Frankie could hardly catch his breath, he couldn’t stop laughing. “They never got married, huh, Williams? Your uncle and his goat?”
“That’s disgusting,” Williams said. He refused to speak to the other three for the rest of the day.
One of the guys found out later that Williams had a degree from some Bible college, but it was too late. He’d earned himself the nickname Officer Goatfucker. Nobody called him that anymore. He was a captain now, working out of the 115th Precinct. Now they called him Captain Goatfucker. Behind his back, of course.
Frankie smiled, thinking about the old days. Fifteen years had slipped by. He sometimes regretted that he didn’t have more to show for the time besides a few gray hairs and occasional heartburn. He’d been so naïve when he first came on the job. Thought everything was the way they showed it on TV. Boy, did he know better now.
Frankie pushed open the heavy entrance door to the store and made a beeline for the customer service desk. “I’d like to return this merchandise,” he told the clerk, and handed her a receipt. This one’s name tag said Shaquanna.
She gazed blankly at the clothing he pulled out of his shopping bag and lifted her electronic scanner. She passed it over the tags and pressed a key on her register. “A hundred and eighty-six dollars. Would you like a store credit?”
“Cash, please,” he said.
She ripped both layers of register tape off and held them together with her thumb and forefinger. Her nails were painted tomato-red and had rhinestones embedded in the polish. “Fill out your name and address and sign on the line here.” He scrawled on the paper and handed it back. The clerk pressed a button on the register with her long, fake fingernail. There was a noise like a lawnmower starting, then everything went dark.
Silence enveloped the store for a long moment, then shouts erupted. Frankie’s first thought was another terrorist attack. He’d spent 9/11 pulling people out of the World Trade Center. A part of him had been on edge ever since, always halfway expecting a repeat performance. His heart raced into fourth gear. He whipped out his phone, praying that the cell towers were still relaying calls.
“Seven-three Precinct,” a voice snarled. Frankie never thought he’d be so glad to hear PAA Malloy’s nasal twang.
“Hernandez here. What’s going on?”
“I’m busy. Whadaya mean, what’s going on? With what?”
Lovable old Malloy, the best police administrative aide in the department. Frankie gritted his teeth. “With the lights. The lights are out. Is it citywide? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about no lights out. We got plentya light here. Whyn’t ya come in and use the lights here? Maybe you could see to make out the reports right once in a while. Say, is that it? I gotta get back. Somebody has to do some work around here.”
“Yeah,” Frankie said, “that’s it.” He pressed the End Call button.
His heart downshifted to third gear. The chaos that had threatened to erupt calmed to a dull murmur. Late afternoon light streamed in through the front windows, diluted by the grime. Drawn like moths to a flame, shoppers swarmed in the sunlight, their intended purchases clutched uncertainly to their chests. Store security was already in action. Uniformed guards gathered with the store managers near the exits to make sure no one took advantage of the power outage to sneak merchandise past the electronic monitoring pedestals.
Electric signs on businesses across Queens Boulevard were illuminated, so maybe it was just the store’s system that had given up the ghost. That’s why the PAA at Frankie’s Brooklyn precinct didn’t know anything about it. He smiled grimly, gently chiding himself for jumping the gun and heading right to thoughts of disaster. He turned back to the cashier. “Uh, what about my refund?”
She looked at the cash register without focusing. “It won’t open without electricity,” she said.
“I understand that,” he said slowly, patiently. “How can I get my money?”
“We’ll mail it to you, I guess.” She consulted the tape where he’d identified himself as Colonel Parker, with an address at 12 Finger Lickin Lane in Fried Chicken, Kentucky. “You’re from Kentucky?” She squinted uncertainly. “They got mail there, I guess. We’ll send it to you.”
A knot formed in Frankie’s stomach. “I need it now,” he said.
She shrugged. “I can’t give it to you. Hey, I got kids. I better pick them up from day care.” She shuffled off, leaving Frankie standing at the customer service counter by himself in the dark.
Fuck! Who would have thought giving a wrong name and address would come back to bite him in the ass? No cop in his right mind handed over that information to strangers. Now he was out the money and the merchandise. He glanced behind the counter, but efficient old Shaquanna had hustled his returns to the back, so he couldn’t even take them with him.
The crowd thinned rapidly as people poured outside. Maybe he could find the manager. And then what? The guy would grab the money out of petty cash and hand it over to Colonel Parker? Shit. Frankie cursed himself silently. He’d just fucked himself out of almost two hundred dollars.
He got back into his family-sized gas-guzzler and took off to finish the rest of the errands on his wife’s list. Her family came from the Mexican state of Puebla. Frankie’s family, which hailed from the West Coast state of Jalísco, secretly looked down their regal noses on Puebla, which they considered to be the asshole of Mexico. (When you looked at Puebla on the map, it really did look like the end of the long intestine, which made Oaxaca and Chiapas and a few other states the shit end of the country, as far as Frankie’s parents were concerned.) Frankie himself didn’t really have an opinion, having never spent more than a few school vacations in any part of Mexico. All he knew about the people from Puebla was that the food they cooked in the local Woodside restaurants wasn’t as good as his mother’s.
He had to admit that his wife came from a long line of savvy politicians. In Mexico, that meant that they stole with both hands and lied out of both sides of their mouths. Some of the family had emigrated to the States, where they continued the family tradition by becoming involved in New Jersey politics.
María was a perfect blend of North and South. She ran their little tribe with an iron fist, the way the matriarchs in her lineage always had. And she was clever, much like the rest of her family members. She had a number of friends, but the relationships were always transactional, rather than emotional. María had no interest in socializing with anyone who didn’t trade in the currency of favors. If she couldn’t get something on somebody, she wasn’t interested in pursuing the friendship.
Of course, she had plenty to hold over Frankie’s head. She was also bewitching. She would dazzle you with her smile and enchant you with her personality. Once in a while, Frankie caught glimpses beneath María’s charming veneer to a heart of stone. Other times, he thought he must be imagining things and that she was the best thing to ever happen to him. Occasionally, he thought that if it weren’t for María, he could have had a much different — probably better — kind of life.
He followed the directions on his list, the chores taking him out to Nassau County, on Long Island but close to the Queens border. He listened intently to the radio, changing stations to catch any news about the power situation. The oppressive heatwave that was plaguing the New York Metropolitan Area was taking its toll. A blackout was focused mostly in western Queens, caused by excessive demands on the power grid. Too many people in illegal apartments running extra air conditioners. Astoria, Woodside, and Sunnyside bore the brunt. But, the announcer said, residents in that area shouldn’t feel too badly — people in other areas of the city were also suffering.