“You are going to kill me?”
“Ten, nine, eight, seven.”
Jean Michel Toussant didn’t need to be told twice. He ran wildly, further into the woods.
When they got back to the car, Joe Serpe retrieved the cell phone he’d lifted from the room above the club. He dialed 911.
“Hurry,” he said breathlessly when the operator got on. “There’s a crazy man assaulting people along the nature trails in Bethpage State Park. Hurry.”
As they approached the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway, Serpe tossed the phone down a storm drain.
They were nearly to the Sagtikos Parkway before anything but ambient engine noise and talk radio could be heard in the car. Both men had kept their very loud thoughts to themselves. Serpe, feeling unexpectedly guilty, could not get Healy’s admonition about the relative merits of good deeds out of his head.
“You trusted me with your piece back there,” Serpe said. “I appreciate that.”
“Yeah, especially since you wanted to kill him.”
“You noticed that, huh?”
“I noticed.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“You’re not exactly a stranger to me, Serpe. You never struck me as the executioner type,” Healy answered.
“If anyone ever deserved executing, that piece of shit did.”
“I don’t disagree, but you’re still not a murderer.”
“What am I, then?”
“A guy who plants a little evidence, maybe.”
“You saw-”
“Yeah, I noticed that too.”
“I couldn’t just let him walk away.”
“I suppose not. What are you gonna do with the tapes?”
“Me, I don’t know what to do with them, but I think I know someone who will.”
“Okay. So what’s our next move?”
Serpe was shocked. “Our next move? There isn’t a next move for me or you. The cops will pick up Toussant and our part in this will be over. I guess G.A.F.F. or G.A.F.T. or whatever the fuck the name of that task force will have to do the rest.”
“Yeah,” said Healy. “I guess.”
When they pulled up in front of the lonely split ranch at 89 Boxwood, Healy hesitated, staring at the house as if for the first time.
“I used to love this house,” he whispered as much to himself as to Joe Serpe. “Now, when I leave it, I almost hate to comeback. I hate it.”
“You don’t hate the house,” Joe said. “You hate that she’s not there waiting for you. You forget sometimes, right?”
“Less now than I used to.”
“It gets easier, but it never gets easy.” Healy shook his head, unconvinced.
“So thanks for helping me out.” Joe offered his hand. “You did a good thing today.”
“I was glad to help.” He shook Serpe’s hand. “Listen, I’ll have the shirt dry cleaned and mail it back to you,” Healy said, referring to one of Vinny’s shirts Joe had lent him as part of their charade.
“Keep it,” Joe said. “Or give it away. I’ve been hanging on to some of my grief a little too long also.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Bob Healy waited until the car was completely swallowed by the night before stepping toward his house. He never did tell Joe what he had meant to, but he wasn’t terribly bothered by it this time. In spite of Serpe’s words to the contrary, Healy knew they would be seeing each other again, and soon.
Friday, February 27th, 2004
I t had been a long time since Joe Serpe picked up a Newsday with his twenty-four ounce coffee at the 7/Eleven on Portion Road. Sometimes he couldn’t avoid a glimpse at the screaming headlines of the New York daily rags as he passed the rack on his way to the coffee pots, but that was about the extent of his media interest. Blessedly, the tugboat had no radio and he never watched TV news. As far as he could tell, he was none the worse for his less than encyclopedic knowledge of world events.
After Vinny’s death, Joe’s life had gotten very small. He liked it that way. With his family gone and his brother dead, the outside world couldn’t touch him. He had Mulligan, his sack time with the Triple D ladies, and his work. In the last three plus years, the only aspects of his life that ever really changed were the faces of the women he slept with and the price of oil. And with oil, price was almost beside the point. It was like food in that respect. People had to eat and they had to heat.
Ossie, the Pakistani counterman, gave Joe his usual broad smile, but this morning mixed with a tinge of confusion. Joe noticed a questioning look in Ossie’s eyes. This was not lost on Joe. When he worked undercover, his life had often depended on his ability to read people’s faces. If he couldn’t detect a situation going sour from the tiniest changes in a dealer’s demeanor, all the backup in the world would have done him no good. There was less at stake this morning. As Joe slid a five dollar bill across the counter, he mumbled something about movie listings.
Serpe sat in his car, sipping his coffee, scouring the pages for word of Toussant’s arrest. Joe smiled as he turned the pages, once again enjoying the feel of the paper in his hand. Before the troubles, he had been a newspaper junkie, reading two, sometimes three papers a day. It used to drive Ralphy crazy. Suddenly aware of his pleasure, Serpe also began to realize how he had let his life atrophy. In a weird way, Cain’s murder had given Joe his life back. The long sleepwalk was over.
He had purpose. He had Marla, he hoped. And strangest of all, he had Bob Healy. Though Joe had no idea how to characterize their relationship, they definitely had one. As much as Joe liked Frank and as close as they had become, it wasn’t a cop thing. In an inexplicable way, Joe had felt closer to Healy during their silent ride from Brooklyn to Bethpage than he had felt to Frank in the whole time they were acquainted. When this all got sorted out, he’d have to have a long sit down with Healy. Not only to thank him for his help, but to finish up their business.
As forthcoming as Healy had been about what had transpired four years ago, Joe got the sense that the former I.A. detective had more to tell. Last night, and when he came to ask for help, and even at the diner that first time, Joe sensed Healy on the verge of saying something, but he seemed never to find the words. There were still details missing. Joe had questions that begged for answers, itches that needed scratching. That he and Ralphy had been targets of the I.A.B. was pretty fucking self-evident, but why, he wondered, and for how long? Who initiated the investigation? Was it Ralphy’s carelessness or Joe’s covering for him that had gotten I.A.’s attention? None of that ever came out at trial. But as ready as Serpe was to finally hear everything there was to hear about those dark days, he knew he could wait a little while longer. He had something else to take care of first.
Toussant did not make the paper, at least not Newsday. Joe wasn’t particularly surprised by this. First off, he had no idea how long it had taken the cops to track down Mr. French, there in the wilds of Nassau County. With its five golf courses, polo grounds, tennis courts and nature trails, Bethpage State Park was pretty damned expansive. If the cops hadn’t gotten to him quickly, a shrewd and desperate man like Toussant might be hard quarry, even if he was as big as a house and stank of vomit. Secondly, he hadn’t been big news to begin with. Like Healy said, the Suffolk cops had lost interest in him. Gangs had become the focus of their investigation.
And now they were the focus of Joe Serpe’s unofficial inquiry as well. In spite of what he had said to Bob Healy last night, Joe had no intention of letting this go. Group blame gave him no comfort. No, someone, a person,
