Casino Moon

6

JUST AFTER TEN that night, Pigfucker walked into a bar called the Irish Pub, put a fifty-dollar bill on the counter and began drinking whiskey until a halo of colored lights appeared around the bartender’s head.

“Keep pouring,” he warned when he saw the kid hesitate after the seventh drink. “Keep pouring, or I’ll take out my gun and shoot you right here.”

The bar was a little sanctuary of nostalgia. Its dark-paneled walls were covered with pictures of scenes from yesteryear: Lillian Russell in petticoats, Cagney in The Fighting 69th, the 1921 Miss America contestants, and Harry Greb, middleweight champion of 1923. Yellow stained-glass light fixtures gave everything a soft autumnal glow. But when P.F. saw his own face in the mirror behind the counter, it was stark and ghostly. With long sad eyes and no halo of colored lights going around it.

“Hey,” he asked the bartender. “Where’s my goddamn halo?”

A trio of cops came in and sat down at the table five feet behind his stool. Even in his drunken haze, he recognized one of them, Earl Mack, a black patrol sergeant he’d argued with frequently in the last few years. The other two he didn’t know. One looked exactly like a baby, with light, thin hair and wide, innocent eyes. The third was tall and swarthy, with black curly hair. Pigfucker couldn’t tell if he was Italian or Puerto Rican.

“You know,” said P.F., turning halfway on his stool to face Earl and the others. “I feel sorry for you.”

“And why’s that?” Earl Mack’s eyes barely left the list of mixed drinks on his brown place mat.

“Because you are condemned to clean up after federal gang bangs like this DiGregorio homicide, while I enter the vibrant and exciting world of casino management.”

“Is that so?” Earl bit down on his lips.

“It is,” said P.F. with a sage nod, the whiskey making him boisterous and arrogant.

He saw Earl and his tablemates smirking and thought: To hell with them, the lowly beasts. Let them think he was kidding. His ego was rising as free and lofty as an untethered parade float on Thanksgiving Day.

“In eight months I’ll have twenty years on the job,” he said. “And I’ve already spoken to my good friend, Father Bobby D’Errico, vice president in charge of operations at the Doubloon hotel-casino, about his hiring me as head of security.” He leaned over and winked at Earl. “Maybe I could even take on one of you boys as a square badge. You know, as an act of charity.”

“Really?” Earl flashed a very small smile and gave the waitress his drink order.

P.F. saw the halo of colored lights turning counterclockwise around Earl’s head.

“Do you all know Mr. Pigfucker?” Earl asked his tablemates above the din of the Clancy Brothers singing “The Unicorn” on the jukebox.

The baby and the Puerto Rican shrugged.

“Detective Peter Farley,” he said, leaning off his stool to shake their hands. “Pigfucker, number one.”

“You’re all aware why he’s called the Pigfucker, right?” Earl steepled his fingers.

“It’s from the old Republican political campaigns,” explained P.F., glad of the chance to hold forth. “You call your opponent a Pigfucker and then sit back and wait for him to deny it. Same thing that we do at the station house. Throw the perp in the cell and ask him when he started beating his wife. Presumption of guilt. It’s the cornerstone of our legal system.”

Earl sniffed. “Too bad old P.F. here ain’t done a lick of work in about twelve years. He’s been relying on uniformed officers to find his witnesses and boost his clearance rate since I came in the department.”

P.F. saluted him dismissively. Sour-graping from the small people. Typical. Soon all of this would be behind him anyway. He’d have his own office at the Doubloon with a long-legged secretary and a view of the ocean. He’d walk the casino floor, shaking hands with the high rollers and granting favors to the cocktail waitresses.

“Say, P.F., what was the name of that case?” Earl taunted him.

“Which one?”

“You know. The one you couldn’t clear from ’bout twenty years ago. Paulie Raymond was the detective on it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit you don’t. You kept that file on your desk until about five years ago. It was that Irish guy that was mixed up with Teddy and the Mafia. Mike something.”

“Michael Dillon,” P.F. said quietly.

He stared down at his drink as if calculating the different kinds of sorrow it could cause.

“That’s it!” Earl snapped his fingers and turned back to his tablemates. “Good-lookin’ hustler, they probably buried him out in the Pinelands somewhere. P.F. used to get all misty-eyed because he left a little kid behind and his widow was too crazy to look after him. He even kept the kid’s picture in his drawer.”

“Hey, Earl.” P.F. looked up. “Smoke my joint, all right?”

Earl raised his right hand up to his mouth like a poker sharp figuring how to play a bank-breaking hand. “You know what they say, right? They say you and Paulie couldn’t clear that case because you-all were on Teddy’s payroll.”

“Bullshit, all bullshit,” P.F. muttered, finishing his drink and signaling for the bartender to bring him another. “What do you know about Teddy anyway?”

“I know all about Ted,” Earl said expansively, putting his hands on top of the table. “I grew up in the Virginia Avenue Court projects and when they started dealing reefer and heroin in the courtyard, we all knew it came from Ted. But what blew my mind was coming out of there and finding some of my brother police officers were on his payroll too.”

P.F. gave them his back and tried to think of something to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead he was left staring at the mirror behind the bar. His face looked somehow strange but familiar. The tired eyes, the down-turned mouth, the crooked nose bending away like it was ashamed to be seen with the other features. No question about it, he was starting to look like his father. In fact, it couldn’t have been more than twenty-seven years ago, he’d walked into a bar like this one and found his father drinking the same brand of scotch, with a hooker named Sally Jessy Mayfield on his lap, while he was supposed to be on duty. Captain Andy, who used to be his hero. It turned out he’d been drinking, whoring, taking protection money from the old man who ran the rackets from Philadelphia.

P.F. stopped talking to his father after that day he’d found him in the bar. But in the time he’d been on the job since then, what did he have to show that he was any better? At least his father had the whore on his lap. All P.F. had was three divorces, a son and a daughter who wouldn’t speak to him, a largely undistinguished service record, and the Mike Dillon file stuck away somewhere in his dusty locker.

“Some cases weren’t meant to be solved,” he said so softly that no one else could hear him.

“What’d you say, P.F.?” Earl sat forward, with his elbows on his knees. The two other cops were grinning.

“I said no one gives a shit about that anymore,” P.F. said, propping himself up. “It’s past. Prologue. History. I don’t need to muck around in it anymore. I’ve got this job with the Doubloon.”

A slow easy smile rolled across Earl’s face. “Well if that’s true about you and the security job, how come I heard the chief assigned Ray Youngblood to work the security detail at the fight next fall?”

P.F. flinched like he’d been slapped across the face. “What are you talking about?” he said. “I have final say about who gets on that detail. I worked it out with Bobby. It was part of the transition for when I retired. They wouldn’t just give all that overtime to a black guy like Ray without asking.”

He saw a muscle tense in Earl’s cheek and knew he’d said too much. “Promises were made,” he protested. “The deal was set.”

“Then the deal is off,” Earl noted with grim satisfaction. “Part of the new order coming down. Community policing, minority recruitment. It ain’t enough just to be Irish anymore. Your time is over. It used to be you folks ran the department, made your little arrangements, and had your pick of the litter. But now it’s someone else’s turn.”

“And I’m telling you that is fucking ridiculous!” P.F. staggered to his feet and pointed a finger at Earl. “It’s absurd. My word still means something in this town.”

“Have it your way,” said Earl, raising his drink cheerily. “I just can’t help noticing you got a fifty-dollar bill on that bar counter and in the old days, all your drinks would have been on the house.”

P.F. glanced back at the bar and the crumpled-up fifty-spot seemed to cast an unnatural glow on the counter. Maybe his influence was declining. The shame and embarrassment burned in the pit of his stomach and sent a fog up to his brain. He suddenly had an urge to get out of there and pass out in peace. He started to leave.

“Hey, P.F.” Earl caught him by the arm. “Next time you’re coming by, let me know. I’ll buy you a round.”