He settles back, folding his arms across his chest, watching me sip gingerly at the whiskey straight. He’s got the look of a man who hasn’t seen much of the world, but what he has seen he doesn’t like. I know the feeling. It’s something this place does to you. Like that old saying. You don’t change the devil. The devil changes you. I wonder how much the devil’s changed me since I’ve been here on the East Coast. Nine years. That’s a long time to grow callous and cold.
“Back when I was a cop, just a kid really,” he says. “I was walking the two a.m. beat. You know how that is, right?” I nod. “It was November. Colder’n a grave digger’s backside. Out on the streets, you hear a lot of things. Things like kids screamin’, mothers hushin’ down to bed. Kind of comforting, but it’s also like a skin cream-kind of smoothes you out, makes you miss some other things that you shouldn’t.”
He leans forward, I guess reliving the moments. “So anyway, I’ve got the beat, and I’m bored as hell. It’s a twelve to eight shift, and I’m already out of gas. Christ! What a job. Anyways, I hear a gunshot, and then another one, and it’s coming from the building just across the street from me…just a rundown hostel, wasted and overdue for demolition. So hey, it’s New York, right? That stuff happens all the time.”
“So I go in, talk to the night clerk. He says he heard nothing, of course, and so I tell him to watch the door and make sure no one leaves. The elevator’s busted, so I take the stairs up to the first floor, check around. Nothing. Second floor’s just as quiet, and I don’t know if there’s anything there I can do. Third floor though. The hallways were fallin’ apart, wallpaper lying in sheets near the floorboards. And I hear this crying. Some kid. Old familiar sound. Except she’s just crying and no one’s hushing her down. Instead there’s just a man shouting obscenities. Those paper thin walls. People, they’ve got no idea how sound carries through those things.”
So I go over to where the sound is. I’m nervous too, man. I knock on the door and there’s a bunch of movement inside, and then I hear some guy yelling ‘Who is it?’ And who knows if he’s pointing a gun from the other side of that door. But I say as calmly as I can, ‘It’s the police.’”
He yells out, ‘You got a warrant?’ and I almost laughed because I was so nervous. I tell him no, but that some gunfire was heard and that I needed to check to make sure everything was alright. By the book, you know? Baby’s screaming, but he tells me to come inside, and so I do.”
“What happened?” I ask him. I think it startles him, because he stops, looks at me like he might be upset at me for interrupting him. “What?” he asks. “What happened? What happened next?” I ask.
“The man had a gun in his lap and was holding his little girl up to his chest, bouncing her a little to try and soothe her. Beside him, on this dirty mattress, was a woman with a hole in her neck. Blood soaked sheets and mattress. A hole in the plaster where the other bullet had missed. That man looked at me and I looked at him, and he told me that they were fighting, that she had pulled a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill their daughter. I didn’t see any knife, but I just stood there, not even sure what to do.”
“He kind of held his hand out, like he was reaching for help, and he said, ‘Give me a hand. My little girl needs to be fed.’ It was like I was in a daze, because I helped him to his feet before I realized what I was doing. I told him that I had to place him under arrest. He placed his kid on the bed beside her mother, I snapped the handcuffs on him and called the precinct.”
“While we waited I asked him to tell me what happened, but he said he wouldn’t say any more without his lawyer. I doubt he had his own, living in a place like that. So we sat there, waiting for the cops, this man sitting in the corner with handcuffs on his wrists, holding his daughter and letting her suck on a rag soaked in milk.”
Ten minutes later the detectives showed up and the man was whisked away, along with his little girl.”
I sit in my chair, silent and holding my empty glass between my fingers, waiting. He took a deep breath, stood up and went around to the other side of my desk and finally sat down, the only sound the leather settling in with a whiny hiss. I know he’ll come out with it eventually; I’ve learned to wait on people, to let them say what they’re really getting at. I like to think I’m a good judge of what people want, that there’s something hidden in deep in every word, every sentence. People are wellsprings of untold stories and truths and lies and everything else in between. Everything that ever has been and is and will be is contained inside the mouth and thoughts of everyone that lives and breathes.
Avery nods, like he’s reading my thoughts. “Well, aren’t you wondering what the moral is? What it’s all for?” he says. “I was waiting for you to tell me,” I say.
“Morals are for the radio. This was something that happened to me. Maybe the most important thing that happened to me when I was a cop. What I learned was that you can get to know someone by sitting down with them for ten minutes after they’ve just killed someone. It’s enlightening.”
“And what did you learn from Eddie?” I ask. “That,” he says. “That is what you’re going to find out.”