receiver.
April had never heard those words from the lieutenant before. Help? She was stunned. 'Is Alfie still running things upstairs?'
'Yeah, he's still here. But we have a new CO since your time.'
April nodded. Inspector Samuel Chew. She'd never met him. At one time she'd hoped he would somehow hear of her, show an interest in her, and bring her back home. In those days, she hadn't known how to get his attention, however, so it hadn't happened. Probably a good thing, as it turned out.
'You want to meet him? He's in there.' Rott pointed across the linoleum of the lobby. April realized that she could now meet anybody she wanted. She turned her head. The door was closed.
'Maybe later. I want to see Alfie first; is he in?'
'Yeah, I think so. Want me to let him know you're coming?'
She shook her head. 'I want to surprise him.'
'Good to meet you, Baum,' Rott said magnanimously.
'Likewise,' Baum replied. Like almost everybody in a new position, Woody was having a great time standing around and only getting to speak when spoken to.
April went ahead of him down the hall to the center of the building. She could see there'd been a few changes at the 5th. Over several years in the previous administration, the crumbling Elizabeth Street landmark with its steep staircases had been poorly renovated at extortionate cost to the city. Now the quaint building, which harked back to the long-gone New York of Teddy Roosevelt, seemed to be in the midst of a second restoration, probably to fix the botched and unfinished repairs of the first. As April climbed the steps, she admired the work done on the magnificent banister and wondered if they'd gotten around to doing the women's room yet.
The real changes to the house, however, were not cosmetic. The commander's office, previously upstairs, was now just inside the precinct front door. When April got to the top of the stairs and headed back down the hall to the front of the building, she got a bigger surprise. The detectives had always had a big, airy room fronting on the street. But now a glassed-in enclosure was planted just inside the door. With the CO watching the front door downstairs and Lieutenant Alfredo Bernardino on watch over the detectives, it looked as if the O-Five had become a precinct on the lookout for trouble from within.
At the moment, the said Bernardino was in his glass office with his back to the door. Like a plant grown out of shape from straining toward an elusive ray of sunlight, the lieutenant was swiveled around in his chair as if striving to return to his previous place at the window, just above the precinct's entrance, where he could see everything going on in the street.
When April knocked on the glass, he swiveled back. His face was dominated by a huge nose that had been broken more than once, and his tough, wrinkled hide was generously pocked with the scars of teenage acne. As he swung around, his shrewd brown eyes were challenging and cold in their pouchy sockets. They lit up when he saw who was seeking him. April took in the aging ruin in the wrinkled gray shirt and wrinkled pink tie as if she'd never seen him before. His crude visage was still double-ugly, a face only a mother could love. His stained brown leather jacket still hung on the back of his chair as it did in almost every season; a shoulder holster housed a .38 he'd only shot in action once, and a cigarette he would never light hung out of his mouth. April realized with a jolt that Alfie, a man nearly twice her age and ugly as sin, who'd given her a start as a detective, who'd sparred with her and taught her how to think—-the irritable old soul whom the people of Chinatown trusted and thought had more than a few lives behind him—was the model for Mike Sanchez, the handsome young man she loved.
'April,
howya doin', sweetheart?' he exclaimed. His lean cheeks creased with pleasure and his skinny hand reached out to take hers.
There it was, the '
,' 'sweetheart' bit. A surprised laugh escaped her lips. She wondered if they'd all still be calling her sweetheart when she made captain. She shook his hand.
'Alfie. Look at this, they got you in a box now?' She went over and rapped on the glass. 'This thing bulletproof?'
'Nah, we don't go in for that sissy stuff. Who's the friend? Come on in.'
'Detective Baum—Woody.'
'Woody Tree, that's a new one.'
'Oh, you know Jewish,' Woody said.
Alfie snorted. 'Sure I know Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Dominican—Fujian, Fijian, you name it, I know it.' He moved a few chairs around. 'Come in, sit, sit.'
April took a chair that faced the desks and empty holding cell. The desk that had been hers was also unoccupied at the moment, but the shift changed in a few minutes. Someone would come in and she'd see who sat there now. Again she was flooded with memories of a life more simple than the one she had now.
The ghosts of all those shadowy longings she used to have for things she'd known nothing about now hovered in the air over her head, as the ghosts that she didn't believe in always did. The things she'd wanted so much had come to her at the price of her peace of mind and her innocence. She found herself almost overwhelmed with nostalgia for the time when she'd had no responsibility for the people below her and few choices about how to handle anything.
'Hey, it's great to see you, April. You made good, huh?'
Her chin dipped in a modest curtsy, acknowledging the compliment. It wasn't always easy to know what to do when people suddenly got nice. 'How's Lorna, the kids?'
'Lorna's still Lorna, older. Kathy's an FBI agent. Bill's in law school.'
'Looks like they got through college, after all. Congratulations.'
'Could be worse,' he said proudly. 'What brings you down here? Still want my job, cutie?'
'Nah, you can keep it now. I have my own.' April glanced at Woody with a smile. He was listening, probably thinking about taking
job.
'So what's up?' Alfie's eyes got shrewd again. 'You won't believe this—an old friend of yours, remember Nanci Hua? She came in asking about you, oh not even an hour ago. Funny how things happen.'
'Nanci? No kidding. What did she want?'
'She wouldn't say. She looked upset. She wanted you. I gave her your number.'
'She still in the same place?'
He shoveled through the mess on his desk. 'Uh-uh, out in Garden City. I have the number here somewhere, but I never thought I'd be seeing you. To what do I owe the pleasure?'
Alfie nodded at some people April had never seen before, coming in for the afternoon tour, staring at the visitors with frank curiosity.
'Oh, just curious if you've heard anything about black-market babies,' April asked.
'Black-market babies?' Alfie scratched his head as if she'd gone loony from working uptown too long. 'From down here?'
April shrugged expectantly.
'We had a girl die last year of a botched abortion. Her family didn't want to risk taking her to the hospital, so she bled to death. We get a few of those.' He was thoughtful. 'Then there was the girl a few months ago. Only twelve. They found her in the water under the Brooklyn Bridge, but she was dead before she went in. Thank God the case wasn't ours.' He shook his head, then tried out the words again. 'Blackmar-ket babies. That's a new one on me. But you know how it is down here. What are you working on?'
'I caught the Popescu case.'
'Yeah. I heard about that. I thought the story was the mother offed it.' Alfie gave her a sharp look, waiting for enlightenment, just like the old days.
'Could be. Could also be something else. Keep this under your hat, will you? Turns out it wasn't her baby. So it's a mystery. You know how I hate mysteries.'
Alfie frowned. 'Couldn't it be a friend's baby? An adoption. How about from China, that play for you?'
