by Paul O'Brien
But not before he made good on his promise to his wife.
The next day. Four days after the murder.
New York.
The NYPD was down, riddled with systematic corruption and continually fending off accusations of crooked behavior. For many years the dysfunction was a private, dirty little secret, but now it was so well known that even Hollywood had begun to make movies about it.
It was an organization that was rotten from the top down. It was like an old boy’s club that made false arrests, fabricated evidence, engaged in racketeering, beatings, bribery and even attempted murder.
The NYPD was a festering wound down the middle of a dying city.
Nestor Chapman tapped lightly on the one door in the world he hated entering. Even before the new guy showed up, Nestor hated that door.
“Come in,” called the voice from inside.
Nestor turned the handle and walked sheepishly into the captain’s office.
“Have a seat,” Captain Miller said.
The captain reminded Nestor more of a doctor than a captain. He was near retirement, long and lean, and had a perfectly shiny bald head.
Nestor sat and tried to assess the situation. He had been in Miller’s company a few times since Miller arrived from Brooklyn, but never on his own. He very much liked it that way.
“Did anyone ever tell Cooper that he types like a fucking retard?” the captain asked as he tried to make sense of a report on his desk.
Nestor smiled and nodded in league with his boss. The captain closed over his folder and focused solely on Nestor.
“Tell me what you know about Danno Garland,” the captain said frankly.
Somewhere in his head, Nestor had been waiting for that question but when it came it still disarmed him a little.
“Well,” he started. “Not much. He’s a promoter here in the city. Across the north-east here. Wrestling. Or professional wrestling. Seems to have made some real money over the last few years judging by his… the way he lives now. I … I … he’s … low to the ground. Doesn’t cause trouble. I don’t know.”
Miller watched Nestor’s face very carefully. He leaned back in his creaky chair and thought for a second before following up.
“You’ve been following Troy Bartlett for a number of months,” said the captain, making his words both a question and a statement.
Nestor nodded. He too leaned back and tried to make himself look less guilty of something.
“And this man, Troy Bartlett, is Danno Garland’s lawyer?” the captain asked.
Nestor shrugged his shoulders and adjusted his body some more.
“And Danno’s name never comes up when you’re digging on this other guy?” Captain Miller asked.
“He does something for Garland but there’s never been anything we could move in on. I’m interested in Bartlett for different matters. Missing monies. Shady practices. That kind of thing.”
The captain again disconnected from the conversation to think. Nestor had heard how shrewd Miller was and how he played a tight game in terms of strategy. Such talents around this particular topic made Nestor anxious.
“Is there something?…” Nestor let his sentence trail off. He wanted to know what this was about but didn’t want to ask directly. He knew that a high rank wasn’t fishing around for nothing.
Captain Miller leaned into his desk and looked Nestor straight in the face. “I’ve got a US Senator who was stabbed in both legs a few blocks from here. I’m sure you’ve heard by now. It’s everywhere. My goddamn wife has called me 10 times today to tell me it’s on the radio and the TV.”
“Yeah, I heard. Hell of a thing,” Nestor answered, trying to sound sympathetic.
“Yeah well, the senator says he doesn’t know what happened. He gets a lot of crazies, he says. Could have been anyone. He’s calling for more money from the federal government for policing.”
Nestor nodded accordingly. “This city is … everyone who goes out there is on their own,” Nestor replied, sounding totally unaware of his responsibility.
“Well, we might have something to do with that. Don’t you think?” the captain asked.
Nestor realized how stupid his answer was. He wanted to get the conversation back on track. “What makes you think Garland had anything to do with it?”
The captain stood up and walked to the mesh-covered window. “When the news broke, I personally got a call from the head of the Athletic Commission. He comes down here to our boxing club. Maybe you’ve seen him around. Melvin Pritchard? Anyways, he says that the Senator, just before he was attacked, was scheduled to bring Garland before a committee on match fixing or some such nonsense.”
Miller turned back from the window slowly and rested his hand against the wall.
“I didn’t know that,” Nestor lied.
“US Senators don’t get stabbed on the street in the United States of America. Not even in this fucking city. I just need to know whether I should chase this wrestling guy or discount him and move on. ‘Cause someone is gonna notice … ”
The captain stopped himself.
And there it was, Nestor thought. The money shot. The reason he was called in at all. A high ranking politician with a national profile gets knifed on the street and someone is either getting squashed for mishandling it or highly rewarded for fixing it. There had been talk around the department of the First and Fourth precincts being amalgamated under one roof. No police house in the whole of New York had two captains.
Nestor thought that Miller was fixing to move up the chain.
“This police force can’t afford another high profile fuck up,” the captain said. “If they’re going to make another movie about us … it’s gotta be ... we’ve … we’re the good fucking guys you understand?”
Nestor nodded in agreement. Captain Miller looked at his detective and couldn’t decide on him one way or the other.
“I’ve ordered some officers to go out and shake a few bushes. Make a few inquires into this Garland person.”
Nestor nodded.
“Just so you know,” the captain said.
“Okay,” Nestor answered, not quite knowing what he should say.
“I’ve asked every cop in this building to bring me what they know about Danno Garland.” The captain sat back down and lifted his pen, ready. “So you have nothing to tell me in this regard at this time?”
Nestor shook his head. “Not at this time,” he said.
“But when you do … ”
“But when I do … ”
Nestor sat easy even though he felt like bursting out the door and running to his car. He knew he needed to stay ahead of what was coming.
Luckily he had already started.
Danno descended the large creaky stairs dressed in a black suit. He really tried to resist it but in the end he felt compelled to shout. “Hello?”
He wasn’t sure whether he wanted somebody to reply or not. It was just something he did now. Now that he was there on his own.
He picked up his phone and dialed Lenny Long from his pocket phone book. The number just returned a disconnected tone. Danno tried again but got the same result.
He noticed a note lying on the floor just by his front door. He carefully walked towards it and checked the doorways of his house before he stooped.
He opened it, and it read:
There’s a heatwave coming up from Florida. You better cover up.
He didn’t recognize the handwriting. But the headed paper was something he had seen a thousand times before.
CHAPTER THREE
Ricky woke and gingerly put his right leg out of the bed first and tried to gauge the level of pain present, before coaxing his much worse left leg to follow suit. Both actions sent a stabbing sensation to the base of his neck, which in turn rang as a squeal of pain in his ears.
Most retired wrestlers woke up in the same way after years of taking bumps in the ring – cautiously. Knowing when you’re going to be slammed, tossed and dropped doesn�
�t lessen the pain of being slammed, tossed or dropped.
Pain or not, Ricky made sure not to make too much noise because he didn’t want to wake Ginny who was still asleep beside him.
Ricky many times prayed that there was never an emergency at night because neither man would be able to get out of bed in time to survive. They both had long careers and were now paying the physical price.
Mornings were the worst.
He shuffled out of their bedroom and cracked various bones along the way. He softly closed the door between their bedroom and the kitchen. He fired up the radio and news came through the speakers:
“ … Mr. Tenenbaum left the hospital and was driven to an unknown location. Eye witnesses recounted the Senator’s struggle in simply entering the waiting vehicle because of the dressing on both his legs.”
Ricky quickly flicked the off button. Hearing the report sent a chill through his body which further reaffirmed that that side of the business was something he wanted to stay many, many miles from.
Ricky was a wrestling man through and through. Had been all his life. He was Danno’s number two – The Booker. He was responsible for making the matches and deciding the winners. It was his responsibility to make the card new and exciting every time he entered a different town.
Danno handled the office, contracts and business and Ricky handled everything once they were on the road.
He dearly wished that they could get back to that, but he wasn’t sure Danno was thinking the same way. Or that he ever would again. He knew that Danno’s actions were leaving the business too exposed, too open. Ricky was going to need to work smart and try to cover all the bases that Danno was missing.
There was still the business to run. A business which fed on politics and sleight-of-hand. And a card at Madison Square Garden.
Ginny stood at the sink of their small apartment. He wore a fresh white vest and his short hair was washed and slicked back with a comb. His stubbled face was half covered in soap while the other side was clean-shaven. Back in the day, Ginny used to shave with a blade, just like his father before him. Now he needed Ricky’s help to get the right side of his face done.
Ever since his car got smashed off the highway, things had been tougher for Ginny. And Ricky.
“Don’t leave the spot under my nose,” Ginny said.
Ricky looked over his glasses and gently navigated his way around his partner’s face.
Ginny pointed impatiently. “There. Under my nose. There.”
Ricky swirled the razor around in the water and tapped it twice off the side of the sink.
“I heard you,” Ricky said.
Every day was the same. Ginny liked to be fresh faced. He just couldn’t trust his own hand to stay steady anymore.
Ricky placed the razor on Ginny’s neck and Ginny tilted his head in sync.
“The bit,” Ginny said pointing under his nose.
“I’m going to slit your throat if you don’t stop bothering me,” Ricky warned.
Ginny grabbed the small mirror and checked under his nose as Ricky continued.
“You know, it would be easier to do this if you just stayed still,” Ricky said.
Ginny burst into tears. Ricky stopped what he was doing but otherwise didn’t even acknowledge it. The first few times Ginny cried like that after he came out of the hospital, Ricky rallied around and begged Ginny to tell him what was wrong. Now, the tears just came and went. They were for nothing. They meant nothing. Neither man mentioned them anymore.
And as soon as they came, Ginny wiped his tears, and they were gone. Ricky continued his morning job.
“Under my nose,” Ginny said rubbing his eyes with his forearm.
Ricky also ignored Ginny’s orders. The head trauma left him repetitive, cognitively slower, more moody and emotional. He couldn’t reach across his body and he suffered from debilitating headaches.
At the beginning Ricky wanted his old Ginny back. Now he just accepted the way he was. After all their years together, and remembering how close he came to losing him, Ricky was just happy to have him any way he could.
“Why is there a gun hidden under our bed?” Ginny asked with crystal clarity.
That’s the way it went. Confusion to clarity. Neediness to independence. It changed hour to hour and minute to minute.
“You know what the city is like out there now,” Ricky replied.
“It’s wrapped up though. Like you’re trying to hide it.”
“No,” Ricky lied. “I got it for us. Do you want to leave your life in the hands of the cops we got?”
The morning light highlighted all of Ginny’s scarring. The back of his head. Across his right shoulder, down the triceps and around the forearm. He was already too beat up to continue wrestling before he got rammed off the highway.
“I want us out,” Ginny said as he flung the hand towel onto his shoulder and rubbed the side of his face dry.
“Out of what?” Ricky asked, knowing perfectly well what Ginny was talking about.
The phone on the wall in the kitchen began to ring. Ricky hurried, like an old person hurries, to answer the call. “Hello?”
“We got to meet up,” the voice on the line said plainly.
Ricky immediately recognized the voice. “Okay,” he answered.
“At the end of the bridge tonight at 10.”
“Can’t. I’ve got to tape our TV shows. How about four?”
“Is Danno going to be there?” the voice asked.
“I doubt it,” Ricky replied.
The caller hung up.
Nevada.
Lenny lay unconscious on the pink carpet of his motel room. James Henry silently watched his father intently from behind the prison bars of his crib.
“Do it,” Lenny whispered without moving his lips.
“I don’t want to,” Luke answered anxiously from his standing position on the bed.
Lenny squinted an eye open. “You’ve laid me out son. Now finish me.”
Luke didn’t really like wrestling anymore but he missed playing with his father. “I ...”
“Big splash or elbow son, this is your big finish. Listen to that crowd chant your name and you pick your spot,” Lenny said as he reprised his role of prone wrestler.
Luke awkwardly jumped/fell and landed with a double knee drop right across his father’s face. An angry and wounded noise escaped from Lenny as he rolled into the fetal position and cradled his own head in pain. It was so intense that he was afraid to breathe.
Luke stood and walked backwards until he felt the multi-colored bed at the back of his legs. He watched his father eventually draw in narrow, short painful breaths. “Dad?”
Lenny rocked back and forth and moaned a little.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said.
Lenny wanted to let his son know he was fine but it felt like his jaw, nose and skull were broken. “S’fine,” is all he could release from his lungs.
Luke came closer and put a little hand on his father’s shoulder. The baby in the cot threw his bottle and clapped and gurgled at nothing in particular.
“You have to protect the people you work with,” Lenny said and tapped his little boy’s hand.
Luke cuddled into his father’s back and whispered into his ear, “I don’t like wrestling anymore.”
That was even more painful to Lenny. All he could do was lie there and retrain his sight around the room. Pea green seats. Check. Wood paneling. Check. Uneven wardrobe. Check. Stacks of cash underneath that same wardrobe.
What the fuck? Lenny thought to himself.
Luke nestled the top of his head into his father’s neck and figured out a comfortable spot to snuggle.
“Bath time,” Lenny said shrugging him off. “Take your brother.”
“I don’t want to …”
“Do it,” Lenny ordered. “Fill up the tub and put your little brother in it.”
“I don’t know how. Mom does that,” Luke argued.
“Get in there now and clos
e the door.”
Luke struggled to lift his little brother from the crib. He managed to drag his legs over the top bar and awkwardly walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Lenny pulled himself closer to the money.
He knew he had just found his wife’s stash. The same one she told him she didn’t have anymore. The same stash she took from a bag that Lenny had been hiding in their garage. She took it because she thought it was Lenny’s. She thought it was theirs.
It wasn’t.
The short journey fittingly took Lenny along Paradise Road. Bree was working the second day of her new job and he knew he could be there and back to the motel before she got off her shift. He didn’t tell her where he was going - or more importantly - why he was going there because he made a promise.
A promise he was going to break.
The night before Lenny lay in his new, rock hard bed and watched his wife sleeping. He hadn’t got to do that much over the previous four years. He was reminded why he loved her. And he hoped that she wasn’t coming to the realization that she might have just settled for him.
He adored her and his boys.
But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to lie to them.
He pulled into the curb and stalked the little store on the other side of the busy Vegas street. “I’ll be back in a second,” he told his young sons as he cracked open his car door.
“Where are you going Daddy?” Luke asked from the backseat, trying to move his little brother from his lap.
He too could see clearly across the road and in his seven short years he had never had to wait in the car while his mother went into a store.
“I’ll be a second. You wait here and look out for your little brother.”
James Henry immediately put out his arms for his father to pick him up. He was a lazy child who didn’t speak much for a two year old. He just kinda sat there – cute, with clear skin and a blonde, round, doughy head.
“He wants to go with you,” Luke said, volunteering himself as translator.
