Sons of the City

by Scott Flander

  I wanted to go over to HUP to see if there was anything I could do for Michelle. Bowman hesitated a little—if I left, there’d be more work for him—but Kirk said go ahead.

  I looked back at the house. It was weird—there were so many people here, cops, neighbors, reporters. But Steve was gone, and the asshole who shot him was gone. This was just the empty shell of something that had happened. All we could do was look at it, examine it. In a way, it wasn’t even real anymore.

  I found Michelle in a third-floor waiting area, down the hall from the operating room. She was standing silently with her father, and I hesitated a little before walking up to them—maybe they didn’t want to be disturbed. But Michelle looked up and spotted me, and waved me over.

  “Any word?” I asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “Sir,” I said to her father. “I’m Eddie North, Steve’s sergeant. I just wanted to see if there’s anything I could do.”

  “Thank you,” he said, and we shook hands.

  Ben Ryder was a big, broad-chested man in his mid-fifties, still with powerful muscles, still with the striking good looks he had passed along to his children. Whenever I had seen him before, usually on TV, he was wearing a suit. Now he had on a navy golf shirt and khakis. I was always a little caught off-guard by his command presence. You knew that when he walked into a room, he could gain the respect of everyone there by his appearance alone. I could see why most cops considered him intimidating.

  A few minutes later, Michelle’s mother arrived, a middle-aged blonde with a big purse, holding back tears. She hugged Michelle, then the Commissioner. I remembered Michelle telling me that her mother and father were divorced, but you couldn’t tell, the way they held each other. At least for the moment, they were a family again.

  I told Michelle I was going to wait outside, and she nodded and took my hands in hers.

  “Thanks for coming, Eddie,” she said, trying to smile.

  I took the elevator downstairs and left the hospital through the emergency room entrance. The sliding glass doors whooshed open, sending me out into the warm night.

  Off to one side, TV crews were setting up a bank of cameras, probably getting ready for some sort of press conference. There were reporters all over the place, trying to get comments from everyone who went in and out, including me when I passed by. I just ignored them.

  Some of the cops from the 20th were standing next to their patrol cars under a lamppost in the hospital lot, smoking and talking quietly. Donna was there, and V.K. and Larry, and Marisol, and Paulie Rapone. Dave Larkin grew up with Steve, he was there, too. When I walked up they looked at me, silently asking whether I knew anything.

  I just shrugged and said, “Nothing yet.”

  Suddenly, we were blinded by a TV light. It was that jerkoff reporter Tim Timberlane. He didn’t give a shit about Steve—he just wanted someone to help him look good on the eleven o’clock news. It wasn’t going to be me.

  “Sergeant, what can you tell me?” he asked.

  “For starters,” I said, trying to look past blue spots, “I can tell you to go fuck yourself.”

  The cameraman had the sense to turn off the light, but Timberlane didn’t give up. “We just want to know how you feel,” he said.

  I forced myself to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t like that camera there.

  Buster took a couple of steps forward and put his face in Timberlane’s face. “No one wants to talk to you,” he said. “Bye.”

  “But …”

  “Bye.”

  Timberlane noticed that camera crews were surrounding someone outside the emergency room entrance, and he and his cameraman took off in that direction.

  “Something’s going on,” I said.

  An inspector was walking toward us, I couldn’t remember his name. “You the people from the Twentieth?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Commissioner sent me out here to let you know.”

  Donna saw the look on his face, and cried out, “Oh, my God.”

  The inspector hesitated a moment, and then said, “Steve Ryder has just died.”

  In my mind, I saw Michelle’s hand on Steve’s head, trying to hold in the blood, trying to hold in the life. She couldn’t do it. No one could.

  Donna and Marisol started crying first, then some of the guys. No one said anything. Ever since Steve got shot, we were moving too fast to feel anything. But now we all just stood there, wiping the tears away.

  When I got home that night, I sat on the couch in my darkened living room and had a beer, then another, then another. But I knew that no matter how much I drank, it wouldn’t be enough.

  I still lived in the small row house Patricia and I had bought years ago. She moved out after the divorce, and I was glad to be able to stay there. It was in Oxford Circle, a peaceful neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia that had at least a couple of cops living on every block.

  Of course, we all knew each other. We had backyard barbecues in the summer, and on Sunday afternoons in the fall we’d all get together to watch the Eagles on TV until it was time for the guys on four-to-midnight to head into work.

  If you ever needed help—shoveling your car out of the snow or putting up a new rain gutter—there was always someone around. It didn’t matter that they worked in different districts, or that this one was a patrolman and that one a lieutenant. You were among people who understood you, understood the life of a cop.

  Sitting there in my living room, I wondered whether I really wanted that life anymore. How could it be worth it, when you had to watch your friends die?

  FOUR

  The day after a cop is killed is always the worst. You stand there at roll call and see that someone’s missing, and you realize he’ll never be there again. You don’t feel like going back out onto the street, but you know you have to, that’s your job.

  At least there was one good thing about coming into work—we could talk to each other about Steve, trade stories about him. Buster said, Remember that night Steve found a big toy stuffed lion in a Dumpster, and stuck it in the back of a wagon? Whenever we’d open the back doors to put prisoners in, they’d scream in terror. That was classic Steve.

  Like most district headquarters, ours was pretty cramped, and we had to hold our roll calls in a dimly lit, green-tiled room that doubled as a municipal courtroom. In the front of the room, two steps up, was an old judge’s bench and an American flag on a wooden pole. Sometimes at roll call the captain or one of the lieutenants would stand up there and address the troops, but I usually just stood in front of the guys at ground level. It seemed a lot less trouble.

  Shortly after 4 p.m., the twenty-eight men and women in my squad assembled for roll call. No one bothered to line up in rows, the way you’re supposed to. People were pretty much standing around in groups of two or three, with their friends.

  I didn’t feel like talking, so I just told everyone to stay sharp going in on disturbances, which is what we called domestic disputes, and on man-with-a-gun calls, and any other time we rolled in on something that might suddenly turn deadly. I said we shouldn’t get so caught up in what had happened to Steve that we’d be putting our own lives in danger.

  They were all very quiet. Donna was still crying a little, and Buster’s smile was gone, he looked heartbroken. Nick kept his eyes on the ground, I don’t think he once looked up. I had called him at home that morning, and told him he didn’t have to come into work. He showed up anyway.

  I dismissed the squad, and they filed into the operations room to get their portable radios from the bank of chargers on the wall. They talked among themselves a little and then finally walked out into the Yard, climbed into their patrol cars, and headed out onto the street.

  As I was about to join them, Dee-Dee, the captain’s secretary, came into the operations room.

  “Oh, you’re still here, good,” she said. “Captain wants to see you.”

  I followed her down the hallway. She turned left to go
back to her desk, and I took a right and walked through the open door to Oliver Kirk’s office. I’ve been inside a lot of captains’ offices, but never one like Kirk’s. Most of the time, you’ll see plaques on the wall from the mayor or from some community group. Then there’s usually a map of whatever police district it is, with red or green pushpins showing drug pinches or maybe reported burglaries.

  Kirk’s office, on the other hand, was the bridge of the starship Enterprise. When he first got promoted—and became Captain Kirk—guys started leaving Star Trek stuff in his office as a joke. He’d come in, and there’d be a little James T. Kirk action figure sitting on his empty chair. He loved it, and even started collecting the stuff himself. Now everything in his office had to do with Star Trek.

  On the walls were color stills from the original Star Trek series, along with a row of oil portraits of the Enterprise crew, which he had painted himself. They weren’t bad—you could actually tell who was who. By the door was a clock in the shape of the Star Trek insignia. Next to it was a glass display case with weapons and other devices. And in a back corner of the office, next to the window, was a lifesize cardboard cutout of James T. Kirk himself.

  People who didn’t know Kirk came into his office and immediately assumed he was a nut. We used to joke that Spock—Bravelli’s Spock, not the real one—would be right at home here.

  The first time I was in his office, Kirk proudly showed me what everything was. And he admitted that when he was a kid, he used to watch the TV show all the time. I could picture it—Kirk as a twelve-year-old boy, with the same curly red hair he had today, sitting in front of the TV set, eyes wide open, as his hero led the Enterprise to glory. Naturally, his nickname in the 20th was “James T.” Sometimes we’d forget and call him that to his face, and he never seemed to mind.

  As I walked in, Kirk motioned for me to sit. It was just a regular chair, not a Star Trek chair or anything.

  “How you doin', Eddie?” he asked, and I could tell he wasn’t doing too good himself. It’s hard for a sergeant to lose one of his men, but it’s hard for a captain, too. Maybe harder.

  “He was a good kid,” Kirk said simply.

  “Yeah.”

  We looked at each other. What else was there to say?

  “Homicide making any progress?” I finally asked.

  Kirk shook his head. “No, and there’s some trouble. The black community’s getting hot about all these ped-stops. People are calling their church leaders, the church leaders are calling the politicians. It’s not good.”

  “Yeah, I thought that might happen,” I said.

  I knew that all day today detectives and street cops had been questioning young black guys hanging on corners. We no longer had much hope of coming across the shooter himself—he was probably hiding in another crackhouse somewhere. Our only hope was that his name—or even his nickname—would spread on the street.

  When someone commits a crime that makes the papers and television, they have a hard time keeping it to themselves. They want to point to the TV and say, See that, I did that. It makes them feel powerful, like they’re really somebody. Eventually they tell someone, and that person tells someone else, and pretty soon it’s not a secret anymore.

  Most of the guys we were questioning were known drug dealers and crackheads and assorted lowlifes, but some of them were also regular young guys. It wasn’t fair, and you really couldn’t blame them for complaining. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to get stopped by the cops just for walking down the street. But if there was another way of finding Steve’s killer, I didn’t know about it.

  “Eddie, the reason I wanted to talk to you. We had another vigilante attack in Westmount.”

  “Today?”

  “Yeah, this morning. Black guy robbed an Italian grocery on Cedar, ran out and jumped in his car, car wouldn’t start.”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said. “Instead of running, he kept trying to get the car started.”

  Kirk looked at me in surprise. “You already heard about this?”

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  Kirk smiled. “Anyway, the owner came out and started yelling, and pretty soon there was a crowd around the car. They dragged the guy out and almost killed him. He’s at St. Michael’s now.”

  “Any of Bravelli’s people involved this time?”

  “You kidding? Nobody saw nothin'. Street full of shoppers, they all happened to be looking the other way.”

  “You want me to drop by?”

  “If you would. The detectives are all tied up on this thing with Steve.”

  “I understand.”

  “Talk to the store owner, he’s not a bad guy. He didn’t want to say anything this afternoon, but things have quieted down, maybe he’ll open up a little.”

  I never did talk to the store owner. I didn’t even make it to the store.

  The closest I got was a few blocks away, at the corner of 80th and Locust, where a cluster of Italian bakeries filled the air with warm, sweet smells.

  I was stopped at the light, gazing to my left at the pastries in the window at Carlino’s on the other side of the street. I noticed that the image of my patrol car—with me in it—was reflected in the bakery’s glass door. You don’t get to see yourself like that too often, and I was actually looking at the door when it opened and Canaletto and then Bravelli stepped out onto the sidewalk. A black Cadillac Seville had been sitting at the curb just around the corner on 80th, and the moment Bravelli emerged from the bakery, Goop hopped out of the driver’s seat and quickly pulled open the back door.

  As Canaletto got in the other side, Bravelli spotted me, and paused. We just looked at each other for a few seconds, stone-faced, neither of us giving away anything. Then he abruptly turned and walked over to the Cadillac and got in. Goop—resplendent in a highway-worker-orange jogging suit—closed the door and got back behind the wheel. A few moments later, the car eased away from the curb.

  Maybe I should have just let it go. I didn’t really want to be in Westmount—I wanted to be back in West Philly, trying to find the guy who shot Steve. But when I saw Bravelli, somehow all my anger got transferred right onto him. He was the reason this job was fucked up, he was the reason that everything went wrong, and that good people like Steve got killed. I knew it didn’t fit together like that, but I didn’t try to make sense of it. Whoever shot Steve was nowhere around; Bravelli was right here. And right now, he would do.

  I took a sharp left onto 80th, pulling behind the Cadillac, and flipped on my overhead red and blue lights. Somewhere inside of my head a voice was saying, wait, you have to have a plan, you can’t do this without a plan. But I just pushed that aside. And as the Cadillac’s brake lights came on and both our cars slowed to a stop, I could feel the adrenaline starting to kick in.

  It was a typical Westmount street, narrow row houses one after the other on both sides. I got out of my car and walked toward the Seville. When I reached the driver’s window, I almost yelled into Goop’s face. “Everybody out of the car.”

  “What’s your friggin’ problem?” Goop asked.

  “Everybody out.”

  “Yeah? You’re supposed to say sir.” “No, I’m supposed to say asshole. Now, get out of the fuckin’ car, asshole.” “And if I don’t?”

  “It’s OK, Goop,” a voice from the back said, and the rear doors opened. I had to be careful—I was going to have three guys out, with no backup. My goal was to get Bravelli alone, but first I had to make sure no one was armed.

  “What happened, North?” Bravelli said as he climbed out of the Seville. “Get lost on a doughnut run?”

  “Behind the car,” I said. “All three of you.” They walked to the rear of the car, half laughing, playing along for a while. Both Bravelli and Canaletto were wearing white shorts and pastel knit golf shirts.

  “Hands on the trunk,” I ordered. Goop and Canaletto obeyed, but Bravelli hesitated. He was glancing around at the nearby houses, where people were gathering on their porches and at thei
r windows to see what was going on. I knew he was worried about losing face. Good.

  I quickly patted down Goop’s orange jogging suit.

  “What, you want to feel me up?” he sneered. “You a fuckin’ homo?”

  “Hey, Goop,” I said, finishing up with him, “Was that a baby carrot in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

  Canaletto snickered. Goop gave him a dirty look, then sputtered a “fuck you” in my direction. I moved on to Canaletto. No gun.

  “You’re next,” I said to Bravelli. He took a step back, like I somehow wasn’t permitted to touch him. “You want to fuckin’ pull us over,” he said, “do it somewhere else, not in our own fucking neighborhood.”

  “Really? Well, guess what? I’m pretty sure I can pull you over any fucking place I want.”

  I turned to Goop and Canaletto. “You two, back in the car. I’m going to search your boss, and then all three of you assholes can go.” They quickly complied, figuring that the sooner they got in the car, the sooner this would be over.

  Once Goop and Canaletto were back in the Seville, I spun Bravelli around and pushed him against the trunk, and made a big show of frisking him. He was spewing obscenities, but I took my time. More people were gathering.

  “Yo, leave him alone,” someone yelled. I turned. On the sidewalk, standing in front of the growing crowd, were four Italian guys in their early twenties, dressed in sleeveless white T-shirts and baggy shorts. Just corner boys, I thought, all they know how to do is spend their lives sitting on steps, playing cards and bullshitting and drinking beer.

  Bravelli wasn’t armed, either. Now I could get started.

  “Heard your boys beat up another black guy today,” I said.

  He looked puzzled for a moment, then understood.

  “That’s what this is about? You got to be friggin’ kiddin’ me, you should be thanking the people who are doin’ your job for you.”

  “Don’t worry about how we’re doing our job.”