Grief Street

echoing through the station house lobby.

    The squad room is painted government green—windows included, which does not matter, since there is only an air shaft view of soot-crusted brick. Whatever time of year it is, and whatever the outdoor temperature and wind patterns, I it is always about eighty-five degrees and humid in this room. There are a half-dozen steel desks and a like number of steel filing cabinets, all of them beige and dented; a hot plate for making coffee; a miniature refrigerator with cans; of soda inside, along with cockroaches and mold; an oscillating fan, usually on the fritz; fluorescent lights buzzing overhead; a rogue’s gallery of wanted posters taped to cement walls; and a lieutenant by the name of Rankin who is in I charge of the daily assignments. Rankin sweats a lot, accounting for a share of squad room humidity. He does not wear deodorant.
    “What do you know, Hock?” Rankin greeted me as I walked through the door, panting from the six-flight climb. The squad room was empty. My colleagues and I prefer clearing out fast and working the streets over hanging out in a close room with a ripe lieutenant. Rankin was breaking the law by smoking a Winston. Also he was pawing through a stack of complaint sheets. Stains under his armpits arced clear down to his gunbelt. When I had reached his desk, he said, “I hate to give you this two-bit job, Hock. But as you I can see plain, I’m shorthanded.”
    “What is it?” I took the sheets Rankin handed me.
    “Over to West Forty-sixth, Restaurant Row. Some con’s running the coronary scam. The guy is old, could be eighty. But he’s spry, and smooth. Get this—he wears kid gloves. He can make any regular-looking cop—in a suit or wearing the bag, don’t matter. Talks like an Irishman who read some books.” Rankin looked me over, nodding his approval of my own low-profile ensemble: khakis, gray sweatshirt, Yankees cap, worn-out tennis shoes, a face in need of a shave. I could be some ordinary neighborhood idler—a guy on his way to the OTB parlor or a blocked novelist, say. “The restaurant owners, they’re squawking. You know how they got the mayor’s ear. So we got orders. Somebody’s got to pull a stake.”
    I knew the grift without having to read through the complaints: Cauc male, neat dresser, distinguished type with silver wings in his hair, a charming accent from the other side, and just enough in his spiel to give the reassuring impression of old money and an old boy school. He takes a good table at Barbetta’s, say, and after a fine meal with all the proper wines he drops over in his chair and his face pinches up and he claws at his chest and somebody calls 911 and then the EMS unit comes and carts off the poor gasping heart attack victim. In all the commotion, the check for the guy’s meal is the last thing anybody thinks about. And by the time the gasper reaches the emergency room at Roosevelt or , he is miraculously recovered. A guy can get away with murder if he wears the right color skin and his breath smells like cash when he wants something.
    “I can’t be working a Mickey Mouse today,” I told Rankin.
    “How’s that?”
    “You heard about the rabbi who got it at the temple on the overnight?”
    “Sure.”
    “Friend of mine.”
    “You ain’t Jewish.”
    “So I’m told.” I stepped over to my desk. Like static cling, some of the lieutenant’s dampness followed me. “Sorry, Looey, but I’m putting in for a waiver on this one.”
    Rankin fumed and pawed through more paper. Nobody likes being overruled. A spark from his cigarette fell, landing on his shirt. It sizzled out in a circle of sweat. I sat down at my desk, picked up the telephone, and dialed Inspector Tomasino Neglio’s office downtown.
    For months, I had not spoken to Neglio on the subject of my beef with Kowalski. This was on purpose for two good reasons. First, whenever I run up against a lot of bureaucratic twaddle about the slow-grinding wheels of justice, I remember about Scotch whisky, which I do not want to think about. Second, reminding the boss at just the right time about something he was duty-bound to perform was a good tactic for getting something I might need in the short-term.
    “What do you want now, Hock?” This was Neglio’s usual hello to me. Today was no different from any other.
    “You have to give me clearance for special assignment. By the way, what’s happening with King Kong?”
    “For your information, I just gave