The Patriots' Club

30

Whenever John Franciscus entered the shimmering, bustling, Plexiglas world of 1 Police Plaza, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department in downtown Manhattan, he whispered the same moldy adage to himself: “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, man a desk at One PP.” To his way of thinking, cops policed. Which meant they knocked heads and solved crimes. The suits down here… well, they were just that… suits. Men who viewed police work as a ladder to the exalted lofts of city power. Who ordered their day according to the clock, not according to the cases open on their desks. Who took no pride in the wearing of a blue uniform. He’d seen them squirming in their dress blues on St. Patty’s Day, yanking at their high collars, adjusting their watch caps, and generally looking three shades of embarrassed.

Franciscus felt his cheeks flush. It wasn’t right, he cursed silently, keeping his eyes down so no one would think he was crying. It just wasn’t right. But when the anger waned, he couldn’t explain what it was, exactly, that wasn’t right, or why it had bothered him so much.

Records had changed floors, but the lights were still too bright and the ceilings too low. A chubby Hispanic man with thinning hair and a push broom mustache sat behind the long chest-high counter, reading a magazine.

“Matty L.,” said Franciscus as he passed through the door. “Can’t get rid of you either?”

“Gentleman Johnny Fran! What brings you to this fluorescent shithole?”

The two shook hands, and Franciscus found himself not wanting to let go. Lopes had occupied the desk next to him at Manhattan North for twenty years before catching a bullet in the spine during a botched arrest. A year in rehab and a Purple Shield medal awarded by the mayor himself in a ceremony at Gracie Mansion had landed him on this swiveling stool supervising Records. Behind his back, everyone called Lopes “Sticky Fingers.” Word was he’d dropped his piece going in for the bust that fateful day.

“I’m checking up on a cold case,” said Franciscus. “Goes way back. Nineteen-eighty.”

“Nineteen-eighty? That’s the Ice Age.”

“Double homicide up in Albany. You may know it.”

“Got the victims’ names?”

“Brendan O’Neill and Samuel Shepherd.”

“Guardian Bombing,” said Lopes, not missing a beat. “Who doesn’t remember it? Whole state was in an uproar.”

Lopes was right about that. It had been an electrifying crime. At the time, though, Franciscus was out of state, interviewing a suspect in a multiple homicide and hadn’t caught the climax on live TV like twenty million other New Yorkers. Before coming downtown, he’d read a few articles about the case that had appeared in the Times and the local Albany Times Union. These were the facts, as reported:

At 11:36 P.M., July 26, 1980, a powerful bomb blew up the headquarters of Guardian Microsystems, a maker of computer chips and software in Albany. Bomb experts estimated that over two hundred pounds of TNT packed inside two Samsonite suitcases were placed next to the first-floor R and D laboratory and detonated by remote control. Police tracked the explosives to a theft the week earlier from a nearby construction site. Two witnesses were found who reported seeing a suspicious U-Haul rental truck circling Guardian’s headquarters the day before the explosion. A check of the local U-Haul agency led police to the residence of David Bernstein, a respected law professor, better known as Manu Q, self-styled revolutionary and spokesman for the radical Free Society.

As officers O’Neill and Shepherd approached the house to question Bernstein, gunfire erupted. O’Neill and Shepherd were shot and died at the scene. A SWAT team was called in, and when Bernstein refused to surrender, the house was stormed.

News of a fugitive suspect surfaced a few weeks afterward, when a second set of fingerprints was discovered on the handgun used to kill O’Neill and Shepherd. The prints reportedly belonged to Bobby Stillman, a.k.a. Sunshine Awakening, a known member of the Free Society, and Bernstein’s common-law wife. Her involvement in the bombing was corroborated by witnesses who reported seeing her near the construction site where the dynamite used in the bombing had been stolen.

But Franciscus wasn’t interested in what the newspapers had to report. He wanted to learn what the homicide dicks had to say about the case. The good stuff never made it to the paper.

“Why you calling it a cold case?” asked Lopes. “They nailed the guy who offed the cops. His name was Bernstein. Guy was bananas. Called himself Manu Q. I remember like it was yesterday. Shot him like forty times. They posted his picture in the Gazette.”

Franciscus recalled the picture. The corpse had looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. Cop killers didn’t deserve any better. “There was a second suspect,” he said. “A woman who got away.”

“I don’t remember that. And she’s still running?” Lopes’s eyes narrowed in disgust. “All this time and no one’s nailed her? Shame on us. What’s her name?”

“Bobby Stillman, but she’s got more aliases than Joe Bananas.”

“Give me five minutes.” Lopes walked the length of the counter, tapping his fingers as he went. “I’ll pull the file. Original’s in Albany, but we’ll have an abstract.”

Franciscus sat down in the corner of the little waiting area they’d set up. A coffee table offered a few magazines. He skimmed through a month-old Newsweek, then checked what was on TV. A television in the corner was broacasting The View. Five broads yakking about why they never got laid. The guys at the squad room watched it every day. Kinda made sense, Franciscus decided, giving himself over to the show. It wasn’t exactly like cops wanted to sit around watching reruns of NYPD Blue. They had enough of that shit parked in front of them.

After a few minutes, he checked his watch, wondering what was taking so long. The watch was a gold-plated Bulova with a fake alligator strap, a gift to recognize thirty years on the job. The dial was embossed with the symbol of the New York City Police Department. He tapped the crystal with his thumb, as if to make sure the watch was keeping proper time. Once, he’d calculated that he’d spent over two thousand hours on stakeouts.

It seemed like only yesterday that he’d graduated from the academy and gone to his first posting with the tactical squad, busting up riots, demonstrations, sit-ins, and the like. It was 1969, and the world was going apeshit. Vietnam. Women’s lib. Free sex. Everyone shouting, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” The last thing anyone wanted to be was a monster in a blue uniform donning full riot gear, but Franciscus had signed on, and that’s what he did. No questions. No complaints. He’d always thought it was an honor to serve.

For the second time in an hour, his cheeks flushed and the back of his neck heated up. He looked up at the television to gather himself, but Barbara Walters was so blurry that not even another face-lift could straighten her out. Franciscus looked away, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger. Going all fuzzy twice in the same day. What the heck was the matter with him? He fished a hankie out of his pocket and blew his nose.

Just then, he heard a welter of voices raised in heated argument from the back of the storeroom. A minute later, Matty Lopes reappeared. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “File’s gone.”

Franciscus stood and walked to the counter. “Someone check it out?”

“No, man. It’s like ‘gone’ gone. The whole thing has been ripped out of its folder. Like ‘stolen’ gone. I called Albany. Same thing. Gone. Not even an update slip. Nothing. Just ‘gone.’ ”

“Since when?”

“I got no idea. No one’s got any idea. The thing’s just gone. You sure you telling me everything about this case?”

“Cross my heart.” Franciscus was thinking that every case, both open and closed, belonged to someone and was registered as such on the central computer. “Who was the catching detective?”

“You want, let’s check.” Lopes unlatched a waist-high gate and waved him through. “Come on back. I’m pissed, let me tell you. This is my house. Nobody takes my stuff without asking.”

Franciscus followed him past the rows of shelves stuffed to the ceiling with case files. One day, they would all be scanned and stored on the mainframe, but that day was still a way off. At the back of the room, there was a table with five desktop computers. Instructions for their use were taped to the wall. Lopes sat down and motioned for Franciscus to take the place next to him. Consulting a scrap of paper, he keyed in the case file number.

“Theodore Kovacs,” said Lopes, when the information had appeared. “Died 1980. Three months after the bombing.”

“How old was he?”

“Thirty-one.”

“Young to have his gold shield. What was the cause?”

“Special circumstances.”

Franciscus traded glances with Lopes. “Special circumstances” was department shorthand for suicide. In copspeak, Theodore Kovacs had eaten his gun. “Jeez,” he muttered. “Who was the backup?”

It was also a rule that two detectives had to sign off on a case.

“That’s it. Just Kovacs.” Lopes pointed at the screen for Franciscus to take a look.

“Come on,” said Franciscus, sliding back his chair. “Can’t file without two names. You going to tell me that someone broke into the computer and stole that, too?”

For once, Matty Lopes didn’t have an answer. Shrugging, he shot Franciscus an earnest look. “Seems like this case ain’t so cold after all.”