The Big Bad City

16.

"In the end, he believed his own story," Brown said.

"Exactly what happened," Carella said. "Same with her.”

"Believed his story?”

“Believed her own story." Both men were a little drunk.

"Each of them rewriting what happened," Carella said.

"Trying to change the past.”

"He shoved Charlie in the river, she shoved Charlie in the river.”

"Nobody shoved Charlie in the river.”

“Charlie jumped in the river!”

Both men burst out laughing. "Shhh," Carella said.

Teddy was asleep upstairs, the twins were asleep just down the hall.

The clock on the living room mantel read ten past ten. The detectives had each been awake since six-thirty this morning, and on the job since a quarter to eight. It had been a long, long day.

"You think she really would have gone to the police?" Carella asked.

"Oh sure. She had God on her side.”

"Didn't help her much in the park.”

"She forgot to say "Sweet Jesus, help me,"" Brown said, and burst out laughing again.

himself. Brown covered his mouth like a kid who'd uttered a dirty word. CareIIa cut his eyes toward the hallway. Both men were silent for a moment, and then began laughing again.

"Shhhh," Carella said.

"Shhhh," Brown said.

"You okay there? Let me freshen that for you.”

"Just a drop. I got to be running along. Caroline's gonna start worrying.”

Carella went into the kitchen, poured scotch into Brown's glass and Canadian Club into his own: Little soda in each. Fresh ice cubes. When he came back into the living room, Brown was standing at the bookcases, looking over the titles.

"You ever have time to read?" he asked. "Not much. Except on vacation.”

“When are you taking yours?”

“Two weeks from now.”

“Where you going?”

“The shore.”

"Should be nice there.”

"Yes." Carella held up his glass. "Here's to golden days," he said.

"And purple nights," Brown said.

They drank.

"How did either of them ever expect to forget the past?" Carella asked, and sipped at his drink. "You want to know something?" he said.

"What's that?" Brown asked, and sank into the leather easy chair under the imitation Tiffany lamp.

"I'll be forty in October.”

"I hear you.”

"Remember when we used to go out drinking after an important bust?”

"We're doing that right this minute, Steve.”

"I mean in a bar. When we were young. When none of us were married.

Remember that bar near the bridge? Just off Culver? All the guys on the squad used to go there and get drunk. Remember? After a big one? Kling was a patrolman back then. Hawes wasn't even on the squad.

Remember?" He nodded, remembering, and went to sit in the easy chair opposite Brown. He took a long swallow of the drink, and then sat staring into the glass. "There was a cop named Hernandez I liked a lot," he said. "He got killed by a cheap thief who holed up in the precinct, remember? Do you remember a cop named Havilland? Roger Havilland? He was worse than Parker. Sometimes I think Parker is Havilland, come back from the dead. Remember the time that rich guy's kid got kidnapped up in Smoke Rise? King. Douglas King. Funny how you remember the names, isn't it? Remember the time Virginia Dodge came up to the squad room with a bottle of nitro in her purse? Looking for me? Cause I sent her husband away? Remember? Remember the time Claire got killed in that bookshop? Kling's girl, remember? Claire Townsend. Remember the time The Deaf Man tunneled under that bank? I'll bet he never gets old, Artie, not The Deaf Man. Remember ...

Jesus, remember the times? I remember them all, Artie. I remember all of it, all of it. Every single minute. It goes by too fast, Artie. I'll be forty in October. Where did it all go, Artie?”

He looked up. "Artie?" he said.

Brown was snoring lightly. Sleep softened his features, giving him the appearance of a much younger man. Carella went to him, stood watching him fondly, a smile on his face. He turned out the light then, and went to phone Caroline to say that her husband was exhausted and would be spending the night there.

Sonny got to Riverhead before dawn. He parked the stolen car in an all-night garage four blocks from the Carella house, and then walked along Dover Plains Avenue toward the elevated train station, trying to look like any simple colored man shuffling to work on a Wednesday morning just like any other Wednesday morning. He walked past the steps leading up to the platform, and made a right turn into the street where Carella lived. He was a black man on foot in a white neighborhood while the sun wasn't yet up. He hoped no cop car would go rolling by, hoped nobody peering out his window would suspect him for a burglar instead of a man about to kill a police detective. This amused him. He laughed out loud, ducked his head as if somebody had read his mind, and hurried up the street.

The Chevy he'd been following for the past little while was parked in front of Carella's garage. This surprised him. He glanced over at the house. Not a.

light burning. He went straight up the grassy patch alongside the driveway, padding softly to the door on the side of the garage, between it and the house. This was the most dangerous part. This was when he could be seen from the house. But it was still dark, and he was still black this amused him, too and he picked the Mickey Mouse lock in nothing flat. Swiftly, he opened the door and closed it just as swiftly behind him. There were two cars in the garage, explaining why Carella had parked the battered police sedan in the drive.

Sonny took the Desert Eagle from his belt. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to six. He figured in an hour or so Carella would be a dead man.

They were drinking coffee at the kitchen table when Fat Ollie Weeks called. Teddy and the twins were still asleep. The clock on the wall read 6:35 A.M. "I figured you'd be awake," Ollie said. "Been up since six," Carella said. "I got a nun joke for you.”

"Too late. We already cracked the case.”

“Who's we?”

“Me and Artie.”

"Artie?”

“Brown.”

"Oh. Yeah. Brown," Ollie said. "He's here right now," Carella said.

"What's he doing there?”

"We were celebrating last night," Carella said. "Like old times.”

"But what's he doing there ?”

"He slept here.”

there.

"He slept “

It was inconceivable to Ollie that any white man would allow a black man to sleep in one of his beds. Or pee in one of his toilets. Or use one of his towels. Inconceivable.

"Give him my regards," he said, making it sound like a curse.

"Meanwhile, how do you like having a black dancing partner?”

"What do you mean?”

“Didn't Parker tell you?”

“No. What?”

"Sonny Cole's following you.”

"What?”

"Sonny Cole. The guy who shot your father. He's been tailing you.”

"If this is a joke, Ollie ...”

"No joke. He's in a green Honda, watch for it.”

"A green Honda?”

"Been on you the past two weeks.”

"How do you know this?”

"He maybe dusted a dealer in Hightown. I caught the squeal.”

"But how do you know he ... ?”

"Eyes and ears of the world, m'boy, ah yes," Ollie said. "Give him my regards, too." There was a click on the line. "A green Honda?" Brown said. "Sonny Cole driving it," Carella said. "What's he fixin to do?”

"Guess," Carella said.

Watching through the paned glass panels on the side door of the garage, Sonny saw the kitchen door of the Carella house opening, and in that same moment he opened the garage door, and stepped outside, and yanked the Desert Eagle from his belt. He was swiftly walking the ten feet from the garage to the house, ready to drop Carella in his tracks the moment he came out onto the little porch outside the kitchen, when instead out stepped the big black dude who was his partner.

Brown was coming down the steps when he spotted Sonny.

He immediately reached for his nine.

Carella came out of the house a moment later and recognized Sonny from all those days sitting in the courtroom while Henry Lowell was letting him get away with murder, and he drew his own nine at once, so now there were three nines on this bright September morning, all facing each other with nowhere to go but murder. Three nines spelling the devil's own mischief upside down, nine, nine, nine.

"Get out the way, nigger," Sonny said. "I got no quarrel with you.”

"I got plenty quarrel with you," Brown said. Carella didn't know if he said the words or only thought them, but as he squeezed the trigger they were there.

Our father who art in Heaven ... And he fired.

And now Brown was firing, too.

And Sonny Cole fell to the ground.

He called Lieutenant Byrnes at home and told him that he and Brown had shot and killed a man named Samson Wilbur Cole who'd been waiting outside his house with a Desert Eagle in his hand. He asked the lieutenant to advise the local precinct, and also Homicide and Internal Affairs, and he told the lieutenant that he and Brown would be waiting here at the scene for them.

The shots had awakened everyone in the neighborhood and they were all out in the street in robes and pajamas when first a patrol car and then several unmarked cars arrived. This was now around seven in the morning. Some twenty minutes later, two more marked police cars arrived at the Carella house and spewed forth a glittering array of brass, all eager to talk to Carella and Brown before the media got hold of this. Much of the day, in fact, was spent downtown at Headquarters, with no less a worthy than the Commissioner himself instructing the two detectives on what they should say once the newspaper reporters and telecasters descended en masse.

That evening, just as Carella and Brown were about to begin regretting their own ten minutes of television fame, The Cookie Boy was moving out of the spotlight and onto a 747 bound for London, where he had relatives in the meat-packing business. At six o'clock, while his plane was roaring down the runway for takeoff, a television journalist eager to turn the Sonny Cole story into a big TV drama of black-white tension and family vendetta, asked Carella how it had felt to kill the man once accused of murdering his father.

him.”

Carella wondered exactly how he had felt. The truth was he didn't know.

He guessed he felt all right.