I had lain in the wet grass outside Buck Head Benny's shack where he was holed up with three of his gang of damned killers all armed with AK's and sawed-off twelve gauge shotguns, looking for more cops to kill. My backup was still a mile away and all I had was ... .45 with four shots left in the clip and their door swung open with a tiny creaking noise and they all came out too fast. They were ready but they didn't know where I was until Buck Head Benny spotted me and raised the AK in my direction, but before his finger could tighten on the trigger I took him down and he spun into a crazy twist, the AK going into its staccato chatter with the spasmodic yank on the trigger dying men make and the chopper took out all of his killer buddies behind him.Back then I wasn't afraid of anything.Now even breathing didn't come easily...
In memory of Jay Bernstein
The street wasn’t dead yet. Not all the way. Old Charlie Wing had given the kids from the next block the last of the leechee nuts, and was packing his meager belongings for a U-Haul ride to Los Angeles and his relatives and then on by plane to his home province in China where he would be the richest man in the village and a big daddy to his horde of great and great-great grandkids.
Two houses down, the wicked witch of the neighborhood, ninety-year-old Bessie O’Brian, hung out the window, cushioning herself on a red velvet pillow as old as she was. When it snowed she stayed inside, only sliding the sash up if she heard gunshots. Hardly anything ever happened that she didn’t know about. She saw Findley get killed, the cops nail the pickup truck loaded with five million bucks worth of narcotics, was able to identify over twenty muggers and was the State’s foremost witness when Tootsie Carmody shot The Frog, the super peddler of heroin in the area. She wouldn’t go to court to identify the shooter. She made the court come to her and for one day her tenement building was jammed past inspection requirements by New York’s legal elite.
Bessie didn’t wave. She just yelled down, “Kill anybody today, Captain Jack?”
“Not yet,” I yelled back.
When I passed the brownstone where Bucky Mohler had lived, I could still see the faint outlines of the white 703 he had painted there when he was a trouble-making twelve-year-old punk. He had been knifed and shot twice before he was sixteen, then the Blue Uptowners nailed him with the radiator of a stolen car because he messed with one of their chicks.
That was a long time ago.
Set fifty feet back from the corner, so there would be ample curb space for a few squad cars, was the timeworn station house. It was an old-fashioned name for an old-fashioned building that had been born in the eighteen hundreds when this part of Manhattan still had goatherds and potato fields.
Until two years ago it had been well taken care of, but the financial cut-off had let the cement chip away from the courses of brick and left a blackboard for the damn graffiti artists to spray-paint insults on. A couple of those slobs were still wearing bandages. The station house wasn’t going at full throttle, but the few left for roll call were the tough apples.
I used to be the boss man there. Captain. Hardass but fair. Good record. I got along with the troops and we kept the area as straight as it could get.
I retired out after wearing the badge for thirty years. I had gone into the Academy straight out of the Marine Corps back in ’75, so I still had some good years ahead.
But I sure missed
It was quiet today. Overcast with a snap in the air. October was almost here and a fresh season of trouble was gearing up. Sergeant Davy Ross was standing beside an unmarked police vehicle, talking to a tall, thin guy in his fifties wearing black-frame glasses who had a white trench coat draped over his arm. In his hand was an inexpensive cardboard folder people keep receipts in and when Davy turned his head, glanced my way and said something, I knew they were talking about me.
Hell, I was the living anachronism, the old firehorse they couldn’t get out of his stall, a dinosaur at fifty-six. Had to show up at home base the first of every month just to keep an eye on things.
Sergeant Ross grinned while we were shaking hands and said, “You got a fan from Staten Island, Jack. You remember that place?”
“Other side of the river, isn’t it?”
“Roger. I think it still belongs to New York City, though.” He paused and nodded toward the thin guy. “This is Dr. Thomas Brice.”
When I took the doctor’s hand, he said, “I’m a vet.”
“What war?”
He grinned and the eyes behind the specs were alert and blue. “No, I mean I’m an animal doctor, Captain Stang. Don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”
“No sweat,” I told him. “I’m an animal lover myself.”
Davy Ross cut in with, “You guys have your conversation. I’m going back to work.”
We both told him so long and watched for a few seconds as he walked away.
When Dave went through the door, I said, “What’s all this about, Doctor? You know, I’m not on the payroll anymore. I draw a pension.”
Brice stared at me for a couple of seconds, his eyes reading me as though he were examining a strange breed of dog. It was an expression I had seen a lot of times before, but not from someone who didn’t want to kill me.
Softly, Brice said, “Is there somewhere we can sit down? You must have a coffee shop around here somewhere.”
I told him Billy’s was down the avenue two blocks, an old cop’s hangout that was about to go into the chopper when the station house shut its doors. Billy was finally going to have to go home and eat his wife’s cooking for a change.
