Bloodline by Warren Murphy Page B

talk about. I don’t want to talk about it, either.”
    “You know I was with the sisters?”
    “Yes.”
    “How did you find out? Did Bigmouth Mario tell you?”
    “Your brother is Father Mario,” Tony snapped. “Don’t forget it. And he didn’t say a word. It was the postmark on your letters. I’m too good a cop to have missed that.”
    “What else do you know?”
    Tony sighed. “Okay. I know about the morphine.”
    Tommy rose and walked to the window. “You let me come back home. Even after you found out?”
    “Of course. Why not?”
    “Your dope fiend son?” Tommy said.
    “My son. Who was sick. And isn’t anymore,” his father replied.
    Tommy came back to the couch and sat down again.
    “We were talking about money,” Tony said.
    “I’ve been thinking about law school,” Tommy said. “In a few years, after I finish at CCNY. But I want to go to a good one. Columbia’s the one I want.”
    “You’re right,” Tony said. “You will need money for that. I hear it’s pretty expensive.”
    Tommy nodded and Tony said abruptly, “I could probably get you a job somewhere.”
    “I had a different idea. Maybe I’ll become a cop.”
    “No,” his father answered sharply.
    “Why not? I could learn a lot about how the law and the world really work. The money’s not bad. They’d put me on late shifts and I’d be able to go to school days.”
    “No,” his father said again.
    “That’s really not much of an explanation, Papa.”
    “All right, I’ll give you a better one. You’re too good to be a cop.”
    “It doesn’t seem to have hurt you,” Tommy said.
    “Look, when the immigrants come, the first thing they think of is becoming a cop. And that’s all right. But their kids … their kids have to do better. I didn’t become a cop so you could become a cop. You’ve got to be better than me.”
    “I’m not talking about a career. I’m talking about a temporary job, while I get through school.”
    “There’s another reason. For a long time now, the gangs have been dying out. We were winning. The criminals were losing. And now this stupid Prohibition.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The gangs are coming back and they’re coming back worse than ever. There’s a lot of money to be made in this illegal liquor, and if you get enough crooked money, criminals sprout like weeds. Every gavone who makes wine in his cellar is working overtime, peddling his stuff to criminals who sell it to taverns that are open illegally. They call it bootlegging now.”
    “What does that mean? Bootlegging?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe cowboys used to hide whiskey in a boot or something. Anyway, it’s happening out there, Tommy. Every day it’s getting worse. This place is going to be the Wild West before too long. You know they’ve started an Italian Squad in the department?”
    “You didn’t mention it.”
    “They asked me to take one of the top jobs. I turned them down.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I don’t want to be an ‘Italian’ cop. I want to be a cop. I don’t want to think about there being so many Italian gangsters in this city that they need their own squad to deal with them. Our hope for the future is to be more American than Americans. How are we ever going to do that if we’re separated from everybody else, behind a sign that says ‘These are the Italian gangsters and these are the Italian cops who keep them in their cages.’ I don’t want to be an Italian. I want to be an American.”
    Tommy stared at him for a long moment. “I’ll think about it, Papa.”
    “You are the most stubborn son a man could have.”
    “It must run in the family.”
    “All right. If you want to join, let me know. I’ll help you walk the application through. And you don’t have to worry about that stuff in the hospital. It was damned near impossible for me to run down and I worked hard at it. The department wouldn’t have any reason to check that so thoroughly. You can waltz onto the force if you want