Barracuda (2 page)

These new personality anomalies made Micko
question his courage and ability to protect the public, himself—and
his partner. The depression increased his doubts, and the doubts,
in turn, increased his depression. It was an overwhelming cycle of
spiraling despair, torturing him into a web of insecurity. He was
not a coward, but he had uncontrollable fears.

As Micko applied some shaving cream, he barely
recognized the face in the mirror.
Good God!
he thought.
I’ve aged a dozen years since the shooting.

Nine months earlier, he was a 40 year old,
strapping, tough Bronx homicide detective with the NYPD. To him,
every murder was personal until he placed the handcuffs on the
perpetrators. He undertook his investigations with a bulldog
tenacity that won raves from his peers, and he was fearless in his
apprehensions of armed felons, winning numerous departmental awards
and community citations.

Now he was a bit on the fragile side in
appearance. His inability to exercise had caused his sharp muscle
tone to deteriorate. He still had rugged good looks to compliment
his boyish charm, but much of the glimmer in his eye and swagger in
his step was missing. He hobbled around with a weathered brown
wooden cane, and his hazel eyes wore dark circles beneath them that
had not existed before his injury.

As he stared at himself in the mirror, he was
pleased, however, to see that he still had a full head of brown
hair that hadn’t thinned or turned white.

“Well, enough of this Dorian Gray nonsense,” he
mused. “I better not be late for the doc.”

He shaved and dressed without incident, except
for struggling to get his trousers on. He still had difficulty
bending his right knee, so he had to sit while getting into his
pants. After one final glance in the mirror, he was satisfied that
he looked very snappy in his best pinstripe suit, white shirt, and
powder blue tie. Even though this was just a visit to the doctor,
he would still hobble in and look like the consummate professional
that he was.

The aromatic smell of fresh coffee made the
detective happy that he used an automatic coffee blender. He poured
himself a hot cup and walked out onto the porch with Mr.
McGillicuddy close behind. He sat in a brown wicker chair that
matched his small round glass table. He watched as the neat cat
dutifully cleaned himself while sitting in the other wicker
chair.

A million thoughts raced through Micko’s mind as
he sipped from his Honor Legion coffee mug. He had been inducted
into the prestigious legion many years earlier. This select club
boasted members from all religious denominations and races without
prejudice, while other organizations required a police officer to
be of a certain religion or ethnic group. But the Honor Legion’s
only exclusivity was that its members had to have been awarded a
commendation for a heroic act.

Micko looked deep into the black coffee in this
symbolic mug and wondered if he would ever feel heroic again. At
the moment, he just felt like a walking wounded soldier of
misfortune.

Still, he didn’t feel overly depressed that
morning. He liked both his G.P. and the psychiatrist. They were
very patient with his angry outbursts and mood swings. Sometimes he
was mad at the entire world, while other times he was a charmer who
could talk the ears off a jackrabbit.

Finishing his coffee, Micko placed his wallet in
his right rear pants pocket and his shield in his left rear. He
placed his keys in his right front pocket and his lucky
9-11-01
coin in his front left pants pocket. He wore a
sub-nosed .38 holstered on his right hip. Taking one last look
around, he triple-locked the door to his tidy bachelor apartment.
He had moved into this cozy apartment after his second divorce. As
was common with police officers, he had been divorced after his
wife couldn’t put up with the irregular hours, the double shifts on
holidays, and of course, the dangerous duties. Now he had to admit
he was relieved to be single. Returning to work after being shot
could test the patience of a wife possessing saintly qualities.

Being shot or stabbed were not the only dangers
of police work. Officers were known to have one of the highest
suicide rates, as well as divorce, alcoholism, gambling addictions,
and severe stress disorders. Micko was rapidly becoming a statistic
in several categories.

He limped to his car, and decided that, starting
that day, he would walk without the cane. He loved his midnight
black 1984 Firebird. There was something special about the retro
muscle cars that made him feel like a teenager again. Whenever the
stress of dealing with dead bodies and live scum got under his
skin, Micko would rev up the engine, snap off the T-tops, and pop
in a doo-wop tape. Mario Andretti would have been proud of the way
he raced around the mean city streets with the wind in his hair and
no cares in the world.

What
is it that made grown men regress when they played songs from the
early days of rock and roll?
he wondered as he cranked the
volume on a Del Vikings tape. The uplifting song “Whispering Bells”
blared as he raced out of the driveway en route to his appointment
with Dr. Bellamy, the Bronx police surgeon, and Dr. Gladys
Goldberg, the police-appointed psychiatrist.

He had been out sick ever since the shooting and
had monthly appointments to see both the department medical doctor
and the department shrink. This was standard operating procedure.
Bellamy monitored the healing progress of the leg injury, while
Goldberg monitored mental status after the shooting event.

Most officers were placed on desk duty for
several months while the shrink screened them for any unusual
stress-related behavioral changes. The NYPD could not allow a bunch
of Quick-draw McGraws to roam the streets with guns and badges.
Some officers tried to milk extra time off for an injury, but
Bellamy kept them honest, returning them either to full or light
duty depending on the status of their injuries.

Luckily for Micko, he lived close by and the
drive was short. It was a sunny morning, yet too cold to drive with
the T-tops off. The guttural growl of the Firebird’s eight-cylinder
engine mixing with the soothing tunes always relaxed the tense
detective.

The medical department was on the second floor
of a North Bronx precinct. The building was typical of the Bronx
station houses, most of which were almost one hundred years old.
The city of New York slowly built newer buildings to replace the
older ones, but many remained open with landmark distinction.

This particular building was a three-story red
brick monstrosity located in a heavily populated area. It looked
like a residence stuck in a bustling business area. There were no
parking spaces available, so Micko had to leave his Firebird in a
McDonald’s parking lot.

The first floor of the building was a typical
Bronx precinct. A pair of green lights adorned the outer doors,
indicating that the doors were always open. Inside there was always
a plethora of activity—mothers screaming about missing children,
men complaining that their cars had been towed, crossing guards
awaiting their work assignments, cops coming and going with
prisoners who cursed them, and the never-ending chatter from police
radios. The interior of a Bronx station house was always like an
asylum.

In the center of the huge room stood the ancient
sergeant’s desk. All people had to state their business to the desk
sergeant, who stood high above the complainants behind his holy
desk. If he found someone’s complaint to be trivial in nature, he
would look down upon that person with disdain and growl his
displeasure at having his valuable time wasted. If the good
sergeant took an interest in someone’s complaint, he would direct
him or her to someone who actually gave a shit. A desk sergeant was
like a god, so it was not a good idea to incur the surly man’s
wrath.

Micko said hello to several police officers as
he entered the bustling building. He knew most of the Bronx cops,
but they
all
knew him. His shooting was part of a high
profile case, so it had received plenty of publicity.

“Hey, Micko. How’s it going?”

Micko turned to see his partner Gus Lopez
walking with a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other.
They had met as rookies, and it was Gus who had given him his
nickname. Gus was a middle-aged man of average height and
proportional weight. Being of Puerto Rican descent, he spoke
Spanish very well, which was more than helpful since they were
working in the South Bronx. Gus had premature white hair and a
well-trimmed white beard, giving him an uncanny resemblance to the
country singer Kenny Rogers. Latin girls loved his mature “Q-tip”
look.

“What are you doing here?” Micko asked.

“The fiftieth precinct had a double homicide
last night, and they requested my help,” Gus replied.

Only Micko’s best friends called him “Micko,”
and Gus was more than a close friend. The two men were more like
brothers. Gus and Micko shared some small talk until Micko said,
“Gus, I gotta go. I don’t want to be late. Call me later and let me
know how the investigation is going, and I’ll let you know what the
doctors said.”

“Tell him to just cut it off so we can use it as
a doorstop,” Gus said with a laugh. “You don’t use it much anyway,
you lazy Irish bullox.”

“I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about
the shrink,” Micko returned. “She might put me in a straitjacket
and send me off to the Bronx State Mental Hospital.”

Micko took the elevator to the second floor and
signed in at the reception desk. The second floor of the station
house was peppered with numerous offices. The detective squad and
the medical section used most of them.

“Have a seat over there,” a large, ancient
sergeant growled.

Micko took a seat and silently laughed at the
old time sergeant stuffed into his little cubicle.
I wonder who
he pissed off to pull this shit assignment
, he thought. The
sergeant’s nametag read Callahan, and he was easily thirty pounds
overweight. Callahan was dressed sloppily, and his uniform shirt
bore the remains of his last dozen meals. He had an unusually large
head with cauliflower ears, making him look like an aged boxer just
waiting until his pension and Social Security kicked in.

The clock on the wall read 07:48 hours, so Micko
knew he was on time. The waiting room was large, but each office
was rather small—an impression not helped by walls painted
battleship gray and the fact that each office was stocked with
metal military surplus desks. Various help intervention posters
were taped to the walls, including alcohol recovery, Gambler’s
Anonymous, drug rehabilitation, gay pride, anger management,
domestic abuse prevention, and psychiatric counseling. Micko began
to wonder if he was a member of the NYPD or a resident of Sodom and
Gomorrah.

He sat in a little plastic chair that appeared
to be made for schoolchildren, but he didn’t want to stand lest he
incur the wrath of Sergeant Cauliflower Ears.
God, this place is
so depressing
, he thought.

Then he chuckled to himself as he looked at his
choice of available reading material. Besides the intervention
stuff, there were pamphlets on how to save your soul and get back
to church. The sports magazines were comically outdated, as were
the business and news magazines.

As he flipped aimlessly through a very old
Reader’s Digest
, his mind wondered back to the events that
had led up to this point in his life.
What track am I on and how
will all this affect my career?
he wondered.

Mick O’Shaughnessy had been born and raised in
the Bronx, the oldest of three siblings. His family lived in a nice
tenement in the projects, and he attended the local parish’s
Catholic schools. He was athletic and popular all throughout
school. All these years later, he still maintained close
relationships with dozens of his childhood buddies.

Although he had been a star athlete, he had been
a rather poor student. In high school, Micko had been called into
Brother Kevin’s office, the school’s guidance counselor. It was
time for him to interview each student about college and career
choices.

At that point, Micko had recently become a huge
fan of Jacques Cousteau and the wonders of the unexplored
underwater world, so when his guidance counselor asked, “Well,
Michael, what do you want to do when you graduate?” he answered,
“I’d like to be an oceanographer.”

In addition to being a humorless man who would
have made a great desk sergeant, Brother Kevin was built like a
linebacker. From his chair, Micko was knocked to the ground by a
wicked backhand. Brother Kevin then used the same hand to right the
boy and his chair. “Michael, you have a seventy-two percent grade
average. You aren’t even college material, so how can you be an
oceanographer? An oceanographer must have a degree in marine
biology and marine engineering.”

Before the stunned youth could reply, Brother
Kevin added, “Do yourself a favor and forego any attempt at
college. Apply for a job with the utility companies and take all of
the civil service exams.”

Micko discussed this scenario with his family,
who agreed with Brother Kevin. So he applied for work with the
local gas and electric company, as well as the local telephone
company. He also took the police, fire, and sanitation tests. Upon
graduation the following year, Micko was hired by Ma Bell and also
placed on the police hiring list. After swinging on telephone poles
for five years, he was finally called to enter the NYPD Police
Academy.

Four months later, he was walking a beat in the
hustling business area of the South Bronx. Micko had finally found
his niche in life. He’d been a clumsy telephone repairman, who
often caused more damage than he fixed. As a police officer,
though, he was following a longstanding family tradition. His
father and grandfather were both retired policemen, so they were
very proud of him. Micko was determined to work hard for the
coveted gold detective shield. He knew that he didn’t have the book
smarts to pass the sergeant’s test, but he was street smart and
fearless, and he knew that someday he would be a homicide
detective.