“He made her watch it the next morning, all of it, while he masturbated in front of her.
And he threatened to send it to her husband if she went to the police. He still has it. So, if you find him, you can’t let on how you-”
“I understand. He won’t know how we found him.” Marla was confused. “We? Who’s we?”
“I’m still working on that. How did you get Corral to tell you this? It couldn’t’ve been easy.”
“But it was, Joe. I’d like to think it’s because I’m good at my job, but that’s not the reason. I just happened to be a person she trusts and I gave her an opening. She’s been dying to tell someone for a long time. It’s hard carrying shame around with you.”
“No one needs to teach me that lesson. Listen, I want you to hear this from me.”
“Uh oh. What?”
“I quit my job today,” he said.
“But you told me you love Frank and-”
“That’s why I quit. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you Saturday night, okay?”
“Okay. Kisses guaranteed, right?”
“Try and stop me.”
Joe found himself staring at the phone several minutes after he hung up. It wasn’t about Marla this time. He was disgusted with himself. He was disgusted with himself because of all the emotions he could have felt for Corral Lofton, anger was the most prominent. If she hadn’t cheated on her husband… If she had gone to the cops… Did Mr. French kill Cain? Maybe, maybe not. But Corral Lofton knew what a violent, horrible man Toussant was and instead of protecting other women or the people she drove in her van, she chose to protect herself.
That was life. People protected their own or themselves. It wasn’t Joe’s place to judge them. He had just forgotten how gray a cop’s universe could be. When you go into the academy, you’re certain there’s a right and a wrong. Once you’re on the job a while, the distinctions blur. When you’re a narcotics detective, the distinctions get to be as fine as camel hair. Sometimes there are no distinctions at all.
Corral Lofton had lost a lot that night in the room above the club. She just couldn’t afford to lose anything else. When he thought about it that way, Joe understood completely. Loss and Joe Serpe were far from strangers. What he had lost was gone forever, but Joe made himself a promise to try and get back some of what Corral had lost.
Out of the shower, he sat down on the couch to make a list of the people he could ask for favors. Mulligan snored loudly on the back ledge of the sofa. Joe made another list of cops and ex-cops he might ask to act as backup for him during his ride into Brooklyn. Neither list took long to complete. If Joe hadn’t testified against Ralphy in open court, both lists would have been quite long.
If he had been willing to go to prison for Ralphy’s sins, his old buddies would have respected that. That he had paid for his crimes of omission with his career, pension, family, house, and marriage wasn’t enough. That Ralph would have gone to prison with or without Joe’s testimony was of no consequence to the guys on the job. Joe was a rat. Period. No respect. No understanding. No second chances. In the course of a few short months, Joe Serpe had gone from prince to pauper. Not only wasn’t there anyone to go to for help, there wasn’t anyone who would even speak to him.
When he went back into the bedroom to collect his oil clothes and put them in the hamper he kept in the landlord’s garage, the stink of them gave him an idea. It was an idea that ten days ago he wouldn’t have believed was in the realm of possibility. That was before the world had changed on him again.
Ash Wednesday, February 25th, 2004
The sun was almost warm on the skin, the sky cloudless. It was one of those rare February days when the weather implies that Spring might actually come. During cold, snowy winters, oilmen savor such days as this. Business slows down just enough to let you catch your breath. Your movements become less robotic. Lugo’s would be packed later. In the meantime, it was a lovely day for an execution.
The yard was busy, but in a more relaxed way than it had been for weeks. When the weather’s bad, the activity is all business. There’s no wasted movement. Trucks are warmed up and moved out. Conversation is kept to a minimum. Greetings are grunts, nods, and waves. Today, guys from the truck repair shop and auto body shop next door to the yard were stopping by to shake hands, tell stories of their latest conquests, and near misses, but Cain’s murder was still on everybody’s mind, if not on their lips.
Frank was miserable. It wasn’t an act. Still reeling from the kid’s death, he hated to lose Joe, too. Dixie was a good driver, maybe better than Joe, but he was a real yahoo from the Florida panhandle who’d come up north on a football scholarship. He quit after one semester and stayed because he was too embarrassed to go on home. That was 1998. Frank liked Dixie well enough, although they had about as much in common as Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Petty. One of the barriers between Frank and Dixie had been removed by fate. Dixie never hid the fact that he didn’t much care for “having that retard boy around.” Truth was, Frank had had business enough for months to put Dixie on full time in his own truck, but he didn’t care for Dixie’s attitude toward Cain.
Promptly at 7:30, Joe Serpe strolled into the yard as if it was a day like any other. The timing couldn’t have been better. Jesus from the truck repair place, Steve Scanlon from Black Gold, Dixie, and Pete from the deli were all there as witnesses.
“Don’t bother, Joe,” Frank spoke his lines with little enthusiasm.
“Don’t bother what?”
“Coming into the office. You’re done.”
“Frank, what are you talking about?”
“You’re a habit I can’t afford, Joe.”
“I’m fired?”
“I’m sorry, but yeah, you’re fired. Here, this is for you.” He held an envelope out to Joe.
“Why, because those asshole cops gave me those tickets?”
“Like I said, Joe, I can’t afford this shit. This is business. Maybe if things settle down, I’ll take you back. But this is costing me too much money.”
“Fuck you!” he growled, smacking the envelope out of Frank’s hand. “And you can shove your thirty pieces of silver up your ass.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Joe, but I got no choice.”
Joe flipped Frank the bird and turned to go. Although he knew it hurt Frank to go through this charade, Joe smiled to himself. Now if the cops came sniffing around, there’d be enough witnesses to insulate Frank. If there was fallout-and Joe knew there probably would be-from his going after Toussant, Hoskins and Kramer couldn’t justify punishing Frank and Mayday.
Before he could get to his car, Joe was stopped by Steve Scanlon.
“Joe, Joe!” Steve called to him.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Can we talk?”
“Why not?” Joe laughed. “I got nothing else to do with my time.”
“Come on over to my office.”
“Sure.”
Bob Healy was getting impatient. Now not only did he have the old baggage he was carrying around for Joe Serpe, but he had information about the kid’s murder. His suspicions were correct. There was an ongoing investigation. That’s why Detective Lieutenant Asshole had been so rough on Serpe. He didn’t want anyone stumbling into the trap that he had so carefully set, especially not a street smart ex-cop like Serpe. It had nothing to do with that Toussant guy.
Healy knew all about ongoing investigations. They become your babies. You nurture and protect them. You sacrifice for them. Trouble is, sometimes you lose perspective. Yeah, sometimes you ignore facts staring you right in the face. Sometimes you bend the rules into pretzels if it means keeping your baby alive. With the Serpe/Abruzzi
