Frisano arched his back. Jimmy slid in, feeling a warmth spread inside his body.
“Oh, yes, Jim…oh…that’s what I need. I need my baby, my lover…”
Jimmy thrust at him, not once and not twice but a series of hungry actions that took hold of him. Nothing mattered but this moment, this connection between willing men. He went at him, hard, and he went long. Neither wanted the moment to end. For a time it didn’t seem like it would. As they continued to lock bodies, Jimmy’s in total control of the moment, their sexy talk turned to begging, their breathing became panting. Jimmy felt Frisano’s strong arms lock on his back, a way to keep him close, keep him tight, inside. They locked eyes and they kissed deeply, a reminder to them that this was more than empty sex, it was an expression of how they felt about each other.
“Oh, Jim, I’m getting ready…”
“Me too,” Jimmy said, thrusting still. Still.
A wild cry bounced off the walls. Jimmy watching as Frisano erupted. Streaks hit his chest, a sight that simultaneously released the passion built up inside Jimmy. He pulled out, fast, slipped off the condom and finished himself off, his own hot load mixing with Frisano’s all over his furred chest. It was a sexy mess that would require a shower, which usually turned into another session of hot, indulgent sex. But Frisano didn’t move this time. He just exhaled, satisfied. Like he’d let go of something bottled up inside.
But just as suddenly his mood shifted.
“Today sucked,” he suddenly said.
Jimmy fell back against the bed, propped himself up on his elbow. “I saw the highlights.”
“Horrible word. No such thing, highlights for a funeral for a slain cop.”
“True. Sorry.”
Frisano leaned up and kissed him. “That wasn’t a criticism. I know you know.”
“Any clues?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Time is no friend of an active case,” Jimmy said.
“He wasn’t on the roster that night. So he wasn’t on patrol and there was no reason for him to be in uniform, and even so, the east side, certainly the piers, was nowhere near his jurisdiction. None of that matters right now. Today was about celebrating him. I’d only known him six months. Still, as his commanding officer I bore the truth of losing one of my men. I never experienced that before. One of mine was gone. It about destroyed me when I had to present his wife and children with his badge. A mere token but necessary.”
Jimmy grew silent. He snuggled in tighter. Finding safety, offering security.
Silence fell between them, the fantasy of their intense love making and the reality beyond these walls creating a sudden bridge between them. Jimmy had more questions about the murder, but so far he had avoided asking them. During this past week, and even now, in the afterglow, he wondered what Officer Luke might have been doing on the piers at that late hour. But Frisano was a captain in the NYPD, and he had to go by the book. Jimmy was a private investigator, the proverbial loose cannon. Each based their lives on questions, each constantly seeking answers that possessed a cruel truth. No time was good to bring up the subject of murder. Or as Jimmy recalled since he’d first seen the report on NY1, an execution. That’s what the commissioner had called it.
“He died of a single bullet wound to the forehead,” Jimmy suddenly said.
It was like shadows drew in, the enclosed light inside the apartment darkening. “Not now, Jimmy.”
He always called him Jimmy when talking business. McSwain when they were in public and in the presence of others. And of course a simple, intimate Jim when in the afterglow. Differing degrees of a complex relationship, and the tone in Frisano’s voice suddenly took on a definite chill.
“Come on Frank,” he said. “You can’t turn a blind eye. Surely you’ve thought about it. The coincidence. The method in which Officer Luke was killed. Same as Mickey Dean two months ago. One a common thug running a chop shop, then a dedicated cop with a family. What’s the connection? There has to be. Officer Luke, do you think he was on the take?”
“We just buried the man. Leave him some honor.”
“Why are you refusing to talk about this?”
“It’s not your case. Jimmy, leave this to the cops. To those higher up than me.”
“Like your father?”
Frisano shifted, got up from the bed. Jimmy’s arm slipped away like it had been rejected.
He watched as his hunky lover walked away from him, entering the bathroom to wash away the dirt of this damaged day, as well as the silky remnants of their passion. He closed the door with a definitive click. A sure sign that Jimmy wasn’t to follow him in. Jimmy would not be making love to him in the shower, as they had so often done before. He’d pushed too far, too fast, on the wrong night.
Jimmy McSwain was like a dog with a bone sometimes. He never gave up. No matter how long it took. Fifteen years, that’s how many revolutions of the clock it had been since his father was gunned down. New clues about the shooting deaths of both Mickey Dean and Officer Luke had stoked his suspicions. Pieces of a deadly jigsaw puzzle, where the edges were just as jagged and sharp as those in the interior. He saw conspiracy, one that had gone on for too long. But in this moment, while he lay naked in an empty bed that just moments ago had born witness to undeniable heat between two people, he suddenly felt horribly alone, like that fourteen-year-old boy he’d once been, covered with blood. You never got the blood out. It stained your soul.
He guessed he wouldn’t be staying overnight.
He got up, and he got dressed. He put his guard back on, too.
The sound of the door closing behind him echoed too many emotions. Remorse sealed it.
Chapter Two
He slept alone and woke alone, with only his thoughts and his dreams keeping him company over how badly things ended last night with Frisano. He’d left before the shower nozzle was turned off, and he hadn’t left a note, nor had he heard from the man whom he’d made hungry love to. Not a call, not a text exchanged. Their relationship in yet another state of flux. It had happened before. Communication, or the lack thereof, once again the usual culprit. Jim and Frank might be amazing in bed together, but the formalized Jimmy McSwain and Francis X. Frisano had their share of complications.
He would deal with those issues later.
Jimmy was already showered and dressed. He’d downed that first cup of coffee. It was not yet eight o’clock on this Tuesday morning, so not even his mother was up and about, not Meaghan either. There was something comforting about having the kitchen to himself, quietly sitting at the table and sipping hot coffee on a cold February day.
He was ready to find out what the day would bring. He was in between formal cases, except his mind tried to convince him he was on the clock anyway. No one had hired him in the last couple of weeks, so there was no paycheck in the offing. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a crime for him to investigate. Such as digging into the mysterious case of Officer Luke, though if he did get involved his questions would only increase the already tense situation between himself and Frisano. But it had to be done. He didn’t like when cops got killed. Eternal truth won out over temporary passion.
Jimmy got up from the chair, washed his cup in the sink. A quiet chirping sound caught his ear over the rushing water in the sink. He turned and saw that his phone was ringing. He dashed over but failed to recognize the number. As a private investigator, you are taught to always answer the phone. Seldom did a stranger call with good news. A case could be in the offing.
“McSwain,” he said, his voice sounding more urgent than he intended.
“I’m sorry…is this Jimmy McSwain?”
A woman’s voice. Concern laced in it. “Yes. Who is this?”
“My name is Edna Enders. I’m an administrator at Brooklyn Hospital Center.”
“An administrator? I don’t understand. Are you a bill collector?”
“No, I reach out to next of kin, or in your case, an emergency contact.”
Fear hit Jimmy�
��s gut, churning the coffee. “Ralphie?”
“He’s fine, now, resting comfortably,” she said. “But he’s asking for you.”
Ralphie Henderson was Jimmy’s father’s ex-partner, a retired NYPD detective and a man Jimmy often sought counsel from. He was a man who knew where many of the bodies were buried, whose investigative instincts were as sharp today as they had been during his thirty years on the force. Except, maybe they weren’t now. Jimmy saw in his mind the old, hobbled black man with the bad knees, usually just sitting inside a booth at Lou Limerick’s pub enjoying a beer or more. Today didn’t sound like that would be happening. He hadn’t seen Ralphie since the holidays.
“What happened?”
“Doctors are still examining him. But they are thinking he had a minor stroke.”
Jimmy’s heart raced. “So he can speak. He asked for me. I can come see him?”
“That’s why I’m calling. Yes.”
Jimmy said he’d be there as soon as he could, and quickly he set out. He wasn’t even sure where Brooklyn Hospital Center was, but he’d figure that out along the way. He had to imagine it was somewhere in Downtown Brooklyn, not far from the Heights where Ralphie lived. Ignoring the people texting and standing around on street corners, Jimmy walked at such a determined pace it could have been an Olympic sport, finally reaching the Times Square subway station. He swiped his MetroCard through the turnstile and went downstairs, where he impatiently waited five minutes for either a 2 or 3, either was fine. It was the 2 that arrived first, and the express train would take him to Nevins Street, a stop that would leave him centrally located near Downtown Brooklyn. He tried to access the Internet on his phone but such service was spotty. So he boarded the train still without a clear direction.
During the ride he thought about Ralphie. He felt guilty for not having seen him in the new year, but he’d been avoiding not just him but the concerns that consumed him. Subjects he wasn’t yet ready to bring to the surface, but he knew he would have to eventually, as certain as he’d have to return aboveground. This past winter during the Guardian Angel case, Jimmy’s neighborhood nemesis Mickey Dean had returned, causing hell—death and destruction before meeting his own demise—but not before he’d left some lasting damage. Mickey died with a blistering accusation on his tongue about Joseph McSwain, and it was one that ate at Jimmy’s soul with a mix of denial and shock. One Mickey could never take back, one Joseph was unable to defend himself against. Two dead men with differing stories.
Jimmy had said nothing to his mother, nothing to Frisano. He’d let it fester within himself until he knew how to process it. If he did anything at all.
Jimmy McSwain was afraid to learn that his sainted father might not have been so anointed.
He was jarred from his thoughts when the conductor announced his stop. He made it out the doors just before they closed, clipping past an annoyed passenger who was boarding the train. Jimmy tried to apologize but the young guy’s middle finger offered up its own response. Welcome to Brooklyn.
He navigated the platform, found an exit, and once topside he dug out his phone again and put a search of the hospital into his maps app. His instincts had been right, as the hospital was just a few blocks over on DeKalb Avenue in the Fort Greene section. Walking distance. Barring a drop off at a small lab that ran tests for him on the sly, he only ever really came to Brooklyn to see Ralphie. Suddenly Jimmy was filled with regret that the reason he was here now was because his friend was ill. A minor stroke. Just how minor? Stroke was never a good word.
He found the towering structure that was the Brooklyn Hospital Center, going through the revolving doors to a small reception area. Security guards were on duty. Weren’t they everywhere in this city? A sign of the times, threats were ever-present. Jimmy checked in at the desk, secured a visitor’s badge, and was told by the helpful clerk that Ralphie Henderson was on the fourth floor. Part of him had expected to be sent to the emergency area. But it seemed his friend was already settled inside a private room, and if that were the case, he wondered how long he’d been here? Just the idea that he had been here for a few days made Jimmy walk faster. He caught an elevator door just as it was about to close, hopped on and soon was stepping off on the fourth floor, a busy nurse’s station his destination.
“Hi, my friend is on this floor. Mr. Henderson.” He paused. “He asked for me.”
A smiling Hispanic woman in blue scrubs said, “Oh, that old coot. Room 414. He’s fine.”
Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. If Ralphie was well enough to flirt with the nurses…
He found the room, knocked quietly on the closed door. No response. He wondered if his friend was asleep.
Jimmy took a chance and entered the room, where he immediately saw a frail man lying in the bed, slightly propped up by an array of pillows. Yes, his eyes were closed, hands folded across his torso. Jimmy thought he looked corpse-like, and a sense of dread filled him. Was he really not fine? Had he gotten here too late? He eased over to the bed, looked down at Ralphie. He noticed the right side of his face had a droop to it, like the skin had loosened. A slight downward turn of his lip, a spittle of drool at the corner.
He was unsure what to do. Leave the room, wake him, call a nurse, or wait out his friend’s nap in the nearby chair. By the time he’d considered all of the possibilities Ralphie’s eyes fluttered, and then they opened. Jimmy stepped closer to the edge of the bed.
“Ralphie, can you hear me?”
His voice was rough, gravelly. Slightly slurred. But it was still Ralphie. “Can see you, too.”
“How are you?”
He didn’t answer the question directly. Instead he asked his own. “Still like boys?”
The fact he asked his usual question brought a wide grin to Jimmy’s lips. Good old Ralphie, not even a minor stroke could erase his twisted sense of humor. It was his standard approach with Jimmy, a private joke. Not that he had a problem with Jimmy’s sexuality. But he liked to poke fun anyway. It was his way, and right now it was a source of comfort. Jimmy eased onto the edge of the bed, took hold of the man’s hand and rubbed it with sympathy.
“That answer your question?”
Ralphie didn’t pull back. Jimmy felt a spread of warmth coming from him, the gentle pulse of life. “Good to see you, my boy.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Just felt a numbness hit me the other morning…didn’t feel normal.”
“How many mornings ago?”
“Four, I’m guessing. Could be five. More than three.”
Jimmy felt a weight on his heart. “And I’m only hearing about this now?”
“First two days, I had trouble…communicating.”
“Talking? Or more?”
“Doc said I was kind of catatonic. But whatever hit me, it seems to have luckily passed. I was able to ask the nurses to contact you.”
“Ralphie, I’m sorry…I wish I’d known sooner…”
“Jimmy, life happens at its own pace. We’re just along for the ride. I’m an old man, not in the best of health to begin with. My body just decided to give me a wake-up call. Guess it had to shut down for a bit. But know this, I’m fine now. The numbness has subsided; the doctors expect a full recovery.” He paused for air after what must have been his lengthiest string of words he’d spoken in days. “Could have been worse.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re already doing it. Tell me what’s going on?”
“Oh, I don’t want to tax you. You need your rest.”
“What I need is to keep my mind engaged. Jimmy, my boy, a man’s only alive when he’s active. Now, since they’re not going to release me anytime soon, doesn’t mean I can’t play the role of the armchair detective. Or in this case, the hospital-bed detective. I can see the fire in your eyes, something’s afoot.”
“Okay, Sherlock, if you’re sure.”
“Jimmy McSwain. You’re as transparent as plastic wrap. Talk.”
Jimmy steeled himself,
cautious about raising Ralphie’s stress level with conversation of crime, of murder and conspiracy. He stared into the man’s distant eyes, searching for any sign of weakness or that he was pushing too hard. All he saw was eagerness to get his life back, a reason to be engaged. Jimmy knew this man lived for justice, he’d spent his entire life and career in search of it and in service to it. Denying him now would be like removing his oxygen tube.
“A cop was murdered. Single shot to the forehead. East side piers. Last week.”
Ralphie nodded. He knew. Of course he knew. He might live in Brooklyn, but the bridge that linked both boroughs wasn’t just a physical structure. It was like a pipeline, information going to and fro like a subway through a tunnel under the river. He knew all about the murder of Officer Denson Luke, and given the light that now lit his eyes, he’d no doubt been waiting for Jimmy to broach the subject. Such clandestine talk might have happened days ago, if not for the stroke which had incapacitated his friend, if not for Jimmy’s uncertainty about what it all meant. He’d wondered what Ralphie had thought of, not just the murder, but its method. He supposed he was about to find out.
“You think he was on the take?
“The way he was killed, it makes you think. Think bad things.”
Ralphie shifted in his bed, like he was trying to rise to the occasion. “Like Mickey Dean.”
“You saw the connection, too. I should have come to you sooner. You know too well that I don’t like coincidences,” Jimmy said. “Mickey’s brother, Larry, is a detective with the 10th in Chelsea. A detective who made grade without merit. Larry Dean got the promotion because his father holds a powerful position at One Police Plaza and pulled strings. Gives him better standing in the NYPD, especially considering his other son was a nasty, career criminal. Mickey Dean came back to town this past winter, and he raised hell in a very short amount of time. He wanted trouble, revenge. He killed my cousin. He ran a chop shop. He got cocky though. And then he got killed.”
Forever Haunt Page 3
