To him I'd give the speech about the penalty for possession with intent to sell, the mandatory minimums. And as often as not he'd recite the correct amounts of product needed to constitute a charge of intent. The others would hide whatever grin was crawling onto their faces. They were smart enough not to push it. Ballsy guy was not. So I would position my body and cut him off from the others, back him to a wall like a good fighter cutting off the ring and without touching him I'd get my face close and watch his eyes widen like a bad fighter knowing he's in trouble. The eyebrows would raise and he'd say "What?" By then I would have tilted up my nightstick from its metal ring on my belt and would have stuck the rounded end up into the vulnerable notch where ribs meet below the sternum and I would push.
"Not on my beat," I would say, only loud enough for him to hear. "Not on my street."
If he nodded, I would let them walk away and I would stand and watch them. Sometimes they would go in silence. Sometimes from a block away I would hear one yell, "Fuck you, cop." Either way I would wonder why I was out there.
I was thinking the same thing today when I picked up the dark figure in the corner of my eye.
He was a big man, shrouded in a long dark coat in seventy- degree weather. He was pushing a grocery cart down the sidewalk in a slow, lethargic pace. His head was tucked down into his thick shoulders like a big, wary tortoise, and he seemed to be mumbling to himself. Then as I watched, he deftly, too deftly, steered the cart effortlessly around a milk crate in his path and then through the drug runners. I was trying to place him, recall where I'd seen his shape before when he bent to pick up a can. I watched the hand slide out of the coat cuffs and swallow the can and that's when he looked up and I saw his eyes. They were black hollows, set deep in a face that was dark and emotionless. I could not blink and suddenly felt a fine ripple of muscle along my spine like a traveling drop of sweat.
The yelp of a siren snapped my head away. Blue lights flashed three times in my rearview, and in my side mirror I saw the cop opening the door of his patrol car.
"Stay in the vehicle," he said over his P.A. system. He got out of his car and stood for a moment. And then I watched him walk up, hand on the butt of his holstered gun. I checked my other side mirror and saw his partner standing behind his opened door, looking through my back window. Two-man patrol, I thought, a luxury in Philly.
When I looked back up the street, the big junk man was gone. It had only been seconds, but he had disappeared. Two residents were poking their heads out of partially opened doors.
"That's a good place for your hands, sir," the approaching cop said, staying close to the body of the truck and back over my left shoulder. I had already put my hands up on top of the steering wheel, knowing what made these guys nervous.
"License and registration, please."
For some inane reason, maybe it was just biological to the species, I said, "Is there a problem, officer?"
He took the paperwork without a word. He was a young guy, mid-twenties, wearing a hard and uncomfortable bulletproof vest under his uniform shirt.
"You're the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mr., uh, Freeman."
I turned my head to look more fully at him and he seemed older and dumber all at once. He said something behind the cab to his partner and then into the microphone clipped to his shoulder lapel, "Sixteen, Echo One."
"Echo One," came the response. The voice sounded familiar.
"We got a stop here off Twenty-seventh on the drug run that fits your BOLO on suspicious persons."
"Echo One responding."
The cop again said something to his partner and then began writing off my license.
"White man in the wrong place," I said, unable to keep my mouth shut. "That's a real specific BOLO, officer."
The cop stopped writing, but didn't look up.
"Freeman," he said. "Is that Jewish?"
The question was spoken, but mouthed into the air, like he was just pondering the possibility. I tightened my mouth. This time I did keep it shut, and waited for Richards to arrive.
When a dark SUV finally pulled up, I popped the handle to get out but the movement rattled the patrol cop. He was back leaning on the open door of his cruiser and fumbled his pad and reached for his holster.
"Calm down, son," I said, raising my palms. "I know these people."
"Hey, hey. Tranquilo Taylor," said the Cuban detective climbing out of the SUV's driver side.
"This man is the infamous Max Freeman," he said with a flourish. "Both a friend to, and a pain in the ass of all law enforcement."
Detective Vincente Diaz came around the truck with his junior executive smile in place and his hand extended.
"Max, Max, Max. Long time, amigo. Sherry said she had seen you and here you are, in the flesh and hip deep in the middle of another of your investigations."
He shook my hand vigorously and as usual I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or friendly.
Diaz had partnered up with Richards when she came into the detective bureau. The wiry strength in his small hands offset the pleasant, white-toothed smile.
"Hey, Max. What, fishing is no good out in the jungle? You got to come slumming in our pond?"
"I know you better, Vince," I said. "Your partner tells you everything."
He looked at me with that playful raised eyebrow.
"No, no, no. Not everything, eh?"
Richards was coming around the SUV, looking at the patrol officer.
"We got this, Taylor," she said.
"Yeah, well, I still got to take a photo for the field investigation file," he said, showing the old Polaroid he kept in the back seat.
"Believe me, Taylor," she said. "Neither your L.T. nor Chief Hammonds want to see this guy's name on an F.I. card."
The cop shrugged and facetiously muttered, "Yes, ma'am," and got back into his car, put it in gear and backed away.
"Max," Richards said, finally acknowledging me.
"Detective."
"You got something for us, or is this just a coincidence?"
"I do have some bait out. No bites yet," I said.
"Couldn't have been out there long."
"Actually, I wasn't sure where the current might take it."
"But this lovely area is a possibility?"
"Always."
Diaz was watching us, like a fan at a bad tennis match.
"You two going to go on like this for a while? Cause I'll go roust some dumpster divers or something else more productive if you want?"
Richards smiled.
While all three of us leaned against the box of my truck, Richards told me the sheriff's office had moved to step up their presence and visibility in the zone. Although detectives were rarely called to the street without a specific crime, the honchos had sent down word to have certain suspicious situations checked out.
"Like…"
"A white guy in a fancy truck sitting alone watching the busiest dope corner in the county," Diaz finished my response.
"I got to think you're off on this theory of yours, Freeman," he continued. "Our guy doing the rapes has to be some low-life just shagging girls when he can. He's got to be some zone cat and if these people would just wise up and help us out with some information, we'd have his ass sitting on Old Sparky up at Raiford."
He made sure his voice was loud enough for the handful of residents still on their front steps to hear. Two more cars started turning down the street but quickly straightened their wheels and rolled away.
"My esteemed partner believes your theory about a local acting as a hit man for the insurance companies is marginal," Richards said.