Brown was the kind of black man white men crossed the street to avoid. If you were white, and you saw Brown approaching on the same side of the street, you automatically assumed he was going to mug you, or cut you with a razor, or do something else terrible to you. That was partially due to the fact that Brown was six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. It was also partially (mostly) due to the fact that Brown was black, or colored, or whatever you chose to call him, but he certainly was not white. A white man approaching Brown might not have crossed the street if Brown had also been a white man; unfortunately, Brown never had the opportunity to conduct such an experiment. The fact remained that when Brown was casually walking down the street minding his own business, white people crossed over to the other side. Sometimes even white cops crossed over to the other side. Nobody wanted trouble with someone who looked the way Brown looked. Even black people sometimes crossed the street when Brown approached, but only because he looked so bad-ass.
Brown knew he was, in fact, very handsome.
Whenever Brown looked in the mirror, he saw a very handsome chocolate-colored man looking back at him out of soulful brown eyes. Brown liked himself a lot. Brown was very comfortable with himself. Brown was glad he was a cop because he knew that the real reason white people crossed the street when they saw him was because they thought all black people were thieves or murderers. He frequently regretted the day he was promoted into the Detective Division because then he could no longer wear his identifying blue uniform, the contradiction to his identifying brown skin. Brown especially liked to bust people of his own race. He especially liked it when some black dude said, “Come on, brother, give me a break.” That man was no more Brown’s brother than Brown was brother to a hippopotamus. In Brown’s world, there were the good guys and the bad guys, white or black, it made no difference. Brown was one of the good guys. All those guys breaking the law out there were the bad guys. Tonight, one of the bad guys had left somebody dead and bleeding on the floor of a garage under a building on fancy Silvermine Road, and Kling had caught the squeal, and Brown was his partner, and they were two good guys riding out into the gently falling snow, with another good guy (who happened to be a girl) sitting on the backseat — which reminded him: He had to drop her off at the subway station.
“The one on Culver and Fourth okay?” he asked her.
“That’ll be fine, Artie,” Eileen said.
Kling was hunkered down inside his coat, looking out at the falling snow. The car heater rattled and clunked, something wrong with the man. The car was the worst one the squad owned. Brown wondered how come whenever it was his turn to check out a car, he got this one. Worst car in the entire city, maybe. Ripe tomato accelerator, rattled like a two-dollar whore, something wrong with the exhaust, the damn car always smelled of carbon monoxide, they were probably poisoning themselves on the way to the homicide.
“Willis says you nabbed the guy who was running around pulling down bloomers, huh?” Brown said.
“Yeah,” Eileen said, grinning.
“Good thing, too,” Brown said. “This kind of weather, lady needs her under drawers.” He began laughing. Eileen laughed, too. Kling sat staring through the windshield.
“Will you be all right on the subway, this hour of the night?” Brown asked.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Eileen said.
He pulled the car into the curb.
“You sure now?”
“Positive. G’night, Artie,” she said, and opened the door. “G’night, Bert.”
“Good night,” Brown said. “Take care.”
Kling said nothing. Eileen shrugged and closed the door behind her. Brown watched as she went down the steps into the subway. He pulled the car away from the curb the moment her head disappeared from sight.
“Hey, hi!” the voice said.
He was approaching the elevators, his head bent, his eyes on the marble floor. He did not recognize the voice, nor did he even realize at first that it was he who was being addressed. But he looked up because someone had stepped into his path. The someone was Eileen Burke.
She was wearing a simple brown suit with a green blouse that was sort of ruffly at the throat, the green the color of her eyes, her long red hair swept efficiently back from her face, standing tall in high-heeled brown pumps a shade darker than the suit. She was carrying a shoulder bag, and he could see into the bag to where the barrel of a revolver seemed planted in a bed of crumpled Kleenexes. The picture on her plastic I.D. card, clipped to the lapel of her suit, showed a younger Eileen Burke, her red hair done in the frizzies. She was smiling — in the picture, and in person.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked. “Nobody comes here on a Sunday.”
“I need a picture from the I.S.,” he said. She seemed waiting for him to say more. “How about you?” he added.
“I work here. Special Forces is here. Right on this floor, in fact. Come on in for a cup of coffee,” she said, and her smile widened.
“No, thanks, I’m sort of in a hurry,” Kling said, even though he was in no hurry at all.
“Okay,” Eileen said, and shrugged. “Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. I was going to call later in the day, anyway.”
“Oh?” Kling said.
“I think I lost an earring up there. Either there or in the laundromat with the panty perpetrator. If it was the laundromat, good-bye, Charlie. But if it was the squadroom, or maybe the car — when you were dropping me off last night, you know…”
“Yeah,” Kling said.
“It was just a simple gold hoop earring, about the size of a quarter. Nothing ostentatious when you’re doing dirty laundry, right?”
“Which ear was it?” he asked.
“The right,” she said. “Huh? What difference does it make? I mean, it was the right ear, but earrings are interchangeable, so—”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Kling said. He was looking at her right ear, or at the space beyond her right ear or wherever. He was certainly not looking at her face, certainly not allowing his eyes to meet her eyes. What the hell is wrong with him? she wondered.
“Well, take a look up there, okay?” she said. “If you find it, give me a call. I’m with Special Forces — well, you know that — but I’m in and out all the time, so just leave a message. That is, if you happen to find the earring.” She hesitated, and then said, “The right one, that is. If you find the left one, it’s the wrong one.” She smiled. He did not return the smile. “Well, see you around the pool hall,” she said, and spread her hand in a farewell fan, and turned on her heel, and walked away from him.
Kling pressed the button for the elevator.