Buddy Boys Read Online Free PDF

morning.
    They left the building shortly after 11 P.M . Henry was driven back to his truck, which was parked at a motel near John F. Kennedy Airport. All of his fishing gear had been taken off the boat and packed into the truck. The only things missing were the three bluefish. Someone had stolen the day’s catch.
    Still shaking, his body drained of emotion, Henry started to drive home. He pulled off to the side of the Belt Parkway and cried. Then he took out his gun. He stared into the barrel for a moment, pondering what he had just done and what he would have to do in order to stay out of jail.
    But Henry Winter could not shoot himself. He wasn’t strong—or weak—enough for that. He was just dazed, an unfeeling hollow man. He would never again be the same cop who had left his house nearly sixteen hours earlier in hopes of catching some fish and sun.
    The fisherman went home and made up a story. He didn’t want his wife to know her husband was a rat, at least not yet. So he fabricated a tale about a broken propeller and being marooned at sea for eight hours. Betsy believed him.
    Henry Winter was already starting to live a lie.
    A police officer assigned to the Internal Affairs Division, Al Pignataro, drove Tony Magno back to Midwood.
    â€œThere are guys that have been in worse positions than you,” Pignataro said. “You’ll be okay.”
    But Tony wasn’t even thinking about what he had just done. He was thinking about what he was going to tell his wife.
    He knew he was in trouble the minute he walked in the door. Marianne was standing by the kitchen with a drink in her hand. And Marianne is not a drinker.
    â€œYou no good son-of-a-bitch,” she said, figuring that her husband had been out partying somewhere with his partner for the last six hours.
    â€œPlease,” Tony whispered. “Wait until the kids go to bed.”
    â€œIf you want to be with Henry Winter so much, why don’t you just leave us and move in with him?” Marianne yelled.
    â€œLook, I’m in trouble.”
    Marianne hesitated, pausing in midcurse.
    â€œMarianne, I’m in a lot of trouble. Wait until the kids go to sleep.”
    He walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer.
    â€œCome on, honey,” Tony said. “Help me hang another piece of wallpaper.”
    Later that night the couple sat on their bed. Suddenly it seemed huge. Marianne sat on one corner waiting to listen, and Tony sat on the other corner waiting to talk. He didn’t know how to explain without making himself sound like a crook. He did not want to lose his wife now.
    â€œLook,” he began. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I was arrested.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTechnically I was arrested. But not really arrested.”
    In time, Tony revealed everything, explaining how he had accepted bribes, broken into apartments, and robbed drug dealers. He just sat on the corner of his bed, telling his wife that the cop she had married was really a thief. Marianne sat smoking a cigarette, pretending that her heart wasn’t really broken. But the tears gave her away.
    â€œDidn’t you think of me and the kids?”
    â€œIt may sound crazy, but I was thinking of you and the kids.”
    Marianne looked at her husband like he was crazy.
    â€œHow can you say that?” she said, her voice cracking. “You were thinking of me and the kids when you were taking money from a drug dealer?”
    â€œYeah. Remember the money squabbles we used to have all the time? You were always running short of cash? You were reaching into the house money?”
    â€œSo what? Did I ask you for extra money? Did I need extra money? I didn’t care about money. We were happier when we had nothing. I should have realized that something was going on in the last couple of years. You changed. There was something different about you. I don’t know what it was. But I knew it had something to do with