Takes One to Know One by Susan Isaacs

Author:Susan Isaacs [Isaacs, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802147561
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2019-10-03T16:00:00+00:00

16

My mom liked pretty things, but she possessed the lifelong New Yorker’s indifference to cars. To her, transportation was subway, bus, or taxi. My dad, then, was free from any demands for good taste and bought a Toyota in a shade of gray so lifeless it seemed to be not an actual automobile, but the ghost of one.

Just as there were good cops and bad cops, there were neat cops and slobs. He was, of course, a good cop, but on the fastidious front he was both. At home he’d be splotched with mustard or dusted with cookie crumbles, but his desk at the precinct had been orderly. With cars he was the sort who’d clean the cup holders with one of the wet wipes he kept in the center console. He pulled into my driveway a little before ten the following morning and used a garden hose to clean off his headlights. Then we headed east, our conversation interrupted occasionally by Google Maps directions. For both of us, Suffolk County, twenty miles and change from the border of Queens, was terra incognita.

“I gotta admit,” my dad was saying, “that when you started with the Pete thing, my first thought was you were just looking for a hook to hang your hat on. Your cop hat. Yeah, yeah, I know, special agent hat, but a cop’s kid is a cop, whether or not she wears blue.” Google got us off the Southern State Parkway and onto a wide road that was home to stores like tire dealerships and hardware wholesalers that distinguished themselves by the relative hideousness of their inflating-deflating balloon people. “Did I ever tell you the story about Rocky Morgenstern?”

Thirty, forty times. “I think so,” I said. Even through the khaki of my pants, the car’s seat felt on the verge of itchy, like sweaty wool, and kept me from the comfortable small slides passengers do to keep from getting stiff. “Wasn’t he the guy who got bored being retired and started—”

“Right. Retired from squad detective in the Sixtieth. Coney Island precinct. Didn’t know what to do with himself so he started tailing people out walking the dogs. No pun intended.” He sighed: “Tail, dogs. Get it?”

“Right, got it.” I smiled and he seemed to pick it up with his peripheral vision, because he seemed encouraged, telling me yet again the saga of Rocky Morgenstern and what he discovered. What had he discovered? Close to nothing—shoplifting, a little geriatric adultery—though he did wind up marrying a woman originally from Minsk who had two Chihuahuas.

“So I thought maybe you were pulling a Rocky, focusing in on this Pete person because maybe, you know, the literary business wasn’t exactly gripping. But you know, I did read that mystery you got published about the cop in Cairo and thought it was really good.”

I nodded forcefully so he could see I was acknowledging his opinion about the book. It was surprisingly reassuring to hear my dad validate my suspicions about Pete. Auto

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