Sons of the City

by Scott Flander

  “What the fuck do you want here?” I said to Homicide.

  Under different circumstances, I would have locked him up right there for what he had tried to do to me that morning. But there were a lot of people around, and they would have assumed I was just pissed off at his T-shirt. I’d probably singlehandedly start another riot.

  Homicide acted like he knew I wouldn’t touch him. “You can’t take these cars away,” he said.

  “You want to tell me why?”

  “They’re monuments to West Philly.”

  “Yeah,” said the other guy, who was wearing a black Phillies T-shirt. “They represent our struggle.”

  I just laughed. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Homicide looked at me and then at Buster, who was still staring at his T-shirt. I could see Buster was making him nervous.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” he said to his friend. “Fuckin’ cops.”

  When they were out of earshot, I said to Buster, ‘Thank you for restraining yourself.”

  “I was about to rip that T-shirt off and then beat the shit out of him.”

  “Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m thanking you.”

  Dominic was able to get the first two cars over to the curb, and we opened 64th Street to traffic. But Locust was still blocked by the burnt-out police car—Dominic was having trouble hooking it up. I watched him for a moment, and then turned and almost crashed head-on into Michelle.

  “Hi, Eddie. Have you seen my father?”

  “Michelle, what are you doin’ here?”

  “I went to Police Headquarters, they said he was at the Twentieth. I went to the Twentieth, they said he was on his way over here.”

  Donna and Buster spotted Michelle and came up to talk to her, and pretty soon the others did, too. My eye caught a black Seville cruising slowly through the intersection. Was it Bravelli’s? I wasn’t sure. No, it had to be. What was he doing here?

  There was some more yelling, and I turned to see about twenty young guys marching toward us down the center of Locust. Homicide was leading the way. Who was he, a little Adolf Hitler? I got on the radio and told the other cops to rejoin me. Kirk immediately came on the air and asked whether there was trouble.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “I’ll keep you posted.”

  The group came up and started yelling at Dominic not to take away the police car. I told Michelle to wait over by Miss Mae’s, and then I had my cops form a semicircle around the car. Dominic had finally got it hooked up, and was just getting ready to lift the front off the ground. He looked pretty nervous.

  “Don’t worry about them,” I said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “Maybe I should just leave it here,” he said. “Why don’t I just unhook it.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I said.

  The shouting was attracting attention, and more and more young guys were collecting on the street. Buster came over to me, and said in a low voice, “This is how it began last night, Sarge.”

  I knew that if I called for help, the block would be swarming with cops. Maybe we’d be able to lock up people fast enough to keep things from getting out of hand. But it could also start another riot.

  Four or five older black men, all with graying hair, came up and wanted to know what was going on. The neighborhood’s old heads.

  “Well,” I explained, “Mr. Good-cop-is-a-dead-cop here doesn’t want us to take this police car away.”

  “Why the hell not?” asked one of the men, who was tall and imposing, with a beard that made him look like a black Abraham Lincoln.

  “It’s our monument,” said Homicide. “These racist cops are trying to take away our monument.”

  “Bullcrap,” said Abraham Lincoln. He turned to me. “Officer, we don’t want this thing in our street.” The other men with him agreed.

  Then the younger guys started yelling at the older men and we had to step between them to keep them apart. I caught a glimpse of the Seville passing by Locust again, but I couldn’t pay attention to it for long. There was shouting coming from the other direction, on the back fringe of the crowd. Something was happening halfway down the block, and the crowd started sweeping back in that direction.

  Buster stood on his tiptoes. “Looks like they’re chasing someone.”

  “Dominic,” I said. “Get in your truck and stay there. Don’t move the car, don’t move anything.”

  “You got it, Sarge,” he said, and gratefully hopped in and slammed the door shut. I ran down the street toward the action, my cops behind me. We came upon a young black guy kneeling on the street, blood pouring from a gash on the top of his head. A woman trying to help him saw us and shouted angrily, “See what you’ve done.”

  In the middle of the block, the crowd had gathered thick around someone. They were keeping their distance from him, but slowly swirling. Everything was in motion. We tried to get through, but we couldn’t get a clear look.

  “It’s the cop that beat Councilman Stiller last night!” a woman yelled. “I saw him with my own eyes.”

  “Kill the motherfucker!” someone else shouted.

  Nick, I thought. Have they got Nick?

  We finally pushed our way into the middle of the crowd. It wasn’t Nick at all, it was Goop—in a cop’s uniform, using a nightstick to swat his attackers away like flies.

  So Nick had been telling the truth. And if Goop was the “cop” who had cracked open Stiller’s head, that meant he was probably also the one who had beaten the store owners on 52nd. Bravelli had said he’d like to see riots. He was certainly doing his best to make them happen.

  I turned to my cops and yelled, “Lock this asshole up.”

  As the six of us moved forward, surrounding Goop, someone yelled, “Let’s get us some cops.”

  The crowd was out for blood. I turned to face them, and pointed at Goop. “He’s not a cop,” I yelled.

  The crowd was stunned into near silence.

  “What?” someone finally said. “What, you think we’re stupid, motherfucker?” Others took up the cry.

  “He’s with Mickey Bravelli,” I said. They all knew who Bravelli was, and there was silence again. I took advantage of it.

  “He started the riot last night. He’s trying to get another one started now.”

  Someone behind gave me a hard shove. “You lyin’ cop motherfucker!”

  Goop was half raising his club at us, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have a gun, he didn’t even have a gunbelt. He looked like a fucking idiot. Donna circled around behind him and pulled her gun out, but kept it discreetly at her side, pointed at the ground.

  “All cops carry police ID,” I yelled to the crowd. “Let’s see if he has it.”

  The crowd wasn’t ready to start believing me, and people were yelling, “You’re lying to us, you’re fuckin’ lying.”

  I turned to Goop and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Let’s see your ID.”

  “I don’t have it with me,” he snarled.

  “See,” I said, turning to the crowd. “He’s not a real cop.”

  Homicide had pushed his way to the front of the circle, and now his eyes were full of hate. “All you fuckin’ cops are evil,” he yelled. “We don’t give a fuck. This one’s real, that one’s fake, we gonna fuck you all up.”

  “But that’s wrong,” came this booming voice, and there was Abraham Lincoln, suddenly towering over Homicide. I was hoping he was coming to free the slaves, which in this case was me and my cops. The old man looked down at Homicide and yelled, “You know that ain’t justice.”

  “Fuck that, we’re gonna make our own justice,” yelled Homicide, and the crowd cheered. It didn’t look like Lincoln was going to free anyone today.

  I turned to Goop and took out my handcuffs. “You’re locked up,” I said, but an instant later a bottle thunked off my shoulder, it hurt like hell. Now the crowd was shoving all six of us, pushing from all directions, and I didn’t see Abraham Lincoln anymore. A brick was hurtling throug
h the air at Buster, I yelled and he saw it and jumped out of the way. Mutt and Yvonne and Marisol were together, nightsticks out, with Mutt in the middle, and they were forming a wedge to protect themselves from the crowd. I glanced over at Donna, she was still half holding her gun on Goop. I keyed my radio.

  “I got a priority, this is 20-C-Charlie, my squad is under assault at Sixty-fourth and Locust. I need a very big assist, very quickly.”

  As the crowd moved and shifted around us, a momentary hole formed, and I could see the tow truck a half block away. The Seville was stopped next to it—I caught a glimpse of Michelle and two men … Canaletto and … it was Bravelli. They were leading Michelle into the car. Goop was just a diversion, I realized. They wanted Michelle.

  And then the hole in the crowd closed back up again, like in a dream. I tried to push through the crowd, but there were too many people, too many angry faces. I keyed the mike clipped onto my shoulder.

  “This is 20-C-Charlie, we need to apprehend a black Seville—”

  A huge black guy reached down and yanked the radio from my belt, and started to take off. I still had the mike in my hand, and as the guy ran, the coiled cord to the radio simply popped out.

  “What’s the car wanted for?” I heard the dispatcher ask as the guy disappeared into the crowd with my radio. There I was, just holding the mike with a cord leading to nowhere.

  Something hard hit my forehead and I went down on one knee, and there was blood streaming down my face. As I got to my feet, the crowd swarmed around me.

  “Buster!” I yelled. “Buster, Donna!” But they were fighting with the crowd themselves, they couldn’t help me. Faces were closing in, and now I couldn’t see the others at all. Someone grabbed at my gun. I swung around with my stick and whacked at an arm, and there was a yell and the arm disappeared. Something else hit my head, and white lights were popping in front of my eyes. I fought to keep my balance, but all I saw were hands and arms, and faces filled with hate. I felt a tugging at my gun again, and again I swung my stick around. But this time hands grabbed the stick, freezing it. I twisted and turned like a hooked fish, but the crowd was all around me now, closing tightly, and I was trying to hold on to my stick with one hand, trying to keep my gun in the holster with the other, trying to keep from going down. I was hit again, and I turned and caught a glimpse of Donna, wrestling with Goop. Goop was getting her gun away from her, oh my God, I had to get there to help. But arms and fists kept coming from all over, and my gun was being pulled from the holster. I dropped my stick and grabbed the gun with both hands, pushing it back into the holster, and then there was a BOOM! from a few feet away and I was suddenly free, the crowd was pulling back.

  Donna was lying face up on the ground, motionless, blood coming from somewhere in the back of her head. Goop was standing there with her gun in his hand, and he looked at Buster, who was just staring down at Donna, paralyzed.

  “I ain’t never killed a cop before,” Goop said. He seemed proud of himself. And then he aimed the gun at Buster’s head.

  I had my own gun out now and I raised it and ran toward Goop, firing. BLAM, my first shot knocked him back, but he still stood there. BLAM, he jerked again and looked at me. BLAM, now he was falling backward, his eyes closing, the gun dropping from his hand.

  I turned toward Donna. Buster was kneeling down at her side, shaking her and calling her name, like he was trying to wake her up. Her eyes were open in a vacant stare. The crowd was still moving back, and I could hear people saying, “It’s a lady cop, they got a lady cop.”

  Police cars were screaming up to the fringes of the crowd, and guys were jumping out. The cavalry was coming to the rescue, but it was just a little too fucking late. There was something warm on my face, I put my hands up, it was the blood, I had forgotten it.

  I put my gun back in my holster and took a few steps toward the crowd. They backed up a little. Maybe it was the blood on my face, maybe it was the fury in my eyes, they didn’t know what to make of me, they didn’t know what to expect.

  “Is this what you fucking wanted?” I yelled at them. “Is this what you fucking wanted, a cop dead?”

  No one answered. They just stared at the two bodies.

  I kept yelling. “You take the law into your own hands, this is what fucking happens. You wanted blood, you got your fucking blood.”

  Homicide’s tough-dude mask was gone.

  “I told you that wasn’t a real cop,” I shouted. “And you didn’t fucking believe me.”

  I was yelling so loud I could feel myself getting hoarse. “I hope you all are happy. I really hope you all are so fucking happy you’re going to go home and laugh about how you fucking killed a cop.”

  “Hey, man,” Homicide said. “We didn’t mean for it to be no lady cop.”

  “Well, that’s too fucking bad, isn’t it?”

  My foot hit an empty Diet Pepsi bottle, and I picked it up and threw it at the crowd. They parted, and watched as the bottle hit the pavement and shattered. I picked up a half brick and heaved it, and again the crowd parted, and it hit the street and bounced away harmlessly. More cops were pulling up, they didn’t know what the hell was going on. Buster was still kneeling next to Donna, touching her hair softly, like she was just sleeping.

  The street was littered with chunks of brick from the night before, and I picked up another one and threw it at the crowd, and then another, and another. They didn’t move back, they just got out of the way. No one in the crowd protested, they didn’t fight back. My eyes were stinging from the blood, and I wiped it away with my arm.

  Yvonne was at my side. “C’mon, Sarge,” she said.

  I pushed her away and found another brick, but now Yvonne and Marisol and Mutt were stepping in front of me, surrounding me, trying to move me away from the crowd.

  And then I remembered Michelle. Pictures started coming up in my mind, of her being beaten, her clothes being stripped off, someone putting a pistol to the back of her head. I was frozen with guilt for forgetting about her. How could I have forgotten her?

  I told Mutt to give me his mike, and he unclipped it from his shoulder and handed it to me. How much should I say over the air? I gave a description of the Seville, and said it was wanted for a kidnapping. I didn’t say who was kidnapped.

  I gave the mike back to Mutt, and started jogging toward my patrol car. The Seville had to be in Westmount, that’s where they had to be taking her. I ran around the corner, my car was blocked in by the police cars that had come in for the assist.

  By now the street was filled with cops in riot gear. The police buses had arrived, and cops were pouring out of them in all directions. The crowd was melting away, disappearing. They had no stomach for this anymore.

  I needed a car. I spotted Kirk’s Plymouth parked down the street, it wasn’t blocked in. I ran back to Locust, and found Kirk standing next to Donna’s body. Someone was covering it with a yellow plastic sheet.

  “Captain,” I said, coming up to him. “I need your keys.”

  “Where you goin'?”

  I told him what had happened, about Goop and Donna, about the Seville taking Michelle away. He listened and then told me I couldn’t leave the scene. He wasn’t going to give me his keys.

  “We got a dead cop here,” he said. “And you just killed someone. You can’t leave. You’re just going to have to let other people look for the Seville.”

  An inspector came up, and Kirk turned to talk with him, and I just walked away. Fuck if I was going to stay, I’d walk to Westmount if I had to. I headed back again to the corner, maybe I could grab the car of someone coming in.

  “Hey, Eddie,” I heard someone call. It was Nick, still in uniform, walking toward me. Where the hell did he suddenly come from?

  “I thought you were going to my house, Nick.”

  “I was, but I heard about Donna on my radio. And who got kidnapped?”

  “Michelle. Bravelli came by here and just scooped her up.”

  “Oh, man. Let me help you
find her.”

  “I don’t have time for this, Nick.” I started to walk away from him, then turned. “Wait, how’d you get here?”

  “My Camaro.”

  “Are you blocked in?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Give me your keys.”

  “Why?”

  “Just give me your keys.”

  “You gonna go find Michelle?”

  “Nick, just give me your keys.”

  “I’m goin’ with you. I’ll drive.”

  “You’re not going with me, Nick.”

  “I am, Eddie,” he said, and something came into his eyes, not the usual weakness, but a strength that surprised me. I knew he wouldn’t give me the keys. I had no choice.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Nick and I found the Seville ten minutes later a half block from Sagiliano’s. I pulled open the car’s back door and took a close look at the seat. No blood, no clumps of hair, no spilled items from a purse. Maybe Michelle was OK.

  I looked around—they could have gone anywhere. After all, this was Bravelli’s turf. But the bar was right here. That’s where they had to be.

  “You think they’re in Sagiliano’s?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  I wanted to say no, but how was I going to get rid of him? I stood there and looked at Sagiliano’s, trying to decide what to do. The door of the bar opened, and Michelle came out, alone.

  “Michelle!” I called. She glanced over her shoulder, at the door to Sagiliano’s, then ran to meet us. “You OK?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. He was going to kill me, Eddie, he really was.” She was shaking. “Can we get away from here?”

  “Sure, sure,” I said, and the three of us walked quickly to the far end of the block. I kept my eye on Sagiliano’s front door, though. I wasn’t going to let Bravelli just walk out.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “They grabbed me on Locust, they threw me in the car—Mickey kept yelling he was going to kill me, he was going to cut my throat, he was going to shoot me a hundred times, he couldn’t wait to do it. Then I got dragged into the bar, into a back room. Mickey sat me down at a table, and he just pointed his gun right at my head, Eddie.”