by F. P. Lione
The way they score you, you get two points for every shot inside your target line and lose two points for every shot outside your target line. They don’t count the bullet holes in the targets because they’re not gonna count fifty shots for each person, but they do check to see if you’re outside the target.
We shot our fifty practice rounds and then went inside for the lecture. The instructor looked to be in his forties, with black hair and a black handlebar mustache. He wasn’t Joe Combat, and he kept it interesting. Like every time we come here, he tells us that most gun battles with a perp are within seven to ten feet and last between ten and twelve seconds, which is why we shoot the most rounds at seven yards. He gave us the stats on why we do the least practice from twenty-five yards and why we don’t carry a .44 Magnum like Dirty Harry. By the time you recoiled and shot again, you’d be hit with five or six rounds.
He gave us the basics: You point at the target. The target’s blurry but your sight’s clear. You don’t anticipate the recoil when you shoot and jerk the gun or your next shot will be off. You squeeze the trigger and don’t jerk your hand back. It’s funny, you see these gang movies where they’re shooting with the gun upside down. The first shot won’t get you, but if it’s automatic gunfire you’ll eventually get hit with a couple of rounds.
It’s not brain surgery, but some cops fail. You’d think if you’re taking thirty shots at seven yards away, you’d get them all in the target and have sixty points right there. You only need a 70 to pass. If you fail they can either give you another shot at it or take your gun until you qualify. Once in a while you get an old-timer like Vince Puletti, who’s been sitting in a radio room for twenty years and never shoots his gun and fails to qualify. A lot of times the instructors work with the old-timers to help them pass, because they don’t want to see the old-timers humiliated.
We started off shooting for our qualifying round with five rounds at a target twenty-five yards away. Then we moved up and shot fifteen rounds at fifteen yards away, and then we shot thirty rounds at seven yards away.
“Three rounds in eight seconds,” was announced over the loudspeaker, followed by a whistle to signal shooting. We fired three shots in eight seconds at our own pace. Boom-boom-boom. If you rush your shots, you’ll miss the target.
When we shot off the first round and the whistle blew for us to stop, Rooney said, “Look at that, perfect as usual.”
“Two shots in five seconds,” the announcement came again with the whistle.
Rooney’s shells were hitting me on my left shoulder, so I stepped over, hoping one didn’t go down my shirt and burn me. Joe is left-handed, so as soon as I moved toward him I was getting hit on my right.
My goggles always fog up on me, so I pulled the valve out to let some air in, but it never helps. Rooney’s goggles were clear as a bell as he smiled at my fogged ones, looking like an oversized bug. He was ready to swoop in and qualify with 100 percent.
We dropped our clips to reload. You aren’t supposed to take your eyes off your target, being that if the target was real, he could charge you while you were reloading. Of course, Rooney looked down to reload, and I took the opportunity to fire a round in the left-hand corner outside his target.
Rooney came back up and fired off two rounds, and I saw him squinting where the bullet was off the target. I had to turn around not to laugh, and Joe put his head down with his shoulders shaking.
The next time Rooney looked down to reload, Joe put a round in the bottom of the right-hand corner outside of his target. We watched the shock on his face when he saw it, and Joe and I both cracked up.
“It’s just not your day today, Mike. Looks like a 96,” I said as Joe choked on a laugh.
“That’s impossible,” he said, still staring at his target.
We picked up our spent rounds while they marked our scores. We all qualified. Joe and I both scored 100, while Rooney said it was impossible that he got a 96. I figured we’d tell him about it on Sunday when we were fishing and he was wasted.
We skipped the lunch, mostly because I wasn’t paying four bucks for food that looked like it was cooked over at Rikers. The inmates that worked cleaning up the range seemed okay. The guy that cooked the food looked like an ex-con to me, and let’s be honest, we’re cops and there’s always the spit factor.
We cleaned our guns, got our qualifying sheets, and went to the bathroom to wash our hands.
We were out by 12:30. We were working a midnight, so we headed back to the precinct. No sense in driving all the way home just to come back later.
Traffic was a little heavy on the Bruckner. In another hour it would look like a parking lot. This was the first day back to school in New York City, and everyone was back from vacation. I beat the shocks on my truck as I slammed into a pothole every couple of feet. I once read that the two worst roads in the country were right here in New York City, the Bruckner and the Cross Bronx Expressway. Trust me, it’s true.
I got to the precinct at 1:50. Rooney went over to the bar without bothering to ask me. It used to be that I’d hit the bar in between tours and souse myself up with Rooney. Now I go down to the lounge and watch reruns of Law & Order and In the Heat of the Night. It’s not that I miss it, not like I used to. I just wish I could still do it once in a while. I knew the feeling would pass, it always does.
About 5:00, Rooney got back from the bar with a load on. He, Joe, and I walked over to the #1 Kitchen on 34th and 9th for some Chinese food. The place isn’t filthy, and the food’s pretty good. Walsh and Snout were sitting by the window when we walked in. Joe and I gave them a nod, but Rooney ignored them.
There were about six tables and chairs and then a second-floor dining room, I guess for the lunch crowd. Rooney was busting chops, ordering “flied lice, vely crunchy egg roll, and lotsa soup and dumpling” in a Chinese voice while keeping his face straight. The female behind the counter fired off in Chinese as she pulled a pencil out of a cup filled with rice and circled the items on the menu order form. “What you want?” she asked Joe and me as she pounded her fingers on the plastic-covered cash register. I got Hunan chicken, and Joe got chicken and broccoli, no MSG.
“Number 47,” she yelled, tearing off the bottom of the menu and handing it to us.
When we finished our food Rooney handed out fortune cookies to each of us.
“Now,” he said, smiling. “You gotta read your fortune but at the end of it add ‘in bed.’”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it’s hysterical.” He started laughing and then turned to Snout and Walsh. “Rookies, come ’ere, and bring your fortune cookies.” He waved them over.
They scrambled over with their cookies in hand, happy Rooney was paying attention to them. Rooney looked like his blood pressure was up; he was red faced and sweating. I guess from the booze and salty food.
He told them what he’d told us, to read the fortune and add “in bed” at the end of it.
“You first,” he said, throwing a nod at Walsh.
Walsh looked down at his fortune. “The good old days were once present too.” He looked at us and added, “In bed.”
“Now you.” He nodded to Snout.
“Okay,” she said, looking embarrassed. “You would make a good lawyer, in bed.”
“Those suck,” Rooney said, turning to Joe. “What does yours say?”
Joe looked at his fortune and smiled. “Where there’s a will there’s a way, in bed.”
Rooney let out a laugh. “Now you, Tony.”
I looked down at my fortune. “I like this,” I said. “You will enjoy good health. You will be surrounded by luxury, in bed.”
“Now you, Mike,” I said.
He pulled the paper close to his face. “Our first love and last love is self-love, in bed.”
We all cracked up at that. “That’s not funny,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Joe said, laughing.
We walked back to the precinct at 6:30. Joe went down to the lounge, and I staye
d outside and called Michele because I couldn’t get a signal down there.
“How was the range?” she asked.
“Good. I qualified, got 100.”
“Good for you,” she said. “How’d Joe do?”
“Same thing,” I said. “What are you up to?”
“I’m just cleaning up after dinner and getting ready to sit down for the first time all day.”
“How’s Stevie? How’d he do for his first day of kindergarten?” It hit me then that I probably should have been there to see it.
“He was nervous. But I checked on him later on and he was fine,” she said.
Michele lives in Manorville but works in Shirley, so she put Stevie in school with her. Joe told me the area isn’t as good as Manorville, a little rough, but Michele is trying to transfer to the Eastport schools and put Stevie in school there.
I talked to her for a couple of minutes and went down to the lounge to pass out until my shift. Rooney was snoring loudly enough that Rice and Beans, who were taking their meal, threw a shoe at him.
Joe’s alarm went off at 10:00. We washed our faces, brushed our teeth, and went across the street to pick up coffee.
Geri was working the counter earlier than usual, and we saw that the store owner was there with her. A guy in a blue maintenance uniform brought a cup of coffee over to her and said, “Ger, is there something wrong with the coffee machine? I think the coffee’s cold.”
Geri lifted the lid off the cup and stuck her finger in it. “Nope, it’s hot,” she said, putting the lid back on and sucking the coffee off her finger.
The owner stopped counting the money in the register to look at her. “Did you just stick your finger in his coffee?”
“Yup,” she said and smiled at him. “He wanted me to tell him if it was cold.”
“You could give anyone a heart condition,” the boss said, shaking his head. “Get yourself another coffee,” he told the maintenance worker.
“That’s alright. Geri’s hands are clean.” He smiled at her, and she stuck her bent index finger to her nose, pretending to pick.
“I could fire you for that,” the boss said.
“But you won’t, because if the customers found out you fired me, they wouldn’t come in anymore.” She laughed.
The funny thing is, it’s true. She’s obnoxious as anything, but everyone likes her. She puts up a tough front, but she’s soft underneath it. One time I saw her make a sandwich and put her own money in the register. I figured the boss made her pay for her own food. Joe and I were still sitting outside drinking our coffee in the RMP, and we saw her go out and give the sandwich and a cup of coffee to a female skell who was sitting outside the deli. She smiled at the woman and gave her some of the cigarettes out of her pack before she went back inside the store.
“Hey, good lookings,” she said to Joe and me. “You’re early tonight.”
“Yeah, we worked a day tour and slept through most of the four to twelve,” Joe said.
“Does this mean you’ll be back at 11:20 for more coffee?”
“You know it,” Joe said. “But we’ll probably send Bruno in.”
“That’s alright,” she smiled. “He’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s cute.”
We went back to the precinct and stopped at the desk so Terri Marks could have her nightly shot at seducing Joe.
“Joe, did you see the new Victoria’s Secret billboard on 34th Street?” she asked.
“Nope,” he said. “Why?”
“I just bought the same underwear the model’s wearing,” she said.
“Ah, come on, Terr. Why’d you have to ruin it for me?” Vince yelled from the radio room. “Now I’m gonna picture you in the underwear.”
“Very funny,” Terri said, giving him a sneer.
Vince gave Joe and me a “Come here” signal.
“What’s up, Vince?” I asked, shaking his hand.
“I heard the captain at the detail yesterday almost got you guys killed,” he said quietly, his eyes scanning the room.
“I guess Rooney told you,” Joe said.
Vince put his hands up. “I’m not saying who told me. You guys know if someone tells me something they can trust me with it.”
Vince has the biggest mouth in the precinct—don’t tell him anything.
“Look at this,” Vince said with a nod toward Walsh, who was being approached by John Shea, an old-timer with about nineteen years on.
Unlike most old-timers, he’s always asking the rookies to partner up with him. That’s because anyone with any time on knows not to go near him. It’s not that he’s dangerous; he’s a harmless guy. He’s not a very good cop, and he’s a drunk. He’d give you the shirt off his back, and has actually done that at times, coming back to the precinct missing articles of clothing after passing out in some of the seedier movie theaters on 8th Avenue.
He’s bald and skinny, and his rumpled uniform hangs over the potbelly on his five-foot-ten-inch frame. He had to lean his head back to look up at Walsh, who had a confused look on his face. Walsh looked over at me with a “What do you think?” look, and I shook my head and looked away. I didn’t want Shea to see me shaking my head. I liked him, but he really wasn’t the kind of cop you learned from. I couldn’t hear what Walsh said as he shook his head no while shaking Shea’s hand. Shea was smiling at him, so I guess Walsh didn’t hurt his feelings.
We talked to Vince until Hanrahan made his attention to the roll call announcement.
“The color of the day is orange,” he said.
He gave out the sectors and foot posts, and we all turned to the sound of a nightstick clanging on the floor.
“Rookie!” Rooney yelled to Snout. “Give me ten push-ups!”
In the Academy if you dropped your nightstick you automatically had to do ten push-ups. This was to teach you not to play with your nightstick and to hold on to your weapons.
Snout dropped to the floor and started firing off push-ups, when everyone started laughing.
“Nice form,” Garcia said.
When she realized what she was doing she got up, her face flaming red, and dusted herself off. I guess she forgot for a second she wasn’t in the Academy anymore. She picked up her nightstick and hung it on her belt before lifting her chin up. She was smart enough not to say something to Rooney. I gotta say, her and Walsh were looking pretty promising.
“What’s wrong with you, Mike?” Bruno asked Rooney.
“Shut up, Galotti, before I make you do push-ups,” Rooney barked at him.
We finished roll call and got our radios, and the three of us walked out to the RMP.
It was a perfect night. Clear and cool, making the lights of the buildings around us stand out against the cloudless sky.
We stopped for coffee again, sending Bruno in this time. He came out without comment with a cardboard cup holder and three blueberry muffins. We drove up 8th Avenue and pulled over between 43rd and 44th to drink our coffee.
We watched an Irish guy who looked to be in his midfifties walking down 8th Avenue from 44th Street. He was probably coming from the Irish pub that I haven’t been in since we locked up Santa Claus last Christmas. Santa had been drinking with the Grinch, and they wound up rolling around on the floor of the pub over a twenty-dollar bill that had disappeared off the bar.
The guy was drunk enough to be unsteady on his feet. A couple of skells were following him, eyeing him up for a quick roll.
“You okay there, buddy?” Joe asked him as he was passing the car.
“Yeah, officer,” he said, looking behind him. “I just got out of the bar, and these guys are asking me for money.”
He didn’t realize that if we hadn’t shown up, they’d be beating it out of him. Up close I could see blue eyes, a red nose, and gray hair with a little black tossed in there. He was dressed nicely enough in a short-sleeved collared shirt and beige pants.
The skells hung back now, stopping outside a gated storefront a couple of doors up, still watchi
ng him.
“Where are you going?” Joe asked.
I don’t think he realized they were gonna roll him, more like they were annoying him.
He named a bar over on Lexington Avenue and started telling us that his brother-in-law and his niece were both cops.
“Where do they work?” I asked.
He told us their names and where they worked up in the Bronx, but it was no one we’d know.
“How are you getting over to the bar?” I asked him. He seemed like a nice guy, and I didn’t want to see him get jumped once we drove away.
“I’ll take the crosstown bus on 42nd Street,” he said.
“Jump in the back,” I said. “We’ll take you over there.” We had nothing going on yet anyway.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, come on,” I said and hit the button to unlock the door.
“Thank you so much,” he said as he got in, filling the car with the smell of booze.
“I love you guys,” he said with emotion you’d only show when someone does you a favor while you’re plastered. “You guys do a great job.”
“No problem,” Joe told him. “We want to make sure you get there okay.”
I shot up 42nd Street over to Lexington and down to 40th. We dropped him off at another Irish bar that looked just like the last one.
“Here, I want to give you this,” he said as he pulled out a roll of bills.
“No, buddy, we can’t take that,” I said.
“You saved me the trouble of waiting for a bus,” he said.
“Really, it’s okay,” Joe said. “We can’t take the money. We just wanted to make sure you got here.”
He pushed a twenty-dollar bill through the screen into the front seat.
“Buddy, really we can’t take this,” I said, wondering for a second if we were being set up by IAB.
“No, officer, I want you to have it,” he yelled as he ran into the bar.
“I’m not chasing him into the bar,” I said.
“We’ll just give it to the widows and orphans,” Joe said, talking about the fund for the wives and children of slain cops. He wrote in his memo book that we received twenty bucks for the widows and orphans fund just in case we were being set up by the rats at internal affairs.
