Annie leaned in. "Hiya."

"Hi."

"No gourmet dinner tonight?"

Frank lifted the ice cream. "This is it."

Annie whined, "Why don't you weigh five hundred pounds?"

"Keep eatin' like this and I will. But my sponsor says I can do whatever I want the first year, long as it's not drinking. Besides, I could barely eat when I first got sober so I'm making up for it."

"Psh. Hey, I got a question for you, about your pops."

"Shoot."

"Funny you should say that. You was livin' in the East Village at the time but he was killed in the Ninth. What were you doin' over there?"

"My uncle was a cop. He worked outta the Ninth."

"No kiddin'?"

"No kiddin'. Sergeant Albert Franco. At end of watch on his day shifts my dad and I would meet him at Cal's. We went there a lot. It was only a couple blocks away and they could drink cheap. Feed me cheap. We were walking home from there. Stopped at a deli to get some milk and cereal for breakfast. We got oranges too. For my mother. She loved fruit. I can still see aem. After he dropped the bag and it broke, the milk spilled onto the sidewalk and the oranges were so bright against it. So orange. Like a still-life in my head that won't ever fade."

"Some things ..." Annie said. "They never go away." Then she smiled. "Cal's was closed by the time I got to the Ninth, but they still talk about it."

"Yeah. The bar legends are made of."

"So your uncle and your pops, they just drank and hung out?"

"Pretty much. They'd talk to other cops, some of my uncle's friends. I think some of the cops resented havin' a kid in the bar but they got used to me. We were there a h.e.l.luva lot. They played cards sometimes, arm wrestled when they were really loaded. That's how I knew they were in the bag. One would challenge and the other'd accept. But mostly they talked and drank. Why? What are you thinkin'?"

"Nothin'. Just gettin' a feel for who he'd know there."

"Cops." Frank shrugged. "It was a cop bar."

"Yeah, okay. Anything today?"

Lots, Frank thought, but answered, "Nah. Quiet. Could you leave Charlie Mercer's number for me? I want to call him tomorrow, see if I can hire him next week. Unless we get a hit by Sunday I'm going home Monday."

"Yeah, okay, I'll leave it for you. He's a good man, Charlie. You could leave your surveillance in worse hands."

"I'm takin' your word on that. How was your day?"

Annie flicked a shoulder. "Nine months, two weeks and four days."

"You hate it that much?"

"I don't hate the Job. I'm just tired, is all. So much c.r.a.p, and most of it internal. Like we don't get enough on the street, the captain comes in this morning all bright-eyed and well-rested, waving a memo. Says he gonna dock us fifteen minutes every time he sees us with our feet up on the desk. Says it's unprofessional. Doesn't look good to citizens. So you know what our loo ordered us to do?" Annie laughed. "He ordered us to sit around with our feet up all morning. Everyone. The captain was havin' a walkin' coronary, I kid you not. About lunchtime Loo said the memo had disappeared and we could get back to work. h.e.l.luva waste of a day, huh? But G.o.d bless Loo. He's a good man. Reminds me of the first cop I ever rode with. You remember your first day?"

"Christ," Frank replied. "Like it was yesterday. My training officer was an a.s.shole deluxe. He was about to rape this pregnant girl in an alley, invited me to watch or leave. I didn't do either. Took out my night stick and swung at him. Didn't warn him or anything, just swung with all I had. He went down but he got up p.i.s.sed. We sparred around that alley for what seemed like hours. We were both tired. His shoulder wasn't working too well where I'd hit him and he was swingin' his stick at me with his left. We got a radio call and he had to grab the portable with his left hand. When he switched his stick from his left to his right that's when I knew I had him. I walked back to the unit and got in. He came a minute later and we responded to the call like nothing had happened. He talked s.h.i.t behind my back until he got transferred to a cushy a.s.signment in a white-collar division but I never had trouble with him again. Stupid how much time you have to waste defendin' yourself against people who're supposed to be on your side."

"You said it, sister." Looking at the ice cream, Annie wondered, "You got anymore of that?"

"Whole other pint in the freezer."

Annie shook a finger at Frank, calling as she left, "You're evil, cookie. Pure evil."

She came back, eating out of the carton like Frank, saying, "Let me tell you about my first day. I was workin' the Twenty-Third, up to Harlem. We get this call. Domestic disturbance, right? Could be anythin'. We get to this fallin' down tenement, climb twelve flights acuz the elevator's broke and besides, my partner says, elevators are like roach motels for the police-cops go in but they don't come out. We get up there and there's all this commotion in the hallway. Neighbors say the woman's ex-boyfriend's in the apartment cuttin' on their three kids. He found out she had a new boyfriend and he's gonna kill the kids before he lets another man raise aem. We knock and the guy won't open. The girlfriend's screamin' inside that he's killin' the babies and the spooky thing is, the kids aren't crying, so we call emergency services. But meanwhile the woman stops screamin'. My partner's tryin' to talk the guy into opening the door but for nothin'. d.a.m.n it."

She looked for the ice cream she'd dripped onto the floor. Frank wadded up the paper towel from around her own carton and called, "Catch."

Annie grabbed it, mopping up the spill. "Thanks. So here comes EMS runnin' up the stairs and they ram the door in. My partner and me we charge in behind aem. I never seen such a mess. I'm just standin' there in shock. There's blood everywhere. On the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the furniture. It's like someone's almost finished painting the place red. The boyfriend, he's red too, just rockin' on the couch next to the woman. Her throat's slit to her neckbone. EMS cuffs the guy and my partner gives me a poke. I follow him into the bedrooms. We find the kids back there, all three of aem, their throats cut. We go back to the living room just as this itty-bitty old lady charges through the busted door, screamin' aSweet Jesus Almighty.' I'm thinkin' oh s.h.i.t, it's the kids' grandma or somethin'. I'm thinking how the h.e.l.l am I gonna calm her down, get her outta here, right? Then she turns and looks me square in the eye, this sweet little old lady, and she demands, aWho's gonna pay to clean up this f.u.c.kin' mess?' I shoulda known right then what I was gettin' into, huh?"

Frank grinned. "Do you regret it?"

Annie considered her spoon. "I wish'd I'd had more time with the kids. I was selfish, I guess. Back then I wouldna given this up for nothin'. I loved it. Never knowin' what you were gonna get into that day, who you were gonna meet... but my kids paid the price. I missed a lotta things. Things they still remind me of to this day. My mother, too."

Frank chewed an almond. "Hypothetical question. What if you'd walked out on your husband and left him with the kids? He was a cop too, right? And let's say he raised the kids as well as you did. What would your mother say about him?"

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"She'd probably say he was a saint like my cousin Henry. His wife run off with a car salesman-after she stuck him for thirty large for a new Buick-and he's raisin' his baby daughter, goin' to school nights and workin' in a bank."

"He's a saint, right?"

"Yeah. He can walk on watuh."

"So your husband walks out on you, leaves you with two kids, and you manage to raise them and hold down a good job at the same time. Your cousin does that with one kid and he's a saint, but you do that with two and you're selfish? What am I not seeing?"

"What you're not seein', cookie, is a long line of Italian mothers who sacrifice for their kids. I shoulda found a nice man, remarried and settled down. Quit all that crazy police business. This may be the twenty-first century but my mother's still living in the nineteenth. Nah. The way she sees it, I'm selfish."

"Then if that's the way you see it, you got a foot in the nineteenth century, too."

"So? What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is you're a saint, too. You're not selfish. You raised two kids all by yourself, doing a man's work, and you should be givin' yourself a pat on the back, not a kick in the a.s.s."

Annie gave Frank a hard stare. "You don't know the whole story, cookie. It was selfish. Thanks for the ice cream."

Swinging the door closed, Annie left Frank puzzling what the whole story could be.

CHAPTER 32.

Annie had become Frank's alarm clock. A light sleeper, Frank got up when she heard her puttering around the apartment.

"Hey."

"Mornin'. Ya sleep good?"

"Like a baby. You?"

"I had better nights. Shouldna eaten all that ice cream. I'm gonna have to spend an extra hour in the pool today."

Dropping bread in the toaster Frank asked, "You want me to make you a real meal tonight?"

"I want you should stop bringin' home pints of ice cream for me, that's what I want."

"All right. Let me cook a good dinner for you. I'll make something heal dry."

"You don't have to cook for me, Frank."

"I know, but it gives me pleasure. Keeps me distracted. Makes me feel useful."

"Well, if you want. I'd never turn down a meal."

"Any requests?" Frank said, sitting at the table.

"Surprise me. It's all been good so far. Just no sweetbreads or liver. I don't like organ meat."

"Makes two of us."

Frank took part of the paper and the women ate in silence. Still looking at her paper Annie reached for her coffee and said, "I'm gonna miss you, ya know. Gotten spoiled coming home to food and company."

"Maybe this is all prep for findin' yourself a nice man in nine months, two weeks and three days."

"Listen to you with the nice man, already. Some lesbian, always pushin' men on me. You ain't earnin' no toasters, cookie."

Frank laughed as Annie smoothed the paper on the table and went to dress for work. Frank cleared her dishes and brewed a pot of coffee for the Thermos. She read the rest of the paper and as Annie headed out Frank reminded, "Don't forget to give me Charlie's number."

"Oh, yeah. Lemme get that for you."

She rummaged through her phone book and wrote the number on a Post-it. Frank stuck the note on the Thermos, watching Annie go through her routine with the Virgin.

Later, as Frank was on her way out the door, she winked at the Madonna. "Wish me luck, Baby Muvuh."

She ran through her usual morning routine at the cemetery, then settled in the Nova to make a shopping list for dinner. Annie called in the middle of it.

"Hi. I been tellin' my daughter what a good cook you are and she wants to come over for dinner. Is that all right with the cook?"

"Sure," Frank answered. "What does she like?"

"Psh. My kids, I tell ya. You'd think they was raised like royalty. Ben won't eat nothin' that's not organic or free-range and Lisa won't eat nothin' with a carbohydrate. They're not my kids. I think the stork brought aem."

"No problem. Ben and Lisa or just Lisa?"

"Just Lisa, thank G.o.d."

"What time?"

"Anytime after seven, Job permittin'."

"All right. See you then."

"Sure you don't mind?"

"It's an awnuh," Frank teased.

"You're a doll. See you later."

Frank crossed out the menu she'd been playing with and started over. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.

She ended up making roast beef in a Dijon sh.e.l.l, steamed kale drizzled with Hollandaise sauce and baby lettuces with a mustard vinaigrette. Lisa had her mother's appet.i.te and vibrant dark looks. She was duly impressed with Frank's mastery of the kitchen and spent the evening pumping Frank for Hollywood celebrity sightings. Frank had met dozens of rappers and a few actors from the ahood, but when she compared South Central to Upper Harlem Lisa was disappointed.

"All the glamorous places you could be working and you're both in the pits. What's up with that? Are you m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts or somethin'?"

Annie and Frank exchanged sheepish grins.

"Anyway, I've gotta run. I've got a mock trial at seven a.m. Dinner was gorgeous, Frank. Thanks for havin' me."

While Annie walked Lisa out of the building Frank put the leftovers away. She missed her music. If she were home she'd put something jazzy on the stereo, but Annie never seemed to play music so Frank let it go. Maybe the silence was just as well. Bending old routines was probably good for her. And the music would always be there.

Annie walked into the kitchen, crying, "Whaddaya doin'? Get out! You made dinner. Go sit! Watch TV or somethin'. Shoo!"

"All part of the service, ma'am."

"I'm serious. Get outta here." Shoving her sleeves over her elbows Annie ran water in the sink.

Frank sat at the table with last night's ice cream. "She's a nice girl."

"Yeah, despite me, huh?"

"Yeah," Frank kidded. "Despite how selfish you are."

Annie grunted, swirling her hands in the soapy water. "Ya miss not havin' kids?"

"Nope. Never wanted aem. I didn't get a maternal gene. I mean, I like aem if they're somebody else's, but talk about selfish. I could never give that much time to somebody else, especially when I was drinking. That was a full-time job in itself."

"I can't imagine you drunk."