Hose Monkey (4 page)

Cain knew he was wrong for not showing up today without telling Frank. It killed him to disappoint Frank. He liked Joe Serpe a lot, but he loved Frank. Frank treated him like he wished his own father could. Frank taught him things. Joe taught him things, too, like how Serpe meant snake in Italian, but the things Frank taught him were life things, man things. Frank treated him special. His parents, the people at the homes, they all treated him like a dead end street. He didn’t have the right words for it the way Frank would. The people who worked with him at the homes, even the really nice ones, were sort of doing what they had to, but like in front of a brick wall, almost like he wasn’t there. The thing about Frank was that he treated Cain like he could learn anything.

That’s why he knew he had to come talk to Frank. It was what a man did. And Cain Cohen was a man in spite of his being M.R., slow, delayed, challenged, handicapped or any of those other stupid words that meant he was different. The problem was he’d hidden himself in a secret place where no one would be able to find him and now he was frozen stiff, starving and tired. At first, the chill made some of the hurt go away. Now it made it worse. Finally, he’d gotten the courage up to apologize to Frank for being bad, but just as he started crawling out of his secret place, he heard a truck pulling into the yard. He would have to wait a little while longer. For Frank, he would wait as long as it took.

Joe nosed in, swung around and backed up between the blue and red Macks. The constant
beep, beep, beep
of the reverse warning horn cut through him like fork tines scraping on an empty plate. There wasn’t much clearance and it was dark and there was ice on his mirrors, but he didn’t figure his night could get much worse. The tugboat slid in neatly between the trucks on either side. Joe remembered a time when he was afraid to even put the damned truck in reverse. Then there was the time he got cocky about his ability to squeeze through tight spaces and creased the side of the tugboat’s tank. Frank was less than pleased about that.

He pulled out the yellow parking brake on the dash. A loud
pssst
filled the night as the air brakes spit out excess pressure, kicking up a spray of snow and dust. He turned off the ignition key and choked the engine silent. Gathering up his paperwork, cell phone and map, Joe jumped down off the metal grate for the last time that day.

“A face from the past,” Frank teased. “I was gonna organize a fuckin’ search party.”

“Here.” Joe threw down his paperwork, map and phone in front of Frank.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that last stop.”

“Not as sorry as me.”

“I’m throwing you an extra twenty,” Frank said, figuring to lift Joe’s spirits.

“Keep it.”

“What the fuck’s eatin’ you?”

“You wanna know?”

“No, Joe, I asked cause I enjoy the sound of my own voice. Yeah, I wanna know.”

“Healy,” Joe barked, “the last stop in Kings Park.”

“What about it?”

“Bob Healy was the lead detective on my case.”

“Fuck! He was the–”

“That’s right,” Joe said, a sad smile spreading across his face. “Detective Robert Healy, Internal Affairs’ best and brightest. He was the guy that made the case against me and Ralphy.”

Even after four years, it hurt like a son of a bitch; the old disgrace rained over him like a shower of bee stings. It’s how far you let yourself fall, Father John had once told him, that’s the measure of a man. And Joe Serpe had fallen quite a long ways.

He thought about Vinny every day, but Joe had good stretches now, sometimes whole months, without revisiting his own fall. Now it was all back—the hearings, the testimony, the loss of his family, his shield, his pension, his self-respect, Ralphy’s suicide. And all because Ma had misplaced a delivery ticket. God just couldn’t resist fucking with him.

“C’mon,” Frank snapped. “Drinks are on me. Lugo’s, here we come.”

Joe Serpe didn’t have it in him to protest. He would have preferred to drink alone, but he had the rest of the weekend for that.

Frank shut down his PC, clicked off the lights and locked the door. Joe went ahead of him to check the trucks and make sure all the tank valves were in the closed position and that all the keys had been removed from the cabs. There had been a lot troubles in the neighborhood recently, minor stuff, mostly. The vandalism hadn’t turned serious yet, just a few broken windows and some artful graffiti. But a misplaced ignition key and one opened valve could lead to a few thousand gallons of fuel oil on the ground. As he inspected the trucks, Joe thought he heard something moving in the yard. He whipped the flashlight around, cutting broad gashes in the darkness. He saw nothing. Seeing Healy again had really spooked him. The sooner he got to Lugo’s the better.

Cain didn’t pick his head up until Frank and Joe had locked the yard gates behind them. He listened to their cars pulling away. His heart was still racing from when Joe had heard him slip. Joe had shined the flashlight right over his head. That Joe hadn’t seen him filled Cain with a kind of pride. His special hiding spot was so good that not even a real detective could find him. When the swell of pride vanished, Cain began to panic.

He knew Frank wouldn’t fire him if he could just talk to him. Frank understood better than anybody the way it was with Cain, how he acted bad sometimes. The thing was, he hadn’t wanted to talk in front of Joe Serpe. He thought Joe was still mad at him from when he had Frank take him off the tugboat. Frank swore up and down that Joe wasn’t mad at him, that he had problems of his own. But Cain was smart enough to know people didn’t tell the truth sometimes when they didn’t want to hurt your feelings. He also knew that like his parents, people got rid of you when they were mad at you. Or, like Mr. French, they just hit you.

Now what was he going to do? He was getting so cold and hungry and everybody was going to be mad at him. Cain knew what would happen if he didn’t get back to the group home soon. They would call his parents and they would get real mad. The people at the home were probably already mad, because they got in trouble when the
tards
ran away. Sometimes, no matter why you ran, they sent you to a new place. They couldn’t do that to him, not this time. He had a real job, one he loved. He had Frank.

Cain noticed that tears were pouring out of his eyes and his nose was so stuffed he could hardly breathe right. He was shaking, his chest heaving. The thought of losing everything he had worked so hard for was too much to take. He had finally found a place where he belonged, where his being slow didn’t mean so much. Cain knew there was only one thing to do. He had to get back to the home. That’s what Frank would want him to do, to be a man.

Then, just as he began to crawl out from his special hiding place, he heard a rattling from the big padlock and thick chain that held the gate shut. He heard voices. He scooted back in his secret niche and listened. Now he knew what to do to set things right. No one would be mad at him anymore.

It was near 11:00 when Frank and Joe shook hands goodnight.

“Shit,” Frank said, trying to focus on his watch. “It’s Valentine’s Day. My wife’s gonna kill me. I hope those roses I sent her will do the trick.”

“Good luck.”

“You’re pretty fucked up, Joe. You gonna be okay to drive?”

“It’s only a few blocks. I’ll be fine.”

“Famous last words.”

“God wouldn’t let me off that easy, Frank.”

“See ya Monday morning.”

“Monday,” Joe repeated, beginning to walk to his car. “Hey,” he stopped, calling to Frank. “You ever hear from the kid today?”

“Nah.”

“I still feel bad about throwing him off–”

“Forget it, Joe. Get some sleep.”

Cain’s eyes fluttered. Face down in a few inches of yellow-dyed diesel, he should have been coughing but couldn’t. He wasn’t breathing very well either. It was the weirdest thing. He knew he should be in a lot of pain, but he just wasn’t. He had been beat up real bad, so bad he couldn’t remember much. He was cold mostly. Only his head hurt a little. He knew he should have been scared, but he wasn’t.

He had better get up, he thought. He couldn’t move. His hands and feet wouldn’t work. Now he panicked. He tried screaming.

“Frank!”

But when he opened his mouth, diesel rushed in. He couldn’t cough. He was drowning from inside and out. His eyes were stinging and the taste of the diesel was hard to take. His tongue was thick and slow.

“Frank!” he tried again.

Again the diesel rushed in and he couldn’t spit it back out.

He moved the only part of him that worked anymore. He banged his head against the tank as hard as he could, hoping morning had come and that Frank or Joe could hear him. He split his scalp wide open, his blood mixing into the diesel.

Silence.

He stopped banging. Even if morning
had
come, no one would be there. It was Sunday. The panic was gone.

Thursday
The Day of the Funeral
February 19th, 2004

 

F.F.L.

 

B
ob Healy didn’t bother waiting to get back into the house to unfurl his
Newsday.
Normally he’d check the sports headlines before scanning the front page, but the Knicks could wait. No, there was a story he’d been following since Monday morning when he saw the first reports on News Channel 12. It was tragedy enough that the poor retarded boy had been murdered and tossed into an oil tank to rot, but there was another aspect of the case that Healy couldn’t get his head around. Initially, he hadn’t made the connection between the victim, Joe Serpe, and Mayday Fuel.

Then it clicked.

The murder was headline material again today:

NO LEADS
Funeral Later Today

 

Bob Healy crossed himself. Seeing Joe Serpe on Saturday had gotten to him. Maybe it was because that day had been so cold, so haunting, so full of Mary’s absence. For whatever reason, Healy had taken Joe Serpe’s appearance at his doorstep as a sign. He had wanted to talk to Serpe on Saturday, to say some things that needed to be said, but old ways die hard. Healy couldn’t help but treat Serpe with the practiced condescension he’d cultivated over his years in Internal Affairs. Before Healy could change his tune, Serpe’s truck was rumbling down the street.

He hadn’t slept at all well that night, going over his cases in his head. Until Mary’s death, Healy hadn’t been much of a second-guesser. It didn’t suit him or his career in I.A.B. But since he had seen Joe “the Snake”, all Bob had done was second-guess himself. In a lightless, lonely bedroom in the midst of a snowstorm, there’s time enough to dissect the individual molecules of a case; time to rehash every decision, every question, every unkindness.

Healy went to Mass the following day, confessed his sins, took communion. He went on Monday as well, but found neither solace nor answers in the words of the priest nor in the serenely frozen face of the crucified Jesus. Then, when he got home and flipped on cable to see the story of the murder in the oil yard, Bob Healy knew what he had to do. He would have to meet with Joe Serpe. Not only was it the right thing to do, but Mary would have demanded it.

He scanned the articles in the paper, ignoring his cooling coffee. There it was, the detail he’d been searching for. He tore the article out of the paper, put his mug in the sink, and went upstairs to shower. He had to be at Mass in twenty minutes.

Joe and Frank came in separate cars, but they met in the parking lot at Kaplan Brothers. Joe was surprised to see Frank alone. He had just assumed Frank would bring Tina.

“The wife’s not feelin’ too good,” Frank volunteered before Joe had a chance to ask.

It was a lie. Joe could see it in Frank’s face, could hear it in his voice. He knew it was a lie just like he knew it was a lie when his snitches would look him right in the eye and swear they weren’t using or dealing. It was
pro forma.
I say X and you say Y. I cha cha and you cha cha cha. Joe sometimes wondered why people went through that song and dance bullshit. He wasn’t pointing fingers. He had been just as guilty of it as anyone. Maybe it was a basic human instinct, he thought, the need for preliminaries before the main bout.

He knew Frank was lying the same way he had known that Ralphy was lying to him over the last two years they were together. With Ralphy, it was little things at first. By the time they got busted, Ralphy’d gotten so outrageous it was almost funny. Almost. He was like the punch line to a bad joke:

How did you know I was lying?

Your lips were moving.

Joe and Frank didn’t say much to each other as they walked from the parking lot into the funeral home. Besides the lie, there were a lot of other factors adding to the unusual level of discomfort between the two men. Neither was at ease in a suit and tie. Frank especially, kept adjusting his tie and shirt collar. Joe could see his boss’ neck chaffed red at the constriction of a closed top button and taut knot.

Then there was the fact that Frank had never been to a Jewish funeral before. Unlike Joe, who’d grown up in Bensonhurst with a pack of Jewish friends and who had worked in the city until the troubles began, Frank was strictly a Long Island guy. In fact, his friends used to call him the Babylonian, because he had been born, raised and rarely left the village of Babylon until he started in the oil business. Even now, he was more likely to fly to Orlando than drive into Manhattan.

“Why ain’t the coffin opened?” Frank got up the courage to ask when they settled into their seats at the back of the chapel.

“Tradition,” Joe said. “Only the immediate family can see him and then only for a few minutes. Jews usually bury the dead within twenty-four hours, but with the autopsy …”

Joe, checking his watch, noticed the front rows of the chapel were empty. The family would take those seats. The family—they were the biggest reason for Joe and Frank’s disquiet. Frank had tried since Monday afternoon to contact them. Neither parent would come to the phone and the relatives who had picked up were either crying or curt. Frank wanted to believe it was all grief, but feared it was more than that.

Suddenly, the chapel fell silent. Everyone stood. The rabbi entered and took the podium. Behind him trailed a group of about fifteen people, all red-eyed, some crying. Though he had never met Cain’s parents, Joe immediately recognized them. Cain had been a fifty-fifty child—tall and thin like his dad, darkly handsome like his mom. Cain’s dad practically carried his wife along, her wailing so wrought with despair it cut through everyone like jagged shards of glass.

A few rows behind the family and to the right, Joe spotted a group of about eight people he assumed were from the group home. Some seemed very distracted or alone in this room packed with people. One, a stocky girl with Down’s Syndrome, was crying with an intensity and purity that Joe had never quite experienced. Her tears were so unselfconscious, Joe was embarrassed for her. Or was he just jealous? It was hard to lose family. It was hard to lose friends. Joe had lost his share of each, but if he started crying, he feared he might never stop. Somehow, crossing paths with Bob Healy no longer seemed so important.

Finally, a woman came to comfort the girl. Joe guessed she was in her early thirties, elegantly slim, with neatly cut, shoulder-length blond hair. She wrapped her arms around the crying girl, rocking her slightly, whispering in her ear. At one point, the blond woman turned her head toward the rear of the chapel. Her eyes met Joe’s. Well no, his met her’s, but her eyes—light brown, close-set, intense—saw through him, or maybe saw nothing. Joe looked away.

The rabbi asked that everyone be seated. Only Cain’s mother and the Down’s girl continued crying. Prayers were offered, the cantor sang. The rabbi said his piece. Joe liked that the rabbi had known Cain his whole life and had a funny story or two to tell. Joe had attended far too many funerals conducted by the ranks of rent-a-clergy, men in black gowns reading the deceased’s name off recipe cards. The priests at Ralphy’s parish had refused to conduct his service or to even let his body inside the church. Rosemarie had been forced to shop for a cemetery that would take him.

Then the rabbi asked if there were any mourners who would like to come up and share their memories of Cain.

“By our very presence here today, we acknowledge our great loss, a loss that is as incalculable as the depth of the Lord’s love. Then let us not try to measure the loss. We lay ourselves open to a period of grief and mourning,” the rabbi said. “So, please, if any among you would like to speak in celebration of Cain’s life, step forward and share your memories with us.”

No one from the front two rows stepped up. Joe understood. Even though he believed that dead was dead, no matter what kind of package it came in, he knew that murder always seemed so senseless to the victim’s family that it left them deaf and dumb. A cop knows better. Murder has sense to it, just not the kind the victim’s family could comprehend.

The Down’s girl got up, walked to the podium. Tears streamed down her round, round cheeks. Joe was struck by her face. It was a face meant to smile, he thought, not a face for suffering.

“My name is Donna,” she said too loudly, not even trying to choke back tears. “Cain was my friend. He was smart and taught me things like his boss Frank taught him. The oil place was real important to him. He told me he felt all grown up there. I wanted him to take me there so I could feel that way too, but he said Frank wouldn’t like that.” She looked right down at Cain’s parents. “He didn’t want you to be mad at him. He didn’t like when you got mad at him.”

The blond woman walked quickly up to the podium, but without trying to embarrass the girl. She took Donna’s arm and led her outside the chapel.

Then, to Joe’s surprise, Frank was on his feet, moving to the podium. He never quite made it. Cain’s mother charged him. She nearly knocked Frank off his feet.

“You son of a bitch!” she screamed, clawing at him. “You and that stupid business. I never wanted him anywhere near that dirty place. You killed him! You killed him!”

Joe and Cain’s father pulled her off Frank. Joe diffused the situation by taking Frank out the door of the chapel that led directly to the parking lot and the waiting hearse.

“She’s right, Joe. I as much as killed the fuckin’ kid.”

“She’s grieving. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Joe said, remembering how Rosemarie had blamed him for Ralphy’s suicide. “It makes it easier if you got somebody to strike out at. Trust me on this. Inside she’s probably blaming herself. Shit, if I hadn’t thrown the kid off my truck. Who knows?”

They were halfway to Frank’s car when two men blocked their path.

“What a pretty couple they make,” the bigger one chortled out of the side of his sloppy mouth.

Cops, Joe thought. There was something vaguely familiar about sloppy mouth. He was a good six-foot-two, in his late forties with a jowly red face and a lazy left eye. His eyes seemed bluer than they actually were, in contrast to his ruddy complexion. He had the wide shoulders and thick body of an athlete gone to seed. The partner was small only in comparison. He was a six-footer, early thirties, clear brown eyes and a trim moustache. The bigger cop was strictly a Sears man. The partner had pretensions. There didn’t seem to be a stitch of polyester on him.

“What can we do for you, Detectives?” Joe took the offensive.

“Listen to him, Kramer,” the big man started up again. “The Snake knows we’re detectives.”

First Healy and now this clown; it was the second time in less than a week he’d been called by his old moniker and neither time did he much care for the speaker’s tone of voice.

“Do I know you, Detective?”

The big man stuck his face in Serpe’s. “I know who
you
are. That’s what’s important here. But just to show you I’m a fair guy, I’ll do introductions. That handsome devil there is Suffolk County Police Detective Jeff Kramer and I’m Detective Lieutenant Timothy Hoskins from the Fourth Homicide Squad.”

Neither name rang Joe’s bell. Frank remained quiet, still lost in his own sense of guilt.

“Detective.” Joe nodded to Kramer.

“You don’t remember me, do you, asshole?” Hoskins was at it again. “I’m Rosemarie’s first cousin. You remember Rosemarie? You flipped on her husband Ralphy, you fuckin’ disloyal sonovabitch.”

“Yeah, now I remember you,” Joe said calmly. “And I remember why I forgot you. What do you want? A little far off your patch, aren’t you? This is Nassau County last time I checked.”

“You don’t worry about whose patch is where. This case here, the retarded kid, is mine,” Hoskins sneered, throwing his thumb at the funeral home.

“But you didn’t catch it,” Joe blurted. “You weren’t even at the crime scene.”

“Well, it’s mine now. Imagine how happy I was to see your name in the reports. I was fuckin’ thrilled.”

“And you’re busting my balls why?”

“Other than because I feel like it and that I can. I just wanted to rub it in your face you dickless fuck.”

“Hey!” Frank snapped out of it. “Watch your mouth, Detective.”

“Take it easy, Frank,” Joe warned, stepping between him and Hoskins.

“Yeah, Frank, take it easy,” Hoskins aped. “Your employee here suffers from selective loyalty. When push comes to shove, he caves. You wouldn’t want him to cave in on you.”

“Rub what in?” Joe repeated.

“We got a suspect,” Kramer finally spoke.

“That’s great,” Frank said.

“Yeah, great,” Hoskins sneered. “You’ll love this, Snake. The suspect’s name is Jean Michel Toussant.”

“Mr. French?”

“That’s right, Snake, Mr. French, the mental health aide from the group home. We got witnesses say Toussant had it in for the kid. This tard who’s next door to the kid says he heard a disturbance in the kid’s room Saturday morning. Apparently, Mr. French had a puffy left eye that day. Told the rest of the staff he slipped on a wet floor and banged his cheek into a wall. Since the kid was gone, there was no one to dispute his account of things. And you’ll never guess what we found in the victim’s room.”

“Blood spatter.”

“Bingo!” Hoskins mocked. “See, Kramer, he walks like a cop, talks like a cop, but—”

Serpe ignored him. “So what’s Toussant say?”

“Nothing yet,” Detective Kramer answered. “We’d have to find him first.”

“He ran?” Frank said.

Kramer nodded. “He ran. Left work early on Saturday, complaining about the puffy eye. Didn’t show for work Monday. His neighbors haven’t seen him.”

Hoskins glared at his partner. If looks could kill, several generations of Kramers were doomed.

Kramer yawned. Apparently, he was pretty used to Hoskins’ antics.

“You got any leads?” Joe asked.

“Fuck you, Serpe,” Hoskins said. “I wouldn’t a told you a thing, but now I’m glad Kramer got a big yap. It gives me a chance to tell you to keep your rat fuckin’ nose outta this case. Maybe if you had protected the kid like you promised, we wouldn’t be standin’ here at his funeral makin’ nice. Oh yeah, I heard about that. He bragged to all the tards about how his cop friend Joe was gonna protect him. Yeah, well you did a bang up job, didn’t ya, Snake? Relyin’ on you is like a death warrant.”