Ninety-Five Jimmy

NINETY-FIVE

Jimmy

JIMMY CALLS AHEAD TO retired lieutenant Paul Harrington, not wanting to show up unannounced.

"You're in luck," Harrington says over the phone. "I just made up a batch of homemade iced tea flavored with mint I grew myself."

"Lieu," Jimmy says, still using the shorthand for lieutenant. "You're sure you're not too busy for me?"

"I am, just not the way you think. It's the thing about being retired, Jimmy. You can never take a day off."

Now they're sitting on his back patio again, looking out at his gardens. One of the best cops of his time, Jimmy thinks. One of the best of anybody's time in New York City. A cop's cop. Nowadays he tends to his flowers and makes his own iced tea.

That's it, Jimmy thinks. I'm working till I die .

"I assume you heard about Salvatore and Licata," Jimmy says.

The iced tea is very good, even though Jimmy has never been one for mint anything.

Jimmy sees the surprise in the old chief's eyes.

"Licata was on that boat? They just said an unidentified passenger. I didn't even think to ask who the passenger might be."

"Pretty sure it was Licata," Jimmy continues. "They haven't found any bodies yet. But sonofabitch if they didn't find one of those Rangers caps Champi and Licata both liked to wear."

Harrington smiles and raises his glass, as if in a toast, and Jimmy does the same. They clink glasses, enthusiastically.

"Mob guy and a dirty cop, both gone," Harrington says. "And another angel gets its wings."

"I feel like I just made your day."

"Gonna be all downhill from here," Paul Harrington says.

He puts his head back, closes his eyes. Still smiling. It's like he's talking to the sky now. "Tell the truth," he says. "Isn't there a part of you that wishes you'd been the one to blow the two of them sky high?"

"But being the cynical bastard I am, I still worry they might just have wanted it to look that way."

"Easier said than done."

"But then I ask myself why they'd want the world to think they were dead."

"I'm gonna assume that they are," Harrington says. "You should, too, and take the win."

"Just speaking to Licata," Jimmy says. "He got away with a lot of shit for a long time."

"Him and that Champi both. Back in the day, when I first got a whiff of what was going on with them, I always wished I could have nailed their balls to the wall and then come back a few hours later and do it all over again."

He reaches for his glass and toasts Jimmy again.

"You come over to tell me the good news about Licata going down with the ship, or is there something else on your mind?"

Jimmy looks out at the gardens again. Harrington has done some job with them, all kinds of bright colors everywhere, almost like a watercolor. Jimmy's never had the urge to be some kind of master gardener. Or any kind of gardener. It's why the good Lord invented landscapers, as much as they cost out here.

"Jane and me, we keep going back to the day Jacobson's old man and that girl bought it at the town house," Jimmy says. "The one thing that's always bothered me is how Champi got there as quickly as he did that day, when he was supposed to be over in Queens. Maybe even arrived before your guys did. Somebody had to give him a heads-up."

"But he didn't arrive before my guys, I'm sure you checked that all out."

"My old partner, the great Mickey Dunne, thought Champi might have, then took a walk to make it look like he hadn't already been there, then came back after your guys did arrive on the scene."

Harrington blows out some air. "What difference does it make if it went down that way, even if it did?" he says. "The bare bones of the thing have never changed. The kid heard the shots, found the bodies, called it in. And we could never find a goddamn thing, whenever Champi showed up, that indicated that somebody staged the scene to make it look like murder-suicide."

"Murder book says there was no residue on the kid's hands."

"Nope."

"Doesn't mean it couldn't have been on someone else's, right?"

"You're telling me somebody got into the house without the kid knowing," Paul Harrington says, "did the girl, did the old man, then got out without the kid seeing or hearing? The place was big. But not that big."

"I know," Jimmy says sadly. "It sounds bananas."

"How come you're still so fixed on this, you don't mind me asking?"

"We just keep going back to that day. Both me and Jane. I know I sound like one of those wingnut conspiracy assholes. I started to think that Licata might have been there, too, except Craig Jackson went all the way back and found out Licata had chased some Miami Vice drug dealer down to South Beach at the time."

"There's got to be more to this," Paul Harrington says, "or you wouldn't be here."

"There is. The other day Jane asked our client, straight up, who killed those people in his own house. He said he was sticking with his original story."

"End of story then."

"It would've been for Jane," Jimmy says, "if he didn't tell her that the official version of things was what's kept him alive all these years."

Harrington runs his finger around the rim of his glass, frowning, the old cop trying to process new information.

"So what are you asking me, really, Detective Cunniff?"

"For your help."

Harrington smiles. "I'm too old. You know what they say. The legs go first."

"Like hell you're too old," Jimmy says. "If somebody just blew up Salvatore and Licata, it means that somebody else might have been in charge. And is still out there."

"In charge of what, though?"

"Maybe everything."

Harrington looks across his backyard. In the moment, Jimmy thinks he might be looking all the way back to his cop days. Maybe that's why he's suddenly smiling again, reaching across the table, putting out his hand for Jimmy to shake.

"I'm in," the old chief says.