Read Online The McBain Brief by Ed McBain - Free Book Online

pushed through the rail divider and walked directly to Burroughs’ desk.
    â€œAny calls?” he asked.
    â€œOh, hi, Frank,” Burroughs said. “No calls. You’re interrupting a joke.”
    â€œI’m sure it’s hilarious.”
    â€œWell, I think it’s pretty funny,” Burroughs said defensively.
    â€œI thought it was pretty funny, too,” Randolph said, “for the first hundred times.”
    He stood over Burroughs’ desk, a tall man with close-cropped brown hair and lustreless brown eyes. His nose had been broken once in a street fight, and together with the hard, unyielding line of his mouth, it gave his face an over-all look of meanness. He knew he was intimidating Burroughs, but he didn’t much give a damn. He almost wished that Burroughs would really take offense and come out of the chair fighting. There was nothing he’d have liked better than to knock Burroughs on his ass.
    â€œYou don’t like the jokes, you don’t have to listen,” Burroughs said, but his voice lacked conviction.
    â€œThank you. I won’t.”
    From a typewriter at the next desk Dave Fields looked up. Fields was a big cop with shrewd blue eyes and a friendly smile. The smile belied the fact that he could be the toughest cop in the precinct when he wanted to.
    â€œWhat’s eating you, Frank?” he asked, smiling.
    â€œNothing. What’s eating you?”
    Fields continued smiling. “You looking for a fight?” he asked.
    Randolph studied him. He had seen Fields in action, and he was not particularly anxious to provoke him. He wanted to smile back and say something like, “Ah, the hell with it. I’m just down in the dumps”—anything to let Fields know he had no real quarrel with him. But something else inside him took over, something that had not been a part of him long ago.
    He held Fields’ eyes with his own. “Any time you’re ready for one,” he said, and there was no smile on his mouth.
    â€œHe’s got the crud,” Fields said. “Every month or so, the bulls in this precinct get the crud. It’s from dealing with criminal types.”
    He recognized Fields’ maneuver and was grateful for it. Fields was smoothing it over. Fields didn’t want trouble, and so he was joking his way out of it now, handling it as it should have been handled. But whereas he realized Fields was being the bigger of the two men, he was still immensely satisfied that he had not backed down. Yet his satisfaction rankled.
    â€œI’ll give you some advice,” Fields said. “You want some advice, Frank? Free?”
    â€œGo ahead,” Randolph said.
    â€œDon’t let it get you. The trouble with being a cop in a precinctlike this one is that you begin to imagine everybody in the world is crooked. That just ain’t so.”
    â€œNo, huh?”
    â€œBelieve me, Frank, it ain’t.”
    â€œThanks,” Randolph said. “I’ve been a cop in this precinct for eight years now. I don’t need advice on how to be a cop in this precinct.”
    â€œI’m not giving you that kind of advice. I’m telling you how to be a man when you leave this precinct.”
    For a moment, Randolph was silent. Then he said, “I haven’t had any complaints.”
    â€œFrank,” Fields said softly, “your best friends won’t tell you.”
    â€œThen they’re not my best . . .”
    â€œAll right, get in there!” a voice in the corridor shouted.
    Randolph turned. He saw Boglio first, and then he saw the man with Boglio. The man was small and thin with a narrow moustache. He had brown eyes and lank brown hair, and he wet his moustache nervously with his tongue.
    â€œOver there!” Boglio shouted. “Against the wall!”
    â€œWhat’ve you got, Rudy?” Randolph asked.
    â€œI got a punk,” Boglio said. He turned to the man and bellowed, “You