Rizzo’s Fire (2 page)

“You’ll miss the job, Joe. You just won’t admit it.”

“Yeah, I guess. But it sure has changed. Twenty-seven years ago, you told me I’d have a black female partner in the Six-Two, I’da told you, ‘no way.’ And here we are.”

“Not to mention a
gay
black female,” Priscilla said, her eyes twinkling.

“Oh, we always had gays, Cil,” Rizzo replied. “Not open, maybe, but we always had them. Women
and
men.”

Priscilla nodded. “Damn right,” she said.

“But the job’s changed in bad ways, too. It used to be like a family. One big family. Now . . . well, maybe we got a few too many half-retarded cousins wanderin’ around at the holiday meals. You know what I mean?”

Priscilla reached out and patted his shoulder. “Yeah, Grandpa. The good old days. I got it. Now let’s go sign in. And I’m feeling a little hungry. Do detectives start the day tour with breakfast, or is that just uniforms?”

“Cil, we start
every
tour with breakfast. C’mon, I’ll introduce you to the boss, then we’ll get going.”

RIZZO SIPPED
at his coffee, rereading the blurry copy of the precinct fax he held. The two detectives were seated at a rear booth of Rizzo’s favorite diner awaiting their meals.

“Son-of-a-fuckin’-bitch,” he mumbled.

Priscilla looked at him over the rim of her mug. “Damn, Joe, readin’ it over and over ain’t going to change what it says.”

Rizzo compressed his lips. The fax had come from Personnel Headquarters at Police Plaza, addressed to all members of the force and distributed to all precincts in the city. The police recruitment civil ser vice exam scheduled for early November would result in expedited hiring. Due to an unusually large number of impending retirements, anyone successfully completing the exam could reasonably expect to be hired within six to nine months as opposed to the usual fifteen- to twenty-four-month window.

“This is exactly what I didn’t need,” Rizzo said. “My youngest daughter is taking this friggin’ test. In six months, she’ll have enough college credits to get appointed. I was figurin’ on a hell of a lot more time to talk her out of it. This jams me up real good. My wife is gonna freak on this.”

They sat silently as the waitress delivered their meals. When she left, Priscilla spoke.

“Don’t you have three girls?” she asked.

Rizzo nodded. “Yeah, Carol’s the baby. She’s almost twenty, a sophomore at Stony Brook. Marie is my oldest, she’s twenty-four. She’s in med school upstate. Jessica is twenty-one. She graduates from Hunter College in June.”

Priscilla buttered her toast and winced. “What a tuition nut to crack,” she said.

“I can’t even dent it, let alone crack it. Everybody is borrowed to the balls.”

“Well,” Priscilla said, “you gotta figure one of them for the job, Joe. They’re all a cop’s kid.”

Rizzo shook his head. “Bullshit. I told you, the job’s changed too much. For the worse. These kids, all starry-eyed, gonna save the world. Ends bad for most of them. You know that.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is,” she said. “You make it work for you if you got the balls.”

Rizzo leaned forward and spoke softly. “Let’s just drop it, okay? This ain’t your problem.”

Priscilla smiled. “What ever you say, boss. My lips are sealed.”

They made small talk as they ate, discussing their individual relationships with Mike McQueen, who had partnered with both of them at different times, and what Priscilla might expect in Brooklyn.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” Rizzo said with a smile, “this ain’t exactly that Upper East Side silk stocking house where you worked uniform.”

“I noticed that as soon as I pulled my bike offa the Belt Parkway and hit the streets. Now,” she continued, taking a last sip of coffee and patting her lips dry with a paper napkin, “let’s go do what we’re supposed to be doin’: cruising the precinct, getting the lay of the land. I’m anxious to start raisin’ those stats of yours, Mr. Legend.”

Priscilla stood, stretching out her back muscles. “Let’s go,” she said again.

They left the diner, pausing outside for Rizzo to have a quick cigarette. Priscilla had made it clear: no smoking in the car.

“I don’t want you stinkin’ me up with that crap you smoke,” she told Rizzo.

Rizzo had her take the wheel. As she started the Impala, he reached under the front seat, pulling out a bottle of green mint Listerine. Priscilla watched as he raised the bottle to his lips, swishing the liquid around in his mouth, then opening the door slightly and spitting into the gutter. When he was done, he replaced the bottle, then shifted in his seat and pulled on his shoulder harness. Feeling Priscilla’s eyes on him, Rizzo turned to face her. Seeing her expression, he frowned.

“What?” he asked.

“What? You asking
me
what? What the fuck did I just see? You got a date, Joe?”

He shook his head. “No. Jen thinks I quit. If I gargle after every couple a smokes, my breath won’t smell when I get home to night. That’s all.”

Priscilla shook her head and glanced into the mirrors, easing the car from the curb. “Damn, Joe. Cops ridin’ this car next shift find that bottle under the seat, they’re gonna figure I’m givin’ up some head for that shield you got me. Don’t leave that shit there. Please.”

He chuckled. “It’s been awhile since I worked with a dame,” he answered with a smile. “I forgot how all of you think.”

“Besides,” Priscilla said, “Jen isn’t stupid. You come home all minty-breath, your clothes smelling like horse shit, she probably knows exactly what’s going on.”

“You could be right,” he said with a shrug.

They spent the next two hours cruising the varied areas of the Sixty-second Precinct, from the bustling, thriving commercial strips of Eighteenth and Thirteenth Avenues, Eighty-sixth Street and Bay Parkway, to the nestled residential blocks, tree-lined and glistening under the October sunshine. Rizzo pointed out the trouble-spot bars and social clubs, the after-hours mob joints and the junkie haunts. Beneath the elevated tracks on New Utrecht Avenue, he pointed to a grimy, antiquated storefront, its plate-glass windows opaque with green paint.

“The Blackball Poolroom,” he said. “It’s nineteen fifty-eight inside there, Cil. Totally.”

He showed her sprawling Dyker Park, with its adjacent golf course, and pointed out the bocce, basketball, and tennis courts. There multiple generations of neighborhood residents played their distinct games with equal intensity. As they cruised slowly along Nineteenth Avenue on their way back to the precinct, Priscilla slowed the car for a red light. Rizzo reached across and lightly touched her arm. When she turned to face him, he pointed diagonally across the intersection.

“Take a good look at that guy and remember him. The tall kid wearing the Giants cap and black coat. That there’s Joey DeMarco, seventeen years old, future serial killer. About once or twice a year the house gets a call. This guy lures stray cats with food. Then he douses ’em with lighter fluid and sets them on fire. They run like hell, squealing like banshees. Usually they die in midstride. Time the uniforms get there, the thing is stiff and charred like charcoal. God only knows how many times he’s done it and never got caught. He’s a real sadistic little prick. So far he hasn’t grabbed some kid or old lady to kill, but mark my words, it’s coming.”

Priscilla glanced up as the light turned green, and she eased the car forward.

“Why’s he still out free, roamin’ with the citizens?” she asked.

Rizzo shrugged. “Why you think? Every time they lock him up, he gets psyched over to Kings County Hospital G Building. The geniuses over there drug him and squeeze Medicaid, or insurance or what ever, dry for thirty days. Then they pronounce him
cured,
and he walks. The charges get dismissed, and Joey starts savin’ his nickels to buy some more Ronson. And, of course, Mommy and Daddy are no help: they know it’s just our cruel society victimizing their little shit.”

Priscilla studied DeMarco as they drove past him. “Duly noted,” she said.

Rizzo fumbled through his jacket pocket and produced a packet of Nicorette. “See, that’s what I mean,” he said as he began to wrestle with the packaging. “How the job’s changed. Years ago, a kid like that, if he torched a cat, a sector car would grab him and break his fuckin’ arm. After that, he’d either knock it off or go do it somewheres out of the precinct. But not anymore. Those days are gone.”

Priscilla smiled. “There
is
something to be said for the old-fashioned corrective interview, that’s for sure,” she said.

“Damn right,” he mumbled, at last freeing the gum and popping it into his mouth.

“Joe,” Priscilla said gently, “I never smoked a day in my life, but even I know you got to either chew the gum or smoke the weed. You can’t do both. That nicotine is poison, brother. They spray it on crops to kill insects.”

Rizzo chewed slowly. “Well,” he said with a small smile. “Fuck it. Something’s gotta kill ya. Might as well be chewin’ gum.”

CHAPTER TWO

THAT EVENING, PRISCILLA JACKSON GAZED
across the table into the happy, animated face of Karen Krauss. Karen raised her glass of Chardonnay.

“To your promotion,” she said. “We never really celebrated. Let’s do it now.”

Priscilla reached out, clinking her vodka gently to Karen’s glass of wine.

“As my new partner would say,” Priscilla said, “
salud
.”

The restaurant, on Third Avenue in Manhattan, stood just two blocks from their newly rented brownstone apartment on East Thirty-ninth Street. Its main room was softly illuminated beneath a deco style ceiling, a massive oval wooden bar dominating the center of the dining area. Discreet servers hurried to and fro as the restaurant began to fill. It was the start of the long Columbus Day weekend.

Priscilla looked around. “Nice place,” she said. “How are the prices?”

“Not bad, considering the location and style. Not to mention the food, which is terrific.”

Priscilla sipped at her drink. “Sounds good,” she said. “We should make it an early night, though. I’m off till Monday. Tomorrow we can pick up paint and rollers and stuff and get started painting the apartment. Hell, it’s only four small rooms; by Sunday night we can have it mostly done.”

Karen’s smile broadened. “Well, we’ll have to talk about that. But first, tell me about your day. How’d it go? Anything exciting?”

“Yeah,” Priscilla said. “Lots. I took a tour of the precinct, met the squad boss. They call the guy ‘The Swede,’ and believe me, he’s even whiter than you are. Then I got hit on by some asshole lover-boy first grade named Rossi. Had to straighten him out. Word should get around the house pretty fast that I’m one of
those
.”

Karen chuckled. “You know, Cil, there is something to be said for subtlety.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe at your law firm, with all the good little boys from Hah-vaard. But not at the Six-Two. I got the message across the way I had to. Like a brick through a plate-glass window.”

Karen beckoned for a server. “Let’s order,” she said. “I’m starved.”

When the waiter had left them, Priscilla continued. “The rest of the tour, Joe and I went over his caseload. He brought me up to speed. On Monday, in Bensonhurst, most people will be off from work. They take Columbus Day very seriously there. He says it’ll be a good day to work the cases.”

As they ate their first course of soup, Priscilla asked, “So what’s up? You said we have to talk about the painting.”

Karen’s face brightened. “Well, I had lunch with my mom today. She’s arranged for her decorator to come by our place tomorrow. He’ll bounce some ideas off us and then he’ll arrange everything: painting, papering, carpets, tile—whatever. And it’s all on Mom and Dad. A gift to celebrate our moving in together.”

Priscilla paused mid-motion, lowering her spoon into the cup before her. “Are you kidding?” she said, her voice flat. “We’ve talked about this. I may not be in the Krauss family income bracket, but I’m not a freakin’ beggar.”

Karen frowned. “It isn’t charity, it’s a gift, a gesture, from two very supportive and caring people. They think of you like a daughter, Cil, they love you. You know how it is for people in the life, not to mention interracial. Name someone you know with folks as cool as mine.”

Priscilla sat back in her chair, sipping her vodka. She thought of her own mother, a troubled, alcoholic wreck of a woman who, upon learning her youngest daughter was gay, had nearly assaulted and then banished Priscilla from her life. They had not seen or spoken to one another since.

She smiled sadly and raised her hands, palms outward. “Okay,” she said. “They are righteous. Who knows? Since they’re cool with the gay thing, and cool with the black thing, maybe your mother can even get cool with the cop thing.”

Karen reached for her wineglass. “And the decorator?” she asked.

Priscilla sighed. “Okay. We’ll listen to what the little fag has to say.”

Karen smiled and sipped her wine. “Good. That’s settled.” She leaned back over the table and added, “And don’t say ‘fag.’ ”

ON MONDAY
afternoon, Columbus Day, traffic heading into Brooklyn was light. Priscilla arrived at the Six-Two twenty minutes early to start the night tour with Rizzo. She signed in, nodded greetings to the half dozen faces she recognized from Friday’s introductions, then sat at her gunmetal gray desk in the corner of the squad room and began to fill out the Precinct Personnel Profile form required of all new transfers. While she carefully listed Karen’s cell and work numbers under the emergency notification section, a shadow fell across the desk’s surface. She raised her eyes to see Rizzo standing there smiling at her, a paper coffee cup in each hand.

“One sugar, splash of milk, right?” he asked.

Priscilla returned the smile and took the offered container. “Yeah, Joe, exactly. Mike never told me you were a mind reader.”

“No mind reader. I saw you mix it at breakfast Friday, that’s all.”

“Well, thanks.”

Rizzo sat on the corner of her desk, sipping his coffee. “Speaking of Mike, this here is his old desk. Probably still smells like that fancy cologne he used.”