And not the last.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I was excited about becoming a detective.

  It meant a higher salary, of course, but that was the least of it. Far more important, it meant playing the game at a higher level, taking the cases that other patrolmen caught and really working them. It meant, too, the respect that came with that role, and not just the respect of others. I don’t think I ever met an NYPD detective who wasn’t proud to have earned that status.

  It took me a few days to spot the downside. I wouldn’t be working with Vince Mahaffey anymore.

  I don’t get it, I told him. Every hour I put in on the job I spent alongside him. It was the two of us in the room with Taggart, the two of us picking up the poor mope in Dyker Heights. It was always the two of us, Mahaffey and Scudder, Vince and Matt, first in our blue uniforms and then in our Robert Hall two-button suits, doing what we did and making a good job of it.

  So why was I the only one getting the bump?

  Because it was never in the cards, he said. Age alone was enough to rule him out, because when did they ever give a gold shield to a man who had more than half of his twenty in? But he could be any age and it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t detective material, and never had been. He didn’t have the mind for it, he didn’t have the education—

  Education? Last I heard, we each of us had a high school diploma. Period.

  —or the inclination, he said. He liked being a cop, it was all he’d ever wanted to be, and for all that was wrong with the job and the department, it was still where he wanted to put in his hours. He never had the slightest ambition beyond what he was, never thought about the sergeant’s exam, never thought of the world beyond Brooklyn, or much beyond the bounds of the Seven-Eight.

  I said something about turning down the promotion, staying where I was. They’d be moving me, a new rank generally meant a new precinct, and I’d been told to report to the Sixth Precinct on Charles Street in Greenwich Village. What did I know about the Village, for Christ’s sake? All my snitches were in the Seven-Eight, my whole life as a cop was here, and who said I had to trade all that for a gold shield? They could have it back, I was happy where I was.

  I don’t know if I meant all that, but he was quick to shoot it down. I was meant to be a detective, he said, and he was not, and he’d miss working with me, but when all was said and done, each of us could get along without the other.

  And so on.

  I remember that conversation, in a bar he’d chosen in Carroll Gardens. You’d think it would have been an occasion that called for serious drinking, but two rounds was all either of us was up for. Outside, at a loss for something to say, I told him he was the best partner ever.

  “We did each other some good,” he said. “We had some good times. You okay to drive?”

  I said I was, and he got into his car and I got into mine. I was indeed okay to drive, but the last thing I felt like was a long stretch behind the wheel with Anita at the other end of it. The hell with that.

  I spent the night in my apartment, and spent much of it thinking about Vince. We’d assured each other we’d keep in touch, but I wondered how much I’d actually see of him, or he of me.

  We’d stay friends, I thought, and then corrected myself, because how could we? We’d never been friends in the first place. We were partners, closer than friends in many respects, and there were things we talked about, things we told each other, but a partnership was not a friendship—although even now, all these years later, I don’t know that I can explain the distinction.

  Never mind. My marriage was circling the drain, my wife was probably having an affair, my kids were visibly growing up and invisibly growing away from me, and the relationship I was sitting up mourning was the on-the-job equivalent of a marriage of convenience.

  Let’s try this again.

  I spent a couple of hours yesterday and close to an hour today writing about early days at the Six. About Eddie Koehler, who led the Detective Squad, and some of the other men I worked with. About how I was regarded with a certain amount of suspicion at first, and how that resolved itself, and a case or two that came to mind.

  And I just now erased all of that.

  I’d been told not to erase anything, that if I didn’t like what I’d written I should just hit the return key twice and move on and write something else. Well, too bad. None of what I wrote yesterday or today is what I want to talk about.

  All that needs saying, I think, is that I found my way into my new job without too much trouble. I liked some of my fellow detectives better than others, but I got along well enough with all of them without bonding all that tightly with any of them.

  And I upgraded certain elements of my life. I wore my Robert Hall suits until Phil Aiello from Midtown North dragged me to Finchley’s. I switched my answering machine for one that allowed me to call in and access my messages from a distance, and I set it up in a furnished apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street in Chelsea, a little nicer and way more convenient than Polhemus Place, and at a lower rent; I’d done a favor for the landlord, helped him unload a difficult tenant from another of his buildings, and the apartment was how he thanked me.

  My new building was a brick rowhouse, four stories plus a basement. The first floor was half a flight of stairs above sidewalk level, the basement half a flight down; my apartment was in the basement, but it had a couple of windows, and a private entrance. And my name wasn’t on the mailbox, or on a lease, all for a hundred a month, cash and off the books.

  I got new business cards printed, but I managed to keep the same phone number. Somebody knew a guy whose brother-in-law was an installer for the phone company, and a few dollars changed hands, and from then on my Brooklyn phone number rang in a basement apartment on West Twenty-fourth Street, where my new machine waited to take a message.

  I spent more nights there than I had on Polhemus. Sometimes alone, sometimes not.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  I think there are moments when your life changes, and they may or may not seem consequential at the time.

  An obvious one, I suppose, would be when I pulled the trigger and killed a man who’d just thrown down his gun. But where did the act take me that I wouldn’t have gone otherwise? If we’d brought Rufe Taggart in alive, I’d have distinguished myself no less than I did by killing him, with that same gold shield just as surely in my future.

  Was it one of those significant moments when I met Danny Boy Bell? If so, it’s also a moment I can’t recall with any certainty. I was already settled in at the Six when I got to know him, and I remember someone introducing us at Tony Canzoneri’s, a natural place to get a drink after a fight at the Garden.

  But I think we may have been introduced before, and certainly each of us already knew who the other was, and I have a feeling someone pointed him out to me when I was still in plainclothes at the Seven-Eight. It would have been in Manhattan, because I’d be surprised if Danny Boy ever got to Brooklyn, and it would have been at night, because otherwise he’d have been home with the shades drawn.

  And he’d have stood out, wherever we were, because nobody else ever looked like him. Oh, that’s Danny Boy, what everybody calls him, like the song. He’s a professional snitch, but he’d probably call himself a broker of information. People tell him things, and word gets around.

  We got to know each other, and took to each other. He was a big fan of jazz, and knew a lot about it, and I’d found I was comfortable in the places where it was performed, and began paying more attention to what I heard there. And we both liked the fights, and one night we found ourselves ringside at the Garden. A welterweight named Vince Shomo was at the top of the prelim card, and a black man in an expensive suit was telling him something in a raspy voice. He looked familiar, and not in a fight crowd context. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the fighter looked to be hanging on every word.

  I don’t know that the words of wisdom had anything to do with it, but Shomo knocked his opponent down twice in the second round and got a stoppage midway through the third, and the man in the suit was at his side as he headed for the dressing room. And paused to smile. “D-B,” he said, in that voice. “Keep it close, my man.”

  “Always, Miles.”

  And Danny went on to tell me that was Miles Davis, which I’d managed to figure out myself by then, and that he’d heard Miles had an interest in Shomo.

  And so on. If I had reason to seek him out, there were a couple of bars where I knew I was likely to find him. But most of our meetings were by chance, at one jazz club or another. We’d always exchange a few words, and sometimes he’d point to an empty chair and we’d listen to a set together.

  Sometimes he’d have company. A girl or two, always attractive, white more often than not. I got the feeling they were mostly there as arm candy, though I’m not sure the term was around that long ago. (I could Google it, but it would be unsettling to find out Chaucer used it.)

  And then there was a late spring night—June, I think, but it may have been around the end of May—when I found myself at loose ends. I was working two cases and both had stalled out, leaving me to await further developments. That’s frustrating, you want to make something happen, but sometimes the only thing to do with your hands is sit on them.

  Which made it a good time to head home to Syosset, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. I hadn’t been home in a few days, and absence wasn’t making the heart grow fonder.

  I went to my apartment in Chelsea, and for the first time the place felt like a basement. I sat there and thought of people I could call and never got around to reaching for the phone.

  I got out of there, hit a couple of bars. I walked out of one or two without ordering anything, and didn’t have more than a single drink in any of the others. Everywhere I went was too loud or too quiet, too crowded or too empty, and I was harder to please than Goldilocks.

  Then I walked into a jazz club on Hudson Street and my life changed.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The four musicians were in the middle of a set, and I found a seat at the bar and listened to them. A saxophone—an alto, I think—and a rhythm section. I’m not sure who any of them were, but if I had to come up with a name I’d say the horn player was Lou Donaldson. But that’s more a guess than a memory.

  I ordered a drink and drank some of it, and I looked around and it didn’t take me long to spot Danny Boy. His table was close to the little stage, and he was sharing it with two women and an empty chair. While I was looking in their direction, Danny Boy said something and both women laughed.

  Something made me want to be there, joining the conversation, maybe saying something that would draw laughter. Instead I stayed where I was, waiting for someone to return from the restroom and reclaim the empty chair. I wanted to be part of the party, but not in the capacity of a fifth wheel.

  Looking back, it’s hard to say why I was making all that much of it. A friend was at a table across the room from me, and what did it matter whether his party ran to three or four? Either way it was entirely appropriate for me to go over there, or at least catch his eye and acknowledge his presence.

  Which I did, a few minutes later. One number ended, and the pianist announced the title of the tune with which they’d close their set. I got to my feet and moved to a more visible position, and when Danny Boy looked my way, I raised a hand. He did the same, and motioned me over, pointed to the empty chair. I took it, and all four of us gave the music our respectful attention.

  When it ended, Danny Boy held up a hand for the waitress and made a circular motion to order another round. He introduced me—“This is Matthew, and he genuinely is one of New York’s Finest”—and his two companions. The honey blonde was Connie, the dark-haired girl was Elaine. No last names for any of us, and no identifiers beyond the fact that I was a cop.

  “Perfect timing,” he said. “Matthew, they’re taking twenty minutes, but the right mood-altering substances might lead them to stretch that to a half hour. Another set will be worth the wait, and your good company will make the minutes fly.”

  “Glad to help,” I said.

  I’d been able to tell from across the room that both women were attractive, and nicely dressed. That became even more evident at close range. We started talking, about the music at first, and then Danny Boy led us off on a tangent, and I couldn’t tell you where it led, but it was probably interesting.

  I held up my end of the conversation, encouraged by the fact that both women seemed fascinated by whatever it was I was saying. Our talk had what you might call a subtext, as each of us sized things up and made choices.

  I’d liked the looks of both women, and Connie probably made the stronger initial impression, perhaps because she seemed to drink in everything I said. But that shifted. Elaine was paying a different kind of attention, and when I looked in her eyes I could see her mind working.

  Ten minutes or so into the break, she got to her feet. “I need the little girls’ room,” she said, and glanced at Connie, who rose and joined her.

  “Women always do that,” I said to Danny Boy. “Whereas men—”

  “Never do,” he said. “I think it may have to do with sitting down to pee.” He frowned. “Or not. In this instance, I suspect they’re determining the direction the evening is going to take.”

  As indeed they were. When they came back Elaine said, “Danny, it’s wonderful music, but I don’t think I can handle another set. You won’t hate me if I call it a night, will you?”

  I asked if she was all right. She said she was fine, but her mind was all over the place, and it was probably the full moon.

  She touched my hand. She said, “Matthew, could you put me in a cab? It’s not that late, I could probably get one myself, but—”

  I said of course I could and would, and I got to my feet and reached for my wallet, but Danny Boy signaled me to put it away. I said goodbye to him and to Connie and headed for the door with Elaine at my side, and halfway there she took my arm.

  Outside, I said she wouldn’t need a cab, I had my car and I’d be glad to give her a ride. She said her place was on East Fiftieth Street and was that too far out of my way?

  I said that was exactly where I was going.

  I’d parked at a hydrant on Spring Street, and I found an equally convenient hydrant on Fiftieth. I was an NYPD detective, by God, and I had a card I kept on the dashboard shelf that let me park anywhere in the five boroughs, with the possible exception of the Mayor’s front lawn.

  It was somehow clear, even before I offered to drive her, that we were going together to her apartment. Her doorman greeted her by name—“Good evening, Miz Mardell—” and we went upstairs to an apartment that was all black and white, and looked like something you’d see in a magazine.

  She drew the door shut, turned the lock. We stood and looked at each other. It seems to me that her face showed a mix of emotions, dread among them, but that may be hindsight talking. I held out my arms, and she came into them, and we kissed.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Afterward, we talked. About a guy I’d taken into custody a day or two ago and the entirely unbelievable alibi he’d offered, and how it had turned out against all odds to be true. About a play she’d seen, which had been disappointing, and a wine-and-cheese opening at an art gallery downtown, which hadn’t. That led me to mention the painting in her living room, a vivid abstract canvas, an explosion in scarlet.

  She’d seen it a year ago, knew at a glance it was just what the room needed, knew too that she wouldn’t get tired of looking at it. “And once it was on the wall I thought oh God, is this how it starts? Am I gonna be spending all my money on paintings? But nothing else ever grabbed me the same way. And I sort of like that it’s the only thing in the apartment that’s not black or white.”

  “Except for you,” I said.

  “Except for me. Oh, gee, Matthew. Or do people call you Matt? Danny Boy said Matthew.”

  Most people said Matt, I told her, but I liked hearing her say the full name.

  “The intimacy of the formal,” she said. And, testing the name, “Matthew.” The silence stretched, until she laid a hand on my arm and said, “Oh, hell. I was afraid of this. I’m having a good time, Matthew.”

  “So am I.”

  “I’d like to see where it goes. I know it can’t go anywhere, you’re a married man, and I’m the last thing in the world you’re looking for. And breaking up somebody’s marriage is the last thing I’m looking for. Jesus, will you listen to me? You poor man, all you want to do is get your clothes on and get out of here.”

  I waited.

  She said, “Otherwise there’s a conversation we have to have, or how can we be on the same page? I mean, I know you’re a policeman. But you don’t know what I do. Or maybe you do.”

  “If I were to guess—”

  “Yes, go ahead.”

  “Are you in the game?”

  I’d heard her laugh lightly before, when I was telling her about the mope and his unlikely alibi, but now her laugh was rich and full-bodied. It made me want to amuse her so that I could get to hear it again.

  “Oh, wow,” she said. “I’m trying to come up with an opening sentence and you’ve already got the whole page. And you found the perfect way to ask. Are you in the game? If I’m not, I won’t understand the question, so how can I take offense? What gave me away, Matthew?”

  The intimacy of the formal. “Well, I’m a detective,” I said.

  “And your keen mind never stops working.”

  “When I went over to your table and got a close look at you and Connie, my first thought was you were models. Because you had the looks, and you were well turned out, and all.”

  “But then our innate whorishness came through.”

  “You could probably be a model. I’d say Connie’s a little too full-figured for the fashion industry.”

  “She’s got quite the rack, hasn’t she?”

  “Plus models always strike me as unsatisfied. Maybe it’s because they’re always worried that they’re not attractive enough, or maybe it’s just that they never get enough to eat.”