Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.
A/N: I can't believe I forgot to thank Silvara71 for her help again with the Italian in the last chapter – she turned my clunky translation into poetry. Grazie, bella!
And thanks as always to the reviewers for suggestions and complaints.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
Filling the Jar
Take a glass jar, so you can see what happens.
Fill it with pebbles the size of quarters.
Gray granite with white scars
Running through the centre:
Wishing stones.
Make sure to fill the jar –
Give it a good shake and fill it again.
A life of work is a full one.
Now add smaller stones, the size of a fingertip
Worn smooth and bluish gray,
Or black as lava baked in the centre of the earth
Shake the jar carefully, and add more.
Notice how the small stones slip between
The rounded edges of the pebbles.
Family and friends cushion life.
Is the jar full yet?
It looks full; shaking it leaves no more room
For pebbles or gravel.
It is as full as it can be.
Until the sand is poured in –
Grains of mineral, shards of rock –
Ground against itself and the land by the unceasing sea.
Soft gray, glints of mica gold, flakes of rock
From times gone past.
The weight, the world, the universe
Which fills the spaces too small to see,
Too small to recognize,
Until suddenly emptiness no longer exists
And the jar is full.
You fill the empty spaces in my life.
Chapter 33: Puncture Wounds
Hawkes sighed as he put the final file in the pile of "completed". It wasn't the cases that were getting him down; it was the paperwork. Not that he didn't think the paperwork was important, which is why he did it so carefully. It was just a drag: somehow more exhausting than dumpster-diving, which he had done twice that week.
He missed Lindsay.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes, pushing the thick glasses he wore through long shifts up to his forehead, and sitting back in his chair, rolled his shoulders to ease some of the strain. He had worked overtime again but at least when he came back into work in a few hours, he would be starting with a clean desk.
His eyes startled open when Adam paged him. With a sigh, Hawkes pushed himself wearily out of his chair, and made his way down to the lab.
"Hey, Adam, what have you got?"
"Okay, so you know the trumpet?"
Hawkes had to think back a bit – he'd shelved that investigation on Mac's recommendation.
"Yes."
"Well, it's not an ordinary trumpet. I was trying to look it up – see if we could get any clues to who had owned it? So guess what? That trumpet, man – it has history."
Hawkes raised his eyebrows. Adam was bubbling with excitement. Not unusual for Adam, Hawkes conceded, although always entertaining to watch. "What kind of history, Adam?" he asked patiently.
"Like crazy New York City history, man. Look," Adam pulled up a facsimile of a newspaper article on the computer screen. Beside a headline screaming 'Angel of Death's Trumpet?' there was a picture of the trumpet presently on the table.
"Correction," thought Hawkes, "A trumpet." Aloud, he asked, "How do you know this is the same trumpet?"
Adam triumphantly zoomed in on the grainy picture, then used the computer to enhance the picture and fill in the detail. There was a clear mark on the trumpet's bell, a crease which had split then seemed to have been repaired with a line of what looked like a darker metal than the soft gold the rest of trumpet was plated in.
"See?" Adam said, excitedly.
"Yes, I see."
"So look at the trumpet – it has a crease and a crack at the same place, and it has been filled with a tin and copper mixture…"
"Pewter. Right." Hawkes lifted the trumpet in gloved hands, examining it closely. "Okay, same trumpet. How does this help us?"
Adam rolled his eyes, "Well, read the article. This trumpet was played through the 1920s and 1930s by Gabriel Gordon. He was connected to the Mob."
"Naturally," said Hawkes under his breath, as he skimmed the article.
Adam looked at him a little reproachfully. He was still young enough, thought Hawkes, and new enough to New York City to find the Mob sort of thrilling. Give him a few more years, and he would see only the vicious waste of life that the Mafia and its competitors represented.
Adam continued in a hushed and awed voice, "It is said that when Gabriel Gordon played his high G at the Cotton Club, someone would die that same night."
"Gordon was an enforcer for Owney Madden, who was with the Dutch Schultz gang. So, he was either warning someone, or marking someone, or just adding to the terror, don't you think?" Hawkes had gone through his own period of fascination with the stories of the New York City Mafia families, and he rarely forgot a story. He looked at the trumpet again. "Hey, Adam? Did you see these scratches in the pewter?"
"Naw, haven't looked at it that closely yet," Adam said. "Where?"
Picking up a magnifying glass, Hawkes showed Adam the small scratches in the soft pewter.
"Okay – when you finish processing this, send me pictures. I have a hunch that this trumpet served a couple of purposes."
Adam looked at him quizzically, but Hawkes did not elaborate. "You going to tell me what you're thinking, Doc?" he tried, but wasn't surprised by the grin on Hawkes' face when he shook his head.
"Let's see where the evidence takes us, shall we? Mac said to put this case on the back burner, Adam. Don't tell me you've finished up all the other cases we had pending?"
Adam flushed, "Danny and Lindsay were here for about four hours. That got us a little caught up. I'm off, actually. Just interested in this."
Hawkes nodded his head thoughtfully, "She okay?"
Adam flushed even deeper. "I guess. Danny was watching out for her." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "They good together?"
Hawkes nodded again, carefully not looking at Adam. "It was really just a matter of time, Adam."
Adam turned away, and stared very hard at his computer screen. "Yeah, I know." Once he was sure he had his face under control, he turned back and grinned a little uncertainly at Hawkes, "Sure seems funny, though. Danny Messer? With one woman?"
"The right woman, maybe," Hawkes tried not to show his sympathy; Adam's crush on Lindsay had been obvious to someone who watched the world as carefully as Sheldon Hawkes, but he wouldn't step on Adam's dignity. No harm in making sure he realized what Hawkes had known a long time, though: certain people, certain couples, filled the world they inhabited, leaving no room for anyone else.
Adam sighed unhappily, then leaned forward to stare at the trumpet again as Hawkes clapped a hand on his shoulder and started to say something. Just then, his cell phone began to chime merrily and he cursed the sick sense of humour some dweeb in Tech support had – they were always finding the most inappropriate ringtones and re-programming the phones. Hawkes didn't even recognize this tune, which meant the children had been playing again.
"Hawkes." His voice betrayed him: tired and impatient to be home.
"Dr. Hawkes? I am very sorry to disturb you. This is Dr. Suq. Nasreen?" Her voice was cautious and very quiet.
Hawkes gave a mental groan, "Note to self – always answer the phone as if you want to talk to the person on the other end of the line." He waved to Adam a little apologetically and moved away, saying out loud, "Nasreen. It's nice to hear from you. I'm sorry – it's been a long day. Can I help you with something?"
She still sounded strained when she replied, "No. I mean yes – if you would. I know it's a lot to ask, Dr. Hawkes …"
"Sheldon, please."
Her voice steadied, "We've had some trouble here at the clinic. I know the police officers who came were just doing their job, but Miriam and Kathleen and I …"
Hawkes had already been moving fast, but he sped up as he heard the fear in her voice.
-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY
Stella Bonasera was no man's fuck buddy.
She sat in the café, drinking her third – fourth? – cup of coffee in twenty minutes, waiting for Don Flack Jr. to make an appearance.
She was waiting because she wanted to hear his lame-ass excuse for his behaviour over the last twenty-four hours, she assured herself. Not because her heart hurt at the thought of not seeing him, not hearing the needy edge in his voice, not seeing that predatory look in his eyes when he talked to her, watching her as if his sanity depended on her next move.
She didn't believe in friends-with-benefits – you always ended up losing both the benefits and the friendship. She didn't object to one-nights stands in theory; she just preferred as a rule, in the morning, to remember the name she'd been screaming the night before.
Unless, of course, he wasn't in her bed the morning after.
She flagged down the waitress and held out her cup mutely for another cup of coffee.
She was prepared to harden her heart when he finally showed up, to treat him coolly, to listen dispassionately before walking out on him. But when he finally showed up, his tie pulled loose, his hair rumpled, and his face exhausted, she reached quickly across the table and ran her hand over his soothingly.
"Just coffee, Doreen," he said in a tired voice to the waitress who had been schlepping coffee in the joint since the days his own father had been on the neighbourhood beat.
She handed him the cup she had poured as soon as he walked in through the door, and said firmly, "Eggs. Scrambled eggs with cheese and salsa on the side. And you'll eat every bite of it or I'll call your mama down here to back me up." She shot Stella a stern glance, "You see he eats it, Detective."
Stella nodded obediently, smiling a bit at the hectoring tone.
Don grabbed her hand and kissed it, "You are too good to me, Doreen. When are you going to marry me and let me take you away from all this?"
"Go on with you, you fool. I'll be back in a minute."
Don watched her go, the gleam brought into his eyes by the bantering flickering and dying when he looked back at Stella. He shrugged helplessly, "I'm sorry, Stel. I meant to take you out for a proper dinner … but there's been developments in the Garrett case and I'll have to get back."
Stella shrugged, ignoring the pain. Nicks and bruises were nothing new on her heart. "I heard. Robert Taglia was killed."
He nodded, rubbing his hands over his face. "Execution-style but with a cattle prod. Something new every day. Joe Jr. was picked up last night drunk and disorderly, packing a 9mm and threatening persons unknown. He lawyered up as soon as Angell tried to talk to him this morning," He sighed, "But there's worse. Fingerprints found on Garrett's cell phone came back to Antony Messer."
Stella could feel the air around her get cold, "Oh Don, no."
He reached out for her hand. "I haven't told him yet. I don't think Mac has either. Hawkes only got the hit after Danny had gone home."
"He went to the Island last night, to see his cousin, Nikki," Stella said quietly, twining her fingers in his. "Lindsay was in a panic. I told her I didn't think Gino would bother using Nikki to get to Danny. Tell me I wasn't wrong."
Don shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."
A plate was put down in front of him, covered with a mound of scrambled eggs, two pieces of bacon, and enough hash browns to feed the Irish Army. "Get that on the inside of you," Doreen ordered, brown eyes twinkling in her dark face. She turned her attention to Stella, "And you can't live on coffee, miss. What can I get you? We serve breakfast all day and night in this joint – never know when someone is just getting out of bed around here."
Stella flushed just a little, but smiled and said, "Just a bagel, please, Doreen. With cream cheese?"
Doreen shook her head disapprovingly, but went off to fill the order.
"Eat, Don." Stella busied herself with folding and re-folding her paper napkin. When the silence grew too much for her, she looked up, to see Don not eating, staring at her. "What? If you don't eat those eggs, they'll be all cold and rubbery and Doreen will have to kick your ass."
"She better get in line, then," Don said slowly, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth.
Stella said nothing, just raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
He reached out and grabbed her hand again, saying urgently under his breath, "Why are you talking to me? Why aren't you furious with me?"
"Who says I'm not?" Stella slid her hand from Don's to receive the small plate Doreen was handing her. "Thank you, Doreen. This looks delicious." She waited until the waitress had moved out of earshot before saying lightly, "I've been used as a pit stop before: quick tune-up and lube before you go on to the next thing."
She glanced up at his silence to see that he had gone perfectly white, eyes blank.
"It wasn't like that. It's not like that, Stella." His voice wheezed out as if she had struck him.
"No? That's good to hear. Felt like that." She kept her voice cool and a little hard, though no one would have seen the effort it took her.
"Oh, Christ," he whispered under his breath before leaping up and walking quickly out of the café.
She sat for a moment, stunned. Well, this was becoming a pattern, she thought, as she searched in her purse for some money and threw it on the table. Grabbing the trench coat he had left on the bench beside him, she followed him out the door. She mouthed a quick apology to Doreen, who was watching with arms akimbo and shaking her head in dismay, and flew out the door to catch up to him. No one walked out on a fight with Stella.
She looked both ways, but couldn't see him on the street. On a hunch she went to the left, and heard him before she saw him.
"Oh God, Don." She reached for him, wrapping his coat over his shoulders as he bent miserably over a dumpster, losing whatever he had managed to get into his stomach in the past few days. "Okay, it's okay. Look, I'm calling you a cab, okay? I'm sorry. You need to go home." She could have seen he was sick, she berated herself. She could have seen he needed sleep more than food. She should have insisted he go home.
Her self-flagellation ramped up when he turned to look at her: dead blue eyes in a pale grey face. When, unthinking, she pulled him into her arms, she could smell the harshness of the vomit overlaying his usual spicy scent, and she ran a hand through his hair comfortingly.
"Come on, Don, let's go home," she whispered, not sure where it was she wanted to go, but knowing it was with him.
He hugged her hard, but stood up and shook his head gently. He let his hands run down to hold hers and squeezed them a little, "I can't. I have to … do something before I go back in to work. Stella, would you …?" His breath hitched uncertainly as she looked at him. He cleared his throat and started again. "Would you … come and see my father with me?"
She looked at him in surprised puzzlement. "See your father? Why?"
He shrugged uncomfortably, "I want him to meet you."
"I've met your father, Don. Lots of times." Lieutenant Don Flack Sr. had performed many duties in his years on the force, and Stella had shaken the hand of the NYPD legend on many formal and informal occasions.
Don sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, "I want him to meet you, Stella. Not Detective Bonasera. You. Just Stella."
She opened her mouth to ask why, but bit her tongue at the defeated look on his face, and simply nodded instead.