Aha, so that was the problem. It was less about me poking around for information and more about him wondering if he was letting me down. I decided to ignore his question and throw the blame back on him. I shook my arm free from his hand. “Listen. I came here to take you to lunch, but you’re obviously in a pissy mood.” I turned and started to walk toward my car, trying to put as much righteous indignation into my gait as I could. However you do that without killing yourself on a cracked sidewalk in heels.
He stood outside the precinct, watching me, until it was clear that I wasn’t fooling around. When I beeped the key tag to unlock the car, he called out, “You’re parked in a ‘cruiser-only’ spot.”
I smiled, in spite of myself and my righteous indignation. I looked around and, indeed, every car there was a blue and white NYPD cruiser. And the sign right in front of my car indicated that parking where I did would end up with my car being impounded. “You told me the guys at work called you by your first name. Gorman clearly called you ‘Crawford.’ You lied to me.” I turned and faced him.
“Apparently ‘Hot Pants’ is my new name.” He glared at me as he closed the gap between the two of us and I felt two spots of pink in my cheeks. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “I don’t know whether to wring your neck or handcuff you to your bed and have my way with you.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t know either.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, apparently deciding.
“Are you done being mad at me?” I asked.
His reverie interrupted, he looked at his watch. “Have you eaten?”
I shook my head.
He walked back to the front door and called in, “Gorman! Lost time!” He walked back to me and held his hand out. “Give me your keys,” he commanded, and instead of arguing with him, I complied. “Please,” he added, the gentleman returning. He walked around to the passenger’s side and opened the door for me.
He jackknifed himself into the driver’s seat and fiddled around with the seat controls until he was practically sitting in the back seat. He pulled the car out of the spot and headed south. After a few minutes, he pulled up in front of a deli and wedged the car into a spot right in front. I got out and waited for him on the sidewalk.
The deli was warm and smelled like garlic. I was sure my next class of students would appreciate that when I began my lecture on Kerouac. The counter was on the right side of the deli, behind it the kitchen, and on the left side, a bank of booths. Crawford asked me what I wanted.
“What do they have?” I asked, my mind-reading skills not what they used to be.
He shrugged, still unsure of whether or not he was mad at me. “Food. Drinks.”
“That narrows it down,” I said. “Then get me some food. And a drink.” I turned on my heel and sat in a black Naugahyde booth, wrestling myself out of my leather jacket. I didn’t know if he was being oblique just to bug me, if he really didn’t have a clue, or if low blood sugar made him disoriented.
He returned a short time later with two Cokes and a couple of sandwiches. He put them on the table. “Chicken salad or ham and cheese?”
“What do you want?” I asked politely.
“I don’t care.” He looked at me expectantly.
I took the chicken salad.
“Whew. I wanted the ham and cheese,” he said sarcastically.
I took a long drink of soda and picked at the crust of the sandwich. After just a few minutes in the Fiftieth, I was unable to eat, having seen human flotsam and jetsam go by while I was talking to Arthur Moran. Watching Crawford eat his sandwich, I marveled at how inured you could become to such unpleasantness. He wolfed down half of his ham and cheese before coming up for air. He looked at me. “What?”
“You were hungry,” I remarked.
“I’m always hungry,” he said. “I never get to eat at regular intervals so I’m always a meal or two behind. You know that.”
If I was supposed to feel sorry for him, I did. I stopped short of inviting him over for dinner because I knew what that would lead to: a burned pot roast and missing underpants. “I have to tell you something.”
He started on the second half of the sandwich. “Go.”
I didn’t go for the preamble. “I took a ride with Peter Miceli yesterday.”
He maintained his grip on his sandwich but looked up at me. “What?”
“Peter Miceli. I saw him again yesterday,” I said.
His face turned hard again; boy, was he in a bad mood today. “He picked you up again? Jesus, Alison, you have got to stop getting in that guy’s car!” he exclaimed, a little too loudly for the surroundings. A couple of diners looked up from the food to see what the commotion was about.
“What do you suggest I should have done?” I whispered, leaning in close to his face.
He looked around. “I don’t know…run?” he asked, his tone patronizing. “You’re tall, you have long legs. Hit the pavement and don’t stop until you can’t see him anymore. And if you happen to run into a cop, tell him that you’re being harassed and have him shoot the bastard’s nuts off.” He looked chagrined, having lost his cool for a moment.
I ignored that comment and gave him the details of my conversation with Peter. “He told me that Kathy was pregnant.”
“What?” He seemed surprised that I knew this detail.
I looked down at the table. “He thinks Ray did it.”
I could see his mind working. He knew Ray was physically incapable of impregnating anyone—in my usual “reveal everything way too soon” manner, I had told him about Ray’s secret vasectomy soon after we had met.
I looked away. “Let’s do this another time.”
He let that go and put the sandwich down. He wiped his hands over his face, clearly exhausted by everything. “I’m sorry.” It took him a few seconds to form his next thought. “I worry about you.”
It wasn’t exactly “I love you” but it was close enough. I felt hot tears burn in my eyes. “I worry about you, too.”
He took my hand. “I promise you that I will find who did this,” he said. And for about the fiftieth time in our relationship, he reached in his jacket pocket and took out a clean square handkerchief. Crawford always has on a clean, white undershirt, and he always carries a nice pressed square of linen, seemingly for my use only. He handed it to me. “Listen, this is my last handkerchief. I’m going to have to switch to tissues if this keeps up.”
I wiped my eyes and blew my nose before commencing with the story of my postwedding Sunday. I told him about running into Terri, too, and the note from Gianna. Although I wasn’t sure what that conversation with Terri amounted to, I thought it was worth mentioning; I knew that Gianna’s note was a warning to me to stay away from her fatso husband and told Crawford so.
He listened to my story while he finished his sandwich, and when I saw him eyeing mine, I pushed it across at him. He worked on the chicken salad and wiped his hands on a paper napkin when he was finished. He pulled out his notebook and a pen and started asking me questions. “Tell me everything you talked about with Peter. And Terri.” I answered as thoroughly as I could and tried to hold my tears at bay, none too successfully. I didn’t want to be married to the asshole anymore but I had never wanted anything bad to happen to him, either. Okay—so that’s kind of a lie. I had wanted bad things to happen to him, only I wanted to be the perpetrator of said bad things, not some crazed Mob capo.
He collected all of the debris from lunch. “Please do your best to stay away from Peter Miceli. Got it?”
“Got it.” I was relieved now that I had told him everything. “Thanks, Crawford.”
He got up and pushed all of the garbage into a long, cylindrical garbage can by the door. We left the restaurant and stood on the street, facing each other under the elevated subway. “If I close this case, you’ll owe me,” he said suggestively, cupping his hand to my cheek. “And I’m bringing my handcuffs.”
I blushed deep red.
“Oh, Jesus, I
was just kidding,” he said, exasperated. He held his arms out. “Come here.” I walked into his arms and stayed there for a few minutes, drinking in his clean laundry smell; I didn’t know when we were going out again, but I figured it would be a while until I got this close to smell it again.
I looked up at him and leaned in to give him a kiss but his cell phone rang, interrupting us.
He answered the phone and listened to the person on the other end. “Four-fifteen?” he asked. “Make it four-thirty. If I’m not there, wait for me, Alex. Don’t leave. I’m not kidding.” He waited a few seconds. “If you leave, Alex, I’ll find you. And it won’t be fucking pretty when I do. I’ll kick your fucking ass.” He looked over at me, again a little chagrined at the cursing and loss of composure. I looked down at my shoes. “Fine. Four-thirty.” He hung up and looked at me.
“Good friend?” I asked.
“Informant,” was his one-word answer. A train rumbled overhead, passing by slowly. Crawford started to say something else, but I couldn’t hear him because of the squealing train brakes. It sounded like “Christine,” but I couldn’t imagine what he would need to tell me about his wife. I pulled away and looked up at the train to see how long it would take before we could resume normal conversation; the sound obliterated everything else.
But when I screamed as the bullet tore through my upper arm even the train couldn’t drown out the sound.
Chapter 17
When I awoke, I was on a stretcher and the big, giant face of Arthur Moran wavered in front of me. I waved at him, and tried to smile. Crawford stood next to him, peering down at me with a concerned look on his face, his hands on his hips and his gun back in the shoulder holster. There was blood smeared across the front of his starched white oxford shirt. When he saw that my eyes were open, he leaned in to talk to me. “They’re taking you to Mercy. I’ll meet you over there.”
I was wheeled out and put into the ambulance for a bumpy ride across the Bronx to Mercy Hospital. I was in pain, but not as much pain as shock at the fact that someone had tried to shoot me. I think. I may have just been an innocent bystander, but even to me, that explanation sounded pretty thin.
Embarrassingly enough, my wound, a graze, was only serious enough to warrant ten stitches. From the way I had been crying and carrying on, and the amount of pain I was in, I was sure it was an amputation situation.
I was sitting in the emergency room in a curtained-off area, looking at the pile of gauze that wound around my upper arm. I begged the doctor for a painkiller and he finally relented and gave me a prescription for something called Vicodin. He handed me two in a tiny Ziploc bag and instructed me to take one now and one later. He then told me to fill the prescription at home, warning me not to take any unless I was in severe pain. Otherwise, I was to take Tylenol. I didn’t mention that I take four Advil at a time when I have cramps. A bullet wound? Bring on the hard stuff.
When he had left the room, I swallowed both of them with a gulp of water from a flimsy paper cup.
I saw Crawford’s shadow on the other side of the curtain. “You decent?” he called in.
I was rather indecent, truth be told, but I didn’t think that was the question. I told him to come in.
“Ten stitches, huh?” he asked, and came over to survey the wound. The doctor had cut off the sleeve of my sweater to stitch me up, so the gauze was clearly visible. Crawford gingerly took my arm in his hand and turned it so he could get a full view. “I was expecting you to have a prosthetic arm with the way you were carrying on.” He smoothed my sweat-soaked hair from my forehead. “Good news. We found the slug on the street. Ballistics has it now.”
“That’s good news?” I asked and attempted to slide off the bed. “What would bad news be?” The Vicodin was already taking effect and my legs felt a little wobbly. He grabbed me before I slid all the way to the floor. With all of the drinking I had done in the last several days, you’d think a painkiller would be a day at the beach. But I had the feeling that my body was filled with helium and that I’d float away if I didn’t hang on to his arm for dear life. “Can you take me home or do you have to go see Alex?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Alex. The guy you were cursing at on the phone and threatening with an ass-kicking.”
“Oh, him,” he said, the synapses firing again. “I’ll call him and cancel. He wasn’t going to show up anyway. And then I’d just have to find him and kick his ass. I’m too tired for all of that.” He looked at the wound again. “Are you in any pain?”
“Not since I took painkillers,” I admitted, my tongue thick and virtually unusable in my mouth. I held on to him and walked through the emergency room and out into the parking lot. I didn’t have a jacket anymore—it had been bagged as evidence, even though I wasn’t sure what kind of forensics could be performed on a ripped-up jacket—so Crawford took off his blazer and put it around my shoulders. The temperature had dropped by a few degrees and I was now shivering, so I was grateful for his act of chivalry. He grabbed my good arm as I wandered off in another direction.
“This way,” he said, and pointed to my car. He pointed the key tag at the car and unlocked it. After I was safely inside, my seat belt across my chest, he started the car and drove out of the lot and onto the highway. “Do you remember anything about what happened before the shot was fired?”
“I remember thinking that I love…” I started and then stopped. “The way you smell,” I said, not meaning to say anything but hearing the words come from my lips. “And did you say the name Christine?” My head lolled to the side of the headrest.
He changed lanes and didn’t respond. “Did you hear anything? See anything? Like a specific car? Someone suspicious looking?”
“I remember you telling me that I would owe you something if you helped me find Ray. And about your handcuffs. I stopped thinking after that. That’s what I remember.” I closed my eyes and ran my tongue over my lips. “What do I owe you?”
“How many painkillers did you take?” he asked.
“Two,” I mumbled. “But they were good ones.”
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Aren’t talking and driving against the law?” I asked.
He dialed a number and waited a moment for someone to answer. “Yeah, it’s Crawford. Clock me out for the day. I won’t be back in.” He waited a few more seconds. “I don’t know…sick leave…lost time…a vacation day? Whatever you want.” He flipped the phone closed and looked over at me. “Do you want something to eat?” he asked, almost relieved when I said that I wasn’t hungry. I had thrown up on this man more than anyone in my life—even my own mother.
We pulled into the driveway at my house about a half hour later. Crawford had been here several times and knew which key opened which lock on the front door, so he got out, opened the door, and then came back to get me, a virtual vegetable in the front seat. I took his hand and got out, a strung-out-on-Vicodin, high-heel-wearing college professor. I stumbled up the path to the front door.
“First thing we’re going to do is take off those shoes,” Crawford said when we got into the house. He sat me on the bottom step of the staircase, knelt in front of me and took off my pumps. “How do you teach in these things?” he asked rhetorically, holding up and examining my beautiful, black suede pumps.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m used to wearing heels.”
“They’re a little sexy for school, don’t you think?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“You know me,” I said. “I’m all about the sex,” I said, trying to snap my fingers to convey a hipness that I did not possess.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” he muttered, putting my shoes to the side of the stairs.
I started up the stairs, holding on to the railing. I got into my bedroom and flopped onto the bed facedown, careful not to fall onto my stitched arm. Crawford followed me up and came into the room.
“Do you want to get undressed?” he asked.
I rolle
d over. “I don’t know. Do you?” I tried to sit up, but the room turned upside down in front of me, and I lay back down on the bed. I put my good arm over my forehead.
“Do you want a glass of water?” he asked, leaning over me and studying my face.
I nodded. “You didn’t answer my question!” I called after him as he went into the bathroom and ran the tap to fill a glass of water for me. He came back out and told me to sit up, handing me the cup of water. I took a long drink. “You should give Vicodin to your suspects. It’s like truth serum.”
He turned my face to his and kissed me lightly on the lips. “You need to get some sleep.” He put his hand on the back of my neck. “If I promise not to look, can I help you get undressed?”
I sighed again. “You can look all you want. There’s really nothing to see.”
He stood. “That’s what you think.”
I lay back on the bed again, unable to stay sitting if he wasn’t propping me up. “Crawford?”
He took off his jacket and threw it across the foot of the bed. “Yes?”
I decided to take a different tack. “What happens now? With us?” I asked.
He leaned against my dresser and crossed his arms. “What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“You already know how I feel about you. I guess you need to figure out how you feel about me.” He looked at me. “For all I know, you’re still mad at me.”
I tried to sit up again. “How could you know how you feel about me? We had this whirlwind relationship for a few weeks in the spring that culminated in…nothing,” I said. It had actually culminated in my broken heart, but he already knew that. It would do no good to revisit that. I was slurring my words, but felt pretty clear of head, so I kept going. “Do you even feel like you know me?”
He nodded. “I know you.” He walked over and unbuttoned my cardigan sweater. He pulled the remaining sleeve—the one that hadn’t been cut off—down the length of my arm and gingerly took the other, sleeveless half off, careful of my bandage. I had a camisole underneath it and he pulled that over my head. “You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful…” he said, pausing to kiss me. He pulled me to my feet, reached around my back and unzipped my skirt. “You know the difference between a cruiser and a regular car,” he said and kissed me again, “and you’re tall. What more could I want?” he whispered as my skirt fell to my feet. “Oh, wait. And you’re smart. A heck of a lot smarter than me, but hopefully you won’t hold that against me.”
Extracurricular Activities Page 15
