Read Online The Body Human by Nancy Kress - Free Book Online Page B

everybody—kids and administration—the idea that you can’t control your own classroom.”
    “I can’t,” she said, so promptly and honestly that I had to smile. “But I will .”
    “Well, good luck.”
    “Listen, Gene, I’m picking the brains of everybody I can get to talk to me about this. Want to go have a cup of coffee someplace?”
    “Sorry.”
    “Okay.” She didn’t look rebuffed, which was a relief. Today her earrings matched the color of her sweater. A soft blue, with lace at the neck. “Maybe another time.”
    “Maybe.” It was easier than an outright no.
    Crossing the parking lot to my car, I saw Jeff Connors. He slapped me a high-five. “Ms. Kelly’s looking for you, Jeff.”
    “She is? Oh, yeah. Well, I can’t today. Busy.”
    “So I hear. There isn’t any such thing as the Neig h borhood Safety Information Network, is there?”
    He eyed me carefully. “Sure there is, Mr. S.”
    “Really? Well, I’m going to be at Midtown South st a tion house this afternoon. I’ll ask about it.”
    “It’s, like, kinda new. They maybe don’t know nothing about it yet.”
    “Ah. Well, I’ll ask anyway. See you around, Jeff.”
    “Hang loose.”
    He watched my car all the way down the block, until I turned the corner.
    The arrest room at Midtown South was full of cops filling out forms: fingerprint cards, On-line Booking Sy s tem Arrest Worksheets, complaint reports, property i n voices, requests for laboratory examinations of evidence, Arrest Documentation Checklists. The cops, most of whom had changed out of uniform, scribbled and muttered and sharpened pencils. In the holding pen alleged criminals cursed and slept and muttered and sang. It looked like fourth-period study hall in the junior-high cafeteria.
    I said, “Lieutenant Fermato ?”
    A scribbling cop in a Looney Tunes sweatshirt waved me toward an office without even looking up.
    “Oh my God. Gene Shaunessy . Risen from the fuckin’ dead.”
    “Hello, Johnny.”
    “Come in . God, you look like a politician. Teaching must be the soft life.”
    “Better to put on a few pounds than look like a starved rat.”
    We stood there clasping hands, looking at each other, not saying the things that didn’t need saying anyway, even if we’d had the words, which we didn’t. Johnny and I had been partners for seven years. We’d gone together through foot pursuits and high-speed chases and lost files and vi o lent domestics and bungled traps by Internal Affairs and robberies-in-progress and the grueling boredom of the street. Johnny’s divorce. My retirement. Johnny had gone into Narcotics a year before I took the hit that shattered my knee. If he’d been my partner, it might not have happened. He’d made lieutenant only a few months ago. I hadn’t seen him in a year and a half.
    Suddenly I knew—or the Camineur knew—why I’d come to Midtown South to help Bucky after all. I’d already lost too many pieces of my life. Not the life I had now—the life I’d had once. My real one.
    “Gene—about Marge…”
    I held up my hand. “Don’t. I’m here about something else. Professional.”
    His voice changed. “You in trouble?”
    “No. A friend is.” Johnny didn’t know Bucky; they’d been separate pieces of my old life. I couldn’t picture them in the same room together for more than five minutes. “It’s about the suicides at the Angels of Mercy Nursing Home. Giacomo della Francesca and Lydia Smith.”
    Johnny nodded. “What about it?”
    “I’d like to see a copy of the initial crime-scene report.”
    Johnny looked at me steadily. But all he said was, “Not my jurisdiction, Gene.”
    I looked back. If Johnny didn’t want to get me the r e port, he wouldn’t. But either way, he could . Johnny’d been the best undercover cop in Manhattan, mostly because he was so good at putting together his net of criminal i n formers, inside favors, noncriminal spies, and unseen procedures. I didn’t believe he’d dismantled any of it