Last Chance for Glory (15 page)

“Nice of you to tell me.”

“I’m telling you now, Marty. That’s why I’m here. Things came to a head rather quickly, and William’s afraid that if he doesn’t act immediately, he’ll lose his best chance.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“Please, Marty, don’t be tiresome. It’s really your only character flaw.”

“Don’t change the subject, Rebecca. You and William have led different lives for the last ten years. So, what does this trip to claim the ancestral homestead have to do with you?”

She put one foot up on the edge of the tub and began to run the towel along the inside of her left thigh. Her eyes were turned away from him and when she spoke, her voice was soft, almost wistful.

“I’ve always loved the continent,” she said, as if that explained it.

“S
O YOU SEE WHAT
happened, Bell, is that all my problems with the diocese came to a head when I started talking to the Newman Club about St. Paul. I mean the guy was a flunky, right? A collaborating Jew who had the authority to arrest any Jew who invoked the name of Jesus. You can’t get any lower than that, Bell. That’s the muck on the bottom of the cesspool. Tell me, am I right?”

“You’re right, Father Tim.” Bell Kosinski listened with half an ear. He was feeling good, better than he’d felt in months. That was because he knew he wouldn’t be taking the gun out tonight. Wouldn’t clean it, touch it, even look at it.

“Okay, so he’s traveling through the desert—this Saul who becomes Paul, this Jew who becomes a Greek—and he has a miraculous conversion. You know, struck blind, which maybe he deserved, then cured. A week later he’s running the entire Christian show. I mean, when you think about it, the story doesn’t make sense—Paul didn’t even
know
Jesus—but before you can say, ‘Holy Carpetbagger,’ he’s got Jesus’ disciples running all over the Mediterranean converting the Gentiles. I’m telling you, Bell, if it wasn’t for this collaborator, Christianity would be a religion of the Jews.”

“And you told this to the Newman Club?” Kosinski took a drink, casually scratched his leg. The question was purely rhetorical. Father Tim, a retired priest and a Cryders regular, was obsessed with his own demise. Especially after his third drink.

“Yeah, the NYU chapter. And lemme tell ya, buddy, I definitely had their attention. That’s the beauty of working with college kids. They’re not afraid to think.”

“Ya believe I used to confess to this guy?” Emily Caruso broke in. She shook her head in disbelief. “I musta been a goddamned jerk.”

Father Tim winced at the blasphemy, but kept his attention focused on the ex-cop. “So, after a couple of sessions like this, I get a message that a certain Monsignor Cabella expects me to be in his office the next day at nine
AM
. When I get there, he’s this little guinea with acne scars that make his cheeks into a mine field. ‘Wha’ you tella these kids?’ he wants to know. Meanwhile, he doesn’t offer coffee and I got one of those hangovers makes you think somebody divided your brain with a square of hot sheet metal. You know the one I’m talkin’ about? You ever get that one, Bell?”

“I had every kind there is, Father.”

“And that ain’t all you had,” Emily Caruso said. She waited until Kosinski turned to her, then whispered, “I used to tell this
putz
everything. I couldn’t wash my tits in the shower, but I’d be confessin’ it on Saturday afternoon. And all the time he’s nothin’ but a drunk. Word of God, Kosinski, I done a lotta stupid things in my life, but tellin’ my sins. … Hey, whatta ya know, it’s Moussy-man.”

Kosinski looked up, his interest caught. It was Friday night, and the bar was packed with working men eager to part with a chunk of the old paycheck before tottering home to the wife and kids. It’d been this way ever since Bell Kosinski was old enough to get served, even back in the days when the wives weren’t bringing home paychecks of their own.

They came from New York Telephone, Con Ed, UPS, Federal Express, a dozen construction companies. The unmarried among them had their girlfriends in tow, underage ladies in rhinestone jeans and halter tops. The only women in the place (besides Emily Caruso), the girlfriends stood in self-conscious knots, seemingly aware of their interloper status, even if their macho boyfriends were not.

The bowling machine was going strong, as was the recently repaired jukebox. The younger men were horsing around, pushing and joking while the regulars drank their boilermakers and pretended it was Tuesday afternoon. Bell Kosinski, on the other hand, liked the noise and the tension. It reminded him of his earliest days on the job when he’d walked a beat in Times Square. Day or night, The Deuce lived on anticipation. Of drugs, of sex, of violence—of some impending apocalypse that took many forms: a bloody civilian staggering toward an ambulance; a sleek hooker in crotchless panty hose working a razor back and forth across her pimp’s face; a skeletal junkie in a doorway, his slate-gray features hardening under the onset of
rigor.

“So listen, Bell.” Father Tim grabbed Kosinski by the shoulder, tried to spin him around. When that tactic failed, he spoke directly into the back of the ex-cop’s head. “I know I gotta tell the dago
something,
but I have this hangover and I can’t concentrate. You know, like I made a big mistake trying to do the meeting without havin’ a drink first and my hands are shaking so bad I’ve got ’em in my pockets. So what I do is run with the first thing that comes into my head. I tell him, ‘You remember the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands the crowd to love their enemies? You remember that, Monsignor? Jesus said you should love your enemies two thousand years ago, so why is it that right now, after all this time, I don’t know anybody who even
likes
their enemies? I mean it seems kind of strange until you really think about it. Then it becomes obvious. Jesus tells the crowd
what
to do, but He doesn’t tell them
how
to do it. No, He doesn’t tell the
crowd
how to do it, because the people in the crowd are merely called. They haven’t been chosen, and how to love your enemies is a secret reserved for the chosen. That’s why He had disciples. So He could tell them His secrets. Which leaves St. Paul in the dark, as far as I’m concerned; it makes him an organization man who could turn Europe into one big crowd. Everybody learning
what.
Nobody learning
how.’”

Kosinski nodded automatically. “Say, Emily, where did you see this Moussy-Man? I can’t find him.”

“I seen his face in the window. There, he’s comin’ in the door.”

Marty Blake’s grinning face appeared, as if at Emily Caruso’s command, in the open doorway. His shoulders, Kosinski noted, spanned the frame.

“Bell …”

“Not now, Father Tim. I got business.” He signaled Ed O’Leary to fill the priest’s glass, added Emily Caruso’s as an afterthought, then waved to Marty Blake. “Hey, Marty, over here.” He watched Blake edge through the crowd, muttering “Excuse me” and “Pardon me,” and thought, I better warn this kid. Better tell him there’s no water in the swimming pool. I better tell him you can’t bounce on concrete.

“Kosinski, could I see you for a minute?”

“Sure, Marty. This private? You wanna go outside?”

“Yeah.”

Kosinski snatched his glass off the bar top and followed Blake’s retreating back. Once outside, his eyes swept the sidewalk in front of Cryders, noting several patrons catching a breath of fresh air while they drained their glasses. With two exceptions, their faces were unfamiliar. The exceptions were Cryders’ resident bully, Tony Loest, and Cryders’ resident (on weekends, when there were customers for his product) coke and pill dealer, Candy Packert.

Kosinski had never had a beef with Tony Loest, though he’d pulled him off a victim or two. Loest, Kosinski knew, wasn’t physically afraid of him, but as a kid from the neighborhood, Loest was smart enough to respect the badge, the badge Kosinski no longer wore. Packert, on the other hand, was the kind of sleazebag Kosinski, in years gone by, would have slapped senseless. In years gone by, Kosinski knew, he would have run Candy Packert out of Whitestone.

“Hey, you with me, or what?”

Kosinski turned at the sound of Blake’s voice, found him leaning one elbow on the roof of a sky-blue, 1979 Trans-Am. He heard a low grunt, like the chuff of a bull about to charge. “Hey, Marty, if I was you, I’d turn around.”

It was too late. Loest, already in the air, came down on Marty Blake’s back like a panther defending its cub.

Kosinski pointed at Candy Packert, shouted, “Just stay where the fuck you are,” then started to move toward his partner. He needn’t have bothered. Tony Loest, as if he’d willed it himself, spun around Blake’s thick torso. His face slammed into the Pontiac’s hood before Kosinski took a step.

“Jesus, Marty, what was that? Was that judo?” Kosinski put his body between Blake’s and Loest’s. Just in case Loest had any fight left in him.

“That was wrestling,” Blake responded. He’d retreated several steps and was now standing behind Kosinski. “A reverse is what it’s called. The spin, I mean. There’s no move called ‘face in the sheet metal.’ I made that up on my own. Who is this jerk?”

“His name’s Tony Loest. Works construction, so naturally he thinks he’s a badass.” Kosinski flashed his nastiest grin, even though he suspected that Loest couldn’t see it through the blood. “Tony, I want you to go inside, wash your face, and have a drink. Tell Ed to put it on my tab.”

“Fuck you, Kosinski. I ain’t afraid of you.”

Kosinski responded by slamming his fist into Tony Loest’s chest. Loest, who never saw it coming, doubled over and began to vomit enthusiastically.

“Packert, you hear me?” Kosinski kept his eyes on Loest, expecting him to revive, to live up to his reputation.

“I hear you.” Candy Packert’s voice was matter-of-fact. There was no disrespect in it.

“Take Tony inside, Packert. And keep him out of trouble. If you don’t, I’m gonna see the narcs down at the One-O-Nine. Tell ’em what you and Tony are doing at Cryders.”

“No problem. We’re on the way.”

Kosinski waited until Loest and Packert disappeared into the bar, then took Blake’s arm and led him off down the street. “You were wonderful, Marty. I’m very impressed. Really, I’m not bullshitting here. I took you for an intellectual type. What with the computer and everything, you can hardly blame me.”

“Cut the crap,” Blake responded. “I didn’t come here to be patronized by a drunk.”

“Well, why
did
you come. Seeing as we’re supposed to meet at the lawyer’s office tomorrow morning.”

“I came because I’ve got an address on Kamal Collars and I want to find him before we go to Steinberg’s.”

Kosinski started to respond, caught himself, grinned sheepishly as he realized that he really
was
impressed. Impressed and, in some way, proud. “You did that with the computer?”

“I did it with somebody else’s computer.”

“Yeah, whose?”

“Not your business, Kosinski. Look, Collars is on welfare. Disability, actually. Two weeks ago, a case worker paid him a home visit at the Chatham Hotel on West Twenty-ninth Street, near the river. I want you to go over there with me.”

“That’s great, Marty. Good timing. Most of those welfare hotels, if you’re not inside by nine o’clock, you lose the bed.” Kosinski felt a wave of gratitude wash over him. He raised a hand to his face, found his cheeks warm, thought, Jeez, I hope I’m not blushing. And if I am, I hope it’s too dark for Blake to see it.

“What I want from you,” Blake said, “is your expertise and your badge. In case we get some lip from the hotel rent-a-cops.”

“That could be a problem, Marty. Seeing as how I’m not a cop any more and I don’t
have
a badge.”

“Kosinski, you look like a cop, you talk like a cop, you dress like a cop, you even smell like a cop. You make the right faces, you’ll never have to show your badge.”

“All right, Marty. Sounds good to me. Whatta ya say we swing by my apartment and I pick up my .38?”

“Why, you planning to shoot someone?”

“It’s not about actually shooting anybody.” Unless, Kosinski thought, it’s about shooting
me.
“But there’s nothing looks more cop than a shoulder rig under a cheap suit. What you do is leave the jacket unbuttoned; let ’em get a look at your .38. An ordinary citizen might still ask to see your tin, but street people think asking for ID is a sign of disrespect. I guess it’s because they’ve gotten their faces slapped for doing it. Just keep in mind—getting some mutt to open his mouth doesn’t mean the truth is what’s coming out. In fact, for some of these people, lying to cops is a matter of honor.”

“S
EE, WHAT I’M HOPING,
Marty, is that this alibi witness works out for Billy Sowell. Because if he doesn’t, we’re gonna have a hell of a time on our hands.”

“Why’s that?” They were passing over the Triborough Bridge and most of Blake’s attention was occupied by the Manhattan skyline to the south. It was a clear night and the parade of skyscrapers, their lit windows gleaming like the diamonds in one of Rebecca Webber’s better necklaces, seemed to retreat like soldiers into the deep black of a starless sky. In a matter of hours, Rebecca would be flying off into that sky. She would leave him without a moment’s regret, would feel nothing but anticipation as she slid into her first-class seat. Which was only fitting. Why should she treat him like a man when he behaved like a stray mutt with a hard-on?

“It should be obvious, Marty. I’m surprised you don’t know.”

Blake turned to find Kosinski nursing the now-traditional pint of Smirnoff. “I’m getting real sick of you telling me what I don’t know.”

“Somebody’s gotta do it. Because from what I can see, you don’t know anything.”

Kosinski’s voice lacked detectable sarcasm; it was fatherly, concerned, sincere, which made it all the worse. Blake figured he should be pissed, but he actually felt pretty good. Most likely, Rebecca was packing her things, laying out various ensembles, wondering how much she could fit into several trunks and a full set of Luis Vuitton. He had no way of knowing when she’d come back; or if she’d still be interested when she did. Maybe she’d fasten onto some blond Bavarian stud with a full collection of whips and chains; maybe she’d stay in Europe, conquer the continent, flash the old world a little new world decadence. When he thought about it, Blake felt relieved. The weight was off and that made the question of who did what to whom entirely moot.