Where It Hurts (11 page)

(SUNDAY LUNCH)

T
he Old Main Pub was a bar restaurant in a strip mall located just west of where Route 111 met Main Street in Smithtown. The strip mall was prototypic Suffolk County—a big chain gym, flanked on either side by a liquor store, a sandwich shop, a pet supply store, a pizzeria, a bank, and half a dozen small businesses of one sort or another. You drive east or west down Main Street a mile or two and you’d come across another mall just like it. Although I’d lived almost my entire life within a twenty-mile radius of the place, I never got the need for so many damn strip centers. The differences between them were like the variations in a deck of cards: the cards were the same, only the shuffle was different.

I’d known Lou Carey since I’d gotten on the job. A pleasant, button-down guy, he was an okay cop who figured the best way to get ahead was by keeping his head down, and to paint by the numbers and stay inside the lines when he did. His wardrobe was strictly Kmart and so too were his dreams, though he wasn’t altogether unambitious. He’d made detective. Most don’t. He had wanted the bump not because he had a passion for doing the right thing, but because he preferred the schedule and liked that it was a safer way to put in the rest of his thirty
years than by doing traffic stops and responding to domestics. Nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants to be Don Quixote. There’s a need for Sancho Panza, too. Someone has to shine the shoes and do the paperwork.

Everything was cool until we went inside and I saw Milt Paxson at the table.

“What’s he doing here, Lou?”

“He caught the case. It’s his baby, not mine.”

I knew Paxson, too, mostly by reputation. I was glad for that because on the few occasions we’d crossed paths, I’d walked away regretting I hadn’t laid him out. There was something dislikable about the guy, something that got under my skin, under everybody’s skin. Unlike Lou, Paxson was the kind of dipshit who wanted the job for all the wrong reasons—the badge, the gun, and the power. He was the type of chesty moron that usually washed out of the academy, but he had connections with juice. His Uncle Joe was a captain and his first cousin was a big wheel in county politics. I suppose the brass thought Lou’s by-the-book nature and calm demeanor would temper Paxson’s bullying tendencies. Yeah, like that ever worked.

“He’s my partner, Gus, for better or worse,” Lou continued, hearing the disappointment in my voice. “I couldn’t go behind his back.”

I should have figured Lou would color inside the lines even when it came to doing things off the clock. My bad. Paxson was a nasty package: hatchet-faced and high-strung. He was already stuffing his mouth with the fried bread and cheese spread for which the Old Main was famous. He was studying the menu, too, no doubt looking for the most expensive thing on it. When I’d called Lou to ask for the meeting after Annie had stormed out, I’d promised that the meal would be on me. He’d clearly passed that message on to Paxson.

The dining room was pretty empty for a football Sunday in December, but both the Jets and Giants were out of it and people were probably out doing Christmas shopping.

“Give it a rest, Milt,” I said. “Leave a little room for lunch.”

“Well, if you’d showed on time, I wouldn’t have to shove this shit down my gut. Fucking fried bread and cheese spread. Wisconsin fucking health food.”

“Yo, Milt, language.” Lou wagged a finger. “This is a family place. Ease up on the F-bombs.”

“Yeah, well, I told you that if this yoyo was paying we shoulda switched to Pace’s and had us a real meal. Get a good steak there, not this second-rate pub crap.”

Lou shook his head. “Relax, Milt. I like it here. Good solid food. Good value. I take the family here sometimes.”

The waitress came over and took our drink orders. Lou and I ordered Heinekens. Paxson ordered a fancy bourbon. And like the dick that he was, he ordered it with Coke, which kind of defeated the point of ordering fine bourbon. But that wasn’t the point for him. The point was to stick it to me. Not knowing any better, the waitress asked Paxson if he was sure he wanted to mix a single-barrel bourbon with Coke. He didn’t like being questioned, not one little bit.

“Listen, honey, you worry about how big your ass looks in those tight pants and let me worry about what I drink.”

A different waitress brought us our drinks. No surprise there. Before she could leave, Paxson ordered another drink and demanded to order his meal as well. Lou and I ordered burgers. Milt ordered shrimp cocktail to start and the lobster and steak combo. I bit my lip and proposed a thank-you toast. We clinked glasses, Paxson reluctantly. Lou and I sipped our beers. Not Milt. And when the waitress brought his second round and his shrimp cocktail, the schmuck ordered a third drink.

Lou had had enough and asked the waitress to hold on for a second. Then he turned to his partner.

“See this man here”—Lou pointed at me—“he’s a brother. Stop abusing his generosity, Milt. Stop it now. We’re doing him a courtesy by being here. Be courteous.”

Paxson liked Lou’s lecture about as much as being questioned by the waitress, but he relented.

“Whatever, Lou. Never mind the bourbon,” he said. “Just bring me the Coke.”

But it was a half hour later, after Paxson had put a big dent in his lobster tail and steak, that he turned to me.

“Thanks for the meal, Murphy. That was big of you, but fuck you. This ain’t gonna get you anywhere. We’re not talking to you about the TJ Delcamino case, dead fucking skel piece a shit that he is, or any other case, brother officer bullshit notwithstanding.”

“Impressive,” I said.

Paxson was puzzled. “What is?”

“That you know a four-syllable word and actually seem to know what it means.”

“Well, fuck you, Murphy.”

“You’re repeating yourself, asshole.”

“Like I said, this is my case. I caught it and I’m not talking about it with you. My business is my business. How I run my investigation is my affair.” He turned away and took another forkful of steak. “And don’t even try to pull that dead-kid card with me, you—”

He didn’t finish the word because I was busy slamming his face into his plate. Then I held him down. He was flailing his arms, kicking his legs, trying anything to get me to let go. Lou Carey clamped a bear hug on me and pulled me away from the table.

“You motherfucker!” Paxson screamed, his face red and dripping with steak juice and drawn butter. “You almost broke my fucking nose.”

“If your partner didn’t stop me, I would’ve broken your neck, you worthless little piece of—”

“Enough!” Lou said. “Enough.”

Paxson reached under his jacket for his cuffs. “I’m placing you under arrest for assaulting an—”

Lou Carey let go of me and stepped between Paxson and me. “You’re not arresting anyone for anything,” he said. “I won’t back you on this, partner or not. Far as I can tell, you deserved what you got. Worse, maybe.”

“But we’re partners, Lou.” Paxson sounded hurt.

“Lord help me, we are, but it doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole most of the time. Now get in the men’s room and wash yourself off.”

Paxson turned to go and then turned back. “This ain’t over between us, Murphy, not by a long fucking shot.”

When I opened my mouth to answer, Lou Carey shook his head no at me. “Don’t.”

I didn’t. I settled the bill and walked outside with Lou.

“Half of the time I’d like to do that to him myself,” he confessed. “The guy just doesn’t know when to give it a rest. He shouldn’t have said that thing about your son, Gus. I’m sorry about that. But listen, I’ve always liked you and we’ve always gotten along—”

“But . . .”

“But I’m gonna give you some advice. Your name’s coming up a lot where it shouldn’t. You were at the homicide scene of the kid’s dad and your old house got broken into the other day, too. Not good, Gus. Not good. Walk away from this case. Walk away from the father’s case. Leave it alone. Don’t make trouble for yourself when you’ve had so much heartache.”

“I’m off the job, Lou. How much harder can the universe punish me than it already has?”

“It’s not the universe I’d worry about.”

“Fair enough, Lou. All I want to know is why you guys didn’t follow up on the leads that Tommy Delcamino gave you? And please don’t bother telling me he didn’t know what he was talking about. I looked at his notes. They were as thorough as any good detective’s. Look, I know who Tommy Delcamino was. I arrested him plenty of times. And it’s likely his kid was no better. But none of that means they don’t deserve some justice.”

“You’re sounding a little naïve there, Gus. The kid was a junkie and a mutt. He was involved with all sorts of the wrong kind of people and it came back to bite him in the ass the same way it caught up to his father. Neither one of ’em may have deserved the deaths they got, but
either one or both of them was gonna get dead before their time. Leave it there, please, for your own sake.”

“Maybe I am sounding naïve.”

“There are no answers to get from me. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to get them somewheres else.”

“I think I might just do that.”

“That would be a stupid thing to do, Gus.”

“You’re not threatening me, are you, Lou?”

Carey looked as if I had just gut-punched him the way Kareem Shivers had hit me two nights earlier. “Come on, you know me better than that.”

“I thought I did,” I said, shaking his hand. “Thanks for meeting me, at least.”

When I was almost to my car, he called after me, “Watch your back, Gus. Your front and sides, too.”

As I pulled out of the lot, I took Lou’s advice to heart and paid close attention to what was in my rearview mirror. At the moment, all that I saw was parked cars and gray skies.

(SUNDAY AFTERNOON)

M
ilt Paxson hadn’t meant to do me a favor, but he had. His stupid remark about playing the dead-kid card and Annie’s slapping me across the face were reminders to do something I hadn’t done for a few weeks. There was someone I needed to go see. Someone who resided only a few minutes from the Old Main Pub. So I turned left off Route 111 onto Cross Street and right onto Mount Pleasant. Less than a hundred yards on Mount Pleasant, I made another right, this one beneath the stone and mortar archway of St. Patrick’s Cemetery.

The original plan was to bury John Jr. at Calvary Cemetery in Queens, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to bury him there in the city so far away from home and from me. At least that’s what I told my wife when she accused me of losing it. It was the truth, as far as it went. The real truth, the deeper truth was something I was ashamed of and something I held so close that I could not share it, not even with Annie. It was a thing that haunted me so that I could barely bear to remember it.

When John was a little boy, maybe four years old, and the two of us were going to visit my grandparents in Brooklyn, he looked out the window as we were exiting the LIE for the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway. And there, stretching out below him, was Calvary Cemetery—acre after seemingly endless acre of green grass and granite.

“What’s that place, Daddy?” he asked, pointing to his right, an innocent, confused look on his face.

I didn’t know what to say. It’s one thing to tell yourself you’ll never lie to your kids before you have kids. It’s a different matter after you have them. Then those things you told yourself get tested. They get tested hard.

“Do you know what dying is, John?”

“You mean like when Tigger went sleepies?”

Tigger had been Annie’s cat since she was twelve and he was part of the package when we got married. By the time John Jr. was three, Tigger was ancient and suffering so bad he had to be put down.

“Yeah, kiddo, just like that.”

“But what’s that place, Daddy? The place with all the tall rocks?”

“When people go sleepies like Tigger did, they go to places like that to be together” was the only thing I could think to say.

“But Tigger’s in the backyard near us and Mommy and where we can show Krissy when she gets bigger like me. That’s where I wanna be when I go sleepies, Daddy. I wanna go in the backyard near you and Mommy and Krissy.”

“Don’t ever talk like that, John!” I heard myself scream at my son.

He didn’t cry, but I could tell he wanted to. He had already learned some of the wrong lessons about manhood by then. Lessons learned at my side. I’m sure that moment was lost to my son by the following week, but it was never lost to me. And when he died, it came back to me so hard that I threatened the life of anyone who dared mention burying my boy at Calvary. So with Father Bill’s help, some strings got pulled, and although St. Pat’s wasn’t our parish, a plot was secured for John Jr.

Annie was furious because there would not be plots for the rest of us when we passed, but there was no changing my mind. Looking back now, I realize that might have been the first fissure in what would
eventually collapse our marriage. Who knows, really? Maybe there were already plenty of cracks and fractures. After John’s death, I don’t think there was enough glue and plaster in the world to keep us together.

It was busy today. Sundays usually were, even on raw December Sundays. I think it was the coming of Christmas and the New Year. Memories are everywhere, cued by songs or smells, the sights of holiday decorations. I left my car on the path and walked over to his grave. That was one of the things I liked about St. Pat’s, its intimacy. There were too many mega cemeteries like Calvary, places so expansive, with so many burials going on at once that they felt more like factories than graveyards. Rows and rows of hearses and processions lined up to wait their turn to head into the cemetery. Lined up like fidgety customers at the deli counter at the supermarket. Where was the dignity in that? Here, I could just leave my car where it was and not worry about holding up the line.

My son was buried in the far corner near where the black wrought-iron railing gave way to the cyclone fencing. There was a house close by, a tall white vinyl fence blocking the view of the graves. Sometimes when I visited John during the week, I heard kids playing behind the white fence. I liked that. I liked the sounds of life going on. I wished John could hear them, too. I wished it real hard. I knew it was a waste of time, that all wishing was. That John was beyond the reach of joy and of kids at play, but also beyond the reach of pain, callousness, cruelty, and indifference. I took less comfort in that than I should have. If he had only gotten to be old enough to live a little, to know not only the joys in life, but its weight and the tolls it takes on a man, then I might have been more at ease with his passing. When you’re twenty, you only think you know everything there is to know. You only think you’ve felt everything there is to feel. You haven’t, though. You really haven’t.

He would never experience the Knicks or the Rangers winning a championship. He’d never see a Jets quarterback hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. At least he’d seen the Yankees win another World Series. That’s what I was thinking about when the caretaker came to stand by
me. Over the last two years, we had formed a kinship of strangers, the caretaker and me. It was something akin to the one I had formed with Aziza, the counter girl at Dunkin’ Donuts. But I didn’t even know the caretaker’s name. I’d never asked for it. He’d never offered it. He would just come stand by me. Sometimes he would say a word or two. Sometimes not. Our relationship was more about small gestures: a nod, a wave, a furrowed brow, a pat on the shoulder. Like that. He would always cross himself. Today was no different.

After a minute he said, “Your wife was by to see your boy yesterday late.”

I smiled a sad smile and shook my head. She had come to see John after leaving me at the hotel. She had come to apologize to him for his things being disturbed and for his father’s cowardice. But it wasn’t cowardice. It was love.

“Those flowers,” he said, pointing at the base of his headstone, “she left them.”

I nodded.

He nodded.

“I’ll leave you two be.” He patted my shoulder. It barely registered.

Before he got too far away, I said, “If I don’t see you before then, Merry Christmas.”

“And to you, Merry Christmas.”

There had been a time not too long ago I might not have been able to hear those words without feeling gutted and resenting the person who’d spoken them. Now there was only the twinge of guilt. Guilt for feeling that a merry Christmas was even a possibility without my boy walking the earth. It was only a twinge. I guess the time had passed when I felt I had no right to happiness. That I had failed and needed to suffer continuously for the remainder of my life. It’s a sad truth that I had turned my grief into a selfish thing. I had made John’s death into a platform for my own purgatory. I became judge and jury and revisited all my sins, meting out punishment without mercy. But I suppose grief is, by its very nature, a selfish thing, perhaps the most selfish thing
there is. John was certainly beyond its reach. It was the one feeling I was glad he would never have to fully experience.

As I drove away, turning left onto Route 347, I thought about Tommy Delcamino. I wondered who would bury him. I had his three grand in my drawer back at the Paragon. Maybe I knew how I would put that money to work. Then the radio went off, Bluetooth kicking in, and a number came up I didn’t recognize. By the time the conversation was over, I knew I’d have to find another use for Tommy’s bankroll.