Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(44)

Tony’s phone rings again. He pulls it out and silences it again.

“You can get it if you want, I won’t be offended.”

“Thanks,” he says. “It’s okay.”

After the carpaccio, I get up to go to the bathroom. When I come back, Tony is standing up. His face has changed.

“So, I have to go,” he says.

“Really?”

“This is obviously embarrassing.…”

“Are you okay?” I reach out and put my hand on his arm.

He lowers his voice. “Let’s not make a big deal.” He gestures toward the entrance. “Can we talk outside?”

Without a word, he gets both our coats, helps me on with mine, and opens the door for me to go outside.

“What’s going on?” I say again.

“It’s my mom,” he says. The color has left his cheeks entirely. “She’s … I have to go home.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll come with you.”

Five minutes later, we pull up to a two-story house. An ambulance and two police cars, one marked and one unmarked, are parked outside. A medic stands over a woman sitting in the back of the ambulance. He appears to be bandaging her arm. Another woman, younger, maybe the ambulance lady’s daughter, is standing in front of the open doors talking on a cell phone.

Tony skips up the steps and through the front door. I follow, slowly. Inside, two uniformed officers are pointing their guns at a wild-haired woman standing on a sofa wielding a hammer. She is wearing a pair of pink sweatpants and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. My appearance causes her to turn her head toward the door, her eyes sparkling with a combination of menace and elation. Everyone else in the room is tense—but she’s having a ball.

“She has to drop the hammer, that’s number one,” says one of the plainclothed cops.

“Mom! Drop the hammer!”

“I was hanging a picture,” she says defiantly.

“Drop the hammer, ma’am,” says the one of the uniformed cops, shifting his balance, his gun still trained on her. “Nobody has to get hurt here.”

“Drop it, Mom!” screams Tony, his voice cracking.

She drops it.

The two uniforms rush to her and place her in handcuffs. She sits on the sofa.

“Was anybody here?” Tony asks the cop in plainclothes, who seems to be the ranking officer. “Who called?”

The cop jerks his head toward the street. “Neighbors. She was banging and they came over. She went at them.”

“Are they pressing charges?”

“I don’t think so.” The cop looks exhausted. He is wearing a blazer and pants that don’t match. His tie is brown; he probably keeps it in his car. “But they could. She’s gonna need stitches.”

“I don’t even know what to say, man,” says Tony. “I’m sorry.”

Tony’s mom, who fifteen seconds ago resembled a character in a horror movie, is now sitting on the couch, looking totally bored. She sees me; I am a stranger in her home, but she does not ask me a question. She does not even really acknowledge me. I decide to step outside. Neighbors, some at their windows, some in coats on the sidewalk, are all gawking. I know that if the same thing were happening on my block, I’d be the first one at the window with my binoculars, disdaining and enjoying the dysfunction simultaneously. I catch the eye of one of a trio of women two doors down. One is on her phone, probably narrating the scene for some relative. She sees me and I make an aggressive face, like, mind your business, bitch. She reacts only slightly, then turns and faces the other way. Nothing like straddling the moral fence, Rebekah, I think.

The uniformed officers come outside first. One talks into the radio on his shoulder; the other unlocks the cruiser and gets in the driver’s seat. They start up the car after a minute and drive off. The medics shut the ambulance doors and idle in their cab. I go back to the front door and see that Tony and his mom have both disappeared from the living room. Brown tie is sitting on the sofa, while his partner talks on the phone.

“Come on in,” says brown tie. “Tony’ll be out in a minute.”

“I’m Rebekah,” I say, extending my hand.

“Darin,” he says. “All your dates end like this?”

“You’d be surprised,” I say, referring to nothing, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Me and Tony went to school together. Mrs. Caputo wasn’t always like this. Tony’s great with her, but eventually something’s gonna happen we can’t fudge on the write-up.”

“You’re a detective?”

“Just since Halloween,” he says. “Third grade.”

“Do you like it?”

He shrugs. Perhaps “like” was the wrong word. His partner snaps closed his phone with finality.

“We’re gonna write it up as an EDP,” the man says. He’s older than Darin, could be forty. Could be fifty. “I’ll double-check with the neighbors that they aren’t pressing charges again. But next time, she’s gonna have to go in. He’s on top of the meds?”

Darin nods. “I’ll make sure.”

The partner leaves, and Tony reappears, looking exhausted. There are sweat stains on his crisp white oxford. Darin gets up and Tony shakes his hand. “Thanks, man,” he says.