about the faces in the photos.
“My goodness, your daughter is a beauty.”
“I think so.” I kvelled a little about Sarah being a vet.
We went through all the pictures: Katy, Carmella, Israel, Miriam and her family, Aaron and his, Mr. Roth, Wit, Preacher “the Creature” Simmons and me at an Over-50 two-on-two b-ball tournament, Klaus, Kosta, and ten others. Then Mary found a partially hidden photo I’d forgotten was there and wished I’d taken down years ago. It was of three uniformed cops, arms around each other’s shoulders, in front of Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island. The three cops all had shaggy ‘70s haircuts and bad brush mustaches. They all seemed happy and more like brothers than just colleagues. Now two of them were dead.
“I’ll be damned,” she said, “that’s you at the end there! Jee-sus, will you look at that hair and those whiskas? These days, you’d be charged with a Class A misdemeanor for that look.”
“Ah, the ‘70s…”
“Who are these otha two happy fellas here?” The wine was definitely bringing out the Boston in her speech.
“That guy there on the right’s named Larry McDonald and the other guy’s Rico Tripoli. The guys in our precinct used to call us the Three Stooges.”
“Moe, Larry, and… Rico?”
“Rico had wavy hair, so he was Curly.”
She asked, “Where was this picha taken?”
“Coney Island, in front of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs.”
“I’ve heard of that place.”
“Yeah, well, famous is in the name.”
“Wise guy!” She slapped my arm. “Come on, let’s go there fah dinner. I’ve always wanted to see Coney Island fah myself.”
“It’s freezing out and it’ll be deserted.”
“Even betta.”
It was freezing out and Coney Island was deserted, at least the amusement park was. Nathan’s Famous, on the other hand, was bustling with activity. That was the amazing thing about the joint. It was nearly always busy: day or night, no matter the season. Years ago I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t about the food, not really. It was about what the food and the smells and the sight of the place represented. I mean, the hot dogs were okay and the fries were the best on earth, but Nathan’s was about so much more. It was a touchstone, a safe place where people could time travel, where they could return and relive, if only briefly, their happiest childhood memories. For so many people, Nathan’s represented comfort and security and, sometimes, sadly, the one good thing in their fucked-up lives. I can’t tell you how many suicides ate their last meals at Nathan’s. I didn’t mention that last bit to Mary. She was having too good a time and I wasn’t about to break the trance.
Noticing two couples dressed in tuxedos and killer gowns, she said, “We’re not close to being the best dressed folks here, are we?”
“Nope. This place is a kind of crossroads. When I was in the Six-O, I used to think that someone standing with a camera on that corner over there,” I said, pointing to where Surf and Stillwell Avenues met, “could capture the essence of human experience if he stood there long enough and had enough film. Now he wouldn’t need film, just memory.”
“I was right about you, Moe Prager. You’re a complicated fella.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I didn’t know cops were so philosophical.”
“Ferguson May, he was our precinct philosopher. I guess he rubbed off on me a little.”
“Ferguson May, where’s he nowadays?”
“Dead. Got stabbed through the eye during a domestic violence call in the projects more years ago than I can count. He was a good guy. Weren’t many black guys on the job back then and he suffered through all the bullshit by being philosophical about it.”
“C’mon,” she said, looping her arms through mine, “show a girl the sights.”
We walked out of Nathan’s, our bellies full of hot dogs, fries, and watery beers, and turned right onto Surf. We went up the steps onto the boardwalk, the moon high above, the soft roar of the invisible ocean and the wind whistling in our ears. I drove past Coney Island nearly every day on my way to work, but the days of my stopping by, of my coming here for comfort and to think things through were gone. It had been many years since I’d stood on the boardwalk in winter, looking out at the white-haired waves and the hibernating dinosaurs of the amusement park rides. I’d spent so much of my childhood in this place and walked countless miles on the boardwalk as a cop. In a parallel universe somewhere you could probably still hear the echoes of the warped and pitted boards squealing under the weight of my ugly black cop shoes.
“What’s that there?” Mary asked, pointing up at the orange super structure looming over our right shoulders.
“That’s the Parachute Jump. It used to be part of Steeplechase Park, but it hasn’t worked in years. That enormous Ferris wheel there is called the Wonder Wheel. It has enclosed cars that swing and ride on rails as it turns. And that roller coaster over there is the Cyclone, the most famous wooden roller coaster in the world.”
“And this was your precinct?”
“In some ways, I guess it always has been. I grew up around here too.”
“Let’s walk.” She tugged me towards Brighton Beach. “So tell me about the bad old days. When you were a big tough cop with bad hair. What about you and the other two stooges? What were they like?”
“Larry was a shrewd customer. To call him ambitious was like calling Hitler mildly anti-Semitic. He was always working an angle, but he never climbed up over the bodies of his buds, never threw us under the bus to clear the path for himself. He nearly made it to the mountain top too. He was top brass when…”
“When what?”
“He committed suicide. Gassed himself in a car by the old Fountain Avenue dump.”
“Oh… I’m so sorry. What about Curly?” she asked.
“Rico? God, I haven’t thought about Rico in years. I think he was the closest friend I ever had, but he threw our friendship away.”
“How?”
“He had ambitions too, but he wasn’t as clever as Larry Mac. Rico never understood that wanting isn’t worth a thing in this world and that there’s a big gulf between wanting and getting. Larry, he always understood the difference and was good at paying his own way up the ladder. Rico paid his bills too, but with other people’s sweat and blood. I guess I wouldn’t have minded if he didn’t pay so much for so little in return.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rico wanted to make detective. We all wanted to, only Rico was impatient about it. The city was in bad financial shape back then and you practically had to be the second coming of Christ to get your gold shield. So Rico made a deal with some political hot shot, which wouldn’t have been so bad, I guess, if the deal hadn’t involved me. He set me up to bring a powerful man to his knees, a man who turned out to be my future father-in-law.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. And the ironic thing is that if Rico had only waited a few months, he would’ve made detective on his own merit. He was on a joint task force that broke the biggest murder-for-hire and car theft ring in this city’s history. Every uniform connected to the case got his shield and every detective got a bump up in grade.”
“That’s sad.”
“It gets worse, but do you mind if we skip this conversation?”
“Of course not,” she said, stopping to slide her arms around me. She kissed me, softly, tentatively. It wasn’t an invitation for more, but rather a kiss of possibility. It wasn’t a thanks-for-dinner-and-goodbye kiss either. It was kind of sweet, not hungry or bitter. Those kinds of kisses were rare to come by these days.
“What now?” I asked.
“Let’s go back to your place, try the white, and make out a little bit. I have to give you a reason to ask me to dinner again.”
“I already have reason enough.”
“Jesus, Moe Prager, for such a bright and complex fella, you’re slow on the uptake. You mind if a girl gets to
