The Twelfth Card

Plaza as soon as the brass learned of the shooting incident. Sellitto sat on the curb, hair askew, belly over his belt, pink flesh showing between the buttons. His scuffed shoes pointed outward. Everything about him was rumpled at the moment.
    “What happened?” The large, balding African-American captain had taken possession of Sellitto’s revolver and was holding it at his side, unloaded, the cylinder open, following NYPD procedures after an officer has discharged a weapon.
    Sellitto looked into the tall man’s eyes and said, “I fumbled my piece.”
    The captain nodded slowly and turned to Amelia Sachs. “You’re okay?”
    She shrugged. “It was nothing. Slug hit nowhere near me.”
    Sellitto could see that the captain knew she was being cool about the incident, making light of it. Her protecting him made the big detective even more miserable.
    “You were in the line of fire, though,” the captain said.
    “It wasn’t any—”
    “You were in the line of fire?”
    “Yes, sir,” Sachs said.
    The 38-caliber slug had missed her by three feet. Sellitto knew it. She knew it.
    Nowhere near me . . .
    The captain looked over the warehouse. “This hadn’t happened, the perp would still’ve gotten away?”
    “Yep,” Bo Haumann said.
    “You sure it had nothing to do with his escape? It’s going to come up.”
    The ESU commander nodded. “It’s looking now like the unsub got onto the roof of the warehouse and headed north or south—probably south. The shot”—He nodded toward Sellitto’s revolver—“was after we’d secured the adjacent buildings.”
    Sellitto again thought, What’s happening to me?
    Tap, tap, tap . . .
    The captain asked, “Why’d you draw your weapon?”
    “I wasn’t expecting anybody to come through the basement door.”
    “Didn’t you hear any transmissions about the building being cleared?”
    A hesitation. “I missed that.” The last time Lon Sellitto had lied to brass had been to protect a rookie who’d failed to follow procedure when trying to save a kidnap victim, which he’d managed to do. That had been a good lie. This was a cover-your-own-ass lie, and it hurt like a broken bone to utter it.
    The captain looked around the scene. Several ESU cops milled about. None of them was looking at Sellitto. They seemed embarrassed for him. The brass finally said, “No injury, no serious property damage. I’ll do a report, but a shooting review board’s optional. I won’t recommend it.”
    The relief flooded through Sellitto. An SRB for an accidental discharge was a short step away from an Internal Affairs investigation as far as what it did to your reputation. Even if you were cleared, grimestuck to you for a long, long time. Sometimes forever.
    “Want some time off?” the captain asked.
    “No, sir,” Sellitto said firmly.
    The worst thing in the world for him—for any cop—was downtime after a thing like this. He’d brood, he’d eat himself drunk on junk food, he’d be in a shitty mood to everybody around him. And he’d get even more spooked than he was now. (He still recalled with shame how he’d jumped like a schoolgirl at the truck backfire earlier.)
    “I don’t know.” The captain had the power to order a mandatory leave of absence. He wanted to ask Sachs’s opinion but that would be out of line. She was a new, junior detective. Still, the captain’s hesitation in deciding was meant to give her the chance to pipe up. To say, maybe, Hey, Lon, yeah, it’d be a good idea. Or: It’s okay. We’ll manage without you.
    Instead she said nothing. Which they all knew was a vote in his favor. The captain asked, “I understand some wit got killed right in front of you today, right? That have anything to do with this?”
    Fuck yes, fuck no . . .
    “Couldn’t say.”
    Another long debate. But say what you will about brass, they don’t rise through the ranks in the NYPD without knowing all about life on the street and what it does to cops. “All right, I’ll keep you active. But go see a counselor.”
    His face burned. A shrink. But he said, “Sure. I’ll make an appointment right away.”
    “Good. And keep me in the loop on how it goes.”
    “Yes, sir. Thanks.”
    The captain returned his weapon and walked back to the CP with Bo Haumann. Sellitto and Sachsheaded for the Crime Scene Unit rapid response vehicle, which had just arrived.
    “Amelia . . . ”
    “Forget it, Lon. It happened. It’s over with. Friendly fire happens all the