Lieutenant Anthony Nicosia didn’t look like a cop. He didn’t feel like one either. His baggy green shorts, black Reeboks, white socks and plaid windbreaker did little to change anyone’s first impression. Along with his thinning hair, sallow complexion and dumpy physique, he looked like a middle-aged. couch potato, more interested in soap operas than crime. His muscles ached from months of disuse and he vowed to visit the Y soon as Mardi Gras ended. Now, sore muscles or not, the world’s biggest block party was swinging and he was on duty.
The Muses parade barely begun, crowds of observers jammed Canal Street, already agitated into a state of mass hysteria. Consecutive days of policing parties, parades and revelry had left Tony Nicosia’s nerves frayed, his temper short. His extra ten pounds of body weight resulting from his recently failed diet pounded away at his legs, sore knees and tired feet. His shoulder holster chafed his chest raw and he felt like screaming. No one would have noticed. The sea of frantic people surrounding him raised the chaos level to an ear-splitting roar when Nicosia’s younger, red-headed partner, Sergeant Tommy Blackburn, tapped his shoulder.
"You look like hell, Tony."
"Yeah, and Fat Tuesday still a week away!"
"Not to mention we missed lunch."
Nicosia hadn’t forgotten. Piquant aroma of boiled crawfish from a nearby tailgate party wafted toward them in an enticing and unattainable cloud of tasty temptation. Blackburn looked more like a defensive end then his older partner’s middle-aged beer drinker image conveyed. He and Nicosia, along with fifty other cops and state troopers, mingled with the Mardi Gras crowds, trying to quell the growing spate of violence and vandalism. The plan worked but every over-stressed man on the force felt ready to drop from exhaustion.
Nicosia and Blackburn had little time for conversation as the parade’s lead float rumbled off St. Charles Avenue and headed toward the Mississippi River, down Canal Street. The raucous crowd grew more animated and nosier as masked Musers rained beads, baubles and souvenir doubloons from the gaudily decorated floats. Costumes mimicked float colors, each Muser dressed in the Krewe’s theme for the year. Burgundy tunics draped black tights on the lead float and grotesque masks made it impossible to determine the sex or race of the souvenir tossers. Canal Street revelers didn’t care, parting in human waves as the lead float approached.
Gorgeous southern college girls, middle-aged tourists and a multitude of locals that had seen it all before, comprised the crowd. They all had something in common — loss of inhibitions and lack of common sense. One female, not much older than Nicosia’s youngest, bared her breasts and hugged his neck, caking crimson lipstick on his cheek as she wobbled away down the street. Nicosia wondered if she would make it home okay and why at least a few parade watchers weren’t crushed every year beneath the wheels of the floats. He had little time to ponder the question.
An explosion of sound erupted and several bullets passed over his head, riveting his attention to more pressing matters. An unknown shooter had just unloaded the contents of a semi-automatic pistol into the crowd. A local gang-banger, Nicosia quickly decided. Someone nearby had incurred his wrath and she lay on the ground, hugging her bullet-nicked arm. Mostly unhurt, her boyfriend jumped to her immediate rescue. The bullets, as if by miracle, struck no one else in the crowd.
It wasn’t Lieutenant Tony Nicosia’s first dance. He’d been shot at before. Whirling around, he dropped to his knee and drew his revolver. Tommy Blackburn, ten years younger and several steps faster, had already reacted, racing after the shooter, trying to exit the scene. The crowd, mostly unaware that someone had unloaded an automatic weapon in their midst, resisted the burly sergeant as he shouldered his way after the fleeing perp. Seeing the unfolding fray, Nicosia rose to his feet only to have his leg collapse beneath his weight. Grabbing his left knee, he squeezed as searing pain surged through his extremity. The crowd didn’t notice or care.
Floats passed, beads raining from the Musers. Gray, February clouds further darkened the gloomy day, the third float passing on Canal. Lieutenant Nicosia shielded his face as the crowd, intent on catching flying beads and dated doubloons, stepped on and over him.
Unaware of his partner’s injury, Sergeant Tommy Blackburn bullied his way through animated spectators, bowling over revelers in his wake. The going was slow but the man he pursued had the same problem. His pistol empty, the gang-banger swung it ineffectively at people crushing around him. Most of them didn’t notice, their attentions focused on flying beads and trinkets. Blood flew from a woman’s mouth when he nailed her with the barrel of his gun. She dropped to her knees in pain, her husband oblivious to her plight.
As Tommy Blackburn gained ground on the shooter, he saw the injured woman but didn’t stop. Close enough to recognize gang tattoos on the back of the man he pursued, it caused blood to surge up Blackburn’s shoulders. Rising blood pressure turned his thick neck and florid face an angry red. Redoubling his efforts, he fought to within six feet of the shooter, his stare focused on the back of the man’s head. When he finally saw his opening, he dived forward, grabbed a pair of legs he prayed were the right ones and rolled the person to the ground, knocking down half a dozen unsuspecting revelers along with them.
Blackburn transferred his grip to the man’s tee shirt. The young Chicano gang member backhanded Tommy, ripped the shirt down the front, tore it away and was back on his feet in a single fluid motion. Blackburn, ignoring his broken lip and skinned knees, didn’t bother yelling for him to halt, charging after the gang-banger instead.
Six-four and two hundred twenty pounds, Tommy Blackburn was an imposing man. Ten years out of high school, he still held the State shot put record. When his hand snagged the strap of a digital camera, he slammed it into the fleeing man’s back. The gang member dropped in pain. Just enough time for Blackburn to overtake him, rolling him bodily through the crowd.
Tommy Blackburn wasn’t prepared for what happened next. The young Chicano retrieved a knife from his baggy pants. Opening it with a flip, he stabbed it into Blackburn’s mid-section. Yanking the blade free, he went for Tommy’s throat, trying to end the larger man’s attack. Tommy grabbed a strong wrist and held on, his own strength quickly ebbing as blood gushed from an open stomach wound. Realizing the life-or-death struggle at their feet, people drew back in horror, forming a barrier around the two combatants. Mesmerized by the struggle, no one stepped forward to help the desperately injured police sergeant.
The gang-banger’s blade cut his face but Tommy resisted, even though he no longer felt sharp pain that set his stomach afire. Nor could he feel his arms and legs, his mind dulling, threatening to shut down completely. He could only see his mother’s face, and his grandmother’s, and they were both crying. Consciousness had faded when what next happened.
Strong hands grabbed the gang-banger’s neck and squeezed.. The gang-banger’s body went limp and he dropped the knife. Lieutenant Tony Nicosia pulled the slack body off his fallen partner, kicked the perp in the head for good measure, then turned his attention to Blackburn. Quickly assessing the situation, he removed his windbreaker, stuffing it into the flowing wound. Grabbing his walkie-talkie, he called for backup and medical assistance. Each cop carried a GPS device and reinforcements would quickly reach them.
Lieutenant Tony Nicosia, after surviving the weight of the crowd, pushed off the ground and dragged his useless leg through the melee, following the fleeing man and his partner.
"Police," he yelled, waving his badge. "Move it out of the way!"
Nicosia’s knee hurt like hell, the beignet he’d eaten earlier lying like a rock in his stomach. His inner warning sirens screamed. Tommy Blackburn was in deep shit and needed his immediate assistance. He kept moving, trying unsuccessfully to focus on something other than searing pain racing through his leg, knocking people out of his way to enter the circle where his partner gasped his last breaths. When he reached the two men on the ground, Nicosia reacted. Almost too late for his fallen partner. Tommy’s eyes were closed and pluming blood painted a growing stop sign on his chest. Nicosia had learned the choke hold in police academy. It was no longer taught, at least officially, and no longer used. Again, at least officially.
It didn’t matter to Lieutenant Tony Nicosia. With the situation dire, it was either the choke hold or a bullet through the gang-banger’s brain. If he could have grabbed his service revolver before the man slit Blackburn’s throat, there would have been nothing to decide. As it was, he had only enough time to dive for the throat, grab it and squeeze.
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