Chapter 8

Raymond stood there shaking the raindrops from his obviously borrowed or stolen woman’s umbrella and I could tell from his shifty eyes he was spinning his story with every word that crossed his lips.

In all honesty, I didn’t really mind because I was used to Raymond by now and I hoped we could work together without one of us killing the other because underneath it all our dislike was a mirror image.

I caught him ogling my secretary Julie’s ass when she bent over to fill my first cup of the morning coffee. I needed that first cup desperately to help my eyes to open all the way and join the ranks of the living once again. In point of fact, I couldn’t really blame him too much because it was quite a picture to see her twin cheeks pressed in a nice outline on her thin summer dress with that little wrinkle in the middle where the sun didn’t shine. I knew it was all natural to Julie because she wasn’t the kind of broad that teased a guy just to get him all worked up and ready to play.

“We need to get some more sugar, Mister Malone.”

I knew Julie was using my last name in front of Raymond because she was not comfortable in front of a strange guy using my first name letting him know we were closer than just an employer and an employee. Julie was cautious in that way and I appreciated her discretion in front of my cousin Raymond because she didn’t know him from Adam and his reason for being in my office. All she really knew was his name because he introduced himself and that he was a cop because he wore that “cop” look like a signpost all over his mug and his shifty eyes that took everything in and sorted it out in a cop-like way.

Ray put his hand on Julie’s back just above the waist and he addressed her in a silly stage whisper that I knew she absolutely detested with all her heart.

“Can you get one for me, baby, I need something sweet and hot to get me started in the morning.”

Thankfully, she just smiled and got him some java in an old cup that had seen better days.

I figured that I would keep Raymond busy with collecting details on the stiff down in the morgue and I sent him to the courthouse to put together a file on Mister Donnie Anderson with tons of background information that might prove useful as we tracked down the leads in the case.

It was easy to see from the frown on his face that he was unhappy with his assignment but I knew he would do the job with the thoroughness of a trained detective and it would keep him out of my hair for the rest of the day.

I knew Julie was brimming over with a need to find out exactly what Raymond was doing in our office, but I was reluctant to fill her in on my Uncle’s strange request to keep my cousin out of trouble while the boys over in Internal Affairs were rooting around in our business.

“Raymond is going to be working with us for a few days, Julie, try to do your best not to take offense at his lack of common sense. I promise we will get rid of him sooner rather than later if I have anything to say about it.”

Of course, later on, those words might seem a bit threatening to an outsider considering Raymond’s sudden demise on the deserted Hudson River docks with $10,000 in cash in a briefcase on the front seat right next to his bullet-riddled body. Internal Affairs were silent about the entire incident because they had some things they wanted to hide as well.

Uncle Joe told me to bring a check to his mother’s house to cover the cost of the funeral and expenses of burial and tell her it was from the Police Benevolent Society. I don’t think his mom believed me but she took the brown bag with the cash and thanked me for it all the same. I also got tasked with a brown bag delivery to Raymond’s ex-girlfriend over in Brooklyn with a year old baby girl and a new boyfriend to pay the rent. I had no doubt it belonged to Raymond but he was too irresponsible to admit it.

The girl’s name was Josie and she looked like she was already pregnant with number two never learning her lesson from her first mistake.

I gave the details to Julie and she didn’t see the humor in it like I did but that was the difference between men and women in such situations.

I spent the entire weekend putting the information Raymond had collected in some sort of order and Julie was nice enough to stay over and help me out. I guess her boyfriend being stuck the entire weekend on guard duty at the Army base gave her plenty of free time to help me get organized. I wondered if her boyfriend thought she was banging me and I hoped he was not the jealous type with a violent nature.

Julie fixed us a Mulligan stew that reminded me of my mom’s cooking and I guess that Army Corporal was a lucky guy to have a girl with her hard-working attitude and an impeccable sense of character that made her a definite keeper for any marriage-minded male with honorable intentions.

Uncle Joe told me to lay off any investigation of Raymond’s homicide because Internal Affairs was still nosing around where they didn’t belong. I had no love of those pricks either because they enjoyed sticking it to guys that were doing their best to make peace with the realities of life in the thin blue line.

I did go down to the pier where they had discovered his body and I was surprised that there was no police tape to keep the site off limits to the general public until the investigation was clear. Either those dummies down in homicide were passing the buck on this killing or someone high up had put out the word to silently close the case. It was true that there were certainly lots of suspicious deaths going on to keep everybody busy but this was a cop even if he was not popular and he was generally thought to be dirty.