The Graving Dock

by Gabriel Cohen

  Jack blinked at this mention of proposals, a subject much on his mind of late. He stirred some sugar into his coffee, taking a moment to think. The girl’s story was getting convoluted, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. He would need to follow up, to probe for holes, maybe talk to her supervisor at the hospital…His beeper went off. He glanced down. “Excuse me a sec.” He pulled out his cell phone and called Stephen Tanney.

  “I want you to get over to the Seven-six house right away,” the sergeant said. “Your fax from the Pentagon came in.”

  Jack’s eyes widened at this unexpected bureaucratic efficiency. He pinched his lower lip; he desperately needed to see the fax, yet he wanted to finish this interview. “I’m not on until four,” he said.

  “A cop’s been shot,” his boss replied. “You have something more important to do?”

  Jack winced at this uncomfortable echo of his own comments to a distracted Tommy Balfa. “I’ll be right there.”

  He flipped the phone closed, then looked at the girl. “Listen, Maureen: Those gorillas are gonna be back for you. There’s only one way for you to be safe here, and that’s to tell me exactly what Tommy was up to.”

  She just stared at him with those guileless green eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

  Jack groaned, glanced at his watch. “You can’t go back to your apartment. Do you have a friend or somebody you can stay with?”

  She thought about it, looking like a worried little kid.

  He stood and reached into his pocket for his card. “Let me know where you end up. And call me. I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”

  As he rushed out, he passed the old waiter, bearing his corn muffin. The man raised his arm and was about to say something. Too late: Jack was gone.

  CHAPTER thirty-one

  THE SEVEN-SIX SQUAD ROOM was packed and loud, but all the noise and commotion faded from Jack’s awareness as he funneled down into the stack of Pentagon records on the desk in front of him. The dense military and legal terminology mixed in his mind with a series of old snapshots, and the sound of Gene Hoffer’s begrudging voice, and family memories of his own, and soon the squad room disappeared altogether, replaced by a series of grainy imagined scenes running through a Super-8 film projector in his head.

  A group of crew-cut boys in plaid shirts and wool pants push down on the black barrel of a cannon. Behind them, across the harbor, the gray stone towers of lower Manhattan rise up in the dusk. “Somebody keep an eye out for MPs,” says one of the boys. “Not you,” he adds, pointing to ten-year-old Bobby Dietrich Sperry. “We don’t trust German spies.”

  (Gene Hoffer: “We used to tease him a little, because his ears stuck out so much, and because of his middle name. Just boys, you know, kidding around…) Just kidding, Jack thinks bitterly. He knows this teasing all too well: His parents came to the United States from the Ukraine, and the Red Hook bullies loved to make fun of their accents, and to call him “Commie” and “Pinko.”

  Young Bobby and his mother and father are seated at a dinner table. The boy asks his father about an upcoming training exercise. He loves the way Lieutenant Colonel Ted Sperry is at the center of such plans, loves his father’s uniforms and medals and the way everyone salutes him, loves his dad, his hero. Unlike Jack’s father, the bitter drinker, wielder of a strap. Like Jack’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Sperry is tormented by an inner demon, but unlike Jack’s old man, he never speaks of it, never takes it out on his family. He’s a model father, a model husband, a model soldier, a model man.

  New scene. A parolee on work detail paints a house in Nolan Park. He brushes white trim around the yellow exterior walls he painted the day before. His name is Lowell Cates and his shirt is off because it’s a sweltering August day. He is a small young man with a bit of the swagger of movie star John Garfield, though he is hardly a gangster—he has been put in the stockade for the crime of coming back to the island late from weekend leaves.

  What happened next was pure speculation. Maybe the lieutenant colonel’s wife had taken the ferry into the city. Maybe the boy had gone with her. Maybe the screen door opened and the officer came out with two glasses of lemonade. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” the parolee said. The officer handed him a glass. “Enough with the lieutenant stuff. You can just call me Ted.” Maybe they chatted for a while on the porch.

  Jack moved from speculation into the cold hard facts of the Army’s court-martial report. Seven weeks later a neighbor, a Colonel from Fort Wayne, Indiana, happened to wander into the house and find Sperry and Cates engaged in an act severely frowned on by members of that man’s army. The legalese of the records did little to disguise the disgust of the other officers involved in the court-martial, especially after Lieutenant Colonel Sperry stood up and made a brave but suicidal speech to the effect that his love for Lowell Cates was no one’s business but God’s and his own.

  Jack was well into his second reading of the minutes before the full significance of the verdict caught his eye. Lieutenant Theodore Sperry and Corporal Lowell Cates had been summarily, dishonorably discharged from the Army for conduct unbecoming to an officer or enlisted man. For “gross indecency.”

  And there it was: G.I.

  Gene Hoffer had reluctantly filled in the rest of the tale. Young Bobby Sperry had seen his father stripped of all dignity and respect, kicked out of the Army, divorced from his family, sent reeling in disgrace. And the other kids’ casual ribbing had turned to fierce, full-throated jeers. It only took six or eight of them to get together and finish destroying Bobby’s world, to tip it until his small heart fell out, and then to stuff that heart into a cannon and hurl it spinning (along with a significant, never-to-be-recovered part of his mind) toward the distant moon.

  CHAPTER thirty-two

  THE PROBLEM WAS WHAT to do with all his keys.

  Jack stood in the jogging lane of the Prospect Park roadway staring down at his baggy new sweatpants. They had pockets, but when he put his house keys and car keys in there, they slapped against his leg with every step, and he jingled like one of Santa’s reindeer.

  He clutched the keys in his fist and set off around the park in the early morning light. Well, not around the park—he would have been happy to make it a quarter of the way. He prided himself on having a pretty trim physique for a middle-aged man, but he was still not entirely recovered from his gunshot wound, and this jogging business was turning out to be surprisingly hard work.

  He reached down and patted his stomach. Three or four pounds off would do it. He was breathing heavily now, only three hundred yards down the road, but he pressed on, determined. This exercising was not just for him; it was for Michelle, too. His fiancée, just hours from now, if all went well. Tonight was New Year’s Eve, and he had the ring and the dinner reservations, and a woman who loved him, and the sun was shining, sparkling on the park’s little lake, and he could see his breath in the crisp December air, and he felt good despite the complaints from his knees and the crick in his side. He felt even better after he breezed past a little old geezer in a fancy running outfit, but then was brought down to earth as a couple of pastel-suited girls bounced past him, chatting merrily without even pausing for breath.

  He smiled at himself. Okay, so he’d have to keep at this for a while to get his wind up. Not a problem. Maybe he wasn’t a great runner, but he was a damn good detective. He was moving forward inexorably on the Sperry case, and he had a strong hunch that something was going to pop very soon on his private investigation. Balfa’s girlfriend was holding something back, and either she’d give it up voluntarily or he would pry it out of her. He shrugged off these thoughts, rolling his head like a boxer warming up. He had the day off; for once he was going to have a personal life, and to hell with work.

  He was loosening up, despite the cold, and wondered if he was hitting some kind of stride. If those things were kicking in—what were they called? Endorphins. Life was a lot different here in the park when you weren’t zipping by in a seal
ed-off car. He listened to the steady shuffle of his footsteps on the asphalt and to the jagged rhythm of his breath. He started noticing the different kinds of trees, and the way a goose waddled down to the water’s edge, and then he was pondering why the goose hadn’t flown farther south for the winter, and where its comrades were, and soon—pleasantly, and for the first time since he had looked down at the boy in the box—he wasn’t thinking about much of anything at all.

  HE DIDN’T BAT AN eye at the prices on the dinner menu, even though they were so high they would have made both of his parents faint. He didn’t bother hiding the ring in any desserts. He didn’t even wonder which knee to get down on. That morning he had had a major realization—an epiphany, really—and it had come from the most unlikely source.

  He had come back from a run—he liked the way that sounded, even though it had been more of a plod—and taken a hot bath. He came out feeling good and sporty, as if he were in a locker room. He went into the kitchen in search of breakfast, turned on the little TV over the microwave, and there was Regis Philbin with some pert blonde, and they were chatting jovially with some singer Jack didn’t know, a handsome young guy wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

  “How did you pop the question?” Regis was saying. “Did you take her for a carriage ride around Central Park and open a bottle of champagne?”

  The singer shook his handsome head and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He had a shy, modest manner that clearly drove the women in the studio audience wild. “I didn’t do any of that,” he said. “No violin players, no hidin’ the ring, no pretendin’ or foolin’ around. I just wanted it to be a really simple moment, you know. Authentic.” The camera cut to several middle-aged women in the audience, nodding their heads, mesmerized. “I took her hand and told her that I loved her and that I hoped she would spend the rest of her life letting me make her happy.” A number of women in the studio audience wiped their eyes.

  And that was it. Jack stood there in his kitchen, open-mouthed, holding two eggs he was about to crack over a frying pan. Keep it simple. What a fool he had been, thinking that the moment should be about some clever trick or elaborate setup, when all he needed to do was speak from his heart.

  Now here he was in this too-fancy Midtown restaurant, with red leather booths and subdued lighting glowing from behind polished wood panels on the walls, but it was okay, it still felt right. Michelle was wearing a dress that he loved, and she looked gorgeous. (He noticed several model-like women sitting with rich older men, and they looked glamorous in a superficial way, but he was proud to be here with his date.) He didn’t fidget, didn’t check to see if he had remembered the ring. He didn’t for one second wonder if he was doing the right thing. He just felt it, in his heart, like he was floating, like he was in the zone, Michael Jordan swooping serenely up for a three-point half-court swish.

  A waiter went around with a silver tray handing out noisemakers and party hats. The countdown to midnight was coming up, but suddenly Jack didn’t want to wait anymore—he didn’t want the moment swallowed up in a crowd of shouting revelers.

  He raised his champagne glass. “To the most beautiful woman in the room.”

  Michelle clinked glasses with him. She hadn’t eaten much this evening, said she was saving up for the post-midnight snacks, but that was okay. This wasn’t about having some kind of perfect meal—this was about starting their future together, and he didn’t care if it happened over a couple of Big Macs.

  He pushed aside the votive candle in the middle of the table and reached out and took Michelle’s hand. “You know what?” he said, brushing aside the cowboy’s words, which were still bouncing around in his head. “I know this has been a crazy year, what with my time in the hospital, and…you know…” He didn’t want to mention September 11, not now…“And then there was my little swim, and everything. But even so, I wanna tell you that these have been the best few months of my life. Because of you.” He looked down for a moment, embarrassed to find himself choking up. Still holding on to her hand, he reached into his pocket, pulled out the little velvet ring box, and set it on the table. “Will you marry me?”

  Michelle’s eyes widened. “Oh my God,” she said. She pulled out of his grasp and knocked over her water glass as her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “Oh my God,” she repeated, and her eyes crinkled up.

  A nice couple at the next table realized what was going on and they smiled encouragingly. Jack grinned back. As he mopped at the table, Michelle began to cry. He reached out to offer his napkin, but then realized that it was wet.

  Michelle cried, and cried.

  After a minute, Jack’s grin faltered.

  She couldn’t seem to stop.

  He reached out for her hand again, but she just shook her head and blubbered something through her tears.

  “What’s this?” he said gently.

  “I’ve been seeing someone.”

  He stared at her, bewildered, a foolish grin still plastered on his face. “You’ve been going to a shrink?”

  She shook her head, weeping. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

  He sat there, frozen. After a minute, he heard words coming out of his mouth. “I know I’ve been busy at work and all…”

  She shook her head again. “It’s nothing to do with you. I didn’t plan it. It just happened.”

  “Michelle…” He reached out for her, but she stood abruptly, knocking her silverware off the edge of her plate. It clattered to the floor, causing several nearby diners to look over.

  She grabbed her purse and fled.

  CHAPTER thirty-three

  “WE JUST GOT A report that he’s been sighted out at Rye Playland.”

  “Huh?” Jack looked up, and then up higher, at Gary Daskivitch’s big frame planted in front of his desk in the Seven-six squad room.

  “Sperry,” Daskivitch said. “Somebody called and said they spotted him on the water slide.” The detective shook his head. “This guy really gets around. So far he’s been spotted at Katz’s Deli, the top of the Empire State Building, and the ice skating rink in Central Park. What’s next: The stage of a Broadway show?” Daskivitch grinned, waiting for Jack to share his appreciation of all these nutty phone tips, but he just nodded absently.

  “Okay,” he murmured. “Put somebody on that.”

  Daskivitch’s eyes widened. “The water slide? Are you kidding?”

  Jack frowned. “Sorry—I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The young detective stared down at him, dubious, but then his phone rang and he turned away to his desk.

  Jack sat gripping the metal arms of his chair. Fine. He shouldn’t have come in to work this morning, he knew that, but what was the alternative? To sit home wondering if Michelle was ever going to call him back?

  Last night he had settled the bill at the restaurant, then gone out looking for her, but she wasn’t waiting by his car. And she wouldn’t answer her cell phone. She wasn’t waiting for him when he finally gave up and went home. He had thought of going by her place, but then he realized that if she wasn’t there, he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to know anything more about what had just happened. It was impossible to believe; his mind just couldn’t accept it.

  He had lain down on his bed, fully clothed, with all the lights off. I’ve been seeing someone: The words kept clanging in his head. He thought of old cartoons he had laughed at when he was a kid, Wile E. Coyote suddenly finding himself suspended in midair after running off a cliff, or Elmer Fudd coated in ashes, staring at the stub of an exploded cigar. All he wanted, all he really wanted, was to just wind back time a few minutes, a few frames, before he had lit the cigar, before he had gone over the cliff, before Michelle had dropped her sudden, utterly mystifying bomb. Before he had taken the little ring box out and set it on the table. He thought of that and was deeply embarrassed, and then hurt in a primal way, like a dog that has been hit by a car, and then a flare of
anger snapped open inside of him, a raw liquid lava of fury. His fists clenched, and he felt a pain in the back of his head, and for a moment he thought he might be having a stroke.

  Eventually his blood pressure dropped, but he was unable to sleep. At some point he had rolled over and glanced at the glowing green numbers of the digital clock: 3:27 A.M. He knew he had to go to work the next morning, and he was angry all over again, pissed that Michelle was keeping him up so late on a work night, and he narrowed his focus to this small problem so that he wouldn’t have to think about the big one.

  FOR A PARTY RENTAL company, New Year’s Day was busy, but Michelle wasn’t at work this morning. He hated himself for doing it, but the first thing he had done when he reached the squad room was call her office. They said she’d called in sick.

  Now he sat at his desk in the middle of the task force’s buzz of activity and forced himself to plod through a few small tasks, as if nothing had happened, but a strange torpor was sliding down over him. He pictured the face of the woman in Park Slope, the doctor’s wife, after he and Vargas had informed her of her husband’s death. He recalled the odd, inscrutable expressions that had slipped across her face, and her plaintive voice: “No, he’ll be back in a few minutes. He just went for a jog.”

  HE WENT FOR A jog, too.

  At four o’clock, after his tour was over, he went home, but the silence and hollowness of the apartment were so overwhelming that he fled. Jumped into his sweats, grabbed his keys and cell phone, drove off to the park.

  Once he hit the loop road, he moved forward grimly, hunching his shoulders, with keys clenched in one fist and cell phone in the other. He had called her ten times already, and he wasn’t going to call anymore—he had pledged himself that, not even if the world was about to end, because that small point of pride seemed to be all that he had left.

  Seeing someone? he thought as he set off down the road. Who? For how long? Where had they met? How had she kept it a secret? He considered himself a damn good judge of character—he had to be, in his line of work. How had he misjudged her so profoundly? It was impossible.