All four men turned to see Bob Healy standing behind them.
“Hey, Kramer, it’s a fuckin’ cheese eaters convention. Let me introduce you to Ralphy’s other executioner. This here is Bob Healy, detective first, NYPD, retired. That’s right, in the big city you can make first grade jamming up your brother cops. How’s it feel to build your career climbin’ over the bodies of good men like Ralphy Abruzzi?”
Healy shook his head. “Listen, you sorry excuse for a human being. You don’t think I know that cops get weak, that they fuck up like everybody else? I know. I know better than anyone. In I.A., I saw every kinda weakness a man can see. You think we made a case on Abruzzi because he was weak? If you think that, you’re an even bigger shithead than I thought.
“Let me tell you a thing or two about the blessed St. Ralphy. St. Ralphy wasn’t taking free coffee from the donut shop or veal cutlet parm heroes from the local pizzeria. He was leaking confidential police information to at least three different criminal enterprises. Not one, asshole. Not two, but three. To feed his fucking habit, he was willing to put his brother and sister officers at risk. And you know what, Detective, we had information that St. Ralphy’s mouth got at least two C.I. s and one cop killed.
“Oh, you didn’t know that, huh? Well, now you do. Since St. Ralphy ate his ammo, the department didn’t feel it would serve any purpose to let the press get hold of that stuff. He saved his family and the rest of us a lot of grief. But who’s gonna pay the bill for that dead cop, Detective? You? Your partner? Serpe’s paid his fair share for being loyal to his friend and partner. So why don’t you get off his back and let the man mourn the loss of his coworker in peace?”
Tim Hoskins was unmoved. “Fuck you. And fuck him. It’s not enough that you drove Ralphy into his grave, but now you gotta smear his name. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both F.F.L.
Remember what I said, Snake,” Hoskins hissed, turning to leave. “I don’t care if you and the tard were blood brothers. Stay the fuck outta my business.”
Kramer nodded. “Gentlemen.”
“F.F.L.? What’s F.F.L.?” Frank was curious to know.
Both Joe Serpe and Bob Healy answered at once. “Fucked for life.”
There are awkward silences and then there are awkward silences. The silence between Joe Serpe and Bob Healy as they sat across the diner table was excruciatingly loud. They avoided eye contact, drummed the silverware, folded the corners of the place mats.
Strange, but after days of planning what he would say and how he would say it, Bob Healy was at a complete loss. He hadn’t anticipated the incident at the funeral home nor had he intended to blurt out the details of Ralph Abruzzi’s treachery.
For his part, Joe Serpe had re-consigned Healy to that area of his head the retired I.A. detective had occupied for the last several years. He had thought of Healy like an inoperable tumor-one that had done its damage by disabling him, but wasn’t going to kill him.
“You two married?” the waitress asked, a pot of coffee in her hand.
“What?” Healy startled.
“Only married couples look as uncomfortable as the two a you and have as little to say.”
“I’ll have some,” Serpe said, pointing at the pot. “Yeah, me too.”
Frank Randazzo, still absorbing the hurt of the day, had excused himself shortly after Detectives Hoskins and Kramer made their exit. That left Joe Serpe and Bob Healy, the two old enemies, to sort things out for themselves. They agreed to meet at the Lazy Bull Diner in Smithtown.
“So, that stuff you said about Ralphy…” Joe hesitated. “Was it-you know… Was it-”
“-true? You tell me, Serpe.”
“Jimmy the Geek and Moesha Green.” Joe spoke the names. They were the names of two of his and Ralph Abruzzi’s confidential informants who’d turned up dead in the last year they partnered up.
Healy confirmed it with a shake of his head. Serpe wasn’t satisfied. “The cop?”
“We ain’t going there, Joe.”
Serpe stared coldly across the table. Healy had crossed a line. Maybe Ralphy was worse than Joe thought and Healy a little better, but they still had issues between them that weren’t going to go away with a snap of the fingers.
“You don’t call me that.”
“All right.”
“So, if you guys had this shit on Ralphy, why-”
“-go after you? Why make you roll on your partner? Because, like I said before, the brass wasn’t eager to wash the department’s dirtiest laundry in public. A cokehead cop and his partner is one thing… Dead informants and a brother cop, that’s something else.”
Serpe bristled. “I.A.B. sacrificed my career and my family, so the department didn’t have to-”
“Calm down!”
“Fuck you!” Serpe got up to leave. Now they were turning heads.
“Look, Serpe, I see you’re pissed, but sit back down. I’m asking you, please.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s lay the cards down here, right now,” Healy said. “Forget the dead snitches, even the cop, for the time being. You knew Abruzzi was using for years. You never came forward. Okay, maybe I understand that. He was your best friend, your partner. But when he started skimming coke and money off the top… Well, there’s a point where your loyalty to the department, to the other men and women who carry the shield, becomes bigger than your loyalty to your friend and partner.
“The truth is, Serpe, you fucked yourself. Now, if in your heart of hearts, you think I’m full of shit, well, stand up and walk away. We can go back to the way things were before last Saturday; you can put that chip back on your shoulder and I can look at you like any other scumbag cop who disgraced his uniform. You can be like that dickweed Hoskins and go on singing the praises of St. Ralphy till the cows come home.”
Joe Serpe didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He remembered the call. Rosemarie, frantic on the other end of the line. She couldn’t get the basement door open and Ralphy wouldn’t answer her. He knew he should just let her call 911 or he should do it for her, but he drove over to his former partner’s house that one last time. It was the Sunday before Ralphy’s sentencing hearing. Prison is no place for most people. It’s worse for a cop.
Rosemarie, white and shaking with fear, met him at the garage door. Rosemarie, who was godmother to his son. Rosemarie, who had spit in his face the last time they saw one another. She latched onto his forearm so tightly it felt like a prayer. She could not speak. He unfurled her fingers and told her to go upstairs.
Joe tested the basement door. It wouldn’t budge. He pressed his shoulder to it. It was barricaded. He didn’t bother calling to Ralph. In the garage, he found the pump action shotgun clipped beneath the workbench. Ralphy kept it just in case. Joe kept one in his garage as well. Along the way, most cops get threatened with this or that. In Narcotics, you take those threats more seriously.
Joe aimed the shotgun at where he guessed the hinges on the other side of the door would be. Cha-ching. Bang! Cha-ching. Bang! The door did not fall immediately away. He put the shotgun down and pressed his palms against the top of the door and pushed. The door swung up and smacked into his shins. Christ! Ralphy had moved the pool table against the door. Joe pushed the door onto the pool table slate and climbed over it. Ralphy was in his favorite recliner, the back of his head spread over the chair and the wall behind.
Remembering that day he found Ralphy was like a shiv in the back, and he let Healy know he wasn’t pleased.
“Why, goddammit?” he barked.
“Why what?” Healy asked.
“Why now, after all these years? Why tell me this?”
“My wife died six months ago.”
“That’s too bad, but what’s that got to do with-”
“Makes you rethink things,” Healy admitted, “when you lose somebody close.”
Joe thought of Vinny. “What happened?”
“Pancreatic cancer. She went quick.”
“Sorry.”
“Mary, that was her name. She was brave about it, but I could see in her eyes she felt it was so unfair. I
