking.

I grinned back at him. "Why, you miss me?"

"Never see you at the jazz clubs anymore."

"I had to lay back a while."

"Yeah, yeah—there was something in the papers. You and that Bonetti kid. They clip you bad, Mike?"

I shrugged. "One in the side that went right through, and another that fragged my ass. A piece is still in there."

"Yeah, man." He shook his head. "I got one like that in Korea. Worked itself all the way down my leg and came out the back of my friggin' knee. That stuff
travels.
You take care, Mike."

"Sure, man," I said, and got out of the cab.

And there was Pat Chambers, a big rangy guy with gray eyes, an off-the-rack suit, and a mouth twisted in that soft cop grin he gets when the suspect drops it all down on tape and the case is closed on his end. He held out his hand and I took it.

"Welcome home, friend," he said.

"It was a fast year," I told him. "How have you been?"

"Still a captain. I think I'm glued in there."

"Too bad. Inspector Chambers has a nice ring."

"Not holding my breath. Hungry?"

"Starving. I skipped eating on the plane—a TV dinner at thirty thousand feet, I don't need. I hope those Irishers still know how to serve up the corned beef."

"Best in New York. Hell, you ought to know, Mike—you discovered the place."

I nodded, dropping back into the past again. All I did was follow the boys from Dublin who served out their apprenticeships at P.J. Gallagher's and opened up their own spot in real Irish-American tradition. And now their corned beef was a tradition all its own.

The supper crowd was three deep at the bar with all the happy noises that come when the Dow Jones is up and a few drinks are down. I waved at the bartenders, got a wink back, and followed Pat to the booth in the restaurant section.

When we were seated, Pat said, "You drinking anything?"

"Yeah. A Miller will go good."

"You mean with the corned beef special?"

"Natch."

He looked up at the waiter. "I'll have the same." He leaned back then, waited a moment, and asked, "How you feeling, Mike?"

"Fine—another few months and I'll be off the medication. I'm not running any footraces, but I managed to stay in shape."

"I don't mean that way."

His eyes were searching me now, friendly, curious, but still
searching.

"Why, Pat? You think I might have an attitude problem?"

"Don't you always?"

After a moment, I said, "Not anymore."

"I asked you how you're feeling, Mike."

"And I said fine. Hell, man. I've been shot before."

"Yeah, and you've crawled off to recuperate before. But it never took you this long to show your face again."

"Maybe I'm getting older," I told him. "Why, did you miss me?"

"Yeah. Like an amputated leg that you keep trying to scratch."

The corned beef and beer came then, thick slabs of meat steaming on top of a huge baked potato, the beer foaming down the iced mug. We hoisted our glasses in a silent toast, gulped down half the contents, and got to the main course.

I let Pat take his time getting back to the questions again. They were all the same ones I had asked myself, but this time I had to give an answer.

"Why didn't you ever contact me, Mike?"

"I meant to, pal, I really did, but there was no urgency."

"Come on," he said softly.

When I looked up he was still watching me in that strange way. The expression was exactly the same as the one he had worn the last night he saw me in the hospital. It was my ninth day in the place, I was up and around, but still hurting like hell. Sleep hadn't helped any either...

...my head still full of the wild banging of handguns and the crazy booming of shotguns, echoing across the pier, flame belching right past my face and even though I didn't feel the impact of the slugs that took me down I could remember the numbness and the slow drifting away that began to smother me. The face was there, too, blood smeared across the Bonetti kid's mouth, tight in a mad grin as he poked the barrel of his .357 against my forehead and said, "Die, you bastard," as he started to squeeze the trigger but he shouldn't have taken the time to say it because the .45 in my fist went off and his finger couldn't make the squeeze because the brain that should have sent it signals shut off like a switch as Bonettis head came apart in crimson chunks like a target-range watermelon.

And now, a year later, I sat in a familiar restaurant with my best buddy and my pulse rate had almost doubled and my breath was caught in my throat.

Damn.

"I got tired, Pat," I said. "I got tired of the whole goddamn mess."

"That kid was a fucking psycho killer. But he did us a favor, losing his cool—or maybe you did us the favor by goading him into that play. Shit. We wiped out damn near half the Bonetti family that night."

"And what good did it do, Pat? Twice the volume of drugs has come into the States since."

"But apparently not the Bonettis doing it," he said with a shrug. "That still leaves five families. Used to be six, till you squeezed the Evello bunch out, ten years ago. Anyway, that's ancient history."

I took another pull at the beer. "Sure. And all the assholes who want to get noodled up on poppy juice make it profitable for 'em. More power to the pricks."

"No. No attitude problem for you."

This time I finished off the beer and put the mug down. I waved for a refill and the waiter took the empty away. "I'm just plain tired of the game, Pat. I haven't got an attitude problem. I haven't
got
an attitude. Period."

The gray eyes turned placid. He smiled just a little. "Good."

I frowned at him. "And before you ask, let me tell you something. I haven't lost my nerve. It's just that it's finally occurred to me that tilting at windmills doesn't matter a damn in this lousy life. Let somebody else do the dirty work—like you cops, for instance."

"I been waiting years to hear this. Don't stop now."

"I
have
stopped. I'm not in it anymore. I haven't got the slightest faintest fucking desire to get wrapped up in that bundle of bullshit again. I've done it, it's past me, I'm retired."

For a full minute Pat went on eating, then nodded sagely. "And maybe it's for the best."

It was his tone of voice that made me ask, "What're you
not
saying?"

His eyes came back to mine. "Right now there's relative peace on the streets. After you wiped out young Bonetti, everybody thought the old man would try to lay a hit on you, and if it didn't take, you'd come roaring back at him with one of those wild-ass shoot-outs that you were so damn famous for. Hell, that's why we kept you under wraps in the hospital ... until you slipped out on your own."

"Don't lay any blame on the uniforms guarding me—I'm still not that easy to babysit."

"I didn't. I don't."

"So what's Papa Bonetti think about it now?" My second beer came and I sipped the head off it. "Is there still a contract out for this old dog?"

"Not to our knowledge." He shrugged. "We took out so many of his men, and you killed his son—Alberto's a broken man. Sitting out his final years at his Long Island estate, and at that old social club. He's out of the business."

"Balls."

"Okay, so maybe he's not as retired as he says. I mean, somebody's distributing the stuff."

"But not the Bonetti family."

"Far as we know, they aren't major players in narcotics. They may still have some fingers in the racket, but their strong suits are loan-sharking and gambling. On the other hand, I don't think Alberto Bonetti's losing sleep over evening the score with Mike Hammer."

"You sound sure of that."

"I am. We went through some back channels and put the question to him. As far as he's concerned, the incident is closed. His boy Sal was a hothead who aimed higher than he could reach. The kid's dead, his pop's staying under the radar, maybe retired, maybe not. Either way, any more shooting would be bad all around."

I paraphrased the Capone quote I'd shared with Marty: "Lousy for business."

"And it would make our current administration
very
uneasy, as well."

"I'll bet," I said sourly.

We both went back to our corned beef, the noise around us building up as the bar crowd made its way back to the tables. It was a scratchy sound now, an irritant. I had been away from it too long, much too long, and a scene I once found comforting only annoyed. They sounded like a bunch of damn kids at a ball game, and Pat and I tried to cover it with our own grown-up conversation.

But there comes a time when the small talk fades and all you do is sit there looking at each other, wondering how to work up to the main event.

I said, "What happened to Doolan, Pat?"

His frown had a ragged edge to it, as if he didn't like the way it was going to sound. "I told you. He killed himself."

"Bullshit."

He lifted a palm, like he was swearing in at court. "That's what I thought when I first saw the report. Doolan was never the suicide type."

"Damn well told. There's no way you're going to make me believe
that.
"

The gray eyes had a weariness now. "Suicide isn't really the right word, Mike."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Pat sat back. "Physically healthy men who can't cope, and just plain give up and shoot themselves—
that's
suicide."

"So?"

"So a week ago Doolan had a final report from his doctor. He had a terminal cancer, and was about to go into the final stage. At best, he had about three months to live, and it was going to be a rough downhill ride all the way. He'd wanted to know the truth and the doctor pulled no punches—each day the pain would be worse and there was no way they could stop it."

I knew where Pat was headed.

He went on: "When the doctor confirmed what Doolan suspected, he went home and began putting his affairs in order. Got his will out of a lockbox and laid it out on his desk. His granddaughter gets most everything—the beach house, his insurance, and two fairly expensive paintings he'd bought years ago."

"Doolan buying paintings?"

"Don't laugh, Mike. Their value had gone up many times since their purchase."

"Who else was on his list?"

"The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and a small bequest to an old buddy in a nursing home in Albany. From his desk, he called a cemetery on the Island and bought a short plot out there, and left a note to that effect attached to the will. It was dated the same day he died."

"Typed?"

"No. It was in his own handwriting and signed. No doubt about it being authentic."

"He did this on the day he died. And he left no other note?"

"No, Mike. But he shot himself, all right."

"Shot himself. And suicide isn't the right word?"

"Let's say it was deliberate self-destruction. Self-administered euthanasia." His shrug conveyed sorrow. "He was cutting out while he still had control."

Knowing old Doolan the way I did, it was hard to accept, yet on the surface that sounded reasonable enough. When a guy hits eighty, a dirty death is something he sure wouldn't want. Still...
Doolan?
Damn.

"How'd he do it, Pat?"

"With his own .38 revolver. He shot himself in the heart."

I looked up at him quizzically. "Old cops usually swallow the muzzle, pal."

"There are exceptions. He was one."

"You checked his hands."

"Sure. Doc did a paraffin test on him right there. He fired the gun, all right. Powder and flash burns right on his shirt. No unusual angle to the bullet entry. It would be easy enough to do. We even have a time for the shot. A little old lady heard it. She didn't know what it was at first, but got pretty damn suspicious. Her window opened right onto the air shaft from Doolan's, and she knew he was an old-timer cop."

"She the one who called in?"

"Uh-huh. And she placed the time right on the nose. The M.E. had an easy case on this one."

"How long had Doolan been dead before a car got there?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes." Pat knew what I was going to ask next and beat me to it: "The door was locked. First cops on the scene kicked it open."

"What about the street? Anybody see or hear anything?"

"Nothing. At ten-thirty at night, it's pretty quiet around there. Not like it's crawling with potential witnesses."

"There's a news vendor on the corner."

"I know. And he'd closed down a half hour before."

I shut my eyes and let it run through my mind. Finally I said, "Any doubts, Pat?"

He shook his head. "I wish there were."

"It just doesn't sound like old Doolan," I insisted.

"Mike ... it is
old
Doolan we're talking about. Not the fireball we knew back in the early days. Not the guy that mentored us both, right after the war. When you get up there in years, hell, you change.
He
changed. You know that."

How could I argue about that? Hadn't I got older, and changed?