Chapter 7

I met my Uncle Joe over at the cop bar on Eighth Avenue that still used sawdust to keep the dirt down on the floor. The scent of the lunchtime menu overpowered the aroma of the beer and spirits that never left the place if you had a sensitive nose.

The thing I liked best about the White Rose was their mid-day collection of hot food for the blue-collar workers in the neighborhood. Of course, most of the clientele washed it all down with liberal helpings of the draft beer that tasted like it just came out the brewery door.

I was on good behavior with my membership in AA and stuck to the ice tea much to my Uncle’s distain for my drinking habits. Still, I knew he respected my getting on the wagon and he did everything he could to support me in my choice of sobriety.

I always kept a bottle at the office and made a pretense of drinking booze for those around me because a lot of them were characters that didn’t quite trust a sober man. I was often seen by friends and strangers alike pulling a silver flask out of my inside pocket and taking a swig at the contents without any of them suspecting it only contained the cloying sweetness of brewed tea. I would make jokes about the “Irish” in my coffee in the morning although it was just black coffee and lots of sugar to take away the bitter taste of the dark stuff.

I kept my secrets to myself keeping up the charade of playing the role of an “on the edge” booze hound that never waited for five o’clock to start a daily intake of spirits and cared little about what others thought about my infinite weakness when it came to booze. Only my Uncle knew my little secret and I used it to my advantage in dealing with the general public. I suspected that my beautiful secretary Julie knew the real me was not a boozer but she kept her own counsel and we never discussed my supposed “drinking problem”.

In the old days, the fact that I was admittedly quite the booze hound as well as a skirt-chaser of the most dedicated type, did a lot to help foster the impression I wanted to project of a non-threatening alcoholic with lots of vices and not much of a future at all. It was a way for me to catch people off guard after having a few and I was still as sober as a judge.

Uncle Joe had a look on his face that I didn’t like. It hit me in the gut with a feeling that I didn’t much like and I did my best to pretend I didn’t have a care in the world.

It was the look he usually had when he was about to arrest somebody or chew out a cop for some bad stuff he did while on the job.

My intuition told me to keep my mouth shut at least until I knew which way the wind was blowing. I felt reasonably certain it didn’t have anything to do with me because my Uncle was delighted to use me knowing I didn’t have to play by the rules and had lots of sources the regular detectives turned up their noses at because it was just too dirty or too risky to touch.

“Mike, your cousin Raymond has fucked up again big time and this time I can’t cover him like I usually do because the big brass is looking to pin the tail on the donkey and I guess in their mind, I am the donkey.”

I had never liked my cousin Raymond simply because he was a backstabber of the worst sort. He would tattle on every little misdeed I didn’t want advertised. It was a part of his personality that made me keep my distance whenever possible. Once he had hold of some secret that I didn’t want to get attention drawn to by the general public, I could lay book it would get to my Uncle sooner rather than later. There was no hope that it would eventually just fade away like some jaded starlet with an eye-catching ass that stayed in one’s memory far too long for good measure.

When Raymond was around sticking his nose into my business, I could rest assured that there would be no secrets and that my life was an open book that he was happy to spread around with his loose lips.

I had decided long ago that the best way to handle Raymond was to stay as far away from him as possible because he was so devious that I had to puke just thinking about him. He was trouble with a capital “T” and him being promoted to detective was a crime in my book and a huge black spot on the police administration that seldom made such errors in judgement.

I still kept quiet because I wanted to be sure I was not involved in any of Raymond’s foolishness because he had a way of transferring guilt to others just to help distract attention from his own shortcomings.

Joe’s driver Sergeant Kelly stayed out in the car to monitor their communication lines although I knew he liked the food in this place more than most of the other places my Uncle visited for meetings with informants and other contacts that he liked to keep far away from his office downtown. I liked Kelly but I knew he considered me a lost cause because of my rumored drinking problem and he wanted to keep his infatuated daughter Patsy at arm’s length from me because we sort of clicked in a certain way despite the generational gulf between us. I had helped her out on a small-time drug problem that involved a college boy dealer that had roped her into delivering his dope to the campus stashed in her undies under cover of her Miss Innocence persona that fooled everyone except for yours truly. I would be stupid if I didn’t pick up on Patsy’s crush on me but it always did my best to keep it limited to a light kiss and a pat on her pretty ass. Her backside was never shielded with a girdle like the other broads riding the elevator or the subway and it was a part of her personality like her constantly chewing gum to keep from smoking cigarettes like most of her close friends. I had the distinct impression that she was a borderline nympho always ready to open her knees at the slightest opportunity. I felt sorry for her father but I knew if push came to shove, I would probably give it to her because she had a body of a super model walking on a runway.