Sons of the City

by Scott Flander

  “Bravelli says, ‘You made arrangements to meet with a detective, right?’ and Johnny says, ‘Yeah, Detective Zabrou.’

  Zabrou was in Homicide.

  “Bravelli tells Johnny and Ralph to leave and then just stares at me. I know he’s trying to force me into a decision. I’m thinkin’ as fast as I can. I say what happens when the police ask Johnny and Ralph why they didn’t tell the truth to begin with?

  “Bravelli says, ‘They’ll just say they were scared to come forward. Same as the neighbors. One old guy across the street says he was looking out his window when you threw your father off the roof. He’ll be a good witness.’ The guy was probably on the other side of town at the time.

  “Anyway, Bravelli doesn’t say nothin’ for a while, and then he says, ‘You might be thinking I won’t go through with this. But people who know me know that I don’t say I’ll do something and then not do it. That gets you a reputation. I don’t fuckin’ bluff.’

  “I told him I needed some time to think about it. He said Johnny and Ralph would be going to the cops in the morning, so I didn’t have much time. And he told me I wouldn’t be able to call him up in the middle of the night with an answer.

  “He says, ‘You got to make a decision now, Nick. That’s the way it has to be. Either way, I don’t give a fuck.’ I asked him again why he wanted to kill Steve, and he says, ‘That’s none of your fucking business. What’s your decision? You want your family or not?’

  “So I’m standing there and Bravelli keeps asking me what’s my decision, he don’t got all night. I’m thinking that sometimes the world works the way the world works. There ain’t nothing you can do about it.

  “I asked him what happens if I get caught. When I said that, he relaxed, like he had fuckin’ won. He told me I wouldn’t get caught. I was the only one who could get close to Steve, that’s why they wanted me to do it. I told him he still had to tell me what he had against Steve. I told him I had to know. Bravelli thinks about that for a while, and then he says, ‘He crossed us, OK? He said he would do something, and then he didn’t do it.’

  “I said to Bravelli, ‘Steve was really working for you?’ And he says, ‘Look at it this way, Nick—you’d just be taking out a bad guy. That’s what you do every day, fight bad guys, right?’ So I don’t know, Eddie, maybe that did make it a little easier.”

  Nick paused and looked at me, asking with his eyes whether I understood. I didn’t understand at all, it was beyond understanding. It was sad, though, how Nick had been so willing to believe that Steve was dirty. But so had Michelle, and so had I, without much evidence.

  Nick was continuing his story. He said that once he had agreed to kill Steve, he stopped worrying about whether to do it, and started thinking about how to do it. He decided the best place would be the crackhouse, because it would be easy to make it look like a drug dealer did the shooting.

  He got Bravelli to send a couple of his guys by the house that night and clear out the druggies who lived there. Then he had someone call 911 and say there was a woman screaming in the house. Nick knew the dispatcher would send him and Steve to check it out, and since they were two-man, there wouldn’t be a need for a backup car. So, as usual, Steve goes to the front door, and Nick goes around back to wait for someone to run out.

  But this time, Nick doesn’t wait—he comes through the unlocked back door, through the kitchen, into the living room, and when Steve bangs on the door, Nick is on the other side, waiting.

  “I just stood there, Eddie. I heard Steve yell out, ‘Police! Open up!’ I was right on the other side of the door but it was like I was far away. I had sort of like turned off my mind before I even went into the house. It was like this wasn’t really Steve banging on the door, and I wasn’t really me. It was almost like I was playin’ a video game, you know what I mean? It was like I was floating in the air, watching myself in the house, but I was also right there, because I had to be sharp to make sure I didn’t do nothing wrong.

  “I guess part of me is thinking, Steve and me are really somewhere else. This is happening, but it’s not really happening. I saw a TV show one time about a kind of identical universe, you know, where everything is sort of the same, but different? When I was in the house with Steve it was kind of like that. This was what was happening in the other universe, and I was making it happen, but in some way it wasn’t real. But I have to admit, something was telling me that if I went through with this, then my whole life would be switching to the other universe. Everybody else would be in the regular one but I would be in the new one, and there was no way I could ever get back. But I wasn’t really thinking about that too much, because I knew if I did I would just chicken out, and also I was telling myself that I didn’t really want to stay in the regular universe anyway.

  “I knew Steve wouldn’t hang around on the porch forever. They had said they would leave a .38 and some rubber gloves on a coffee table for me, and there they were. All that I had to do was open the door and shoot Steve. So I shut down my mind the rest of the way and put on the rubber gloves, and then I picked up the gun.”

  Nick paused, looked at me, then stared down at the porch, like that’s who he was telling the story to.

  “I pulled the door open with my left hand. When Steve saw me his mouth dropped open a little. I said to myself this isn’t really Steve, it’s just an image of him, and I said to myself NOW and I raised the gun and fired at his head. Steve just fell back, and for a second it was like my father dying all over again. The shot made less sound than I thought it would. It was just sort of a loud CRACK and that was it.

  Nick was silent for a while, then he continued.

  “I dropped the gun by the door and ran out of the back of the house. When I got outside, I yelled ‘Steve!’ and then I ran back through the house and looked out the front door, like I was seeing somebody run down the sidewalk. I tried to make myself see the person. Then I looked down at Steve. He was lying on the porch on his side and I could see the bullet hole in the side of his head. His eyes were closed. I said to myself, You are in the other universe now.

  “Then I grabbed my radio and clicked the button and shouted, ‘ASSIST, ASSIST.’ I started to yell, Officer down but I realized I still had on the rubber gloves, I had to get them off me, I didn’t want them on me anymore. So I clicked off the radio, and tore off the gloves and stuffed them in my pants pocket. Then I yelled into the radio, “Officer down! Officer down! 5-8-4-3 Tyler! Call Rescue!”

  “I ran out onto the sidewalk, like I was looking for the shooter, and then I ran back onto the porch to wait for the first cars. I tried to keep my mind shut down. I tried to make myself believe someone else had killed Steve, not me. When everyone pulled up I sort of let my mind open up again, if you know what I mean, and I started thinking about how Steve was shot.

  “I started getting really upset, because I didn’t want him to get shot. Steve was a good guy, he was a good partner. He was lying there bleeding, a cop just like me was lying there bleeding. I didn’t really think about that it was me who did it. I pushed that to the back of my mind. It was some other person that had shot Steve in cold blood and then just ran, it was a fuckin’ crackhead. I start getting mad at this imaginary person, I’m thinking, I’m sorry I didn’t kill that motherfucker when I had the chance. It was like I really did see him run away. Everybody figured it was a black guy, so I started thinking it was a black guy. I kept putting it out of my mind that I was the one that did it, I just pushed that aside because I knew it wouldn’t do no good to think about it. I know it sounds weird, but I got something into my head about blacks. I was angry, I started taking my anger out on them. Like that kid at the protest march.”

  “And like store owners on Fifty-second,” I said. “And Barney Stiller.”

  Nick looked genuinely surprised at the accusation. “I told you, Eddie, that wasn’t me.”

  “Yeah, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know, Eddie, I just told you I killed two people. You think I’
m gonna lie about beatin’ somebody up?”

  I shrugged. “So is that the end of your story, Nick?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Except that I never heard from Bravelli after that, not a word. Johnny and Ralph, they never went to the police about my father. And you already know that me and my brothers sold all the trucks and equipment from my father’s business and gave the money to my mother.”

  We were both silent for a long time. Now I knew why Nick wanted to kill Bravelli as much as I did, maybe even more. Bravelli held the key to his secret. And I knew why he kept coming to the crackhouse. He was trying to find the truth, his truth, here. Maybe he thought that if he came here he could change things.

  Nick examined his hands. I knew he was waiting for me to say something, waiting for my reaction, maybe waiting for me to give him absolution.

  He wasn’t going to get it. He had betrayed Steve, he had betrayed me, he had betrayed everyone. I had held my anger back while I was listening to the story, but now it was rising up in my chest, filling my lungs.

  “Stand up, Nick,” I said.

  He obeyed, and as he did, I curled my right hand into a fist. I was going to leave him bloody.

  “You stupid fucking asshole,” I said. “How could you do that to Steve? How could you be so goddamn fucking stupid?”

  He looked at me, waiting for my fist, knowing it was his due. But I was thinking, I’m the real asshole. How could I have not seen what was going on with Nick, that all this shit he was going through was really something deeper? I had been blind to it. Not just since Steve was killed, but even before. All the so-called guidance I had given him over the years was worthless. Steve was dead, Nick’s own life was over.

  He was looking at me, waiting. What was I going to say to him, what was I really going to do? The person I saw in front of me was a stranger, someone who I had never known.

  And yet there he was, Nicky, my little cousin. I felt the old connection, and it wasn’t something I could just take apart and look at. I wanted to kill Nick for what he did, but I also wanted to tell him everything was going to be OK.

  Nick saw how much I was torn. “Just do what you got to do, Eddie.”

  I still hesitated.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, looking down at the porch floor. “I don’t really care no more. If Bravelli told Michelle what I did, how long’s it gonna be before she tells her father, then everybody knows? I might as well not ever see my mom and my brothers again.”

  “Nick,” I said. “Bravelli never mentioned your name.”

  He looked up at me, confused.

  “No one knew what you did,” I said. “Not until now.”

  Nick seemed about to get upset, but then he just smiled softly. “It’s OK, Eddie, I’m glad I told you. I wanted to for a long time.”

  “Ready to go?” I asked him.

  He looked at me in surprise. “Where?”

  “Where do you think?”

  “You’re going to take me in?”

  “Nick, you just can’t walk away.”

  “Why not? You’re the only one who knows. You don’t have to tell no one.”

  “I’m not going to do that, Nick.”

  “I don’t want my mom to know, Eddie. I don’t want my brothers to know.”

  “It’s too late. We gotta go.”

  A call came over the radio.

  “Twenty Command, is 20-C-Charlie on the air?” It was Kirk.

  “This is 20-Charlie,” I said.

  “How many officers do you have with you right now?”

  He thought I was already at 64th and Locust.

  “They’re all here,” I said. I knew none of my guys would get on the air and rat me out. But it dawned on me that I couldn’t take Nick in right now. Once word spread that it was a cop who killed the Commissioner’s son—and that the Commissioner had been working with the mob—the whole Police Department would short-circuit. The commanders would forget about trying to stop another riot. They’d forget about the cops they had left in dangerous situations.

  “Hey, Eddie,” Nick said. “Maybe I could stay at your place tonight, think that’d be OK?”

  Him saying that seemed almost funny, but I just felt sad. He’s a million miles from reality, he still doesn’t understand that I’m going to lock him up. But maybe that’s the answer, I thought—I can take Nick in later. He’s not going anywhere.

  “Yeah, Nicky, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you head over to my house right now and wait for me. You know, watch TV, whatever. I think there’s some beer in the refrigerator.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “And you can sleep on the couch tonight.”

  “Can I?”

  “Sure.”

  “Won’t be too much trouble?” “Not for you, Nick.”

  He looked at me gratefully, the same way he always had. His big cousin Eddie. His hero.

  “One thing, Nicky. You’re not going to …”

  “Shoot myself?”

  “Yeah, you’re not going to do it, are you?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I think tellin’ somebody what happened was a good thing, Eddie. I’m glad it was you.”

  “So am I, Nick.”

  “I’m sorry for everything, Eddie. I’ll make it up to you.”

  “All right, Nick.”

  “I mean it. I’ll make it up to you.” I stepped off the porch and headed to my car. It was time to get over to 64th Street.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Sixty-fourth and Locust looked like a war zone. The burnt-out hulks of three vehicles—one of them a police car—clogged the intersection, and the streets were strewn with rocks and bricks and other debris. The dozen or so stores at the intersection had all been looted, the security gates torn apart, the glass display windows shattered, everything inside thrown about.

  The cops I had asked for were all there waiting for me. “What the hell happened last night?” I said, looking around the intersection.

  Donna and Buster told me they had seen the whole thing. Barney Stiller had been leading an anti-police candlelight march through West Philadelphia, protesting the beatings on 52nd Street. When it reached this intersection, the marchers halted temporarily so Stiller could talk to some people in the crowd.

  “You wouldn’t believe it,” said Buster. “Some cop comes out of nowhere and starts wailin’ on him.”

  Buster demonstrated the cop’s technique, waving his left arm like a conductor furiously leading an orchestra, except instead of a baton swinging through the air it was supposed to be a nightstick playing paddywhack on Barney Stiller’s head.

  “Who was the cop?” I asked.

  “We couldn’t see,” said Donna. “Too far down the block.”

  Buster said that after the cop laid Stiller out on the pavement, he just vanished, and they never got a good look at his face. Meanwhile, the marchers started going crazy in anger. Only a few cops had been accompanying the march, and the situation quickly got out of control. Donna and Buster called for backup, but the new cops arriving on the scene couldn’t restore order—all they could do was help get Donna and Buster and the others to safety.

  “It was pretty hairy for a while,” said Buster.

  At least things were quiet now. The sky was bright blue, and the air was warm. For some reason I thought of soft-ball—it was a perfect Sunday morning, it would have been great to play today. Then I remembered that we were actually on the schedule to play the 17th District this afternoon in Fairmount Park. Maybe we could have our game in the middle of 64th Street.

  Store owners had been coming by all morning to take a look at their shops. Most just went into shock. An older black woman who owned a small dress shop was standing on the sidewalk out front, tears running down her smooth cheeks.

  “Why’d they do this to me?” she asked, over and over. “Why would they do this to Miss Mae—I never hurt a soul.”

  Yvonne, who had grown up in the neighborhood, said she had known Miss Mae since s
he was a kid. She went over to comfort the woman.

  The six of us didn’t have much to do. We were scattered up and down Locust, talking with people in the neighborhood who wanted a firsthand look at the damage. A couple of TV crews came by and filmed the intersection, and of course they spotted Miss Mae and her tears, and they made sure they got it all on tape. The TV crews looked very proud of themselves, like they had actually done something. One crew filmed me talking with another store owner, and I remembered someone saying that if you gave them the finger on camera, they couldn’t show it on TV. I almost did it, but they really didn’t seem too interested in me and quickly moved on.

  About one-thirty, Kirk drove by to see how things were going.

  “We got a police tow truck coming to get these wrecks out of here,” he said. “Commissioner wants Locust opened up again. You know, at least make things look like they’re getting back to normal.”

  “Are they?” I asked.

  “Shouldn’t take too long to find out,” he said, and pulled off. A few minutes later the tow truck arrived, with Dominic at the wheel.

  “How come you’re the only tow-truck driver I ever see?” I asked.

  “It’s because I’m good,” he said, climbing out of the cab. He surveyed the burnt-out cars, and his shoulders slumped.

  “Yo, Sarge,” he said. “How’m I supposed to tow these? They ain’t got no tires. We need a flatbed.”

  “Can’t you just drag them out of the middle of the street?” I asked. “At least over to the curb?”

  Dominic stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it around, thinking. It was like he was trying to jump-start his brain.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “I guess I could do that.”

  He climbed into the truck and backed it up to one of the cars. When it was still alive it had been a Chevy Cavalier, but now it was just a blackened skeleton. I left Dominic to his work, and walked down the block to talk to Donna and Buster.

  A couple of minutes later, we heard some shouting, and turned to look. Dominic was arguing with two young black guys. We hustled over. One of them was Homicide. Buster saw his T-shirt and his eyes narrowed in anger.