A very black kid with a nylon stocking on his head answered, “Jo-Jo be comin’ with Pinto. Cool say he might be bringin’ Slasher and T.P.”
Great. Instead of two against four, it sounded like all the graffiti artists in New York City were planning a convention in the Worth Street ghost station.
“Sarge?” Delgado’s voice was urgent. “We’ve gotta—”
“I know,” I whispered back. “Get on the radio and call for backup.”
Then I remembered. Worth Street was a dead spot. Lead in the ceiling above our heads turned our radios into worthless toys.
“Stop,” I said wearily as Manny pulled the antenna up on his handheld radio. “It won’t work. You’ll have to go back to Brooklyn Bridge. Alert Booth Robert two-twenty-one. Have them call Opera-tions. Just ask for backup, don’t make it a ten-thirteen.” A 10-13
meant “officer in trouble,” and I didn’t want to be the sergeant who cried wolf.
“Try the radio along the way,” I went on. “You never know when it will come to life. I’m not sure where the lead ends.”
Watching Delgado trudge back along the catwalk, I felt lonely, helpless, and stupid. No one knew we’d gone to Worth Street instead of the Black Hole, and that was my fault.
“Hey,” one of the kids called, pointing to a pile of old clothes in the corner of the platform, “what this dude be doin’ in our crib?”
Dude? What dude? Then the old clothes began to rise; it was the drunk from the train. He was huddled into a fetal ball, hoping not to be noticed by the graffiti gang.
Nylon Stocking boogied over to the old drunk, sticking a finger in his ribs. “What you be doin’ here, ol’ man? Huh? Answer me.”
A fat kid with a flat top walked over, sat down next to the drunk, reached into the old man’s jacket pocket, and pulled out a half-empty pint bottle.
A lighter-skinned, thinner boy slapped the drunk around, first lifting him by the scruff of the neck, then laughing as he flopped back to the floor. The old guy tried to rise, only to be kicked in the ribs by Nylon Stocking.
The old guy was bleeding at the mouth. Fat Boy held the pint of booze aloft, teasing the drunk the way you tease a dog with a bone.
The worst part was that the drunk was reaching for it, hands flapping wildly, begging. He’d have barked if they’d asked him to.
I was shaking, my stomach starting to heave. God, where was Manny? Where was my backup? I had to stop the kids before their friends got there, but I felt too sick to move. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman drunk. It was as though every taunt, every kick, was aimed at me, not just at the old man.
I reached into my belt for my gun, then opened my vest’s back pouch and pulled out the slapper. Ready to charge, I stopped cold when Nylon Stocking said, “Yo, y’all want to do him like we done the others?”
Fat Boy’s face lit up. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Feel like a cold night.
We needs a little fire.”
“You right, bro,” the light-skinned kid chimed in. “I got the kerosene. Done took it from my momma heater.”
“What he deserve, man,” the fourth member of the gang said, his voice a low growl. “Comin’ into our crib, pissin’ on the art, smellin’
up the place. This here our turf, dig?” He prodded the old man in the chest.
“I–I didn’t mean nothing,” the old man whimpered. “I just wanted a place to sleep.”
Uncle Paul, sleeping on our couch when he was too drunk for Aunt Rose to put up with him. He was never too drunk for Mom to take him in.
Never too drunk to give me one of his sweet Irish smiles and call me his best girl.
The light-skinned kid opened the bottle — ironically, it looked as if it once contained whiskey — and sprinkled the old man the way my mother sprinkled clothes before ironing them. Nylon Stocking pulled out a book of matches.
By the time Delgado came back, with or without backup, there’d be one more bonfire if I didn’t do something. Fast.
Surprise was my only hope. Four of them, young and strong. One of me, out of shape and shaky.
I shot out a light. I cracked the bulb on the first shot. Target shooting was my best asset as a cop, and I used it to give the kids the impression they were surrounded.
The kids jumped away from the drunk, moving in all directions.
“Shit,” one said, “who shootin’?”
I shot out the second and last bulb. In the dark, I had the advantage. They wouldn’t know, at least at first, that only one cop was coming after them.
“Let’s book,” another cried. “Ain’t worth stayin’ here to get shot.”
I ran up the steps, onto the platform lit only by the moonlike rays from the other side of the tracks. Yelling “Stop, police,” I waded into the kids, swinging my illegal slapper.
Thump into the ribs of the kid holding the kerosene bottle. He dropped it, clutching his chest and howling. I felt the breath whoosh out of him, heard the snap of rib cracking. I wheeled and slapped Nylon Stocking across the knee, earning another satisfying howl.
My breath came in gasps, curses pouring out of me. Blood pounded in my temples, a thumping noise that sounded louder than the express train.
The advantage of surprise was over. The other two kids jumped me, one riding my back, the other going for my stomach with hard little fists. All I could see was a maddened teenage tornado circling me with blows. My arm felt light as I thrust my gun deep into the kid’s stomach. He doubled, groaning.
It was like chugging beer at a cop racket. Every hit, every satisfying whack of blackjack against flesh made me hungry for the next. I whirled and socked. The kids kept coming, and I kept knocking them down like bowling pins.
The adrenaline rush was stupendous, filling me with elation. I was a real cop again. There was life after detox.
At last they stopped. Panting, I stood among the fallen, exhausted.
My hair had escaped from my knit hat and hung in matted tangles over a face red-hot as a griddle.
I pulled out my cuffs and chained the kids together, wrist to wrist, wishing I had enough sets to do each individually. Together, even cuffed, they could overpower me. Especially since they were beginning to realize I was alone.
I felt weak, spent. As though I’d just made love.
I sat down on the platform, panting, my gun pointed at Nylon Stocking. “You have the right to remain silent,” I began.
As I finished the last Miranda warning on the last kid, I heard the cavalry coming over the hill. Manny Delgado, with four reinforce-ments.
As the new officers took the collars, I motioned Manny aside, taking him to where the drunk lay sprawled in the corner, still shaking and whimpering.
“Do you smell anything?” I asked.
Manny wrinkled his nose. I looked down at the drunk.
A trickle of water seeped from underneath him; his crotch was soaked.
Uncle Paul, weaving his way home, singing off-key, stopping to take a piss under the lamppost. Nothing unusual in that, except that this time Julie Ann Mackinnon, my eighth-grade rival, watched from across the street. My cheeks burned as I recalled how she’d told the other kids what she’d seen, her hand cupped over her giggling mouth.
“Not that,” I said, my tone sharp, my face reddening. “The kerosene. These kids are the torch killers. They were going to roast this guy. That’s why I had to take them on alone.”
Delgado’s face registered the scepticism I’d seen lurking in his eyes all night. Could he trust me? He’d been suitably impressed at my chain gang of prisoners, but now I was talking about solving the crime that had every cop in the city on overtime.