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AFTER I GOT CHAST to calm down and go back out into the hallway, I decided to make my first command decision.
I stood and stuck my head out of my office door.
“Listen up, people. I’m hitting the Reset button,” I said. “So whatever nuttiness has been going on around here is over now, OK? I have one rule. I only work with driven, dedicated cops. If you came here to hide out and push pencils and wait for Thursday’s check to clear, I’m sorry, but those days are over.
“Now I want you to go home and get some sleep and decide if you want to keep working here. Because tomorrow, we’re starting from scratch.”
They were leaving when a well-dressed thirty-something black woman came running into my office.
“Hi, Detective Bennett, is it?” she said. “I’m Ariel. Ariel Tyson.”
I looked up at the woman, at the serious brown eyes behind her red-framed eyeglasses. I had already learned from the files that she was the other clerk.
“I was just at lunch,” she said, “and I heard you sent everybody home, and I just want you to know I’m good at my job. I love my job. End of story. I live six blocks from here, and I have three kids. I’m bringing them up the best I can.”
“You show up every day for work, Ariel?” I said.
“Every day. On time. Don’t even put in for overtime.”
“Then I have just one question,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “How did you wind up here?”
“Bureaucratic screwup. What else?” she said with one of the widest, most likable smiles I’d ever seen.
That was when it happened. I finally had a laugh. The first one of the day.
“How are you doing, Detective?” she said, starting to laugh with me. “You look like you’re having yourself a real long day.”
“I’ve just been assigned to coach the Bad News Bears on the Island of Misfit Toys, Ariel. Isn’t it obvious that I’m having the time of my life?”
As Ariel was leaving my office, I heard someone coming down the hallway. It was the aggressive young cop, Dr. Pepper Spray. His file indicated that his name was Jimmy Doyle. He was a young “gunslinger” cop who already had two kills on the job, which was probably why he’d been assigned here. So his old CO wouldn’t have to fill out the paperwork when he shot numero three.
Doyle held up his hands as he came past my door.
“I know, I know. Calm down, boss,” the spunky cop said. “I’ll only be a minute. I left my wallet in my locker, and I can’t walk home to the Bronx.”
I smiled at his back as he went past. The young cop reminded me of someone. Oh, yeah. Me. About half a lifetime ago.
CHAPTER 14
I WAS POURING MYSELF a coffee refill when the police-band radio in the corner of my office crackled.
“Twenty-seven,” a dispatcher said. “Come in. We have shots fired. I repeat, shots fired. Corner of a Hundred Twenty-Seventh and Eighth Ave.”
“A Hundred Twenty-Seventh and Eighth? That’s two blocks away. It’s where we buy coffee,” Doyle suddenly said from where he was now standing in the doorway of my office.
I hopped up immediately and grabbed some vests and radios out of the locker in the corner.
“What gives?” Doyle said when I handed hi
m his vest. “The other squad leader said we shouldn’t respond to local calls.”
I pushed the young cop out of my doorway and toward the office exit.
“Yeah, well, he’s not here right now, is he?” I said. “C’mon, Doyle. What are you waiting for? Those who dare, win. Lead the way.”
Down on the street, we bolted diagonally across Adam Clayton, ran two quick blocks, and hooked a left up 127th. There was a project complex on the right-hand side of the street, a row of old brownstone houses on the left. Some howling teenage girls came out of one of the brownstones as we were running past.
“Get back inside!” I yelled as Doyle and I sprinted for the corner.
