Part Twenty-Five
"Jimmy……." her voice was a breath in his ear, her arm a nudge against his back, summoning him from a deep sleep. "Come on, Jimmy…." she whispered again, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. "Jimmy……."
"Mmm…..." He shrugged her hand away.
"Hey, sleepy head, it's five thirty-five; time to get up."
"I'm awake," he mumbled drowsily.
"Then why didn't you turn the alarm off, sweetie?"
"It didn't ring," he answered, certain he would have reacted to its obtrusive sound, just as he did every morning.
"That clock rang until it shut itself off. What's the matter with you this morning?"
"I'm fine. I guess I just didn't hear it."
"That's not like you," she said, her hand gently stroking the back of his head.
Annoyance crept into his tone. "Yeah, well it was a long night……" He shuddered inwardly at the double connotation of that statement.
"It must have been. So, how did it go?" Her fingers tangled in a patch of matted hair behind his left ear, tugging at his tender scalp. He flinched, drawing in a sharp breath.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," she apologized, pulling her hand back. "Jimmy, what's in your hair? It's like hardened glue."
"No, it's not glue." He knew there was absolutely no point in delaying the inevitable any longer. Rolling cautiously onto his back, he stifled a groan as a sharp pain knifed through his side. "It's blood."
"Blood? Your blood?" She bolted upright and reached for the lamp on the bedside table, it's abrupt light piercing the pitch dark of the room and sending shockwaves through his head.
"Christie!" Holding a hand in front of his face, he shielded his one good eye from the unwelcome intrusion. "Turn it off... please."
He heard her breath catch and she muffled a sob. "Oh, my God, Jimmy! What happened? Who did this to you?"
"That's a long story …" he said with a faint shake of his head, "and I'm just not sure I'm ready to talk about it right now."
"Come on," she pleaded. "You can shut me out of a lot of things, but you have to let me in on this. I've got time…."
"Well, I don't," he responded emphatically. "I have to go to work." Throwing the comforter back, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and immediately doubled over, hands pressed to his midsection.
"Jimmy," she crawled across the bed, each bounce of her knees on the mattress a jolt to his side, "you're not going anywhere except to the Doctor."
"I'm fine, baby, really," he replied, hoping she might find a measure of truth in his voice.
"It's obvious you're not or you wouldn't be in pain like that. Let me see, please." He straightened up and reluctantly allowed her to lift his shirt, exposing the ugly bruise coloring his torso. "Oh, that doesn't look good. I think you might have broken a rib."
Leaning closer, she turned his chin toward her, exploring his wounded face, her fingers lightly examining the myriad of abrasions and bruises scarring his cheek and jaw, settling finally on a deep gash slicing across his left eye brow.
"What does the other guy look like?" she asked with a forced smile.
"Last time I saw him, he was cuffed in the back of a cruiser. He didn't look any worse for the wear. Hey," he forced a smile of his own, "don't worry. I'm fine, okay?"
"Honestly, I don't know how you can say that," she said, unable to check her growing frustration. "Do you have any idea what you look like right now? Have you seen yourself in the mirror?"
"No….but I don't need to to know how bad it is," he said quietly, recollections of the hours before still uncomfortably fresh. "I was there." He stood cautiously, waited for the ache to subside and willed those thoughts from his mind. "Now, if you will excuse me," he shuffled his way to the bathroom door, "I have to get ready."
"Sweet Mother Mary!" Danny glanced up from his desk, an incomplete report in front of him. "Not like you don't already know this, but can I just say that you look like shit? You sure you should be here?"
"Of course I should be here, Bellamy," Jim barked back sharply. "Where else would I be?" He laid his coat across the back of his chair and eased himself slowly into it.
"Maybe the hospital? I tried to tell you last night to let them take you to get checked out. But no, you didn't want anything to do with that. Has anyone ever told you you're a stubborn ass, Dunbar?"
A sarcastic smirk turned the corner of Jim's mouth. "You think I reserved a place for you at the head of that line?" He shook his head, "You're as bad as Christie."
"Well, Jesus, Jim," he said, staring at his partner's almost unrecognizable features, "did it ever occur to you she might have a point?"
"Yeah, actually, Danny, it did," he admitted, with a restrained grimace, "but I wasn't about to give her that satisfaction. I think I might have a couple of cracked ribs."
"So, like I said, what the hell are you doing here?"
"That's a good question, Bellamy." Lieutenant Brian Carlson strolled into the squad room and planted himself on the corner of Danny's desk, his gaze fixed on his wounded detective. "What are you doing here, Jim? If what I just overheard is true, I suggest you sign yourself out of here now and go get it checked out."
"Nah, I'm good, Boss," Jim postured. "It's nothing."
"The hell it isn't, Dunbar! Look at you! You're lucky you've caught me on a day when my tender side is showing because you were this close," a finger and thumb held a hairs breath from each other emphasized just how close, "to getting your ass hauled into my office so I could level the ass kicking I have no doubt you deserve. Push me any further this morning with that invincible attitude of yours and I just might be inclined to give it to you anyway."
"Yes, sir," Jim replied meekly.
"I'd say, though, that you already have some pretty strong reminders of what could have happened last night," he said, the authoritative tone softening slightly. "You don't need to hear anymore from me." He strode across the floor and slipped the key into his locked office door. "Oh, and we're not done here, Jim. At some point, we're going to have to sit down and talk about these risks you seem so intent on taking."
"Yes sir."
"But maybe this will ease a little of the sting for you. Basillio sang. He confessed to all of it, including Alex D'Ambrosia's murder. He's going down for a long time. As much as it pains me to say it, good job…Now, get the hell out of here, Dunbar," he snapped, "or you'll be going in the back of a squad car!"
"Christ, those winter boots of Basillo's packed a mighty painful wallop," Jim thought, shifting his weight again, seeking some solace from the ache radiating through his rib cage. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed her number.
"Hey, baby," he said wearily, closing his eyes and leaning back in the seat. "I'm done...I sound tired? Yeah, I guess I am……nah, a couple of cracked ribs and a few stitches in my left eyebrow…." He tuned her out while she vented her obvious displeasure at the stubbornness of a man, bringing the phone back to his ear as her voice steadied and her tone calmed. "Hey, you got anything on the calendar this afternoon? Do you think maybe you can get out of there...No, nothing really; you know, I just thought it would be nice to have some time alone…"
An hour later, she was there, sliding in beside him, leaning over to give him a tender kiss on the cheek, her fingers lightly brushing the butterfly bandage covering the freshly stitched wound above his left eye. "You sure you're okay, Jimmy?"
"Yeah, let's get out of here," he signaled and wheeled the unmarked SUV out into the fray of mid-afternoon Madison Avenue. Weaving in and out of the slow moving city traffic, he seemed miles away, unaware of and unaffected by the bustle around him. Making his way up onto the bridge and over the river, he exited where he had traveled just a few short hours before.
Christie sighed deeply, penetraing the uneasy silence that seemed to hang between them. "So, where exactly are we going?" she asked as he signaled and turned into a quiet cobbled street. It was all unfamiliar to her.
"Right here," he said finally, pulling over and killing the engine. "Come on."
Christie stared in disbelief at the disarray of tangled weeds, empty booze bottles, broken glass, rusted shells of long abandoned machinery, all of it scattered across the expanse of vacant lot before her. Wrapping her coat a little tighter against the biting winter wind, she followed him. "Hey, Jimmy," she called, raising her voice above the rumble of a subway passing overhead, "What exactly is this? What are we doing here?"
"This is where we were going," he said, his gaze fixated on the towering edifices of the World Trade Center, the sterile, angled exteriors shimmering in the late-afternoon sun. Even the wretched, dark water of the East River seemed somehow warmer under the influence of its fading light.
She shot him a puzzled glance. "And just what is this?"
"I don't know really," he said. "I was thinking maybe we were home?"
"Home?" she repeated. "Where? Jimmy, are you out of your mind?"
"No, not that," he grinned as she surveyed the trash filled lot. Taking her arm, he guided her round so she was finally facing what it was he brought her to see. "That."
The old red brick warehouse building stood proudly at the corner, 7 stories of sandblasted brick, shadowed under the expanse of the Manhattan Bridge, its gleaming windows affording a magnificent view of what was no doubt still two bottles short of an eyesore. Jim was certain it wouldn't take much, just a little imagination and vision on Christie's part. If she could, if she had the ability to overlook that lot, to the potential of what it someday might be, she would see it too; just as he had. He had known it, felt it, the first time he had laid eyes on it from across the water. How ironic, he thought, that the death of a piece to my past would bring me so close to home.
"Well?" he asked. "What do you think?"
"I think it's beautiful, definitely has character," she answered, " and there's no doubt that the view from those windows must be incredible. But can we do this? Are you being serious?"
"Yeah, I think I am," he responded with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "I just thought it would be nice to start off on a fresh foot, you know, in a place of our own, not yours or mine, ours."
"Jimmy," her voice was quiet, her eyes fixed on his, "I would love to start our marriage off on a fresh foot...but to do that, it's going to take more than a new house. We really need to talk."
He bowed his head and pulled his lower lip between his teeth. "I know what you're going to ask, Christie and I'm just not sure..."
"Please, Jimmy, I need to know. Where were you last night? What happened?"
"Christie, if you are going to be a cop's wife, then you have to know that there are things I won't be able to talk about, things I can't share, not even with you."
"Yes," she answered with obvious irritation, "I do understand that, believe me. I also think I've learned by being around you for the last year, when I can and can't ask questions. And I'm not asking you to break this one down for me, Jimmy. I'm simply asking you to drop the bravado and tell me what happened. Who beat you?"
He drew in a deep sigh and winced, at once mindful of the effects of expanded lungs on his tender ribs. "It was all in her letter," he said, quietly. "Everything we needed, names, dates, addresses...she had it all, and she gave it to me. Christie, she knew they were going to kill her..." he stopped to breathe. "Shit, all I kept thinking is that she had to be so scared….. anyway, me and Danny went to check it out, things moved a little fast, and I don't know….maybe I was too close to it….I just wanted to get that son of a bitch so bad for her murder... maybe I didn't play it right."
"Who? Is it the same guy who did this to you?"
"Yeah, a dirty cop," he spat vehemently. "But he's going down….for gun running, for assault and battery on a cop and for murdering Alex."
"So you got him? I'm glad, really I am, for Alex and for you." She moved closer, wrapped her arm around him, touched his battered face. "But Jimmy, promise me you won't put yourself in danger like that again? When I saw what you looked like this morning, all I could think was how close I might have come to……"
"No more chances," he said, pulling her to him and wrapping a protective arm around her.
She gazed up at him. "I love you, I don't necessarily love what you do. Truthfully, it scares me. I don't want to be one of those wives who sits around waiting for that phone call."
"Yeah, but it's my job, Christie, it's what I do, it's who I am. You know that; you bought the package deal."
"I did, and I'm not asking you to change who you are...this is something I have to come to terms with...on my own. I'm just asking you to be careful, okay? I want you around, Jimmy Dunbar."
"I'll try, that's all I can promikse," he said, pulling her close. "So, are we okay?"
"Yeah," she replied without pause, "we're good, Jimmy."
"So now what?"
"So now," she said, looking over his shoulder at the majestic old building, firm on its foundation, somehow beginning to understand the importance of it all, she took his hand in hers. "Let's go home."