The Good Cop (19 page)

“I don't envy your dad. Or the union members, for that matter.”

Tom sighed. “Yeah, and there are four other guys on dad's team, but of course Joey's acting as though he blames dad personally for the strike. Management's offering a really good, solid package, but Joey thinks he's got to prove to his old man that he's as tough as his dad was.”

We sat silently for another minute or two, appreciating the more-than-physical sensation of our hands resting on each other's thighs.

“You ready for tomorrow?” I asked.

He nodded. “As ready as I'll ever be.” Then he turned to look at me, face to face. “You know I'm going to lose my job over this.”

I started to say something, but he gave a quick headshake to cut me off. “Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but eventually. The only reason I haven't been fired already is because Chief Black is understandably concerned about the reaction of the gay community. He doesn't want another Stonewall on his hands. Any other time, under any other circumstances, I'd be out on my ass already. Chief Black's a good man, and will be good for the department. But even I know the force just isn't ready to integrate gay cops yet. The time will come, but not now. If I could have kept a low profile….”

I knew he was right, and it hurt: For him, for the community, for tolerance.

“I could just quit.” He said it almost more to himself than to me. “But I won't. If this is going to be an issue, which it already is, then I'm not going to give anybody the idea that I left because I thought that gays don't have a place on the force—or the right to be there.”

“You always were a man ahead of your time,” I said, and he grinned.

He glanced at his watch. “And I see it's about time I headed for home. It's going to be an interesting day tomorrow. I hope I don't have any trouble going to sleep.”

“Well,” I said, “old Doc Hardesty's got a sure-fire cure for relieving tension.”

He grinned at me again, and his hand took mine and moved it slowly up his leg. “I'll just bet you do.”

And I did.

Chapter 8

I spent most of Monday thinking about Tom and wondering how things were going for him. I called Lisa at her work right after lunch to see if she'd heard anything but she hadn't. I could tell she was worried, too, but, like Tom, she always tried to put up a good front. She had hoped to leave work early in order to be home when Tom got there, but her boss had called some sort of office meeting for 3:30, and she couldn't get out of it. I told her I'd stop by the apartment around that time, which is about when Tom should be getting home.

Finishing up the paperwork on another case took my mind off things for a little while, but not too far off. I realized I had to do some more thinking about Jonathan, too. He couldn't stay with Tim and Phil forever, and right now he was practically a prisoner in their apartment. I'd told him not to leave under any circumstances or for any reason, and I think he understood the reason for it. It had only been five days, but I'm sure he'd start to get antsy pretty soon, and I couldn't blame him. I made a mental note to talk to Bob Allen, to see if perhaps he and Mario could put him up for a little while.

I just hoped this entire mess would resolve itself soon, but with so many different elements—the intradepartmental struggle for control, the shooting incident and its ramifications both inside the community and in the department, plus the added problem of the labor negotiations and the strike and Joey G.'s ties to Deputy Chief Cochran—it didn't, again, seem likely to be over any time soon.

There was something else that had been swimming around the backwaters of my brain for some time, now—one of those infuriatingly elusive thoughts I instinctively knew might be important but couldn't catch. And then it came to me: I'd known the name Giacomino rang a bell, but couldn't place why. And then I remembered Bart Giacomino, whom I'd met in conjunction with another case some time back. Bart was a wheeler-dealer in the gay community who spent money like water and was rumored to be the black sheep of a powerful east coast gang-related family. Could he possibly be related to Joey G.? Bart and Glen O'Banyon had been college roommates, so if anyone would know if there was a connection, it would be O'Banyon. Other than satisfying my curiosity, I wasn't sure what practical good having the information might do, but the more I could learn about Joey Giacomino and what might be expected from him, the better I'd feel. Anything was worth a shot.

I called O'Banyon's office and left a message with his secretary, Donna, to have him call me at his convenience.

*

I'd gotten to Tom's apartment building a little before 3:30 and when no one answered the buzzer, I figured he hadn't gotten home yet, so went around to the entrance to the parking garage, where I was standing when he drove up at 3:45. He waved, and I followed him through the opened gates into the garage and to his parking spot.

“What, no flowers?” he asked as he got out of the car.

I just grinned and followed him to the elevator.

“Sorry I'm late. I had a flat tire. The perfect end to the perfect day.”

“Problems?” I asked, immediately feeling stupid for having done so.

He shrugged. “Ah, not really, I guess. They assigned me to the property room…
waay
in the
back
of the property room, to be exact, going through about four hundred boxes of unfiled reports. That should keep me busy until the turn of the century.”

In a way, I was relieved. “No one said anything, then?”

“Nope. No one said anything. All day. Not a word. Literally. A couple of the guys I know pretty well managed to get in a quick nod when they thought no one else was looking, but other than that, I might as well have been invisible. You could have hung a side of beef in the squad room when I first walked in, it was so cold in there. But fuck 'em. I should have expected it.”

He opened the door to his apartment and we went in.

“Like some coffee? Or I can get you something a little stronger?”

“Coffee's fine. It's a little early in the day for the hard stuff.”

I followed him into the kitchen while he went through the water-and-filter-and-grounds routine and flipped the coffeemaker's “On” switch. I sat at the kitchen table while he got out the cups, and we waited while the machine talked to itself in soft burps and bubblings and hissing sounds.

He seemed in fairly good spirits, but I instinctively realized he didn't feel much like talking about his day, so we didn't. I mentioned my thinking of Bart Giacomino, and wondered if the name was familiar to him.

“Sure,” he said, somewhat surprised. “Bart's Joey's older brother. I didn't know you knew him. Not much love lost between them, from what I understand. Joe Senior always played his kids off against each other—his way of toughening them up. It didn't work so well for Bart as it did with Joey. I heard that it was Joey who told his old man that Bart was gay. Joe Senior all but kicked Bart out of the family, which of course raised Joey several rungs up the ladder. For most families, blood's thicker than water: For the Giacominos, power's thicker than blood. And now to find out that little Joey's in the same league with his brother…I'd imagine Joey would do just about anything to keep that little secret shut away. If his old man—not to mention his wife—ever found out about it….” He paused and looked at me. “You're sure Jonathan is somewhere safe?”

“As safe as he can be. I thought of sending him away, out of the city or out of the state, but if Chief Black might be able to use him to somehow hold Cochran at bay….”

Tom gave a small smile and shook his head. “This is one fucked-up mess, isn't it?”

Truer words
, I thought.

The phone rang and I noticed a quick flash of anxiety cross Tom's face. He excused himself and went to the answer. I could read his tension in his body language.

“Hello?” Then, almost imperceptibly but definitely, I could see him relax. “Oh, hi, dad,” he said. “How did it go today?… Sure, I'm fine…. It was okay; they put me on a desk for a while, but…uh, yeah…sure…uh, well, I think Lisa's going to play cards with some girlfriends tonight, but…well, sure. What time?…okay, that'll be great. Sure. I'll see you then, then. 'Bye.”

He hung up the phone and came back to sit down. “Dad wants to come by tonight; maybe I'll be able to find out what's been happening with the talks.”

As if you didn't have enough going on in your own life right now!
I thought.

“Great. Give him my regards.”

The phone rang again, and he got back up to answer. “Hel…” he started to say, then immediately hung up.

“Wrong numb…?” I began, then saw the answer in his face.

He didn't say a word, but came back and sat down. The phone rang again.

“Let the machine get it.”

“You know, you might want to consider changing your number.”

He shook his head and got up again to get our coffee. “What good would that do? I have to have my number listed with the department in case of emergency; I could change it every day and someone would still get it.”

That told me again that Tom believed the calls were from his fellow officers.

I stayed at Tom's until Lisa got home around 5:30, then headed home.

*

After I left Tom's, I walked back to my place to pick up my car, and headed for Ramón's to kill a couple birds with one stone. I hoped Bob would be there so I could broach the subject of his and Mario's being the second stop in Jonathan's little underground railway journey. And I hadn't been to a happy hour in awhile.

Jimmy was tending bar, and it was a little quiet. I nodded to a couple of the regulars as I took a seat and Jimmy came over to take my order.

“Manhattan night or Old Fashioned night?” he asked, putting a napkin on the bar in front of me.

“Well, if you can ever come up with an Old Manhattan, I think we can save a lot of speculation. But Old Fashioned for now, I think.” We exchanged grins, and as he turned to start making the drink I said: “Bob's not around?”

Without turning back to me, Jimmy gestured with his head. “He's in the office.”

“Thanks.” I waited until I had my drink, fished a bill out of my billfold to cover it, and gave it to Jimmy before picking up my glass and napkin and walking to the back of the bar. I knocked at the office door.

“Come on in.”

Bob was seated at his desk in the small office, but turned in his chair and grinned as he saw me.

“Hi, Dick. Grab a chair.”

I reached behind the door for the folding chair he always kept there and set it up at the corner of his desk.

“You've been pretty scarce lately.”

“Last Wednesday, for the group,” I said by way of weak defense.

He nodded. “I know, you're a busy guy. How is your friend Tom doing?”

I sighed and put my drink down on the edge of his desk, out of his way.

“Rough and getting rougher.”

Bob just shook his head. “I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.”

“Yeah. But Tom's one tough customer. He's not going to give one inch to those homophobes on the force. He knows he's going to lose his job over this as soon as things calm down, but he won't go without a fight.”

“Well, the community's behind him one hundred percent; you know that.”

“I know. And so does Tom. We'll just have to see how this plays out.” I took a sip of my drink and replaced it on the desk, making sure the napkin was still dry before doing so. “Which brings me around about to asking you for one huge favor.”

Bob raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. “Shoot.”

I told him about Jonathan, about Giacomino, about Giacomino's ties with Deputy Chief Cochran, and the fact that Cochran's boys were looking for Jonathan.

“He's with Tim and Phil now, but I can't impose on them forever…” I caught myself and gave Bob a sheepish grin, then added the obvious: “…so here I am to impose on you. Do you suppose….”

Bob didn't bat an eye. “Of course! And this might work out really well, if the kid's willing to earn his keep.”

“No doubt about that,” I said, telling him about his eagerness to help out at Haven House, and his bartending for Phil and Tim's party, which Bob and Mario had missed because both had to work.

“Well, the house closes tomorrow. Our lease doesn't expire until the end of this month, so we've got plenty of time to start moving things over and getting things started over there. If the kid would be willing to help us out however we need him to, we could sure use him.”

“Do you want to check with Mario first?”

Bob shook his head. “Nah…I can't imagine that he'd have any objections at all. Like I say, we can sure use the help.”

“Great! God, Bob, what would I do without you?”

“Look in the dictionary under ‘Friends,'” he said with a smile. “It'll be a little spartan over there the first few days, but we can move a bed and some kitchen stuff over tomorrow, if he's willing.”

“I'm sure he will be. And again, thanks…and thank Mario too!”

We talked for a few more minutes then, realizing he had work to do, I excused myself, thanked him again, told him I'd call him during the day tomorrow to iron out the final details.

I talked for awhile with Jimmy, ignored my crotch's trying to call my attention to a guy standing against the wall, finished my drink, and went to the pay phone to call Tim and Phil, hoping I wouldn't be catching them in the middle of dinner.

Tim answered, and I asked if I might stop by for just a few minutes.

“Sure. Have you had dinner yet? You're welcome to join us.”

“Well, no I haven't, but I really don't want to im…”