No Good to Cry Read Free Page A

curious product of the troubled war that continued to define Ralph’s dead-end life.
    â€œJimmy ain’t told me you was a gook.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, too.” I’d offered my hand. He refused to take it.
    I’d stared into his rough, leathery face. He constantly tapped a breast pocket where he kept a pack of cigarettes, as though any situation that bothered him called for a necessary light. He’d glanced out of the window and I expected him to hurry out, slip a cigarette out of the pack, and snap on the Bic lighter he’d been playing with since he sat down at the table.
    He avoided eye contact. “You’re one of them boys, you know, who…” He glanced at Jimmy. “Like white blood or something.”
    â€œ Bui doi ,” I’d helped him along. “One of the dust boys. My father was an American soldier…” My voice trailed off. “A story you’ve heard before.”
    Squinting at me, suddenly amused, he’d snickered, “I probably dropped a few squawking babies like you along the way. Half-breeds. Rest and relaxation from the Cong, as you’d say. There was one taxi girl, in fact, love-you-all-night whore who…”
    Jimmy shot out his arm, grabbed Ralph’s shoulder. His voice shook. “Ralph, I don’t think Rick needs to hear about your days in Nam.”
    Ralph narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, we come back home, goddamn heroes we think, and no one gives a shit about the war—or us. A forgotten war, dammit. Like we was doing something mean and rotten to them godless people. America turned its back on us. Who the hell remembers?”
    â€œWell, I guess that’s why I’m here in America,” I’d said quietly.
    He’d snarled, “And just why is that?”
    â€œTo help you remember.”

Chapter Two
    Gracie and I met Liz as she was signing in at Hartford Hospital. Catching my eye, she nodded toward Gracie, and I understood her worry. She gave me a peck on my cheek and then embraced Gracie, who started to sob.
    â€œIt’s all right, Gracie,” she whispered. “Jimmy’s fine. He’ll make it.”
    Gracie glanced at me. “Old people die in hospitals.”
    Liz squeezed her hand. “The cranky ones like Jimmy live forever.”
    That made Gracie smile.
    Liz had come directly from work. Dressed in a snug cranberry-colored suit, a simple white scarf draped around her neck, a white silk blouse, she looked the part: the serious criminal psychologist on staff at the Farmington Police Department. A gorgeous woman at forty with her gym-workout figure, she’d lost some of the alluring softness in her face, those large midnight black eyes too stark against her alabaster skin. Still, a damned beautiful woman. She caught me looking at her, something I often did whenever I started to sentimentalize the brief marriage we had, and the look she returned was a familiar if comical one: Behave yourself.
    But now, watching me, she leaned in, touched the sleeve of my jacket.
    â€œAre you doing all right, Rick? Yes?”
    The identical words she’d used years ago when the two of us lived in a Riverside Avenue walk-up in Manhattan and I’d return from my job as a beat cop in Chelsea. Weary, I’d slink into the apartment where I’d find her tucked into a corner of the old sofa, a textbook cradled to her chest, books strewn across the floor. Yellow-pad notes for her master’s thesis on Karen Horney scattered around her feet. “Are you doing all right? Yes?” Concern in her voice, a mixture of fear and wonder that she had a husband who carried a gun and sometimes shot at people. Worse, bad guys shot at the man she loved. I would lean in to kiss her.
    My response was always the same. “Compared to what?”
    Which always made her laugh. Made us laugh.
    Now, her lips near my neck, she whispered, “Okay?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI didn’t think