Soul Patch

CHAPTER ONE

Red, white and you, that’s what Aaron and I called our third store. It was pretentious, but at the end of the ’80s pretentious was high art, ranking right up there with big hair bands and junk bonds. The ’80s, Christ! The decade when video killed the radio star and AIDS killed everybody else. Pretentious worked well on the North Shore of Long Island, especially in Old Brookville, where even the station cars were chauffeured.

The attendees at the grand opening party were a volatile emulsion of relatives-even my sister Miriam and her family were in from Albuquerque-broken-down cops, queens, politicians, journalists, kids, clergy, and, oh yeah, the occasional customer. Throw ’em together, shake ’em up with a little alcohol, and they all seemed perfectly blended. Not so. The second the shaking stopped, the elements settled out. More like a time bomb than a party, really. Tick. . tick. . tick. .

The devil himself, my father-in-law, Francis Maloney Sr., had deigned to grace us with his presence. Several times during the course of the day, particularly during the toasts, I’d spot him raising his glass of Irish in my direction, smiling at me with the accumulated warmth of a tombstone. My tombstone. We’d kept the self-destruct secret between us now for nearly twelve years, neither of us reaching for the red button. There were times I actually forgot about his long-missing son and how I’d come to marry his only daughter, times when I thought he’d just leave it be. Then we’d see each other at some family function and he’d smile that smile to remind me-to remind me that it was just a drawn-out game of chicken we were playing, that someday one of us would flinch, that it would probably be me. I needed to breathe fresh air.

Larry McDonald, my old pal from the Six-O Precinct and current NYPD chief of detectives, was already out front smoking a cigarette. So much for that fresh air! Something was up. Normally unflappable, Larry was sucking so hard on his cigarette I was afraid he’d inhale his index finger. He had smoked on and off for years, but it was never an addiction with him. Larry Mac’s only vice was ambition and, with a little assist from me, he’d nearly satisfied his craving. He was within sniffing distance of being the next commissioner.

“Nice shindig,” he said.

“Shindig! Christ, Larry, where’d you come up with that one? Did you already use hootenanny today?”

If he was laughing, it was definitely on the inside.

“Will you look at this fucking parking lot, Moe?” He flicked the filter away in disgust. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it was the used car lot of a Porsche dealership. More Jags, Beemers, and 911s here than in all a Brooklyn. You and me, we come a long way from Coney Island, huh?”

“Not so long. I still live in Sheepshead Bay, remember?”

“That’s not what I-” He stopped himself, lit another cigarette. Sucked on it like Superman.

“You trying to smoke that thing or swallow it, bro?”

That bounced off him too. “Yeah,” he repeated, “we come a long way.”

Larry was definitely off his game. He was a lot of things-preening and vain for sure, pragmatic to the point of cutthroat-but reflective and philosophical weren’t generally part of his repertoire. I took a good look at him. He seemed much older somehow. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Wasn’t in his posture. Wasn’t how he fit in his clothes nor how they fit him. Tall, broad-shouldered, thin-waisted, Larry wore his clothes the way a smooth plaster wall wears wet paint. Today was no exception. His gray, light wool pinstripe hung on him perfectly. Even when we were in uniform, his blues looked tailor-made. And he was handsome as ever, maybe more so. He was the type of guy God had in mind when he created gray hair. No, the age was in his eyes, in his voice. Larry reached into his jacket pocket.

“You believe in ghosts, Moe?”

Shit! There it was, that fucking question. A sucker punch. Usually it was my father-in-law who asked it. He had asked it of me a hundred times over the last dozen years, and with each asking came a sick feeling in my belly. Most times Francis didn’t even need to mouth the words. It would come in the guise of a glance or, like today, a smile. He never explained the question, never once discussed it. Didn’t expect or want an answer. It was a pin pricked into the skin of a balloon, but not quite deep enough to pop it.

“Ghosts?” I repeated. “Depends. There’s shit that can haunt a man worse than the walking dead. But do I believe in spirits and shit? Nah, I don’t believe in things that go boo or bump in the night.”

“You sound pretty confident.”

“I am.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Larry said, his eyes looking through me and into the past. He smiled. Pulled a cassette tape out of his pocket. Put it in my palm and gently folded my fingers around it. “Don’t be so sure.”

“What’s this?”

“It goes bump in the night.”

“Very funny, McDonald.”

“You see me laughing?”

I didn’t.

He held his right hand out to me. I put the tape in my pocket.

“Again, congratulations on the new store, Moe. Pass it on to your brother and kiss Katy for me. Listen to the tape and call me.”

“Cryptic isn’t usually your style.”

“This isn’t ‘usually.’ ”

I thought about saying something to that. Thankfully, he’d gone before I could formulate a question. When I turned back around, Francis Maloney was smiling at me through the plate glass window of the store.