In Transit Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  In Transit

  Dedication

  * * *

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  In Transit

  By Kathleen Gerard

  Copyright 2012 by Kathleen Gerard

  Jacket design by Christopher Wait—ENC Graphic Services, Jacket photograph c. 2011 Thinkstock and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 2011.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Kathleen Gerard and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Last Licks

  Tangled

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  In Transit

  Kathleen Gerard

  Dedication

  for

  D.M.D.

  If you don’t know where you are going,

  you might wind up someplace else.

  Yogi Berra

  One

  “Let’s go Del Vecchio. I want to go home already!”

  The windows lining the perimeter of the police academy gymnasium that had once burst with blinding sunlight were now dark panes of glass that glistened with the reflection of distant streetlights. Rita Del Vecchio struggled harder and harder to make her way over the obstacle course wall. It was her seventh try. The muscles in her arms burned tired and sore, but she kept her fingers firm around the thick, bristly rope even though the flesh on her hands felt stripped bare to the bone.

  “This is your last chance. If you don’t get over this time, you can kiss graduation goodbye. You hear what I’m saying?”

  She heard him all right. How could she not hear him? He screamed at her all day, and the badgering sound of his voice echoed in her mind, haunting her all night. There was no escaping him.

  Sergeant Gary Hill.

  Rita could see him pacing on the floor mat below. He was watching her, his head craned upon his thick neck and his Popeye-like arms folded, bursting across his muscular chest.

  “It’s a God-awful shame,” Hill said, his words rising up to meet her. “You go through six months of hell, for what? Face it, Del Vecchio. You’re too damned weak. It just goes to show you—the NYPD is no place for a woman.”

  Rita glared down at him. From her perspective more than halfway up the twenty-foot high wall, Hill now appeared the size of a midget despite his bulky six-foot four-inch frame.

  Using every ounce of strength she had left, Rita pulled herself up. She groaned, reaching higher. Her hands seared around the thick, splintered knots, while the soles of her sneakers searched for traction, squeaking against the seams and joints in the paint-chipped, plywood wall.

  “Should’ve made a trip to the gym instead of going to your ballet class last night. Right, Twinkle Toes?” Hill’s laugh bounced off the walls of the now empty gymnasium that stank of manly sweat and body odor. “What kind of cop likes ballet anyway? Are you gonna do pirouettes while you read some poor bastard his rights?”

  Beads of sweat trickled down from Rita’s forehead and reached her lips. They tasted salty like tears. From day one at the police academy, Hill seemed determined to defeat Rita. But she refused to give in—or give up. She looked past the pus oozing from the blisters on her white-hot hands. There were only two more rope knots to go before she would reach the top. She inched up, heaving the last painful weight of her body. But with her fingers too anxious to stretch toward that final notch, she lost her grip and was sent into free-fall.

  Down

  Down

  Down.

  Her rump crashed first and knocked the wind out of her until she found herself flat on her back. Her size seven, five-foot four-inch frame was sprawled atop the spongy, rubber mat. It’s over, she thought, her hands and spine stinging with pain.

  When the stars before her eyes finally cleared, she was looking up Sergeant Gary Hill’s nostrils. They loomed like the dark tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel.

  “Why’d you want to be a cop anyway, Del Vecchio?”

  A lump had grown in Rita’s throat. She tried to swallow it, hoping it might alleviate the pressure building behind her eyes.

  “What are you trying to prove? And to whom, huh?”

  Rita could see how Sergeant Hill’s closely cropped, flaxen hair was highlighted with tiny strands of gray. And this late in the day, he had a stubbly look of a five o’clock shadow.

  “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

  What could Rita say? What should she say? She lumbered her body from the mat until she was seated upright. Then she tucked some wayward strands of hair back into her ponytail and straightened her shoulders. She hated his condescension, but she pulled in her chin and braced for more of his verbal gale.

  “You women recruits are all alike. A bunch of prima donna idealists who are out to change the world,” Sergeant Hill said. “Well, forget about it, Twinkle Toes. Do me and this city a favor. Stick with changing your frilly little underwear… or better yet, go stir a pot with meatballs and macaroni. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? You get a tomato sauce stain? You break a nail?” He sighed a mix of annoyance and contempt in an effort to illicit a response from her. But he wasn’t going to get one. “Ah, hell,” he said, turning from her and tossing up his hands. “I don’t know why the city makes me waste my time. What’s the use? You were just one of the few token women in this graduating class anyway.”

  Rita’s body tensed into a violent quiver. “To meet guys!” she finally blurted, her fists clenched.

  Gary Hill squinted his eyes, suspect. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You asked me before why I want to be a cop.” Rita met Sergeant Hill’s gaze dead on. She spoke her piece in one long stream, without even taking a breath. “Well, I joined the force to meet guys—to meet guys just like you. I’m a masochist at heart. How’s that? Does that make you feel better? Is that the response you’ve been waiting for?”

  Hill’s eyebrows lifted in an arc. He appeared stunned and slightly amused by Rita’s comeback. “I hate to burst your bubble, but there are easier ways to meet men.”

  Rita held up the palms of her hands in surrender. She rose to her feet and marched past him, straight for the locker room.

  “So you’re a quitter? Is that it, Del Vecchio?” Hill’s words chased after Rita and slammed into the back of her head. “Atta girl. Go on. Take yourself and your bad attitude back to your old waitressing job at that grease pit in Jersey.”

  Rita stopped in her tracks. A sick, empty feeling roiled inside of her. This is it, isn’t it? Everything I’ve worked for, it’s all been in vain? For nothing? The hum of the fluorescent lights droned beneath the sound of her heavy, pounding heart. When she heard Sergeant Hill’s footsteps drum like a slow, solemn cadence and the wooden floorboards pop and creak in response to his approach, Rita tightened herself.

  “You surprise me, Del Vecchio,” he said, his hand grasping her arm like a vise. “You’ve put up with more abuse in this academy than any of the other candidates. Why call it quits now?”

  Rita turned and bore her gaze t
hrough him. She knew this was probably the last confrontation she’d ever have with her sergeant—or any officer from the NYPD for that matter. Why not make her final exit a grand farewell? “Is it all women you don’t like,” she said, “or is it just me?”

  Gary Hill’s staunch grin curled slowly into a smile. He shook his head and laughed. “You pegged me all wrong, Twinkle Toes. If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t have worked you so hard.” Hill resumed his leathery facade. “Some folks in this city are a lot tougher and meaner than the likes of me, many are even savages out for blood. If you don’t thicken that suburban skin of yours, you’re gonna be easy prey.”

  The words Sergeant Hill spoke aimed straight at the heart of the matter.

  “I don’t make a habit of giving presents unless it’s Christmas,” he told her, “but deep down, I like your grit and determination.” A glimmer of a smile emerged on his face. He leaned closer to Rita until his warm breath whispered, “How about we let this be our little secret.”

  She repeated his words inside her head. Our little secret?

  “Better press your uniform and shine your shoes,” he told her, releasing his steely grip and letting her go. “You wanna look spit and polished for graduation, don’t you?”

  Am I hearing things? Or is he saying what I think he’s saying?

  “I’m recommending they assign you to the Transit Department. Good luck, Officer Del Vecchio. You’re gonna need it.”

  Rita opened her mouth to say something, anything, but no words spewed forth. Instead, she just stood there with her mouth unhinged, astounded, staring at Sergeant Hill’s broad shoulders as he walked away from her and headed for the men’s locker room.

  There was an urgency in her voice when she finally managed to spit out the words, “Thank you, Sergeant. Thank you.”

  Hill made an about-face. “Don’t thank me. Just do me a favor and next time you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

  In Rita’s eyes, the image of Sergeant Hill as he disappeared through the locker room door became blurry and soggy-looking. And it was through her tears that she heard him say, “I bet you’re one helluva dancer.”

  Two

  Having spent eight hours a day with those whom he considered to be the dregs of the earth—at least the dregs of East New York—Sergeant Billy Quinn was now a product of the environments he had policed for nearly twelve years. This drug-infested, lawless zone in Brooklyn had become more of a home to him than his apartment in the white, middle-class, Morris Park section of the Bronx. But today was his last day on this tour of duty. The newly elected mayor and his brand new police commissioner meant only one thing for the NYPD—change. Change for the sake of change. Show and Glow is what Billy Quinn and the Mean Nineteen, the nickname he and eighteen other police sergeants assigned to the city’s Special Gun and Drug Task Force, called it when politicians initiated change solely to benefit their own political agendas.

  But Billy Quinn knew that change wasn’t always such a bad thing. The Mean Nineteen might soon be scattered about all five boroughs of the city, but they would always share a common bond of lasting brotherhood that would remain unchanged.

  Behind the wheel of the patrol car, Billy cruised along New Bridge Avenue while he and his partner listened to Howard Stern on the portable satellite radio. Billy eyed the neighborhood for what would be his last time. The familiar streets seemed more like an underdeveloped, third world country than a ghetto amid the outskirts of the cosmopolitan city. In the early days, Billy had once squirmed at the sight of drunks as they squatted on the litter-strewn and excrement-filled pavement, and he’d felt repulsed by the hollow-cheeked crack-heads as they stumbled, half-conscious, half-dead, into dilapidated tenements. It was amazing how, after all the years, the view beyond the police car window hadn’t really changed.

  “Pitiful sight for sore eyes,” Billy sighed, glaring at the poverty that infested this neighborhood and had only continued to get worse. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned prowling about this hell-hole, it’s that these niggers and spics make their own damn problems. Look over there.” Billy pointed outside the car. He motioned for his partner, Sergeant Tony Sanducci, riding shotgun, to look at an empty lot studded with junked appliances, ransacked automobiles, picked-through trash and burned mattresses. “We’re not the ones dumping crap all over. Look at all this junk. Just because these folks are piss-poor doesn’t mean they have to live in a sewer. They take pride in nothing.”

  Tony kept chomping on a wad of bubblegum, a new habit since he’d quit smoking. He didn’t say a word. But then again, he didn’t have to. Sergeant Billy Quinn was famous for having some of his best conversations with himself. He had a reputation for being grossly opinionated. But why shouldn’t he be? After all, he’d more than paid his dues, devoting the past twelve years of his life to policing some of the worst areas in and around the city. Billy had seen more than most. It was more than anyone should have to see, really. Tony Sanducci had been assigned to Billy’s jurisdiction of the task force for only the past year. The two became fast friends and allies. It was too bad that budget cuts, division mergers and the new police commissioner’s big ideas were about to break up a good thing.

  Sergeant Sanducci was to stay on in this Brooklyn neighborhood, but he was reassigned to a new post within the Housing Authority. Billy was looking forward to his two weeks of paid vacation and then being transferred to a rotating position throughout several districts within the five boroughs. This was billed as only temporary until the Gun and Drug Task Force could be restructured by the new administration.

  “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s that kid brother of yours?” asked Sanducci, quickly having a word with Billy when Howard Stern’s radio show cut to a news bulletin.

  “Kevin?” Billy asked. “Oh, he’s a lucky bastard. They’ll fit him up with a prosthetic leg and give him some medal of honor or badge of courage. Then he’ll probably retire down in Florida someplace.”

  “But that sucks, man.” Tony gave a sympathetic shake of his head. “I mean, he was a really good distance runner, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. My kid bro. Mr. All-American, Jock-Cop. Finished top twenty in the city marathon last year. But a lot of good it did him. No one can outrun a bullet.”

  “A bullet is one thing. But a blood clot and then losing your leg? Aw, that just sucks.” Tony loudly popped a bubble from his gum.

  “Sucks? If you ask me, Kevin was too soft to be a cop in the first place. He hid behind the shield. Tried to be all idealistic.”

  “But he was a lieutenant, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but all that label really means is politics. My brother had to kiss up to a lot of people. That’s how he rose through the ranks. And there’s no respect or honor in that.”

  Tony just shrugged his shoulders.

  “As far as I’m concerned, my brother getting his leg blown off was a gift,” Billy said. “Here I put my life on the line every day for the past twelve years and what do I get? Reassigned to another dump, that’s what I get. While Kevin gets full pension and an early retirement, all because some pistol-whipped crack-head blew off his leg.”

  Billy continued his tirade, now drowning out Howard Stern’s monologue.

  “What kind of faggot cop goes out for his morning jog and fights crime, off-duty and without his gun? Give me a break. And now the city is trying to make him out to be some kind of hero? He was stupid, and as far as I’m concerned, he probably deserved to get shot.”

  Tony, wide-eyed, looked over at Billy, whose face flushed hot. “Yo, take a chill,” Sanducci said. “You know what they say, ‘What goes around, comes around.’”

  “Oh, I don’t go for that superstitious crap. I figure that if I’ve lived this long, then I’m untouchable—”

  Tony interrupted. “Hey look, over there. There’s our Big Mama.”

  Billy pulled the patrol car over to the curb toward a young black woman. He rolled down the window. “Hey, you got our lunch money or what?” Billy eyed a brown paper bag the woman carried over to the car. She was well endowed, wearing a low-cut tank top and a bandanna around her head.

  “We cool now, ain’t we?” the woman asked, before handing over the bag. “My man wants me to make sure there ain’t no more trouble once you fellas are gone.”