As we walked away I asked, “So, why does he just get a warning?”
“Because Arms washes the captain’s car.”
“Maseryk?” I had heard about Maseryk from Altobelli. He described him as a military flat-topped, hard-ass straight arrow. I couldn’t mesh that image with him getting free car washes from a joker.
“No, Mendelberg.”
“Ah.” The other captain of the 5th was a joker. It was beginning to look like jokers stuck together. Bill again appeared to read my mind.
“Arms is bipolar. He can’t really hold a job. Washing police cars is the only steady pay he gets.”
“Ah,” I said again. “How long does it take, acquiring this”—I gestured around—“I guess you’d call it area knowledge?”
“I’ve been in this precinct for five years, three years before that at the 13th. But I grew up in Chinatown near the 5th. I’ve got a pretty good handle on J-Town, and in Chinatown I know practically everybody.”
“That isn’t very encouraging. I’m going to be ready to retire before I get to know people.”
“Assuming you stick. You strike me as the type to end up down at One Police Plaza at headquarters.”
I watched his broad back, and resolved that wouldn’t happen. Then I realized that was probably exactly what my rabbi, Sam Altobelli, was planning. And if I really did want to follow in my dad’s footsteps and make captain I was going to have to play the political game. I followed morosely in Bill’s wake because I was back to questioning the motivations that had led to this career.
I was a Columbia law school graduate. I had passed the New York State bar. I hadn’t been law review material, I was never going to end up in a white-shoe law firm, but I had been in the top third of my class, I could have found a good job. But I wanted to make a difference. Help people.
So, become a public defender, or work for an environmental nonprofit, said that inner voice that sounded suspiciously like a cross between my mother and my college advisor.
I will, I promised them. If this doesn’t work out.
I was deep in thoughtful contemplation of my navel, watching the cracks in the sidewalk, when Bill’s radio crackled to life. “Bill, one of my pooches spotted our purse snatcher. He’s running west on Broome over near the Dumpling House.”
“Thanks, K-10, we’re on it.”
Bill took off running. I grabbed at my stick and cuffs to keep them from battering my kidney and took off after him. We came around a corner onto Broome and I heard a woman screaming. I had a fleeting glimpse of a young man clutching a large red leather handbag and running as if all the hounds of hell were on his heels.
We gave chase. Bill might be big, but I ran track in college, and the perp was motivated. We had soon pulled well ahead of Bill. The purse snatcher grabbed the corner of a brownstone and spun himself into an alley. I made the turn, and a garbage can came crashing and banging toward me, depositing its odiferous load at my feet. I slipped on a combination of rotting potato peels and plastic wrap. I managed not to face plant, but one hand and one knee dropped into the oozing garbage.
“Yuck.” I bounded up and ran on, trying to shake the garbage off my hand.
The alley ended at a chain-link fence. The purse snatcher had slung the purse over his shoulder and was swarming up the wire. I heard Bill behind me. He was roaring something, but the blood was pounding in my ears, and I couldn’t quite hear him between the slap of my feet on pavement and the shaking and chattering of the fence.
I leaped up, gripped the metal, and started to climb. The perp looked back and kicked at me. I yanked my head away just in time, and his foot just hit my shoulder. I was starting to get royally pissed. I lunged and managed to grasp the purse where it bounced on his skinny ass.
I heard Bill whistling as I yanked at the strap. The purse snatcher gave a wail of despair as he tumbled off the fence. I lost my grip and fell too … and realized we were both surrounded by a bright pink aura filled with sparks and floating stars.
♠
“I told you to get out of the way,” Bill said.
I slammed the door of my locker and batted irritably at the stars floating in front of my face. I was now, intimately, familiar with Bill’s “power.” There were snorts of laughter from Beastie Bester and Van Tranh, aka Dr. Dildo. “How long is this going to last? And you better not say forever.”
“’Bout six hours.”
“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The route to the front door from the locker room took me past the file room. The incredibly sexy Asian girl giggled, and peered at me from behind the curtain of her ass-length black hair. Apsara, that was her name. I had picked up some forms from her while we were booking Abigail, and had thought I’d ask her out. Now she thought I was a dork, and that was never going to happen. Feeling incredibly sorry for myself, I proceeded to the front door and emerged onto the darkening street. Ten hours ago I had stepped through this door feeling like anything could happen.
Unfortunately that had turned out to be true.
♦
Halfway home a heavy hand descended on my shoulder, and suddenly I was kissing the soot-stained brick wall of a building. “Okay, you’re under arrest.”
“I’m a cop,” I mumbled against the rough surface.
“What’s that, scum?”
“I’m a cop!” I shouted.
“Yeah, and I’m the pope.”
“My badge is in my left breast pocket.”
Rough hands jerked me around and dove into my pocket and emerged with my badge and ID. I was facing a hideous joker. He had bulging eyes, a unibrow that made his forehead seem even more shelflike, a bullet-shaped head that looked like one side had been smacked with an iron skillet, and all of this crowned with spiky gray hair that looked more akin to a warthog’s bristles than human hair.
Standing next to him was a strange-looking girl with shaggy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had the biggest barrel chest I’d ever seen on a human, and a tiny waist that would have made Scarlett O’Hara green with envy. She wasn’t ugly just … odd. Her name tag read MICHAELSON.
“Then why you got the glow?” the bug-eyed guy asked. His name tag identified him as BRONKOWSKI. The human whippet next to him smiled, revealing small fangs.
“Bill’s my partner. We were apprehending a purse snatcher and … well, he sort of … missed.” The ugly guy guffawed and a small dimple appeared next to the girl’s mouth. “And what the hell were you arresting me for?” I added, aggrieved.
“Walking while pink,” Michaelson said, in a tolerable female imitation of Officer Friday’s flat, unemotional tone.
“You mean you just arrest people for glowing?” I gestured at the stars and the sparks.
“Tinkerbill wouldn’t have whacked ’em unless they were guilty of something.”
“Tinkerbill?” Delight over my partner’s nickname gave way to lawyerly shock. “You’re arresting people without probable cause.”
“Kid, how long have you been on the job?” asked Michaelson. Which I thought was sort of rich. She didn’t look much older than me.
“Today was my first day.”
She and Bronkowski exchanged a glance. “You’ll learn,” she said, and they let me go.
I got arrested four more times before I got home. Each time my badge, and the explanation that I was Bill’s partner, got me released. But I sensed I had left a trail of hilarity for the swing shift.