Thrown-away Child

out of a ring without going some rounds with a challenger. “Let me just ask you something pertinent,” Hippo said. “You care to provide me with a for instance in back of what you’re allegating here?”
    “For instance, Detectives Mueller and Eckles.“
    “Happens I know those two. Very fine men.“
    “Couldn’t agree more,” Vonny said, nodding at Hippo.
    I said to Vonny, “Here’s what kind of a fair man I am. I am hereby advising you to shut the hell up.”
    I said to Hippo, “These two fine men of yours came around to my mother-in-law’s, place the other day and shook her up bad. I don’t like that.”
    “Your mother-in-law’s, you say? That’s right, you did mention something about a wife. So—that’s why you here in our beloved city. You married a southern gal. My congratulations, sir. I wonder if I might know her.”
    “Her and her whole family. Being a figure in the news, her sister is someone you’re acquainted with.” Hippo waited for a name, but I decided not to drop one for the time being. He studied me with his dark bulldog eyes. I could see he was adding and subtracting based on what I had said and left unsaid. I figured by now that he knew the game was afoot, that he was engaged in a heavyweight bout, that he had decided against revelations of his own. And that he had decided to play dumb.
    “What you’re telling me, Detective Hockaday, it’s very intriguing.” Spoken like a true politician. Hippo had managed to say nothing that would pin him down.
    “You’re intrigued that I married a southern woman?”
    “Maybe you can guess I’m a man of many interests.”
    “That I heard, too. You’ll be interested to know that Mueller and Eckles—your fine ones—insulted my mother-in-law and my wife and all the rest of us who don’t happen to be Kluxers.”
    “Just what’d they say to set you off?”
    “For starters, Jew York City.”
    “Haw!” Vonny chortled. “That’s a good one!”
    I turned and said to him, “Strike two, Sergean Watch your step and mind your mouth.”
    “Well, let’s just pause to analyze what we got here.” Hippo tapped fingers on his desk. “You married this gal from a family I know—especially the sister-in-law, on account of I’m in the news somewhat—and now you’re telling me that the conduct of a couple of police officers is upsetting to you on the grounds of race.”
    Hippo stopped tapping, long enough to finish his gumbo. When he was through he wiped his mouth with his huge napkin. “Well now, Detective Hockaday, would your sister-in-law be that good-looking TV news gal, Jan Flagg?”
    “That colored one?” Vonny LeMay looked at me, the horrible computation of it all flaming across his colorless face. He turned to Hippo. “Why, that’d mean the Yankee’s married to a nigger!”
    I did not bother answering the sergeant. Instead, I slammed my right fist square against his breastbone. This is one of the earliest and most useful lessons taught at the New York Police Academy. A person receiving a surprise ramrod punch to the sternum will expel, on reflex, virtually all his breath, rendering him helpless. It works every time. The beauty of such an assault is that the victim is not physically damaged beyond the temporary loss of air. This is because the sternum is designed to stand up to far greater abuse than a human fist can deliver.
    Oh sure, it is possible that the breastbone can hurt like hell for a week or two. But this was only a hope as I looked at Sergeant Levond LeMay, crumpled to the floor with one gauzy hand to his heart and the other alternately clutching at his gasping neck and slobbering mouth. His legs were doing pinwheels.
    With time standing still for the moment, I thought over something terrible that Ruby had told me during our moody train ride from New York—about the first time she was called nigger, as a schoolgirl walking down the street. There are precious few times in anybody’s life when perfect justice is served. I looked down at the flailing bigot, Vonny, and knew that his distress came close to being one of those precious moments, lacking only the presence of Ruby to share in the bliss.
    Hippo was inspired to rise from his throne. He smoothed his shirt down over his belly and snapped his firehouse suspenders, then walked around the edge of his desk to take inventory of the man who had dropped out of sight.
    “Now, I don’t know but that was a very poltroonish thing of you to do to poor Vonny,” he