by Clark Howard
She led Joe into the master bedroom. As soon as he looked at the big king-size bed, Kiley could not help thinking of Gloria Mendez and the incredible fact that Nick had been unfaithful to Stella with her. Joe wished to God that Nick had never shared that secret with him; he wished he could just erase it from his memory. How much easier it would be to remember Nick as a totally devoted, loving husband to a woman who returned that love and devotion full measure. Not that Nick’s affair with Gloria Mendez made him a sleaze-bag like some of the married cops that Kiley knew, cops that actively scouted pussy every shift they worked, taking it from complainants, victims, co-workers, hookers, suspects, any woman who might put out for any reason: fear, intimidation, payoff, the need for help, or simply being a cop groupie. Nick had not been like that, far from it; still, he had cheated on Stella—and that tainted, ever so slightly, the memory Joe Kiley had of him.
Stella took something from a dresser drawer and brought it over to Joe. “Here, I want you to have this. I know Nick would have wanted you to have it.”
It was Nick’s dress watch, an expensive gold Movado that Stella had saved up for and given Nick for his thirtieth birthday.
“Stel, I can’t,” Kiley said. “The girls—”
“No,” she insisted, “it’s yours, Joe. If Nick and I had a son, it would be different, but we don’t. This is yours, Joe, for being like a brother to him.”
Her expression and voice were so insistent that Kiley could not bring himself to refuse. Nodding, he put the watch in his coat pocket.
As they came back downstairs, Joe saw that Gino Bianco was now in the living room, standing in a group with a coffee cup in his hand, watching him and Stella. Wanting no more of the extended Bianco family at the moment, Joe said, “Listen, Stel, I’ve got to go.”
“So soon?”
“Yeah. A few things I need to clean up.”
Coupling her arm in his, Stella walked Kiley out the front door. Jennie and her cousins were no longer on the front steps, and the kids playing out there had disappeared too. Joe and Stella walked down the driveway toward the street.
“Joe, will you come to dinner in a few days? For the girls? For me too, but especially for them, so they’ll see that everything else is still the same.”
“Sure. I’ll call you once things settle down a little.”
“I’m glad we’ve got you in our lives, Joe,” she said, on the verge of tears. She put her arms around his neck, hugged him tightly, then hurried away.
As Stella ran toward the house, Gino Bianco came down the driveway to where Kiley stood. Turning to watch Stella go inside, he said sadly, “A beautiful young woman, Stella: so vibrant and alive. For her to lose Nick, to be without a man, is tragic. Tragic.”
Joe studied at close range this man who was the head of the Bianco family. In his sixties, Gino Bianco was still lean and trim, with a full head of hair albeit mostly gray. To Kiley, there had always been something unlikably remote about him, as if he feigned friendship instead of feeling it. His business was used cars; he owned several large lots and employed his son Frank as well as his nephews and sons-in-law. Nick had been the only Bianco who refused to work for Uncle Gino, shocking everyone by joining the police force.
“Listen, Joe,” the elder Bianco said now, “I hope you’ll overlook that business with Ray out on the patio. Sometimes his mouth gets ahead of his brain.”
“Forget it,” Kiley said, knowing even as he said it that neither of them would.
“I wonder,” Gino explored, “if you would take a little friendly advice from someone who’s been around a while longer than you?”
“What’s on your mind, Gino?” asked Joe.
“It’s you and Stella,” the uncle said. “A few people have commented on how she turned to you for comfort at the cemetery. And now they see the two of you doing a lot of private talking, a little touching, going up to the bedroom together—”
“What the fuck are you getting at?” Joe asked bluntly.
“Understand, I’m not implying that anything at all is improper,” Gino emphasized, spreading his hands innocently. “I’m just asking you, for Stella’s sake, to consider how it looks. I mean, first you’re not there to back Nick up and he gets killed—”
“You’re on thin ice, Gino,” Kiley warned in a flat, hard voice.
“—and then you seem to be very, how should I say, comfortable, around Nick’s widow. I have to tell you, Joe, it don’t look good.” Gino’s expression changed from friendly to authoritarian. “I think maybe you should stay away from Stella for a while.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I would consider it a personal favor if you would show me your respect in this matter.”
“Don’t pull any of your guinea godfather shit on me,” Kiley said. “You’re all a bunch of assholes as far as I’m concerned, you and your son and your fucking nephews and sons-in-law, all of you. The only Bianco who had any brains or any balls was Nick.” Joe made himself take a couple of steps away, to curb his temptation to get in Gino Bianco’s dago face, to crowd him a little, let him know who he was fucking with here. “I was Nick’s best friend,” Joe continued very deliberately, “and I’ll be Stella’s best friend too, as long as she wants me to. You want me to keep away from Stella, you get Stella to tell me so. Meantime, Uncle Gino, you stay the fuck out of my business, capice?”
Without waiting for a reply, Kiley strode away, fuming, the ulcer in his duodenum starting to roil. But halfway down the block to his car, he was forced to ask himself an unavoidable question. Had Gino Bianco detected what was in Joe’s heart and mind regarding Stella Bianco? Did how he feel about her show?
If so, then Gino was right.
It did not look good.
Seven
Just before nine the following morning, Joe was riding the elevator up to Chief Cassidy’s office at 11th and State. Dan Parrnetter had called Joe at home the previous night and said that the chief wanted them both in his office.
“What’s up?” Joe had asked his GA commander.
“Don’t know,” Parrnetter replied. “I assume he’s made some decision about you, but I wouldn’t even guess what it is. I was waiting in his office when he got back from the funeral, and asked him about putting you in Homicide on a TAD. He asked me if that was my recommendation and I told him yes, it was. I said I thought you deserved a chance to help make your partner’s killer. That’s the best I could do for you, Joe.”
“Thanks, Dan. You know I appreciate it,” said Kiley.
“I know you do, Joey. I hope things work out for you.”
Now, getting off the elevator and walking down the hall, Kiley was tense, apprehensive. The best he could hope for, he knew, was temporary attached duty in Homicide to help nail Nick’s killer; the worse that could happen was that he would be brought up on charges of a violation of department standards and regulations which resulted in the death of a fellow officer—a move which almost certainly would cost him his badge. Whatever the chief ruled, however, Kiley had made up his own mind not to cooperate in any way that would incriminate Nick and jeopardize Stella’s pension. He was determined to be very firm about that, whatever the cost to himself.
In the reception room, a secretary said, “Go right in, Detective,” and Kiley knocked briefly and entered the large, well-lighted, tastefully decorated office of the chief of police. There were rich leather chairs, an oversize glass-topped desk, deep-pile carpeting, floor-to-ceiling bookcases alternating with floor-to-ceiling windows, a trophy case, a photograph wall. The place looked like a movie set and Kiley, never having seen it in his fourteen years with the department, found it difficult to believe that such an office was actually a part of the ignominious old headquarters building.
“Good morning, Joe,” said Chief Cassidy from his desk. Already there were Dan Parmetter, Gordon Lovat of OCB, Allan Vander of IA, and Lester Ward, the deputy chief of police. Kiley became aware at once that the group had been there for a while; all of them had nearly fin
ished their coffee. “Take a chair, Joe,” the chief said. “How is Nick’s widow doing?”
“Holding up, sir,” Joe replied.
“Good. And you?”
“I’m all right, sir.”
“Can I have my secretary bring you some coffee?”
“No, I don’t think so, sir, thank you.” Let’s get on with it, Kiley thought edgily.
“Joe,” the chief said without further preliminary, “I’m taking you off General Assignment and putting you on temporary attached duty in a command.”
Kiley’s tension eased at once. Homicide, he thought. Everything was going to be okay.
“You’re going to the Bomb-and-Arson squad for a while,” the chief said then.
Kiley glanced around at the other men in the office, saw satisfied looks on everyone except Parmetter, then met Chief Cassidy’s eyes. “Are you serious, Chief?”
“I’m serious,” the chief assured. “The investigation of Bianco’s murder is already a very delicate and complex matter, involving not only Homicide but now, because of the information you and Bianco tumbled onto—and, frankly, how you handled that information—also involves Internal Affairs and the Organized Crime Bureau. If OCB ties Phil Touhy’s kid brother to Bianco’s death, this department is going to have the highest profile murder case in the past decade. It is going to be absolutely essential that you and Bianco look clean for a trial. Because if you don’t look clean, the department won’t either. And if some high-powered lawyer working for the Touhy organization can make you, Bianco, and the department look dirty, make us look like we’re playing outside the rules—as you and Bianco were—then a cop-killer could go unpunished. I’ll put up with a lot—but I won’t put up with that.”
“But I don’t understand, Chief,” said Joe. “Why bury me somewhere when I could help make Tony Touhy? Let me go to Homicide and—”
“Homicide wouldn’t have you, Kiley,” said Vander, the IA man. “As far as Homicide’s concerned, you’re responsible for Bianco’s death.”
Cassidy held up a hand to silence Vander. “That’s not really the point. The controlling factor here is objectivity. You and Bianco were partners for eight years, Joe. You’re godfather to his youngest daughter. It was you his widow reached out to for support at the funeral. You’re too close to everything. I don’t want you even remotely involved in the investigation.”
Joe sat back, eyes narrowing a fraction. “There’s more to it than me being too close, isn’t there?” He looked at Vander. “It’s IA’s idea to bury me, isn’t it? Teach me a lesson.” His eyes switched to Lovat. “And Nick and I stepped on some elite toes in Organized Crime, didn’t we?”
“I should think,” Gordon Lovat said evenly, “that you’d be grateful just to be keeping your badge, Kiley. IA could have recommended that you be brought up on charges.”
“IA wanted to recommend that,” said Vander. “We just couldn’t do it without the department looking bad.”
Joe’s eyes flicked back to Cassidy. “Why am I getting the feeling here that nobody wants me on this case because I might work too hard to clear it?”
“Joe,” the chief said patiently, “you’re a pretty good cop, all things considered. But we both know that there have been times in the past when you were—let’s say, overzealous. You know as well as I do how many reprimands there are in your jacket. Just last summer you slapped a drunk driver in the mouth with your handcuffs after he’d run over an old lady, and knocked all his front teeth out—”
“He resisted me,” Joe said mechanically.
“—and the time when you caught that pervert the Sex Crimes Squad was looking for and worked him over with a sap—”
Kiley sat forward. “That son of a bitch had raped—not molested but raped, fucked—six little girls all under twelve,” he said, nodding righteously, obviously unrepentant. “He had it coming to him.”
“Not from you, Detective!” the chief snapped. Cassidy’s ire came like a crack of lightning; he’d had just about enough of this maverick cop. “You’re not God, mister, and you’re not a judge or a jury! That shield you carry doesn’t give you leave to dispense justice, whether it’s right or whether it isn’t!” Cassidy jabbed a stiff forefinger down at his desk top. “The investigation of Detective Bianco’s killing is going to be handled in a professional, efficient, and objective manner, by the book—and you are going to stay completely away from it! You are not to call Homicide to check on their progress, you are not to ask to read any reports, you are not to nose around on your own—you are not to do anything.” The stiff forefinger that had been jabbing the desk top now came up and pointed threateningly at Kiley. “You go to Bomb-and-Arson—today! Report directly to Captain Madzak: he’s expecting you. That’s all, you’re dismissed, Detective.”
Kiley stood, the muscles of his jaw flexing involuntarily, stomach churning as he seethed inside, the back of his neck on fire. Without looking at any of the other men in the office, he turned away from Cassidy and walked toward the door.
“Kiley,” the chief said as Joe’s hand touched the knob. Joe stopped without turning around. “If I find out you’re meddling in the Bianco homicide, I’ll put you back in a prowl car—in uniform. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have you brought up on charges and take your shield away from you. And if you continue to give me problems after that, I’ll have you busted and locked up like a common hoodlum. You understand the drill here?”
“Yessir, I understand,” Joe said, still not looking back. His voice was dispassionate, but only because of the vise-like control he was able to exert on it. Even if it caused his fucking ulcer to perforate, he swore in that instant he stood there, he would not let the men in that room—bastards all, except for Dan Parmetter—see him wilt or crawl.
“All right, go on,” the chief told him.
Kiley walked on out, the pulse in his throat throbbing as his blood pressure escalated.
On the elevator, Kiley pushed the button for Bomb-and-Arson. As the car started down, he suddenly frowned, a new thought splitting through the turmoil in his mind. Impulsively he pressed another button, for Central Records.
Gloria Mendez was out of her office, getting something from a bank of filing cabinets; she saw him crossing to the counter and came over to open the gate for him.
“Jesus, you look like you’re hyperventilating,” she said.
“They’re not going to let me work on Nick’s killing,” he told her tightly but quietly.
“Why the hell should they?” Gloria asked without rancor. “Go sit down in my office.”
Kiley did as she said and a moment later she came in and handed him a paper cup of cold water. Then she went into her purse and gave him a pill. “Take this.”
“What is it?”
“Valium.”
Joe swallowed the pill. “I didn’t see you at Nick’s funeral.” It was not an accusation.
“I was there,” Gloria told him. “Way in the back. That oldest girl of his: she really favors Nick, don’t you think—” Her voice broke and she had to reach for a tissue. After she composed herself, she asked, “What’d they do with you?”
“Sent me to B-and-A.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t bring you up on charges. How’d Nick end up dead?”
Kiley told her what had happened after he and Nick separated following their eight-hour stakeout of Tony Touhy’s apartment building and the Shamrock Club. When he finished, Gloria shook her head dismally. “Jesus, what a lousy break. I guess there’s a lot to be said for going by the book, after all.”
“You’re right about that,” Kiley admitted miserably. “If it wasn’t for me, Nick never would have tried to go after Touhy and he wouldn’t be dead.”
“You can’t blame just yourself,” Gloria said. “Nick was his own man; if he went along with it, it was because he wanted to. He told me on the phone before you guys came down the other day, he said, ‘Glor, I’ve got a chance to do something to get a better assignment.’ He sounded very enth
usiastic. So he wasn’t just following your lead; he wanted to do it.”
“Listen,” Kiley said, getting away from the subject of his own guilt, “I think you ought to know that Lovat, the OCB commander, has been in the meetings. Has he checked Tony Touhy’s file to see if anyone accessed it?”
Gloria shook her head. “No way to tell unless I access the record again. If I did that, it would blow my excuse that the first access was accidental. All I can do right now is say it was all a coincidence and hang tough. Nobody on my watch will admit ever seeing you and Nick in my office, and you’re not on the sign-in log. OCB and IA will know I’m lying, but they won’t be able to prove it.”
“You think your job’s okay then?”
“Sure. I’m a double minority, Joe: female and Puerto Rican. I’d have to kick Chief Cassidy in the cajones to get fired.” She paused a beat, then added, “Nobody can connect me to this but you.”
“That’ll never happen,” Kiley assured her.
Gloria bobbed her chin at the open door. “You better beat it. The pill working?”
“Starting to.” Rising, Kiley paused. “Listen, I—”
“I know,” she said, not letting him finish. “We both are. So long, Joe.”
“So long, Gloria.”
Captain Leo Madzak, commander of the Bomb-and-Arson squad, clasped his hands together on his desk.
“I don’t like this any better than you do, Kiley,” he said to Joe, who sat facing him. “I said as much to the chief’s deputy, Les Ward, when he called about you. Far as I’m concerned, you ought to be allowed to work your partner’s homicide.”
He doesn’t know, Kiley thought. It was being kept under wraps that Nick was killed while they were off duty.
“A man’s partner gets it, the officer should be allowed to help go after whoever gave it to him,” said Madzak. He was older, probably nearing retirement, smelling heavily of cologne. “But I don’t run the Shop, the chief does. So as of now, you’re B-and-A, and I’ve got instructions to keep you busy. For the time being, I’m just going to give you scut work and gofer jobs. My instinct tells me you won’t be here long, and I don’t have the budget to send you to any training schools unless I know you’re permanent.”
