argument.
“Do you want your fire extinguished?” he asked helplessly. “Do you think lockin’ up a few skells will make it all worthwhile?”
Carol’s smile faded, her own determination taking hold again.
“Dad,” she said. “You’re just not being honest with yourself. Don’t forget I grew up watching you. I saw, I heard. I remember when you’d be working a case, dozens of times, important, meaningful cases. I remember seeing you all psyched up and full of energy, tearing into your work. That seemed like fire to me. Real fire.”
Rizzo looked into her eyes and saw the inevitability of her determination. Even as a strange, almost disjointed pride welled within him, his anger, more insistent, more pugnacious, rushed back into his head. He stood suddenly, pulling his arm out from under her still present hand. He looked down at his daughter as visions of childhood transgressions, less than perfect report cards, and sibling squabbles flashed before his eyes, all of them dwarfed and dropped on the trash heap of insignificance by this sudden adult situation.
“Forget the goddamned cops, Carol,” he said harshly. “You’re not takin’ that test and you’re not taking the job. End of story.”
She shook her head. “I refuse to discuss this anymore,” she said with near equal toughness. “How dare you issue fiats! If we’re going to continue to argue about this, I’ll just not come home. I’ll stay at the dorm through the holidays.”
Rizzo nodded, turning to move away. “Yeah,” he said. “You do that. Sleep in an empty dorm room for the holidays. It’ll be good practice for you—for sleeping in a radio car at three a.m. on Christmas morning, next to some fat, smelly old cop, or sleeping on the floor of central booking waitin’ for some idiot A.D.A. to show up and process your complaint. Sleepin’ in some stinkin’, piss-stained precinct holding cell ’cause of some round-the-clock emergency, or outside some shit hole tenement where somebody just found a dead junkie after two months. Sleeping with cigarette filters stuck up your nose to dull the stench, markin’ the hours till some third-world medical examiner shows up and announces, yeah, the guy is officially dead.” Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, Carol, I did every one of those things, more times than I can remember.”
He dug his car keys from his pants pocket, his face flushed. “Then I’d come home and tell you and your sisters a ‘Ben the Bear’ story. Some of the guys just went to the precinct bar, got drunk, and wound up screwing some bimbo who was out trollin’ for cops.”
He turned and began to walk away, his eyes searching for the exit.
“We’ll see what works for you,” he said over his shoulder, picking up his pace and leaving her sitting there alone.
CHAPTER SIX
November
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, DAWNED cold and dreary, a misty rain moving through Brooklyn on a light westerly wind. The front pages of the tabloids screamed bold, black headlines. The New York Times, normally crime free on page one, featured the story prominently.
Avery Mallard, native New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, had been found murdered in his Manhattan home, his body sprawled before a showcase filled with Tony awards, New York Drama Critics Circle awards, two Emmys, the Pulitzer itself, and more than a dozen lesser prizes.
Joe Rizzo sat in the front passenger seat of the Impala reading the Daily News ’s version of the murder. Priscilla Jackson wove the car through the now familiar streets of the Sixty-second Precinct, her right hand lightly on the wheel, her left resting on her thigh.
“Shame about this guy,” Rizzo said, closing the paper and tossing it carefully onto the backseat. “He was only sixty-one. Paper says his best years were behind him, though.”
Priscilla shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But his new play, An Atlanta Landscape, they say it’s a shoo-in for the big awards.”
“Yeah, I read about that,” Rizzo said.
“Do you want your fire extinguished?” he asked helplessly. “Do you think lockin’ up a few skells will make it all worthwhile?”
Carol’s smile faded, her own determination taking hold again.
“Dad,” she said. “You’re just not being honest with yourself. Don’t forget I grew up watching you. I saw, I heard. I remember when you’d be working a case, dozens of times, important, meaningful cases. I remember seeing you all psyched up and full of energy, tearing into your work. That seemed like fire to me. Real fire.”
Rizzo looked into her eyes and saw the inevitability of her determination. Even as a strange, almost disjointed pride welled within him, his anger, more insistent, more pugnacious, rushed back into his head. He stood suddenly, pulling his arm out from under her still present hand. He looked down at his daughter as visions of childhood transgressions, less than perfect report cards, and sibling squabbles flashed before his eyes, all of them dwarfed and dropped on the trash heap of insignificance by this sudden adult situation.
“Forget the goddamned cops, Carol,” he said harshly. “You’re not takin’ that test and you’re not taking the job. End of story.”
She shook her head. “I refuse to discuss this anymore,” she said with near equal toughness. “How dare you issue fiats! If we’re going to continue to argue about this, I’ll just not come home. I’ll stay at the dorm through the holidays.”
Rizzo nodded, turning to move away. “Yeah,” he said. “You do that. Sleep in an empty dorm room for the holidays. It’ll be good practice for you—for sleeping in a radio car at three a.m. on Christmas morning, next to some fat, smelly old cop, or sleeping on the floor of central booking waitin’ for some idiot A.D.A. to show up and process your complaint. Sleepin’ in some stinkin’, piss-stained precinct holding cell ’cause of some round-the-clock emergency, or outside some shit hole tenement where somebody just found a dead junkie after two months. Sleeping with cigarette filters stuck up your nose to dull the stench, markin’ the hours till some third-world medical examiner shows up and announces, yeah, the guy is officially dead.” Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, Carol, I did every one of those things, more times than I can remember.”
He dug his car keys from his pants pocket, his face flushed. “Then I’d come home and tell you and your sisters a ‘Ben the Bear’ story. Some of the guys just went to the precinct bar, got drunk, and wound up screwing some bimbo who was out trollin’ for cops.”
He turned and began to walk away, his eyes searching for the exit.
“We’ll see what works for you,” he said over his shoulder, picking up his pace and leaving her sitting there alone.
CHAPTER SIX
November
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, DAWNED cold and dreary, a misty rain moving through Brooklyn on a light westerly wind. The front pages of the tabloids screamed bold, black headlines. The New York Times, normally crime free on page one, featured the story prominently.
Avery Mallard, native New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, had been found murdered in his Manhattan home, his body sprawled before a showcase filled with Tony awards, New York Drama Critics Circle awards, two Emmys, the Pulitzer itself, and more than a dozen lesser prizes.
Joe Rizzo sat in the front passenger seat of the Impala reading the Daily News ’s version of the murder. Priscilla Jackson wove the car through the now familiar streets of the Sixty-second Precinct, her right hand lightly on the wheel, her left resting on her thigh.
“Shame about this guy,” Rizzo said, closing the paper and tossing it carefully onto the backseat. “He was only sixty-one. Paper says his best years were behind him, though.”
Priscilla shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But his new play, An Atlanta Landscape, they say it’s a shoo-in for the big awards.”
“Yeah, I read about that,” Rizzo said.
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