Battery

Battery is a district associated in the novel with both forensic labor and late-night dives. Near the ending, Mike Hoolihan announces that he is heading there, making it a destination at the moment when his investigation and personal stability remain unresolved.

Work and Institutional Authority

Battery appears in a warning to Paulie No: he is told that he will no longer be cutting on Battery and Jefferson if Colonel Tom chooses to put him out, and could instead be sent to work as a bucket boy at Final Rest. The exchange establishes Battery as a place where Paulie performs consequential work, while also showing how that position depends on institutional favor. The threat does not describe a change that has already happened; it uses the prospect of reassignment to enforce silence about Jennifer Rockwell.

The reference to cutting connects Battery to the novel’s forensic setting. In the account of her psychological autopsy, Mike compares her writing, tape recorder, and computer with the instruments Paulie uses in the medical examiner’s office. Read alongside the warning about Battery and Jefferson, the comparison places the district within the story’s practical machinery of examining death, though the text does not give a fuller description of the location itself.

Dives and the Closing Movement

At the end, Mike says he is heading off to Battery and its long string of dives. The phrase makes the district more than a workplace: it is also a nighttime destination associated with drinking places. Mike considers calling Trader Faulkner to say goodbye, but the phone is ringing again and the night train is coming. His movement toward Battery therefore coincides with an unresolved choice and a return to the nocturnal world from which the novel’s suicide imagery has drawn force.

Narrative Significance

Battery’s two appearances give it a sharp contrast of use. At Battery and Jefferson, Paulie’s work belongs to the institutional handling of the dead; among Battery’s dives, Mike anticipates an unsettled night. The district links professional authority to private vulnerability without resolving the tension between them. Its final appearance leaves Mike in motion, with the investigation’s burden and the pull of the night still present.