Tower

If the Irish have a heart for anything, it’s death. Since sorrow is their stock and trade, a mother’s death is like a fucking grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. And suicide? Holy hell, you add a sin like that to the equation and it’s epic. Boyle quoted to me from the good book, patted me on the back, and told me to take all the time I needed. Like he was a magnanimous fellow looking out for my well being. Yeah, sure. It was that Nick and his cars were pulling in some serious cash. And besides, Nick was one of their own.

No, it was Griffin’s reaction that shocked me. He actually displayed a bit of humanity, as far as it went. Shook my hand and said, “Sorry for your troubles.” Gave me a smirk. Was as close to real sympathy as he was ever going to get. Proved the authenticity of Irish-ness I suppose and that even killers had mothers once, too.

When I got the call from my dad, I was in a bit of shock. It’s not like I didn’t know the call would come someday. That my mother would eventually kill herself was as much a surprise as sunset. The surprise was that she had lasted this long. Think even my mom’s shrinks knew they were simply delaying the inevitable. She was broken inside. All the king’s horses and all the king’s lithium couldn’t put Sophie back together again.

Have to hand it to her, though. She did it with flare, with a gesture, a final fuck you! to all the other mothers on the old block. Sophie may have been too haunted to love her son or husband or to care about the whispers and stares, but that was not to say she didn’t notice or didn’t hear. So when she stepped out of bed sometime in the middle of the night, went to the broom closet to retrieve the step ladder and nylon rope — the rope having already been cut to length and formed into a crude noose — climbed to the top rung of the squat ladder, slung and secured the rope over the fat low limb of the old oak in front of our stoop, snugged the noose tight around her neck, and kicked the ladder away, Sophie was paying back her neighbors in full. It made me want to applaud. She had achieved in death something she had failed at in life; I was proud of her.

When I got past the shock, I was pretty fucking relieved. It’s a cruel thing to say, true or not. But she robbed me. Even more surprising than Griffin’s reaction was my dad’s. Cried! He cried over her. This woman, this un-wife, this un-mother, this stranger who had filled up his emptiness with her own miserable existence, this is who he shed tears for! Didn’t think it was possible for him to shrink any further and yet he did.

Her funeral at Rosenzweig’s on Coney Island Avenue and Avenue M was about as well attended as a 1977 Mets game. The rabbi had to ask people to move up and fill in the empty seats. Of the neighbors, only Nick’s mom came. Given Sophie’s parting love letter to the block, can’t say that I expected a big show of support. Nicky was there too as was Uncle Harry, cousin Ira the cop and Sheila his wife. Harry, at least, had the rare good taste to leave his latest cocksucker back at the Jade East. And as the service was conducted by a rent-a-rabbi, things moved along apace.

The burial was out on Long Island along an avenue they might as well have called Cemetery Street or Burial Boulevard. There was like ten different graveyards for Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, veterans, you name it. Think I might have seen one for clowns and other deceased circus performers. Wondered if they buried clowns in little cars, ten to a car. It was all such a bunch of crap or, as Boyle might say, a load a shite. What does any of it matter to the dead?

Clearly the rabbi had received the going flat rate for his services as he picked up the speed with which he rendered his graveside ceremony. Spoke so quickly the words blended together into a kind of buzzing. When he was done, the few of us there tossed some spadefuls of dirt atop Sophie’s coffin. That was that. My dad didn’t even bother asking if I wanted to sit shiva with him. If I said no, he would’ve been forced to back down. So why bother?

As I walked away from the gravesite to the one pitiful limo, cousin Ira hooked his arm through mine. In my family this was a major sign of affection.

“Does this mean we’re engaged?” I asked.

“Just keep your mouth shut, wiseguy, and keep walking.”

“But the limo, my dad...”

“I’ll drive Todd home,” he called to my father, waving him to go on ahead.

We stopped until the limo and the two or three other cars pulled away. I remember the sick look on my Uncle Harry’s face when he saw me. Thought he might actually have been sad his sister hung herself, naked on the tree in front of her house, shit and piss running down her cold, bare legs. No, not Harry. He got into his black El Dorado and sped away, the front tires spitting gravel back in defiance.

When I tried removing my arm from Ira’s grip, he squeezed my hand till it nearly broke.

“Come on, asshole, someone wants to meet you.”

Ira was my mom’s cousin and as popular as a lungful of cancer. At that infamous bar mitzvah of my cousin Jay’s, people lined up to talk to Harry like he was the Pope. No one talked to Ira. No one ever talked to Ira. Jews are funny that way. They respect the law, but not those who enforce it. Ira was a joyless fuck. A good detective by all measures, but joyless.

He marched me to a stone bench in front of a row of four graves. A black granite headstone marked each of the graves. Each bore the name Einstein. Was there like a message in that, I wondered?

Standing by the bench was a hulk of a man with a shaven head and thick neck. It was the kind of neck with ripples in the back. He wore an ill-fitting gray suit that might as well have had SEARS CLOSEOUT embroidered down the sleeves. But he was shaped so that even a Sayville Row suit would have looked like a Halloween costume on him. Cop! Cop! Cop! The alarm bells rang in my head.

“This is Captain O’Connor,” Ira said.

“Christ, another donkey.”

Cousin Ira unhinged his arm, gave me a quick jab in my left kidney that left me on my knees and gagging on Sonya Einstein’s grave.

O’Connor crossed himself — you just gotta love the fucking Irish — knelt down beside me and said, “Pleasure to meet you, too. Sorry for your troubles.”

His smirk was broader than Griffin’s but had the same chilling effect. This guy meant business.

“You and me, Todd, we’re gonna be great friends,” he continued, his sour breath making me cringe. He held his left hand out to me. “Come on, lad, take it. It’s gonna be yours in a coupl’a months anyways.”

I looked back and saw Ira was fully prepared to administer his unique form of renal massage to my other kidney if I didn’t follow instructions. I held out my left hand. In it, O’Connor placed a NYPD detective’s shield.

“What the f—”

Ira landed his punch before I could get the — uck out of my mouth. Now I coughed up my breakfast onto Sonya’s grave.

“Jesus and his blessed mother!” O’Connor exclaimed in much the same way as Boyle might. “Show some respect for the dead.”

Managed to right myself and make it to the bench. O’Connor took the seat beside me.

“Now here’s the offer, lad. You’ll be one of us or you’ll be one of them,” he said, pointing to the Einsteins. “It’s a simple choice. I run the OCCB — do you know what that is, son?”

“Organized Crime Control Bureau.”

“Smart boy.” O’Connor patted my cheek. “As I was saying, I run the OCCB Task Force that oversees criminal enterprises where more than one gang of scumbags does business with another. You know, like how the wops and sheenies at JFK make nice with those shanty pricks you work for.”

“I don’t work for anyone but my Uncle—”

O’Connor slapped my face hard.

“Don’t take that attitude with me, lad. That fat cunt you call your uncle has been in my pocket for five years. So maybe when the boyos cut his heart out and feed it to him, they can lay him beside you.”

“Harry’s been an informant for years,” Ira chimed in. “And one way or another, he’s a dead man.”

“That’s right, Todd, your uncle’s fucked. But for you, there’s a chance.”

I held the shield up. “You call this a chance?”

“No, lad, I call it an only chance. And you’re lucky to have it. How you’ve managed all these years to avoid arrest is beyond me. Had you been arrested, let alone convicted of anything, you’d be fucked as well.”

“How’s that?”

“Because we’d be hard pressed to get you on the job with a record, shithead,” Ira said. “So we’re making this an elevator ride for you.”

“Pretty cryptic for a cop, cuz.”

“Then let me explain it to you. You’re one of us or one of them. It’s up or down with no change of direction.”

“What if I choose them?”

“It’s your prerogative, I suppose,” O’Connor admitted. “But then you’d be the second person in your family to commit suicide.”

“Suicide?”

“Exactly so,” O’Connor said. “Cause even if you don’t take the offer, we’ll let it leak that you’re working for us and you’ll be dead.”

“That’s murder, not suicide.”

“You’re splitting hairs, lad. Either way, you’ll be dead.”

“Nice operation you guys are running,” I sneered.

“You think that stone cold Griffin would give you an option? Come on, lad, use that — what’s that expression, Ira — your Yiddisher...”

“Yiddisher kupf,” Ira said. “Jewish head.”

“Yes, your Jewish smarts,” O’Connor translated.

Wasn’t being left with much of a choice. Nicky would’ve told them both to go fuck themselves and taken a swing at O’Connor. I wasn’t Nicky.

“I’ll do it.”

“Decisive, I like that,” O’Connor said, beaming like a new father. “Done at the speed of light. Appropriate, given our proximity.”

Somebody was bound to make an Einstein joke. Glad it wasn’t me.

“Do you like cheese steaks, Detective Rosen?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Ira will explain it to you on the ride back to your father’s house. Welcome aboard.” O’Connor patted my back. He knew I wasn’t about to shake his hand. He did, however, hold his left hand out to me. “The shield, son. You’ll have to earn it.”

Tossed it in my own puke and walked toward Ira’s car. Heard O’Connor laughing as I walked away.