Authors: Scott Flander
Donna was lying face up on the ground, motionless, blood coming from somewhere in the back of her head. Goop was standing there with her gun in his hand, and he looked at Buster, who was just staring down at Donna, paralyzed.
“I ain’t never killed a cop before,” Goop said. He seemed proud of himself. And then he aimed the gun at Buster’s head.
I had my own gun out now and I raised it and ran toward Goop, firing. BLAM, my first shot knocked him back, but he still stood there. BLAM, he jerked again and looked at me. BLAM, now he was falling backward, his eyes closing, the gun dropping from his hand.
I turned toward Donna. Buster was kneeling down at her side, shaking her and calling her name, like he was trying to wake her up. Her eyes were open in a vacant stare. The crowd was still moving back, and I could hear people saying, “It’s a lady cop, they got a lady cop.”
Police cars were screaming up to the fringes of the crowd, and guys were jumping out. The cavalry was coming to the rescue, but it was just a little too fucking late. There was something warm on my face, I put my hands up, it was the blood, I had forgotten it.
I put my gun back in my holster and took a few steps toward the crowd. They backed up a little. Maybe it was the blood on my face, maybe it was the fury in my eyes, they didn’t know what to make of me, they didn’t know what to expect.
“Is this what you fucking wanted?” I yelled at them. “Is this what you fucking wanted, a cop dead?”
No one answered. They just stared at the two bodies.
I kept yelling. “You take the law into your own hands, this is what fucking happens. You wanted blood, you got your fucking blood.”
Homicide’s tough-dude mask was gone.
“I told you that wasn’t a real cop,” I shouted. “And you didn’t fucking believe me.”
I was yelling so loud I could feel myself getting hoarse. “I hope you all are happy. I really hope you all are so fucking happy you’re going to go home and laugh about how you fucking killed a cop.”
“Hey, man,” Homicide said. “We didn’t mean for it to be no lady cop.”
“Well, that’s too fucking bad, isn’t it?”
My foot hit an empty Diet Pepsi bottle, and I picked it up and threw it at the crowd. They parted, and watched as the bottle hit the pavement and shattered. I picked up a half brick and heaved it, and again the crowd parted, and it hit the street and bounced away harmlessly. More cops were pulling up, they didn’t know what the hell was going on. Buster was still kneeling next to Donna, touching her hair softly, like she was just sleeping.
The street was littered with chunks of brick from the night before, and I picked up another one and threw it at the crowd, and then another, and another. They didn’t move back, they just got out of the way. No one in the crowd protested, they didn’t fight back. My eyes were stinging from the blood, and I wiped it away with my arm.
Yvonne was at my side. “C’mon, Sarge,” she said.
I pushed her away and found another brick, but now Yvonne and Marisol and Mutt were stepping in front of me, surrounding me, trying to move me away from the crowd.
And then I remembered Michelle. Pictures started coming up in my mind, of her being beaten, her clothes being stripped off, someone putting a pistol to the back of her head. I was frozen with guilt for forgetting about her. How could I have forgotten her?
I told Mutt to give me his mike, and he unclipped it from his shoulder and handed it to me. How much should I say over the air? I gave a description of the Seville, and said it was wanted for a kidnapping. I didn’t say who was kidnapped.
I gave the mike back to Mutt, and started jogging toward my patrol car. The Seville had to be in Westmount, that’s where they had to be taking her. I ran around the corner, my car was blocked in by the police cars that had come in for the assist.
By now the street was filled with cops in riot gear. The police buses had arrived, and cops were pouring out of them in all directions. The crowd was melting away, disappearing. They had no stomach for this anymore.
I needed a car. I spotted Kirk’s Plymouth parked down the street, it wasn’t blocked in. I ran back to Locust, and found Kirk standing next to Donna’s body. Someone was covering it with a yellow plastic sheet.
“Captain,” I said, coming up to him. “I need your keys.”
“Where you goin'?”
I told him what had happened, about Goop and Donna, about the Seville taking Michelle away. He listened and then told me I couldn’t leave the scene. He wasn’t going to give me his keys.
“We got a dead cop here,” he said. “And you just killed someone. You can’t leave. You’re just going to have to let other people look for the Seville.”
An inspector came up, and Kirk turned to talk with him, and I just walked away. Fuck if I was going to stay, I’d walk to Westmount if I had to. I headed back again to the corner, maybe I could grab the car of someone coming in.
“Hey, Eddie,” I heard someone call. It was Nick, still in uniform, walking toward me. Where the hell did he suddenly come from?
“I thought you were going to my house, Nick.”
“I was, but I heard about Donna on my radio. And who got kidnapped?”
“Michelle. Bravelli came by here and just scooped her up.”
“Oh, man. Let me help you find her.”
“I don’t have time for this, Nick.” I started to walk away from him, then turned. “Wait, how’d you get here?”
“My Camaro.”
“Are you blocked in?”
“No, not at all.”
“Give me your keys.”
“Why?”
“Just give me your keys.”
“You gonna go find Michelle?”
“Nick, just give me your keys.”
“I’m goin’ with you. I’ll drive.”
“You’re not going with me, Nick.”
“I am, Eddie,” he said, and something came into his eyes, not the usual weakness, but a strength that surprised me. I knew he wouldn’t give me the keys. I had no choice.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
N
ick and I found the Seville ten minutes later a half block from Sagiliano’s. I pulled open the car’s back door and took a close look at the seat. No blood, no clumps of hair, no spilled items from a purse. Maybe Michelle was OK.
I looked around—they could have gone anywhere. After all, this was Bravelli’s turf. But the bar was right here. That’s where they had to be.
“You think they’re in Sagiliano’s?” Nick asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go with you.”
I wanted to say no, but how was I going to get rid of him? I stood there and looked at Sagiliano’s, trying to decide what to do. The door of the bar opened, and Michelle came out, alone.
“Michelle!” I called. She glanced over her shoulder, at the door to Sagiliano’s, then ran to meet us. “You OK?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He was going to kill me, Eddie, he really was.” She was shaking. “Can we get away from here?”
“Sure, sure,” I said, and the three of us walked quickly to the far end of the block. I kept my eye on Sagiliano’s front door, though. I wasn’t going to let Bravelli just walk out.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They grabbed me on Locust, they threw me in the car—Mickey kept yelling he was going to kill me, he was going to cut my throat, he was going to shoot me a hundred times, he couldn’t wait to do it. Then I got dragged into the bar, into a back room. Mickey sat me down at a table, and he just pointed his gun right at my head, Eddie.”
She broke off and took a deep breath.
“He said to me, ‘You were the one girl, Lisa, or whatever the fuck your name is. You were the one girl. I was going to marry you, you know that? Now I have to make you dead.’ I thought that was it, Eddie. I thought I was going to die right there.”
She shook her head. “Damn, I wish I still smoked. You got a cigarette?”
I shook my head. When she looked at Nick, he shook his, too.
“I had to figure out what to do,” she said. “So I asked Mickey, Why were you going to marry me? And he said he didn’t know, it was a stupid idea. So I told him I knew why.”
“What’d you say?”
Michelle looked at me. “You don’t want to hear this.” “Yes I do.”
“All right. I told him I was the only person who cared about the real Mickey Bravelli, the one nobody else knew. And I said whether I’ve been trying to find out about my brother, or whatever I’ve been doing, it didn’t make any difference. I was still the only person. And I told him he knew it.”
“What’d he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. But I just stood up, and I said, ‘I’m leaving now, Mickey.’ And I walked out. He was pointing the gun at me the whole time, I thought he was going to shoot me. I think
he
thought he was going to shoot me. But he didn’t. He just…”
She stopped short—the Commissioner was pulling up to the curb on the opposite side of the street in his black Blazer. He got out, and called to Michelle, “Are you OK, honey? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.”
Michelle glanced back at Sagiliano’s. “You going inside?”
“What do you think?”
She nodded. “Just be careful.” She stepped off the curb and headed across the empty street toward her father. They hugged and he said something to her, and as she walked around to the passenger side to get in, she gave me a quick wave goodbye. The Commissioner got behind the wheel and closed the door, and the Blazer pulled away. He hadn’t even acknowledged my existence.
I turned to Nick. He was looking at me expectantly—he was ready to go with me into Sagiliano’s. What was I going to do, handcuff him to a pole? It was strange, before Steve’s death, before things got so crazy, Nick was the one person I would have most wanted in a situation like this. He was the one person I knew who would never cut out on me.
I should have called for an assist, I knew that. I should have waited for an army of cops before going into Sagiliano’s. But I wasn’t going to wait. It really wasn’t a matter of wanting to or not wanting to, it wasn’t a matter of choice. There was a freight train coming down the tracks, and nothing was going to stop it.
Y
ou ready?” I asked Nick.
“You mean it?” He thought I was playing games with him, punishing him in some way.
“Yeah, I do. I need you.”
He smiled, immensely happy. He was almost glowing.
“I won’t let you down, Eddie. I promise.”
We drew our guns and walked up to Sagiliano’s front door. I looked at Nick. He nodded.
I pushed open the door and took four big steps in, my gun leveled, its barrel searching for Bravelli and Canaletto. There were six or seven men sitting at the bar, drinking their bottles of Bud and Miller. None of them were in Bravelli’s crew, they were just drunks, no threat to us. A couple of them glanced at us, but no one showed even a hint of surprise. You could tell they were getting ready to say they hadn’t seen nobody, and didn’t know nothin’ about nothin'. The bartender just pretended we weren’t there.
Nick looked at me with a half smile, like, Could they make it any more obvious?
The bartender lifted up the hinged counter to get out, but I was right there and I jerked it back down, giving him a look that said, You ain’t going nowhere, pal.
The booths in the back were empty. Nick silently pointed to an archway on the right side. Up a couple of steps was a closed wooden door. That must have been where Nick was taken to see Bravelli that night. As we moved toward the door, it opened, and Canaletto—not seeing us at first—started to walk out. But then he spotted us and his eyes got wide, and he jumped back into the room and slammed the door.
I pointed the gun at the bartender’s head. “How many people are in that room?” I asked.
“Two.” He didn’t even hesitate, he didn’t even try to be a tough guy.
I kept the gun aimed at his head. “Does that room have another exit?”
“No, this is the only way out.”
“Thank you,” I said, and lowered the gun, and then the door burst open and Canaletto and Bravelli sprung from it and slammed into us, sending us sprawling onto the barroom floor. What was this, a new mob tactic, did they teach it to everyone in mob school or something? They had guns out and I expected them to shoot us right there, but instead they both sprinted toward the back, into the hallway that led to the alley door.
As Nick and I were getting back on our feet, a metal barstool crashed down on the floor next to us. I looked at the bar, someone had actually thrown the stool across the room at us.
Then another one was coming through the air, and another, they were being launched like missiles, smashing into tables next to us. One barely missed Nick’s head, another bounced off a wall and hit my shoulder. This was worse than Locust Street. We followed the path Bravelli and Canaletto had taken—through the hallway to the back door, and then we were outside.
Not far to our left, the alley opened out onto the street. Maybe they had run that way. I motioned for Nick to stay where he was, and I ran over and looked up and down the sidewalk. Nothing. They might have already disappeared around a corner, but I didn’t think so—we weren’t that far behind them. Which meant they were still in the alley, hiding in one of the countless doorways or behind the clutter of Dumpsters and empty cardboard boxes.
Instead of rejoining Nick, I ran to the other side of the alley, so that I was directly across from him. It would give us a better angle.
A Blazer was passing by on the street, it was the Commissioner. Michelle wasn’t in the front seat anymore. The Commissioner saw us, saw us looking, and kept going. I couldn’t worry about him now.
I nodded to Nick—let’s do it. I would have liked some more help, but I didn’t have a radio. I looked at Nick’s belt—he didn’t have one, either.
“Nick, what happened to your radio?” I called in a low voice.
He thought for a moment. “I must have left it in my car. Should I go back and get it?”
“There’s no time,” I said. “Either we do this or we don’t.”
Nick gave me a confident smile. The old Nick. “We can do it,” he called.
I nodded, I felt the same way. And so we started silently working our way down the alley, holding our guns ahead of us.