THE NEXT MORNING
If you can’t find a book in the Strand, it means that book has yet to be written. The place smells of history, row after row of used and old, crammed so close together as to almost smother, with a rare-book room on the third floor. The staff, a mix of young and old, half hippie, half book nerd, seem transported from another time. They’re knowledgeable and direct, much like the great and late store owner himself, Fred Bass.
It is one of my go-to places to drink coffee and think, and I often leave with a tote bag filled with more books than I need. I feel at home here, alone, in a store that is always crowded. It is a great feeling to be invisible in a place packed with books, staff, and customers, practically a city unto itself. And it seemed a good place to sort through my mental checklist.
My life had grown complicated these past few months, more so than at any other time since I’ve been off the job. Initially, I hated leaving the police department, but I had little choice in the matter.
It took a while for me to adjust to being a civilian, not to get my adrenaline up every time I heard an RMP race down a Manhattan street or spotted what I knew to be two undercovers closing in on their target. But once I got past those minor hurdles and my wounds healed as much as they were going to, I set about building my new life.
And I had made that new life a great one, at least to my way of thinking. I own a brownstone in Greenwich Village left to me mortgage-free by my parents. Until a few weeks ago, I was renting out the top floors and I lived on the first two levels. I work out two hours every day, haunt museums and jazz clubs, and eat most of my meals down the street from where I live—at Carmine’s restaurant, Tramonti’s.
In addition to the food, wine, and jazz, there’s another reason I’ve made Tramonti’s my second home. One other very important reason. Connie, the co-owner.
She’s been the love of my life since I was old enough to take notice, but I didn’t make a move until I was a few months shy of leaving the job. There were many reasons why I waited as long as I did, but the central factor was this: I cared for her too much to have her be on the other end of a late-night phone call telling her which hospital I was being rushed to or where she could come and ID my body. I never wanted to put anyone through that, let alone someone I cared for as deeply as Connie.
Plus, she was Carmine’s daughter, and while I never tangled with her dad while I was on the job, it would have been difficult to sit across from one of the higher-ups in the department and explain that situation. But Connie and me, we fit together. We both love wine, Italian food, and sappy romantic comedies. I give her the space she needs, and she does the same for me. She’s drop-to-the-knees gorgeous and doesn’t take a back step to anyone. If she’s on your side, she’s there for life. Unlike most in my profession, I’ve never been married, which means I’ve never been divorced and I don’t have children. Same holds true for Connie. And I don’t play around. I’m an on-the-square one-woman guy. Call it old-fashioned, call it anything you want. It suits me fine.
On the surface, all seemed perfect. Then my brother and his wife died in an accident that more than likely shouldn’t have happened. That brought their fifteen-year-old son, my nephew, Chris, into my life. I didn’t know much, if anything, about the boy, but he seemed to know a lot about me. He moved in with me and, despite a few bumps in the road, slowly found his place in my tight little world.
While me and Chris butted heads now and then—which, given the circumstances, was to be expected—he had no trouble blending in with my team. And he was a major help in working our last case, bringing down a top-tier Washington Heights drug dealer.
Now he wants me to repay the favor and help him bring down the ones who killed his parents.
So, for the first time in many years, I’m scared. I’m standing here, in the history section of New York’s most famous bookstore, and I am afraid of what lies before me. You see, me and my brother, Jack, did not speak for the longest time. We lived separate lives and went through our days as if the other never even existed. And between us we kept a secret, one that deserved to be buried and stay buried. A secret that, if it got out, could forever damage the life I had worked so hard to build for myself. My secret could damage beyond repair the relationships and friendships that were at the very core of my world—my team, Carmine, the delicate balance I had with Chris, the bond that existed between me and Pearl, the enduring love I had for Connie.
And taking on a case involving my brother’s potential murder could bring it back out of the dark cave I had long ago sealed it in. I didn’t know who I’d be up against, but I knew from what Chris had dug up that they had the means and the funds to unearth the dirt in my background.
I stood in the middle of a crowded bookstore and stared down at my shaking hands, one of them holding a now-empty Starbucks cup. My shirt was stained with sweat, and my neck and arms were damp to the touch. I lowered my head and closed my eyes, eager to regain my equilibrium, to catch my breath and gather the strength to move away from a row of books and back out onto Twelfth Street.
I have faced up to fear many times in my life. You cannot be a cop and not have felt that grip in the center of your stomach, fighting back the urge to vomit, wondering if you’ll ever again be able to take a deep breath, sweat pouring out of your body as if through an open spigot. That is the fear of confronting danger, possibly death. That is the fear a guy in my line of work gets used to over the course of time.
The fear I felt now I had not felt for many years. It was the fear of the unknown becoming known. The fear of betrayal.
The fear that all would know that the Tank Rizzo they admired and respected was someone who had once taken a life.
Not as a cop out working an assignment.
But as a young man with anger in his heart and a weapon in his hand.
The fear that I would be revealed as a killer.
I managed to make my way out of the Strand, using the side entrance leading up to Fourth Avenue, my heart still pounding, my vision blurry, my legs moving as if underwater.
And for the first time since that day so long ago, I had no answer to my dilemma, no solution to my problem.
I was alone and lost, walking down the streets of a crowded city that, for the moment, no longer seemed to be my own.