Summer Cool

3

The air conditioner in Jim Coleman's office was off. Coleman didn't look happy about it. It looked as though he had tried to wedge a crack open in the window above the air conditioner fitting and failed_; the screwdriver he had used was still stuck at an angle between metal and wood.

Coleman's tie was loosened, his white shirt unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. Sweat marks showed through the white polyester around his armpits. His thin face bore a sheen of sweat from his receding hairline down over his dachshund's face to his chin.

"Fucking city" he said, motioning Paine to sit down. "Ever since that housing business last year made the national news, we all gotta be saints. Now we can only have the fucking air conditioning on from twelve to three. Yonkers never had any money anyway, I don't know what they're worried about. You really think Paducah gives a shit about Yonkers?"

"I wouldn't know," Paine said.

Coleman waved at the air. Paine watched a drop of sweat fall from his chin to his clean blotter. "Fucking city."

Coleman looked at Paine for the first time. "So how you been, Jack?" His voice almost sounded as if he cared.

Paine shrugged.

"Ah, I know," Coleman said. "I know." He waved at the air again, stopped looking at Paine. "We really squeezed you through the ass-pipe."

Paine said nothing.

Coleman gave a hearty false laugh. "I always said you looked like shit anyway, right?" The laugh trailed away. Paine still said nothing.

Coleman wheeled abruptly in his swivel chair, smacked the on button on the air conditioner. "Fuck it," he said, swiveling back around. Again, he looked at Paine. "For you, for old times, I'll break the rules."

The air conditioner clacked, began to throw tepid air into the room.

"Can't we just talk about Bobby?" Paine asked.

"Sure," Coleman said. "Sure. But first we gotta talk about you and me."

Again, Paine was silent.

"Look," Coleman said, if it helps, I'm sorry. Real sorry. We fucked up twice. I knew your dad, I knew you, but I also knew Joe Dannon. Dannon had a lot of pull around here. I didn't know he was a bad cop. Not that bad, anyway. That whole bunch of us came up here from the Bronx, we were tight. Jeez, you know I served with Petty in Vietnam. Your dad was the guy we all looked up to. You remember me over at the house when you were a kid. You remember we played ball, you and me and your brother Tommy. Your dad bled blue, Jack. But you gotta remember, me and Dannon were partners for six years. From '63 to '69. I was with him on Fordham Road, day Kennedy got shot. We covered a lot of shit together. We got called down to Columbia for the riots. Dannon took stuff, then, small stuff. Just about everybody did. Before Knapp and all that."

"Did you?"

Coleman blinked, and then looked defiantly at Paine. "Yeah, I did."

He leaned forward now, over his desk toward Paine, and little drops of sweat fell from his chin to his clean blotter. The air conditioner had not helped the room much.

"But you gotta remember, Jack. It was the times. It was small shit. I never saw Dannon do anything more than that. I thought he was clean, as far as clean goes. He was my friend."

Coleman leaned back in his chair. "Shit, you should have heard the way he talked about you when you were a rookie in '78 and they assigned you to him. Like you were the worst fucking partner a guy ever had. He had nothing good to say. After a week, he had me believing it, everybody believing it. Except Petty, of course."

"Can we talk about Bobby now?" Paine asked.

"Sure!" Coleman shouted. "Sure, we'll talk about Bobby. But you gotta understand. There was no reason to doubt Dannon. I had a lot of pull by then, and I helped him. I got you reviewed, I got you busted down. It was me. Nobody made me do it; Dannon pulled my arm but he didn't twist it. I did it because I wanted to. I believed you were holier-than-thou, a little shit. Your old man, God rest him, was a little like that. It was easy to believe you were worse."

Coleman slumped in his chair_; cooling air from the machine behind him moved lazily through his thinning hair but didn't reach to his face. "You know," he said quietly, "I can get you back on the force if you want."

Paine's face registered some surprise. "Let's talk about Bob Petty first."

"All right," Coleman said. "If that's what you want. The bottom line is, he called me up and told me to go fuck myself, which is something he's said before to my face, but this time I believed him."

"Why?"

"We both know Petty," Coleman said. "You can tell when he means something. This time, he meant it."

"Did he quit?"

"He did more than that. He said I could take all his citations and shove them up my ass. That I could take his whole record and burn it."

"Was he drunk?"

"He was drunk. But he was serious."

"Any idea where he was calling from?"

"Someplace busy. Pay phone in an open place, sounded like. Bus terminal, airport, train station. It didn't sound closed in, like a bar."

"Could you tell if there was anyone else with him?"

"He talked fast and didn't stop."

"Did he give you any idea where he was going?"

Paine checked a notepad he had with him. "What was he working on?"

Coleman looked away from Paine, looked at the ceiling, looked back. "You know I'm not supposed to talk to you about that."

Paine kept his gaze steady.

"You didn't hear this from me," Coleman said. For the first time in their conversation, his look was rock hard, and stayed that way until Paine nodded.

Coleman said, "You remember Hermano?"

"Yes."

"Well, Hermano has been doing turn work for us. He was facing five to ten and didn't feel like getting fucked in the ass anymore. So Petty had him set up in a drug business, showing some new people interested in moving in all the connections in lower Westchester. He was talking to Petty every week. It was slow going."

"You think Bobby leaving has anything to do with this?"

"Like I said, we both know Petty. It would have to be something else."

"Anything happen to him yesterday, a phone call, someone come to see him that could have set him off?"

"Not that I know of. But he's been a lone wolf for a long time. He didn't tell anybody anything."

"Is that your way of saying you were trying to bust him down next?"

Coleman began to turn red. "Now, I didn't say-"

"You don't have to say anything. We both remember what happened when he stuck with me after Dannon went after my ass. We both know what happens to a cop when he tells everybody he works with to fuck off."

"Nobody-"

"I'm sure nobody said anything out loud. I bet after he left the locker room the middle fingers went up, though. Petty is the toughest bastard I ever met, much tougher than you or I will ever be. He could live with it. He knew what you and Dannon were going to do. If Dannon had gotten the case reopened on me, it would have meant his badge. You would have made sure of it this time."

Coleman said nothing, let the air conditioning blow over the back of his head.

"You said something before about giving me my job back?" Paine asked pleasantly.

Coleman looked as though he'd swallowed something very sour. He looked past Paine's head for a long time. His eyes had taken on the rock hardness evidenced earlier; with an effort of will, he reshaped and softened his face before he let it drift back to Paine.

"A lot of what you've said is true," he said. "I admit that. But Joe Dannon's dead. The investigation of what happened between you and him is closed. You've been completely exonerated. I could start you again, at current pay levels, at exactly the same spot you left in. And, due to extenuating circumstances, I could see that your move toward detective's rank was expedited. I think I owe you that much, and more."

"Is your ass on the line, Coleman?" Paine asked, smiling.

"No," Coleman shot back.

"That's not what I heard. I heard a shake-up is on the way, with this new guy as chief. And you figure on strengthening your position by getting me back on the force and making everyone see what a great guy you are, never mind a cracker jack administrator."

Coleman was looking down at his blotter. "I could assign you to find Bob Petty, at full pay, on leave. You'd be doing just what you are now, and get paid steady for it. You know he wiped Terry out. She must have told you that."

"She told me," Paine said, getting up, "but I don't give a fuck about money."

"You should," Coleman said. "Like I said, with full pay-"

"Did Bobby say anything else to you on the phone?"

Paine was about to get up, but he found himself pinned, Coleman leaning across his desk, his hand gripping Paine's arm. There was a look of desperation in Coleman's eyes that Paine wanted to relish but discovered he could not.

"Look," Coleman said, "come back and work for me now, and I'll push you faster than you thought possible. In six months, you'll have Petty's old job. Full detective, full pay, accrued pension. I can promise that. Do it for your dad." Coleman tried to smile_; it came onto his face crooked. "Just like old times, eh?"

"There weren't any old times," Paine said. He pulled his arm away from Coleman's grip, got up, and walked to the door.

As he opened it he looked back. Coleman was sinking slowly back into his chair. The breeze from the air conditioner was rustling the back of his head again_; again, none of the coolness was reaching his sweating face.

Coleman looked at him, a haunted look, a look that perhaps was searching for the old times he so desperately wanted to cling to. Then his hands moved around his desk, looking for papers to rustle, and his eyes looked down, a new drop of sweat falling from his face to the center of the empty blotter.

"Better turn your air conditioner off," Paine said, leaving the door open behind him. "I might call the mayor and tell him you're cheating."