3 Quarters (14 page)

Bobby knew that Shine's wife and kid had disappeared while sailing one stormy day off Montauk Point, and the cop had never forgiven himself for not stopping them from going out that day. A grieving sadness burdened the man. So it was good to see him active, Bobby thought, with a successful saloon partially filling the void in his life.

“I hear even the guards wouldn't take care of him up there,” the big cop at the bar said, referring to Bobby. “Knew he was a guy who ratted on his own kind . . .”

Shine made another move toward the two obnoxious cops at the bar. Again, Bobby grabbed his hand, motioned with his eyes for him to sit back down in the booth.

“Not worth it,” Bobby said.

“These bastards . . .”

“It's good I know where I stand,” Bobby said softly. “Let them talk. Assholes might wind up saying something I need to know.”

“I miss the action of the job, Bobby, but I don't miss the ignoramuses,” Shine said.

“Relax, John,” Bobby said.

Shine took a small white tablet from a pill box and washed it down with a drink of plain ice water, grimacing.

“You okay?” Bobby asked.

“This back of mine is like living with a Siamese twin who hates my guts,” said Shine.

“What do the doctors say?”

“ ‘Get used to it.' ” Shine chuckled dryly.

“Why didn't you ever put in for three-quarters?” Bobby asked. “If anyone ever deserved it, it's you.”

Bobby already knew that Shine had too much pride for what he had always called the “police hero fund.”

“Because it's for real heroes,” Shine said. “Not for guys like me who get knocked around a little by a high-risk job. Especially not for dust mites like them. I hear them talking about getting on three-quarters all the time, like it was a lifelong ambition.”

Shine again nodded to the two cops who were bent over their piece of the horseshoe-shaped bar, laughing uproariously now, as the bartender pulled them two fresh mugs of beer.

“Not for shitheads who abuse the system,” Shine continued, the rough street cop occasionally surfacing with the anger. “Three-quarters was designed for people who simply can't work anymore. Guys paralyzed by a bullet in the spine; men crippled and maimed. Me, I can still work. I don't need a cripple's pension so long as I can fend for myself.”

The big cop belched in John Shine's general direction as he caught the tail end of his tirade.

“They're part of the Lou Barnicle crew?” Bobby asked, nodding toward the two giggling cops.

“Not yet,” Shine said. “Farm team. But you don't need me to tell you how it works. Soon as they get three-quarters, they'll probably go to work for Barnicle. That's the routine. Work ten, twelve years on NYPD, take the first injury you get, put in their three-quarters papers. If they're lucky enough to get it, they go to work for Barnicle, and between the pension and the salary, and the SSI, if you work off the books, you're making more than a deputy inspector.”

“I was half-looking into this racket when I was framed for Dorothea's murder,” Bobby said. “I think she's still alive . . . .”

“You know what the chances of that are, Bobby. Slim and none.”

“I'm not so sure,” Bobby said. “But now, the day I get out of jail, a car from Stone's campaign starts tailing me. You don't think he's personally involved in this pension scam, do you?”

“That's a stretch,” Shine said with a laugh. “But I can't name one retired member of NYPD brass I ever worked under who isn't collecting three-quarters. Almost every former deputy inspector. Going back to Chief Jackson, who worked a Rolling Stones concert at Shea Stadium and claimed he got too close to the massive speakers during ‘Jumpin' Jack Flash' and it ruptured his eardrum. He was making a hundred and ten thousand a year when he put in his three-quarters papers. With special bonuses for every year over twenty years he served on the force, he was rubber-stamp approved for a one-hundred-and-seventeen-thousand-dollars-a-year pension, tax free, for life. All for being verbally assaulted by Mick Jagger.”

“That's obscene,” Bobby said.

“Yeah,” Shine said. “But I'd say trying to link it to Gerald
Stone
is off the radar screen.”

From the bar the big cop in the Giants jacket stopped laughing and roared: “The broad was some piece of fucking ass, though.”

The fat little cop, dressed in a red jacket, white shirt, blue pants, who Bobby thought looked like a U.S. mailbox, nodded and said, “They say the broad was a foreigner, so I wonder what fuckin' lingo she pleaded for her life in.”

Bobby couldn't stop Shine this time as he leaped from the booth to the bar, forgetting his pain, grabbing the big cop by his jacket, twisting him to a half-prone position, and yanking him across the floor of the bar toward the front door.

The customers froze at the outbreak of the commotion; the bartender was literally shaking, two glasses clinking together in his hands. Bobby quickly rose and glared at the short, fat cop, who was making a tentative move toward Shine's blind side. He took one look at Bobby Emmet and then made a quick dash out the back door, leaving his money on the bar and the fate of his drinking buddy in question.

A waitress opened the front door for Shine, and he hauled the big cop out onto the sidewalk like the evening trash. He fought for air as Shine lifted him to his feet and rammed his back into a parking meter. The other cop now circled over to help up his big pal.

“I ever see either one of you mutts in here again, I'll slap your dirty mouths,” Shine said.

He turned from them, walked inside, smiled, and winked at Bobby. The patrons returned to their lunches, the bartender and the waitresses went back to work.

“You okay, John?” Bobby asked, half-amused. Shine didn't give a shit who you were; he feared no one.

“That's the smegma they let wear badges today,” Shine said, as he groaned into his seat in the booth. “I'd rather pin a star on a fucking shoemaker.”

“You haven't lost a step,” Bobby said, smiling.

“My back is exploding,” Shine whispered. “If that galoot had fought back, he would have killed me. Makes you wonder what the hell he's going to do when he's confronted by some ghetto kid who is fighting for his freedom and his life?”

“No wonder they want out on three-quarters,” Bobby said.

“Perfect Lou Barnicle candidates,” Shine said. “He'll morph them into square badges, rent-a-cops, guarding colleges and shopping malls while they also collect three-quarters. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised if that big ape parlays the bang I just gave him into a pension. End of tomorrow's tour, he claims he wrestled with a perp on duty, messed up his back, takes a sick-out, pays off some corrupt quack for a bogus report, and puts in his papers.”

“What do you think of Barnicle?” Bobby asked.

“Unfortunately, he's my neighbor down in Windy Tip—bay-front houses about a hundred yards apart,” Shine said. ‘The whole peninsula is balls deep in cops now. Retired, still on the job. See, it's in the city, so you get the dirt cheap property taxes. But it's got zero crime.”

“And zero minorities,” Bobby said.

“For god sakes, don't start with that racist-closed-community routine,” Shine said. “Yeah, it's a white neighborhood. Like East Hampton and Southampton, where all the millionaire liberals flee in the summer. You don't see them going down Coney do you? Yeah, Windy is white; just like Harlem is black. But it isn't that sinister. Judges, politicians, businesspeople have summer homes there, too. Cops just happen to gravitate to it in flocks. I think it has to do with the sea. Cops like boats to get away from it all, to unwind from the job on the wild blue yonder. At least that's why I originally bought there. And to be near my wife and kid . . . the ocean is their grave.”

He quietly ate another pain pill and washed it down with his drink.

“I have nothing against the place,” Bobby said. “But there is a mind-set there, a xenophobia, a fear of outsiders. Security gates, private cops—they do everything but take a blood test to let a visitor in. The people there are afraid of anyone who doesn't wear blue for a living.”

“There's some truth to that,” Shine said. “Even the rookies spend summers there in rented bungalows, hanging out in a saloon Barnicle owns called Central Booking. Subtle, no? But Barnicle, as menacing as he tries to be, is really just a big windbag now. Full of himself. He had a rep on the job for being a bully, smashing guys' faces into walls, shoving perps' heads into toilets filled with shit and piss. Giving out crummy duty, passing good cops over for promotions. A fascist streak, unless you kissed his ass and licked his boots. He took a perverted delight in beating prisoners when they were handcuffed, and you already know my theory on cops who beat criminals . . .”

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “They take petty criminals and turn them into cop killers. You taught me that the first week we worked together, John. But you let the Barnicle crew hang out here, too?”

“Yeah, they drink at the bar, mostly. But Barnicle eats here at least three times a week in the dining room. In fact, about an hour ago, his lady friend, Sandy, called for a seven o'clock reservation. Oddballs. She always arrives first. Then he arrives twenty minutes later with the two goons, like the pope. They pay cash money, usually behave themselves. Sometimes they fight. About that cute kid of theirs. But Barnicle's crew knows I don't tolerate locker-room antics in my place. I figure the best way to know what these assholes are up to is to have them around.”

“Keep your enemies close,” Bobby said, “as Michael Corleone said.”

“Actually it was Machiavelli who said it first,” Shine said. “But the guy you should talk to about Barnicle and your case is Tom Larkin. You know the cranky old house mouse from the seven deuce?”

“Yeah, I had him on my must-see list.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shine said. “Well, I hear that Larkin greedily hoards certain critical information about your case that he's not putting out for general consumption. He knows something about everyone, old Tom does. He's a paranoid old bugger. Precisely what he knows about you, if anything, and who he's told it to, remains a mystery. But I hear rumors. I don't believe in rumors, but I do believe in checking them out. And I'm willing to bet he talks to you. He always liked you, always believed in your innocence. And I know they never meshed very well when Barnicle was his commanding officer. Talk to Larkin; probe him, oil him, see what he knows.”

“I will,” Bobby said. “Remember, John, I never had a chance to investigate my own case. I was inside the whole time without bail before trial. So, I intend to talk to everyone. That's another reason I'm here. I wanted you to be one of the first to know that I think Barnicle and his people are somehow involved in Dorothea's disappearance and my frame. If I have to get down and dirty with this prick, I don't want to put you in the middle. So if I avoid you, or seem aloof, it's only because I don't want to contaminate you with any of this. It's my problem. I'll deal with it.”

“You crazy?” Shine said, looking playfully offended. “You're my friend. ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.' ”

“Again with Emerson,” Bobby said.

“He is my North Star,” Shine said. “I want to help you, Bobby. I mean, running a restaurant is fine, distracting, a livelihood. But I miss the juice of the job, working a case, mixing it up. You need me, you call me. Or else I'm insulted. In fact, anytime you want, you should come down to my house on Windy Tip. Hang out, swim, get some sun on your jailhouse face. Bounce things off me. I'd appreciate being needed now and then. ‘Make yourself necessary to someone.' ”

“Thanks,” Bobby said, shaking Shine's hand goodbye. “I might take you up on that.”

A
s Bobby approached his car, he saw a familiar, impatient black man leaning against the front fender, looking as if Bobby owed him money.

Bobby was no longer a member of NYPD, but years of fearing Internal Affairs cops had instilled a lingering paranoia in him. The uneasiness returned when he saw Forrest Morgan of LAB waiting for him, looking smug and cocky.

“Hello, Forrest,” Bobby said.

Morgan grunted. He was a big man, and Bobby recalled the first time he ever saw him, across the ring in the NYPD heavyweight championship ten years earlier. Morgan had looked as if he were hammered together in a blacksmith's shop. His bald black head sat on top of an eighteen-inch neck, like a cannonball that wouldn't fit into the barrel. In the decade since they fought the last of four ring wars—two wins each, all decisions—Morgan had only added about ten pounds, which he wore on his chest like armor plating. His dark polyester suit was shining cheaply in the sun.

Bobby's fights with Morgan had made Bobby a much better fighter. Some said they'd pounded each other into departmental legend. After fighting him, Bobby was never intimidated by anyone else, ever again.

“We better talk,” Morgan said.

“How'd you find me so soon?” Bobby asked.

“You're like a fucking homing pigeon,” Morgan said. “I knew as soon as you were set free you'd fly home to your trainer.”

“You always were a thinking cop,” Bobby said.

“Half the dirty cops in Brooklyn flock to this place to spend their dirty money,” Morgan said. “Why not you? I sit on this place at least once a month.”

“Anything big?”

“Not as big as you,” Morgan said. “Yet. I saw that little fracas with those two asshole cops. Daniels and Lebeche. Dirty as earthworms. That figures; you're out one day and already you're consorting with a couple felons waiting to happen.”

‘Jesus, Forrest, it's always so sweet to see you.”

“It ain't nice to see you,” Morgan said. “Never was. Never will be. Reason I'm here is I know you know something I wanna know.”