I just finished mumbling my way through the Bir Mat Hamazon — grace after the meal-when I heard the doorbell ring and Lieutenant Duffy call out, “Open up, Ash, I know you’re in there.”
My mother padded across the room and peered through the peephole. Then she quickly glanced at me with a pained expression, her eyes filling with an amalgam of anger and dread, and opened the door.
“Shabat Shalom, Mrs. Levine,” Duffy said, smiling. He reached for her hand and then patted it gently.
She glared at him.
“I learned a little Hebrew in the seminary when I had a class in comparative religion.”
“Very little, I assume.”
While he prattled on, trying to charm my mother, I sat slumped in a dining room chair. My temples felt like they were being squeezed in a vise. In an instant, I was transported right back to that street corner at 54th and Figueroa, where I saw Latisha Patton splayed on the sidewalk, her head encircled by a pool of blood, brain tissue and skull shards blown into the gutter. Why? Because of my stupidity. Or incompetence. Or carelessness. Or all of it. I felt as if I had killed her myself. For the past year I had been trying to bury the agonizing memory of that afternoon. And now, seeing Duffy brought it all back again. When I set my hands on my lap, I saw that I had left sweaty handprints on the wooden arms of the chair.
My mother glanced over at me for a moment. She could always read me better than any suspect. Turning to Duffy, she said in a loud whisper, “I wish you’d just let him get on with his life.”
She looked particularly small and frail at that moment. Pale and freckled, her bright red hair was so lacquered and spherical it looked like a football helmet. She had an energy that made her seem physically imposing, but when people stood next to her and realized she was only about five feet tall, they were always surprised. Of course, standing next to Duffy would make anyone look small and frail. He was six foot five and somewhere between burly and fat, like an offensive lineman a few years past his playing days.
“I just need a few minutes with your son,” Duffy said. “Then I’ll be on my way.”
I could see that my mother looked painfully confounded, torn between the desire to berate Duffy and the compulsion to offer him food. “You eaten?” she muttered through clenched teeth, as if the words escaped from her mouth against her will.
“Just had a delightful supper with my own dear mother.”
Duffy eased into a chair-encased in a protective plastic coating-across from me. When I smelled his breath-beer laced with Tic Tacs-I knew he had spent the past hour-not with his mother-but downing beers at El Compadre in Echo Park, a Felony Special hangout.
“But,” Duffy added, “I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee and perhaps a slice of your challah.” A loaf of braided egg bread was centered on the dining room table between a pair of dripping candles. “Sometimes Ash used to bring in sandwiches made from your delicious challah and he’d occasionally be kind enough to share them with me.”
She rolled her eyes and trudged off to the kitchen. I crossed the room and slumped on the sofa.
Duffy looked around the monochromatic living room, everything a pale celery green, including the walls, carpeting, porcelain lamps, faded silk lampshades, and chintz sofa. “Your mother must like green.”
“You must be a detective,” I said sarcastically.
“I guess she’s the obsessive type-like you,” Duffy said, smiling.
This was just like Duffy, I thought, to ignore my mother’s discomfort and my glare, and just make himself at home. I had always admired Duffy’s ability to strut into a South Central living room, filled with cop-hating gangbangers and, with complete confidence, toss off a quip, ease a tense situation, and begin asking questions. Maybe it was his size. He was a presence that demanded attention. Maybe it was because Duffy, with his ruddy complexion, empathetic sky blue eyes, wispy silver hair, booming voice, and hale, voluble manner reminded people of the friendly parish priest. The Irish lilt enhanced the impression. I had always thought that Duffy’s two years at a Catholic seminary when he was a teenager gave him a great advantage. One Salvadoran murderer who confessed later told me that talking to Duffy in an interview room was like whispering in a confessional to un padre con placa. A priest with a badge.
I first met Duffy at a homicide when I was a young patrolman in the Pacific Division and he was a detective. While the other cops were drinking coffee beside their squad cars, I wandered around outside the yellow tape and found a flattened. 40-caliber slug imbedded in a wooden porch column next door to the crime scene. Duffy was the primary detective on the case and the slug led him to the murder weapon, which led him to the murderer. After that, at homicide scenes, Duffy always asked me to help him conduct the searches and, on a few occasions, he let me interview peripheral witnesses. When he took over South Bureau Homicide-a division based in South Central-he brought me in as a detective trainee. When I got my shield, he threw me a party at the academy. Years later, when he made lieutenant, was promoted to Robbery-Homicide Division, and put in charge of Felony Special, I was one of his first hires.
It was pretty predictable that I would have a weakness for father figures, and Duffy was an obvious choice. My father, after surviving Treblinka, was so consumed with his own demons, so remote and tormented, that there was not much emotional capital left for his sons. But after the Latisha Patton debacle, when I really needed some paternal guidance and support, where was Duffy? All I got from him was a two-week suspension and a bureaucratic rebuke stuffed in my personnel file. Seeing Duffy now didn’t make me angry, just very sad, the betrayal so strong that I could feel it in the pit of my stomach. Many times during the past year I had envisioned how I was going to curse him out when I saw him again, how I was going to denounce him for caring more about covering his ass than taking care of his people, how loyalty meant nothing to him, how he was so consumed with ambition that he’d sell out every detective in the squad room for a promotion. But now, when I had the chance, I was too enervated to utter a word.
“I like your mother,” Duffy said. “I like her honesty. In the past, whenever we talked, she always said what was on her mind. Very different from the women in my family. Everything was always fine. No matter what. My older brother would show up for dinner, night after night, dead drunk, and almost pass out on the kitchen table. My mother and aunt would always manage to avoid seeing what was right in front of their faces.” Duffy, in a high-pitched brogue, impersonated them: “‘Our poor Brendan must be a bit sleepy again this evening. The poor lad is working too hard.’”
Duffy rose and walked over to the mantel and studied my parents’ wedding picture. “You don’t resemble your mom much.” He pointed to my father, who had wavy black hair, an olive complexion, and stared into the camera with an unnerving gaze. “You look a lot like your father. You’ve even got his Charlie Manson stare. How long’s he been gone?”
“Seven years.”
“He looks a lot older than your mother.”
“More than twenty years.”
“You ought to take a page out of your dad’s book and find yourself a young babe.”
“She wasn’t that young when she got married.”
“Aren’t you the baby of the family?”
“Yeah. My brother’s eleven years older than me. When I was kid, and my parents would take me to the park, people thought they were my grandparents.”
Duffy edged his chair across the room until it was only a few feet from me.
“I learned that in detective school, too,” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Cut the distance between you and the suspect. Get in his space. Make him feel uncomfortable. Get leverage over him. Persuade him to do what you want.”
Duffy laughed-a deep, hearty belly laugh. “I’ve been shuffling paper too long. I need to get back on the streets. I’m losing my edge.”
“So you want me back.”
Duffy looked genuinely startled. “How’d you know?”
“No other reason for you to be here.”
“Yeah, I want you back. I never wanted you to leave.”
“Then why’d you suspend me? Why’d you stick that chickenshit letter in my package.”
Duffy crossed a leg and carefully straightened a sock. He fixed me with a solemn look and said, “Had no choice. And if I hadn’t-”
“Maybe someone would have questioned you, questioned your judgment, questioned how you run your unit?”
“Look, Ash, you may not understand now, but one of these days you might be running your own unit, and you’ll have to make difficult decisions that will-”
“I doubt that,” I interrupted. “And I don’t want to listen to any more of your bullshit. I worked my ass off for you. I cleared a hell of a lot of cases for you. Made you look damn good. Whenever you caught some loser case that no one else wanted, you’d never hesitate to call me at three in the morning. And I’d always come running. But when I got into some trouble and really needed you, you left me swinging in the fucking wind.”
“You done?” Duffy asked.
“No. I’m not done. I want to ask you a question: After the way you turned your back on me, why should I come back?”
“Because you want this job. Because you need this job. Because you’ve missed being a detective every single day since you quit.”
I took a deep breath and expelled the air with a loud spurt. Typical Duffy, I thought. When it came time to manipulate you into doing what he wanted, he always knew how to cut right through your resistance and arrive at some essential truth that left you sputtering without a comeback. That’s how he was able to lead a unit of cocky, know-it-all, prima donnas, each one of whom thought he was the best detective in the city.
I had been lost this past year. Duffy was right about that. But I had been too angry and too proud to come slithering back. I thought I was punishing Duffy and punishing the LAPD when I quit. But I soon realized that the only one who was being punished was me. There are more than nine thousand cops in the department. One less or one more cop, I quickly discovered, didn’t seem to matter much to anyone. Except me. I discovered that I had lost everything. Without the job, I felt as if I didn’t exist.
But I also wanted to return to the department because of the Patton case. As long as the murder book was moldering in the bottom of some dusty file cabinet, and her killer was roaming the city, I knew I’d always feel that I’d failed. Failed Latisha Patton. Failed myself. I simply didn’t do my job and a woman was dead because of it. If I returned to investigate Duffy’s case, I could-on the side-pursue Patton’s killer. I knew I could never properly track the case on my own, as a civilian. I had to get my badge back.
Now, watching Duffy cross his arms over his sizable gut and stare across the room, eyes half closed, looking like a giant Buddha, I was immensely relieved that he’d offered me a way to come back. But I wasn’t going to let him know that. I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“Why should I come back and work for someone who doesn’t back his detectives?”
“I don’t have time to play this game now. You going to take this case or not?”
“Tell me about the homicide and I’ll think about it.”
Duffy scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail. “A retired cop by the name of Pete Relovich was piped last night in his house in San Pedro. His dad was a captain in Newton years ago. Looks like a B and E. Did you know Pete?”
“No. But, but I crossed paths with the old man at a crime scene years ago.”
“I want you to come back and take over the investigation.”
“Why’s Felony Special handling a B and E hit on a retired cop? Sounds pretty routine.”
“The chief was friends with his old man.”
“So why me?”
“Chief wants my best detective. So I’m asking my best detective to come back. Grazzo’s given me the okay. He’s fast-tracking you. You can start right away and finish up the bureaucratic crap over the next few days.”
My mother returned carrying a tray with two mugs of coffee, a bowl of sugar, and nondairy creamer. She grabbed two pieces of challah from the table and set them on a plate in front of Duffy.
“Many thanks, Mrs. Levine,” he said. “Can I trouble you for some butter on that challah?”
“Didn’t they teach you anything in your seminary class about our prohibition of mixing dairy and meat?” she said in an accusatory tone. “We had brisket for dinner.”
Duffy laughed and said, “Maybe that’s why I ended up at a police station instead of a parish.”
“Thank God for small favors, they must be saying in the parishes,” she grumbled as she padded off to the kitchen.
I sipped my coffee and said, “So you worked Grazzo and got him to take me back. It’s a twofer: you’ve expiated some of your Catholic guilt and you get another body at Felony Special. You’re always complaining about not having enough detectives. Now you get a freebie without the fight with personnel. You probably told Grazzo I was the only detective who could solve this crime.”
“You are too smart to be a humble civil servant.” Duffy slowly stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee and said, without looking up, “I did tell Grazzo all that-in essence.” He held his hand over his heart. “But listen to me, Ash, my boy, everything I told you was still the God’s honest truth,” he said, his brogue thickening with each word. I do think you’re the best detective that I’ve-”
“When did your family leave Cork?” I asked.
“When I was ten, why?”
“When you’re trying to appear sincere, you really lay on that fucking accent.”
“I resent-”
“You know that when your countryman, Brian Callaghan, was promoted to assistant chief-and he came over when he was nineteen, not a kid like you-your accent suddenly got a lot thicker.”
“That’s not true.”
“And when he retired, your accent quickly faded.”
“That’s a load of horseshit. And it’s got nothing to do with why I’m here. Let’s stop wasting each other’s time. I’m asking you to come back. So make your decision. What’s it going to be?”
When my mother reappeared, I realized she’d been eavesdropping. “Why can’t you leave him alone?” she asked Duffy.
“Because the LAPD needs him. Because I need him.”
“Hasn’t the LAPD hurt him enough already?” she said. “That Latisha Patton business was devastating to my son. He’s risked his life so many times for your department. He’s solved so many cases for you. He’s given up everything for the LAPD. And how do they-how do you-treat him? Like dirt! Anyway, he’s considering going to law school. He’s been studying for the LSAT test.”
“Does the world really need another lawyer?” Duffy asked. “You’ve already got one lawyer son. Why do you need another one? I admit, Ash probably would be a fine lawyer-for someone starting out so late. But he’s already a magnificent detective. A brilliant boy. Truly gifted. Why not let him do what he does best?”
She pursed her lips for a moment and said to me, “You know how upset your father was when he first saw you in uniform? He saw the uniform and thought of one thing, those SS officers who-”
“Enough!” I shouted. “Why does everything in our family have to lead back to this? Why does every discussion in this house end in hysteria?”
“You’re meshuga if you go back,” she said. “You don’t need the tsoris. I don’t need the tsoris. Remember, your brother said as soon as you finished law school he’d hire you.”
“Marty’s got to get out of rehab first,” I said, disgusted. “Why is it more honorable to have a son who’s a drug addict lawyer than a son who’s a sober cop?”
“A goyishe parnosseh,” she muttered. A gentile trade. “It was the dream of your father that you and Marty open the law offices of Levine amp; Levine.”
“You’re really bringing out the heavy artillery tonight.”
“Me, I’m just worried about you getting hurt,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to spending my nights worrying that some shvartzeh in Watts is going to shoot you.”
“Mom, I haven’t worked South Central for years.”
Duffy clasped her hand in both of his and said, “We’ve got an excop murdered. He’s got a mother grieving for him. The killer may kill again if he’s not stopped. This is honorable work, Mrs. Levine. You know that. That’s why Ash cares so much, why he puts so much of himself into each case-”
I held up my hand. “Save the speeches for El Compadre. I want a few things.”
“I’m listening,” Duffy said.
“I pick up my pension benefits from the date I left.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“I don’t care what you think. I want a guarantee.”
“Okay. I’ll make sure it gets done.”
“On this case, I don’t want to wait months for fingerprint and trace results and a year for DNA-the typical LAPD bullshit. I want you to call in your chits, lean on Grazzo, and promise to get everything back to me within a few weeks.”
“You know I can’t promise that.”
“Then find someone else.”
Duffy stuck a hand in his pocket and fiddled with his keys. “Okay. Cutting through the bureaucracy of the LAPD is like moving mountains. But I’ll get it done.”
“After that Latisha Patton crap, I don’t trust many people in that room. If you’re going to give me a partner, give me Oscar Ortiz.”
“He just partnered up. Can’t split them up now.”
“Then I’ll work alone.”
“I don’t like that idea and it won’t-”
“If you want me back, that’s the way it’s got to be.”
“Just on this first case,” Duffy said.
I walked across the room and grabbed a brown leather jacket out of the closet. “I want to go to Relovich’s tonight.”
My mother wagged a forefinger at me. “Chasing a murder on Shabbes. That’s a shanda. You should be ashamed of-”
“What about Pikuah Nefesh,” I interrupted.
“What’s that mean?” Duffy asked.
“To save a life,” I explained. “Jewish law allows you to break the Sabbath to save a life. Like if I was a doctor.” I turned toward my mother. “And I could be saving a life. If I don’t catch this guy soon, he could kill again.”
She swatted the air. “I don’t approve of-”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupted.
She sighed heavily. “I just want you to be happy. I know you haven’t been happy this past year. So if going back will make you happy, then go back. You’ve got my blessing.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She kissed me on the cheek and said, “ Gay Gezunt.”