Officer Jones

Chapter 7

As our train hit the 84th Street stop, Carter growled at me, “Okay, I told you my part, now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“I gave you the details of the mission, now I wanna know what’s going on with you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The JP Warner I know would not be taking some happy horseshit pictures with some Beaver Cleaver family. He would be so fired up to get some payback on the bastards who put a bounty on his head, that he would have knocked the family into the tracks if they got in his way-not this lethargy thing you’ve been giving me.”

“Lethargy? Don’t pull a muscle on the big words, Carter.”

He shook his head. “You can try acting like your normal cocky-jerk self, but you’re not fooling anyone. I’ve seen the signs for months. Your mind is somewhere else, and this smiling and being nice to people thing is starting to creep me out.”

“Where did you get your psychology degree … Pro Wrestling University?”

“I’m serious.”

I have a couple rules that I live by. One, is to only go so far when messing with a former professional wrestler who still suffers from symptoms of steroid withdrawal. The other I learned from Murray Brown, who drilled into me to always lead with the headline. So I did. “I’ve decided I’m leaving the business when my contract runs out next month. This will be my last assignment.”

He started laughing. “What’s wrong, sweetheart-too rough being a rich and famous television star?”

I just stared out the window at the wall of the subway tunnel that was whizzing by. “I don’t know. I guess ‘the life’ sort of caught up with me. I remember a time when I was happy. And believe it or not, I wasn’t always considered, how did you so eloquently put it … a cocky jerk?”

I rambled on about the ratings pressure in the news business and no longer having the stomach for the bombs and blood. All could jade the Easter Bunny.

Carter wasn’t the “cry on my shoulder” type and asked if I wanted some cheese with my whine. He then gave his version of a pep talk.

“You deal with shady people in shadier places. The minute they see you lose an ounce of swag they’ll eat you alive.”

“It just wasn’t supposed to turn out this way,” I continued whining-even if I would never admit it-as we hit our stop at 116th and squeezed out the doors of the subway car. I had to stop and pick up travel items at my residence on the Upper West Side. It was our standard operating procedure, and so ingrained that Carter didn’t even discuss the step with me. Perhaps another sign I’d been doing this too long.

I caught Carter rolling his eyes as we climbed the subway stairwell. He slapped on his wraparounds like he couldn’t even bear to look at me. We began walking toward my walk-up brownstone. It was no coincidence it was near Columbia University-a place that reminded me of happier times.

“You don’t choose life, it chooses you. Do you know how many kids out there would kill to be JP Warner when they grow up?”

“That’s until people start trying to kill them because they are JP Warner.”

“Hey, it could be worse-you almost ended up spending the Fourth with the Bowden family.”

His words sent me spiraling back into history. “The Fourth of July used to be one of my favorite days. My family would go to the Samerauk River and watch the fireworks. Gwen and I…”

“Stop right there,” Carter cut me off, “Are you still pining away for this Gwen? I thought that was the liquor talking that night. For chrissake, she probably has six kids and lost her looks somewhere under a pile of plastic kids-toys in the back of her minivan … at least that happened to all my ex-wives.”

“I’m not pining away for anyone,” I lied. I had mentioned Gwen to him the night following the Columbia incident, after having a few too many drinks. We made a deal: I would never bring up such “girly nonsense” ever again, and he would refrain from “knocking some sense” into me.

“It’s just the realization that there isn’t going to be a happily ever after. You put your dreams on hold, time goes by and one day you realize it’s never going to happen. I’ve made up my mind-this is going to be my last assignment.”

He shrugged. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

An awkward silence hung between us as we entered my neighborhood. Lined with the greenery of summer, it was like an oasis in a concrete jungle.

By the time we arrived at my place, the blue sky was just a memory. The wind had picked up and was whipping the tree limbs. It seemed like a symbol of something, but I just wasn’t sure what.

We entered the pre-war building, escaping the volatile weather, and I sniffed the comforting fragrance of home. I smiled again-happy with the new life I was heading for, even if Carter wasn’t.

“I don’t know why you’re pining for other chicks when you got a great girl like Lauren Bowden,” Carter said with a grin, breaking the tension. “And what’s with the John Peter stuff?”

“It shows what type of reporter she is. JP actually stands for John Pierpont. My mother is head of the historical society in Rockfield, Connecticut and…”

“Is that like one of those cults where they have those rituals with the strange masks and robes?”

“No, that’s professional wrestling. She happens to be one of the leading history experts in the state and named my brothers and me after famous people who were born in Connecticut. I’m named after JP Morgan, whose full name was John Pierpont Morgan. My brother Ethan is named after Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War hero, and Noah is named after Noah Webster. He was the guy, you know, like Webster’s Dictionary … that would be a book that contains words, they are the things that…”

Carter shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m getting my balls busted by a guy named Pierpont.” Then as quickly as the skies darkened outside, he changed the subject, “How’s Noah doing?”

“Better,” was all I said. It wasn’t a place I wanted to go right now.

We entered a mudroom on the garden floor. French doors led to a backyard that looked more rural Connecticut than Manhattan. It looked inviting, but we had business upstairs.

As we began to climb the stairs, a sound stopped us in our tracks. Carter pulled his gun from the waistband of his jeans.