Friday, February 18, 2005
When morning came, my doctor wanted me to stay another day, and I told him I was checking out instead.
“That’s really not advisable—”
I stopped him with a look. “My brother was murdered last night,” I said. “With tomorrow being the Sabbath, I have to make the funeral arrangements today if I’m going to bury him Sunday.”
“I see,” he muttered, clearly shaken by what I told him. He took off his glasses and wiped them slowly, buying time to collect himself. “Isn’t there any other family member who could do this?”
“No.”
He put his glasses back on and nodded solemnly. “I can’t keep you here against your will, but you’ll be putting yourself at serious risk leaving today. I have to ask that you check yourself back in at the first sign of a fever. You’ll also have to come back later as an outpatient to have your bandages changed.”
He unhooked an intravenous drip from my arm, and I gingerly swung my legs around and lowered my feet to the floor. That damn bullet wound left me feeling as if someone had shoved a lit book of matches into my side. I asked the doctor if he could write me a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers and he handed me a prescription for Oxycontin that he’d already written out.
After he left, I got myself dressed and called Marcy. As I expected, she was too exhausted from mourning Mike each day over the last three years, and she asked if I could make the arrangements. I told her I would.
I had to go back to my apartment to get the paperwork for a family plot my dad had bought thirty years ago at Cypress Hills, and when I got there I saw that Bambi had already moved out. She’d left a note on my pillow that I was going to find myself missing her. There was a chance she was right.
That afternoon I met with Earl Buntz. He promised me that if he heard anything about what happened with Mike he’d let me know. “I’m going to be asking around about this, Stan, you’ve got my word on that. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for your brother. He was a great guy, and a hell of a shortstop when he was younger. He should’ve tried for the pros.”
“Those damned off-speed pitches always got him,” I said. I asked him for the name of the guy who passed that threat to him, and he gave it to me without hesitation.
“Who do these assholes work for?”
He only hesitated for a second before giving me the name Yuri Gorkin. “From what I hear he’s some sort of ultra badass who used to be a colonel in the KGB back in the day. Stan, I don’t know that these Russians had anything to do with Mike. They might not have. I promise you I’ll be looking into this, but you’ve got to stay calm in the meantime and not do anything stupid, okay?”
I grunted out that I’d watch myself and struggled for a moment to push myself to my feet. Earl told me he saw me on the news the other day. “Maybe Mike had a chance to see you also. It would’ve made him proud if he did.”
I fought back the urge to tell Earl that Mike would have had nothing to be fucking proud of me over, but I left it alone.
I drove back to Manhattan and found out what I could about Yuri Gorkin. There wasn’t much about him in the system, but there was a little. At least I knew the name of the restaurant he owned on Brighton Beach Avenue. I also found a picture of him and knew what he looked like.
When I drove back to Brooklyn, I kept driving until I found myself across the street from Gorkin’s restaurant. I sat out there for hours and watched as he walked in. I had my .38 special with me, and I thought long and hard about following Gorkin in there, but I ended up driving away. If it weren’t for Stevie and Emma, maybe I would’ve, but I had my kids to think about. I had to give the system a chance to work things out.
I didn’t plan to go Joel Cohen’s club. I wasn’t even consciously aware of it when I parked on the same block. It was only when I was walking into the place that I realized what I was up to.
As it usually was for a Friday night, the place was jam-packed and blasting some crap synthesized disco music. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light; then I squeezed through the crowd looking for Joel. I spotted him talking to a couple of young girls at a table. They didn’t look twenty-one to me. I pushed my way to their table. Joel looked surprised to see me. He started to offer his condolences about Mike, and I held up my hand to stop him.
I took my badge out and showed it to the two girls at the table. “Let’s see some ID.” From the looks the girls exchanged with each other, I knew they were underage.
Joel started to excuse himself, and I told him to stay where he was.
One of the girls made a show of looking through her pocketbook before telling me she must’ve left it at home. The other girl just smiled at me. I picked up their drinks and sniffed them. One of them was drinking rum and coke, the other a cosmo.
“Serving alcohol to underage drinkers?” I asked Joel. “Turn around.”
“Cut the shit, Stan,” he said, smiling nervously. “You don’t work Brooklyn.”
I shoved him hard around and had to grit my teeth when I felt the stitches rip in my wound. He stumbled over, and before he could regain his balance I had his arms pulled up behind his back, cuffing him. I took a notebook and pen out and turned to the girls. They gave me their names, addresses, and real ages, and I knew they were too scared to be lying to me. I growled at them to beat it. They didn’t think twice. They got up from their table and ran.
“What the fuck you doing, Stan?” Joel demanded.
“I’m arresting you for serving alcohol to customers under the legal drinking age. Now move it.”
I shoved him hard, and he stumbled forward. A path quickly cleared in front of him.
“You’re making a big mistake,” Joel said once I had him outside. I didn’t bother answering him, just kept pushing him until we got to my car. Then I had him get in the back seat.
“I had nothing to do with what happened with Mike,” he said.
I turned on the ignition and put the car in drive, then slowly pulled the car onto the road.
“This is stupid. It will take my lawyer all of five minutes to bounce these charges. Worst case, we’re talking a few thousand dollars in fines.”
He uttered the latter more as a question, being just smart enough not to offer me an outright bribe in a way that I could arrest him for it, at least not if I told the truth about what he said. I looked in the rearview mirror and could see him sweating badly. It wasn’t over him worrying about me charging him with serving alcohol to underage drinkers. At that moment he wasn’t sure whether I was taking him to a precinct or someplace quiet to put a bullet in his head. The more I looked at him the less I knew myself which it was going to be.
“Jesus, Stan,” he said, a panic creeping into his voice, “you don’t know what happened to Mike had anything to do with us.”
I didn’t answer him. If I allowed myself to, I would’ve hit the gas and kept going straight instead of turning onto Empire Boulevard. Peering in the rearview mirror I could see the relief washing over his face when I pulled into the back lot behind the Flatbush precinct. Fuck, I wish he had had a heart attack on the way over. I brought him in there and handed him to the desk sergeant for processing. After that I drove to the nearest emergency room to have my stitches redone.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
It was a miserable, rotten day. Gray overcast skies, sleeting rain, just plain miserable. I visited my mom before Mike’s funeral. I didn’t tell her about Mike. I don’t think she would’ve understood me, but I didn’t want to take the chance of taking away the little she might have left.
The funeral service was held graveside. It was well attended by people from the neighborhood, policemen I knew and firemen from throughout the city. A third of Mike’s company had died on 9-11, but the surviving members made sure to be up front and center. Most of the crowd shielded themselves with umbrellas, but I didn’t and the firefighters didn’t. I thought of Mike the way he was before 9-11 and how he was afterward. He never really survived that day, not entirely. It fucked up his lungs and sucked so much of his life out of him. Whatever chance he had to recover and lead a normal life was now gone.
Marcy and my nephews stood next to me during the service. I hadn’t seen her in months, and she had aged so much since then. My nephews were only twelve and fourteen, but they stood stoically, both biting hard on their lips to keep from crying.
After the rabbi finished his service, one fireman after the next got up front to say a few words and give his remembrances of Mike; then friends of Mike’s from the neighborhood followed. When one of Mike’s buddies tried to get me to say something, I shook him off. I couldn’t do it. Eventually the crowd dispersed, and it was just me, Marcy, and my nephews left standing by the grave. After a while Marcy touched my arm, then left with my nephews. I couldn’t move. Not then.
I don’t know how much longer it was, maybe five minutes, maybe ten, but someone approached me and held an umbrella over my head, then touched me lightly on the shoulder. It was Jill Chandler, smiling sadly.
“You’re going to get sick if you keep standing out in the rain like this,” she said.
I nodded and accepted the umbrella from her. I wanted to thank her, but I couldn’t talk. She gave me another sad smile and left me.
It was a long time before I left the grave, and I was surprised to see Zachary Lynch off in the distance waiting for me. He wasn’t alone; as I got closer to him I was able to make out that the woman with him was Lisa Williams from Strom-bolli’s. I knew how hard it must’ve been for him to show up like he did. When I got up to him, I held my hand out. He took it, shivering and blanching badly as he did so.
“Detective Green,” he said, his voice cracking on him and becoming something guttural, “you can’t let your rage consume you like this. Please.”
Before he turned away, Lisa Williams offered her condolences, and even though I didn’t know her, I could tell they were heartfelt.
As Zachary walked away, I was able to find my voice, and I thanked him for showing up. He turned briefly and offered me what must’ve been meant as a reassuring smile.