End of Watch

by Baxter Clare

  And I can’t ever get away from Marguerite James and Darcy and all that weirdness with Mother Love. No explaining that away. Definitely beyond mere coincidence there.

  Shit. Feel like Thelma and Louise. The FBI’s behind me, wanting to throw my ass in jail, and in front of me, just a huge leap of faith. We don’t know that they died, right? Like Butch and Sundance leaping over the cliff. Maybe they lived, right? Who knows? Skedaddled off to a quiet little corner of the globe and started new lives.

  But first they had to jump.

  CHAPTER 29

  Monday morning the sun shone pale but sweet. Perching her long frame against a headstone Frank faced east, absorbing what she could of the far candescence. It occurred to her in that moment of calm that she’d gotten sidetracked from the point of her trip. She’d come to apologize to her mother, yet in all this time she hadn’t looked twice at her mother’s grave.

  A stone rolled into Frank’s chest and settled under her heart. A sigh did nothing to move it. From a couple yards away she studied her mother’s grave. She scanned the cemetery. It was deserted. She stepped the few feet to the grave. Considered the packed snow a moment. Squatted on her heels.

  She squinted at surrounding stones, the hazy sky, crows squabbling on bare branches. She looked at everything but the granite slab in front of her. The flowers she’d left on her first visit were gone. Manny and Robert must have thrown them away. She was ashamed she didn’t have an offering, some token of reconciliation.

  “But you’re dead,” Frank said to the block of stone. “Dead people don’t need flowers, right? Don’t need anything. Not even apologies from daughters who let them freeze to death.”

  She winced. She sounded like a promo for the Jerry Springer show. She stood up, giving the stone her back. Under the delicate sun the snow had turned into a field of gems—fiery rubies and glinting emeralds, flashing sapphires and glowing amber, filaments of gold and silver. Frank closed her eyes against the twinkling beauty.

  Her mother had loved the snow. She’d bundle Frank into layers of clothes and they’d run to the park to make snowmen and snow angels. Frank flashed on lying in the snow against her mother’s chest, both of them panting after making a choir of snow angels. Her mother’s arms were so tight around her that Frank could barely breathe. Smothering her in a flurry of kisses, her mother had whispered fiercely, “I love you so much. You’re my very own snow angel that I get to keep forever and ever. You’ll never melt or leave me in the spring.”

  Frank bit her lip. The snow jewels blurred and her throat ached. She looked up to the sky. “Why?” she asked, her voice a harsh whisper. “Why all this waste? Why me running and you dying? Crazy out of your fuckin’ mind. God, you scumbag cock-sucker, can you explain that? Huh? You got a goddamned point or do you just groove on suffering? Some sorta sick fuck or what?” She glared at the benevolent sky. “Fucking asshole,” she growled. “What is your goddamned point? Crazy goddamned idiot. Can’t even run a fucking planet.”

  Her rage degraded into sorrow, crumbled into the loss she could never admit, could never allow. She bowed her head. Great, fat tears melted through the snow.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered.

  Over and over she swore, the curse becoming a mantra. Crouched at her mother’s stone, Frank felt the smooth granite, letting the hate drain from her. Sorrow and ruin and loss poured from her in twin rivulets, coursing down her cheeks, steaming through the snow to touch the ground at her feet, the ground that surrounded and cradled her mother, and through her tears Frank was connected to her.

  A single cloud covered the sun and wandered on.

  Trucks bleated backup warnings. A siren rose and fell.

  Two women talked outside the cemetery, their words a steady purr as they passed.

  Pigeons waddled and cooed. Crows fought over an empty potato chip bag.

  Frank traced her mother’s name. Bent her head to the flat rock.

  At last she stood, palming her face dry. The cemetery was still empty. The sun had angled higher and Frank glanced at her watch. She rested a hand upon the granite, receiving the stone’s cool touch as benediction.

  CHAPTER 30

  Frank sat in the Nova with a warm cup of coffee. When her phone rang she answered without looking at who the call was from.

  “Hi,” Gail said. “How are you?”

  “Funny you should ask.” Frank thought a minute, deciding she couldn’t articulate an answer. Didn’t want to. “What are you up to?”

  “I just got out of a meeting and I’m walking back to the office. It’s a beautiful day. I was thinking about you in the cold and the ice and snow. How are you?”

  Damnably on the verge of tears again Frank sat up straight. She squinted into the snow. “Oh,” she said, fighting to keep the quaver from her voice. “I’m a lot of things. Mostly right now I’m awful damn glad to hear your voice.”

  “Are you crying?”

  Frank swallowed hard. “Not yet. But I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Weirdest thing. Just about anything can set me off. Hold on.”

  Grabbing a napkin from under the seat, Frank blew her nose. She gave her cheek a not so gentle slap.

  “There we go,” she said into the phone. “All better. Christ. My cheeks are gettin’ raw from all the salt on ‘em lately. But I guess it’s good. S’all good to the gracious.”

  “Is this LA Franco I’m talking to? The Lucifera Angelina Franco?”

  “Hey, come on.” Frank kidded. “This isn’t a secure line. You swore to secrecy about my name. So no, it’s not LA Franco you’re talking to.”

  “Well, tell me who I am talking to.”

  “Christ, I wish I could. She’s a damn crybaby, for one thing. Guess that’s just the way it’s got to be for a while. There’s a lot that’s got to come out. I’m reading The Da Vinci Code—probably the last person in America to read it—and there’s a great line. Something to the effect that men will go to greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they want. And that’s me. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding pain rather than facing it and getting what I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  You, Frank almost answered, but she knew it was a cheap answer. She took a big breath, finding the truth there. “I want a quiet heart. A quiet head. I don’t want to be scared all the time, wondering what I’m going to lose next. Wondering which corner the next bombshell’s coming around. I just… .I want to live and not be afraid. Just take each moment as it comes and not spend so much time trying to protecting myself. Trying to anticipate where the next blow’s coming from and heading it off. Shit happens. Much as I hate it, all the running in the world hasn’t kept me from it. If anything, I think it’s been running right alongside me, getting even stronger and faster. So what I want is to quit running. To quit looking over my shoulder trying to see what’s coming after me. I just want to be still. I want to be quiet inside.”

  The phone sounded dead.

  Frank asked, “You there?”

  Gail sniffed. “Now you’ve made me cry.”

  “Why?” Frank gave her time to answer.

  “Because I always knew you were brave. Not the knock-down, drag-out kind of brave, but brave in your heart. Do you know when I first fell in love with you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Remember that night you came by to get Placa’s tox report? We had dinner at the Grill and I asked if you were ready for a real date. You said you weren’t, remember? That you were cleaning up your past and weren’t ready for anything new yet. And that’s when I fell in love with you because I could see that you were honest and brave. That your heart was strong and that I’d wait you out. And I did. Even through Noah’s death and even after you left I couldn’t believe that was really you. It was like you were possessed by an evil twin. She looked like you and sounded like you but she couldn’t act like you because she forgot the best of you. She forgot your heart.”

  “Hey, cut it out. I’m gonna start crying aga
in, too. Know when I fell in love with you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “The night you told me about your mastectomy. I wanted to tell you then how beautiful I thought you were. I wanted to kiss you but I’d barely had the thought before I talked myself out of it. See how brave I am?”

  “You were brave enough to keep dating me.”

  “Ah, that wasn’t brave. That was easy. Like falling off of high heels.”

  “It’s funny. I know how much you cared for Placa so I don’t mean to sound callous, but if it hadn’t been for her murder I wonder if we’d have gotten together. You spent a lot of time on that case and a lot of time at the morgue.”

  “Yeah. We spent a lot of time together.”

  “Before that I rarely saw you. You were usually content to let someone else do the posts.”

  Frank nodded. “I wanted everything firsthand with Placa.”

  “I know. And thank God. It’s a selfish thing to say but thank God for her. Is that awful?”

  “No. I was just thinking, you know, all these things in my life— these things I’ve always hated—they’re not all bad. To stretch the cloud with the silver lining analogy, my dad dying and my mom being nuts made me capable and self-reliant. That pain made me strong and hard—granted, to an extreme— and his death made me want to be a cop. By then, after taking care of my mom so long, taking care of strangers was second nature. I can look back and see how the path was laid. If he hadn’t been killed and if I hadn’t been forced to rely on myself I might never have been a cop. I wouldn’t have met Maggie or partnered with Noah or known Placa and probably not you. It’s like you said, I can look back at each one of those events and almost be grateful for them, awful as they were. And that night with the gun, bad as it was, it got me here, sober and talking to you. I’d go through it all over again just to get another shot at you. No pun intended.” When there was no reply, she asked, “I do have one, don’t I?”

  “Oh, Frank. I want to say yes and tell you to come home and we’ll be together and happy and it’ll all work out, but there’s a part of me that needs time. I know alcoholics have the best intentions. I know you can mean to stay sober and not do it. I grew up with those sincere promises and they were broken every time. I want to believe you’re different, Frank. I hope and pray that you are. But I’m not willing to fall head over heels for a sincere promise.”

  Frank ate her disappointment. “I understand. You deserve more than a promise.”

  “Yes, I do. And that’s not to say I don’t love you. I do. But I don’t love you enough to live with your drinking. I won’t go through that again. I can’t.”

  “I know. And I can’t make you believe this, but I won’t go through that again either. And that’s a promise for me. Not for you or anybody else. I have to vow that to myself because I’m pretty sure if I drink again I’m gonna die. Sooner or later, one way or another. And I don’t want to do that just now. That night with the Beretta convinced me. I’m just not ready to go yet.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Yeah. Me too. Look. I’ll let you go. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I was just hoping …”

  “Hoping what?”

  “Nothing. I’m pushing. I want more than I can have right now. Probably more than I need. Just tell me we’re still friends. Can you do that?”

  “Yes. That I can do. And I’m not ruling you out, Frank. If what you say is true then maybe we have a chance, but that’s going to take time.”

  “I know. I’m just suddenly hungry for it all. For you, for everything. I feel like I’ve been trapped in ice for forty years and I’m thawing out. I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I want it all right now. But I know I can’t have it all now, and that’s okay. What I have is good.”

  She wanted to say she had to go, to end the moment’s painful vulnerability, but she rode it out. Gail asked how it was going at the cemetery, if there were any nibbles.

  “No, not yet. I’m gonna give it through Sunday and if I haven’t seen our friend by then I’m gonna hire a PI. to watch the place for me.”

  They finished lightly, promising to talk soon. Hanging up, Frank reached for her coffee through a shaft of sunlight. She had the oddest sensation that her mother was sitting next to her, calm and not crazy.

  Frank studied the empty passenger seat. Lifting her cup, she said, “What the hell, huh? To possibility.”

  Frank smiled, sipping the cold coffee.

  CHAPTER 31

  As usual, Annie was on the phone when Frank got back to the apartment. The women waved at each other and Frank went to her room with a pint of Vanilla Swiss Almond. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.

  “Yeah?”

  Annie leaned in. “Hiya.”

  “Hi.”

  “No gourmet dinner tonight?”

  Frank lifted the ice cream. “This is it.”

  Annie whined, “Why don’t you weigh five hundred pounds?”

  “Keep eatin’ like this and I will. But my sponsor says I can do whatever I want the first year, long as it’s not drinking. Besides, I could barely eat when I first got sober so I’m making up for it.”

  “Psh. Hey, I got a question for you, ‘bout your pops.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Funny you should say that. You was livin’ in the East Village at the time but he was killed in the Ninth. What were you doin’ over there?”

  “My uncle was a cop. He worked outta the Ninth.”

  “No kiddin’?”

  “No kiddin’. Sergeant Albert Franco. At end of watch on his day shifts my dad and I would meet him at Cal’s. We went there a lot. It was only a couple blocks away and they could drink cheap. Feed me cheap. We were walking home from there. Stopped at a deli to get some milk and cereal for breakfast. We got oranges too. For my mother. She loved fruit. I can still see ‘em. After he dropped the bag and it broke, the milk spilled onto the sidewalk and the oranges were so bright against it. So orange. Like a still-life in my head that won’t ever fade.”

  “Some things …” Annie said. “They never go away.” Then she smiled. “Cal’s was closed by the time I got to the Ninth, but they still talk about it.”

  “Yeah. The bar legends are made of.”

  “So your uncle and your pops, they just drank and hung out?”

  “Pretty much. They’d talk to other cops, some of my uncle’s friends. I think some of the cops resented havin’ a kid in the bar but they got used to me. We were there a helluva lot. They played cards sometimes, arm wrestled when they were really loaded. That’s how I knew they were in the bag. One would challenge and the other’d accept. But mostly they talked and drank. Why? What are you thinkin’?”

  “Nothin’. Just gettin’ a feel for who he’d know there.”

  “Cops.” Frank shrugged. “It was a cop bar.”

  “Yeah, okay. Anything today?”

  Lots, Frank thought, but answered, “Nah. Quiet. Could you leave Charlie Mercer’s number for me? I want to call him tomorrow, see if I can hire him next week. Unless we get a hit by Sunday I’m going home Monday.”

  “Yeah, okay, I’ll leave it for you. He’s a good man, Charlie. You could leave your surveillance in worse hands.”

  “I’m takin’ your word on that. How was your day?”

  Annie flicked a shoulder. “Nine months, two weeks and four days.”

  “You hate it that much?”

  “I don’t hate the Job. I’m just tired, is all. So much crap, and most of it internal. Like we don’t get enough on the street, the captain comes in this morning all bright-eyed and well-rested, waving a memo. Says he gonna dock us fifteen minutes every time he sees us with our feet up on the desk. Says it’s unprofessional. Doesn’t look good to citizens. So you know what our loo ordered us to do?” Annie laughed. “He ordered us to sit around with our feet up all morning. Everyone. The captain was havin’ a walkin’ coronary, I kid you not. About lunchtime Loo said the memo had disappeared and we could get back to w
ork. Helluva waste of a day, huh? But God bless Loo. He’s a good man. Reminds me of the first cop I ever rode with. You remember your first day?”

  “Christ,” Frank replied. “Like it was yesterday. My training officer was an asshole deluxe. He was about to rape this pregnant girl in an alley, invited me to watch or leave. I didn’t do either. Took out my night stick and swung at him. Didn’t warn him or anything, just swung with all I had. He went down but he got up pissed. We sparred around that alley for what seemed like hours. We were both tired. His shoulder wasn’t working too well where I’d hit him and he was swingin’ his stick at me with his left. We got a radio call and he had to grab the portable with his left hand. When he switched his stick from his left to his right that’s when I knew I had him. I walked back to the unit and got in. He came a minute later and we responded to the call like nothing had happened. He talked shit behind my back until he got transferred to a cushy assignment in a white-collar division but I never had trouble with him again. Stupid how much time you have to waste defendin’ yourself against people who’re supposed to be on your side.”

  “You said it, sister.” Looking at the ice cream, Annie wondered, “You got anymore of that?”

  “Whole other pint in the freezer.”

  Annie shook a finger at Frank, calling as she left, “You’re evil, cookie. Pure evil.”

  She came back, eating out of the carton like Frank, saying, “Let me tell you ‘bout my first day. I was workin’ the Twenty-Third, up to Harlem. We get this call. Domestic disturbance, right? Could be anythin’. We get to this fallin’ down tenement, climb twelve flights ‘cuz the elevator’s broke and besides, my partner says, elevators are like roach motels for the police—cops go in but they don’t come out. We get up there and there’s all this commotion in the hallway. Neighbors say the woman’s ex-boyfriend’s in the apartment cuttin’ on their three kids. He found out she had a new boyfriend and he’s gonna kill the kids before he lets another man raise ‘em. We knock and the guy won’t open. The girlfriend’s screamin’ inside that he’s killin’ the babies and the spooky thing is, the kids aren’t crying, so we call emergency services. But meanwhile the woman stops screamin’. My partner’s tryin’ to talk the guy into opening the door but for nothin’. Damn it.”