and matching black combat boots. So it don’t add up.”
They drove in silence for a few moments.
“Too bad Nunzio didn’t see him tear-ass away in that pickup,” Priscilla said after a time.
Rizzo nodded, scanning his notes as he answered. “Yeah, well, everybody has to hit the head once in a while. Bad timing for us.”
Priscilla turned her lips down. “I hope that cracker washed his fuckin’ hands before he kneaded the pizza dough I just ate,” she said distastefully.
“A-fuckin’-men,” Rizzo said, laughing.
“IS IT my imagination,” Rizzo asked Priscilla, “or was that nurse comin’ on to you?”
Having been informed at the hospital that Gary Tucci was in surgery and could not be interviewed until Tuesday evening at the earliest, Rizzo and Priscilla returned to the Impala.
Priscilla unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed in. “You mean that little redhead with the cleavage? Bet your ass, honey.”
Rizzo shook his head. “Bad enough when I was workin’ with Mike I was the invisible man. Now with you, too?”
Priscilla laughed as she started the engine. “Hey, Joe, I am
“Yeah, I noticed. Are there even any straight women left, for Christ’s sake?”
“Don’t worry, Joe, there’s plenty. More than enough to keep the species going.”
Now it was Rizzo who laughed. “Well, ain’t that a black lining to a silver cloud. But how’d she know? The nurse, I mean? You give her the secret handshake? Is it like that
“You get a vibe, sometimes. If you’re interested, you put out a feeler. If you don’t get ignored, you flirt a little. That’s all that just happened, Joe, so don’t start hyperventilatin’ on me.”
“Hey, it don’t bother me,” Rizzo said. “A nurse or two hit on me here and there. Back in the day.”
Priscilla smiled broadly. “Is that right? So, you tellin’ me that Florence Nightingale chick was straight? That what you sayin’?”
“Just look where you’re going, wise ass. More than a few drunks out here to night.” He glanced at his Timex. “Let’s go back to the scene, check in with Schoenfeld and Rossi. I wanna make sure that shell casing is photoed and bagged for prints. CSU’ll do it for sure, but if it’s Borough, who knows?”
They rode in silence, Rizzo deep in thought. After a while, he said absentmindedly, “That nurse, that redhead. She was pretty hot-looking.”
Priscilla shrugged. “My trolling days are over. Me and Karen forevah and evah.”
“That’s good, Cil.”
“But I gotta tell you, it ain’t gonna be easy. This cop gig is a babe magnet. It’s what hooked Karen on me. At first, anyway. Now she gets all righteous and concerned and tells me to quit and hook up with one of her old man’s business dudes, but, deep down, she really gets off on the cop thing.”
Rizzo laughed. “I think Jen did, too, back when I was in the bag, all blue and shiny.”
“See?” Priscilla said. “It’s all the same shit. All the same.”
“That reminds me,” Rizzo said. “I got a speech I give all my new young partners. Seems like only yesterday I was givin’ it to Mike.”
Priscilla glanced at him quickly, negotiating a stop sign at the same time.
“Is it the ‘You gotta have options’ bullshit Mike told me about? Some crap you’re always telling your kids?”
“No, not that one. And it’s not crap: it’s gospel.”
“Okay. What then?”
“It’s my other speech,” Rizzo said. “I got three single young daughters. I need you to steer clear of them. And don’t get your pan ties all twisted up,” he interjected quickly when Priscilla’s head snapped around and her eyes burned into his face. “Relax. It’s got nothin’ to do with you being gay. Or friggin’ black, either. Although, I gotta say, either one would be enough to kill my mother.”
Priscilla shook her anger away. “Are they gay?” she asked in tight tones. “Your girls?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” he said.
Now color came to her face beneath the cafe-au-lait skin tone. “Then what the fuck, Joe? You think I got some magic dust I sprinkle on their asses to switch ’em over?”
He chuckled. “Whadda I know? But it don’t matter-like I said, I tell all my partners the same thing. Ask Mike if you don’t believe me. I just don’t want any cop sons-in-law. Guy cops, lesbian cops, cops from outer space, it don’t matter, no friggin’ cops. Period.”
Priscilla slapped lightly at the wheel of the Chevy.
“Another one! Another fuckin’ cop bigot like Karen’s mother.”
Rizzo smiled and opened the glove compartment, digging out an unopened pack of cigarettes.
“So sue me,” he said, tearing at the cellophane.
CHAPTER THREE
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Rizzo sat at his kitchen table, poking absently at a bowl of cornflakes. He had a busy day ahead: lunch at one with his ex-partner Mike McQueen, then another four-to-twelve night tour with Priscilla. The witnesses to the shooting-Cocca, Hermann, and Nunzio-would give their sworn statements at noon to the police administrative aide and day tour detectives at the Six-Two. The alleged flasher, Bruce Jacoby, might or might not show up at four, with or without his lawyer, and Rizzo and Jackson still needed to get to Lutheran to interview the shooting victim, Gary Tucci, and to visit the local bars as Priscilla suggested. Rizzo also had to consider another neighborhood canvass for additional witnesses or someone who could I.D. the dark pickup truck in which the shooter had fled.
“Plus follow up on that shell casing,” he muttered aloud.
“Talking to yourself, Daddy?” he heard.
Turning, he saw his middle daughter, Jessica, enter the kitchen, a small book bag in her hand. Like her mother, Jessica stood five feet eight inches tall, lean with dark brown eyes, and long, thick brown hair.
“Hey, honey,” he said. “Home already?”
She shrugged and dropped the bag beside the table, bending to kiss Rizzo’s forehead and sighing.
“They canceled my ten-fifteen. The professor was out soul searching, no doubt, and he couldn’t make it. I only have the two classes on Tuesdays, so here I am.” Twenty-one-year-old Jessica was in her senior year, commuting to and from her parents’ Brooklyn home to Manhattan’s Hunter College.
Rizzo used his foot to push a chair back from the table.
“My good luck,” he said. “I get to see you a little.” He thrust his jaw toward the chair. “Sit,” he said. “You want coffee? I just made it.”
Jessica dropped into the seat and smiled at her father. “Are you serious? It’s almost eleven o’clock, Daddy, I’m already swimming in Starbucks.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Starbucks-aka Maxwell House, only four bucks a cup.”
“I know, Daddy,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Actually,” Rizzo said, growing serious, “it’s good you’re here. I really need to talk to you.”
“Oh?” she asked. “ ’Bout what?”
“About your sister,” he said.
Jessica wrinkled her brow. “Okay. Which sister?”
“Your kid sister, Carol. I need you to talk to her.”
“You want me to give her the birds and the bees talk, Daddy?” she asked. “ ’Cause I hate to break it to you…”
Rizzo shook his head. “No-birds and bees I can handle myself,” he said.
“Oh, really,” she answered, laughing. “Since when?”
Rizzo looked puzzled as he replied. “Whaddya talkin’ about? I raised three daughters, didn’t I?”
