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The lip-ringed clerk nodded sympathetically a couple of times. Then she shoved the paper at me again.
“That does sound like a problem, sir,” she said. “But instead of telling me, you need to tell it to this Departmental 313-152 Form.”
“Then what?” I said. “Aren’t those police officers back there behind you? Can’t one of them come with me? The kid’s on the corner right now. Or he was two hours ago when I got on line. I’ll point him out.”
“They’re currently working on other cases, sir,” the clerk said, blinking at me.
“Please, I need help,” I said. “I don’t mean to be pushy, but I’m afraid for my kids.”
“Put it all down on the form, sir. We can’t do anything without the proper paperwork,” she said, glancing down at her lap, where I’d bet my paycheck she had a cell phone. Without looking at me, she gestured with a hand off to the right.
“There’s pens on the table over there,” she said.
The clerk checked her Facebook page or Buzzfeed or whatever for a second before looking up and then through me.
“Next!” she bellowed.
They say you can catch more flies with honey.
But unfortunately, I wasn’t trying to catch flies.
I was trying to restore order in a land in which chaos was currently in full ugly reign. Fortunately, having ten kids, I had been to this place before and knew what to do. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
It was break-glass-in-case-of-emergency time, also known as completely freak out.
As it turned out, I didn’t go to the table with the paper. Instead, I stood rooted to the linoleum and glared at the clerk until she once again acknowledged my existence. Then I turned around to the old Asian grandmother with two little boys coming up behind me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I told her. “But as it turns out, you’re actually not next.”
“Hey! What are you, crazy?” said the clerk when I faced her again.
I lifted the Departmental 313-152 Form off the counter and slowly tore it in two. Then tore it in two again.
“Why, yes,” I said. “Apparently I am. Who wouldn’t be crazy trying to deal with this lousy excuse you call a police squad?”
She pursed her DayGlo lips.
“You best stop poppin’ off,” she said, wagging a finger at me ghetto-style. “This is a police facility. You want to get locked up? Now, you can either go over there and fill out your form or I can reserve you a room at the Rikers Island Hilton, comprende? Your choice. Last chance.”
“No,” I said, glaring at her. “I don’t comprende. I have no idea what’s going on here. And it seems like neither do you.”
CHAPTER 11
“HEY, WISE GUY. YEAH, you. You looking for trouble?” said a burly young white cop as he got up from one of the desks in the corner.
He was a six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered guy in dark slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his thick forearms. He was smiling and chewing on a piece of gum as he quickly came out from behind the counter straight at me. His pepper spray was already out, I noticed, and he had a twitchy finger on its trigger, ready to go.
“You doing a little drinking this morning, buddy? Lookin’ for some trouble?” he said almost hopefully.
“No, cowboy, but you and everybody else in this unit just found a whole bunch,” I said as I took out my shield.
The cop and the clerk stared at each other, then at me.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Detective Mike Bennett, the unlucky SOB who just got assigned to CO this wreck.”
First I pointed at the clerk.
“You,” I said. “Button that shirt, take that thing out of your neon lip and your butt out from behind that counter, and go on home until you read the NYPD uniform policy and realize this isn’t a circus sideshow.”
