Love or Honor (32 page)

“Look, you've done your duty,” Phil argued. “You've fulfilled your obligation, whatever that was. You can only live the way you're living, always on guard, for just so long. And frankly, Butch, I doubt you'll accomplish much more, at this point. It'll just be more of the same.”

“You don't understand,” Chris said. “There's another situation that I—that I have to deal with. I have to stay in a while longer.”

“Well, how much longer?” Phil demanded. “How long is this going to take?”

“I don't know,” Chris said.

After their meeting, Chris felt bad that he hadn't leveled with Phil. He'd always felt he could tell Phil anything. Phil had always felt he could tell Chris anything, too, even something that maybe, for some reason, he couldn't tell his wife. At the 4-oh, other cops had been puzzled by their friendship. “What do you guys have to talk about so much?” one cop had asked. Chris didn't know what to answer; he knew only that if he and Phil were locked in a room together for six months, they'd never run out of things to talk about.

But Chris felt that this whole mess was his burden, his responsibility. It was too much to dump on Phil. He'd gotten himself into it, and he'd have to find his way out. Besides, if he told Phil the whole story, Phil would tell him what to do, and whatever he told him would be right. Chris wasn't ready for that. But it was so good to see Phil, such a relief just to be with him for a little while, that they continued to meet once, sometimes twice a week, on the little strip of beach. Chris wanted to talk, hoping Phil wouldn't hear.

When he told Phil about the pain in his groin, Phil insisted he see a doctor. When Chris hemmed and hawed, Phil drove him to Astoria General one night, to the Emergency Room. He waited while Chris was examined.

Chris came out smiling. “He doesn't think it's serious,” Chris told Phil. “He says it's a water seal, or a groin sprain, something like that, and it's not serious. He says if it doesn't go away in a couple of weeks, I should see a specialist. But it's nothing urgent.”

The doctor gave him Tylenol with codeine, which made him feel better. He felt better when he was at Our Lady of Pompeii. He'd confessed to God. Now the time had come to confess to Marty.

10

A German shepherd named Duke kept watch at the Ravenite in the predawn hours, from three to six
A.M.,
when nobody was there. At other times, the dog was locked in a back room. Chris was annoyed by the animal's frequent barking. He'd never been fond of dogs, anyway. When the family moved to Queens, they got a dog because it seemed like the thing to do, now that they had a backyard. Chris was supposed to take care of Lady, but it usually ended up with Katrina doing the feeding and the washing. Chris knew that boys were supposed to like dogs, but he would have preferred a couple of cats.

Harry told Chris that things were happening around the Ravenite, though he was careful not to tell him too much. He didn't tell him about the observation post that had been set up, with a camera, in an apartment across the street, with a Chinese guy as tenant of record. Harry didn't want Chris to look up at that window, automatically, when he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Chris could tell that the guys at the club were getting edgy. They were especially suspicious of a strange car that remained parked on the street, and they talked of setting it on fire. Then they settled on hooking up a hose to a fire hydrant and flooding the vehicle. That would take care of any eavesdropping equipment.

What Harry did tell Chris was that the NYPD's black-bag team was ready to break in and plant bugs. Getting in was not the problem. There wasn't a lock made that the black baggers couldn't handle, no piece of equipment they didn't find a use for. But to get in and wire the place, they needed a court order, illegal bugging having gone out of style after Watergate. To get the order, they needed proof of criminal activity. Informers had been talking about lots of criminal activity, but a judge wasn't going to sign an order just based on what an informer said. Chris guessed the judges must have felt as he did, that an informer might bullshit you and tell you anything he thought you wanted to hear. A judge would authorize it on the word of an undercover, though. An undercover cop was dependable. So Harry wanted Chris to get in, one more time, wearing his wire, and get that proof.

Chris didn't want to do it. For one thing, he felt that with so many people running around, wires could get crossed, and they might start shooting the wrong people. In a way, the longer Chris was in this world, the safer he felt, because he was accepted. But in another way, the longer he was in, the riskier. Sooner or later, by the law of averages, something was going to happen. A guy's luck would run out.

His nerves were shot. Around eleven o'clock one night, he went down from his apartment to the Waterside garage, where he kept his car. He'd caught a few hours sleep and was off to make his rounds. When he unlocked the door and got in, he smelled something odd, like a mixture of booze and garlic.

He hurled himself out of the car. He pulled the automatic and held it straight-arm, using both hands, in the classic police stance:
STAY!

Stiff with tension, holding the gun in his outstretched arms, pointed at the back seat, he inched toward the car and peered in. No one was there.

He got back in the car, then just sat there, unable to bring himself to start the car. Come on, come on, turn the key, start the car, he told himself. But he couldn't. He got back out, lifted the hood and looked for wires. He got down on the greasy concrete floor and squirmed underneath the car, on his back, and looked for wires. Finally he just forced himself to get in the car, turn the key and
go.

Another night he was driving out Queens Boulevard, heading for the Kew. It was a warm night; he had the window open. He stopped at a red light. The driver in the car in the lane beside him took his hand off the steering wheel, reached down to the front seat and picked up something. Chris could just see, from the corner of his eye, the shank of a long object. It was a shotgun!

Chris yanked at the steering wheel and rammed his car crossways in front of the other car. With his right hand, he grabbed his gun, while he threw open his car door with his left. He ran to the driver's side of the blocked car and stuck his gun in the guy's face. As the man stared at him, his eyes popping, face ashen, speechless, Chris saw the long-handled object on the seat. It was a tennis racket.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Chris mumbled. He ran back to his car and took off.

He began to carry his service revolver instead of the little automatic. It made him feel safer. It was a bigger caliber weapon, more reliable. He didn't holster it; that looked too professional, a giveaway. He just stuck it in his waistband, with tape around it so it wouldn't slip through. He took the handles off before he wound the tape around the frame so that it wouldn't look like the “detective special,” but like some homemade piece of crap. He had a hundred excuses ready, in case somebody got nosy—“I was carrying a lot of money today, I needed a bigger piece”—but nobody ever asked. He began sleeping with the lights on.

He would confess to Marty when they were at the beach. He always felt better when he was near the water. Marty asked for a week's vacation, and they headed south.

They stopped at Colonial Williamsburg, and at Gettysburg, but Chris couldn't enjoy it. As much as he loved history, he wanted to get on down to Virginia Beach. He didn't even want to stop at Monticello, which surprised Marty, because he'd always said he wanted to see Monticello. He'd talked about Thomas Jefferson on one of their very first dates, she reminded him. Chris said he'd make it to Monticello another time. Anyway, he knew exactly what Monticello looked like, from pictures. There were columns in front of the house, and seven steps leading up to the front door. Seven steps didn't sound like many, but these were long, stretching almost the width of the house, so that you knew, as you walked up the steps, that you were about to enter someplace special.

At Virginia Beach, they checked into a place right on the ocean. There was a little balcony with two chairs facing the ocean, but Chris didn't want to talk there; there was another little balcony right next to theirs. All the rooms had these little balconies facing the ocean. A beehive, Chris thought. It looks like a damned beehive!

“What's the matter, Christy?” Marty asked. He'd said nothing, but he was frowning.

He looked at her. “Nothing. I'm just tired from all the driving.”

“Why don't you take a nap?” Marty suggested. “I'll go down to the gift shop, get some postcards and walk around.”

Chris took a shower and stretched out on the bed. He couldn't sleep, but it felt good to lie there, sorting out his thoughts, planning on how he would tell her. But it wasn't easy to sort out his thoughts, as the sudden recollection struck him—a Gambino soldier was known to be operating a chain of pizza shops around Virginia Beach. That man's father had been pinpointed by Intel as an international heroin trafficker who was wanted in Italy for the murder of seven police officers. A cop-killer, seven times over. And his son was running around Virginia Beach! Would he recognize Chris? Would Chris recognize him? Could Chris chance eating in a restaurant tonight? Was he being paranoid? Would somebody be lying in wait for him in the parking lot? At least then he wouldn't have to tell Marty.

He had to tell her. He couldn't go on without telling her. And she would understand. She had to understand. She lived in two worlds, too. At home she was a dutiful daughter who knew her place. A Mafia daughter. Away from home, she was her own person, freer. She would understand because she loved him.

But which Chris did she love? Would she still love him when he told her? “Guess what I do for a living. I'm a cop! Isn't that great?” Maybe she would hate him. Maybe she would tell her father. Maybe she would throw her arms around him and say it was all right. Maybe she would tell her mother. When he thought of Anna, he felt so bad that he rolled over in the bed and just stuck his face in the pillow.

When Marty returned, she showered and dressed and they went to dinner at a steakhouse next door to the hotel. Chris had three bourbons and most of a bottle of wine. He thought drinking would make it easier to talk, because drinking and talking went hand in hand, as he knew from spending time with the Penguin.

They took towels from the room and walked out onto the beach. They spread the towels on the fine, white sand and sat in the moonlight. It wasn't a full moon, but very bright, about three-quarters. If he was ever going to tell her, there would never be a better time, never a better place than tonight, on this beach in the moonlight.

And he
was
going to tell her. But he had to work up to it, first.

“I always did like going to the beach,” he said. “When we started going down to Sandy Hook, I remember I had raspberry ice cream for the first time. I never even knew there was such a thing as raspberry ice cream. I tried to find it in New York, but I never could.

“We had a bungalow at Sandy Hook. It was just a rented place, but we went there for a month every summer. Not when I was real little, but later on, when my pop had more money. He didn't get down much, though. He used to come on Saturday night and go back to the city on Sunday night. Sometimes he worked on Sundays and sometimes he didn't.

“I really liked going down, because I always did like the beach. I loved to smell the water. The only reason I didn't like it at Sandy Hook was because my sister's godmother had a bungalow down there, too. She never liked me at all. In fact, I think she hated me. One day, I remember, I wanted to get back at her for hitting me, so I set fire to her clothesline. She had a clothesline in the yard and I put a match to it, and when it started to burn, I ran back in my house and hid under the bed. I think I really wanted to burn her house down, and maybe her, too. The thing about it was …”

He stopped talking suddenly. This was ridiculous. He was going nowhere. Marty was just sitting, listening. She must think he was crazy, rambling on like this. Better to just blurt it out.

“There's something you have to know,” he said.

Marty waited. Chris said nothing.

“What is it, Christy?” she asked. She sounded concerned. “What is it I have to know?”

He couldn't answer. The words stuck in his throat.

“Christy, what's the matter?” Marty asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I'm just thinking.”

“Oh, Christy, what do you think about so much?” Marty said wistfully. “You're always thinking. I thought that when you got out of New York, you would be the way you were in Boston. You were wonderful in Boston. You seemed so happy and relaxed, and now you're all tense again.”

Chris stared at the waves breaking on the beach. The crash of the waves seemed to get louder and louder, echoing in his brain so that he couldn't think. He couldn't get it straight in his head.

“You just have to know that people are complicated,” he said wearily. “People are not always what they seem.”

Back in New York, it was worse than ever. Except for running to Our Lady of Pompeii, he could find no refuge. Once, being with Marty had been an escape. Now it seemed like escaping into a trap. Marty talked of marriage almost every time they were together. Every time he saw her, he knew that, sooner or later, the subject would come up, and he would be taut with anticipation. What will I say this time?

She didn't nag him or pressure him. It was a sense of her expectations, her quiet question: “Have you thought any more about when we can get engaged, Christy?”

“No, I haven't had a chance to think about it yet,” he would say. “Soon, though. If not at Christmas, then maybe Valentine's Day, or Easter.”

She didn't pursue it when he said that, but she looked so disappointed that he actually thought of becoming engaged. After all, engagements could be broken. He wasn't really leading her on, he told himself. She was the one who'd brought it up in the first place.