Grief Street

solid and compact, so I would give him the edge on strength; but he was half a head shorter than me, giving me the fine advantage of reach. I pocketed my notebook and pen.
    “That’s about enough yap out of you,” Webster growled.
    “If you say so.”
    Whereupon I grabbed the front of Webster’s neck with my right hand, squeezing his esophagus like it was a plastic bustard bottle and dancing him backward, fast. The impact his skull on the oak booking desk made a sound like a dropped crate. This had a calming effect on Webster. The only cop trick older than this would be the one Webster had pulled on John, the stiff jab to the sternum. I now demonstrated the same on Webster. He, too, went down, huffing and spitting.
    I looked up at Kowalski. The sergeant, knowing when he was stymied fair and square, grunted. The ten witness cops were looking around at anything besides the sprawl of Webster. Matson stayed cool, except for a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth, which could only be seen if a person was looking close. Trixie attended to a hangnail, as best she could in handcuffs. I resumed my interrogation of John from the Christian Coalition.
    “After Officer Webster assaulted you, Mr. Irvine—the first time, I mean, out in the street—didn’t I question you about what you might have seen in connection with a murder that had just occurred nearby? And wasn’t that questioning done in the presence of Officer Webster?”
    “Yes. I told you I saw something shadowy.”
    “What, exactly?”
    “Some guy, I guess. Wearing like a big baggy robe with a hood over his head. Gray and raggedy. His face was like a shadow. I think he was surprised I was there in my car. He had this rifle... Don’t ask me what kind, I don’t know guns... He aimed it at me... But he didn’t shoot, and then—poof!—he was gone.”
    “And Officer Webster wasn’t interested in any of this?”
    “No. He cut me off. This is the first I’ve been able to say anything.” John turned and pointed with his foot to Webster, who was still on the floor trying to catch his breath. “The only thing he cared about was insulting you, Detective, and humiliating my friend and me.”
    “Who you calling friend?” Trixie said, raising her cuffs to waggle an indignant finger at John. “You was a damn friend, you’d pony up with my fee.”
    “Missy, you got some freaking pair of babalones to be asking John to pay his fare,” Kowalski said. He was becoming amused again. “Ain’t you got respect for the right time and place?”
    “Speaking of which,” I said, addressing my witnesses, reclaiming the floor, “you men have been shown, here and now, that a fellow officer wantonly obstructed justice. If it was a few of you, it could be deniable. But it’s a whole lo of us, isn’t it? Ten of you men, two civilian witnesses, the sergeant, myself—and Officers Matson and Webster, neither of whom are disputing the facts presented.”
    Nobody said anything. Webster picked himself up from the floor. He was in no position to look anybody in the eye.
    “Funny enough for you, Kowalski?” The sergeant gave me no answer, not in so many words. The look on his face was cooperative, though, unless he looked that way when he had not been fed in a while. “All right, here’s how it goes: there’s no show tonight. Get it? None of your dick-prints. You’re going to release Trixie and John. So do it— now.”
    “All right already.” Kowalski peered down at Matson. “Take the bracelets off the ballerinas and toss them out the door.”
    Matson took John and Trixie through the lobby full of mumbling cops and out to the street. The party was over.
    “Get out of my sight, you freaking hump,” Kowalski said to Webster. Then to me, “It’s unwise of you being in my face again, Hockaday.”
    “So I hear. Also I’ve been told I should watch my back. Which I’m doing. If I should turn around in the dark and see you, Sergeant, I swear to God—I’ll do you like Webster. Only I’ll do it so you won’t be able to get up anymore.”
    I left Manhattan Sex Crimes feeling dirty and frightened and wondering why. In fact, had I not been feeling dirty and frightened ever since filing against Kowalski? The answer now finally came. I had abandoned my tribe: the tribe of all tribes, the New York cop tribe.
    Matson was loitering at the curb, half sitting on the hood of a squad car. “You need to, Detective, you can count on me,” he said as I passed him