Politika

ELEVEN

Police commissioner Bill Harrison could hardly wait for the Titanic to sink so he could hurry home to his report.

In general, he hated musicals. Just didn’t get them. And the one he was watching right now had to be the most confusing one he’d ever sat through. The worst maritime disaster in history, maybe fifteen hundred people drowned, eaten by sea creatures, God only knew, and somebody’d gotten the idea to turn it into a Broadway spectacle. He really didn’t see the entertainment value in such horrendous human tragedy. What was everybody singing and kicking up their heels about? They were all going down with the ship!

He glanced over at his wife, who was in the seat beside him gazing intently at the stage. She seemed to be enjoying herself. No, not seemed to be. Was. He could tell from the tilt of her chin, the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth. When two people were married as long as they’d been, it got so you could read each other at a glance. Later, over coffee and cake, she would speak appreciatively of the sets, the score, the choreography, the staging. And he would study her with something akin to the love-struck awe he’d felt thirty years ago on their first high school date, admiring her lively, intelligent features, her smooth coffee-brown skin, the way she put together her clothes, and the graceful movements of her hands as she commented on the various aspects of the show, marveling at everything about her for that matter, and wondering what he had ever done to deserve the constant support she had given him throughout their marriage, a faith and perseverance that helped lift him from the tough streets of Harlem to the highest post in the New York Police Department.

But later was later, and now was still Act One of a maddeningly incomprehensible songfest about a magnificent wreck whose passengers had suffered a cold, airless death. Harrison glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer his own torment would last. Nine P.M. An hour to go. Maybe more. Didn’t some plays run until ten-thirty or eleven?

Harrison felt a sudden twinge of embarrassment. That was something the city’s top cop really should know, wasn’t it? He damn well hoped he wasn’t losing touch. You could dress Times Square up all you wanted, you could even push the sex shops off the strip to make room for the wonderful world of Disney, but the hands under those bright white Mickey Mouse gloves would always have grimy fingernails, and it would always be a place where vice and violence could reach out of the shadows and drag you down like those dancing fools onstage. So much fuss had been made about the neighborhood’s renaissance in recent years, one could sometimes forget that a decrease in crime did not necessarily mean the criminals had packed their bags and gone south. In fact, it was only an intensified and very visible police presence in the area that held the bump-and-run muggers, junkies, hookers and other lowlife at bay. There were still pockets of darkness amid the lights of the Great White Way, and people needed to be aware of them. Especially the PC.

Harrison tried to concentrate on the show, wanting to keep track of the storyline so he would have something to say about it to Rosetta. Who was the character with the beard? The captain? A mad scientist? Jesus, it was no good, he was lost. A lushly melodramatic chord swelled from the orchestra pit, and one of the actors broke into song. The lyrics mentioned something about a ship of dreams. Harrison listened for a minute, but then faded back into his reverie, as if he were a radio moving beyond the broadcast range of a particular station.

His eyes staring at the stage without seeing anything on it, he thought again of the plan he wanted to look over before going to bed. He’d been calling it Operation 2000, which had the sort of nice, official-sounding ring that would inspire confidence in City Hall.

Over the past month, he had been conferring on an almost daily basis with his chief deputies, as well as commanders from the Transit Police, the Emergency Services Unit, and the NYPD-FBI Counter-Terrorism Task Force, about the problems they would face trying to safeguard the multitude of celebrants who would be crowding Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Even in an ordinary year, the job was a major pain in the ass — and this year was far from ordinary. This time around they were looking at December 31, 1999. The turn of the century. A once-in-a-lifetime Event, capital E, ladies and germs.

And while Harrison and his team of planners had been laboring to draw out a sound logistical blueprint for a situation that unquestionably defied logistics, what had the mayor been doing? Why, hitting the media in pursuit of visitor dollars, of course! He had been on every local news program frothing about the city’s plans for the big countdown. He had been plugging away on Letterman and Conan O’Brien. He had even been on radio shows like Imus in the Morning and Howard Stern, billing the triangle formed by the intersection of Seventh Avenue, Broadway, and Forty-second Street as the “center of the world,” all but popping open a champagne bottle over the airwaves as he invited listeners to join the millennial bash.

Harrison’s mind filled with an odd blend of worry and resignation. From every indication, people were responding to the mayor’s pitch in droves. Based on the massive volume of tourist inquiries, polling data, and the record number of hotel and restaurant reservations in the midtown area, it had been estimated that two million revelers would be thronging Times Square to watch the ball drop. Add to that three or four million more spectators scattered throughout Battery Park, the South Street Seaport, and the entire Brooklyn shoreline to watch the fireworks over New York Harbor, and the police force would be stretched far beyond its capacity to maintain anything close to an adequate presence. And for what? There were some who believed an age of miracles was approaching, and others who were expecting the end of existence. Harrison just kind of figured that, come January 1, the world would be the same orbiting lunatic asylum it had always been — minus a somewhat higher than usual number of holiday fatalities.

He sighed without being aware of it. In his more nervous moments, he had fantasized about giving up, taking a hike, escaping the whole damn chocolate mess so it could fall where it belonged, which was right on the mayor’s lap. Maybe he’d get a job working security in Stonehenge, or Mount Fuji, where the crowds of millennialists were bound to be thinner. Or how about Egypt? He’d heard that ten grand would buy admission to a gala some tour organizer was throwing at the Great Pyramid of Giza. Surely a seasoned big city police commissioner could be of help keeping things orderly over there. If Hizzoner wanted to be an impresario, ringmaster of the greatest show on earth, fine, more power to him. But what right did he have to drive anybody else crazy with it?

Harrison heard a crash of applause and studied the stage. The curtain had gone down. The houselights slowly brightened. What was going on? A glance at his watch revealed that it was only nine-thirty, too early for the show to have ended. Besides, he hadn’t seen the Titanic sink yet.

Intermission, then. It had to be intermission.

Rosetta was nudging him with her elbow.

“So, what do you think of the show?” she asked. Sounding, well, buoyant.

It’s hackneyed and tiresome and I can’t wait to go home, he thought.

“Love it,” he said. “Especially that song about the ship of dreams.”

Rosetta nodded in agreement and smiled. “Can’t wait to see how things work out for Ida and Isidor. Should we go to the bar and have a drink?”

He took hold of her hand.

As they rose, brushed past the couple sitting at the end of their row, and began moving up the aisle toward the lobby, Harrison mused that Ida and Isidor, whoever they were, really didn’t have too many options. Either they’d squeeze into one of the lifeboats and be rescued by the Carpathia, or they’d sink with captain and crew. But he didn’t comment on that to Rosetta.

Whatever lay ahead, he sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to spoil things for her.