A Piece of the Action

The alcohol had done nothing to improve the image that stared back at him. His mane was as wild as a real lion’s mane. It stood almost straight out, a thin white halo that looked more ghostly than saintly.

But his mane wasn’t the worst of it. His complexion was red, bright red. He resembled one of the heavily-rouged whores he used to roust when he was working Vice.

He thought about the whores for a moment. Thought about what they’d offered him to avoid an arrest. The memory was pleasant enough, though he wasn’t aroused by the legs and breasts that flitted through his mind. No, what aroused him was the sudden thrust of an entirely different image. He saw his darlin’ Kathleen lying on Stanley Moodrow’s sheets. Her legs were wrapped around his hips and she was moaning as he rammed into her.

“Fuckmefuckmefuckmefuckmefuckmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”

Now his face was really red. Flag red. Santa Claus red. Fire engine red. He shook the image out of his mind before they got to something even worse.

“Hair of the dog,” he muttered, pulling at the bottle as he turned away from the mirror. “Now there’s something you’ve got to do, boyo. And you know what it is.”

Pat Cohan walked down the hallway, surprised by his steady gait. The door to his wife’s room was closed, as usual. He could hear her moving inside, hear the monotonous drone as she pursued her various rituals.

“Are ya decent, Rose?” he called, pushing the door open. “Not that I give a damn.”

He found her kneeling on the bare floor. Staring up at the serene smile of a five-foot plaster statue.

“Holy Mary, mother of God,” she droned.

Did she even know he was there? He took a quick drink, then crossed the room and jerked her to her feet.

“A little talk, Rose. That’s what we’re after havin’.”

She turned and looked up at him, a bony old woman in a shapeless black dress. Her gray eyes, he noted, were surprisingly sane. Did that make it harder? Or easier?

“A talk,” she whispered. “Yes, a talk.” She cocked her head and looked at him out of the corner of one eye. “Is it Jesus you’ve come to talk about, Matthew?”

Pat Cohan started. Matthew was his Confirmation name. It was the name she’d called him during the early days of their marriage.

“No, not Jesus, Rose. It’s Stanley Moodrow. It’s the devil himself I’ve come to discuss. He’s ruined our lives and he must be punished. We can’t be lettin’ him have our darlin’ Kathleen, can we? We can’t be lettin’ them fornicate like dumb animals. They’re livin’ in sin, Rose. That’s what the pair of ’em are doin’. Ruttin’ around like dogs in the road.”

Rose Cohan turned back to her tiny altar, lips already moving.

“Not now, Rose. We’ve somethin’ to discuss. After which I promise never to interrupt your prayers again.”

He spun her around, once again struck by her lucid stare, and wondered if she’d been faking it all along. He, like everybody else, including the priests at Sacred Heart, had assumed that she was crazy. Was there a parish that didn’t have its share of Rose Cohans? Of shriveled old ladies mumbling their way to the grave? They were tolerated, their piety never questioned. And if they were stable enough to mop the nunnery basement, so much the better.

“You shouldn’t have made him go, Matthew. Why did you make him go? He wanted to be a priest. He was in the seminary; he didn’t have to go.”

Peter, always Peter. She’d taken that sissy and made him into a holy martyr. Why couldn’t she understand? Everybody in the Department, lieutenants, captains, inspectors, everybody was packing his kid off to fight the war. Younger cops were resigning by the hundreds. They were enlisting.

Meanwhile, his own son played priest in his seminary room. His own son pissed his pants at the thought of Hitler’s tanks.

Better a dead son to bring you honor than a live son to bring you shame. That’s what he’d thought at the time and that’s what he still believed.

“Pete was a hero and a patriot,” Pat Cohan said. “He died like a man.”

“Is that how a man dies? With thousands of other men in the waters off a beach? Is that a hero’s funeral? A letter from the Department of the Army saying ‘presumed lost’?”

He snorted in disgust. “Maybe you’re right. Hero is stretchin’ it a bit. In fact, havin’ known the little coward intimately, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn he swam all the way to the North Pole. And ya can stop prayin’ for him. Between all the prayers he said and all the prayers you’ve said, little Peter’s sure to be floatin’ around with the Big Prick himself.”

Rose Cohan started at the epithet. “It’s not Peter I pray for, Matthew. It’s you.”

She turned away, walking back to the little altar, blessing herself before kneeling.

“Well, I guess Baby Jesus hasn’t been listenin’, Rose, because I’m as unrepentant as ever.”

He slid the worn.38 from his jacket pocket as he approached her. Thinking maybe the touch of it against her skull would bring her back to the present. But she continued to pray, her lips moving quickly over the words.

Well, he thought, Rose Cohan isn’t the point anyway. The point is Kathleen, darlin’ Kathleen. The point is what’s mine and what I intend to keep.

He left Rose lying on her own altar, a gory sacrifice to a vindictive god, and strolled downstairs to his den. The telephone seemed to beckon. He raised the bottle of Bushmill’s.

“Here’s to the glories of modern life. Here’s to the death of my lovely wife.”

The alcohol slid down his throat as if it had a life of his own, as if it was eager to radiate its heat to his brain.

It’s a question of last straws, he thought, laughing out loud. Of which last straw is the last last straw.

“The last last straw,” he said, responding as if he’d been called on to recite, “is your last straw. The straw you pluck. The straw you play.”

That’s why Detective Lieutenant Irv Rosten’s phone call hadn’t been the climax it appeared to be. All it had done was bring the problem into focus. He’d been mulling over ways to bring Kate home, anyway. Had thought of nothing else since she’d walked out on him. Rosten’s call had served to sharpen his resolve. Sharpen it by placing it firmly in the present.

“What kind of fucking game are you playing?” That was Rosten’s idea of a greeting.

“Well, I …”

“Don’t bother with the bullshit, Cohan. You figured you’d retire and leave me holding the bag. Well, it didn’t work. Your papers are sitting in Chief Rooney’s desk. They haven’t been processed and they’re not gonna be.”

“Irv, look …”

“I said, don’t bother. You brought me in and it was up to you to protect me. That’s the way it works. You were my rabbi. You had a right to call in your markers, but not to put my head in the noose. I just came out of Chief Rooney’s office and it’s my pleasure to personally deliver the message. Rooney doesn’t want me, Pat. He wants you. I don’t know why, but I get the feeling it’s personal. Rooney wants your ass and I’m gonna give it to him. You ordered me to arrest Stanley Moodrow and I’m willin’ to say so. You were with Joe Faci and Santo Silesi the night Izzy Stein disappeared. I’m willing to say that, too. You shouldn’t have run out on me, Pat. I figured you for a standup guy and you made me into a sap. Now the joke’s on you.”

Pat Cohan grabbed the phone and quickly dialed Moodrow’s number. He had no idea what he’d say if Moodrow answered. Beg, probably. Beg to speak to his own daughter.

“Hello.”

Cohan heaved a sigh at the sound of Kate’s voice. It was going to be all right, now. It was going to be all right.

“Kathleen,” he whispered, “darlin’ Kathleen.”

“Don’t, Daddy. It won’t work. I know the truth.”

“ ‘And the truth shall set you free?’ ” He made it into a question. Not that he cared about her answer. The idea was to keep her talking, to make a link.