Last Chance for Glory (45 page)

“You’re sayin’ you were dead, right?” Ed, of course, would ask the practical question. Try to pin it down. “You’re heart was stopped and you weren’t breathing, right?”

“Dead? I don’t know about dead. I mean I was unconscious, but it wasn’t like I didn’t know what was going on.” There, let Ed take
that
and put it in his cash register. Let him enter it in his ledger. “Besides, I was on a respirator, so I was definitely breathing.”

“Ah, wonderful.” Father Tim, eyes glowing, jaw slightly agape, would ignore the last part. “Did you see Jesus? Did you see the light?”

“No, Father, nothing like that. It was like watching a TV set, like the camera was up above. Somebody was beating on my chest, somebody else was shuffling bags on the IV pole, somebody was working me over with a pair of shock paddles. The impression I got—and like it’s only an impression because I didn’t really care about the outcome, whether or not they’d make that limp thing on the bed come alive—was that they’d done it all before, lots of times. They worked really fast—their hands were flying—but they didn’t get in each other’s way. It was beautiful. That’s what I thought at the time. I thought, ‘This is really beautiful.’”

Father Tim and Ed would get into it, then. Father Tim insisting the story had spiritual significance; Ed denying it with a snarl: “It don’t prove nothin’. So his heart stopped for three-and-a-half minutes? So what? He was breathin’ all the time, right? And somebody was pumpin’ his heart, right? Naw, I’m not buyin’ dead here.”

“Ed, please, Bell watched himself. From
above.
How could he do that if he wasn’t dead?”

“How could he do that if he
was
dead?”

Eventually, Ed would prevail by sheer force of will, then turn back to Kosinski. “Brannigan’s comin’ up for trial soon. Next couple of weeks I heard.”

“Yeah, ten days actually.”

“He was your partner.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“And you’re gonna testify against him.”

“C’mon, Ed. He tried to kill me. Hell, his buddies killed my
real
partner. Whatta ya want me to do, let him walk?”

The problem was that he’d always imagined it as personal. He’d imagined it the way Blake had
done
it. Not sitting in a goddamned courtroom with twelve monkeys leaning out over the jury box. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. There was talk of a plea bargain going around, a rumor the cops could put Tommy Brannigan in that prison the day Billy Sowell was murdered, another rumor about DNA testing, that Brannigan was being offered a single count of second-degree murder and fifteen-to-life. That would keep Bell Kosinski out of a courtroom, but it wouldn’t get him back into Cryders.

He lit a cigarette, sucked down the smoke, thought, No, no, no. Not Cryders. Not for a reformed drunk. For a reformed drunk, it’s cigarettes and coffee and every night listening to other drunks recite their sad stories. For Bell Kosinski it’s reciting his own sad story to a roomful of strangers.

In some ways, it was worse than being an alcoholic, worse than stumbling home after a night at Cryders. But it was the price—no question about that—and he couldn’t forget Brannigan’s face leaning over the bed, what he’d finally realized as Brannigan fed potassium into the IV tube. Bell Kosinski wanted to live. Alcoholics Anonymous was the price, the fat lady had sung her song.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to tell the story. And it didn’t change the fact that, aside from his Cryders’ buddies, the only person he could tell it to was Marty Blake and Marty Blake was
really
dead. Not dead and brought back to life, but finished, gone, down-in-the-grave dead.

Which was exactly where Bell Kosinski was headed. Out to Marty Blake’s grave at the request of Marty Blake’s mother.

He took a left on Northern Boulevard, came to a stop at the traffic light on the next corner. He was driving very slowly, planting that appraising cop look on every civilian he saw. Not a glare, really, but offensive enough in a city where eye contact between strangers is grounds for an assault. It was how the veterans taught the rookies to drive a patrol car and it somehow kept the jitters at bay.

The pain had that effect, too. He’d been shot early in September and it was now the middle of January, but the pain never really went away. Usually, it hung in the background, like a toothache waiting for an ice cube, but now and again it screamed as if the metal plates holding his jaw together had been wired for electricity.

They’d given him pills, once he was able to swallow, and a prescription for Demerol when he left the hospital. He’d tossed the prescription away as soon as got home, reasoning that he liked the Demerol enough to want it even when he didn’t hurt and if he had to be addicted to something, alcohol was a lot cheaper than dope. Now, he was used to the pain the way he was used to the slight tilt of his head caused by the pull of the scar tissue in his neck. He saw them, the pain and the tilt, as battle ribbons freeing him from the necessity for continued combat.

Kosinski took a right on 162nd Street and made his way south to Flushing Cemetery. He’d passed this particular cemetery any number of times in the course of his NYPD career, noted its carefully manicured grounds, actually stopped once or twice to have the obligatory coffee and donuts within sight of its blossoming cherry and apple trees. Even now, under the flat glare of a January sun, with its skeletal trees and barren flower beds seeming almost brazen, the grounds appeared to be torn from a Norman Rockwell painting of the perfect American graveyard.

A few minutes later, he found Dora Blake standing next to a polished black headstone. Marty Blake’s name had already been carved into its surface, right next to the name of his father, Matthew.

“So what do you think, Bell? You think they’re fighting it out down there? Marty and his father?” She went on without waiting for a reply, her breath misting the cold January air. “It was supposed to be my spot. Next to my husband, but I’ve decided to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.” She paused again, let her eyes wander over the scars on Kosinski’s neck and jaw. “I haven’t heard from anyone on Matthew’s side of the family in months. They’ve cut me off completely.”

“They’re blaming the victim, Dora. No surprise.”

Dora Blake shook her head. “What they’re doing is protecting their cop careers. Or trying to. You wanna hear something funny? Patrick, Matt’s brother, once told me that his son was
meant
to become commissioner. Born to it, the way Joe Kennedy’s sons—one and all—were meant to be presidents.”

Kosinski shrugged his shoulders, blew onto his cold hands. He was here because … because she’d asked him and he figured he owed it to Marty, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“Have you seen the videotape?” Dora Blake asked after a moment. “The Ozone Park Massacre tape?”

That drew a smile from Kosinski, a grudging smile. Vinnie Cappolino had sold the tape and files to “Hard Copy” a day after the shoot-out, had sold the originals for a rumored five hundred large. The cops had gotten copies.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve seen the tape. Like everybody else in the country.”

“Then tell me why.”

“Why what?”

“Why Marty did it like
that.
He had the files. He could have put Samuel Harrah and rest of them behind bars without … without killing himself.”

“Dora, look …” It was a good beginning, but that was as far as he got. There’d been no audio to go with the videotape; no one had survived to fill in the blanks. Had he, Kosinski, had something to do with it? Yeah, probably. But if Blake had wanted to protect his partner, why hadn’t he used the incriminating material as a guarantee? Or did Blake think he was dead?

“Marty thought you were dead.”

“Jesus.” It was like she’d been reading his mind. “How do you know?”

“He called me from Harrah’s office just before it happened. He told me you’d been killed.”

Kosinski fished a pack of Kent Lights out of his coat pocket, lit one up, flipped the match into the wind. “I hadn’t smoked one of these in fifteen years,” he said, “before I got hit. What it is, Dora, is now that I’m off the booze, smokes and coffee are all I’ve got.”

Dora Blake shrugged her shoulders, muttered, “It could be worse.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figure. The doc said my liver’s not too bad, either. He said if I take care of myself, I should live to a ripe, old age.” Kosinski stopped suddenly, realized he was rambling, that he wanted to say something to comfort her. Instead, he blurted, “I don’t think Marty was out to avenge my death.”

“Then tell me what he was out to do.” She turned away from him, back to the headstone.

“It’s not that easy.” His mind wandered to his own story, the one he wanted to tell Father Tim. There was one part he never got to in his daydreams, the part where he tried to explain wanting to live when he thought he was going to die, but not giving a damn after he was dead. “See, when Marty heard that I’d been whacked, it freed him up. Just like Billy Sowell’s murder freed him up. Do you understand?”

She turned toward him, mouth pursed. One gloved hand reached up to smooth the collar of her coat. “Maybe. Finish what you have to say.

“Marty had obligations. To me, to Billy Sowell, and to Max Steinberg. Sowell, the victim, went first; then Steinberg, the client; then his actual partner. After that, he was free to do what he wanted.”

“And what about me?” Her voice was short and bitter. “Marty had no obligation to me?”

“Marty wasn’t obliged to
protect
you.” He took her arm, began to lead her away from the grave. “Look, you’ve seen that video as often as I have. Do you think Marty was out to commit suicide?”

“No,” she admitted, “but the risk was unnecessary. He could have done it another way.”

“Not when you consider what he wanted to accomplish.” Kosinski opened the door of his Toyota and Dora Blake got inside without protesting. “I mean, face it, Dora, the only thing Marty Blake ever wanted to be was a hero.”

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copyright © 1994 by Stephen Solomita

cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons

978-1-4532-9060-6

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