Revolver (21 page)

Sta
ś
may be the second Walczak to die wearing the badge, but he won't be counted among the heroic fallen. His name will never be etched onto a skinny brass plate and mounted in City Hall's courtyard memorial.

Because her brother's death is ruled a suicide.

The past three days have been horrible. Arrangements were made quickly, but nobody knew what else to do except avoid the media. Dad's house in Mayfair ended up being the unofficial family way station. Cary would drift in and out, just to check on Dad, but ended up lingering to drink the beer in the fridge and do shots of the vodka when he thought nobody else was looking. Even Claire stopped by once, without Will for a change, though she didn't say much. She didn't speak to Audrey about anything other than the basics.
The funeral will be Thursday. Make sure you wear that dress with the sleeves. The limo will pick you up here at eight.

Audrey bit the bullet and called the Tennellsons to explain what had happened. They were suspicious until they looked it up on the Internet—as if she'd lie about something like this? They put Bryant on the phone. He said “Dada.” They were teaching him
Dada.
Wonderful.

How about Mama? Mama could use a little love right about now.

Usually a fallen officer receives a massive civic turnout, from the mayor on down. But today St. Matt's is half empty.

Audrey is surprised Sta
ś
could have a funeral mass at all. She assumed the church denied them to suicides. And it's not as if they can fudge this with the priest; it's all over the papers and on the Internet. The church, however, is more understanding and compassionate these days. As the priest explained at the wake last night, none of us know what's going through an individual's mind, or what is troubling their soul, in their greatest moment of weakness.

But still, Sta
ś
—what the hell
were
you thinking the moment you checked into that room and put the gun in your mouth?

Three days later and Audrey still has no clue. By all accounts he and Bethanne were happy. He wasn't the best cop in the world, but he had no complaints or scandals dogging him, either. He was a hard worker, loyal, and a loving father.

This, of course, was all according to the media. Audrey and her older brother were not close at all. Sta
ś
basically cut her off when she was fifteen and he found her standing on the fringe of Pennypack Park with her asshole friends, drunk on Natural Light. She'll never forget the pinching of the steel cuffs around her wrists, his face lit up with the headlights of the prowl cars, eyes narrowed.
What the fuck is wrong with you, Aud?

Fuck you, Stosh!

Only ten years ago but it feels like a lifetime.

The Captain looks like a black mountain in his suit. He stands in the front left pew, grasping the wooden rail in front of him, white-knuckling it. Chin up. Eyes locked on the altar. Not once does he glance over at the casket. At Mom. At any of them. Claire is across the aisle, on the right. The body of their older son lies between them like an accusation.

A half dozen beefy cops, the last few buddies the Captain has left, are scattered in the pews behind him. But there is no family at his side other than Grandma Rose, at his left, trembling a little. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Cary, Jean, Bethanne, and the kids cluster around Claire.

Audrey stands in the vestibule, not sure where to sit. She typically sides with Claire in these matters. When her parents divorced, her older brothers sided with their mother instantly—Audrey was young and just kind of got swept up in all that. But she's been living with her father for much of the past week. Either side seems like a slap in the face to the other.

So she chooses a seat halfway back from the altar, along with the rest of the strangers. No idea who they are—probably just lookiloos. Or reporters. Or parishioners who go to church every day, no matter what's playing.

One older lady, though, looks familiar and keeps staring over at Audrey, smiling politely. Yeah, hi, good to see you, too, whoever you are.

Then it hits her. Right right—she's the daughter of the ancient bigwig union guy who spoke at the memorial service last week. Lucky her, she gets to attend all the Walczak death services.

Audrey waves back, totally conscious of how much she's sweating in this goddamned long-sleeved dress. She's already worn it three times since she's been home and hand-washed it once—but obviously she didn't do that good of a job. Stale perfume and tomato juice seem to rise up from the cloth in cartoon stink lines.

Ugh.

“Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them,” the priest is saying. The incense makes her gag. She doesn't know how much more of this she can take.

“Hey, Audrey,” a soft voice says to her. “I'm so sorry. Only found out this morning.”

Holy crap, it's Pizza Counter Guy, who's slid in next to her! He's wearing a suit and everything, looking suave and cool and perfect despite the heat. And here's Audrey, a hot mess and a half.

“Thanks,” she says, and turns her attention back to the end of the funeral. Oh God why. I mean, it's nice he came and all, but…

Audrey stares up at the gilded cross mounted over the altar and thinks:
If you
do
exist, you're both a sadist and one wily deity.

After the funeral mass the casket is carried out by Cary, a cousin on Claire's side, and four of Sta
ś
's cop friends. The casket rolls into the back of the hearse. Bethanne and kids are tucked away in a limo. Audrey stands on the sidewalk in front of the church, waiting for the inevitable next step. She wishes she were home. No; she wishes she were in a bar.

But there's still the cemetery and then a small thing at Sta
ś
's house.

And then, she supposes, the inevitable. Home to Houston to face the sad music of her hopelessly messed-up life. She gave her professor the best excuse in the world—cop brother killed himself—but it won't put her off forever. She's going to have to come up with something else or fail.

She watches her father greet the few attendees on their way out, thank them for coming. Union Boss Daughter Lady approaches him but he won't look her in the eye. He actually turns away, marching down the marble steps away from her. What's that about?

The rest of Audrey's family pile into the waiting limos. Red-eyed Cary stops before he climbs in, gives her a wave. C'mon, we're waiting for you. But Audrey ignores him and gives her escort an elbow in the arm.

“Hey, Pizza Counter Guy.”

“Yeah?” he says.

“Any chance you can give me a ride to the cemetery?”

“Don't you have your family right there waiting for you?”

“Eh,” she says. “I'm not a limo kind of girl.”

Pizza Counter Guy smiles. Shows her the way to his old but pristine Civic. Cary watches them leave, perplexed.

“You didn't have to come,” she says as they pull away.

“Well, I had to give you grief in person for not telling me about what happened to your brother. I wish you'd talked to me.”

“You're probably the only Protestant deacon in the world who would come to a Catholic funeral mass to
give
someone grief.”

They pull away and follow the funeral procession. Someone's helpfully stuck one of those magnetic flags on the hood. They fall in line. Audrey eases back into the seat, flips the AC on full blast. She'll enjoy it while she can. Pizza Counter Guy says nothing.

“Okay, okay, what's your name? I can't go introducing you to my family as Pizza Counter Guy.”

“Lord, at last. I thought you'd never ask.”

“Shut up already and tell me.”

“It's Barry.”

“Really? It's
Barry?
Barry as in the president?”

“Yeah. Well, no, not like the president. It's short for a longer name that I ain't gonna tell you. But for the record, my last name is K—”

“No,” she says, putting a finger to his lips. “No last names. I don't want to get too personal.”

They follow the hearse up to the national cemetery over in New Jersey. Grandpop Stan is there alone, as he's been since 1965. Now, a half century later, he'll finally have company—a grandchild he never met.
Hey, you look sort of familiar. Who the hell are you again?

The grave has already been opened up. Her father, the Captain, poises himself on the edge, as if he's about to fling himself into it.

The crowd is much smaller than at the mass. Looks like just her family, along with some of Grandma Rose's relatives who drove or flew in for the burial and some of Sta
ś
's colleagues. Audrey stands in the back, as if just a spectator. Barry stands by her side, head bowed, one hand covering the other. The sun is bright and hot. So much for the cliché of a stormy funeral where the skies open up just as the final prayers are uttered.

After the brief service they put Sta
ś
down into the ground above Grandpop. Some people cry. The Captain stares down into the open grave, saying nothing.

Audrey wants to go up and hug him, or something. But she's afraid he'll turn around with a puzzled look on his face.

Eventually they drift away. Jesus, Audrey thinks. Did all this just happen?

She lingers at the grave. Down there is the casket containing the ninety-one-year-old body of Stanisław Walczak, forever paused at the age of forty-one. Open the casket, Audrey thinks, and there would be the face of my grandfather. With the six feet of dirt removed, this is the closest Audrey will ever be to him.

And this is the awful thought she has—God strike her dead for this. This is not the time, she tells herself; her stupid independent project is dead.

But if you were to open that coffin and examine his fifty-year-old corpse, would you discover the two bullet holes in the back of his skull, which is the official story? Or would his bones tell you something completely different?

What do you say, Grandpop?

Stan's dead asleep when he hears the knocking on the front door. It's too early for his shift, isn't it? Where's Rosie? He rolls over.

There's more knocking, though. Insistent now. Goddammit. If this is his partner with another “development” he's going to be pissed.

He pulls on his pants, shuffles down the hallway. Jimmy is in his bedroom, listening to loud music when he should be doing homework. It's an argument Stan doesn't need right now. The songs are so loud they bleed through the headphones. That Bob Dylan guy. Stan honestly doesn't know how his boy can stand listening to him. Singers used to have to be able to sing on pitch. But now all the old crooners are considered lame. If you can scream into a microphone, you've got a career.

Or maybe Stan's just cranky because he was woken up prematurely.

Down the stairs, to the front door, shuffling in bare feet. Stan opens the storm door and sees a face through the screen he hasn't seen in a long time.

Jimmy's headphones are on while he's doing math problems, which to his mind, is the only reasonable way to do math problems on a boring Tuesday afternoon. He's listening to the new Dylan, which he's just discovered and is loving. The bombast of “Maggie's Farm” gives way to “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and for a second there he swears he hears his own name in the mix.

No, it's not on the album. It's coming from downstairs. His pop, shouting up the stairs at him.

“Jimmy, for Christ's sake!”

He slips off his headphones.

“Sorry, Pop! Coming!”

And he starts to rise but Pop says, “Stay there. Tell your mom I'll be back in a few. Do your homework!”

Jimmy sits back down, confused. Dylan croons through the headphones. Where is Pop going? It's not time for his shift yet. Downstairs, the front door slams shut. After a moment's hesitation Jimmy pushes aside the math homework and runs to his parents' bedroom and pulls the curtain aside just in time to see his father walking next to some guy, roughly the same height and build, wearing a hat cocked to one side. Dad's in his trousers and T-shirt.

All parents have ESP, Jimmy believes, and his pop is no exception. Pop turns back to look up at the window and gives Jimmy a wave. Not to say hello, but to urge him back to his math problems. The guy in the hat turns to look, too. His face is familiar to Jimmy, but he can't place it. Then they're out of view, heading up Bridge toward Jackson. Who
was
that guy?

Jimmy stares at his math problems for a while before realizing—wait, I don't have to do this. He closes the book and picks up his guitar. He's still trying to figure out the lick to the Stones' “The Last Time.” There's a twang he can't quite get right. His pop is tired of hearing it and has pretty much banned him from playing it. So he saves it for when Pop's working. Or for times like now, when he steps out of the house and Jimmy doesn't feel like doing his stupid homework anymore.

Stan and Sonny walk one long block down to the taproom at the corner of Bridge and Jackson Streets. Stan stops when he reaches the corner, shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn't know what else to do with them.

“What are you doing here, Sonny?”

“Boy's really getting big. Love to meet him one of these days.”

“You know that's never gonna happen.”

Sonny nods his head like,
yeah maybe, maybe.
He looks around the neighborhood, taking it all in. This isn't his neighborhood. Wouldn't live here if you paid him. He's from Port Richmond, the Polish enclave nestled near the waterfront. Sonny still can't figure why Stan would move to a place like this.

“Come on. Lemme go back and at least say hi to the kid. You just tell him I'm an old war buddy.”

“No.”

“Doesn't seem right, seeing who's he named for and all.”

Now Stan can't keep his fists in his pockets anymore. The right one comes out and whizzes through the air and slams into Sonny's face so hard his fedora goes flying off the top of his head.

Sonny staggers back a step, shakes his head, tightens his own fists, wondering if they're really going to do this. Yeah. They're really going to do this. Stan is already at him again with a left.
Bam.
With a right.
Pap.

Sonny recovers enough to charge forward and tackle Stan in his midsection. There's enough weight and muscle behind Sonny to slam Stan backward into the side of a brick wall. It hurts, but also breaks his fall. Stan comes out swinging again, probably faster than Sonny realized, because he lands a few good shots in his ribs, but Sonny starts defending himself.

They used to fight in their youth, no-holds-barred brawls that would only end when one of them would stoop low enough to take a shot at the balls or the lower belly. They've fought before as adults, too, but pulled back before taking it too far. When you're a kid you think you can recover from anything. When you're older it's a different story.

And Sonny's heart isn't in this—he's throwing back punches to save face, but there's no anger there. So Stan loses heart, too. What does he think he's doing?

They break away and huff and puff and examine their knuckles for cuts, feel their ribs to make sure there's nothing more than bruises.

“That was a cheap shot,” Sonny says bitterly.

“What do you want, Sonny?”

Sonny spies the bar across the street. “I want to talk to you about something. Come on. Let's discuss it over a drink.”

Inside, Stan orders his usual glass of Schmidt's while Sonny orders a Scotch and Drambuie with a lemon twist on the rocks. Look at the fancy guy. Almost nobody's in the bar, since it's 4 p.m. on a Tuesday. After Rohm and Haas lets out, the place will start to fill up.

“You see what happened in Alabama last week?” Sonny asks. “Murzyns walking right up to the cops, telling them off. All because Martin Luther Coon comes down and tells them to! Unbelievable.”

Stan picks up his beer but doesn't drink. “I don't think that's what happened.”

“Oh, did your
partner
tell you all about that?”

“I read the papers.”

“Keep reading those papers. And keep your eyes open. You got a housing project just a few blocks from here. Just wait. One day you'll be chasing coons in the Jungle and some loudmouth will give the order and they'll all come spilling out, breaking into houses and setting them on fire. Can't think you'd want that for Rosie and Jimmy.”

Goddamned Sonny, always looking for an angle on his family. Stan can't let him anywhere near them. Sonny Kaminski belongs in the past, not his present. He wishes the man no ill will, but he can't let worlds collide. For a while there, a decade ago, Stan thought he could do it; he learned otherwise.

“You gonna tell me what you want? I've got to get back home.”

“I don't want anything, Stanisław. I'm here to give you something.”

“What's that?”

“Some good advice. Get the hell out of the Jungle, any way you can. And stay away from your
murzyn
partner. He's got a past you want no part of.”

“Don't we all?”

Sonny shakes his head. “That's how you see it, huh. What a shame. What a fucking waste.”

“I've gotta go,” Stan says as he rises from his stool. He's not worried about the tab. Sonny Kaminski's got plenty to throw around town.

But Sonny reaches up, grabs Stan's upper arm, squeezes it tight. “Listen to me, dammit. Just give me a few more minutes of your precious time. You owe me a little time, at the very least.”

This is not the place for another fistfight. Stan allows Sonny to steer him back to his seat.

“I know you've been down in the old neighborhood, hanging out on Front Street. I don't know what he told you, but you're stepping in a world of shit.”

“We were chasing a suspect.”

“Don't give me that horseshit, Stan. You don't know what the hell you're doing. It's all him, isn't it? Following his lead, listening to his wild stories?”

Stan picks up his beer, takes a long swallow, finishing it. Signals for another, which the bartender gives him quickly before retreating to the opposite end of the bar. He must recognize Sonny from the papers and doesn't want to get caught up in any of this.

“George Wildey is bad news,” Sonny continues. “No better than those
murzyns
you lock up every night. Only difference is, he somehow got himself a badge and a gun.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He's not in it for the job. He's in it for revenge. Did that
murzyn
ever tell you about his father? He was a cop, back in the twenties and thirties,” Sonny says. “Worked down on the waterfront. Guarding liquor warehouses. Any of this ring a bell?”

Stan's guts turn to ice. He doesn't want to hear this. None of this.

“Ambitious guy, John Quincy Wildey. Clearly he had something to prove. And boy, did he like locking up white folks. This was a murzyn with a big chip on his shoulder and something to prove. Just like his kid.”

“I've gotta go,” Stan says. “Rose is expecting me.”

“Sooner or later you're going to realize that we can't mix with those people, that shit between our species will never be right. I can help you. I've always been here to help you. I know Rose would want that.”

Stan shoves a finger in Sonny's face. “Stay away from my wife. And don't ever come back here again.”

Sonny flashes that patrician smile of his that he turns on for all the newspaper photographers. “All I'm saying is be careful. Don't let some
murzyn
do your thinking for you.”

Never mind about my murzyn,
Stan thinks as he walks back home. Rosie isn't home from work yet. He closes the door and hears that awful guitar lick come to an abrupt halt. Jimmy comes running down the stairs. Stan's had a beer and a half but he could use another two or three right now.

“Who was that, Pop?”

Stan is tempted to just tell him the truth already. He's going to find out someday, might as well be now.

But instead Stan says,

“He's a gangster.”