Dead Red by Tim O'Mara

ostrich. Those last two sounded interesting, but the only meats concerning me were burgers, hot dogs, and chicken. The driver and I got everything into the walk-in fridge in less than fifteen minutes. I walked him to his truck, thanked him, and gave him a twenty for his trouble. I signed the receipt and stuck it in my pocket. As he pulled away and I wondered for the first time how all this was going to be paid for, Mrs. Mac came over to me.
    “Hey,” I said, giving her a hug. “Where’d you park?”
    “Just up the block. The meat arrived?”
    “And has been put away.”
    “Thank you, Raymond.” She took my hand and looked me in the eyes. “How are you holding up?”
    “I’m okay.” I said, knowing she was not going to completely buy that—she had been a cop’s wife for almost forty years. “I still have a headache and I’m not sleeping too well, but I’m good.”
    “And you’re sure you’re up to this?”
    “Yeah. It beats sitting around the house watching bad TV with the air conditioner blasting.”
    We stepped inside the bar, where the air conditioner was just starting to cool the place off. Mrs. Mac locked the door behind us and said, “You could go somewhere. Out of the city.”
    “I could,” I agreed. “I’m a bit low on funds at the moment.”
    “You could take Allison up to the Catskills for a few days. I know some folks who have a house in Roxbury and won’t be back until Labor Day. You’ll be an hour away from Cooperstown.”
    I smiled at this woman who had lost her husband a decade ago to a stress-related heart attack and who could probably sell Eskimo Pies to real Eskimos.
    “I’ll give that some thought, Mrs. Mac. Thanks.”
    “Or you could go visit your mom for a few days.”
    “I thought the idea of getting away was to reduce the stress in my life.”
    She smacked my upper arm. “Very funny, Raymond. Now would be a great time for you to go out to the Island and see your mother. I’m sure she’s very worried about you.”
    I looked the cop’s widow in the eyes. “She called you, didn’t she?”
    Mrs. Mac got quiet and cast her eyes somewhere over my shoulder. When her gaze returned, she gave me a slightly embarrassed look. “We spoke last night. She said she’d like you to come out and spend a few days with her. Maybe take a day trip out to Montauk.”
    Three hours in the car stuck in traffic with my mother. Not exactly a day at the beach, I thought, and allowed myself a grin at the pun.
    “I will call her, Mrs. Mac.”
    She looked at the clock above the bar. “Now’s as good a time as—”
    A loud beep from outside interrupted her. I looked through the glass door and saw the beer truck pulling up. Excellent timing.
    “I gotta get that,” I said. “Let’s talk more about this later.”
    “Later we’ll be busy.”
    “Absolutely.” I unlocked the door and stepped outside to help.
    *   *   *
    A few hours later, the bar started to fill up. The event for Ricky wasn’t supposed to start until three, but here it was, not even two thirty, and I’d already served about twenty people. Most of them were cops I didn’t know, some working out of the nine-oh, some who used to work out of the nine-oh, and a few who knew Ricky T from the academy. Considering it was what it was, nobody had brought along a date. The guy I was talking with, Matty Something, had known Ricky and me from our rookie days.
    “A teacher,” he said, taking a sip from his longneck Bud. “Are you putting me on, Ray?”
    “Nope. After the accident, I just couldn’t see going back to the force.” I gave him the one-minute version of the past six or seven years of my life, which always ended with the lines, “I’m back in Williamsburg, making your job easier.”
    Matty shook his head. “Good for you,” he said, not meaning it. “But with your uncle’s pull, you mean to tell me you—”
    “Let’s talk more later,” I said, not meaning it any more than I had to Mrs. Mac. “I gotta