Janek protested. "You're so good at it, Netti. Just because-"
She shushed him. "It's not because of that. Truth is, I hated representing slime. I thought it was a game. Now I see it wasn't.
I'm going to specialize in a different kind of law now: women's issues-domestic relations, spouse battery, workplace harassment-all stuff that turns me on. It's going to be great. I can get righteous as hell and break balls right and left."
"Yeah, I think you'll be very good," Janek agreed.
"I've decided to dump my Chinese accent, too," she said. "It doesn't amuse me anymore."
It took him a week to finish his report on Mendoza. As he wrote it he thought often of mirrors: mirrors of illusion, mirrors of deception, mirrors which, purporting to reflect the truth, had concealed it for nine long years.
At the end of his report he wrote:
All of us who, at one time or another, looked into Mendoza saw only what we wanted to see. For some of us that was a corrupt Department, for others a straight or ward if bizarre homicide case, for still others a puzzle of such complexity that it defied understanding, and, as we constantly reminded each other, made us crazy, too.
The truth is that Mendoza was a kind of mirror into which anyone who peered saw only himself and his belief. For nine years it reflected our diversity and humbled us because we could not comprehend it. It is time now for us to retire the file. The mirror is broken. Mendoza is finally closed One night a week later, when he came home and was unlocking his inner lobby door, he heard his name.
He turned. Kit was standing behind him, wearing a raincoat over her NYPD sweats. She appeared even smaller than usual. Her normally sharp eyes looked tired and her small Greek features were clenched into an expression of loneliness and fear.
"I've been waiting out in my car, Frank. Still work late, don't you?"
He wanted to look away, but he didn't. "Something I can help you with?"
"I read your report. Congratulations. You tied it all up. There isn't a dangle left." She paused, bit her lip. "Tomorrow I'm going to resign.
That's what the commissioner wants. I'm going to do it before he asks."
"Then?"
"Oh, there're lots of opportunities. I've had offers through the years.
Heading up corporate security departments, that kind of thing.
Chances to make some real money. "
"I wish you luck, Kit. I really do."
"That's not what I want from you," she said.
"I know. But I can't give you what you want."
"Yeah, I figured." She looked crushed. "You're right, of course. I'd feel the same. There're some things in this world you just can't forgive." She wiped her eyes, brightened, tried to smile. Then she backed off, waved. "Take care, Frank."
She studied him a moment, then turned and left.
Late in October he spent a weekend with Aaron at a fishing camp Aaron owned on a creek in Ulster County. They barely spoke, just fished.
When they needed to communicate they'd gesture or grunt.
Janek managed to catch a decent-sized trout. It tasted good. But not good enough, he thought.
Just before Thanksgiving he went into Timmy Sheehan's favorite bar, O'Malley's. Timmy wasn't there; he'd moved to Arizona and hadn't called to say good-bye.
Janek started drinking a little after six. By eleven o'clock he was roaring drunk. Just before midnight a big man, about thirty, with Irish features, who'd been sitting four stools down from him at the bar, told him to shut the fuck up.
Janek studied the man in the bar mirror, then he nodded, got off his stool, pretended he was going to leave, turned and shoved the big Irishman to the floor. The fight lasted all of two minutes. Afterward he and the Irishman embraced, slobbered over each other, bought each other beers. When Janek left he had a sore chin, two black eyes and a huge amount of self-disgust. When he got home he vomited into the kitchen sink. Then he called Sue, "If I'm going to eat it, tonight's the night," he said.
She came right over, bawled him out, helped him undress and got him into bed. At the door she told him she respected him as much as ever.
"It's just nice to find out you're human," Sue said.
It was an exceptionally cold winter. Deforest was named to replace Kit.
After that, at Janek's request, Special Squad was transferred back to the Detective Division.
The squad worked several cases, nothing interesting, nothing that taxed Janek's mind. One day Luis Ortiz called from Miami. He and his family had commandeered a small plane, fled Cuba, were seeking asylum in the States.
Janek flew south to meet them. He ended up staying a week. There was a huge welcoming party thrown by Luis's Florida-based relatives. Janek attended but drank only club soda, no rum, not even beer.
Luis, he thought, looked as alert as ever. He told Janek he wanted to find work as a cop. Janek neither encouraged nor discouraged him. When Luis asked him why he was silent, Janek shrugged.
"It's something I can't explain," he said.
In March, Sue won the Department martial-arts competition in her weight class, 108 to 115 pounds. Special Squad attended and cheered her on.
Afterward Janek took everyone out to a celebration dinner at Peloponnesus.
That spring there would be rainy afternoons when the rain was soft, the sky iron-gray, and the droplets clung, large and crystalline, to every leaf and blade of grass. On those days Janek would sit in his office watching the water slide lazily down the panes. Then his thoughts would turn to Gelsey, seeking out her demons, wandering alone amid her father's mirrors-and then his eyes would fill with droplets, too.
We gave each other so much. If only we could have given more.
One night, he had a dream in which he walked alone" barefoot, through the deserted city-a city of rubble, a city of broken glass.
When he woke up he asked himself. Is that wreckage all that's left?
Late in April, Janek sought an interview with Joe Deforest to discuss his future in the Department. When he entered he peered around Kit's old office, then sat in the chair in front of the new chief's desk.
He told Deforest he'd been thinking about resigning, giving up the work, but he didn't see himself as a baitshop-and-charter type. When Deforest asked him how he did see himself, Janek said he wanted to go back into the ranks.
Deforest studied him curiously. "What do you mean?"
"I mean put on a uniform and walk a beat."
"You can't do that! You're a detective-lieutenant, for Christ's sake!"
"I want to give up the shield and the lieutenancy. I want to be an ordinary cop."
"I never heard of such a thing! You must be out of your fuckin' mind!"
"That's what I want."
"How old are you, Frank? Forty-four? Too old to walk a beat."
"There're cops ten years older doing it."
"Yeah, the walking dead. Give yourself a break. Take a sabbatical.
Apply to a university, get a master's or a law degree. We don't waste resources here. You could position yourself for a high command."
Janek shook his head. "I've served this division well. It's time to give me something back." "Yeah, well, I'll look into it," Deforest said. He quickly ushered Janek out.
On the first of July, Janek, dressed in a blue uniform bearing a silver shield, formed up with the ranks in the basement of the Ninth Precinct house. He was assigned a twenty-four-year-old partner, handed the keys to a car, then sent out on his first street patrol in twenty years.