The Whites: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

with dementia, Millie’s teenage daughter moved back to Trinidad to live with her father and she lost her job at Dunkin’ Donuts. Hiring her as their housekeeper had seemed like a good idea at the time, and in all fairness to Millie, the kids loved her, she loved his dad, and she was in possession of a valid driver’s license. Besides, Carmen liked to do her own housecleaning, if you could call it that.
    Billy stepped into the kitchen, poured himself half a milk glass of vodka and cranberry juice—the only thing that could put him to sleep at this hour—and went into the bedroom. He stowed his Glock 9 on the top shelf of his closet behind a shoe box filled with old bank statements, and with a last burst of energy called Pavlicek to give him a heads-up about Bannion.
    “Hey.”
    “I heard,” Pavlicek said.
    “What do you think,” Billy said, crawling into the cool swan boat of a bed.
    “That there’s a God after all.”
    “It was a freaky scene.”
    “I heard that too.”
    “Heard from who?”
    “The drums.”
    “Do the Riveras know?”
    “I called them this morning.”
    “How’d they take it?”
    “The mister was cool, Mom not so good. I’m going out to City Island to see them later.”
    “Good.” Billy’s eyes felt like sandpits.
    “I want you to come with me.”
    “John, I’m sleeping.”
    “You saw the dead fuck. They might need to ask you things.”
    “Come on, this is private with you and them.”
    “Billy, I’m asking you.”
    He gargled the last of his drink, crunched on a sliver of ice. “Make it about six, I just got into bed.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You owe me.”
    “Afterwards we can pick up Whelan, then head downtown to the restaurant.”
    “The dinner’s tonight?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “OK, let me sleep.”
    “Hey,” Pavlicek held on, “what’s the most bullshit word in the English language.”
    “Closure.”
    “Give that man a cigar,” Pavlicek said, then hung up.
    He had forgotten all about the dinner, the monthly steak house reunion of the self-christened Wild Geese, seven young cops averaging three years on the Job, fresh to anti-crime in the late ’90s, a tight crew given a ticket to ride in one of the worst precincts of the East Bronx. Of the original seven, one had moved to Arizona after retirement, and one had died from a three-pack-a-day habit, leaving a hard-core five: Billy, Pavlicek, Jimmy Whelan, Yasmeen Assaf-Doyle, and Redman Brown.
    They had been something else back then, preternaturally proactive, sometimes showing up at the trouble spots two steps ahead of the actors, and they were decathletes, chasing their prey through backyards and apartments, across rooftops, up and down fire escapes, and into bodies of water. Many cops administered beatdowns as a penalty for being made to run, but the WGs got high off the chase, often treating their collars post-arrest like members of a defeated softball team. They thought of themselves as a family, and family membership was extended automatically to those in the neighborhood they liked: the owners of bodegas, bars, barbershops, and take-out joints, but also the numbers runners—the numbers going back to the Bible as far as they were concerned—a few of the old school reefer men, and a handful of restaurateurs who had secret gaming rooms upstairs or in the basement where the WGs could throw some bones and drink for free.
    As far as stolen goods went, fell-off-a-truck merchandisers oftentimes offered NYPD courtesy discounts on everything from kids’ backpacks to designer pantsuits to power tools. A drink here, a standing hump there, a cut-rate cashmere pullover now and then—no one in the Wild Geese took money, demanded a sin tax, or even lost their civility. Although they were periodically called on to corral a few for the requisite trip to the Tombs, they generally tolerated whores who were reasonably discreet and, as an added bonus, funny. Nonviolent junkies were left on the street and used as informants.