much.
“Man, it stink in ‘ere.” Mr. French held his nose. “You ‘ave two minutes to get to breakfast, ‘ose monkey,” he snickered. “‘ose monkey, indeed. The monkey is much smarter, no?”
Cain could feel himself getting worked up. He didn’t need the mirror to see his face was burning red.
French stuck out his chin at Cain. “Come on, boy, you would like to ‘it me? Your cop friend won’t be able to ‘elp you, monkey boy.”
The back of Cain’s left hand slashed across the rich black skin of Mr. French’s cheek.
Bob Healy rolled over in bed. Eyes still closed, he reached instinctively across the bed for Mary. He’d dreamed about her. They were at Plumb Beach, alone at the shoreline in the semi-darkness, lazy planes gliding overhead toward JFK. He cradled her freckled face in his sandpapery palms, her green eyes sparkling as they had when Bob saw her that first time at the CYO dance at St. Marks.
She sighed as she always sighed when he first slid inside her. Just the sound of her, that soft sigh, the very thought of it could drive him to distraction. Even now, after thirty years together, he got hard imagining Mary’s sigh. He had been no saint, straying every few years only to be disappointed at the results, always returning to Mary’s side. Sometimes he lay paralyzed in bed in the dark and silence, wondering if Mary knew of his dalliances. If she did, she never let on. He was lucky to have her.
His arm fell across vacant air. Mary was gone. The sheet was cold where his wife had once slept. The best part of Bob Healy’s day had come and gone in the span of a few breaths. The time between semi-consciousness and the realization that Mary was dead were the only pain-free seconds of his life. It had been six months now since he and the kids had buried her, but he hadn’t adjusted to the loss. He wondered if he ever would. Some weeks were better than others. Days would go by without a misstep and then he’d dream of her or smell her perfume on a woman passing him in the aisle at Waldbaums. For the first few months, he’d lied to himself that his transition would have gone more smoothly had the kids still lived at home, but nothing on God’s green earth could smooth over the loss of Mary.
This morning, Mary’s side of the bed was particularly cold. The whole bed, the covers, the pillows, too, were icy. Bob touched the tip of his nose.
“Christ!”
He stumbled over to the thermostat, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes so that he might read the temperature. It was 58 degrees in the house. When was the last time he’d checked the oil? Bob Healy was truly lost without Mary. He couldn’t balance a checkbook. He hadn’t even written more than a handful of checks until six months ago. He hadn’t ever shopped for food or socks or underwear, for that matter. Although checking the oil tank was his responsibility, it had been Mary who would make a notation on the calendar and remind her husband.
As he trundled down the old wooden stairs to the basement, Bob could feel a case of the ‘maybes’ coming on. It always happened this way when he’d go into a spin over Mary. First came the hurt and then the maybes. Maybe if he hadn’t put in his papers. Maybe if he hadn’t ruined so many other cops’ careers. He always feared there’d be a price to pay for his years in Internal Affairs, for the cops who’d chosen suicide instead of facing disgrace and jail time, but he thought he’d be the one picking up the tab, not Mary. Of course he understood it was completely irrational for him to connect his work to Mary’s pancreatic cancer. God, as cruel as Bob knew him to sometimes be, wouldn’t have done this to Mary. Still…
The red float indicator on the tank gauge was flush with the top of the tank. Empty. Just to make sure, Bob rapped his knuckles against the black steel tank. It rang hollow like the rest of his life. Upstairs, he couldn’t find the number of the oil company. Calling for deliveries was Mary’s job. Not anymore. Disgusted with himself, frustrated at his ineptitude, he reached for the Pennysaver. He flipped to the pages where all the oil companies advertised.
“Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…” he recited, “my mother says to pick this one!”
Saturday, Late Afternoon Valent,ine’s Day February 14th, 2004
The faint ghost of the winter sun was hanging low over the western L.I.E. The smell of snow mixed in the air with that of diesel exhaust. Joe Serpe was done for the day. Say Hallelujah! Say Amen! All told, he’d done twenty- five stops, loaded twice and pumped 3,453 gallons. At ten bucks a stop and ten a load, that was a neat 270 bucks cash in his pocket. It was a lot more in Frank’s pocket, of course, but Joe didn’t sweat that the way the other drivers did. He could do the math. With prices the way they were, Frank was grossing between fifty and sixty bucks a stop. Multiply that times three trucks and it’s a nice chunk of change.
Sometimes, Joe enjoyed listening to the other drivers grouse about how much profit Mayday Fuel Oil, Inc. took in on a winter Saturday. It was an October to April ritual, a weekly big boys bitch-fest at Lugo’s Pub in Ronkonkoma. Joe would just smile, empathetically nodding his head every now and then to show he was still listening. Sure, Frank made good money, but he had taken the risks, bought the trucks, rented the yard and office, paid for advertising, etc. At Lugo’s, Joe would drift off trying to calculate how many millions of dollars he and his partner Ralphy had logged into evidence over the years. The numbers were staggering. He didn’t like thinking about Ralphy.
“Ah, shit!” he screamed at the cell phone buzzing and beeping in his pocket. He had been schooled by the other drivers on the art of the tactical lie, but had chosen to ignore their advice. Now he was going to pay the price for that decision. He had done enough lying as a cop. In the end, it was what had ruined him and Ralphy both.
“Listen,” one of the Lugo’s crowd had advised early on, “call in when you’re headed toward your last stop and say you’ve already done it and that you’re almost back at the yard. Otherwise, if an emergency call comes in, you’re screwed.”
True enough. In boxing, it’s cool to be the last man standing. In the home heating oil business, the last man standing is fucked.
“Yeah, Ma,” Joe picked up. The dispatcher was Frank’s mom. Some drivers called her Mrs. Randazzo or Donna, but Joe, his own mother long dead, just called her Ma.
“Oh, Joe,” she rasped in her two-pack-a-day voice, “I hate to do this to ya, but I misplaced a stop before and the guy just called back looking for his delivery.”
“Can’t wait till Monday, huh?” Joe asked, already knowing the answer. “It’s beginning to snow out here.”
“Sorry, Joe, he’s out and he’s a new customer.”
Yeah, sure, Joe thought, they’re always out. It was one of those convenient lies people told to make sure you’d come in a hurry, or, when things were really busy, to make sure you’d come at all.
“Okay, Ma, lemme pull over here and get a ticket.”
“The name’s Healy,” Ma said when Joe gave her the go ahead. “H-E-A-L-Y. He’s at 89 Boxwood Avenue in Kings Park, off 25A. It’s a fill up at the two hundred gallon price. Cash. The fill’s on the right side of the house up the driveway. You copy that, Joe?”
He copied all right. Not only was he stuck doing another stop, but it was way the hell up on the North Shore. That’s why Ma had sounded so guilty. Delivering oil is dangerous enough in perfect weather, but in the snow, in the dark. Forget about it! If you think controlling a skid is fun in your family car, try it in a Mack truck sometime. He pulled away from the curb and began slowly backtracking his way over the L.I.E., through Hauppague and Smithtown, up Landing Avenue, down Rose Street and onto 25A.
Fifteen slippery minutes later he was in Kings Park. Kings Park was a cute little town whose name had nothing to do with royalty and everything to do with the now shuttered psychiatric hospital that bore the same name. The hospital was established as an offshoot of Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, hence the Kings in Kings Park. The town had grown up around the extensive hospital grounds situated on an inlet of Long Island Sound.
Joe turned onto Boxwood, his eyes trying to focus on some address, any address, just to establish the odd numbered side of the street. That was no mean feat at night with the snow piling up on the ledge of the tugboat’s side windows and mirrors. Old Macks are great trucks, but their heating and defrosting systems are for shit. About a quarter of the way up Boxwood, Joe caught a number on a mailbox. 43. Bingo!
89 Boxwood was a neat split ranch-gee, what a surprise on Long Island. Normally, he would have parked the
