Grief Street

were bumped up to the feds for prosecution. Hizzoner had a crack public relations man on his staff, the best that government could buy, and put him to work making sure that his name made the headlines, warranted or otherwise. In the stories that went with the headlines, the detectives who had done the scut work were usually not mentioned. If this is Dick Tracy, then I myself am Wonder Woman.
    Dick Tracy of the comic strips has big shoulders, a square jaw, a lot of friends, few words, real hair, and a sharp wardrobe. Hizzoner is built like a thin pear. His face is creased and pointy. He spends much of the day telling people how they should do their jobs, a habit that has not endeared him to civil servants. Hizzoner’s “hair” looks like a Brillo pad run over by a truck and then pasted to his head. He is windy and wears the kind of suits junior accountants buy off the rack.
    It is Saturday morning, and here I am at City Hall—in the office of the mayor—standing on the rug with Inspector Neglio. Neglio is looking good, if shaky, in Gucci loafers, gabardine trousers, and a suede jacket. I am the one in blue: jeans and a denim shirt. Fosdick is wearing shiny wingtip shoes and gray pinstripes. Which might have been all right if the suit was flannel and charcoal gray with narrow stripes. Instead, it was aluminum gray sharkskin with chalk stripes.
    Hizzoner—standing in front of his desk with his hands in his pants pockets, watching me walk through the door and cross the room—was not smiling. The newspaper with my face on the cover lay on the floor, torn and crumpled at the mayor’s feet, like he had recently danced on it. The inspector was sweating, and I almost felt sorry for him. Neglio could not help it, he considered politicians to be serious people.
    “Here comes the cop who’s going to save America.” The mayor’s pointy face curled, and he glared at me like I was something that belonged in a landfill over in Staten Island. I did not bother about sticking my hand out for a shake. “Inspector,” he asked, his head swiveling around on a pencil neck toward Neglio, “what are you going to do about this publicity hog?”
    So that was it? The mayor was twisted because the press was not touting Hizzoner as the leading character in this murder investigation?
    “We think you’ve gone too far, Hock,” the inspector said. I no longer felt sorry for him. In fact, I wanted to punch him. From the pained look on his face, I would say that Neglio knew he had it coming. “We think what’s been published here compromises the integrity of a high-profile case, and the official chain of command.”
    “You want to know what I think?”
    “No.”
    I took a quick body count of the mayor’s office because maybe later—in a court of law, say—it could prove useful to reassemble the audience. Besides the inspector and Hizzoner, there was a City Hall flunky whose name I could get easily enough, two cops of my acquaintance from the may-oral bodyguard detail, and the inspector’s aide. My witnesses, for better or for worse.
    “Then I’ll be happy to tell you,” I said. “I don’t have time for this, there’s police work to do.”
    “Cut the crap,” Neglio said. “You’re borderline insubordinate in front of all the wrong people. I can kick your emerald ass clean off the force here and now, after which you can kiss your pension good-bye. Capice?”
    I understood, all right. The inspector and I took a long beat and glowered at each other.
    “So much for the luck of the Irish,” said Fosdick. He turned on the demented smile.
    I might have shut my mouth like a good boy, but Neglio and his pal were irritating. Besides which I had been dragged out of bed from a dream about Ruby and palm trees. And besides that, there were these savage tribesmen after me.
    “Now if I lost my job, I wonder what I’d do,” I said, talking like the choirboy I used to be. “Say, here’s an idea. I could apply for a police reporter’s job over at the Post. My first story could be about a serious brutality complaint that’s being sugared off to charm school.”
    Nobody said anything.
    “By the way, Inspector, would this be a good time to discuss Kowalski and what he’s been up to at Manhattan Sex Crimes?”
    “No.”
    “Has the mayor been fully briefed?”
    “I’ll tell you one more time,” Neglio snarled. “Cut the goddamn crap.”
    But it was no time to be cutting the crap. Crap and chutzpah were about all I had going