want to nail this bastard to the wall in strips?”
“I’m a cop. It’s my job.”
“Bull, baby, I make a living reading people, and knowing you, Gypsy, I could do it by Braille.”
“It shows then?”
“Believe it. It comes through.”
Over the years, Tonnelli had carefully studied his emotions and reactions, well aware that the intensity of his anger could escalate to a dangerous sickness, a plateau at which it might become a liability rather than an asset. He had seen that happen to cops who had lost their partners and had blamed themselves for it. They wanted victims to ease their rage and guilt. But after a certain point, considerations of innocence and involvement became irrelevant, and any victim would feed their need for revenge.
At first Tonnelli had believed his passion had been rooted in the simple violations of his turf. The murders had been committed in his village of Manhattan. It was the taboo of territory, of tribe, of temples and shrines.
But as the years passed, Tonnelli realized it was more than that.
“Say, how’s that sister of yours?” Samantha asked him. “Adela? I heard she got married and has a lot of kids.”
That was so close to his pain that her words struck him with an almost physical impact. A lot of kids, sure, he thought bitterly. Three nieces, two nephews. His only kin and blood. When he’d walk by toy stores, he’d stop and look at things he’d like to buy for his nieces and nephews but couldn’t. Big Raggedy Ann dolls, trains, windup animals that jumped through hoops, model airplanes you could fly by remote control. Hell, he’d once thought about getting a department loan and taking them all out to Disneyland. Or having them over here when he had three-day weekends. They could go to restaurants and ride around in his unmarked car and listen to the police calls. He could show them the photograph albums. The old man in his apron and the cheeses hanging from the ceiling in his market on Fulton Street. And the colored photograph of his mother without a streak of white in her hair at sixty and a temper that didn’t go with those big, soulful eyes. And never a crooked dime out of that store or in their home. He knew damn well Adela wouldn’t have any of those pictures, wouldn’t even want them.
He would never know his nieces and nephews, never hold them in his arms, and that was why he would destroy the Juggler, because that madman’s victims were surrogates for the kin he could never know and love.
“So how is she, Gypsy?”
“She’s fine, just great,” Tonnelli said quickly, too quickly. Samantha realized, and decided not to press it. She knew, in point of fact, that Adela Tonnelli was married to a Greek used-car dealer who fenced hot heaps up and down the Atlantic seaboard, and the Gypsy must know that, too, which meant he didn’t see his sister or her kids anymore.
Tonnelli wasn’t the worst of them. In fact, he was the best of them, and her need to hurt him was gone.
If there was anything good about cops, it was studs like Gypsy Tonnelli. He was straight and honest and wouldn’t mark a man for life with the butt of his gun for kicks. There was a ton of weary pain in Tonnelli, and that was a town Samantha had played, and she knew all its dirty streets and alleys. At times she was so sick and full of despair from listening to one whining loser after another that it flawed her physically; there were nights when her headaches and muscle cramps almost drove her insane, and it was pills and the bottle then, and not being able to hate Whitey enough, and the annealing but sick and unrealizable dream of being on a warm beach with clean air around her and only the sound of slowly curling waves under a big, blue sky, and maybe—and this was the sickness—having someone like little Manolo to take care of and protect, and hell, maybe even love. . . .
Tonnelli knew from the masked compassion in Samantha’s expression that she probably knew all about Stav Tragis,
“I’m a cop. It’s my job.”
“Bull, baby, I make a living reading people, and knowing you, Gypsy, I could do it by Braille.”
“It shows then?”
“Believe it. It comes through.”
Over the years, Tonnelli had carefully studied his emotions and reactions, well aware that the intensity of his anger could escalate to a dangerous sickness, a plateau at which it might become a liability rather than an asset. He had seen that happen to cops who had lost their partners and had blamed themselves for it. They wanted victims to ease their rage and guilt. But after a certain point, considerations of innocence and involvement became irrelevant, and any victim would feed their need for revenge.
At first Tonnelli had believed his passion had been rooted in the simple violations of his turf. The murders had been committed in his village of Manhattan. It was the taboo of territory, of tribe, of temples and shrines.
But as the years passed, Tonnelli realized it was more than that.
“Say, how’s that sister of yours?” Samantha asked him. “Adela? I heard she got married and has a lot of kids.”
That was so close to his pain that her words struck him with an almost physical impact. A lot of kids, sure, he thought bitterly. Three nieces, two nephews. His only kin and blood. When he’d walk by toy stores, he’d stop and look at things he’d like to buy for his nieces and nephews but couldn’t. Big Raggedy Ann dolls, trains, windup animals that jumped through hoops, model airplanes you could fly by remote control. Hell, he’d once thought about getting a department loan and taking them all out to Disneyland. Or having them over here when he had three-day weekends. They could go to restaurants and ride around in his unmarked car and listen to the police calls. He could show them the photograph albums. The old man in his apron and the cheeses hanging from the ceiling in his market on Fulton Street. And the colored photograph of his mother without a streak of white in her hair at sixty and a temper that didn’t go with those big, soulful eyes. And never a crooked dime out of that store or in their home. He knew damn well Adela wouldn’t have any of those pictures, wouldn’t even want them.
He would never know his nieces and nephews, never hold them in his arms, and that was why he would destroy the Juggler, because that madman’s victims were surrogates for the kin he could never know and love.
“So how is she, Gypsy?”
“She’s fine, just great,” Tonnelli said quickly, too quickly. Samantha realized, and decided not to press it. She knew, in point of fact, that Adela Tonnelli was married to a Greek used-car dealer who fenced hot heaps up and down the Atlantic seaboard, and the Gypsy must know that, too, which meant he didn’t see his sister or her kids anymore.
Tonnelli wasn’t the worst of them. In fact, he was the best of them, and her need to hurt him was gone.
If there was anything good about cops, it was studs like Gypsy Tonnelli. He was straight and honest and wouldn’t mark a man for life with the butt of his gun for kicks. There was a ton of weary pain in Tonnelli, and that was a town Samantha had played, and she knew all its dirty streets and alleys. At times she was so sick and full of despair from listening to one whining loser after another that it flawed her physically; there were nights when her headaches and muscle cramps almost drove her insane, and it was pills and the bottle then, and not being able to hate Whitey enough, and the annealing but sick and unrealizable dream of being on a warm beach with clean air around her and only the sound of slowly curling waves under a big, blue sky, and maybe—and this was the sickness—having someone like little Manolo to take care of and protect, and hell, maybe even love. . . .
Tonnelli knew from the masked compassion in Samantha’s expression that she probably knew all about Stav Tragis,
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