Codes of Betrayal (10 page)

Frank grabbed his nephew by the shoulders of his filthy shirt and shook him. Nick’s eyes were two blank light blue discs.

“Nick, c’mon, Nicky, you with me or what? What the fuck have you been doing around here? What have you done to yourself?”

Nick pulled himself up. He looked around, very agitated. “Holy God, Frank. Where’s the dog? Oh, God, he’s okay, isn’t he? I wouldn’t hurt him for anything—he’s Peter’s dog.”

“He’s okay, Nick. He’s okay.”

Nick hunched over the dog and touched his bloody paw. “Oh, God, Woofer, what happened to you?”

Frank placed his hands on Nick’s shoulders, kneaded them tightly. “He’s got a little cut, that’s all. From the broken glass all over the place. He’ll be okay. Which is more than I can say for you.”

He left Nick, arms around the dog, who licked his face. He searched around the bathroom for some clean towels. He turned on the shower, regulated the water: lukewarm.

He lugged Nick to his feet, stripped off the shirt, dragged him into the bathroom, and shoved him into the shower. He held him firmly, face up, as he decreased the temperature of the water until it was as cold as it could get. Nick shook his head, raised his arms, tried to push Frank away, finally slumped into a sitting position, his head down. Frank slowly increased the water to warm.

“Don’t come out until you lose the brewery smell. You got any clean clothes around this place?”

Frank dug around and found some clean underwear, a pair of fresh blue jeans, a blue T-shirt that wasn’t too dirty. Just not very clean.

“Get into these things when you finish. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

He snapped his fingers toward the dog, who followed him gratefully. Frank found a piece of cloth in the kitchen, and he cleaned off the injured paw, opened a can of dog food, and placed it in the backyard for the dog. He turned and looked at the mess, not knowing where to begin.

He found one clean cup, and set it up with powdered coffee. When he opened the refrigerator, the whiff of spoiled food sickened him. He searched the cupboards and found an unopened box of graham crackers.

Nick slumped at the kitchen table, drank a little of the instant, munched a corner of a graham cracker.

Frank was a compulsively clean and orderly man. He needed to feel control over some portions of his world that could still be brought to order. There was no way he could stop himself until he had cleaned and cleaned most of the debris around him. His nephew was another matter.

Insisting he wasn’t tired, Nick went upstairs when his uncle told him to just get out of the way. Within five minutes, he fell into a deep but restless sleep.

By the time Ed Manganaro arrived with two big shopping bags of food that Frank had ordered, the washing machine was churning and the drier was humming. Eddie looked around, amazed. The inspector was a good housekeeper.

Ed loaded his car with garbage bags and left the silent house.

Later, Nick barely tasted the fresh orange juice his uncle placed in front of him. He rubbed his reddened eyes, then the back of his neck. He stared at the scrambled eggs and toast, then lurched to the sink to throw up. It took a while for Nick to hold anything down, but his uncle insisted.

“At least drink fluids, Nick. You’re dehydrated. Keep drinking—juice, water, soda. Boy, you are some piece of work.”

Nick grinned weakly and shrugged. “Hey, I’m Irish. I’m supposed to drink, right?”

“You’re half Irish, kid, and the Irish you’re half of never were drinkers, so don’t blame it on the green blood in your veins.”

Nick started to laugh, but then uncontrollably he started to sob. His body was taken over with deep wrenching pain, as he was overwhelmed by the memory of why he had been drinking.

Frank went to him, his arm around him, feeling the shaking, trembling, gulping, as Nick tried to stop himself.

Softly, protectively, Frank told him, “It’s okay, kid. Let it out. You got a helluva lot to cry about. Let it go, son, let it go.”

F
RANK DROVE THEM OUT
to his cottage at Montauk Point, at the eastern end of Long Island. It was cold and gray, the air thick and damp. Then they drove a few miles further east to the Point, parked within sight of the lighthouse. The area was a national park, deserted now, dank and desolate.

They walked along the rocky beach, watching the Atlantic’s heavy gray waves rise, roll toward land, peak, revealing flashes of pure green before crashing into foam.

They camped on concrete benches around the cement tables outside the closed, bleak restaurant. Frank had brought a thermos of coffee and a bag of sandwiches. They hadn’t been hungry at the house, but now they were surprised the food tasted so good.

“Jesus, I remember going deep-sea fishing with my father,” Frank said. “Your dad, Danny, he was just a little kid but he loved every minute of it. Our father turned green after about twenty minutes of our hitting the ocean. I lasted about two minutes after seeing him heave.”

“Did my dad get sick?”

“Hell, no. He spent his time yelling that he spotted whales. He kept snapping away with his Brownie camera. No one else saw anything like a whale. But damn, there they were when the pictures were developed. He was so damn proud.”

“I never liked fishing,” Nick said quietly. “Took Peter once, up in the lake at Bear Mountain. I caught a good-sized fish and took one look at Peter’s face. ‘Daddy, it’s dying, isn’t it?’ I put the damn thing back in the water.”

They sat silent for a while. Frank hunched his large shoulders into the wind and breathed deeply.

“Shame life can’t be like this—pure, elemental, fresh.”

“Yeah.”

“So, Nick.” Frank hesitated a moment. “When you planning on going back to work? You’ve just about used up all your time—vacation, holidays, compassionate leave, overtime.”

Nick didn’t meet his uncle’s eyes. “You been checking up on me?”

“Well, you know me. I’m a nosy sonofabitch and got nothin’ better to do with my time. C’mon, Nick.”

“I’m not going back. I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do, okay?”

“No. Not okay.”

“Hey, Frank. I’m on my own. I don’t feel like doing anything. So I’m not going to do anything. You know why Kathy left me? Because of the job.”

“There were other reasons, Nick. There always are. Don’t blame it all on the job.”

“Gimme a break, Frank. Leave it alone.”

“Nick, there are some things I have to tell you. I know it’s a helluva time, but …”

Kathy’s words flashed through his brain. “But there’s no good time to tell a bad thing. What have you got to tell me that I don’t already know? What could be worse than—”

“A lot of things. Let’s take a walk, Nick.”

Walking along the cold, rocky, deserted beach, avoiding rushes of foamy water creeping higher and higher along the shore, Frank told Nick what he had never known. How Nick’s father, Danny O’Hara, died. And who was responsible for his murder.

“It was an
accident,
Frank. He fell.”

“Have you ever wondered why your mother didn’t stay in Brooklyn, near your Ventura relatives? Why she moved in with us, and never went back to the old neighborhood?”

“How the hell should I know? I was just a kid.”

Nick picked up a stone, tossed it as far as he could, watched it disappear as it caught a wave. Then he asked a policeman’s question.

“How many guys were working up there—you said, what, twelve, fifteen?”

“Eighteen. Twelve came to me and told me the same story. Exactly the same story. The welsher got roughed up and tossed over the side. The bastards grabbed your father, to keep him from phoning the police. Your uncle Vincent dialed a number, talked to the only person in the whole world with the authority to give the order. Your grandfather.”

“Papa loved my father. He always did. He felt like he was a son.”

“What the fuck was he gonna tell you? And remember, Nick, Vincent
was
a son.”

“You had twelve witnesses come to you? Okay, why the hell didn’t you make a case?” Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. Who the hell would dare testify against the Ventura family?

“Nick, right after your father’s funeral, Vincent was sent to Arizona. Heart condition? Yeah, right. It was to keep him out of sight. And the two thugs with him, Nick. Guess what happened to them?”

Nick didn’t have to guess.

“An unfortunate car ‘incident.’ The damn Olds blew up just as they started away from a restaurant. Helluva thing, could happen to anybody, right?”

Nick wiped the cold salty water from his cheeks and eyes. His breath was shallow and painful in his chest. “Okay, Frank. Tell me this.” It was the only challenge he could think of. “If what you say is true, that Vinny killed my father, that Papa told him to, if that was true, then why the hell did you let me go to see him when I was a kid? I saw him every goddamn holiday, his birthday, mine. If he killed my father, why would you ever let me go near him?”

They stopped walking, ignoring wet shoes, damp pants, freezing hands, and stinging faces.

“Nicky, Nicky, you were eight years old. In nine months, you lost both your father and your mother. What the fuck was I supposed to do, kill off your grandfather for you too? I guess I was wrong, but as much as I hated that bastard, I couldn’t do that to
you.
The years went by so fast, you didn’t see him that often when you were older. Then you were off to the army, you got married. Okay, I guess I was wrong. I should have told you when you were a kid. But you loved him so much. And … he did love you.”

“Then why the hell are you telling me this now?”

“I haven’t finished, Nick. You’ve gotta hear all of it.”

“All of it?
What the hell else have you got to tell me?”

Frank turned his face to the ocean, trying to draw strength; wishing he could wash away all reality.

He told Nick how and why Peter was really killed—caught in the middle of a petty, street-level drug deal that went wrong between Sonny Ventura and some maverick Chinese kids who were carrying on their own business.

“Peter wasn’t caught in any crossfire. He was shot from a distance of no more than two or three feet. Point-blank.”

Nick had known this; of course he had known this. He had looked at his dead son’s face; had seen the bullet hole surrounded by powder burns. His policeman’s brain had noted that it was a close contact wound. For which there was no reasonable explanation according to Sonny’s story.

“You know where Sonny Ventura is right now, Nick? They got him out of the hospital before the kid was fully recovered, so you wouldn’t talk to him. Flew him, by private plane, to a hospital in Tucson, Arizona. He’ll move in with his grandfather, Vincent. Two of a kind, Nick. They deserve each other.”

Frank watched his nephew run along the edge of the beach, unaware of the fact that at some point the water was over his ankles. He became a vague shadow, emerging now and then in the heavy mist that was turning into fog. He waited. Nick was gone for nearly an hour, but Frank knew he would come back.

Obviously, he had slipped at some point: one side of his clothing was soaking wet. They walked up the steep sandy hill, crossed the deserted paved area usually filled with tourists in the spring and summer months, stopped at the benches.

“Nick, you
have
to go back on the job.”

Nick’s face was so blank it wasn’t even clear that he had heard his uncle’s words, but he had.

“Why? What for? Why the fuck should I go back on the job?”

Frank’s body stiffened and he said, through clenched teeth,
“To get revenge.”

They spent the rest of the weekend at Frank’s cottage, and Nick listened as his uncle spelled out, in detail, his plan.

A
T NICK’S PRECINCT, THERE
was a department legend named Sam Speigel, nicknamed “Singin’ Sam.” At his mother’s behest, he had trained to be a cantor. His pure and beautiful voice brought tears and a sense of wonder to all who heard him sing. But what he had wanted, all his life, was to be a policeman, which his family thought was strange: What nice Jewish boy would want such a job? Sam Speigel did.

His voice earned him a unique place in the police department. Sam Speigel sang at any and every fraternal dinner, convention, picnic, memorial service—in churches and synagogues throughout the city. He sang at weddings and bar mitzvahs, at anniversaries, birthdays, and funerals. He was invited to all parties wherever policemen gathered, and could sing in any language required with a soul-piercing clarity.

Which is why everyone who knew him and thrilled to his gift was shocked beyond words when Sam Speigel was shot in the throat, by a madman who had just killed his wife and children, and before killing himself shot Sam. Everyone rushed to the hospital to give blood, comfort, assistance of every kind to his family. What no one could give him were new vocal cords.

Sam was a plodder and an optimist and a man who concentrated on whatever needed to be done in order to survive. About a year after his release from his stay at a rehab center, Sam Speigel showed up in the precinct house, where his lifting voice had been heard for years practicing new songs for some party or traditional celebration.

He was warmly greeted, hugged, thumped, surrounded by his former co-workers, and then he waved them back and demonstrated his new way of speaking. Holding a microphonelike device over an implanted box in his throat, breathing in strange gasping sounds, Sam spoke to them. No one could understand a single word. There was a series of gasps and burps and loud electronic feedbacks and Sam grew red in the face with his effort. He scrambled around, found a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote:
“I’m getting better at this every day!”
Everyone nodded, patted him on the back, and got very busy.

Sam Speigel was not deterred. Through the years, he would show up unannounced to visit with his chums. Nick had watched their response to his breathless performance. No one actually
looked
at Sam. They looked past him, around him, through him, but no one caught his eye lest Sam try to start a one-on-one conversation.