husband; he grasped it firmly in his big paw.
“But we have no assurance?” he asked, realizing he was again repeating himself, and that his voice was desperate.
The translucent film over Bernardi’s eyes seemed to become more opaque. Now it was the pearly cover on the eyes of a blind dog.
“No assurance,” he said shortly. “None whatsoever.”
Silence fell into the pastel room like a gentle rain. They looked at each other, all three, heads going back and forth, eyes flickering. They could hear the noises of the hospital: loudspeakers squawking, carts creaking by, murmured voices, and somewhere a radio playing dance music. But in this room the three looked into each others’ eyes and were alone, swaddled in silence.
“Thank you, doctor,” Delaney said harshly. “We will discuss it.”
Bernardi nodded, rose swiftly. “I will leave you these documents,” he said, placing a file on the bedside table. “I suggest you read them carefully. Please do not delay your decision more than twenty-four hours. We must not let this go on, and plans must be made.”
He bounced from the room, light on his feet for such a stout man.
Edward X. Delaney had been born a Catholic and raised a Catholic. Communion and confession were as much a part of his life as love and work. He was married in the Church, and his children attended parochial schools. His faith was monolithic. Until 1945…
On a late afternoon in 1945, the sun hidden behind a sky black with oily smoke, Captain Delaney led his company of Military Police to the liberation of a concentration camp in north Germany. The barbed wire gate was swinging wide. There was no sign of activity. The Captain deployed his armed men. He himself, pistol drawn, strode up to an unpainted barracks and threw open the door.
The things stared at him.
A moan came up from his bowels. This single moan, passing his lips, took with it Church and faith, prayer and confidence, ceremony, panoply, habit and trust. He never thought of such things again. He was a cop and had his own reasons.
Now, sensing what lay ahead, he yearned for the Church as a voluntary exile might yearn for his own native land. But to return in time of need was a baseness his pride could not endure. They would see it through together, the two of them, her strength added to his. The aggregate-by the peculiar alchemy of their love-was greater than the sum of the parts.
He sat on the edge of her bed, smiled, smoothed her hair with his heavy hand. A nurses’ aide had brushed her hair smooth and tied it back with a length of thick blue knitting wool.
“I know you don’t like him,” she said.
“That’s not important,” he shook his great head. “What is important is that you trust him. Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. But I still want to talk to Ferguson.”
“You don’t want to decide now?”
“No. Let me take the papers and try to understand them. Then I’ll show them to Ferguson and get his opinion. Tonight, if possible. Then I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss it. Will that be all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Did Mary do the curtains?” She was referring to their Monday-to-Friday, 8-to-4 maid.
“Yes, she did. And she brushed and aired the living room drapes in the backyard. Tomorrow she’ll do the parlor drapes if the weather holds. She wants so much to visit you but I said you weren’t up to it. I’ve told all your friends that. Are you sure it’s what you want?”
“Yes. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. Maybe later I’ll feel up to it. What did you have for breakfast?”
“Let’s see…” he said, trying to remember. “A small orange juice. Cereal, no sugar. Dry toast and black coffee.”
“Very good,” she nodded approvingly. “You’re sticking to your diet. What did you have for lunch?”
“Well, things piled up, and we had to send out for sandwiches. I had roast beef on whole wheat and a large tomato juice.”
“Oh Edward,” she said, “that’s not enough. You must promise that tonight you’ll-” Suddenly she stopped; tears flooded up to her eyes and out, down her cheeks. “Oh Jesus,” she cried. “Why me?”
She lurched up to embrace him. He held her close, her wet face against his. His blunt fingers stroked her back, and he kept repeating, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over. It didn’t seem enough.
He went back to the Precinct carrying her medical file. The moment he was at his desk he called Dr. Sanford Ferguson, but couldn’t reach him. He tried the Medical Examiner’s office, the morgue, and Ferguson’s private office. No one knew where he was. Delaney left messages everywhere.
Then he put the.medical file aside and went to work. Dorfman and two Precinct detectives were waiting to see him, on separate cases. There was a deputation of local businessmen to demand more foot patrolmen. There was a group of black militants to protest “police brutality” in breaking up a recent march. There was a committee of Jewish leaders to discuss police action against demonstrations held almost daily in front of an Egyptian embassy located in the precinct. There was an influential old woman with an “amazing new idea” for combating drug addiction (put sneezing powder in cocaine). And there was a wealthy old man charged (for the second time) with exhibiting himself to toddlers.
Captain Delaney listened to all of them, nodding gravely. Occasionally he spoke in a voice so deliberately low his listeners had to crane forward to hear. He had learned from experience that nothing worked so well as quiet, measured tones to calm anger and bring people, if not to reason then to what was possible and practical.
It was 8:00 p.m. before his outer office had emptied. He rose and forced back his massive shoulders, stretching wide. This kind of work, he had discovered, was a hundred times more wearying than walking a beat or riding a squad. It was the constant, controlled exercise of judgment and will, of convincing, persuading, soothing, dictating and, when necessary, surrendering for a time, to take up the fight another day.
He cleaned up his desk, taking a regretful look at the paperwork that had piled up in one day and must wait for tomorrow. Before leaving, he looked in at lockups and squad rooms, at interrogation rooms and the detectives’ cubbyholes. The 251st Precinct house was almost 90 years old. It was cramped, it creaked, and it smelled like all antique precinct houses in the city. A new building had been promised by three different city administrations. Captain Delaney made do. He took a final look at the Duty Sergeant’s blotter before he walked next door to his home.
Even older than the Precinct house, it had been built originally as a merchant’s townhouse. It had deteriorated over the years until, when Delaney bought it with the inheritance from his father’s estate ($28,000), it had become a rooming house, chopped up into rat-and-roach-infested one-person apartments. But Delaney had satisfied himself that the building was structurally sound, and Barbara’s quick eye had seen the original marble fireplaces and walnut paneling (painted over but capable of being restored), the rooms for the children, the little paved areaway and overgrown garden. So they had bought it, never dreaming he would one day be commanding officer of the Precinct house next door.
Mary had left the hall light burning. There was a note Scotch-taped to the handsome pier glass. She had left slices of cold lamb and potato salad in the refrigerator. There was lentil soup he could heat up if he wanted it, and an apple tart for dessert. It all seemed good to him, but he had to watch his weight. He decided to skip the soup.
First he called the hospital. Barbara sounded sleepy and didn’t make much sense; he wondered if they had given her a sedative. He spoke to her for only a few moments and thought she was relieved when he said good- night.
He went into the kitchen, took off his uniform jacket and gun belt and hung them on the back of a chair. First he mixed a rye highball, his first drink of the day. He sipped it slowly, smoked a cigarette (his third of the day), and wondered why Dr. Ferguson hadn’t returned his calls. Suddenly he realized it might be Ferguson’s day off, in which case he had probably been out playing golf.
Carrying the drink, he went into the study and rummaged through the desk for his address book. He found Ferguson’s home number and dialed. Almost immediately a jaunty voice answered:
“Doctor Ferguson. ”
“Captain Edward X. Delaney here.”
