"What word?"
"You know, like a scout was out."
"No, I don't know. What the hell are you talking about?"
"Look, Dad . . ." Santez started.
"You call me 'Dad' again," Byrnes warned, "and I'll beat you black and blue."
"Well, gee, Da . . ." Santez stopped dead. "What you want to know?"
"I want to know why you jumped a cop."
"What cop? What're you talkin' about?"
"Look, Santez, don't play this too goddamn cute. You jumped one of our patrolmen as he came out of a bar. You beat him up, and one of your boys put a bullet in his shoulder. Now what the hell's the story?"
Santez considered Byrnes' question gravely.
"Well?"
"He's a cop?"
"What the hell did you think he was?"
"He was wearing a light blue summer suit!" Santez said, his eyes opening wide.
"What the hell's that got to do with it? Why'd you jump him? Why'd you shoot him?"
A mumbling was starting behind Santez. Byrnes heard the mumble and shouted, "Shut up! You've got your talk man, let him talk!"
Santez was still silent.
"What about it, Santez?"
"A mistake," Santez said.
"That's for damn sure."
"I mean, we didn't know he was a cop."
"Why'd you jump him?"
"A mistake, I tell you."
"Start from the beginning."
"Okay," Santez said. "We been giving you trouble lately?"
"No."
"Okay. We been minding our own business, right? You never hear from The Grovers, except when we protectin' our own, right? The last rumble you get is over there in The Silver Culvers' territory when they pick on one of our Juniors. Am I right?"
"Go ahead, Santez."
"Okay. Early today, there's a guy snooping around. He grabs one of our Seniors in a bar, and he starts pumpin' him."
"Which Senior?"
"I forget," Santez said.
"Who was the guy?"
"Said he was from a newspaper."
"What?"
"Yeah. Said his name was Savage, you know him?"
"I know him," Byrnes said tightly.
"Okay, so he starts askin' like how many pieces we got, and whether we got .45's, and whether we don't like the Law, things like that. This Senior, he's real hip. He tips right off this guy is trying to mix in The Grovers with the two bulls got knocked off around here. So he's on a newspaper, and we got a rep to protect. We don't want Law trouble. If this jerk goes back to his paper and starts printing lies about how we're mixed in, that ain't good for our rep."
"So what'd you do, Santez?" Byrnes asked wearily, thinking of Savage, and thinking of how he'd like to wring the reporter's neck.
"So this Senior comes back, and we planned to scare off the reporter before he goes printing any crap. We went back to the bar and waited for him. When he come out, we jumped him. Only he pulled a gun, so one of the boys plugged him in self-defense."
"Who?"
"Who knows?" Santez said. "One of the boys burned him."
"Thinking he was Savage."
"Sure. How the hell we supposed to know he's a cop instead? He had on a light blue suit, and he had blond hair, like this reporter creep. So we burned him. It was a mistake."
"You keep saying that, Santez, but I don't think you know just how big a mistake it was. Who fired that shot?"
Santez shrugged.
"Who was the Senior Savage talked to?"
Santez shrugged.
"Is he here?"
Santez had stopped talking, it seemed.
"You know we've got a list of every damn member in your gang, don't you, Santez?"
"Sure.
"Okay. Havilland, get the list. I want a roll call. Who-ever's not here, pick him up."
"Hey, wait a minute," Santez said. "I told you it was all a mistake. You going to get somebody in trouble just 'cause we mistake a cop?"
"Listen to me, Santez, and listen hard. Your gang hasn't been in any trouble recently, and that's fine with us. Call it a truce, call it whatever you want to. But don't ever think, and I mean ever, Santez, that you or your boys can shoot anybody in this goddamn precinct and get away with it. You're a bunch of hoods as far as I'm concerned, Santez. You're a bunch of hoods with fancy jackets, and a seventeen year old hood is no less dangerous than a fifty year old hood. The only reason we haven't been bearing down on you is because you've been behaving yourself. All right, today you stopped behaving yourself. You shot a man in my precinct territory —and that means you're in trouble. That means you're in big trouble."
Santez blinked.
"Put them all downstairs and call the roll there," Byrnes said. "Then get whoever we missed."
"All right, let's go," Havilland said. He began herding the boys out of the room.
Miscolo, one of the patrolmen from Clerical, pushed his way through the crowd and walked over to the lieutenant.
"Lieutenant, fella outside wants to see you," he said.
"Who?"
"Guy named Savage. Claims he's a reporter. Wants to know what the rumble was about this aft..."
"Kick him down the steps," Byrnes said, and he went back into his office.
Chapter THIRTEEN
homicide, if it doesn't happen too close to home, is a fairly interesting thing.
You can really get involved in the investigation of a homicide case because it is the rare occurrence in the everyday life of a precinct. It is the most exotic crime because it deals with the theft of something universal—a man's life.
Unfortunately, there are other less interesting and more mundane matters to deal with in a precinct, too. And in a precinct like the 87th, these mundane matters can consume a lot of time. There are the rapes, and the muggings, and the rollings, and the knifings, and the various types of disorderly conducts, and the breakings and entries, and the burglaries, and the car thefts, and the street rumbles, and the cats caught in sewers, and oh, like that. Many of these choice items of crime are promptly turned over to special squads within the department, but the initial squeal nonetheless goes to the precinct in which the crime is being committed, and these squeals can keep a man hopping.
It's not so easy to hop when the temperature is high.
For cops, shocking as the notion may sound at first, are human beings. They sweat like you and me, and they don't like to work when it's hot. Some of them don't like to work even when it's cool. None of them like to draw Lineup, especially when it's hot.
Steve Carella and Hank Bush drew Lineup on Thursday, July 27th.
They were especially displeased about it because Lineup is held only from Mondays to Thursdays, and if they had missed it this Thursday, chances were they would not pull the duty until the following week and perhaps—just perhaps —the heat would have broken by then.
The morning started the way most mornings were starting that week. There was a deceptive coolness at first, a coolness which—despite the prognostications of television's various weather men and weather women—seemed to promise a delightful day ahead. The delusions and flights of fancy fled almost instantly. It was apparent within a half-hour of being awake that this was going to be another scorcher, that you would meet people who asked, "Hot enough for you?" or who blandly and informatively remarked, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity."
Whatever it was, it was hot.
It was hot where Carella lived in the suburb of Riverhead, and it was hot hi the heart of the city—on High Street, where Headquarters and the lineup awaited.
Since Bush lived in another suburb—Calm's Point, west and a little south of Riverhead—they chose to meet at Headquarters at 8:45, fifteen minutes before the lineup began. Carella was there on the dot.
At 8:50, Bush strolled up. That is to say, he more or less crawled onto the pavement and slouched over to where Carella was standing and puffing on a cigarette.