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“I’ve got to move on.” That was what he’d said to Benson, and had already told Sonny Carisi when he’d composed his letter to McCoy. There hadn’t been much choice – he’d been a thorn in Jack McCoy’s side, no matter what McCoy was now proclaiming to anyone who would listen to his speechifications about Rafael Barba’s track record and genius. You couldn’t have a real relationship of trust with an employer who’d had you prosecuted for murder, after all, and with Stone coming into the office – he’d alluded to Benson to his once seeing himself as Gary Cooper, and Stone meant the entire subject of blood on the sand. He didn’t feel like dealing with being prosecuted for murdering Stone, no matter how good it would feel if he did it.
His cell phone had blown up with phone calls – from friends, from defense firms, from law school classmates, from political activists offering positions with lobbying firms, from Random House for a book deal… and some other political activists urging a run against a clearly aging McCoy. Yet others had mentioned state representative, or even US representative, as if Alex Munoz had never blackened Rafael Barba’s name. Barba wasn’t answering his phone, even for Benson or her squad, and had started ducking his mother; he listened to the messages, ran through them at night, decided who to call back. He’d kept his calls to Benson brief; he was vaguely embarrassed at the flood of emotion he’d unleashed towards her the last time they’d met, feeling she’d expected a following declaration that he couldn’t possibly give. He loved her more than almost anyone he’d ever known, but he suspected that her idea of that affection was very different from his.
There was a knock at his apartment door, certainly an unexpected one. It was seven-thirty. “Who’s there?” he called from his living room, knowing his voice carried more than well enough to be heard at the door.
“Pizza delivery.” He hadn’t ordered pizza, and that was Dominick Carisi, Jr’s voice. “You need pizza. Carmen told me ages ago you’re no good when you don’t eat.”
Barba was already at the door, opening it. “So now you’re my mother?”
“It’s no different from when I used to bring lunch to make sure you ate sometime during the day. Carmen and I worked that out.” Carisi deposited the pizza on Barba’s kitchen table, and a six-pack of Stella Artois with it. “Yeah. Pizza needs beer and I figured that might be classy enough for you to drink.”
Barba pulled two glasses from a cupboard. “For future reference, Heineken Dark. This? I can tolerate it tonight. I know I haven’t called back to anybody in three days, but I needed time. Speaking of Carmen, I haven’t even talked to her.”
Carisi carried the pizza box, some plates, and the beer to the living room. “Gave her two weeks notice. Told everyone she’d started working for you in Brooklyn twelve years ago and she was damned if she was working for the new guy who tried to put you in jail.” He waited for Barba to clear phone notes. “She told me to tell you that she needs you to find something fast so she can go work for you, or else she’s got to think about moving back to Brooklyn.”
Barba laughed. It had been the first time in weeks. “Tell Carmen I hope to have something for her shortly. After twelve years, I’m not quite sure how to function without her.”
Carisi laughed as Barba cleared the table and took the pizza box. “And after what, three years, four, you can’t do without my charming personality and clever repartee either, right?”
“Don’t push it,” Barba snarked genially as he sat and opened a beer. “Next thing I know, you’ll grow back that Seventies pornstache and I’ll do something we’ll both regret.” He regretted the comment immediately, relieved only that he didn’t say “or I’ll kill you.” He’d almost killed Alex Munoz’ career, almost been killed himself, and now he’d been on trial for taking the life of a lifeless child.
Carisi clearly sensed the awkwardness too, but decided to force a joke to clear it. “I hear there’s a law against forced shaving, counselor. Did you know that’s how Amish people assault each other? Seriously? They break in and shave a guy’s beard off.”
Barba raised an eyebrow as his hands extracted a wedge of sausage and pepperoni pizza from the box. “The Times actually reported a couple of those cases. I thought I was the only person who read that.”
Carisi took two pieces of pizza, depositing them on his plate. “The report was more colorful in the Daily News.”
“I’m sure.” Barba turned his attention back to his beer.
There was silence as they both ate. Carisi breached it first. “Tell me about it. I don’t mean that business in court. I don’t mean that argument I heard you had with the Lieu.”
“Nice Catholic boy wants the full treatment of pizza with a killer?” Barba’s words were bitter, more bitter than the hops in the beer. A book deal offered to tell the public how a career DA had chosen to take a life one afternoon, one that was clearly more for public titillation and the true crimes paperback section of any airport Hudson News than to examine the ethics of keeping the dead alive on monitors.
“No. Look, maybe I’m the only person who gets this, maybe not, but I know you’re not as lapsed as everyone thinks.” Carisi paused. “And… “ He set down his pizza, put down his beer. He needed his hands to talk at a moment like this. “I get that someone would do it. Hell, if it was my kid…” He paused, needing his hands to talk for a second while he regained speech. “If it was my kid, hang the Church, I’d want to be strong enough to do it. Look, I think she was crazy not to have the abortion. I don’t care what the Church says, giving birth to a dead baby doesn’t make sense for anyone. But it wasn’t your kid, counselor. Why did it have to be you?”
“Rafael.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not your squad’s DA any more. This is a social call, not a business call. And I am finally willing to admit with my own mouth that we’re friends, which people knew anyway, now that we’re not working together. I think you can please quit calling me ‘counselor.’ It makes me feel like a shrink, and I hate shrinks.”
“Call me Sonny, then.” Carisi watched Barba flinch. “All right, I know you hate it. I am finally gonna confess that I do answer to Nick – it’s what some of my friends called me at John Jay.”
“Nick,” Barba tried gingerly. “I can do that.”
“Good. Now, tell me. And… yeah, I do think I know you… you crossed yourself, didn’t you. When you pulled that plug.”
Barba shook his head. “The baby. I couldn’t help it.”
“You can take the boy out of the Church, but you can’t take the Church out of the boy. Now, talk. Again, I know you – you haven’t talked to anyone. You sure didn’t talk to the Lieu, and I know how close you two are. You need to talk to someone. Talk to me.”
The lawyer sighed and crossed his arms against himself, hands tucked well inside as if keeping himself warm. He rocked back and forth on the couch almost imperceptibly. “My dad. I hated the bastard. He hated me. No Cuban boy, no son of his, was going to be some punk little maricon.” Carisi glanced over at Barba. It was the first time Barba had really acknowledged himself to Carisi. Barba’s life wasn’t a huge secret, but it was never discussed, either. “My parents separated years before, but seven years ago, he went into a diabetic coma.”
Carisi butted in, unthinking. “Diabetic, and you don’t watch your eating? With your blood sugar crashes?” He breathed. “Sorry. Go on.”
“The doctors wanted the machines off. My mother wanted the machines off, but they were divorced… I had to make the call, and I couldn’t. Where there’s life, there’s hope, and all that crap. I hated him, but I couldn’t let him go. I suppose I thought that if I did, I was giving in to my anger at him, not that I would have been doing the right thing.” He paused to reach over to the table and grab his beer. “This time… the mother, she knew it was the right thing to do. And she froze. She couldn’t. I saw… it was beautiful, but it wasn’t a baby. It wasn’t. It couldn’t move, it couldn’t think, it couldn’t breathe… it was dead and on machines, and I saw my father. And… someone had to make that call, and she couldn’t. I said in court that I felt guilty for turning off the ventilator. The truth is, I felt like if I couldn’t give Dad his peace, the least I could do was do it for this baby. That was my guilt. Not that I turned off the ventilator, but that I hadn’t done it before. For my father.”
When had Carisi moved closer on the couch, slid an arm around him? It was comforting, whether it was meant to be that or something else.
“I get you, you know? I mean, I know everyone on the squad thinks I’m the greatest Catholic on earth, but that’s crap. You’re not a real Catholic unless you have something to think the Church is absolutely wrong about and you know better.”
“Tell me about it,” Barba chuckled weakly. “For my mother, it was getting divorced. For me, it was… well, obviously. Let me guess – your parents used birth control.”
“Of course.” Carisi gave a genuine laugh. ‘My dad gave me a huge lecture about condoms. I guess he figured I’d be the ladies’ man of the century.”
“How’d that work for you?” Barba, still in Carisi’s arm grasp, reached for another beer.
“I turned out to be more egalitarian than my parents expected. Fortunately I didn’t get Tim Hoover pregnant, but he did have an STD I didn’t get from him. Condoms do work.”
Barba turned to Carisi while uncapping his bottle. “And how’d that news work out? Or haven’t you told them?”
More laughter. “Hell, I have a gay uncle and a lesbian cousin. And Uncle Al’s always at Sunday dinners. My parents made him give me a talk, and then I got lectured by Dad on not getting AIDS. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I decided not to be a priest, but I think a lot of your relationship to the Church has to do with how your parents deal with it. Italians – the ones in Italy – have always kind of taken everything with a grain of salt. My family’s no different.”
The beer bottle went on the table after Barba filled his glass. “What a difference ten years makes with parents. Or maybe it’s the whole Hispanic machismo thing.” He sighed. “Maybe both.”
Carisi was silent, though he moved his arm from Barba to dislodge another slice of pizza from the box. After a few bites, he put the slice on his plate. “You know, I really wanted to ask you out, but first I was afraid you’d say no. Then I’d kind of thought you were interested, too, but I was afraid you’d say it would fuck up handling my cases.”
Barba sipped his beer, then replaced the glass on the table. “You were right on both counts. Interested, and afraid of getting called on a conflict. But a lot of DAs do date police. I’m not going to dignify that business in the Bronx DA’s office, but it’s a normally less irritating fact. There are a few married couples, too. Mostly, yes, it means you can’t work on the same cases.”
Carisi blushed slightly. It was a good look on his pale skin. “Is it too late to ask you out now?”
An upward quirk of the lips, not quite a full smile, but Barba’s genuine emotion showed. “Not for me. But it might be for you.”
“I don’t get you.”
Barba moved away from beer, away from pizza, away from Carisi, and looked him squarely in the eye. “Randy Dworkin and I have had a few talks. Remember I said I had something coming up for Carmen? I’m going in with Dworkin. I hate that his name will come first, but I’m going in as his partner. Doing defense work.’
If Carisi’s eyes had widened any further, his eyebrows would have been obscured by his hair. “You? Defense? I thought you’d do tax law first,” he added, shuddering.
“I don’t hate defense lawyers. I hate incompetent asshole defense lawyers. I had no choice but to hire Dworkin or Rita. They’re both good, they’re both more than competent. You know how hard I’ve worked as a prosecutor to make sure innocent people didn’t get railroaded. Let’s say that my own situation has given me a new light on the somewhat less innocent as well. Besides,“ Barba inserted slyly, “Dworkin needs me to class up his office.”
Carisi laughed, but clearly was trying to process the information he’d been handed. “A defense attorney. A detective dating a defense attorney. It’s gotta be a conflict of interest, no matter what.”
Barba chuckled. “I don’t plan on handling sex offenses. I was thinking of focusing on homicide defense and white collar crime. White collar criminals pay their very high attorneys’ fees promptly. It’ll be nice to be able to live on my income for once instead of my investments.”
His guest perked up. “Okay, Rafael, now you’ve hit the biggest mystery of the universe. Great apartment, great suits, top shelf booze. Skiing in Switzerland. On a DA’s salary. And you love to bring up your ‘poor Cuban kid from the Bronx who made it to Harvard’ schtick whenever you think it’ll fit. Where did all your money come from, anyway? You made a fortune investing in penny stocks in college, or what?”
“Nope.” Barba stretched. “I inherited it. One of my law school professors came from a wealthy Back Bay family. He and his wife had no children, and I was apparently his favorite student. When he developed pancreatic cancer shortly after I graduated, he left me a… not inconsiderable… bequest. I’m sorry he’s gone, but there’s no denying that it’s made my life much easier. Now I’ll have to put a chunk of it into getting decent office space that isn’t decorated in Randy’s NFL collectibles. I’m not sure he’ll be able to function, but I can’t work in his current office. It’s a rabbit hole.” He glanced back at Carisi. “There you have it. Hardworking poor Cuban kid from the Bronx turns out to be a moderately well-off man who’s switching to defense work. If you can overlook my other faults, this has to be the dealbreaker for you.”
Carisi’s face crinkled. “What can I say? I’m a cop. I like to live dangerously.”
“You might want to think it through first.”
“I’ve been thinking for a few years now. Maybe I ought to get past that thinking business.”
“Wouldn’t want to hurt your brain.”
“Fuck the dating bit,” Carisi snorted. “Let’s go directly to fighting about whether we want cats or a big dog.”
“Cats. Unless you want to be hiring dog walkers or sending it to doggie day care. Cats.”
“I like golden retrievers.”
“They slobber.”
“We really are having this fight already?”
“As long as we’ve beaten around the bush, we might as well make up for lost time,” Barba complained genially. “And I’m too old and too grouchy to put up with dating bullshit.”
“At this rate we’ll be married before we wind up in bed.”
“And that would make your mother proud of you,” Barba retorted. “But it’s not likely to happen like that. Because first you’re going to go home and think about being involved with a defense lawyer. And then you’re going to have a long talk about it with Liv. In fact, I’m due for a long talk with Liv.” He stared at Carisi. “These are separate long talks with Liv. I have to let her beat me up for leaving the DA’s office, I have to let her beat me up for jumping sides, and I have… to make some apologies.” He’d handled their last meeting far too awkwardly.
“Okay,” Carisi said. “I’ll go. Do I get to kiss you good night?”
“No. Showing up with pizza and telling me Carmen is worried is not a kissing situation. A kissing situation is when I put on my brown glen plaid suit with my maroon suspenders and you wear that gray one of yours, and we go out to Lidia Bastianich’s restaurant and I pay a fortune for you to tell me that the food isn’t really authentic and your mother is a better cook. We wind up getting half-lit on Chianti Classico, we split a cab, we stop here, I invite you up for coffee, and we wind up going to brunch in suits at someplace ridiculously expensive in midtown the next day because you don’t have a change of clothes. It’s an excellent idea, particularly because it’s mine. Tell me you’re off this weekend.”
“I thought we were skipping the dating.”
“I didn’t say it was a date, did I? Get out of here before I find an all night pet store and buy us cats.”
“All right. I’m off this weekend. And I’ll meet you here before dinner. With a change of clothes and two of Gina’s kittens.”
“I am not spending Saturday with you at the Ikea in Brooklyn buying cat beds and eating Swedish meatballs.”
“All right. The kittens can wait.”
“Carmen can’t. Tell her to meet me for coffee when she’s finished work tomorrow. I need to hook her up with Dworkin’s assistant.” And to ask her if she’d help him with the book, because there was no way he wasn’t taking the book deal with Random House, but Carisi could wait for his next shock. “Seven on Friday. The gray suit.” He checked his watch. There was time to make Dworkin regret his life and existence the next morning. And in a few weeks, there would be time to take Carisi on the water shuttle to the Red Hook Ikea. For cat beds and Swedish meatballs. After all, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. And he really didn't mind that.