Rizzo’s Fire (12 page)

“Cops,” Rizzo said, turning to face her. “Friggin’ cops turned it around. And you know how?”

Priscilla shook her head. “No. But let me ask you something. What’s the name of the course this guy teaches?”

Despite his lingering anger, Rizzo smiled. “Community Policing,” he said.

“Well, then,” Priscilla said, “I’m gonna guess the cops saved the world, one city at a time, by community policing.”

Now, despite himself, Rizzo laughed. “Bingo,” he said. “He used the old, ‘Stop the small stuff—the graffiti, the noise, the litter, the friggin’ jaywalkin’, and before you know it, all the major shit’s gone.’ ”

“Did the guy happen to mention the influx of mocha-sucking yuppies movin’ in that actually saved those cities?” she asked.

“No, I think he left that part out.”

“Figures,” Priscilla said.

“That’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about, what I’m tryin’ to make Carol understand.” Rizzo went on, frustration building in his tone. “All this make-believe bullshit that surrounds the job, the half-assed ideas everybody gets from television, movies, all that shit.”

“Take a breath, Joe,” Priscilla said calmly. “Step back from it a little bit, okay? It ain’t the end of the world if Carol comes on the job. Look, it’s been good for you, good for me, it can work out for her, too. And if it doesn’t, she quits. But you gotta let her find out for herself if—”

Rizzo shook his head angrily.

“No way,” he said. “No friggin’ way my daughter becomes a cop.”

Now anger stirred in Priscilla, her tone growing sharp. “For Christ sake, listen to yourself. You see me sittin’ right here next to you, and you’re ranting about your daughter comin’ on the job like she’s catchin’ the fuckin’ clap. What are you sayin’, Partner? Bein’ a cop is good enough for somebody like me, but not good enough for your freakin’ little princess?”

Rizzo glanced briefly at her, saw the hurt and anger in her eyes. He turned his gaze back to the street, shaking his head slowly, his voice softening.

“No, Cil, relax, please,” he said. “That’s not what I’m sayin’. Just with you and me, it was different. I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Bensonhurst, hanging out on street corners, getting into all sorts of shit. Hell, half my friends got themselves arrested, two of ’em shot to death. One guy I went to high school with is doin’ double life sentences in Attica. And you, you grew up in the South Bronx, no father, a fucked-up mother. By the time you were twelve, you knew the score better than Carol does now, and she’s almost twenty. It’s different with you, Cil. You’re street smart, tough. You don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, you don’t have unrealistic expectations about the average guy on the street. Carol’s just too soft, too trusting. And it’s probably my fault, me and Jen’s, maybe we pampered the girls too much, sheltered them. If she becomes a cop, she’ll pay the price for that, pay the price for my mistakes.” He sighed. “Come on,” he said gently. “You know the deal, you’ve seen it. These kids comin’ on the job from Long Island, upstate New York, wherever. They ain’t got a clue. The streets eat ’em alive. All that Sesame Street bullshit they grew up with, ‘Teach the World to Sing’ crap, they actually believed all that. They come on the job and that’s when they see the real deal, what human nature’s really like. Hell, you knock out the electricity, cut the food supply for one friggin’ day, all of a sudden it’s the third century. The fuckin’ Huns versus the Vikings, and everybody loses.”

Priscilla remained silent. Rizzo turned to face her. “Civilization is just a facade. You know it. I know it. Every cop knows it. But Carol, she don’t know it. She was never on the streets. She may as well have grown up in fuckin’ Mayberry with Aunt Bea bakin’ her pies.”

“Okay, Joe,” she conceded, “I see where you’re coming from. But consider this: you only know Carol as her father, and see her only from that limited viewpoint. She may be tougher and a little more realistic than you figure. If this is something she really wants to do, you got to figure she’s thought it through. Carol’s lookin’ for your support. She
needs
your support. But, believe me, if she don’t get it, she’ll adjust. She wants to be a cop, she’ll be one.” Priscilla sighed. “I know what it’s like not having a parent’s support.” She paused before continuing. “And I’ve seen the other side, too. With Karen. Her parents were always there for her. No matter what. With the gay thing, with the ‘I wanna be a lawyer’ thing.” She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Hell, even with the big thing—the black cop girlfriend thing.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to like it, Joe. You don’t have to encourage it or pretend to be happy about it. And you can still make your case against it, clear and calm, without beatin’ on what’s probably your big old hairy Italian chest. You can discuss it with her. You know, like two adults. Then you gotta let her decide. And when she does, you smile at her, you wish her luck, and you back her up the whole way.” Priscilla’s expression turned sad, and the twinkle drained from her eyes.

“That’s what a father does, Joe,” she said. “From what I’ve been told.”

Rizzo looked at her with a sad smile.

“Yeah, that’s what I hear, too.”

They sat in silence. After a few moments, Rizzo spoke again.

“I was just gonna tell her what it’s like. Tell her about the dead kid on the highway, about the I.A.D. jam-up I got myself into, about the shit me and Mike got tangled up with, about the political flunky bosses.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair, his eye twitching nervously.

“I was gonna tell her all about it,” he repeated. “Instead, I completely lost it. Went right into a tirade, just like my grandfather used to do when he came home from the job too full of bourbon.” Rizzo shook his head. “If I know Carol, even if she changes her mind and decides she’d rather become a friggin’ nun, she’ll still go on the cops. Just to show me I can’t push her around.”

Priscilla hesitated a moment, then laughed, slapping backhandedly at Rizzo’s left arm.

“There you go, Partner,” she said. “You’re startin’ to look on the bright side of this thing already.”

Rizzo turned to her, a puzzled look in his eyes.

“Hell,” she said. “At least she didn’t say she wants to become a nun. Now
that
would call for a fuckin’ tirade.”

Rizzo laughed grudgingly. “Yeah,” he said, “really.”

She turned to face him fully.

“You know, Joe, it ain’t the end of the world if she goes on the job. There’s worse shit parents got to deal with.”

“Yeah. I’m aware of that,” Rizzo said. “But we’re talkin’ about
my
daughter,
my
little girl. Not some hypothetical kid somewhere.
My
little girl.”

Priscilla sighed. “I know, I know.”

Rizzo’s face animated, his cheeks flushing slightly. “No,” he said firmly. “You
don’t
know. You don’t have kids.” A pensive look came to his eyes.

“When my girls were little,” he said, “I’d tell them stories. Bedtime stories. When I was home to do it, that is. Carol was always the toughest. See, I’d make up the stories. I’d give them a choice: Ben the bear, Flipper the dolphin, or Lassie. Marie usually went for Lassie. Jessica bounced from one to the other. But Carol, she was tough. She’d pick combos—Ben and Lassie, Flipper and Ben—like that.” He raised his eyes back to Priscilla’s, pulling himself back into the car from those faraway nights. He smiled sadly. “You got any friggin’ idea how hard it is to make up a story with a goddamned fish combination? A fish and a bear? Or a collie?

“I’d have ’em all go waterskiing. On a river. Flipper pulling the other guys.” He laughed. “One time Carol asked me, ‘Where’d they get the skis, Daddy?’ ”

Amused, Priscilla asked, “I’m a little curious myself. Where
did
they get the skis?”

“Where else?” Rizzo asked. “Santa Claus.”

That brought a laugh from her. “Of course.”

He shook his head at the memory. “What
I
always wondered was, how’d they make the arrangements? To meet, I mean. What’d they do, e-mail each other?”

Priscilla opened the driver’s door and swung a long leg out of the car.

As he opened his door, Rizzo turned to her again.

“She can’t do this, Cil,” he said in a low voice. “It’s not right for her. It’ll hurt her.” Again his head shook. “She’s still my little girl.”

Priscilla pressed her lips, uncomfortable with Rizzo’s obvious pain.

“Yeah,” she said kindly. “She’ll always be your little girl, I guess.” Now her own mood turned sad, and she made a conscious effort to push it away. “I wish I had been somebody’s little girl. Damn, I wish I had. Wish I
was.
But, you know what? I handled it. I still handle it. Because I’m an adult now, Joe. Not a little girl. A woman.”

Priscilla climbed from the car, leaning back in to address him one more time.

“And so is Carol. What ever happens, however this plays out, she’ll handle it. Like a full-grown woman.”

Rizzo remained silent.

“Now,” Priscilla said, her voice businesslike, “let’s go do our job. Let’s go get
real.
” Then she added one last thing. “And by the way, Joe. Just in case it should ever come up. A dolphin is a
mammal,
not a fuckin’
fish.
”

THE TWO
detectives sat in high-backed upholstered chairs in the neat, sparsely decorated living room. Across from them on a plain black sofa, three civilians sat facing them.

“I have a question,” Rizzo said. “About the names.”

Twenty-nine-year-old Cornelia Hom nodded.

“I’m sure you do, Sergeant,” she said.

Rizzo continued. “I have your grandmother’s name as Hom Bik and your grandfather’s as Hom Feng. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Cornelia answered. “Hom is the surname. Chinese names are the reverse of English—surname first, given name second.”

Priscilla said, “So it’s Mr. and Mrs. Hom. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Cornelia said. “And, as I told you, they both understand English and speak some. They’re just more comfortable with me here, which is why I took off from work today.”

“Where is that, Ms. Hom?” Rizzo asked.

“Morgan Chase,” she replied. “On Broad and Wall Streets.”

“Okay,” Rizzo said, jotting it down. “Before we leave, I’d like all your numbers—home, business, cell. In case we need to contact you.”

Cornelia nodded. “Of course,” she said.

Rizzo looked at the elderly couple to Cornelia’s right. “You folks were robbed four nights ago,” he said. “I apologize for the delay in getting here. The case was originally assigned to the day tour the morning following the crime. The detectives who caught it have been in court since then, testifying on other cases, or were on regular days off. This morning, my boss reassigned the case to us. I checked the file. The first detectives assigned had done some preliminaries. This is the third mugging in the precinct in the last month. All elderly victims, always at night.”

Rizzo turned his attention back to Cornelia Hom.

“That’s unusual for this particular neighborhood. We don’t have a lot of street robberies in this sector of the precinct. The assigned detectives were looking at the other two cases, looking for a link. So, our visit here today isn’t the first police action taken. But, again, I apologize for the delay in getting out here.”

Cornelia Hom nodded. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

“The other two victims were Italian-American, so the common links were age, method, and time of assault,” Rizzo said. “So if they are linked, we’re not looking at a bias crime.”

“And the muggers?” Cornelia asked.

“Mugger,” he corrected. “Looks to be a lone operator.” Now Rizzo turned back to the elderly couple. “And just as you reported in your case, the perpetrator in the other two cases is also described as being Caucasian.”

Cornelia Hom nodded again. Both elderly victims smiled at Rizzo, then Priscilla, but remained silent.

“All right then, Sergeant,” Cornelia said. “Would you like to question my grandparents?”

Rizzo picked up his pen. “Yes,” he said. “If there’s a problem with language, I assume you can help out?”

She smiled. “I speak fluent Chinese in four dialects. I also speak Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and some Thai. At Morgan Chase, I’m the Eastern accounts liaison officer.”

“Okay,” Rizzo said, then turned to the victims.

“I was glad to hear you weren’t seriously injured,” he said. “Just pushed around a bit and, of course, badly frightened. You were seen at the emergency room and released, correct?”

“Yes,” Hom Feng said with a short nod of his head.

“Good,” Rizzo replied, smiling into the dark, friendly eyes, wide set in the old man’s weathered face.

“So,” he continued, “according to the Aided Report the uniformed officers filed, the incident took place on the corner of Seventy-first Street and Fifteenth Avenue, correct?”

Hom Fen frowned. “No,” he said with the same short nod. “Seventy-second.”

Rizzo rubbed at his eye, looking again to his notes.

“The cops who responded said Seventy-first in the report,” he said. “Is that wrong?”

Cornelia Hom leaned forward. “Is it of some importance, Sergeant?” she asked.

Rizzo nodded. “It could be. This happened at about nine-thirty at night, correct?”

Cornelia glanced to her grandfather.

“Yes,” he said.

“But Seventy-second Street, not Seventy-first?” Rizzo asked.

“Yes,” Hom Feng repeated.

Rizzo glanced to Cornelia, a question in his eyes.

She smiled at him. “Yes, Sergeant. They
are
old. But they are both sharper than I am.
I
may not know what corner I’m on, but I assure you, they do.” She turned slightly in her seat, facing her grandparents.

“May I?” she asked with a glance to Rizzo.

He sat back in his seat. “I wish you would.”

She spoke in rapid and precise lyrical Cantonese, eliciting a smile of pride on both elderly faces. It was her grandmother, Hom Bik, who responded. Her voice was strong and clear, also lyrical in her native tongue.

Cornelia turned to Rizzo. “They are certain, Sergeant. The attack took place on Seventy-second and Fifteenth, the northeast corner to be exact. Afterward, they walked over to the next street, Seventy-first, because there was a store open there, a late-night grocery. That’s where the police were called from. Neither of them has a cell phone.”