Cross

Comfortable, like it’s always been between the two of us. We were brown-bagging it with a couple of beers. Sampson had on Wayfarer sunglasses and an old Kangol hat I hadn’t seen on his big head in years.
    We passed old clapboard houses that have been here since we were kids and didn’t look all that different now, though a lot of DC has changed tremendously, for good and bad, and something in between.
    “I was worried about you up there in that hospital,” he said.
    “I was worried about myself. I was starting to get a Massachusetts accent. All those broad
a
’s. And I was becoming politically correct.”
    “Something I need to talk to you about. Been on my mind a lot.”
    “I’m listening. Nice night for a talk.”
    “Little hard to get into it, to get started. This happened maybe two, three months after Maria was killed,” Sampson continued. “You remember a neighborhood guy, Clyde Wills?”
    “I remember Wills very well. Drug runner with lofty aspirations. Until they got him killed and dumped in a trash bin behind a Popeyes Chicken, if I recall.”
    “You got it right. Wills was a snitch for Rakeem Powell when Rakeem was a detective in the 103.”
    “Uh-huh. I’m not surprised Wills played both sides of the street. Where is this going?”
    “That’s what I’m going to tell you, sugar. That’s what I’m trying to do. Clyde Wills found out some things about Maria—like who might have killed her,” Sampson went on.
    I didn’t say anything, but a chill ran down my back. I kept walking forward, legs a little unsteady.
    “It wasn’t Michael Sullivan?” I asked. “Just like he said.”
    “He had a partner those days,” Sampson said. “Tough guy from his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, name of James ‘Hats’ Galati. Galati was the one who shot Maria. Sullivan wasn’t there. He may have put Galati up to it. Or maybe Galati was gunning for you.”
    I didn’t say anything. To be honest, I couldn’t. Besides, I wanted to let Sampson finish what he had come here to do. He stared straight ahead as he walked and talked, never once looking at me.
    “Rakeem and I investigated. Took us a few weeks, Alex. We worked the case hard. Even went to Brooklyn. But we couldn’t get any hard proof against Galati. We knew he did it, though. He’d talked about the hit to friends in New York. Galati had been trained as a sniper in the army down at Fort Bragg.”
    “You met Anthony Mullino back then, didn’t you? That’s why he remembered you?”
    Sampson nodded. “So here’s the thing, here’s the thing I’ve been carrying around ever since. I have a lot of trouble just saying it now.
We put the mutt down, Alex.
Rakeem and I killed Jimmy Galati one night in Brooklyn. I could never tell you, ’til right now. I tried back then. I wanted to when we started looking for Sullivan again. But I couldn’t.”
    “Sullivan was a killer, a bad one,” I said. “He needed to be caught.”
    Sampson didn’t say any more than that, and neither did I. We walked for a while more; then he trailed away and headed home, I guess, down those same streets where we grew up together. He’d taken care of Maria’s killer for me. He’d done what he thought was right, but he knew that I couldn’t have lived with it. So he never told me about it, not even when we were chasing after Sullivan. I didn’t quite understand that last part, but you never get to understand everything. Maybe I’d ask John about it some other time.
    That night at home I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t think straight. Finally, I went in and bunked with Ali again. He was sleeping like an angel, not a care in the world.
    I lay there, and I thought about what Sampson had told me and how much I loved him, no matter what had happened. Then I thought about Maria and how much I’d loved her.
    You helped me so much,
I whispered to my memory of her.
You knocked the chip off my shoulder. Taught me how to believe in love, to know there is such a thing, no matter how hard it is to come by. So help me now, Maria . . . I need to be over you, sweet girl. You know what I mean. I need to be over you so I can start up my life again.
    Suddenly I heard a voice in the dark, and it startled me because I’d been somewhere else in my mind, far away from the present.
    “Daddy, you all right?”
    I hugged Ali lightly against my chest. “I’m all right now. Of course I am. Thanks for asking. I love you, buddy.”
    “I love you, Daddy. I’m your little man,” he