Women are the more resilient of the species. Men are brittle. Separate a man’s shoulder in a touch football game and he’ll continue to play until he can no longer breathe. Tell him goodbye and he breaks.
“I know how that is,” Healy said. “I know exactly how that is.”
“I want her back so bad it makes me crazy.”
Improvising, Bob chose not to push, not by himself, anyway. He would let someone else do it for him.
“You wanna go have a drink? It’s on me.”
Pete Jr. hesitated.
“No, I couldn’t stand to have her look at me the way she did that last time.”
“You can’t hide forever. I’ve tried it.”
“But-”
“Don’t worry, Pete. If you want, I’ll talk to her for you.”
Strohmeyer’s face lit up. Healy had uttered the magic words. Rescue fantasies never die, they just grow less ambitious with time. At Pete Jr.’s age, the dream of someone to set things right was still a powerful one. And with a father like his, the dream would be downright intoxicating.
“If I could only make her understand.”
“Well, let’s give it a shot.”
Once again Pete Jr. was out of the car before Healy had unbuckled his seatbelt.
Currently, Joe Serpe didn’t feel anything but sorry for Tina Randazzo. If he gave it any thought, he didn’t suppose he liked her very much. He had met her only twice in the three years he had worked for Frank. It wasn’t like on the force where there were parties with other cops and their spouses. The oil business was different. There was a purposeful separation between the job and family. It was a bit of a wild west business that attracted all sorts of fallen angels, and just the fallen. The oil yard was no place for a woman like Tina.
Tina was the high school prize, a unanimous selection to the All Star Wet Dream Team. She had done a lot of print ad modeling, put herself through the State University of New York at Binghamton, and was all set to turn the fashion world on its ass. Apparently, someone neglected to tell the fashion world. When the jobs dried up, lack of funds forced her to move back to her parents’ house in Babylon. It killed her to do it and she was determined to get out. Frank-roughly handsome, driven, successful-seemed as good a way out as any.
Frank had confided to Joe that Tina felt she had married beneath her station and that she wasn’t shy about letting him know it. That was just the type of thing to hurt Frank, a savvy, street-smart guy who’d barely squeaked by in high school and who’d lived by his wits. For years Joe Serpe listened to Frank pour his heart out about their marriage, but never offered advice. Who was he to give marriage counseling?
The curse of beauty is that when it shows cracks, the cracks show wide and deep. Tina proved the point. Her imperial thinness had turned against her.
“Joe. God, Joe.” She embraced him for a long time. He could feel her tears on his neck.
He pushed her back gently to arms length. “Tell me what happened.”
“They found him in his cell, hanging from a bed sheet.”
“What do the doctors say?”
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything. They’re only talking to the cops.”
He guided her over to a vinyl couch in the lounge. “The kids all right?” he asked.
“I sent them down to stay with my parents in North Carolina.”
“Okay. That was smart.”
“You went to see Frank yesterday,” she said. “He told me.”
“Yeah, when I left him I got into a car accident and spent the last night in here.”
“Are you-”
“I’ve got a concussion. I’m okay.”
“I’m glad,” she said automatically.
“Listen Tina, I don’t think Frank did what he’s accused of, but I get the sense that something else is going on here. First off, Frank would barely talk to me yesterday, said he didn’t want my help, and kept trying to get rid of me. And the other day, when you and I spoke and I mentioned salvaging the marriage, you said something like you didn’t think there was anything worth saving.”
Tina was silent. She hung her head, grasping the top of her Coach bag with both hands as if it were a lifeline. It was a familiar scene in precinct interview rooms. It was that last gasp at holding out, that second before the suspect decides to spill his guts or give up his accomplices. Joe knew that sometimes they needed a little help when deciding. So he helped.
“I think Frank was being blackmailed.”
Tina’s hands relaxed. She unclasped the bag, reached in and removed a clear plastic case. She held it out to Joe. “It’s a DVD. I got it in the mail a few weeks ago.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Take it home and watch it.”
“You sure?”
“We didn’t-don’t have a great marriage, Joe. A lot of that is my fault. But I really did-do love him. I just hope I get a chance to tell him.”
Joe took the case, sliding it into his jacket pocket. Then he held Tina’s hand. A malicious voice cut through the silence.
“Ain’t this a pretty picture? What’s a matter, Snake, you can’t wait? If you two want a room, I think that can be arranged.”
Before Joe could react, Tina shot off the sofa and was swinging wildly at Hoskins’ face. He was quick to take a step back, but not before she had landed a clean left hook. The diamond of her engagement ring left a nice gash under the detective’s right eye. It took both Joe and Kramer to pull her away.
Healy almost hated to see the expectant smile on the kid’s face. The smile didn’t last long. As soon as they stepped through the door into the noisy pub, the bouncer spotted Strohmeyer Jr. and headed towards him. None of this was lost on Pete. It hadn’t escaped Healy’s notice either.
“Go get us a table, Pete. I’ll handle this guy. Do you know his name?”
“Everybody calls him Ox.”
“Okay, go get us that seat.”
Obediently, Pete slipped off to find them a booth.
As the bouncer approached, Healy understood why they called him Ox. He was a squat, thick man whose bald head, neck and shoulders were all of a piece. The guy was like a warehouse on legs.
“Your friend’s not welcome here,” Ox said, no aggression in his voice.
“Look, Ox, he doesn’t want any trouble. We’re here to have one drink and-”
“Listen, mister, I got no problem if you wanna stay, but he’s gotta go.” This time, Ox put a little muscle into his words.
“Okay, just let me go over and get him. Like I said, he doesn’t want trouble.”
“Go get him.”
Healy, disappointed that this wasn’t going as he hoped, about-faced and went to find the kid. He had wanted to get a beer or two into the kid, get him talking. He thought that seeing Cathy might knock him off balance. As he went, Bob looked at the bar. He figured the brunette working the sticks to be Cathy.
She was attractive enough in a modern sort of way, thin and muscular. She had a pierced navel and tattoos. Maybe it was an age thing, but Healy liked women with curves, not cuts and angles. Though only in his late forties, he had grown up in an era when only women’s ears were pierced and the only people with tattoos were bikers and your drunk uncle who had fought on Guadalcanal.
She might not be his cup of tea, but Healy appreciated her style behind the bar. She was in control, flirting just enough with all the schmos to give them hope they had a chance with her, but not so much that they’d walk away crushed when she turned them down. Her tip basket was probably quite full.
Pete Jr. had exercised good judgement in selecting a corner booth far from the bar that kept the pool table between them and Cathy’s line of sight. Bob slid in next to the kid and opened his mouth to speak, but Strohmeyer cut him off.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he said, getting all starry-eyed.
No. “Yeah, Pete, she’s great. Listen, Ox says we’ve got to go.”
