3 Quarters Page 7

  “Real sugar or plastic, Bobby?” Sandy asked, looking at him, her eyes filled with other questions.

  Bobby had always been attracted to Sandy—her pleasant manner, sassy sense of humor, street-smart intelligence, her gleaming smile, her unabashed Brooklyn accent—back as far as when she worked over in the NYPD medical office.

  All the cops had always wanted Sandy to interview them because she was as easy to talk to as she was to look at. Mid-thirties and she still had a body like that of one of those babes Playboy always found in college-campus searches. She’d dated lots of cops. Rumor had it she’d had affairs with married brass who promised to get divorced but only broke her heart. There had always been something hauntingly sad about her, a sense of never being happy, always searching for and never finding her place in life.

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Bobby said. Barnicle glanced from one to the other, not liking their eye contact. Sandy lingered for a moment as if awaiting instructions.

  “The hell you waitin’ for?” Barnicle asked.

  “A ‘thank you’ might be nice,” Sandy said.

  “I’m the goddamned boss,” Barnicle said in an exasperated way.

  “I’m a goddamned lady,” Sandy said. “A human being. We have these weird customs—‘please,’ ‘thanks,’ ‘you’re welcome.’ Like that.”

  Sandy strode out of the office, Bobby watching her lovely gait until she closed the door behind her.

  “That’s my honey,” Barnicle said, smiling. “Had a baby with her when you were away on your . . . furlough. A son . . .”

  He rattled the small cup into the saucer and pushed a framed photo of a baby boy toward Bobby. Jesus Christ, how could Sandy have settled for this miserable prick? he thought. Maybe security was the biggest aphrodisiac.

  “They sure shit a lot, don’t they?” Barnicle said.

  Bobby laughed darkly.

  “If shit was gold, only people like you would have assholes, Barnicle,” Bobby said, leaning over the desk. “Now, listen to me, Papa. I’m gonna find out what happened to my woman. But I’m not a cop anymore. Like you, I don’t have to follow any rules. So this is your last chance. If you know what happened to Dorothea, tell me now, and if she’s okay, maybe we can go our separate ways. But if you or your goons had anything to do with hurting her in any way, or get in my way again, I’ll gladly die killing you. Remember that. I am warning you, I am willing to die, but not before I find the truth.”

  Barnicle stared right back into Bobby’s eyes.

  “When they send you back, they should make it the fucking puzzle factory this time. Because you are a fuckin’ wack,” Barnicle said, shaking his head.

  Bobby took the last bullet from the .38 and dropped it into the espresso. He smacked the gun onto the desk in front of the picture of the baby boy. Barnicle jumped in his seat as Bobby turned and walked out.

  Zeke, Kuzak, and Flynn blocked the front door of Gibraltar Security. Levin was trying to fish the Glock nines out of the fish tank with a wire coat hanger as the piranha bit at the wire. Bobby looked at the three goons in front of the door. Control. Once again he picked up Sandy’s steaming cup of coffee.

  “Okay, which one of you research primates wants to wear this?” Bobby asked.

  The ex-cops looked uneasy, glanced at each other, and finally cleared the path for Bobby to pass, carrying the coffee cup with him out the door, sipping it, savoring Sandy’s luscious lipstick.

  Sandy watched him go, and he wondered what she would tell him when he got her alone.

  10

  Bobby picked up Gleason and sped the Jeep Cherokee along the Belt Parkway, around the loop of Shore Road, the most magnificent stretch of waterfront in the city. He passed the million-dollar homes of the doctors, lawyers, gangsters, and politicians of Brooklyn. He moved under the pylons of the Verrazano Bridge, breezing by the Narrows, where tugs urged tankers past Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Jersey out to deep sea. Ferries, garbage scows, barges, Coast Guard cutters, police and fire boats, luxury liners, sailboats, and other pleasure craft, all moved through the great port of New York.

  Bobby hadn’t slept the night before because of the jail noise, but he was feeling absolutely no fatigue. Freedom pumped in his veins like some magical elixir. He had to get settled, see his kid first, and then get quickly to the checklist of his case.

  He weaved through stubborn traffic on the Gowanus Expressway and finally burrowed through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and jolted up the West Side Highway of Manhattan to the Seventy-ninth Street exit.

  The trip took thirty-two minutes, and the dashboard clock told Bobby it was 12:05 PM. It was going to be a very long day, and he looked forward to every minute of it.

  Gleason told Bobby to park on the rotunda above the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin. The rotunda was a shelf of granite and concrete sitting forty feet above sea level at one of the most beautiful marinas in the water-blessed city.

  Although Bobby had once been a Harbor Unit cop, a regular fixture at the marina, he’d always approached it from the river and had never before taken time to see it from this vantage.

  The boat basin spread out below them for three city blocks on the banks of the Hudson River, a weather-worn but resilient network of floating walkways and 145 boat slips, serving as home to cabin cruisers, motor sailers, trawlers, houseboats, yachts, fishing skiffs, sailboats, dinghies, speedboats, Jet Skis, and schooners. There was even a Chinese junk moored. The marina resembled the mouth of a small fishing village. “There’s only ninety-one year-round slips,” Gleason said. “And seventy-six of us are considered ‘live-aboards.’ My father put my name on the waiting list here the day I got married. He called it divorce insurance. Half the guys here are divorced and wound up with the boat, while the wife got the house. My old man was a half-assed sailor. Me, I need instructions to run a bath and I get seasick watching a bar of Ivory float. But I got a slip and a boat.”

  The boat basin was a fenced-in public community with a twenty-four-hour dockmaster on duty in a wooden security shack. But it was hardly impregnable. All the residents had keys to the iron security gate and duplicates were given to friends, who made copies for more friends who came to the endless parties in the summer months.

  Many New Yorkers had passed the Seventy-ninth Street Boat Basin on the West Side Highway dozens of times without even knowing it was there. If they did notice it while speeding past, they rarely stopped to explore it from the rotunda. It remained nestled there on the banks of the Hudson like a secret little gateway to the great archipelago of New York.

  “The waiting list for a slip is as long as your enemies list, but once you get a lease here, you can keep it forever,” Gleason said. “The Parks Department is the landlord. I pay three hundred and ninety-five bucks a month rent and another hundred and twenty-five for parking. That’s five bills a month it costs to live here on the Yupper West Side. They lose money, but they do a pretty damned good job. A guy can live year round on a boat here and never have to pay property tax because any moveable vehicle is immune to real estate tax laws. Broads love it here. It’s a home run. It’s like having season tickets to the Knicks. And remember: You gotta say you’re living with me because there’s no subleasing allowed. Don’t get me evicted.”

  They parked the car in the ancient indoor parking garage, shielding their eyes as they stepped out into the bright sunshine of Riverside Park. Gleason managed to communicate to Venus that he would like her to wait on a park bench while he and Bobby went into the boat basin. “Bench,” Gleason said. “As in warrant. Hang in there, hon, you’re doing great.”

  Gleason unlocked the security gate, and Bobby followed him in, stopping at the security shack inside the gate, a small hut covered inside in nautical maps, with a reception desk and tiny office off to the side. Gleason introduced Bobby to Doug, the dockmaster, the city’s parks administrator of the boat basin. There were worse city jobs, Bobby thought, starting with mayor. Bobby recognized Doug first.

  “Doug, this is Bobby
, Bobby, Doug,” Gleason said. “Bobby’s gonna be staying with me here awhile, slip ninety-nine-A. Extend all courtesies and Santa will grease your chimney come Christmas.”

  Doug smiled and shook Bobby’s hand. He was a friendly, affable guy with a thick set of arms and a face that had been leathered by twenty-odd years of salt, sun, and sea. His job was to maintain upkeep for the permanent tenants of the boat basin, collect rents, provide minimal security, and to rent temporary space to transient boaters for about a dollar a foot for nightly dockage, one of the great seafaring bargains on the eastern seaboard.

  “Anything you need,” Doug said, “just call . . . hey! Aren’t you . . .?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby said. “It’s been a while.”

  “You guys know each other?” Gleason asked, surprised.

  Now Doug remembered Bobby from the days he worked Harbor Unit and used to moor Harbor Charlie, the main NYPD patrol boat, at the boat basin when the cops wanted to stretch their legs or take a hot shower.

  “Not for nothing,” Doug said. “I never thought you were guilty, Bobby. You were always a gentleman. Welcome back. I hope you feel at home here.”

  “I appreciate that,” Bobby said.

  “Keep him low profile,” Gleason said.

  “You bet,” Doug said.

  Gleason led Bobby down a slick floating walkway, stepping around heavy ropes, tie-off cleats, barbecues, deck chairs, ice coolers, life preservers. They passed two women in their thirties in cutoff shorts and halter tops who were too engrossed in conversation to pay them much mind. Bobby held his face to the sun and breathed in the river breeze, listening to the honking of boats on the river and the steady whoosh of cars on the highway behind him. Finally they came to slip 99-A.

  “It’s a nineteen-eighty-seven Silver-some-fucking-thing-or-the-other, and it’s seen better days,” Gleason said.

  Bobby examined the sorrowfully neglected 1987 forty-foot Silverton 34 Express that rocked gently as the Hudson flowed past her, downtown to the sea. The name The Fifth Amendment was emblazoned on its dirty stern. A tattered American flag on the cabin roof snapped in the river breeze.

  The creaky boat’s inside wasn’t as bad as the weather-beaten exterior. The galley was a neglected but serviceable stainless-steel compartment with a small refrigerator-freezer, two-burner electric/alcohol stove, Corian-covered countertops, overhead microwave, overhead cabinets, pull-out storage racks, stainless-steel sink. “They teach you how to waltz with a mop upstate?” Gleason asked.

  A cherry-wood door led to a nine-by-nine-foot saloon between the kitchen and the master stateroom. The forest green, wall-to-wall carpet needed to be vacuumed and shampooed. The wood-paneled walls were adorned with sepia-colored nautical maps. A cable-wired color TV with built-in VCR dominated the entertainment center, which also included a radio and CD stereo system. The saloon was equipped with a desk and two barrel chairs. Sliding windows with screens faced uptown toward the George Washington Bridge. The convertible sofa was covered with corduroy throw pillows.

  Gleason pointed to another wooden door, and Bobby entered the master stateroom, a nine-by-eightfoot cedar-lined affair with a full-sized berth and storage drawers under the bed. The anchored night table next to the bed was equipped with a high-intensity reading lamp. A hanging locker offered ample room for Bobby’s few clothes. He slid open a window that looked downtown on the city and let the river air into the room.

  “My old man was a real estate lawyer,” Gleason said. “Him and his ‘clients’ used to disappear for whole weekends on this baby. When he came home, my mother used to grill him. That’s why he named it The Fifth Amendment. Him and his buddies spent more time down here in the basement than they did up on the roof.”

  “It’s called a bridge and a deck,” Bobby said, making a mental note to get a new mattress when he could afford one.

  “Whole ship needs a good douche,” Gleason said, squinting around, unwrapping a Reese’s peanut-butter cup, plunging it into his mouth.

  “Boat,” Bobby said. “A ship is different . . . . Why bother . . .”

  Gleason stepped into the master head, a tight, efficient lavatory with a built-in Corian-covered vanity, private head, stall shower. Gleason threw the candy wrapper in the toilet and flushed. It swirled down in a slow, tormented gulp. “A tight squeeze,” Gleason said, sitting on the lid of the bowl, measuring the arm room between the wall and shower stall. “Room for the Daily News or the Post, sure. Don’t even try reading the Times on this crapper; no room. Small head.”

  “You finally got a name right,” Bobby said.

  “I bet I know why they call it that, too,” Gleason said. “You bring a broad in there, no room for anything else . . . .”

  Bobby took a deep breath, and Gleason turned on the shower. Rusty water exploded with trapped air from the showerhead, and then finally clear water began to drizzle out in a tired stream.

  “Shower’s like getting pissed on by an infant, but it’ll wash the shitty city down the drain,” Gleason said.

  “You ever consider going into real estate?” Bobby asked. “You give one hell of a sales pitch.”

  There was another small guest stateroom, big enough for one small person.

  Bobby quickly climbed up to the fly deck and scanned the boat basin. Several dozen moored boats lolled gently on the Hudson. He had known cops over the years who had faked overtime, moonlighted on second jobs, taken bribes or loans to buy boats. Highway cops out on patrol were notorious for hiding their patrol car here in the boat basin garage, putting it up on a hydraulic jack, running the motor, and flattening the accelerator with a nightstick to make the wheels spin so that the odometer would show superior officers later that they had cruised the average 120 miles covered on an eight-hour shift. Meanwhile, as Bobby’d heard the stories, they’d be out on a boat, fishing, drinking, playing poker, or getting laid. Most of them wound up living on the boats after their divorces. He always thought of it as guys who left their wives for boats.

  Bobby inspected the controls. Like most harbor cops, he was no boating genius. They usually only knew how to start a boat, steer it, and dock it. Bobby didn’t know much about mechanical upkeep either, but he could get a feel for a boat by tinkering with the instruments. He felt the play in the helm, working the gyro and the rudder, the hydraulic steering system. The controls seemed to be in working order, just in need of oiling, a hard scrub, a fierce polish, some calibration, and lots of TLC. He was starting to imagine the boat with a major cleaning and a week’s attention. It would be a fine flop until he could find something better.

  No one would be banging the steel.

  “Everything under the hood works,” Gleason said. “Thing about boats though, they eat like racehorses. Fuel costs money. Which I don’t have a lot of. But I started an account at the fuel dock, and you can take gas and charge it to me when you’re using it on my time. Otherwise, I’ll rely on your cornball honor to pay for your own time.”

  “Keys and registration?” Bobby asked, holding out his hand, walking for the exit ramp.

  Gleason handed him a set of keys to the boat and the appropriate papers. Then he dangled the keys to the Jeep Cherokee.

  “The car is all that’s left of my marriage,” Gleason said, a tinge of genuine sadness in his voice as he rattled the keys like altar bells. “So take care of it . . . .”

  Bobby nodded.

  “I’m putting Venus on a bus to the fat farm tonight,” Gleason said, brightening again. “The nutritionist says she’ll be a size seven when she comes out, and she shows her everlasting appreciation. Comprendo?”

  “You are one very sick ticket,” Bobby said, grabbing Gleason’s wrist again to look at the time: 12:21 PM.

  As Bobby reached the dock, he suddenly noticed a familiar-looking white Ford Taurus parked on the rotunda above the boat basin. It can’t be, he thought.

  “You got a camera or a pair of binoculars on the boat?” Bobby asked quickly.

  “No,” Gleason said. “Why?
”

  Bobby pointed to the car, sitting with its motor idling.

  “Whadda you expect? You went into Gibraltar Security, terrorized the help, and now they aren’t allowed to follow you around? You should have spotted the tail on the way up here, Sherlock.”

  “I checked my rearview all the way,” Bobby said. “This guy is good . . . . I have to run that bastard’s plate. You have a cell phone?”

  “Not here,” Gleason said. “In my office . . .”

  11

  “You have an office in the Empire State Building?” Bobby said, surprised, as he pulled to the curb on Thirty-fourth Street beside the towering skyscraper.

  “It’s more than a name,” Gleason said. “Having an office in the Empire State Building is like being hung like a horse. Pegasus. It gives me stature. Professional virility. See, it’s a piece of history. It’s got ten million fuckin’ bricks, twenty-seven miles of elevator rails, sixty-four hundred windows. It’s fourteen hundred feet tall and weighs three hundred and sixty-five thousand mother-jumpin’ tons. Now, if that ain’t hung like the Trojan horse, what the fuck is?”

  “Where did you learn all that shit?” Bobby asked as he opened the car door and stepped out into the lunch crowd, craning his neck like everyone else to look up at the building thrown into the sky by immigrant workers in 1931.

  “The Jap real estate broker gave me a brochure with every stat in it except the circumference of King Kong’s balls,” Gleason said. “But I read it, and I thought to myself, if New York is the Cadillac of American cities, then the Empire State Building is the hood ornament. And I’m climbin’ in for the ride. Since I’m the best fuckin’ lawyer in this city, it makes sense this address is on Izzy Gleason’s business card.”