Detective

my own. A whole morning wasted driving up to the Bronx, and for what? A bruise and a scratch! I mean, come on lady, you got me up here to listen to your goddamn case, there’s got to be something more than this!
    And suddenly I realize, Jesus Christ, here I am, sitting here, furious because a four-year-old girl isn’t hurt. Wanting her to be hurt. Wanting her to have a broken arm or leg, or at least an ugly facial scar. Wanting her to have gone through pain and suffering. Wanting her to have a serious, and perhaps permanent, debilitating injury. Furious to find out she’s all right.
    I felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. Again, I didn’t let it show, which was harder this time. I just went on and, as calmly and as quickly as possible, filled out the rest of the fact sheet, had Maria sign all the papers, took pictures of the kid, and got out of there.
    I turned in the case to Richard, knowing he’d reject it, and, of course, he did. And I never, ever, attempted to chase down an IB case again.
    Until now.
    See, the thing is, I was really strapped. What with paying off Rosa and renting the car and the bugging equipment, Albrect’s grand was long gone, and I’d dipped heavily into the cash machine again. I was up against it, and I needed some fast cash to keep the operation going. And so, in desperation, I did what in the holy names of wife and family I had never been able to bring myself to do. I stooped to the lowest form of ambulance chasing—open solicitation.
    I had an appointment with a patient in Harlem Hospital at nine in the morning. Visiting hours aren’t till 2:00, but I can always get in by showing my I.D. and saying I’m from the lawyer’s office. I got a pass at the desk, went in, and signed up George Grant.
    And then I stayed. With the Visitor’s Pass protruding prominently from my clipboard, the room number, of course, carefully obscured, I wandered the halls of the hospital, dodging orderlies and interns, playing hide and seek with doctors and nurses, poking my head into people’s rooms, and looking for broken arms and legs.
    The responses varied from “No shit? You a lawyer?” to “Get the fuck out of here.” Like Babe Ruth, I struck out a lot, but also like the Babe, I hit a lot of home runs. Four hours later I left the hospital with six signups under my belt.
    I rushed them down to Richard’s, bullied my way past Kathy into his office, and threw ’em on his desk.
    Richard was surprised. He cocked his head at me, narrowed his eyes, and said, “It isn’t like you to chase ambulances. Is everything all right?”
    I had to suppress a smile. Richard isn’t used to dealing with people on a personal level, at least he never has been with me, and I would assume that would apply to others as well. Richard is at his best when he’s in an adversarial position, going for someone’s throat, and he’s perfectly at home in any business situation, but I have a feeling personal relationships make him uneasy, perhaps because there’s no right or wrong answer and thus no real guideline to him as to how he should act. At any rate, he always comes off clumsy and forced when he tries it. Now it was as if I could see him thinking to himself, “How do I show benevolent concern?”
    I waved away his inquiry. “Fine,” I told him. “Just fine.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah, sure. I just got a little behind on my bills.”
    Richard nodded, and clearly happy to be back on familiar ground, began looking over the cases. He wound up taking four of the six. Whatever Richard’s other failings might be, he was certainly a man of his word. He wrote me a check on the spot—$600.
    It was a quarter of three when I got out of there. I beat it down to the bank, got in just under the wire, and cashed the check. Stanley Hastings, detective, was back in business.
    I got in my car, which I’d left at a meter on 14th Street, and drove out to Pluto’s to check my tapes. I changed the tapes on both machines and got out of there fast. I beat it back to the office to listen to them. On the way back I stopped at one of the hole-in-the-wall appliance stores on 42nd Street and bought a reel-to-reel tape deck for $149, and a pair of stereo earphones for $30. Then I went back to the office to listen to Pluto’s Top 40.
    There were no interesting phone calls, but I had managed to get the tail-end of Pluto’s meeting with Tony. I missed the part about Tony’s fling with Marsha, but what I did get was