The Quickie Page 10

  Don’t go into shock, Lauren. Move! Do something! Right now! I scrambled upright and began retreating as fast as my shaky legs would carry me. I pressed the sleeve of my jacket to my head where it was bleeding.

  I fell to my knees one more time and had to pick myself up again before I reached the end of the train.

  I spotted an open door at the end of the last car. I climbed up, pulled myself inside on my stomach, and rolled under some seats.

  That’s when the shooting really got started! Two or three cars away, a shotgun blasted three times in quick succession. Then it went off again almost on top of me, and the window glass of the car I was in shattered.

  I was lying there, curled up on the filthy floor, bleeding and shivering, when I suddenly heard Ordonez scream in the next car. I couldn’t see him from where I lay, but I could hear him as clearly as if he were in the same room.

  “Okay! Okay! I give up!” Victor Ordonez yelled at somebody.

  There was the sound of something heavy dropping against the floor. Scott’s gun?

  “I want my lawyer,” Ordonez said.

  For a second, everything was quiet. Too quiet. What was happening now?

  Then a shotgun was jacked.

  Click-clack.

  “Only thing you’re going to need, you cop-killing piece of shit,” I heard Mike say, “is an undertaker.”

  No! I remember thinking. Dear God, Mike. What are you doing? No!

  I spun onto my stomach, struggled to stand, my mouth gaping to shout at Mike.

  “Cop killer?” I heard Ordonez say with confusion in his voice.

  Then the shotgun exploded one last time.

  Chapter 55

  I MUST HAVE PASSED OUT for a little while, because the next thing I heard were the cries of somebody asking, “Where the fuck are you?” The words were coming out of Mike’s radio, which lay beside my head. Mike was on the subway car floor, cradling me in his lap.

  “You’re going to be all right, Lauren,” Mike said. He had a smile on his face, and there were tears in his eyes. “Your head got nicked. Flesh wound. Honest to God. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I’m not dying?” I asked Mike.

  “Nope. Not on my watch.”

  Through the open door between cars, I could see a hand sticking out of a sea of shattered glass. Blood was flecked on a white sleeve.

  “What about Victor?” I said. “You . . .”

  Mike put a finger to my lips.

  “Fired on him after he shot at me. You remember what happened, partner?”

  I winced. I couldn’t believe it. Somehow I’d gotten from my normal life to here.

  “That’s the way it happened. He shot and then I shot,” Mike repeated. “That way and no other way.”

  I nodded, looked away from Mike. “I hear you. I got it, Mike.”

  “They’re here,” a frantic voice called from somewhere outside the subway car. “They’re in here.”

  “My dad was killed on a train just like this one,” Mike said in a tired voice. “Just like this one.”

  Outside came the chop-chop of an approaching helicopter, then the sound of barking dogs.

  “He used to take me and my brother fishing out on City Island,” Mike went on. “My little brother was so hyper he flipped the boat on us one time. I thought my dad was going to drown him, but instead he just laughed. That’s how he was. How I’ll always remember him. With us hugging his big neck as he laughed like hell, swimming us ashore.”

  An awful sound ripped from the back of Mike’s throat. Thirty, forty years’ worth of grief.

  “I always knew something like this would happen,” he said. “Sooner or later.”

  I patted my partner on the elbow.

  Then EMTs and cops and DEA agents all came flooding into the shot-up train car.

  Chapter 56

  I DEFINITELY WASN’T DYING TODAY. It turned out I didn’t need stitches, so the EMTs cleaned my wound, applied pressure to stop the bleeding from my cheek and left ear, and fixed me up with a small bandage. I sat on the edge of the ambulance, watching the fuss and thinking that I easily could have been killed in this train yard.

  Trahan had finally called the Emergency Service Unit, the NYPD’s SWAT guys, and a wagon circle of their diesel trucks surrounded the train yard’s wheelhouse. There were K-9 units, aviation hovering, a platoon of detectives and uniforms. After Mike saw me go down, he’d called in a 10-13, “cop in dire need,” and it seemed everyone on the force, except maybe the harbor patrol, had responded.

  Lieutenant Keane hopped down from the train car where Victor Ordonez was still lying and came over.

  “You did real good,” he said. “The serial number on the gun beside our dearly departed friend in there matches. It was Scott’s. Just like we thought. The Ordonezes took him out.”

  I shook my head and genuinely couldn’t believe what had happened. In a weird way, it had actually worked out better than I could have hoped, or dreamed. Everything was going to be okay now. Despite the stalling, the omissions, the lies.

  “Any sign of Mark, the pilot brother?” I asked.

  “None so far,” my boss said. “But don’t worry, he’ll turn up.”

  “Where’s Mike?” I asked.

  My boss rolled his eyes.

  “IAB. Rat squad practically got here before the ESU. You’d think you getting hit might make a difference to them. Those shit-shoveling assholes think you shot yourself and dumped the gun maybe.”

  I kept my breathing normal, but only through intense concentration.

  Meanwhile, my boss rubbed my back like a boxer’s cornerman before standing him back up to fight.

  “Why don’t you tell this kid to get you over to Jacobi before the commissioner shows up. After the hospital, go home and unplug the phone. I’ll keep the sewer rats away until you catch your breath. Give me a call sometime tomorrow. You need anything right now?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t even begin to think of an answer to that question.

  “You did real good, kid,” my boss said before he left. “Made us all proud.”

  I sat there, watching him walk away.

  The department had their shooter.

  Paul was probably off the hook.

  Brooke and her kids would be taken care of, as they ought to be.

  I watched the blue NYPD helicopter skim over the razor wire at the rail yard’s fence, then sail into the bright blue sky. Out of the corner of one eye I saw the CSU camera lights pop in the glassless window of the train car.

  Everything had worked out okay, hadn’t it? This was the end of the mess.

  So why was I crying?

  Chapter 57

  IT WAS SUNNY and cool the following Monday morning.

  Standing at attention out on the steps of St. Michael’s on 41st Street in Woodside, I was glad for the warmth of my dress blues, and for the body heat coming from the officers around me.

  Though there were maybe three or four thousand cops on the cordoned-off street, waiting for the arrival of Scott’s hearse, the only sound was the snapping of the honor guard’s flag; the only movement, the billow of its bright stars and stripes.

  The rattle of snare drums began at the first tolling of St. Michael’s bells. From around the corner of the stone church came a forty-member contingent of the NYPD Emerald Society, the bagpipes silenced, the drummers sounding a funeral march on black-draped drums.

  Behind them came a seemingly endless two-by-two line of motorcycle police, their engines crackling as they rode at parade speed.

  When the sleek black body of the hearse finally slid into view, you could almost hear the lumps forming in thousands of throats. Presidents don’t get put in the ground with more heart-wrenching class than an NYPD cop killed in the line of duty.

  My muscles in my jaw stood out as I prevented myself from shaking, moving, breaking down completely.

  From the limo that pulled to a stop behind the hearse, Brooke Thayer finally appeared. She was holding he
r baby and her four-year-old daughter.

  A member of the honor guard suddenly broke rank and leaned into the limousine with an extended hand. Then Scott’s two-year-old son finally emerged, wearing a black suit.

  A black suit and his father’s eight-point policeman’s cap.

  The Mass was excruciating. Scott’s mother broke down during the second reading and his sister during the eulogy.

  It was even worse when Roy Khuong, Scott’s oldest friend and partner, told a story about how Scott had saved his life during a gun battle. He finished it by turning from the pulpit toward the crucifix and saying with a simple yet startling conviction, “I love you, Scott.”

  How I got through the rest of it, I’m not sure. People can survive amazing things. Look at that hiker who cut off his own arm with a pocketknife when it got stuck under a boulder. We are capable of anything, aren’t we?

  Well, I am. I know I am now.

  They buried Scott in Calvary Cemetery on a high hill overlooking an unobstructed Manhattan skyline.

  The mayor of New York gestured toward the city as he finished his graveside words.

  “We ask that Scott do what he did so well in life. Watch over us, Scott. We will never forget your sacrifice.”

  Brooke embraced me like a vise after I had dropped my rose among the hundreds that buried the casket’s varnished lid. She touched the bandage on the side of my face.

  “I know what you did for me,” she whispered. “What you did for my family. I can sleep now. Thank you for that, Detective.”

  I pulled the black lip of my cap even more tightly over my eyes to shield them, nodded stupidly, and then moved along.

  Chapter 58

  I SAT ALONE IN MY CAR before leaving Calvary. I could see the flower-covered casket in my rearview.

  When the skirl of the bagpipes started up, for a moment I again caught a heady gust of cologne and rain and grass. Felt again the holy, fevered heat of Scott’s body in his bedroom. The strength of his jaw against my bare skin. I banished the forbidden thoughts like the demons they were as “Amazing Grace” sailed up above the gravestones.

  Mistake, I reminded myself.

  It had all been a terrible mistake. Quick as lightning, just as deadly.

  I looked out at the red-eyed police heading back to their cars. That I was fooling them burned like battery acid in my stomach, but I tried my best to believe it was the best thing for everyone under the circumstances.

  What result could have been better? I thought. The dehumanizing, demoralizing tabloid circus that was the truth?

  I stared out at the casket as Scott’s son raised a hand in salute to the wobbling brim of his father’s hat. Then I looked up at the stunning skyline of Manhattan, at the gravestones in the foreground like a kind of city itself.

  My eyes were dry as I turned the engine over.

  There was one good thing — undeniable — Paul and I had been given a second chance.

  Part Two

  COMPLICATIONS

  Chapter 59

  IT WAS COMING UP ON NINE the morning after Scott’s funeral when the phone rang.

  I lay there, hoping that Paul would pick it up. He’d been unbelievably terrific since the shooting. He’d even taken time off work and was cooking for me, fielding my calls, and listening when I needed to talk. He seemed to relish his role as my protector and healer. There were no more naked scotch binges in the garage, at least, so I guess the focus on me was having a positive effect.

  And I have to admit, no-nonsense, capable woman that I can be, it was a relief to have someone taking care of me for a change.

  The phone kept on ringing, though, and when I turned over, I saw that Paul wasn’t there.

  I lifted the receiver and sat up.

  I thought it would be either my boss or Mike. Maybe IAB. But I was wrong on every count.

  “Lauren? Hi, it’s Dr. Marcuse calling. I’m glad I caught you at home.”

  I shuddered, waiting to hear the worst.

  “Don’t worry, Lauren. Relax,” Dr. Marcuse said. “The tests came back, and everything is okay.”

  I sat there, relief rattling the receiver off my bandaged head.

  “You’re perfectly fine, Lauren,” the doctor continued. “In fact, you’re better than that. I hope you’re sitting down. You’re not sick, you’re . . . pregnant.”

  Seconds passed. A lot of them actually. Each one filled with stark silence.

  “Lauren?” I heard Dr. Marcuse say faintly. “Are you still there?”

  I found myself slowly falling back onto the bed. It seemed to take quite some time for my head to actually touch the pillow.

  Pregnant? I thought, feeling suddenly as if I were melting.

  How could that be? How could it happen now?

  Paul and I had only been trying to have kids for years. After an extensive round of fertility specialists and tests, we learned that a pH imbalance was producing an environment not conducive to conception. We’d tried everything short of fertility drugs, which weren’t recommended because I had a family history of ovarian cancer.

  “What? Are you sure?” I said. “How?”

  “I don’t actually know, Lauren,” my doctor said, chuckling. “I wasn’t there. You tell me.”

  My head was spinning. The whole room seemed to be. I’d always wanted to have a baby, of course.

  But now?

  “I’m pregnant?” I said, stunned, into the phone.

  “You’re what?” Paul said. He was just coming into the bedroom with a breakfast tray.

  My mouth refused to work, so I handed him the phone. I didn’t know how he’d react. I’d stopped trying to anticipate Paul’s feelings. I stared into his eyes. But I didn’t have to wait long. After a brief moment, a look of ecstatic surprise lit up his face, followed by an ear-to-ear grin.

  “A . . . what?” he said. “You’re . . . Oh my God . . .”

  Paul dropped the phone and lifted me out of the bed. For what seemed like an eternity, he hugged me.

  “Oh, God,” Paul said. “Thank you, God. Thank you, God. This is so great.”

  As we embraced, I did some quick mental math. The last time I had my period. What was I thinking? Of course it was Paul’s. I’d only slept with Scott the one time, and that had been only six days ago.

  Something cold inside me began to change then. The whole time I’d been convalescing, not an hour had gone by when I hadn’t been attacked with feelings of guilt and shame and black anxiety.

  But standing there, being waltzed around my bedroom by my joyous, good-looking husband, I suddenly came to realize something startling. Paul and I had simply tried to have what everyone wanted. A happy marriage, a happy family. We were good people, hardworking, humble. But from day one, we’d been faced with hardship. Stasis. We were two people who, try as they would, couldn’t become three.

  Did we divorce? Part ways because it was inconvenient to be together? No. We clung to each other, tried to make it work. For years, we struggled to make our love conquer some biological gyp. We spent years trying to keep things together while our separate careers and the everyday stresses of modern life did everything in their power to wrench us apart.

  I started crying when Paul cupped my stomach with his palm. A baby! I thought, grasping Paul’s hand.

  A sign of hope finally.

  And forgiveness.

  A new life for both of us.

  We can get through this after all, I thought. We really can get through this.

  “I love you, Paul,” I said. “You’re going to make an amazing father.”

  “I love you, too,” Paul whispered, and he kissed away the tears on my cheeks. “Mommy.”

  Chapter 60

  THERE WERE TWO MEN sitting in my boss’s office when I finally came back to work the following Monday. From the other side of the squad room, I took in their executive-looking haircuts, their dark suits.

  My paranoid brain went to work instantly. Scott had worked with the DEA, which was a section
in the Department of Justice. The FBI did the legwork for the DOJ. This was all I needed now, a visit from the Feds!

  I didn’t even make it as far as my desk before Lieutenant Keane opened his door.

  “Lauren, could you come in here a second?” he said.

  I brought my bodega coffee with me to make it look like I really thought this would take only a second. I was getting good at deception. At least I hoped I was.

  “Have a seat, Detective Stillwell,” a man in a navy suit said from one of my boss’s chairs. His partner, wearing what looked like the same style three-button, only in gray, stood at his shoulder, staring at me expressionless, motionless.

  Their authoritative attitude both irritated and scared the living hell out of me. And since showing fear wasn’t an option at this juncture, I tried pissed-off on for size.

  “What’s the dealio, boss?” I said to Keane. “You set me up on a blind date? Where’s bachelor number three?”

  Two badges came out. My adrenaline shifted down half a gear when I saw that they weren’t the tiny gold badges the Feebs sport. They were copies of the one in the Chanel knock-off on my desk.

  “IAB,” Navy and Gray said in unison.

  So, they weren’t Feds here to arrest me, I realized. My relief was short-lived when I considered that they were definitely tin collectors here about Mike’s shooting. It was too late to play demure, I realized as I sat down. Never take a step back, my father advised me when I’d decided to get on The Job after law school. He’d also given me another tidbit of wisdom.

  Fuck the IAB.

  “Hey, nice. Synchronized rats,” I said, plopping down in the guest chair. “You guys should try out for the Special Olympics.”

  They glared at me. I glared back.

  Keane’s pale face turned scarlet as he struggled to not spontaneously combust with laughter.

  “That’s very funny, Detective,” Navy said with a click of his pen. “What’s less funny, I guess, is the shooting death of Victor Ordonez. As we speak, there is a rally being planned in his Washington Heights neighborhood. The cry for the details of his death has gotten loud enough to be heard way down at One Police Plaza. We fully intend to find and report the truth of what occurred.”