Sonny smiled, a tight, unpleasant expression.
“Hey, you gimme what I’m buyin’, I pay for the whole thing, right? No games, you little weasels, ya not gonna screw around with me. You know who I am?”
The shortest, but obviously the leader of the Chinese, moved closer. “Fuck you and fuck who you are. You try to stiff me like you done with other guys, you don’t be around to talk about it to no one no more.”
Sonny put his money back in his pocket. He reached inside his jacket for a moment. The boy who had spoken pushed his hand against Sonny’s chest. In a single moment, guns appeared, and were fired at Sonny, who had instinctively pulled back. He was hit in the stomach.
Peter O’Hara, who hadn’t moved, was hit in the center of his forehead.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
A
T THE END OF
the 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. tour Monday, Nick and Eddie planned to spend at least an hour catching up on the paperwork that had accumulated since they had been stuck on the surveillance assignment. They handled the papers mechanically and without interest. Four or five squad guys were checking out the roster, catching up with telephone messages or just shooting the breeze.
A uniformed patrolman, young guy with a shiny new look, stepped into the squad room as though he had no right to be there. Someone waved him in, and he asked for O’Hara.
Nick and Eddie looked at each other. Neither one of them knew the kid. “Yo, I’m O’Hara. Wadda ya got?”
“Detective O’Hara? You’re wanted in the captain’s office. Right away, he said.”
Nick nodded to the young cop, who took off after a hungry look around the room.
Nick told Eddie not to worry. “Hey, if
I
did something, don’t forget, we’re partners, right? I’ll include you in for your share, good or bad.” Then an afterthought: “Wait for me, you’re my ride home tonight.”
Nick tapped on the captain’s door, and it was opened immediately. Captain Nelson touched him lightly on the shoulder, stepped back into his office with Nick, and closed the door behind him.
There stood Deputy Inspector Frank O’Hara. Just standing there, his face expressionless but his complexion noticeably pale. A flash went through Nick: Oh, Christ, he’s gonna ask me something about the party. Who was there? What did I hear? Oh, shit.
As he took a step toward his uncle, Nick remembered the last time he had seen Frank look like that. Drained of all color, even his lips pale. Eyes glazed and narrowed. He took a deep breath.
Someone was dead. That much Nick knew.
“Frank, what?” And then, “Frank,
who?”
His uncle said one word.
“Peter.”
T
HE HOURS FOLLOWING THE
murder of his son became a videotape forever spooling through Nick’s brain. Some of it would come back in startling clarity: a segment-by-segment recollection of faces, voices, sounds, gestures; of locations, smells, light and darkness. Of sensations: panic, terror, anger, madness, sorrow, helplessness. But mostly, it was a feeling of unreality—this all happened to someone else.
He remembered inconsequential things: Frank leaning forward and touching the uniformed driver to slow down; no need to speed through traffic lights.
The thought flashed through his head as they entered the hospital: Good, St. Clare’s. That’s the cop’s choice; always insist they take you to. St. Clare’s, no matter what. He noted there were a lot of uniformed cops, milling around aimlessly. Glancing at him, then looking away quickly.
Then he was in a small consulting room, staring down at a doctor who seemed too young to shave.
Nick rubbed his hand roughly over his face as he listened to the words.
Head wound.
He knew about head wounds; they said
instant death.
He understood that. What he couldn’t understand was what the fuck any of this had to do with his son, Peter.
His cousin Richie burst into the room. He looked like a crazy man. He was yelling, pounding his chest, the walls. There was blood on his knuckles. His wife, Theresa, came alongside him and watched as two of Richie’s men came, led him away. She looked over her shoulder at Nick, reached out, without touching him. “They’re gonna give Richie something to quiet him down. Nick, God, Nick, I’m so sorry. Sonny … he’s in surgery.”
She turned and followed her husband.
Then he was in some patient’s room; there was a bed over by the window. Frank roughly drew the curtain across the slide and ignored the woman’s weak voice: who? what?
Frank spoke quietly. “The kids walked over to Chinatown, Nick. After the San Gennaro. They walked right into a shootout between two street gangs. Sonny took two in the gut. Peter … in the forehead.”
There were so many questions, but he couldn’t seem to form the right words. Instead, he said, “Take me to my son.”
They walked down a corridor and Frank stepped back knowing there was no way to stop him, no point.
“He’s in there, Nick. Want me to go in with you?”
Nick didn’t answer. Frank waited outside.
When he opened the door, a nurse quietly left the room.
There on a long bed, covered from his waist down, his head resting on a small pillow, his arms resting alongside his body, was his son, Peter Nicholas O’Hara. Aged twelve, no longer going on thirteen.
His face was very smooth. The freckles on his cheeks and nose were very pale against his even paler skin. His lips were parted slightly and Nick could see a glint of teeth. Someone had combed his hair. It looked damp. They must have used water. But they got the part wrong. Nick reached up and tousled the heavy dark hair.
There was absolutely no expression on Peter’s face: the way he looked when he was sleeping and between dreams. Waiting for something, but not anxious. But there was, of course, a difference. His face seemed made of finely carved stone.
In the center of his forehead, near the hairline, was a small, nearly black circle. Some splatter of powder burns. He hadn’t been dead very long. There was no obvious swelling of the head yet.
That was a cop’s observation, not a father’s.
Christ, this is my son.
Nick reached over and picked up one of Peter’s hands, so cold. Couldn’t they at least have given him a warm blanket? Even as he thought it, he knew it was irrational. He brought his son’s hand to his mouth, trying to warm the fingers; the way he did when they were out in the snow, when he was a little kid, didn’t want to go inside, lips turning blue, warm my hands, Daddy, blow on them.
He leaned over, tried to warm Peter’s face, with his hands, with his lips. His mouth tasted nothing of his son: just cold cold cold.
Frank O’Hara wrapped a strong arm around his shoulders and Nick didn’t have the strength to resist.
They sat alone in a small room somewhere. Waiting for Kathy. Suddenly, it occurred to Nick.
“Christ, Frank. She’ll think it was me.”
Frank shook his head. “Your aunt Mary went to her, with Father O’Rourke. I sent Eddie Manganaro up in a car. They’ll be here soon.”
And then, “Tell her it
was
me. Oh, God, let it be me and not the kid. Not our son.”
Nick had seen people in shock. They reacted in a hundred different ways. He’d once seen a guy who had been tossed through the windshield of his car in a head on, get out, blood streaming down his face, eyes staring, and start complaining in a whining voice about being late for his goddamn dentist appointment.
Kathy, in shock, was very calm and steady. Her voice was clear and she spoke carefully as she pulled back, not allowing his embrace.
“Well, are you satisfied now? Has he experienced enough of his heritage to suit you?”
His aunt Mary shook her head; don’t pay any attention. Later on, Kathy would swear she didn’t remember saying that, would be horrified that she had. If she said such a thing, God knows she didn’t mean it. But the words had come from the deepest part of her brain, and had pierced the deepest part of his.
When his grandfather arrived, Frank O’Hara left them alone together. The old man was straight as a board. He put both hands on Nick’s shoulders, and spoke from experience.
“It is a terrible thing to lose a son. A child. The worst thing that can happen to a man.” Papa knew.
Nick nodded and wondered, Was this it, then? Finally.
The worst thing.
He didn’t remember his grandfather leaving; hardly remembered his being there. There were so many people, in and out of the small room; guys from the precinct, friends from their town, asking, What could they do? How could they help?
Nick heard a nurse ask if a cop had been shot, there were so many uniformed cops. Someone told her it was worse. A cop’s kid.
Finally he found the room where Richie had been checked into for observation, and asked they be left alone. Richie leaning sideways in the bed, half-dopey, pulled himself up.
“Jesus Christ, Nicky, Jesus Christ.”
Nick began a slow, methodical series of questions. He had to know the sequence of events.
Speaking slowly, his words slurring from time to time, Richie told him: the kid got tired of the fair; Sonny mentioned that Chinatown was only a coupla blocks away, so he took the kid to see it. Peter couldn’t believe the place; he was all over, looking at the windows, the people … Then there was a fight of some kind: then,
pop, pop, pop,
four kids shooting at each other. And then gone. That’s all. Peter on the ground; Sonny moving toward him, not knowing he’d been shot himself.
Richie started to cry again and Nick waited him out. Witnesses? Jeez, Richie didn’t know—ask the cops. There were a couple of dicks outside—did Nick know them?
He found Frank, who directed him to two detectives from the Seventh Precinct Detective Squad. One of them was familiar; he ignored their condolences and got down to questions.
Witnesses? Gang affiliations? Were the kids wearing gang jackets, headbands? Weapons? Who was working the neighborhood? Did they have a good Chinese American investigator? Would they take him to the location—
It was Ed Manganaro who convinced Nick he had other priorities right now. He promised Nick he would keep right on top of the investigation. Everyone assured him. But it really didn’t seem to make any difference at all.
I
T WAS AMAZING HOW
little Kathy needed him. She took over all the terrible details involved in the death. She selected the funeral director. She picked the coffin, telling the salesman she was not interested in the most expensive one. She knew all the bullshit involved in funerals and he’d better back off.
Nick stood by, nodded agreement for whatever she planned. She scarcely noticed. Peter was to be buried next to his O’Hara grandparents.
She arranged the funeral service. Peter was carried by six of his friends: young boys with strong shoulders and hurting eyes. The mass and service were simple.
Kathy chose just the right people to speak and she trusted them to say the right thing. Peter’s best friend—a goofy-looking, fast-talking boy named Patrick Riley—someone Nick never would have asked, spoke last. Kathy knew what she was doing. Patrick spoke so beautifully, in a voice so moderated and careful, that Nick cried for the kid’s strength in spite of his pain.
Nick could hardly get through the prayers; Kathy took his arm when he started to ramble and firmly brought him back on track.
After the funeral, everyone but his grandfather and Theresa went to Frank’s house for food and for talking. Nick heard laughing, the kids getting a little loud, nervous when they spotted Kathy. She approached them, touched a cheek, ruffled a carefully combed head of hair. She gave a quick squeeze, a hard hug. Not letting them feel alone, or that they weren’t acting properly. She told them that any way they felt was okay.
Laura was there, dressed in dark gray. She hugged Kathy; hugged him. Or did he dream it?
Then they went home to their empty house. Mechanically, Nick fed the dogs; some kids showed up to walk them. Kathy had made arrangements for all the dogs, except old Woof, to be temporarily “fostered” with a couple of other families. The in-and-out cat was fine.
Nick cleaned up the backyard. He raked the leaves, then forgot to bag them. He started to fix a loose hinge on the garage door and fell off the ladder, then couldn’t remember why he had been up there in the first place. He went to the supermarket and forgot what he had come to buy.
He listened to the sound of voices, rather than the words spoken to him. Father O’Rourke, a sweet-faced young man new to the parish, spoke and Kathy answered while he nodded. His partner, Eddie, came over, spent an hour or two talking about absolutely nothing. His uncle assured him everything was being done to assure a good investigation into the murder of his son. Nick felt enclosed in a glass capsule, isolated with the one fact he had come to fully comprehend.
His son, Peter, was dead.
Kathy invited Peter’s friends over, encouraged them to select any tapes, recordings, books, posters they might want. His clothes were dispatched to the St. Vincent’s Society. All that remained in Peter’s room were some team pictures, a plaque he’d been awarded by the Humane Society for his volunteer work. The room was emptier than any space Nick had ever seen. Only old Woof, lying restlessly on Peter’s bed, seemed familiar. Each time anyone came into the room, he pulled himself up hopefully, tail wagging, then slumped into a semi-sleep.
Kathy went about everything with a brisk competence. In the middle of the night, he woke with a jolt: that something-is-wrong feeling. There was a light in Peter’s room.
Nick approached his son’s room. There was Kathy, sitting on the edge of the bed, cradling the dog. Nick came to her side and reached for her, but she shook her head and he retreated.
N
ICK WENT TO SEE
his grandfather. He took comfort in the old man’s presence. Papa never said he could imagine how Nick felt. He
knew.
They sat quietly in the glass-enclosed porch overlooking the autumn garden. It was a view the old man had found soothing many times in the past.