Ed Lacy - The Men From the Boys

I shook my head. “It'll be cancer.”

“Oh for—How do you know? I...”

“Hell, I just know!”

“You're spouting sheer nonsense. Wait till you hear what the specialist tells you tomorrow before starting the dramatics and self-pity. Not like you, I always thought you were too tough for fear.” Art smiled. “That's hot air I'm handing you, Marty. I don't blame you for being frightened, but if I don't know what it is, you certainly don't. Let me know what the specialist tells you tomorrow.”

“As if he won't call you. Art, if it should be cancer, how much time ...?”

“I refuse to answer that, even think of it.”

“I once knew a guy that had it, right in the gut too. Lay in bed for over three months before he finally kicked off, looked like a goddam skeleton.”

“Marty, let me give it to you straight. If it is cancer you may die. I said if and may. Not every cancer patient dies, most of them live. As for dying, you know the old bromide— a car may splatter your brains all over the street the second you leave this office.”

“Hell, that's quick.”

Art came around the desk, slapped me on the shoulder. “Marty, you make me ashamed of myself for being such a bad doctor, scaring a patient. Wouldn't have told you except I thought you were such a tough bastard. I don't have the knowledge or equipment to diagnose this, so if it turns out to be a gas pocket, something as silly as that, don't try to whip my head. Now, here's the specialist's name and address. Be on time and be ready to shell out about fifty bucks. Need any money?”

I got up. “No. What do I owe you?”

“I enjoyed your company.”

I dropped a five spot on his desk. “This do it?”

“I told you...”

I shoved his hand away. “I've heard that north wind before. So long, Art.”

“Marty, let's have supper together. I never see you except when you're sick. How about making it for Friday...?”

“Sure. I'll call you.”

I walked out, passed by the receptionist, and the lousy taste was strong in my mouth. The taste of death, the greasy crummy taste of death. I stood on the sidewalk for a few minutes trying to swallow, clear my mouth. The sun was making me sweat. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to talk to somebody, go home. But home was a flea-bag hotel room.

I had a sudden desire to see Flo, to be with her in the flashy four-room apartment we used to have, the little bar and bar stools like in the movies. There was the bedroom with Flo's dolls....

Dolls made me snap out of it. I had no time for dolls or for much of anything else. I walked to a corner drugstore, bought some mints and drank two glasses of orangeade that I damn near threw up.

I took a cab down to Hamilton Square. Bill Ash had been my boon buddy for a lot of years. He was a good listener, a guy with a level brain. I crossed the Square and headed toward the station house. Bill and I had been attached to a precinct uptown for almost six years before we were sent... The white-haired lady with the red tin can came over to me. “Will you help fight...? Oh...” Her mechanical smile vanished and she turned away.

Grabbing her arm, I jerked her to me. “What's the matter? You see something on my face?”

“Why... mister... My God, you're hurting my arm!”

“Tell me what you see on my face?”

“See? Nothing. I don't see anything!” she said, hysteria loud in her voice. “I remembered that you contributed before, this morning. That's all.”

People were staring at us. I let go of her arm. “Excuse me. I was... uh... thinking of something else. Here.” I dumped a handful of change in the can.

“Thank you so much.” She recovered herself, clumsily tried to pin one of the red buttons on my lapel.

I shoved her hand away. “I already got my badge, the real one.”

Walking toward the precinct house I told myself I had to watch it, I damn near hurt the woman. And tomorrow, this smart-aleck specialist would probe and ask a lot of stupid questions. Hell, I never had no confidence in docs, except for Art.

As I walked up the steps of the police station, which looked like all New York City police buildings—older than God— I decided I wasn't going to see the specialist. What could he tell me? What point was there in being sliced open, letting them sample the lousy tumor? It always turns out you have it.

The desk man told me Bill was busy but phoned my name in. I stood by the desk and wiped my face, the humidity was as bad as yesterday. I put a couple of mints to work in my mouth and now I could almost see the taste, like I was chewing something misty and black.

There was an air of excitement around the precinct. Nothing noticeable, not a lot of activity, but you could sense it. Every time a couple of guys passed the desk they'd be talking with each other in low voices. And there would be a sort of rush in their steps. I waited long enough to finish a mint, blotted the sweat on my face again, asked, “Is Ash alone?”

“I think so, but Lieutenant Ash is very busy and doesn't...”

I walked back toward the detention cells, past the “Post Condition" board, then up a flight of steps and pushed open Bill's door. He was sitting behind a stack of afternoon papers on his desk, a pair of scissors in his right hand. Although his office only had one small window and Bill was wearing a white-on-white shirt, a brown bow tie, and a double-breasted brown suit, he looked cool. Always a dapper joker, his thin hair was combed back over his almost bald noggin, and he had that youngish look to his puss, like he never had to shave. Except for putting on a little weight and losing a lot of hair, he hadn't changed much in all the years I'd known him.

Looking up from his newspapers, he said, “Hello, Marty. I didn't forget you, I'm busy.”

“I see that,” I said, sitting down in the other chair in his drab office. “You reduced to cutting out paper dolls?”

“You hear the news?”

“Yeah. I heard about all the news I can take for today.” I grinned at him. “So what's new?”

He shook his head slowly. “Marty, I'm in charge of the Detective Squad here. It don't look right for you to be busting in without...”

“If I hadn't busted into a lot of places when we were partners, you'd still be walking a beat now.”

“Maybe,” he said softly. And smugly, I thought, as if thinking, But I'm a lieutenant now and you're just a hotel dick in a fourth-rate dive. “But you know how it is, I have to... well... keep up a front of authority around here.” He waved his hands in the air, as if shoving something aside. “What I mean is, this is a police station, not an old-pals club.”

“Looks kind of clubby to me, Bill,” I said. “Way all these cops off duty wear sport shirts sticking outside their belts. I remember when you had to dress when going off duty.”

“The shirts are cool and they cover a hip holster. That's how the shirt idea started, down in Cuba. Always having revolutions and the lads wore these shirts over their hips to hide the guns they were sporting.”

“Sorry I never went to Cuba. They say the fishing is great down there.”

“What the hell we talking about Cuba for?” Bill jabbed a pile of newspapers with his scissors. “It's the damnedest thing, Bochio swore he'd get Cocky, said it a dozen times we know of, yet the sonofabitch has been in Miami for two weeks, locked in a hotel room with his lawyers. Break that alibi!”

“How's Marge and the girls?”

He put the scissors down and stared at me like I was nuts. “They're fine, except Selma has a virus. Look, Marty ...”

“I remember Selma, she's the youngest. Had blond hair, didn't...?”

“Look, Marty, I'm busy—busy on a murder, so if all you dropped in for was to ask about Marge and the kids, okay, I'll tell them you asked. Now, let me work. Whole damn force is upside down on this one.”

“Which one?” I asked, considering making a crack about Bill's pay-off—maybe he thought I came with dough. But he was very touchy about it, blew up if I even talked about it.

Bill sighed. “Wish I was like you, could just ask 'Which one?' Thought you said you heard the news? They found Cocky Anderson's body up in the Bronx this morning, with a .38 slug through his left ear. You know what that means?”

“What?” I asked as if I cared.

“When Bochio first started out as a strong-arm punk, he ran with a gang that used a slug through the left ear as their trademark for people who knew too much. Also, it's an open secret that old Albert swore he'd get Cocky after the jerk made a pass at Bochio's daughter—tried to rape her is the way I heard it. Should be an open-and-shut case, only nothing shuts, nothing even moves. Damn, a tough one has to break in a hot spell like this—I was set to drive the kids up to Orchard Beach this afternoon for a swim.”

“If he was killed in the Bronx, where do you come in down here?”

“Your brains die when you buried yourself in that hotel? Marty, you know Cocky Anderson had 'interests' on the docks here. For the love of tears, I have every man I can get my hands on out snooping, canceled all vacations.”

“Bochio ain't no hood, and anyway he's been in Miami as you said. Ask me, he's out of the picture. Even that daughter angle is bunk. Cocky was getting too big for the syndicate and they took him out. But the hell with that. I didn't come to talk about rats and punks.”

“Just what did you come about, Marty?”

“Oh... nothing special. Just dropped in to talk.”

“About what?”

“What do you mean, about what? Bill, you're the oldest friend I got. Can't a guy drop in to chat with a buddy?”

“Marty, are you sick?”

“Why? Do I look sick?” I asked, and couldn't stop my voice from shaking.

Bill stood up. Except for the little pot belly he was as lean and wiry as ever. “Marty, I don't like to give you a short answer, but I'm up to my eyeballs in work and you breeze in and talk about Cuba, then about the wife and girls, and then you just want to talk. Damnit, Marty, the pressure is on me, real pressure. Some other time we'll talk about old times.”

“All right, Bill,” I said getting up. “I didn't know you were so busy. Matter of fact I did drop in to talk about Lawrence. He wants to be a cop and I don't want him to have a bad time of it because of me.”

Bill sort of groaned and sat down again. “Don't talk to me about these auxiliary cops. They're driving us nuts.”

“Why?”

“Look, if you ask me this is all a lot of crap—if they think New York City might be bombed, then build air-raid shelters, real shelters. In a real bombing what the hell good will a batch of jokers in white helmets do, or all these drills and the rest of it? Ask me, it's just to keep the people on edge. But nobody asks me. The point is some boneheads downtown made a mistake assigning these tin cops here. This is a water-front section. They belong uptown where things are quiet. Don't worry, they won't be here long.”

“I thought they had their own setup?”

“They do, up to a point. They got some stuffed do-gooder that's a major or some damn thing in charge of them here, and he's such a strutting jerk, somebody is due to clip him. Most of them are crackpots anyway.”

“Lawrence is a bit cop-happy, but otherwise he's a serious kid.”

“Marty, I'm not saying they're all jerks, but you know what happens when you get volunteers. Everything is tossed in, including the bottom of the barrel. For every sincere kid like Lawrence, you get a dozen uniform-happy characters who are only looking for a chance to get away from their wives, walk around looking important.”