FOUR

We met on the boardwalk in Coney Island near Nathan’s. The sun was strong. The wind stronger and fragrant too. It smelled of salt from the sea, of sunscreen lotion, and of hot oil. It smelled so intensely of hot dogs and French fries that I imagined I could hear them sizzle and bubble.

“Why meet here?” I asked, turning to face the beach.

“I used to work the Six-O too, remember?”

“Yeah, but it’s also the place where—”

“—that scumbag took me from my family and raped me when I was a little girl. You know, when I first found out this was where the department was assigning me after making detective, I almost said no, but you know how the job was back then. I wouldn’t get no second chance. They woulda stuck me behind a desk at One PP and made me a fucking showpiece. When the department wanted to prove women and minorities were getting ahead, they’d have wheeled out the hot piece of Puerto Rican ass and her shiny gold shield for the press. And when they were done making their point, they’d have put me back on the shelf until the next time they needed to flash my shield and pussy for the cameras. No, Moe, that man who did those things to me when I was a girl, he took too much from me. I wasn’t gonna let him take my career away from me too.”

“Still …”

“I like it here because it reminds me of the best of us. I loved you everywhere, but I loved you here most of all, in this place. Coney Island is your place, Moe. When you die, they should just bury you right here, under the boardwalk.”

I bit my lip and nodded, my palm pressing against my abdomen.

“Was that your girlfriend yesterday, the one who was staring at me?”

“Girlfriend? At my age, it seems like such a silly word, doesn’t it?”

“You got a better one?”

“I guess not. Pam’s her name.”

“She’s very pretty,” Carmella said.

“She said something similar about you, but that’s not why we’re here, right? I checked into Alta’s murder.”

“So you know about the other thing.”

“About her and her partner not treating Tillman? Yeah, I know what you can know from the internet, which isn’t much. Do you think the two things are connected?”

“You know I do. Any good detective can do simple math,” she said. “Alta became a target the second those stories about Tillman’s death surfaced.”

“What do the cops think?”

“I don’t know what they think. Nobody’s talking.”

“Not even to you?”

“Not even to me.”

I was surprised at that. As a rule, cops are a chatty bunch, especially with other cops. Put a few beers and some Jameson in them and the yak factor goes way up. Add Carmella’s obvious charms to that mix and the chat factor grows exponentially. While Carmella hadn’t exactly been Miss Popularity with the brass, she did have a good rep with her peers—some of whom were still on the job in high places. And she’d taken a bullet in the line of duty, which earned her a lot of respect even from the hardass old-timers who still thought a woman’s place was in the kitchen or the bedroom and who thought a Puerto Rican’s place was in San Juan.

“Why do you think lips are so tight?” I asked.

“I don’t know. That’s what’s so frustrating, Moe. It’s like they just want all of it to go away. And it’s not only the cops. The fire department, they won’t even return my calls because I’m not listed as a relative. Shit, I can’t even get the media sources I used to have to talk to me. Something’s not right.”

“Sorry, but what do you think I can do for you? I’m pretty much outta the game, Carm. I—”

“You called me Carm.” Her smile was full and white, but the grief and guilt over her long-estranged sister weren’t far beneath the surface. “It’s good to hear you call me that again.”

“Doesn’t change anything.”

“In terms of us or the case?”

“Both,” I said, disappearing her smile. “Look, I’ve got Sarah’s wedding in a few weeks and I’ve got a lot going on right now, a lot of aggravation.”

“You do look kinda pale and too thin. Is everything okay?”

You mean other than the cancer? “Just stress. You know how Aaron can be about the wine stores. The bad economy is hurting.”

“Give it a week, Moe, please. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

“Don’t be stupid, Carm. I don’t want your money, but like I said, I’m outta this, pretty much. I haven’t even been able to find my license for going on three years now. What can I do that you can’t?”

“I was a good detective and a better PI, but you are lucky. You’ve always been lucky.”

I heard someone laughing and it took a second to realize it was me. “That’s rich.”

“Please … for me, for old times’ sake.”

“You know, Larry McDonald said that same thing about old times’ sake to me once almost on this very spot a few days before he killed himself. I turned him down.”

“As close as you and Chief McDonald were, you never shared with him what we shared, what we will always share. That kind of history don’t go away, Moe, never.”

“Okay, Carm, I’ll look around, but I’m not gonna sugarcoat anything. If I find stuff out that the cops or the FDNY don’t know, like maybe that Alta really did turn her back on the Tillman guy as he was dying, I won’t keep it to myself. True, we have history and maybe I owe you, but I don’t owe you that.” I handed her my card. “Fax me everything you have so far to that number and I’ll see what I can see.”

“Thank you.”

She stepped toward me, arms extended, and the temperature rose. Maybe it was just my temperature. It was an innocent gesture, a hug to cement the deal, but there was no such thing as an innocent gesture between Carmella and me. That was the thing with us, the chemistry. When we were partners in Prager & Melendez Investigations, Inc., we managed to keep it at bay. Once we crossed the line, going back wasn’t an option. For years, I hated her for moving up to Toronto with Israel, for pulling the rug out from under me the way she had so soon after Katy’s murder. It was especially painful because Sarah, who held me responsible for her mother’s death, had stopped speaking to me. But now I saw that Carmella was probably right to move far away when we began falling apart. Between the hurt and chemistry we would have eaten each other alive and Israel would have paid the price. I stepped back.

“No, Carm, this is business. We were never very good at mixing up our history with our business … and there’s Pam.”

She let her arms down and put her back against the boardwalk rail so that she faced Nathan’s and away from me. “You are right, Moe. I will go fax you those things.”

Carmella took a few strides away without looking back. Then I called to her.

“Who told you about Sarah’s party yesterday?”

“Your sister,” she said without hesitation and without turning to face me.

“Always the troublemaker, my little sister.”

“Don’t be mad at her. You have always been her hero.”

“I’m nobody’s hero.”

“About that, you could not be more wrong.”

I watched Carmella go down the steps onto Stillwell Avenue and disappear into the crowd. I didn’t linger too long after that. I had a case to work and the rest of my life, however much of it was left, to live.