“Sergeant,” Delaney said, “if that car isn’t moved within two minutes, issue this man a summons. If it’s still there after five minutes, call a truck and have it towed away. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now look here-” the man started.
Delaney walked by him and went up to his office. He took a black-painted three-cell flashlight from the top drawer of his file cabinet. He also slipped a short, hard rubber truncheon into his jacket pocket and hung a steel “come-along” on his gun belt.
When he came out into the chilly night again, the Press car had been reparked across the street. But the reporter was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Precinct house.
“What’s your name?” he asked angrily.
“Captain Edward X. Delaney. You want my shield number?”
“Oh…Delaney. I’ve heard about you.”
“Have you?”
“‘Iron Balls.’ Isn’t that what they call you?”
“Yes.”
The reporter stared, then suddenly laughed and held out his hand.
“The name’s Handry, Captain. Thomas Handry. Sorry about the car. You were entirely right and I was entirely wrong.”
Delaney shook his hand.
“Where you going with the flashlight, Captain?”
“Just taking a look around.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
Delaney shrugged. “If you like.”
They walked over to First Avenue, then turned north. The street was lined with stores, supermarkets, banks. Most of them had locked gates across doors and windows. All had a light burning within.
“See that?” Delaney gestured. “I sent a letter to every commercial establishment in my precinct requesting they keep at least a hundred-watt bulb burning all night. I kept after them. Now I have ninety-eight-point-two percent compliance. A simple thing, but it reduced breaking-and-entering of commercial establishments in this precinct by fourteen-point-seven percent.”
He stopped in front of a shoe repair shop that had no iron gates. Delaney tried the door. It was securely locked.
“A little unusual, isn’t it?” Handry asked, amused. “A captain making the rounds? Don’t you have foot patrolmen for that?”
“Of course. When I first took over the 251st, discipline was extremely lax. So I started unscheduled inspections, on foot, mostly at night. It worked. The men never know when or where I may turn up. They stay alert.”
“You do it every night?”
“Yes. Of course, I can’t cover the entire precinct, but I do a different five or six blocks every night. I don’t have to do it anymore, you understand; my men are on their toes. But it’s become a habit. I think I enjoy it. As a matter of fact, I can’t get to sleep until I’ve made my rounds. My wife says I’m like a householder who has to go around trying all the windows and doors before he goes to bed.”
A two-man squad car came purring by. The passenger officer inspected them, recognized the Captain and threw him a salute, which he returned.
Delaney tried a few more un-gated doors and then, flashlight burning, went prowling up an alleyway, the beam flickering over garbage cans and refuse heaps. Handry stayed close behind him.
They walked a few more blocks, then turned eastward toward York Avenue.
“What were you doing in my Precinct house, Handry?” the Captain asked suddenly.
“Nosing around,” the reporter said. “I’m working on an article. Or rather a series of articles.”
“On what?”
“Why a man wants to become a policeman, and what happens to him after he does.”
“Again?” Delaney sighed. “It’s been done a dozen times.”
“I know. And it’s going to be done again, by me. The first piece is on requirements, screening, examination, and all that. The second will be on the Academy and probationary training. Now I’m trying to find out what happens to a man after he’s assigned, and all the different directions he can go. You were originally in the detective division, weren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Homicide, wasn’t it?”
“For a while.”
“They still talk about you, about some of your cases.”
“Do they?”
“Why did you switch to patrol, Captain?”
“I wanted administrative experience,” Delaney said shortly.
This time Handry sighed. He was a slender, dapper young man who looked more like an insurance salesman than a reporter. His suit was carefully pressed, shoes shined, narrow-brim hat exactly squared on his head. He wore a vest. He moved with a light-footed eagerness.
His face betrayed a certain tension, a secret passion held rigidly under control. Lips were pressed, forehead bland, eyes deliberately expressionless. Delaney had noted the bitten fingernails and a habit of stroking the upper lip downward with the second joint of his index finger.
“When did you shave your mustache?” he asked.
“You should have stayed in the detective division,” Handry said. “I know I can’t stop stroking my lip. Tell me, Captain-why won’t policemen talk to me? Oh, they’ll talk, but they won’t really open up. I can’t get into them. If I’m going to be a writer, that’s what I’ve got to learn to do-how to get into people. Is it me, or are they afraid to talk for publication, or what the hell is it?”
“It isn’t you-not you personally. It’s just that you’re not a cop. You don’t belong. There’s a gulf.”
“But I’m trying to understand-really I am. This series is going to be very sympathetic to the police. I want it to be. I’m not out to do a hatchet job.”
“I’m glad you’re not. We get enough of that.”
“All right, then you tell me: why does a man become a policeman? Who the hell in his right mind would want a job like that in this city? The pay is miserable, the hours are miserable, everyone thinks you’re on the take, snot-nosed kids call you ‘pig’ and throw sacks of shit at you. So what the hell is the point?
They were passing a private driveway alongside a luxury apartment house. Delaney heard something.
“Stay here,” he whispered to Handry.
He went moving quietly up the driveway, the flashlight dark. His right hand was beneath his jacket flap, fingers on the butt of his gun.
He was back in a minute, smiling.
“A cat,” he said, “in the garbage cans.”
“It could have been a drug addict with a knife,” Handry said.
“Yes,” Delaney agreed, “it could have been.”
“Well then, why?” Handry asked angrily.
They were strolling slowly southward on York Avenue heading back toward the Precinct house. Traffic was light at that hour, and the few pedestrians scurried along, glancing nervously over their shoulders.
“My wife and I were talking about that a few weeks ago,” Delaney mused, remembering that bright afternoon in the Park. “I said I had become a cop because, essentially, I am a very orderly man. I like everything neat and tidy, and crime offends my sense of order. My wife laughed. She said I became a policeman because at heart I am an artist and want a world of beauty where everything is true and nothing is false. Since that conversation-partly because of what has happened since then-I have been thinking of what I said and what she said. And I have decided we are not so far apart-two sides of the same coin actually. You see, I became a policeman, I think, because there is, or should be, a logic to life. And this logic is both orderly and beautiful, as all good logic is. So I was right and my wife was right. I want this logic to endure. It is a simple logic of natural birth, natural living, and natural death. It is the mortality of one of us and the immortality of all of us. It is the on-going. This logic is the life of the individual, the family, the nation, and finally all people everywhere, and all things animate and inanimate. And anything that interrupts the rhythm of this logic-for all good logic does have a beautiful rhythm, you know-well, anything that interrupts that rhythm is evil. That includes cruelty, crime, and war. I can’t do much about cruelty in other people; much of it is immoral but not illegal. I can guard against cruelty in myself, of course. And I can’t do a great deal about war. I can do something about crime. Not a lot, I admit, but something. Because crime, all crime, is irrational. It is opposed to the logic of life, and so it is evil. And that is why I became a cop. I think.”