A FOOL FOR LOVE

2. A Life or Death Situation

I've said that in my marriage to Michelle there could be no compromises between her and work. I was wrong. There was one.

"It's alright, honey," I said into the phone. "I'm a little busy tonight. We got a homicide on the East Side. I might be a little late home. I'll try and head off earlier."

"Be careful," Michelle said, and in the background our old grandfather clock chimed the half hour, making me think of warmth and comfort and home, and Michelle, curled up alone on the settee. God, I missed her sometimes. I would have given anything to be off the rainy streets and curled up next to her, watching a crappy movie as the rain lashed the windows outside.

Instead I was stood beneath a phone booth shelter, raindrops running down my numb cheeks and through my hair and in rivers off the side of the booth, Alex sat waiting for me in the battered Honda a few yards back. I could hear the monotonous squeak of his window wipers and could almost feel his burning, impatient eyes in the back of my neck.

Sorry, Alex. There had to be a compromise somewhere.

"I'll try my best, baby," I promised Michelle, a lie I could never keep. You never knew what could happen to you on these streets. "And I promise I'll make it up to you tomorrow."

"Don't worry," Michelle said, with a little chuckle that sent an electric current through my tense stomach. "I'll keep up for you, darling."

"Alright," I replied. "'Night, honey."

I hung up and ran the length of the sidewalk in the driving downpour, almost leaping into the passenger seat of Alex's '92 Honda Accord. Ugly looking car, but damn reliable, and on a night like this, its heat and shelter were more than enough.

"Michelle alright?" Alex asked matter-of-factly, lighting up a Marlboro light. He offered me one and I accepted.

"She's fine," I replied, flicking up my Zippo. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Hey, I know what's it like, Max," Alex said, starting up the engine. "I remember when I first joined the force, my Jessie had me call her up every half hour on my night shifts. It was a nightmare for both of us. I don't think she's too bothered now, though." He chuckled to himself and took a long drag on his smoke, the end flaring up briefly in the dark car.

We cruised through the dark streets of the East Side, through mazes of run down tenements and building sites and poverty. Occasionally a streetlight would be flickering dully or would be off entirely. Now and again you'd spot a street gang huddled under an archway for shelter.

I sighed, and smoked, and thought of Michelle.

We pulled up outside a sleazy bar just off 4th Street, the Union City Blue. Hooker's bar. As a cop I'd been here a few times before, cleaning up after brawls or taking care of shit like this – the detective work. By now me and Alex had the routine down to a T.

I reached for my Beretta.

"Now, now, Max," Alex said as he killed the lights. "You don't always have to go straight for the gun. That's the most important thing to remember, as a cop."

"I find it's pretty persuasive," I responded.

"No, no. It puts you and the victim in a life or death situation, a real tinderbox. Someone slips up a little and people end up dead. You want to avoid that as much as you can. The gun should always be the last resort." He frowned at me until I slid my Beretta back into its holster. "For your sake too. Chances are those criminals are packing." He winked at me, stepped out of the car and said, "Watch this."

I followed him through the wall of dirty rain, into the unwelcoming neon haze of the bar.

The room was stuffy and stunk of old beer and older bar fights. Shadowy figures sat slumped over tables that were lit only by the neon lights, as bright and garish as the fires of hell. From somewhere in the corner the jukebox played David Bowie's Suffragette City.

Alex pushed past two pretty young girls, fresh faces, at the bar.

"Double whisky, straight," he asked the grim barman. "What are you having, Max?"

"Same, on the rocks," I asked, and nudged myself a place against the bar.

I reached for my pack of smokes and realised that the girl next to me, a pretty young brunette with too much makeup and too few clothes, was staring at me intently.

I stared back.

She winked at me. "You looking for a good time, big boy?"

The barman slid the glass towards me, the ice tinkling in the amber liquor. "No thanks," I replied, sliding the cigarette into my mouth. "But maybe you can make my time here a little easier."

She edged towards me and whispered, "Anything you want."

I ignored her advances. "Katrina Demeo," I asked. "You know her?"

The hooker sighed, her face sinking, and crushed her half-smoked cigarette out in a ceramic ashtray at the bar. In the blue neon lights her face suddenly looked very old. "Kat?" she replied. "Sure I know her. What's the problem?"

I flicked up my Zippo lighter and for a second my face was lit a bright red. "She's dead," I responded, matter-of-factly, and took a drag on my cigarette.

"Oh, Christ," the hooker winced. "You're kidding me, right?"

I flashed her my badge. "Afraid not. Max Payne, NYPD. This gentleman next to me is Alex Balder, my partner. And maybe you can help us a little."

"Go on." The hooker's eyes had welled up and she looked ill. With a shaking hand she reached for her cigarettes. I handed her one of mine.

"Kat was shot dead in her own bedroom," I explained. "Two bullets to the gut, shot like Annie Oakley. But that's not what interested us. We found a video camera tucked away behind the wall. Got us thinking that maybe Miss Demeo wasn't quite as innocent as we thought."

"Oh, god, that must have been Goldie," the hooker said suddenly. "Another one of his little plans. Always knew he was a dodgy bastard."

Alex's ears suddenly chipped up. "Goldie?" he said. "Goldie Lazaru?"

The hooker nodded. "You know him?"

"Damn right I know him," Alex said. "Thank you very much, ma'am. You've been pretty damn helpful."

The hooker tried to smile, but the news had hit her hard. I got the feeling Kat had been a popular girl. She'd had her problems maybe, she'd been living in desperation. But she had been a nice girl, and maybe in a different life she could have changed the world. Fat lot of good it had done her. Now she was growing cold on an East Side bed.

We left her as she confided in the arms of her friend and began to cross the room.

"You know this guy?" I asked. People in the bar were giving us funny looks now. There were cops in their midst.

"Know him?" Alex cried. "Me and Goldie have had enough run-ins the past. He's the most crooked pimp on the East Side. Reckon he's even got connections in the mob."

"Blackmail?"

"A blackmail ring would make sense." Alex winked at me again. "See what I mean? You get a lot more without the gun. Keep it away unless needs be." He turned to a red-lit table in the far corner. "And now you're about to see another means of interrogation."

Goldie was sat in the corner, two women on either side of him, engaging in conversation with two heavy-set men. In the red lights he looked like a demon, bedecked in several gold chains, over a sober black suit. His eyebrow boasted a single cold piercing, his lip boasted two, and there was a ring in his nose like a bull. All of them attempted to make him look more intimidating, but with his scrawny figure he just looked like a pincushion.

"Yeah, man," he smirked, in a voice like a broken piano. As he spoke, I could see his full set of gold teeth flashing in the neon. "These bitches here are mine, for my personal use. Ain't that right, ladies?" The girls nodded obediently. "A man of my persuasion always has to keep the best talent for himself. Leave the dirty old men to have the cast-off hos, you know."

Alex wasted no time. His arms stretched across the table, sending glasses crashing to the floor, and before I could blink he'd yanked Goldie's scrawny body out of the seat and had thrown him to the wooden door of the bar.

For a moment the bar went deathly silent, and all I could hear was Sandy Rogers singing 'Fool for Love.'

Alex smirked down at Goldie's quivering form. "Goldie," he chuckled. "We got to have a little chat."

"Aw, damn," the pimp groaned. "What you wantin' this time, pig?"

Alex bent down, grabbed Goldie's squirming arm, and yanked him to his feet, simultaneously pulling his arm over his head so hard that the tendons squealed. He cried out, a brief squeal in the silence.

One of the heavy-set men who'd been sat with him went to stand up. I pulled my gun on him and he slumped back into his seat.

Alex flashed me a sinister glance and then dragged the terrified pimp's ear close to his mouth. "We got to talk about Katrina Demeo," I heard Alex whisper, and I could just about here Goldie sob hopelessly. My partner turned to Goldie's girls and was suddenly all smiles. "Sorry, ladies. He'll be back with you as soon as he's co-operated with us. It won't take long at all."

"This is police brutality!" Goldie screamed. He got another harsh yank on his arm for his troubles.

Alex led the pimp out through the door, almost frogmarching him out past the astonished eyes of the bar patrons. I holstered my gun, but I got the feeling that was a mistake. There were eyes in that bar watching a little too closely.

Paranoia, Max, I thought. Ignore it.

Outside Alex had Goldie by the neck near the kerb, where a stream of brown water flowed merrily along the kerbside. The pimp struggled and squirmed hopelessly in his arms. It looked like a bear holding down a fox, and Goldie had about as much chance of escaping. I watched intently.

"Katrina Demeo!" Alex yelled in the pimp's ear. "Talk to me!"

"What you wanting to know?" Goldie asked, his face just inches away from the violent muddy stream. "Anything, man."

"She's dead."

"That's damn unfortunate, man, she was one of my best girls…"

"Who did it?"

"The hell should I know?"

Alex slammed down hard on the back of Goldie's head, plunging him face first into the raging torrent. For a second his face vanished, strands of his black hair billowing like flags along the jagged brown surface, and then Alex yanked him back up, water flowing down his face in rivulets.

"Damn, this a new suit," Goldie mumbled, spitting filthy sewage water out on to the wet kerb.

"There was a video camera in Demeo's room," Alex said. "Anything to do with you?"

"Oh, damn man, not that," Goldie said.

Once more Alex plunged his face into the stream, holding it down long enough for Goldie to start writhing in his arms. When Alex released him this time, the pimp took deep greedy breaths of the fresh damp air, and coughed up a clot of drain water.

"Next time I don't let go," Alex balked. "Now speak."

"We… we had a blackmail ring."

"Who's we?"

"Legs Malluchi, owner of the Four Aces Club off Broadway. Big Mafia guy. It was his ring, he had a few of us doing his work for him – filming the more upper crust clients and charging them a couple a grand for keeping them under lock up."

"And Demeo?"

"She was in on it too, you know? Had a few high class clients, nice piece of ass, that broad."

Alex threw Goldie to the damp floor. "Thanks a lot, Goldie," he said, wiping his hands on his jacket. "You've been very helpful."

He turned to me and we walked to the car together.

"See, Payne?" he grinned. "Sometimes you don't even need the gun."

I frowned as we entered the car. If it was the all the same to him, I'd keep my Beretta on me.

To be continued…