Night Work (44 page)

“We didn't shoot him.” Rose's panic was too close to the surface to hold in.

“Shut up, Barney,” Rotella said.

“You can still hang for it.”

“We didn't do it. She did it.”

“Shut up.”

“Kevin, it took fifteen minutes on the phone to find out that Theresa Allen's maiden name was Rotella and that she has a brother working for the Parks Department. A neighbor saw you two taking away the old sofa from Theresa's, piss and blood all over it, I guess, and bringing in the new one. She's going to be able to identify you and the van. When the science guys go over the van, they're going to find blood, and it's going to match Casey's. Do yourselves some good. Talk to me.”

*   *   *

Cassidy picked up a car from the car pool and drove it out to Queens. He parked it in front of Theresa Allen's house, walked up the stoop, and rang the doorbell. After a while, the peephole darkened as someone looked out, and then the locks rattled, and Theresa Allen opened the door and looked out at him. She was dressed for widowhood, a long black skirt, a black blouse, a black velvet ribbon holding back her hair.

She was the woman in his dream who stood outside the opening elevator doors holding a gun. Now, her right hand was hidden behind the door. His hand was a long way from his gun under his arm. What would she do if he reached for it? “Mrs. Allen, may I come in?”

In answer she turned away and walked to the living room, leaving him to come or go as he pleased and to shut the door. Her hands were empty.

The fallibility of dreams.

When he entered the living room, she was standing near the sofa, hip cocked, smoking a cigarette, her left arm across her stomach, her right elbow resting on it, arm up, cigarette near her mouth. “Where's your partner?”

“He's in the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“Someone shot him. There's a lot of that going around right now.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Have you found out anything about Casey?”

“Yes, quite a bit. I just had a long conversation with Kevin and Barney.”

“What do you mean?” She tried to throw it away, but her sudden stillness betrayed her.

“Theresa, you don't have a play here. You got into a fight with your husband over Jane Hopkins. You shot him while he was sitting on the sofa. Then you called your idiot brother and his dim friend to come help you. If you'd just had them dig a deep hole for him, you might have gotten away with it. Probably not, but who knows? But you had to let her know.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Sure you do. Do you think Kevin and Barney want to take the fall with you? They told me everything. What bothered me was why no one saw him being delivered to the park. People saw the Parks truck, but they didn't think anything of it, because it was always around. It was invisible.”

She did not flinch. “He was mine. She had no right. He knew what would happen if he cheated. I warned him. He knew.” As if that made it right.

“Sure.”

“What happens now?” No anger, no defiance, no resignation, no tears. Sometimes an arrest was like that. The crime was too heavy to carry, and arrest was a relief.

“You'll have to come into the city with me.”

“Can I get my purse?”

“Go ahead.”

She stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray on the coffee table and opened the sliding doors between the living room and the small dining room enough to slip between them. Cassidy could see her purse on the dining room table. She turned back toward him, and she approached the doors again, he could see only part of her body.

The dream. The elevator doors sliding apart. The woman in black with the gun. Not the elevator doors—these doors.

He heard the thump as she dropped the purse, and she came out of the dining room with a small silver automatic out in front of her. He was already moving when she pulled the trigger, and the first shot smacked into the wall over the sofa. The second broke a window. He chopped her wrist hard, and she dropped the gun and went at him with fingernails, knees, and feet, screaming. He tried to fend her off, but she was wild, and strong with rage. A fingernail ripped a gouge down the side of his neck. She jerked free, pushed him off balance, and darted away through the dining room toward the kitchen. He went after her, unnerved that she might have another gun there.

He found her scrabbling at a drawer in a counter, and she turned with a large carving knife and came hard at him. Her lips were scraped back from her teeth in a snarl, her eyes were mad, and she howled while she slashed at him. He barely eluded the first thrust as he backed away in the small kitchen. He threw a chair in her path. She kicked it aside and came on, thrusting and slashing. He grabbed a glass from the counter and threw it at her, and she let it bounce off her chest. She stabbed at him again, and for a moment she was off balance. He knocked her knife hand aside and punched her in the side, and she gasped in pain and surprise and sat down on the floor. The knife fell out of her hand, and he kicked it aside. Her legs splayed, she tipped forward from the waist, trying to find breath, her black hair fell over her face, and she began to wail.

*   *   *

“Nice work,” Lieutenant Tanner said.

“Thanks,” Cassidy said.

“Did you put some iodine on those scratches?”

“Yes.”

“Buy you a drink?” He gestured with his head toward his office.

“Sure.” Cassidy got up from his desk where he was writing the arrest report and went into Tanner's office. Tanner closed the door and took a bottle and two glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk, poured the drinks, and pushed one of the glasses to Cassidy.

“To crime,” Tanner said, and they both drank. “God, that's good.” Tanner lit the stump of a cigar that was waiting in his ashtray.

Cassidy lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling and took another sip of the whiskey.

“So what the hell was she thinking, leaving him out there in the park? It was like a warning, right? Don't fuck him again. Seems to me when she shot him she took care of that part of the equation. Jesus, broads.” Tanner got the bottle out and poured more into their glasses. “The hospital called. Orso woke up for a while. It's still touch and go, but they say it's a good sign.”

“Good. I'll go on over after I finish my report.”

“What the fuck were you thinking, Mike, a plan like that?”

“It seemed smart at the time.”

“How many people have we put in jail had the same thought? And going out there to Queens to arrest a murderer without backup. Are you all right, Mike?”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you sure? We talked about this before. You've got to pull yourself together.”

“I'm all right, Boss.”

“Watch yourself, okay? You made enemies with Chief Clarkson and Chief Holloway with that stuff at the hotel. They turned it around so they looked good, but they didn't like it. They're looking to get you, so try not to be too big an asshole for the next few months.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Thank you. Here's an order. Take the rest of the week off. Get out of here. Go see Orso. Get drunk. Get laid. Do something productive.”

*   *   *

Cassidy did not like hospitals, did not like how they smelled of medicine and plastic and floor polish, did not like the quiet desperation and hushed voices of people worried about their loved ones, and the cool distance of the hospital staff who had seen it all time and again, sickness and recovery, sickness and death, and had grown armor against it that allowed them to work efficiently, with compassion, if that was their nature, and brusquely if it was not. He recovered and was discharged? Mark the chart, change the bed, clean the room. He died? Mark the chart, change the bed, clean the room.

Detta Orso was in the waiting room at the end of Orso's corridor. She sat in a chair with light from the window, knitting something that was still without shape. Her fingers and the needles moved as if on their own while she looked out the window without seeing, her face drawn and worried.

“Detta,” Cassidy said.

“Michael, Michael.” She put the knitting down carefully on the chair next to hers and got up and went to him and hugged him. The top of her head did not come to his chin. “He's going to be all right. I just know it. They've got a chapel downstairs, and I went down and prayed for him. God's going to take care of him.”

“Did you see the doctor?” Cassidy had more faith in him.

“Yes. What a nice young man. He seems very young to be a doctor. Do you think he's young? Do you think an older man should see Tony?”

“Detta, I saw him yesterday. I liked him. I think he's a good doctor. He's not too young. He's just the right age.”

“Okay. You think so. Maybe you're right. You know better.”

“Was Tony awake?”

“For a little while. Then he went back to sleep. You go see him, Michael. He'd like to see you. He loves you.”

“I'll go down and then I'll come back and find you.”

A nurse left the room as he arrived. “Is he awake?”

“He just woke up. Go ahead in, but don't stay long. He's very weak. Just a few minutes.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Orso's eyes were closed. He looked pale and shrunken. Someone, probably Detta, had combed his hair. There was a vase of spring flowers on the windowsill. The machines to which he was attached blinked and whirred. Sickrooms made Cassidy feel helpless and uneasy. Orso did not move, and Cassidy thought of retreating and recognized it as cowardice. He sat in the plastic armchair next to the bed and watched the slow, shallow rise of his partner's chest.

Orso opened his eyes. “Hey.” He flapped a hand in welcome. “Light a cigarette, will you? They won't let me smoke. I just want to smell it.” His voice was as light and dry as dust.

“How do you feel?” Cassidy took a pack of Luckys from his jacket and lit one.

“I feel like shit. I mean, I don't hurt 'cause they got me juiced with drugs, but I feel, I don't know, hollow, or something.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Hey, Mike, what happened? I hit that fucker twice, but he didn't go down, and when that gun started to turn, I knew I was done. I've got to dump that twenty-five, get something that will hurt a guy.”

“I killed him. You saved us, Tony, taking the shots, so we knew they were there. If we hadn't known and opened the door, we would have been dead. I almost got us killed, but you saved us.”

“Yeah. Some hero I am.” He stopped talking and closed his eyes for a moment to gather strength. “Ma was here.”

“She's down at the end of the hall in the waiting room.”

“Make her go home when you leave, otherwise she'll sit there all night.”

“I will.”

“What am I going to tell her about the money? You know, I thought, well if I'm dead, I don't have to tell her anything. I don't have to see her face. I don't have to know.”

“Not so good for her, though, is it?”

“At least she'd have the Department insurance. Ten thousand. It's not much, but it's something. Make her go home, Mike.” Orso turned his face away.

He took Detta downstairs and waved a Yellow Cab up from the rank that waited near the entrance.

“It's all the way to Brooklyn, Michael. It's too dear,” she protested. “I can take the subway.”

“Detta, let me do this for you. I told Tony I would.” He gave the cabbie a ten and the address and watched while the cab pulled out into traffic and turned downtown.

He wondered whether Orso could will himself to death like an animal in a trap.

 

31

They went to dinner at Fiorello's. It was the place to go in the Village that year if you wanted the romance of candles, white tablecloths, private booths, discreet waiters, murmured conversations, delicious food, good wine. Alice's choice, Alice's treat, over Cassidy's protest that women did not pay for dinner. She took the advice of the sommelier, who beamed when she ordered a twelve-year-old bottle of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

She savored everything put in front of her and ate with a delight in every taste and texture. Sensing his mood, she worked hard to make him laugh with stories of women smuggling men into the forbidden upper floors of the Barbizon, and of the peculiar habits of senators and congressmen she had met while working in Washington, including one from Hershey, Pennsylvania, who begged to be allowed to strip her naked and cover her with chocolate. She slipped off her shoe and slid her stockinged foot up under his cuff. When the waiter stopped by to ask if everything was to their satisfaction, she moved it up and pressed her toes against his balls just as he was saying, “Yes, thank you. Everything's great.” They drank champagne with dessert and grappa with their coffee. They necked in the taxi going home, and in their eagerness, left most of their clothing on the floor between the front door and the bedroom.

She teased him and then stopped just when it became unbearable, and let him in. After the first collision, they slowed to enjoy each other, each having learned what the other liked and, by the end, he was weightless, adrift, freed of the anger and guilt that had been corroding him.

“You like me, don't you, Michael.” Her leg was over his and her head was against his shoulder. He could see the shape of her face from the glow of the cigarette in her mouth. She was stating a fact, not fishing for a compliment.

“I do. I like you a lot.” So easy when it was the truth.

“Good. I like you too.” She turned enough to kiss his ear. “I always knew it would work if you just gave me the chance. From the first time I saw you on the plane to Cuba when you were handcuffed to that guy. Removing the mattress tag.” She laughed at the memory. “Kidder. That's what I called you.”