by Stuart Woods
“Don’t worry about me, Stone. Come to dinner when we get back. I’ll introduce you to my new nose.” Then Jack dozed off again.
* * *
—
Stone and his old NYPD partner, Dino Bacchetti, now the city’s police commissioner, were dining at P. J. Clarke’s, where the noise level covered their conversation. Since Dino was the only other person who knew about Jack Coulter’s identity, with the possible exception of Michael O’Brien and anyone else he might have told, Stone could speak freely. He told Dino about the sudden alteration of Jack’s appearance.
“It’s ironic,” Dino said, “that the only person who is hunting down John Fratelli is the one responsible for making him unrecognizable.”
“Let’s hope,” Stone said. “We haven’t seen the results of the surgery yet.”
“Responding to your request, I got a report on O’Brien’s behavior just before and after his, ah, retirement from the NYPD.”
“Oh, good. I take it the retirement wasn’t entirely voluntary.”
“It was explained to him that he had two choices: he could go to trial on charges of abetting the robbery at Jack Coulter’s apartment, or he could turn in his papers and live out his life with a decent pension.”
“You’re satisfied that O’Brien is the guy who tipped the robbers to the gathering of all that expensive jewelry?”
“By a process of elimination, yes. I’m not sure we would win at trial, but we could indict him, and that would ruin him in the department.”
“What information do you have on O’Brien’s existence since he turned in his papers?”
“He’s been doing rather well, except for the part about being a degenerate gambler.”
“Where’s he getting all the money he’s losing?”
“His mother.”
“I somehow thought he was from a fairly poor family.”
“He was, until his father died and his mother remarried, and rather well. She was the cashier at a good restaurant downtown. Her boss fell in love with her and, after she was widowed, they were married.”
“How much of a gap between husband one and husband two?”
“Not much. And husband two was very well off when he died a couple of years later. She sold the restaurant to some of their employees and gave them a mortgage, so she has a fine income—at least, what she can keep out of Mike’s hands.”
“Has anybody explored the convenient death of husband one?”
“It has been suggested that she may have helped him along toward that goal, but there is insufficient evidence to charge her.”
“I would imagine that her son could have been a great help to her in knocking him off, being a cop and all.”
“We imagined that, too, but again, we couldn’t prove it.”
“Still that possibility might be something that could be dangled over O’Brien’s head to keep him straight.”
“Keeping him straight is important, I gather,” Dino said.
“Suffice it to say that the Coulters are leaving town for a couple of weeks, until his new nose emerges. After that, he believes, he’ll be harder to spot on Lexington Avenue.”
“Good. Does that end the necessity of this conversation?”
“No. Jack has expressed an interest in removing O’Brien from the planet on a permanent basis.”
“Then . . . Which one are we trying to protect?”
“Coulter, who, if he had his way, would endanger his personal freedom.”
“You think Mike will forget about this while he’s gone?”
“No. If you ever worked a case with O’Brien—”
“Several.”
“Then you will recall his perseverance in pursuit of a suspect.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
“Also, if the reports you heard about his gambling habit are true, he is in perpetual need of money. And he may have worn out his welcome with his mother. I think he sees the downfall of Jack Coulter as the source of a windfall of funds.”
“Well, there is the seven million Jack liberated from Buono’s safe-deposit box, isn’t there?”
“Jack says it’s a lot more, now. A loan shark of his early acquaintance is sending him fifty Gs a week in interest on a million bucks Jack invested with him. And, as you know, Jack has been married to a very wealthy woman for some years now.”
“All that makes him low-hanging fruit for O’Brien?”
“Obviously.”
“And Jack is sure it was Michael?”
“Two things: First, a blackjack is a police weapon, albeit an illegal one in most circumstances. Second, Jack caught a glimpse of O’Brien immediately before he was struck.”
“So,” Dino said, “what is it you want—or rather, want me—to do?”
3
Stone settled into his desk chair and contemplated the stack of papers next to his keyboard.
His secretary, Joan, contemplated Stone. “Dino scanned and e-mailed that to you. I printed it out, since I know how you hate reading screens.”
“That’s thoughtful of you,” Stone replied. “It would have been even more thoughtful of you if you had printed half the stack.”
“Which half?” Joan asked.
“Oh, all right, I’ll read it.”
“It appears to be police files on one Michael Xavier O’Brien,” Joan said. “A retired police officer.”
“Have you read the whole thing?” Stone asked. “Because if you have, you can just give me the gist and save me a lot of time.”
“Well, maybe not the whole thing,” Joan said. “A lot of it, though.”
“How much?” Stone asked.
Joan inserted a fingernail about three-quarters of the way down the stack. “About to here,” she said.
“And you remember all of what you read?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay,” Stone said, handing her the whole stack, “finish it, then brief me.”
“Okay,” Joan replied cheerfully. She picked up the stack and trotted back to her office.
Stone’s phone buzzed. “Yes?”
“Dino, on one.”
Stone pressed the button. “Good morning.”
“Why?” Dino asked. “Aren’t you reading the file?”
“Joan is reading it. She’s already three-quarters through.”
“I couldn’t even print it that fast.”
“I seem to remember that she took a speed-reading course a while back, but I haven’t seen the results until now.”
“She’ll never be able to retain it long enough to pass it on to you.”
“I heard that,” Joan said over the speaker.
“You weren’t supposed to,” Stone said. “You were supposed to be reading the rest of the file.”
“I’ve read the rest of the file,” she said.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ask me something about Michael X. O’Brien.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifty.”
“Where does he live?”
“In Brooklyn, in his mother’s house.”
“What was his mother’s maiden name?”
“O’Brien.”
“No, that was her married name.”
“She married her third cousin, O’Brien. He got her the job at his brother’s restaurant.”
“And the brother’s name was, of course, O’Brien.”
“Correct.”
“So her full name is . . .”
“Louise O’Brien O’Brien.”
“And the name of the restaurant was . . . ?”
“O’Brien’s.”
“Of course, it was.
“Why did Mike retire?”
“At his own request. I’m surprised the department didn’t request it. The guy is a r
eal little shit.”
“He was allowed to turn in his papers. His rabbi kept him safe,” Dino said.
“No, he’s Irish Catholic,” Joan replied.
“She doesn’t know what a rabbi is,” Stone said.
“A rabbi,” Dino said, “is like a mentor. If a cop has a good enough rabbi, he’s more likely to be kept out of trouble.”
“Who was his rabbi?” Stone asked.
“Captain James P. Moran,” Dino replied. “If you’d had Moran as a rabbi, you’d be in my job by now.”
“No rabbi is that good.”
“What I don’t understand,” Joan said, “is why he had such a great rabbi. Why did the guy take him on and keep him out of trouble for, what, thirty years since the academy?”
“I’ll tell you,” Dino said. “Moran was schtupping O’Brien’s mother for all that time.”
“How’s your Yiddish, Joan?” Stone asked.
“Good enough to cover schtupping.”
“Does that explain everything?”
“They were next-door neighbors in Brooklyn Heights,” Dino said.
“Heights?” Stone asked. “How could a widow afford that neighborhood?”
“By marrying her boss,” Dino replied. “She was the bookkeeper for a very good restaurant. And it’s my bet she was schtupping the boss, too, because he married her, then had the good grace to die a couple of years later. She inherited the restaurant, then sold it to the employees and now lives the life of a rich widow, which is how O’Brien affords his relationship with the ponies.”
“What sort of gambler is he?” Stone asked.
“Degenerate,” Dino replied.
“It doesn’t say that in his file,” Joan pointed out.
“That’s why it pays to have a rabbi who’s schtupping his mother,” Dino said. “Moran did a little laundering where O’Brien’s file is concerned.”
“In that case,” Joan said, “all the good stuff is missing from his file.”
“You might say that,” Dino said.
“Why don’t you fill us in with what you know, Dino?” Stone asked. “It will save Joan a lot of reading.”
“I’m done reading,” Joan said.
“Speak, Dino.”
“All right, he’s a degenerate gambler, which means he’s eternally in search of a rigged horse race, so he can make a killing and pay off his bookie. Except his mother always pays off his bookie.”
“She’s an indulgent sort, isn’t she?” Stone said.
“I’ll say she is,” Joan cut in. “She indulged her boss and the rabbi, too. She must have been a looker.”
“I saw her once, years ago,” Dino said. “She had the kind of breasts that couldn’t be bought, in those days.”
“Okay,” Joan said. “I think I’ve heard enough about the widow O’Brien. Let me know if there’s anything else you need to know about her son.” She hung up.
“Is she gone?” Dino asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, just between you and me, the widow O’Brien had more going for her than great tits; she had a very fine ass, too. I met her at a party that Moran threw, and she was the talk of the station house for months. She was even pretty, in that Irish lass sort of way—you know, the creamy skin.”
“I’m happy for her,” Stone said.
“We never knew why O’Brien was so ugly.”
“And let’s not start guessing,” Stone said.
“Oh, that could be it. She could have been schtupping somebody less handsome than her husband or Moran.”
“Let me know when you find out,” Stone said, and hung up.
4
Jack Coulter woke up as his hospital bed began moving to the sitting position.
“The doctor wants to have a look at you,” his nurse said.
Jack took a couple of deep breaths and tried opening his eyes wide. They didn’t work all that well.
The doctor stood at the foot of the bed. “All right,” he said, “curtain up.”
The nurse removed the plastic nose guard, then the doctor, using tweezers, carefully pulled away the bandage. “Ahh,” he said.
“Ahh good, or ahh bad?” Jack asked.
“We only do good around here,” the doctor replied. “It looks perfect. You’ll be out of here in a day or two, suitably masked, of course. Your raccoonness should have subsided by then, and you’ll only have the surgical bruising to deal with.”
“How do I deal with surgical bruising?” Jack asked.
“By not getting punched in the nose, or bumping into things. All you have to do is be careful. I understand you’ll be traveling this week. When you do, you should wear a clear face guard, in case of accidents.”
“How’s my nose going to look when I’m healed?”
“You remember when you went to the movies as a kid and people like Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn were starring?”
“Sure.”
“Like that.”
“I guess I can live with that.”
“I guess you’ll have to,” the doctor replied. “New bandage and cup,” he said to the nurse. “Good morning, Mr. Coulter.” He turned and left the room.
“You were lucky,” the nurse said, beginning her work.
“How’s that?”
“You got the best nose man in New York. All those friends of yours who have perfect noses? They went to him, too.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“But don’t tell them I told you so.”
* * *
—
Mickey O’Brien sat in a reclining chair in the living room of his apartment in the basement of his mother’s Brooklyn Heights townhouse and watched Bridal Veil turn the corner into the home stretch, half a length ahead of the nearest competition. Mickey had ten grand on her nose, which he had been promised would reach the finish line first, even if they had to shoot another horse. He had odds of twelve to one, and this win was going to make everybody he owed well again. He took a deep breath and began to let it out slowly. Then the impossible happened.
The filly seemed to trip over something with her left forefoot, but there was nothing there to trip over. Her right leg went rigid in a wild attempt to stop, then the horse on her rump collided with her, and they both went down, causing a series of catastrophes akin to an interstate car crash in thick fog. The horse who had been half a length behind crossed the line unpursued.
Mickey might as well have taken an arrow in the chest. He started to get to his feet, then fell back into the recliner. His mother’s entrance coincided with that moment.
“Ohmigod, now what?” she asked. “I know that look,” she said accusingly, “it happens when you lose and lose big.”
“Mom,” Mickey said weakly, throwing up an arm as if to stop her progress. “Don’t start, not now!”
“I’m not starting,” Louise O’Brien said firmly, “I’m finished, done with your sickness. You will not see another dime from me that will go to some sorry bookie somewhere!”
Mickey clutched himself and turned onto his side, away from the slings and spears that were being delivered from her direction.
“You get out of this house right now!” she yelled. “And don’t you darken my door between the hours of nine am and midnight. Why don’t you go get a nice bouncer’s job in some disco somewhere, like a respectable ex-cop. Bring home a paycheck!”
“Mom, I don’t need a paycheck. I’ve got a pension! And a good one!”
“And every dime of it ends up in your bookie’s pocket!” She was screaming now. “You might as well have your pension on auto-deposit to that bookie’s pocket!”
“Stop, stop, please. I just saw my horse—running at twelve to one at full speed, collapse on the home stretch.” He waved at the big TV. “Just look at that mess!”
Louise did look, and it
was a mess, she would give him that. “Get out! Take your gun and go shoot that horse! Put him out of his misery!”
“It’s a filly.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn what it is!”
“They’re shooting her now,” Mickey said, pointing. A group had gathered around the filly, and somebody was holding a tarp between her and the camera, then a forklift moved onto the track, and she was taken away.
Mickey was crying real tears now. “Poor goddamned baby!” he cried, watching the lump under the tarp be driven through a gate.
Louise grabbed the coal shovel from the fireplace set and whacked her son on the shoulder with it. He got his jacket on and fled the premises.
“Your key won’t work before midnight!” Louise yelled after him. “I’ll fix that!”
* * *
—
Mickey flagged a cab and, before he could think, nearly gave it the address of his favorite bar. But if he went there, he would be sent home with broken legs, and his mother would do the rest.
“P. J. Clarke’s,” he said to the driver. His crowd didn’t drink there. They didn’t like the class of people it drew. They dressed too well and smelled too good, they drank twelve-year-old Scotch, and they didn’t fuck people like them.
Mickey’s worst fears were realized when he got inside the crowded bar and immediately came face-to-face with the police commissioner of New York City and that snotty friend of his, Barrington.
“Look who’s here!” Dino cried gleefully. “We don’t even have to go look for him! Come on in, Mickey, and buy us a drink!”
Mickey got out the door quickly and sprinted up Third Avenue; he knew not where, just out of there. He wished he could get out of his life, too.
5
Jack Coulter was wakened by his nurse on the day of his discharge. She shaved him, changed his bandage, and set out his clothes, which had been laundered, dry-cleaned, and pressed, and his shoes polished. She helped him dress and get seated in a wheelchair, then a breakfast cart and table was wheeled in and he had a sumptuous breakfast.
When he was done, the nurse took away the cart, set his trench coat and hat in his lap, and pushed his wheelchair to the porte cochere, where his Bentley awaited. He said goodbye to the nurse and gave her an envelope of hundreds to be shared as she saw fit, then he gave his coat and hat to the driver and got into the rear seat beside Hillary.
