EDGE OF THE CITY
Chapter 2
Those who knew Brian McCoy in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, considered him to be one
of the most content and well-adjusted of people. After all, he was just forty-five
years old when, through hard work and a few lucky breaks in his insurance something-or-other business, he had been able to accomplish the one thing that most people only dream
of doing: Brian McCoy had been able to retire to a life in the sun while he was still
able to enjoy it. He had achieved the American middle-class version of Nirvana.
And he had done it in style. He had everything going for him: all the comforts,
all the toys, and a few of the other things that turn people green with envy and
set idle tongues to wagging.
Take, for instance, his home. McCoy lived in a three-bedroom condominium in
the nicest building in town, complete with, of all things, a regulation pool table.
Everything was new, from the silverware to the paintings on the walls. McCoy had
brought hardly a thing with him from his previous existence in some small town in New York
state. Not a picture, not a trophy, not a scrapbook, not even a school ring, although
everyone was sure he must have one somewhere, probably from some pricey eastern school. After all, he had money. That was for sure. He owned a new Lincoln, a new twenty-four-foot
Baymaster that was docked in the canal right under his window, and at First Florida
Federal he never had to wait in line. It was always, "So good to see you, Mr. McCoy. Please come right this way."
But he had brought one thing with him, the one thing that the gossips loved most.
It was Mrs. McCoy, a twenty-something beauty who obviously doted on him. They conceded
that McCoy was a fine-looking man in good shape-and incidentally, getting in better shape all the time, what with running, swimming, water-skiing, and even karate
lessons-but, give us a break! Twenty something? And looking like she did? He had
to be sitting on a pile of gold, said the general consensus of opinion.
Then he had given his more senior neighbors the ultimate affront. Apparently,
McCoy had been exercising with young Mrs. McCoy. She was pregnant, and McCoy had
already decorated both of his spare bedrooms, one in blue and, just in case, one
in pink. He had dropped out of the Fort Myers Beach social circles to take his wife to this
doctor or that health-food store. He waited on her hand and foot and the only time
he left her side was to socialize with them, which had everyone wondering.
Anyone who has been retired in Florida long enough knows who they are, that group
of misfits who burden every retirement community in the state. They're easy to spot,
always wearing last year's fashions, drinking too much while they tell their loud
stories in coded language that no respectable outsider could possibly understand, and
generally treating all the better people with an attitude of benign superiority,
a sense of noblesse oblige.
They are like cockroaches. Where you see one, there are a hundred of them, just
out of sight. No matter what northern city they retire from, they seem to find each
other and cluster in social groups that exclude, by accident or design, every normal
person, or anyone else for that matter who is not a retired cop.
Every normal person except for Brian McCoy, that is. When he went out at all,
it was with some of them. He golfed with them, he fished with them, and although
he was a teetotaler, he attended some of their frequently scheduled parties and always
stayed late, laughing the night away while listening to their silly jokes and police
stories.
Contrary to the expectations of Fort Myers Beach opinion makers, the cops seemed
to appreciate his company and had even given him a nickname. They called him Buffy,
which confused everyone until Joe McGuinness had explained it. Joe was a retired
district attorney, a lawyer, and therefore someone to be believed. He said he used to
know some of the cops (although they denied ever knowing him) and explained that,
in the old days, a buff was anyone who always wanted to be a cop, but was either
too short, too fat, failed physical agility tests, or possessed too much moral fiber to be
accepted by any large and respectable police department. He added that the term
was archaic, because anyone who would have been called a buff then is now called
Officer.
* * *
Brian McCoy was aware of the controversy and curiosity that surrounded him in Fort
Myers Beach, which was one of the reasons he chose to hang around with the retired
cops. He knew they regarded his previous insurance-business story as just so much
bullshit, and that was his own fault. In his conversations with them he had made a few slips.
To them, it seemed that he knew a little too much about the law, which led some
of them to believe that he was really a retired lawyer. But they didn't seem to
mind. They thought he was a good enough guy, McCoy figured, and naturally ashamed of his
past profession. They never bothered him with questions.
But that was only one of the reasons he sought their company. The other reasons
he had only recently begun to articulate in his own mind, and they worried him.
Like his pals, he found that the normal people didn't interest him. Of course, he
could appreciate other people and talk with them about their accomplishments in life and
their views on the state of the arts, the sciences, the economy, politics in general,
and national problems in particular. He had prided himself on always laughing at
the right time and nodding whenever appropriate.
But they bored him, those normal people, because they knew nothing about human
nature, about the dark side of life. They believed in the rationality of things
and were convinced, therefore, that events were subject to theoretical interpretations
and logical predictions. But he knew better, knew that with the exceptions of droughts,
earthquakes, hurricanes, and some fires, bad things were made to happen by people,
many times just ordinary people. Experience had taught him that even the most rational
of people had an irrational side, something that propelled them to do things without
apparent motivation, and that sooner or later everyone let their irrational side
loose, if only for an instant, and, if they were unlucky, drunk, or those outbursts
occurred too often, then they got to meet the police. They didn't like the police because
the police knew
, had seen them at their worst in those moments, and probably talked about them and
even laughed about them among themselves.
They were right about that. McCoy, Dominic Santini, Bobby Evans, and Mike McCormick
had been set to tee off on the sixteenth hole, which was a tough one for McCormick
unless he fortified himself with a six-pack of Budweiser. Having already done so,
he was transformed into a scratch golfer, an altered state that usually lasted five
minutes. But before teeing off he had decided it was time to tell them the one about
the gay guy, his pet gerbil, and the unusual predicament they had gotten themselves
into together. According to McCormick, it had happened when he was a captain in Detroit,
and naturally he starred in his version of the story as he, showing courage and dedication
well above the line of duty, had found the tip of the animal's tail and saved both the guy and his gerbil from a horrible death, one possibly more horrible than
the other. But McCormick had gone one better and thought to add the Friends of Animals
posters that adorned the guy's bedroom.
Everyone had laughed at the story as they guided McCormick to the tee for what
they knew would be his one good 250-yard blast, straight as an arrow.
McCoy had laughed along with the others, and just as hard, although he had heard
each of them tell essentially the same story when they had been in similarly altered
states. Except, of course, in each of their versions they had been the stars and
it had happened in their cities. But a good story was a good story, he figured, and
the names and places didn't matter.
As McCormick hit his ball, 260 yards this time and right in the middle of the
fairway, McCoy found himself feeling smug. Of course the gerbil story was true,
he knew, but it hadn't happened in Detroit or Chicago or Cincinnati or any of those
other small-town police departments. It had happened in New York, the City, the only place
it possibly could
happen. He knew it happened there because Lieutenant Vernon Gebhart had told him
the story ten years ago, and every detective in the City of New York knew that Vernon's
stories were always true and that, if questioned, he had the pictures to prove it.
Once again the out-of-towners had taken a New York story and made it their own.
McCoy chided himself as Santini teed off, telling himself that his attitude was
just another symptom of his problem, a problem he didn't entirely understand. Here
he was, retired in Florida with a great wife, plenty of bucks, and nothing to do
all day but run, lift weights, water-ski, fish, play golf, and take lessons in this or that.
In short, he was miserable and bored to tears. All of this was great, but he
wasn't ready for it yet. He wanted to be Detective First Grade Brian McKenna again,
the gun-collar man, the most decorated cop in the city, a well-respected type of
guy. He still longed for New York, with the crime, the filth, the degenerates, the rotten
weather, and all those other things that made it the most exciting city on earth
and the best place to be a cop.
Instead, he was in heaven and going nuts. He was worried about himself, so worried
that he had even gone to one of those self-actualization courses. All it had taught
him were things about goals and frustrations, things he knew already, deep down.
His goal was simply to be himself and he was frustrated because it was impossible.
Well, not impossible, he thought. Just unhealthy.
McKenna suffered from a potential health problem that was rarer than Lou Gehrig's
disease, a problem that few people in the United States had ever heard of, and it
was called Sendero Luminoso
, the Shining Path of Peru. It was always fatal, and even killed the innocents around
the victim when it struck. McKenna couldn't risk that, not with Angelita finally
pregnant and happy.
He had caught the disease that forced this pleasant, comfortable, rotten life
upon him the year before in New York, when he had thwarted a major kidnapping operation
of Sendero
's and, in the process, eliminated a few of their prime-time players. He had embarrassed
them, and they had a certain well-founded reputation as sore losers. They tried
to enhance that reputation once, and he had barely survived. They would try again,
if they could find him. Revenge was their guiding principle, and he was sure it was
mentioned somewhere in every page of their manual of operations.
So he had to leave. Fortunately for him, his best friend had been the chief
of detectives and was now the police commissioner, so it was a pretty easy thing
to arrange. Money hadn't been a problem because a first grade detective's pension
was the same as a lieutenant's and was the subject of an annual gripe-and-moan story by the
New York newspapers. Besides, he had made a bit of a killing when he sold his apartment
in Greenwich Village, so he could afford a few of the luxuries. Driver's license,
passport, Social Security number? No problem either, when the chief of detectives of
the City of New York decides to call you something else. Whatever he calls you is
your new name. Even the banks had been no problem, even in Florida. Ray had friends
everywhere, and those Brian McCoy checks and credit cards were backed by the full faith
and credit of the former Brian McKenna.
Ray had thought of everything, including stashing him in Fort Myers Beach on
the west coast of Florida. He had given McKenna a lesson in geography, explaining
that cops from the eastern cities usually retire on the east coast of Florida, and
cops from the Midwest retire on the west coast. He didn't want McKenna meeting anyone who
could conceivably blow his cover.
He had been right about that, too. In a year of hanging out with a good bunch
of degenerates he hadn't met a single retired New York cop, and here he was playing
golf with three cops from cities in the Midwest, with none of them any the wiser.
Santini hit a long, beautiful shot into the woods, or the palms as they are called
in Florida, and immediately headed for McCormick's Budweiser cooler for the obvious
cure. He wasn't stupid, and the seventeenth was another long hole.
McKenna was next. He had teed up and was addressing his ball when he was interrupted.
"Goddamn, look at that one!" Evans exclaimed, but McKenna ignored him. He wasn't
going to fall for that old trick, what with a possible sixty cents riding on the
shot. He continued stroking his ball without looking up.
"That girl's not gonna make it," McCormick observed dryly. "We're gonna be fishing
her out in another minute."
What the hell, McKenna thought. These yokels got Buffy again. He looked up
and his heart went straight to his mouth.
Across the lake on the seventh hole someone was driving a golf cart at maximum
speed, skirting sand traps, greens, and the edge of the water with two-wheel maneuvers
and obviously no intention of slowing down. McKenna focused on the driver and watched the cart hit a bump on the fairway, approach the sky, and land neatly on four wheels,
still rounding the lake. That convinced him. It had to be Angelita, because anyone
else would have been killed on that one.
It wasn't that she was that good, it was just that she was now that lucky. She
didn't wreck vehicles, she just dented them. It was one of their secrets that their
new nine-month-old car now had an extra four coats of paint applied at various body
shops around town after they camouflaged her motoring adventures. McKenna used to figure
that within another year or so he would have to sit on a telephone book to drive,
in order to see over the new layers of paint on the hood.
But it wasn't that bad anymore. After her three consecutive months of driver
training courses imposed by the wisdom of the Florida Department of Public Safety,
she no longer had accidents, although McKenna was sure that she still caused them.
She was still the worst driver he had ever seen.
McKenna wanted to wave and shout to her, but didn't dare distract her. She left
the lake area, crossed the woods, and headed straight for them. He had a premonition
of disaster and ran to meet her, leaving McCormick, Evans, and Santini standing at
the tee. He knew that someone had died and thought about his mother, who hadn't been
feeling well lately.
He got to the edge of the fifteenth green before she reached him and skidded
to a stop. She looked terrible, frantic and red-eyed. She had been crying and was
going to cry again. And then she did, putting her hands to her face and sobbing
uncontrollably.
"Who?" McKenna asked.
She didn't hear him.
"Angelita, who was it?" he shouted.
"I'm sorry, Brian. It's Dennis," she sobbed without taking her hands from her
face.
Dennis? McKenna thought. Not Dennis Sheeran? He's a health nut and he can't
be fifty yet. Angelita liked him, but this Dennis she loved. Dennis who? he wondered.
"Dennis who?" he asked, feeling stupid.
She took her hands from her eyes and looked at him incredulously. "Dennis,"
she said. "Ray's son Dennis. They killed Dennis Brunette."
That Dennis? No wonder it hadn't occurred to him. After all, he was only twenty-two
years old and in the Seventeenth Precinct, New York's Gold Coast, tucked away safe
and sound with many of the other big bosses' kids.
His surprise was quickly replaced by a lump in his throat and he felt his eyes
misting up. He loved Dennis, had watched him grow up, and was proud of him. But
probably not as proud as Ray. Fifteen hundred miles away, he felt Ray's pain. Ray
had five kids and loved them all, but, although he would never admit it, Dennis was the
one. In every traditional police family, there is the one who carries on the tradition,
and in the Brunette family it was Dennis. Everyone knew he was going places. Was.
"How?"
"The usual no-good reason. He was killed by some purse-snatchers in your filthy
city."
McKenna reached for his handkerchief, blew his nose and wiped his eyes. Then
he gave it to Angelita and climbed into the passenger seat. "You drive," he said,
surprising them both. "How do I look?"
She managed to give him a little smile. "Just like big, tough, old Brian McKenna.
A little older than him, maybe."
"C'mon. I have to go get my clubs."
Angelita slowly drove them to the sixteenth tee.
"Going?" Santini asked.
"Yeah, we have to," McKenna said. "Something came up."
"We heard. We're really sorry about it," McCormick said, stone-cold sober.
McKenna was confused. "Sorry about what?" he asked.
"I heard it on the news before we came out today, but we figured, why spoil your
day? You were gonna find out anyway, and bad news can always wait. But we did take
the liberty of booking Mr. and Mrs. McCoy on every flight into New York."
McKenna looked from one to the other, astounded. "You knew?" he asked no one
in particular.
"Of course we knew," Evans answered in his Cincinnati drawl. "What do you think
we are, a bunch of yokels?"
"Never," McKenna said with conviction, "but how come you never said anything
to me about it?"
The three other cops shared a smile, which somehow made McKenna feel like the
yokel. Then Evans said, "Well, big-city detective, I don't know if you ever noticed,
but this place down here is kinda long on storytellers and a little short on audience.
We figured it would be just plain stupid to take someone from the small group and
transfer him to the big group. Besides, never know what kind of bullshit you might
come up with if we put the spotlight on you, so why take a chance? we said to ourselves."
"You guys are a bunch of clowns," McKenna said admiringly "You might even belong
in New York."
"Yeah, Buffy. But don't forget, we're clowns with pensions. Make sure you get
back soon to enjoy yours. Us good old boys hear that New York is a nasty place."
Just like a captain, McCormick always had the last word and there was nothing
left to be said. Angelita drove while McKenna trembled, not altogether sure why.
