3 Quarters (6 page)

Venus did not seem at all bothered by the commotion, just sat with her eyes closed, mouthing the new English words: “Boy, ball, bleach . . .”

“You know how many white Tauruses there are in New York State?” Gleason asked Bobby. “How do you know it's the same one?”

“I know,” Bobby said and slid back onto the road.

Gleason stuffed half an Almond Joy into his mouth.

“How can you eat all that shit?” Bobby asked.

“I'm a sweetheart and a lover, so I think of it as every day is Valentine's Day,” Gleason said. “And it makes me fuck like an Easter bunny. I don't know why I crave it. I just got a sweet gene. If I don't eat candy, I start gnawing at the walls of my mouth until they bleed. I am trying to cut down, though. That's why I started smoking again.”

“You started smoking to cut down on your candy habit?” Bobby asked, incredulous.

“It's a toss between diabetes and emphysema,” Gleason said. “I'm trying to strike a balance. If I can get down to a dozen candy bars and two packs of smokes a day, I think I can find a safe middle ground, live to seventy.”

“You ever see a doctor?”

“I went through the whole tune-up, the full physical at the Strang Clinic, and they said I'm fit as a horse,” Gleason said.

“I meant a shrink,” Bobby said.

“Only as expert witnesses,” Gleason said.

Bobby looked at him and blinked. Gleason fired another Almond Joy torpedo into his mouth. “
Bon appétit,
Izzy,” Bobby said. “But chew on this—I'm out an hour and already we're being followed. I don't like it.”

“Get used to it,” Gleason said. “Gotta be a reporter . . . .”

“How'd they know I was getting out?” Bobby asked, still not trusting Gleason.

“The appeal moved through the courts! No atomic secret, chrissakes. Maybe it's a fuckin' DA's tail, because Cis Tuzio is gonna come after you like she just grew kryptonite balls. Plus the same stooges who set you up before, they might try framing you again. For whacking someone else. This time they might just take you out, period. See, they didn't whack you before because you were a cop. Killing a cop brings big heat. Framing you was better. But you're not a cop anymore. If someone whacks you now, you're just a dead ex-con, shit on the city's shoes. Who gives a fiddler's fuck? So you better carry a piece.”

“You know I lost my carry license,” Bobby said.

“This time around you're gonna have to think like a cop,” Gleason said, “and act like a con.”

“I have a checklist,” Bobby said. “I have to see Sandy Fraser, Dorothea's friend and old roommate, and find out everything I don't know about Dorothea. I hear she works for a guy named Lou Barnicle, who I think masterminded my frame. I want to know why she's working for him and everything she knows about Dorothea. I want to see my old friend John Shine for some advice and to see what he's heard on the tom-toms about my case and Lou Barnicle and Dorothea . . . .”

“I know who Shine is,” Gleason said. “Good cop.”

“I want to find the guy who
found
the body in the crematorium. He must know
something.
Moira Farrell never even subpoenaed him because she thought his testimony would be too gruesome for the jury. I want to pay
her
a visit, too. I gotta look up Tom Larkin, an old cop who was my father's friend, because he knows how to get background information on people inside the NYPD better than anyone. And I'm gonna confront this Cis Tuzio face-to-face. I'm gonna find out why I was framed and why they're trying to kill me. I'm—”

“Hold on, Kemosabe,” Gleason said. “You're going too fast for me. Pull Trigger here over at the next rest stop. We need gas, and I don't think too good on an empty stomach.”

A
s Venus gassed up the Jeep, Bobby and Gleason ate burgers and fries at McDonald's. Gleason probed Bobby for particulars about how he met Dorothea, their relationship, their plans, how he could not have known that her identity was a mystery. A secret. Or a lie.

“I want details,” Gleason said. “If God didn't like details so much, he wouldn't have made so many of them. It's how I choose my women and how I win my cases.”

“I'll give you details,” Bobby said, biting into a Big Mac and then taking a long drink of orange juice, thinking it had never tasted so good before. “I went over them every day for a year and a half.”

“Details leading to the arrest first,” Gleason said, opening his Quarter Pounder, dumping half a bag of fries on top of the burger, and placing the bun back on top. His mouth opened wide and snapped down on the sandwich like a bear trap.

Gleason said he also wanted Bobby to form a list of the people he thought he could count on back in the city. And, of course, a list of his enemies. A menu of white hats and black hats and the gray hats who could be used but not fully trusted. “When your life is on the line,” Gleason explained, “you can usually count all your true friends in the world by cupping your balls. But lucky people like you might have a few real friends. Most, as you already know from working the other side of the fence, are mutts. Ninety-nine percent of the human race is disappointing.”

Bobby laughed. Nothing like becoming a jammed-up cop to teach you that. After he was arrested only three cops stayed in touch with him—John Shine, Tom Larkin, and his kid brother, Patrick. Everyone else avoided him as if he had a flesh-eating bacterium.

“I met Dorothea a little less than two years ago, not long after the divorce,” Bobby said. “I was with Shine, who was my training officer when I got on the job. It was at a Christmas party for Brooklyn South Narcotics—where I used to work before going to the Manhattan DA's squad. I had been working on an anonymous tip I received in the mail at the Manhattan DA's office, about an extortion racket involving police medical pensions. The note said the racket was based in Brooklyn, but that some cops were actually paying to get their phony papers approved. I didn't know if it was a crank or not, but I'd heard rumors of it before. So I thought it wouldn't hurt to sniff around at the party, where people would be drinking, tongues wagging—holiday season.”

“Biggest loudmouths in the world are cops with a few in 'em,” Gleason said.

“That girl I told you about, Sandy Fraser, who worked at the police medical office, showed up at this party and brought Dorothea with her. The whole place seemed to stop at once when Dorothea walked in. She looked out of place. Exotic. Held her head high, shoulders back, like someone who came out of a proud history, a heritage. Different than the relaxed, slouchy style of the women of Brooklyn, especially the policewomen . . .”

“The Dunkin' Donuts Dumper Department,” Gleason said. “I never met a policewoman that you couldn't show Panavision movies on her ass after two years on the job.”

“That's a cliché,” said Bobby. “A lot of them are knockouts. But Dorothea would not have looked right in a police uniform. She didn't even fit into the room, with her long-legged sophisticated walk, big dark eyes, a mane of thick, wavy black hair, full lips, a
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit body . . .”

“I said details, not the whole wet dream,” Gleason said.

“I'd just come out of the men's room, where I heard these two ex-cops named Kuzak and Zeke, from a private-snoop firm called Gibraltar Security, talking about the police medical-pension fund. At the urinals, Kuzak and Zeke were asking a cop named O'Brien, who had about ten years on the job, what it would be worth to him to get out on an early disability pension. At first it sounded like idle piss-house banter. O'Brien laughed, said he'd pay a year's salary to get a lifetime three-quarters pension. Then Kuzak mentioned a retired police captain named Lou Barnicle, who I always suspected was dirty—a greedy, brazen, mean, rat bastard. Zeke began checking stalls, and when they saw me, they dummied up fast. Kuzak, a big, tall, muscular guy, not exactly a genius, changes the conversation by saying, ‘So what about them Mets . . .' It's December and he's asking about the Mets. The cop they were propositioning, O'Brien was his name—”

“You said that already,” Gleason said. “Details, not reruns, I don't forget anything. Ever. Except maybe broads' names . . . .”

“O'Brien was a guy I used to work with in Brooklyn South. He wasn't going to write any dissertations on the missing link of evolution either. We were never pals, but maybe O'Brien knew I worked at the Manhattan DA's office. That's not considered as bad as Internal Affairs, but I'm not a cop's kosher meal either. He saw me and bolted. Kuzak and Zeke just glared at me when I stepped out of the stall. I didn't say a word, made believe I was preoccupied, disinterested.”

“These the guys you think set you up later, maybe?” Gleason asked, mumbling through his burger.

“I think so,” Bobby said. “Anyway, I go out to the party room, where a band is playing, and I walk directly to John Shine to let him know what I heard. To get a read from him, because he's not your ordinary numb-nuts beat cop. He was my training officer and has better radar than an air-traffic controller. Maybe he thinks it's a bullshit scam, not worth a full investigation. I want to bounce it off him. But when I start telling him, he's distracted, transfixed, like half the guys at the party. Because here comes Sandy from the medical office, looking hot as one of Victoria's Secrets herself. But she's laughing and talking and walking with this . . . this
goddess!
This Dorothea, dressed in a clinging minidress. The lead singer fumbled the words of the song. I mean, this wasn't an entrance. It was an
event.
Dorothea didn't mean it to be; it just came with the genes. She was out of place, like Sophia Loren walking into a laundromat. Half the women in the room would have liked to shoot her on the spot for felonious perfection.”

“Or bedded her,” Gleason said. “How many broad cops you figure are moes?”

“John Shine bet me I couldn't get a date with her,” Bobby said, ignoring Gleason. “I had a few cocktails in me, was feeling my beer balls. I was missing Connie and Maggie something terrible. I knew the worst this dream-in-a-dress could do was say no. The divorce was much worse than any rejection this woman could give me. Plus I would have regretted not trying for the rest of my life. And John bet me; he was egging me on.”

“I told ya, I know who John Shine is,” Gleason said. “One of the toughest cops I ever cross-examined. Confident, unflappable, straight. A defense lawyer's nightmare. Know why? Because he's one of those rare cops who always tells the fuckin'
truth
on the stand.”

“Johnny Shine ruined his health on the job,” Bobby said, “screwed up four disks in his back, wrestling with a crack dealer. He was always in pain. But he never complained, kept working. He helped get me my transfer to the Harbor Unit. Then I made detective and transferred to the Manhattan DA's squad. We sort of lost touch. But sometimes the world is perfect. Three years ago, Shine won the goddamn New York State Lottery for three million bucks. He retired from the job, opened up a saloon out in Bay Ridge, but didn't forget where he came from. Later, he loaned me money for my defense. He offered to help pay for an appeal, but I couldn't let him throw good money after bad.”

“So Shine made you a bet about Dorothea . . .”

“Yeah, so I forgot all about why I was there, about Kuzak and Zeke and O'Brien and the pension-racket rumor. I walked right up to Sandy and asked her to introduce me to Dorothea. She did, and we danced a fast one, a slow one, and sat out the next one at the bar together,” Bobby said as they slowly walked to the Jeep, his eyes searching the area for the elusive white Taurus. “I asked her out to dinner the next night. She asked what I had in the fridge. I told her leftover pasta. She said she'd love some of that, so we stopped at a liquor store and she bought a bottle of expensive French wine . . .”

“Oy!” Gleason shouted, fumbling for a smoke. “A first nighter!”

“I took her home, we drank half a glass each, skipped the pasta, made love all night, and she never left. I gave her my keys when I went to work in the morning, and when I came home, she had unpacked two of her suitcases. She said she had been staying with Sandy, was taking courses at the School of Visual Arts in photography a few days a week. Other than that, she was vague about her life, her background, family, friends. Said Sandy was her only friend in New York. I liked the idea that she was a loner. I was needy. Greedy. Possessive. I didn't want to let her out of my sight. I was afraid someone was going to kidnap her, take her away from me. Not only did I fall in love with her right away, I
wanted
to. I needed to replace Connie. I didn't ask questions about who Dorothea was—until later. It didn't seem to matter. She was beautiful, sweet, smarter than me, better educated, better read . . .”

“Didn't you bother, between rolls in the hay, to ask her who the hell she was?” Gleason asked. “At least proof her for age?”

Bobby paused and stared at Gleason, shook his head, and climbed back into the Jeep, which was parked over by a rank of public telephones. Venus sat in the backseat mouthing the new English words. “Baby, bottle, bird . . .” Gleason handed her a plain salad and water. “Here's your shrubbery, hon,
mangia,”
Gleason said.

“Gracias
,” said Venus, who began picking at the salad.

“Your welcome-o,” Gleason said.

Bobby looked from one to the other, shaking his head, then started the car and pulled back out onto the highway.

“Whenever I did ask Dorothea her background, she'd change the subject—politics, law, history, literature, art, music, fashion, dance, movies, theater, opera, cities, countries I never even heard of,” Bobby continued as they moved back into southbound traffic. “Dorothea spoke flawless English and French, some Italian and Spanish, and her native Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and a few others. She said her mother had been brilliant and taught her all the languages and about world politics and the arts. But she also said her mother had lived a terrible, sad life. As an outcast. That she had died the year before. I guessed the mother was some kind of political dissident back in the old country. I could never get Dorothea to elaborate.”