Beyond Blue (11 page)

“Mommy, when's lunch? I'm getting hungry.”

Linda looked into his face where he stood behind Sherry, and then her focus shifted forward to Sherry's anxious visage.

“They don't have to ask me.”

Gorman didn't like hospitals. They were places of mystery, and their mysteries weren't meant to be solved.
Doctors made a point of keeping you in the dark about what they were doing, like auto mechanics who are afraid that if you understood what they were up to, you wouldn't need them anymore.

Feeling helpless, he pressed one palm against the window to Alex Brooks' room. Beyond the glass, Brooks lay on a bed, covered up, with a variety of tubes running into or out of both arms and one hand. His eyes were closed, but he was neither dead nor resting. His chest rose and fell unevenly, as if he were having an endless nightmare. Maybe he was. Maybe that was what brought him there.

Gorman had pulled on the first suit his hand hit and raced to this place. He found Francine Brooks and her daughter, Amy already there. Alex's partner, Vinnie Giles, was also there, pacing the way a concerned spouse normally would. The actual spouse sat quite still after talking with the doctors. She saw Gorman at the window to her husband's room, but never asked who he was. He imagined that if he were to reach out to her, he would find this woman cold to the touch.

After noting that all the monitors in the room were beeping or pulsing rhythmically, as they were supposed to, Gorman slapped Giles on the back and headed down the hall. Around the corner he found Chastity Chiba in the next waiting room. She sat in white boots and skirt, her arms hanging from the armrests and her head down. When she sensed Gorman's presence, she raised her head no more than necessary to make eye contact.

“What happened?” Gorman asked.

“I almost missed it, G. Almost lost him.”

He beckoned for her to come out. They walked the antiseptic halls while they talked. His hands were clasped behind his back. Hers moved in front of her as she spoke.

“I had decided to maintain surveillance on them today,” Chastity began. “I got up and parked at a safe distance down the street where I could keep their doors in view and
waited for activity. If Francine was going to the club, I planned to get ahead of her and try for another bonding session. As it was, both breakfast and the morning passed without incident. Then Francine and the daughter went next door.”

“How did they look?” Gorman stepped around a man pushing a wheeled I.V. holder. How fragile we are, he thought.

“No signs of agitation, sir,” Chastity said. “Both appeared quite relaxed. I figured there was nothing odd about the wife and daughter visiting neighbors without the husband.”

“I concur,” Gorman said. He next passed an elderly man in a wheelchair. All the infirmity surrounding him was starting to bother him.

“I had listened for part of the day with the bionic ear, but all I got was normal domestic chatter. After the girls left the house, I put the ear away so I could eat some lunch. A few minutes later, he started the car. I heard it start up through the garage door.”

“Was it your intent to follow him?” Gorman asked. He saw a haunted look in Chastity's almond eyes. Her rice paper skin looked even paler than usual, and her usual exaggerated confidence seemed to have deserted her.

“I didn't want to follow him. I was there to watch the wife, to see if she went anywhere. I guess that's why I didn't pay any attention at first. The engine was very quiet once the car was started. I was busy shoveling rice and vegetables into my mouth. I let minutes pass before it hit me.”

Gorman wondered why hospitals were always so bright. The halls of disease should be muted, so people will remember how often death holds sway here. So they will bow their heads and be solemn in his presence.

“Before it hit you that the car had not moved?”

A pause. Chastity's eyes closed tight, and then opened. “Yes. That it had not moved. And then probably another
minute while I tried to decide what to do. I was concerned that if Francine saw me there, my mission would be blown. Can you believe that?”

“A perfectly reasonable reaction,” Gorman said. “But when you moved, it was with all deliberate speed.”

“Of course. I raced down the block and threw the garage door open. Their van had thrown out quite a bit of carbon monoxide, but I held my breath while inside. The vehicle's doors were locked and it took me almost another minute to Slim Jim it open.”

“You had the presence of mind to bring a Slim Jim?”

“Common sense. But when I got the door open I wasn't sure he was breathing. I slammed his chest and felt for a pulse. That was there. I gave him a few rounds of CPR right there in the front seat, until he was breathing regularly. But of course, that's no answer to CO poisoning.”

“Well, I know that Mrs. Brooks didn't see you, and he's here, alive,” Gorman rumbled. “So, what did you do?”

“All I could think of, sir. I leaned his head against the horn and ran, with the van still running but the garage door up, and then I lit out of there. Francine and her neighbor came out in less than a minute and found him there. They called the ambulance.”

Their wandering had brought them beside a stairwell door. Gorman took Chastity's arm, pulled the door open and shoved her through it. She spun to look up at his face as he pulled the door closed behind them. She must have expected a lecture, because words rushed out of her mouth before he could begin.

“I have shamed you and my famous father, G. He would have reacted more quickly.”

Gorman knew he didn't want to go there. “So what do you do now? Is this one of those seppuku situations?”

“What?”

“You people are obsessed with guilt,” Gorman roared, his lion's mane of dark hair shaking with his emotions. “You always want to take the blame. It's probably the only thing
you have in common with the British. That twisted notion of nobility. Well, it ain't noble and you ain't guilty. Now us Americans, we have a fine tradition of selfishness. Any act that favors the other guy is cause for congratulations.”

“But, G, you don't understand.”

“No, Ms. Chiba, you don't understand. You saved the man's life, for Christ's sake. Despite his best efforts, he's alive because of you. Can't you just focus on that?”

Now Chastity shook, and despite her a tiny tear grew in the corner of her left eye. Before it could fall she lowered her face.

“Yes, sir. I can. I will. Thank you, sir.”

Gorman took a deep breath to regain his usual calm. Now, he needed Chastity to find out all the details of Francine Brooks' plans, before it was too late. And he had to go back to that hospital room. When Brooks regained consciousness, Gorman would have to have a long talk with the man who had caused one of his best agents so much heartache.

Alex Brooks set his empty Styrofoam cup on the side table and licked his lips nervously. “Throat's so dry.”

“The drugs will do that to you,” Gorman said. He had pulled his chair up beside the bed so that Brooks would not have to raise his voice. “And of course the oxygen they were blowing into you is completely dry.”

Brooks nodded. “Listen, Mr. Gorman, I appreciate you coming down here. I really do. Didn't expect anyone to. Who else knows? I mean, do they know I'm in here back at the station house?”

“As far as I know, no one's alerted the station. Actually, I figured it could stay that way.”

“Thanks,” Brooks said, lifting a pitcher to refill his glass. “I don't need that kind of pressure from the top. Something like this could kill a cop's career, you know?”

“I know,” Gorman said. The purple under the kid's eyes told Gorman how close he had come to killing himself. His breathing was raspy and his hand shook a little as he lifted the cup to his lips. “And I hear it's pure dumb luck that you're still with us at all. I heard some passerby called the cops.”

“Yeah. Lucky.” Brooks stared into space, listening to the announcements on the loudspeaker outside, as if waiting for his name to come up. When Brooks finished his water he put the cup down and let his hands drop to the sheet. Gorman leaned forward, covering one of Brooks' hands with his own.

“You're looking a lot better. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What the hell were you thinking back there in that garage?” Gorman roared. He locked eyes with Brooks, one bushy eyebrow rising almost to his hairline. “Didn't you even have the balls to just eat your gun? That's the cop tradition, ain't it?”

Brooks' eyes flared wide and his mouth dropped. “What?”

“Cops don't kill themselves! That's the last act of a coward, and we don't put cowards in uniform. Besides that, you've got a little girl to live for, who shouldn't be losing her daddy in such a shameful way. So tell me, Einstein, what the hell were you thinking?”

The room was as quiet as a confessional, and Brooks sat straight back against the headboard like a man in a lineup. “You don't understand. She's going to divorce me. She's going to leave me and take my little girl away. What would I have to live for then, huh? What the hell do you know?”

“What do I know?” Gorman asked. “I'll tell you what I know. I know what it's like for kids when they lose a parent. When that lightning strike took my first wife, I thought I'd have a nervous breakdown. But then I found out that I wasn't allowed to have a breakdown, because my kids might beat me to it. Now you might want to do that to your wife, I don't know, but you damn sure don't want to do that to your daughter.”

Brooks looked lost, confused, his eyes darting from side to side. “Amy. My little girl. No. No, I don't want to do that to her. What do I do?” He looked up at Gorman with big, pained eyes.

“What you do,” Gorman said in a softer tone, “is pull yourself together and remember who you are. You're an officer of the law. People need to be able to trust you, and believe in you. You go home, and you be with your family. And Monday morning, you go to your supervisor and you tell him that you've got some issues and you need some
counseling. The NYPD still offers that, and ever since 9-11 they've figured out that even the best cops, even the strongest men sometimes need help.”

“You think I can make it?”

“Sure you can,” Gorman said. “This was a temporary weakness. You're tougher than this.”

Brooks looked at Gorman and nodded slowly. “Just don't let her take my little girl away.”

Lorenzo Lucania stood quietly while the thug on his left knocked on the door. Like the man on Lorenzo's right, he was the kind of mug who didn't mind being called a thug. They were both as wide as refrigerators with hard eyes and grim faces, but they managed to be menacing and subservient at the same time. Longtime made men, Lorenzo knew, always looked dangerous but always knew their place. Ambitions would get them killed just as surely as weakness would.

The door swung open and Lorenzo stepped into a glass palace. At least it seemed that way. The far wall was lined with glass shelves displaying a variety of statuettes and expensive crystal. Mirror panels covered the wall on his right, visually doubling the size of the already enormous room. His host, Anthony Lacata was wearing a dressing gown, just like Capone used to. He sat on the sofa to Lorenzo's left, beneath a huge cityscape and behind a glass coffee table. Lorenzo never expected to be standing in Lacata's uptown luxury apartment, maybe five miles north of the Fulton Street fish markets and two hundred feet above the streets where Lorenzo worked for Lacata.

“They tell me you're a real Lucania, come down from Lucky, still using the original family name,” Lacata said, puffing on a cigar you could take batting practice with. “That true?”

“That's what they tell me,” Lorenzo said, still standing. “But Grandpa Charlie casts a long shadow. I'd just as soon
not be under it.”

“Yeah, well, you cast a long shadow yourself, junior,” Lacata said, opening the glass doors of his liquor cabinet. “I been watching you from a distance, and I think you might be the man I'm looking for. Scotch?”

“Bourbon.”

Lorenzo's nose wrinkled at the sweet smell of Cuban tobacco, but he knew he had to keep his eyes from blinking. The two thugs moved a step away from him, as if to distance themselves from a possible target. Lacata looked over his shoulder, a bottle of twenty-one year old Glenlivet Archive in his hand.

“I'm a Scotch man myself,” Lacata said around his cigar.

“I like bourbon.”

For the first time Lorenzo heard the soft jazz sounds in the background. He tuned in on the barely perceptible music while Lacata poured himself a double shot. Then Lacata returned to the leather sofa. His eyes locked on Lorenzo's eyes. Neither man blinked for a minute. Then Lacata smiled, made a small chuckling sound, and nodded toward the liquor cabinet. Lorenzo nodded, walked to the cabinet, and looked around inside. His eyes settled on a twelve-year-old bottle of Wild Turkey Gold Label. Not the best ever made, but quite fine enough for the occasion. He poured a couple of fingers into a glass, turned, and moved closer to the sofa. Still standing, he looked a question at Lacata.

“See, that's what I like,” Lacata said in the tone of an instructor. “Patient, respectful, yet you know what you want. There's no bullshit about you. You're the real deal Lucania. Your granddad would be proud.”

Lorenzo smiled, nodded, and poured a third of his bourbon down his throat. It was incredibly smooth and smoky, and he smiled bigger as the liquor curled up like a warm pet in his stomach.

“I like the way you're handling the rackets in the Lower East Side,” Lacata said. “I'm looking for a new man to
handle protection and the union rackets citywide. Got to be somebody I'm, you know, copacetic with. You know? The last guy, he wasn't doing too good. Had to let him go.”