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  “I know that. I was planning to stay in a hotel.”

  “Don’t you have any friends you can stay with?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Well, you can stay here for the night if you want to.”

  He couldn’t keep himself from leering. “I can?”

  “Yes. You can sleep on the sofa. It opens into a bed.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “In the bedroom. Can you understand that I wouldn’t want you to come in there?”

  “Yeah, I can understand that. I don’t fool around with nice girls like you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because men like me tend to marry women like you.”

  She looked at the ceiling and smiled. “Oh Lord, I hope not.”

  “I hope I’m not inconveniencing you or anything like that.”

  “You’re not, and besides, I owe you a favor.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. That was my job.”

  “Okay, so you owe me a favor.”

  They moved the coffee table and pulled out the sofabed. It was already made up with blankets and sheets. Brody wondered who else stayed there as Christine’s guest. He felt that she’d beaten him at something, and he felt mildly resentful. But it was her apartment and she was paying him a kindness, so he knew he’d better keep it under control.

  “The bathroom’s over there,” she said, pointing. “Why don’t you use it first, and stop pouting.”

  “I’m not pouting.”

  “Oh yes you are. You look as if your mother just took away your football.”

  She moved to the bedroom, and he went to the bathroom, taking a leak while checking out her shampoos, deodorants, and perfumes. When he came out she was standing at the door.

  “I’ve got a razor in the cabinet, in case you want to shave in the morning.”

  “It belong to your boyfriend?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend right now. It’s for guests.”

  “You’re a good hostess. You think of everything.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Is it true that most men dancers are faggots.”

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “What word?”

  “You know very well what word.”

  “Oh, that one. Maybe I should’ve said homosexuals.”

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “Must be a little boring for you.”

  “No, they’re nice people, most of them.”

  “But they’re faggots.”

  “I said I don’t like that word. You’re trying to make me mad because I won’t let you sleep with me, and that’s not nice.”

  “You’re right. I couldn’t help myself. Sorry.”

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “You’re not a person—you’re an angel.”

  “No I’m not—I’m a person.” She made a tired smile. “Nitey-nite.”

  “Goodnight.”

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door, and he returned to the sofa bed. He stripped to his shorts and got under the covers. Closing his eyes, he thought that he shouldn’t have come here, that he should have gone directly to the hotel, that he’d made an ass of himself. He especially hated to make an ass of himself in front of women. He’d know better next time.

  The bathroom door opened. He opened an eye and saw Christine walking toward him. She was wearing a white negligee. She stopped at the foot of the bed.

  “Are you still awake?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  She lifted the covers, got into bed with him, and wrapped her arms around him. The sweet scent of her body, and its strong smoothness, intoxicated him. “I don’t understand,” he murmured.

  “You weren’t listening when I told you that men like you are attractive to women like me, and that I’m no angel,” she replied, raising her lips toward his.

  Chapter Six

  “Inspector Levinson wants to see you,” Shannon said as Brody walked into the office.

  “ What about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Should I see him now?”

  “Yes, he said to send you in as soon as you got here.”

  “Holy shit, I wonder what I did wrong now.”

  “Instead of wondering, why don’t you go in and see him.”

  Brody walked to the door and knocked on it.

  “Who’s there?” Inspector Levinson called out.

  “Detective Brody.”

  “Come in, Brody.”

  Brody opened the door and entered the small office. Levinson sat behind the desk with his back to the window. He wore dark pants, white shirt, red tie, and suspenders. His thinning hair was combed neatly. He looked more like a crooked lawyer than a cop. He wasn’t smiling.

  “Sit down, Brody.”

  Brody sat in one of the old wooden chairs in front of the desk. Something told him that there was trouble ahead.

  Levinson pushed away the papers in front of him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you, Brody. Have you read in the paper that 5,000 city workers would have to be laid off?”

  Brody went ice cold. “Yes.”

  Levinson couldn’t look him in the eye. “Well kid, I’m afraid you’re one of them.”

  Brody closed his eyes. “Shit.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. You’re on two weeks’ notice from right now, and as far as I’m concerned you can go out on interviews whenever you want, or use the phone up here for your own private business.”

  “Wait a minute. You mean I’m not getting flopped back to patrolman?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “How come?”

  “Each command is being ordered to let go the personnel who have joined them most recently, no matter where they came from. There’ll be no flops for anybody.”

  “Good God.”

  “I know it’s a shock for you, kid. It’s a shock for me too. But the city’s in a state of near bankruptcy. Something’s got to give. You’re not alone in this. It’s not personal. Firemen, sanitation workers, teachers, social workers, hospital workers—a lot of people are getting laid off.”

  “Fucking politicians.”

  “It’s a mess. No doubt about it.”

  “There are a million fucking people on welfare in this city. Why don’t they send them back to Puerto Rico, and Georgia, and wherever the fuck else they came from.”

  “You know they can’t do that.”

  “Oh shit, Inspector Levinson, I’ve wanted to be a detective with the New York Police Department ever since I was a little kid. I’ve pounded a beat in Flatbush for five fucking years, and once I get it, it’s taken away from me.”

  “I know how you feel. I’ve wanted to be a detective with the N.Y.P.D. since I was a little kid, too. And I’m not safe, either. In a week they’re going to make an announcement about the inspectors who’re going to have to go. I might be one of them. This is a rough game, kid. The bankers want their money and they’re going to get it.”

  Brody felt like screaming. “I’d better go for a walk.”

  “Take the day off if you want. As far as I’m concerned, you only have to come in for your paycheck from now on.”

  Brody stood up. “Well, so long, Inspector Levinson.

  Inspector Levinson stood and shook his hand. “So long, kid. First chance I get to hire you back, I will. You were doing good work. You would’ve been a good detective. If you need any letters of recommendation of anything like that, all you’ve got to do is call.”

  Brody was in a daze as he left Inspector Levinson’s office.

  “What is it, kid?” Shannon asked.

  “I just got laid off.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  Shannon got up and put his arm around Brody’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, kid.”

  “Aw fuck.”

  “This city’s all fucked up. It’s a disaster area. I’m surpri
sed they didn’t take your army record into consideration.”

  “They only take the people on welfare into consideration.”

  “It’s the banks that did it. They fucked the city.”

  “I don’t feel so good. Levinson said I could go home.”

  “I’m gonna miss you, kid. You’re a ballsy son of a bitch.”

  “That and a dime’ll get me a cup of coffee. I’ll see you around.”

  “Don’t take it too hard. Maybe they’ll get this mess straightened out and hire you back in a few weeks.”

  “I’m not gonna hold my breath.”

  Brody walked out of the office and descended the stairs. He felt like throwing up, and tried to calm himself down. He didn’t want to remembered as the guy who threw up when he found out he was getting the heave-ho. The police station suddenly seemed like an alien place to him. He didn’t belong anymore. He wasn’t a cop anymore. Just another clown. On his own like a rolling stone.

  It was a cool sunny day outside, and he felt dizzy as he walked to the subway. It was as though he wasn’t real anymore, as though he’d become someone he didn’t want to be. His heart pounded in his chest. He’d gone from high school into the Army, from the Army into the N.Y.P.D., and from the N.Y.P.D. he was suddenly thrown onto the garbage heap. His mind was turbulent, he couldn’t deal with it.

  He took a subway train downtown, and transferred to the E Train that went to Queens. On the train he looked at his fellow commuters. Some looked purposeful, as though they had jobs and goals; others were ragged, disheveled, aimless. He had to admit that he now belonged with the second group, that his life suddenly had been severed from its moorings—that his foundation had been blown apart. His dream of a lifelong career in the N.Y.P.D. had been shattered.

  Doris was vacuuming the rug when Brody walked in the door. She turned off the cleaner and walked toward him, her teeth bared. “Where the hell were you last night?”

  “I’ve got bad news, Doris. I got laid off today.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “Huh?”

  “You heard me. I got laid off today.” He dropped onto the sofa and took out a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke toward the ceiling.

  She pulled a strand of hair from in front of her face. “How come you got laid off.”

  “They’re letting five thousand city workers go because of the fiscal crisis, and I’m one of them.”

  “But you’ve been with the department five years.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What about your war record.”

  “That doesn’t matter either. As long as those politicians can keep drawing their fat salaries, they don’t care about people like me.”

  She sat on the chair opposite him and took a cigarette from her pack on the table. “ What’re you going to do?”

  “Go on unemployment.”

  “How much will you get?”

  “Around a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week, something like that.”

  “We’ll barely be able to live on that.”

  “I know.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “What’ll we do?”

  “I’ll have to try and find another job.”

  “Maybe I can go to work.”

  “Your place is here with the kids.”

  “My mother can take care of them.”

  “No, you’re going to take care of them, and I’ll try to find another job. We’ll be able to get along on unemployment and the money we’ve saved. If bad comes to worse we’ll go on welfare like everybody else.”

  “Oh Mike, this is terrible.” She looked like she might cry.

  He puffed his cigarette. “I know.”

  Her lips trembled. “I feel afraid.”

  He felt rotten, she felt rotten, and misery needs company. He got up, went to her, and kissed her cheek. “We’ll get through it, kid. Don’t worry.”

  She went taut when he touched her. “We could get through anything if we loved each other, but we don’t.”

  He sighed and fell back into his chair. “Let’s not start up on that again.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “I stayed in a hotel.”

  “I don’t believe you. I believe you stayed with some floozie.”

  “She wasn’t a floozie. She was a very nice girl.”

  Doris looked like she’d been slapped in the face. “She was?”

  “Yes, a very nice girl.”

  “Did she know you were married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she wasn’t a nice girl.”

  Brody realized Doris’s logic was sound, and some of his guilt over screwing Christine evaporated. But he had to maintain his position of superiority over Doris. “She was a nice girl,” he insisted.

  Doris looked at him coldly. “I’ll never let you touch me again.”

  He returned her gaze. “Who would want to?”

  Her face became contorted, and tears filled her eyes. She ran from the living room to their bedroom and slammed shut the door. In the children’s bedroom, Little Mike started wailing. Brody felt that if he stayed in his apartment one minute longer he’d lose control of himself. He leapt toward the front door.

  On the sidewalk, he walked quickly to the corner and then waited, pacing back and forth, for a bus that took him to Roosevelt Avenue and a saloon called the Firehouse because it was half a block from a real firehouse.

  Roosevelt Avenue was a shopping area where Puerto Rican restaurants and pizza parlors were sandwiched in between supermarkets, record shops, and stores that sold cheap clothing from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Elevated subway tracks kept the street in a perpetual dusty turgid twilight. He entered the Firehouse, the type of joint where every beer company had its emblem plastered on the wall and hanging from the ceiling. He sat at the bar. On both sides of him were off-duty firemen and various neighborhood people, none of them black or Puerto Rican.

  “What’ll you have?” asked the bartender, a husky red-faced man of fifty.

  “Double shot of Jack Daniels and a glass of beer.”

  The bartender poured the whisky and drew the beer, setting both glasses before Brody, who snatched up the whisky and poured it down his throat. It burned all the way down. But it didn’t burn away his troubles.

  Somehow in the space of a few hours he’d gone from the top to bottom. There was a twisting angry pain in his gut and his mind felt woozy. He wanted to fall to the Door and lay there forever. He thought of killing himself. Desperation fell over him like a scratchy woolen cloak.

  “What’s wrong, Brody?”

  Brody looked to his right and saw Donovan, one of the fireman, a dark-haired burly man over six feet tall. “I got laid off today.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “How come?”

  “The fiscal crisis.”

  “Fuckin’ politicians.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Keep your chin up, buddy. You’ll be all right.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “Lemme buy you a drink.”

  “Sure.”

  Brody polished off another double. He was irritated by the condescension he thought he’d heard in Donovan’s voice. It was easy for him to say you’ll be all right because everything was all right with him. He wasn’t looking at the world from the bottom of the hole. He was probably thinking, better you than me.

  “Thanks,” Brody said, setting down the glass.

  “Anytime. I’ll bet they’re not laying off the niggers and spicks.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “I’ll bet they’re not laying off the women, either. What do you think of women cops?”

  “I try not to think of them.”

  “I’ve heard that women cops don’t like to go on patrol with another woman. They want a man to protect them.”

  “That happens to be true.”

  “Fucking crazy cunts. They don’t know what the fuck they want. I think ten i
nches of straight cock would straighten out all of them.”

  “‘S’cuse me a minute, Donovan. I gotta make a call.”

  Brody walked to the rear of the bar, put a dime in the phone, and dialed Christine’s number.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hi, this is Brody.”

  “Oh, hi.” There was something distant in her voice.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “I was just going out.”

  “I thought I’d drop over.”

  “No, I’m going to be busy for the rest of the afternoon.”

  “How about tonight.”

  “I’m dancing tonight.”

  “How about when you get home afterwards.”

  “I’m going to be busy.”

  Brody took out his pack of cigarettes. “It sounds like you don’t want to see me.”

  “I told you I’m going to be busy. You’re not getting any ideas about us, are you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you’re not thinking that we have some sort of relationship, are you?”

  The way she said relationship sent a chill up his back. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”

  “I guess I’m going to have to tell you bluntly that it was just a one-night-stand as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to have a relationship with you.”

  Brody wanted to plead with her, because he needed someone to soothe his pain, but he knew that once you start pleading with a woman you become an asshole. “Okay, forget I called.”

  “Don’t be mad, now.”

  “I couldn’t get mad over a nothing like you.”

  He hung up the phone and walked back to the stool at the bar. Donovan was gone and there was another set-up in front of him.

  “Donovan stood you another round,” the bartender said.

  “Good old Donovan.” Brody raised the shot glass and sipped off half of it. He felt a nice glow coming on. What the fuck, things weren’t that bad. He was a sharp guy, he’d get another job and another woman. His friends bought him drinks. He had places to go where people liked him.

  What the fuck! He’d make it somehow.

  Chapter Seven

  The unemployment office was in a yellow brick building on Northern Boulevard. There was a foreign car dealership on one side and a tall apartment building on the other. Across the street was another apartment building. Brody walked into the office and saw a mass of worn out people sitting on wooden chairs or standing in lines. Immediately he became depressed, because he realized he was one of them, a man with no status, another creep trying to squeeze something out of the government. He’d never been on unemployment before and didn’t know where to go or what to do.