Love or Honor (35 page)

He sees his mother nearly every Sunday. Katrina has been offered half a million dollars for the house in Queens that George bought for sixteen thousand dollars cash, but she will not sell. Why would a person want to leave home? Chris has not yet gone back to Maple Grove Cemetery, but he intends to go, someday. At some point, atonement has been made, or what is redemption all about?

He still reads a lot, including
Bulfinch's Mythology.
There's always a lesson there. Bulfinch seems uncertain about the lesson of Jason, though. He suggests that perhaps, in the end, golden prizes may not be worth it. Bulfinch just relates in a straightforward way what Jason did—some heroic things, some things unworthy of a hero. He makes clear that Jason did what he was sent out to do. Jason accomplished his mission. Beyond that, Bulfinch doesn't analyze or assess the blame. Maybe he thought it wasn't as simple as that.

Chris never saw Marty again. When he thought he might die, he considered calling her. But he didn't know what to say, except he'd always wanted to tell her he'd met the Pope. On his flight to Los Angeles, he opened her present. It was the Florentine cross—blue enamel, with a thin overlay of gold. He keeps it in a safe-deposit box to give to his niece when she gets married.

When he was sick, Chris got a letter from Chief Bouza, who had taken an interest in him early on. “I always wanted to be a cop just like you,” the chief wrote. But Chris can never be a cop in the way he was. His undercover experience has made him too valuable to be sent back to the 4-oh. He's still with the Intelligence Division, on undercover jobs. But now he's not living it; he's just doing it. He has been a hospital porter, a construction worker, an electrician, and an elevator starter. As a member of the team investigating corruption in the Health Department, he worked in a coffee shop.

The bad-cop story has been deleted from his file. But because he's still undercover, his name didn't go back on the roster. Anyone calling for him will be told there's no one by that name in the New York Police Department. His name is “off the wheel.” No such person exists.

He belongs, though. He can even attend meetings of the Honor Legion again. He always carries his gold shield, which Harry brought to him in the hospital. Harry had been keeping it in his locker downtown. It shows the emblem of the City of New York on blue enamel, with gold around the edges.

About the Author

Joan Barthel is an award-winning author of nonfiction and a contributor to many national publications, including the
Washington Post Magazine
and the
New York Times Magazine
. Her first book,
A Death in Canaan
(1976), uncovered the miscarriage of justice in the case of a Connecticut teenager accused of murdering his mother. It won the American Bar Association Gavel Award, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and became an Emmy-nominated television movie.
A Death in California
(1981), the story of a Beverly Hills socialite caught in the thrall of the man who murdered her fiancé, was the basis for a television miniseries.
Love or Honor
(1989), the extraordinary account of a married undercover cop who infiltrated the Greek mafia only to fall in love with the Capo's daughter, was called “fascinating” and “compelling” by Nicholas Pileggi. Barthel cowrote Rosemary Clooney's autobiography,
Girl Singer
(1999), and is the author of
American Saint
(2014), a biography of Elizabeth Seton with a foreword by Maya Angelou.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Love or Honor
is a true story. However, certain names and identifying material have been changed to protect the identities of those individuals.

Copyright © 1989 by Joan Barthel

Cover design by Rebecca Lown

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2823-3

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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