Read Online VC01 - Privileged Lives by Edward Stewart - Free Book Online
Authors: Edward Stewart
Ads: Link
marble steps leading to the next floor were gritty with ancient filth. On a bench in the hall a detective was taking a statement from an elderly male complainant who had just been robbed at knifepoint on Lexington Avenue.
“The city’s not safe anymore,” the man was moaning. Cardozo felt sorry for a guy that old and just beginning to learn.
He entered the Detective Unit squad room. The large office was crammed with metal desks and files and old wood tables. The windows were covered with grills, and the grills and glass had been painted over in an industrial green that almost matched the walls.
It was late and the room was deserted except for the detective on night duty. “What’s happening?” Cardozo asked.
“There’s an R.I.P. up on Madison,” Tom Sweeney said. “Two Hispanics seen breaking into a chocolate shop.”
Cardozo gave Sweeney a look. Most cops did their eight hours and got their asses home. Not Sweeney, at least not lately. He seemed to be in the squad room round the clock. Cardozo had heard rumors that his wife was in the process of leaving him for another woman. He felt sorry for the guy.
Sweeney said a ten thirty—reported stickup—had come in fifteen minutes ago: a Caucasian with a .38 had walked into the Bojangles on Sixtieth and taken four hundred dollars, wallets, rings, and wrist watches. No casualties.
The room smelled of coffee. Cardozo made his way to the source of the smell. “What kind of idiot would do that? Anyone sitting in Bojangles, the watch has got to be a Timex, the ring’s tin. Criminals used to have brains in this city.”
An evil-looking Sola for charging radio batteries sat on a padlocked cabinet. The cabinet was where detectives weary of carrying three pounds of metal could stow their weapons. Two Mr. Coffees sat quietly steaming beside the Sola. The squad split the cost of cheap drip-grind and kept the coffee makers working around the clock. Cardozo poured a Styrofoam cup of brew that looked as though it had been jelling in the bottom of the pot for two days. He ripped open an envelope of Sweet ’n Low and let the powder silt down into his coffee.
“What’s that pross in for downstairs?” he said. “They made loitering a crime again?”
“Offering to sell coke to Lieutenant Vaughan.”
Cardozo made a face. Another hooker trying to sell talcum powder to a plainclothesman. He couldn’t believe Vaughan would bother with the arrest, the paperwork, the aggravation. “What’s Vaughan want with bullshit like that?”
“You know what the CP says: we gotta increase productivity.” Sweeney nodded toward the bulletin board where the two-week-old word-processed directive from the police commissioner’s office had been push-pinned. “Budget time in Nueva York. El capitano wants to goose those percentages.”
Cardozo’s eyes went across the deserted room. The detention cage, butted into a corner, was empty for the moment, with a two-year-old copy of Penthouse magazine spread facedown on the bench.
He crossed to his office, a cubicle with precinct green walls.
His desk was the same gray metal as the desks outside. The phone was an early touch-tone model that Bell had discontinued in 1963; it had had a crack under the cradle since ’73 and the tape on the crack got changed whenever it dried up. The typewriter was a model-T Underwood that you couldn’t have donated to a reform school.
He frowned. A dismal-looking pile of departmental forms had accumulated around the typewriter since Saturday. Today was supposed to be his RDO, his regular day off; he was supposed to be in Rockaway with his little girl.
He sat in the swivel chair and saw that the top piece of paper was a hand-scrawled note: CALL CHIEF O’BRIEN AT HOME A.S.A.P. , followed by the captain’s home phone and the initials of the sergeant who had taken the call.
Cardozo dialed the Woodlawn number.
As the phone rang he glanced through the rest of the paper. Mostly it was a bunch of fives, DD5
“The city’s not safe anymore,” the man was moaning. Cardozo felt sorry for a guy that old and just beginning to learn.
He entered the Detective Unit squad room. The large office was crammed with metal desks and files and old wood tables. The windows were covered with grills, and the grills and glass had been painted over in an industrial green that almost matched the walls.
It was late and the room was deserted except for the detective on night duty. “What’s happening?” Cardozo asked.
“There’s an R.I.P. up on Madison,” Tom Sweeney said. “Two Hispanics seen breaking into a chocolate shop.”
Cardozo gave Sweeney a look. Most cops did their eight hours and got their asses home. Not Sweeney, at least not lately. He seemed to be in the squad room round the clock. Cardozo had heard rumors that his wife was in the process of leaving him for another woman. He felt sorry for the guy.
Sweeney said a ten thirty—reported stickup—had come in fifteen minutes ago: a Caucasian with a .38 had walked into the Bojangles on Sixtieth and taken four hundred dollars, wallets, rings, and wrist watches. No casualties.
The room smelled of coffee. Cardozo made his way to the source of the smell. “What kind of idiot would do that? Anyone sitting in Bojangles, the watch has got to be a Timex, the ring’s tin. Criminals used to have brains in this city.”
An evil-looking Sola for charging radio batteries sat on a padlocked cabinet. The cabinet was where detectives weary of carrying three pounds of metal could stow their weapons. Two Mr. Coffees sat quietly steaming beside the Sola. The squad split the cost of cheap drip-grind and kept the coffee makers working around the clock. Cardozo poured a Styrofoam cup of brew that looked as though it had been jelling in the bottom of the pot for two days. He ripped open an envelope of Sweet ’n Low and let the powder silt down into his coffee.
“What’s that pross in for downstairs?” he said. “They made loitering a crime again?”
“Offering to sell coke to Lieutenant Vaughan.”
Cardozo made a face. Another hooker trying to sell talcum powder to a plainclothesman. He couldn’t believe Vaughan would bother with the arrest, the paperwork, the aggravation. “What’s Vaughan want with bullshit like that?”
“You know what the CP says: we gotta increase productivity.” Sweeney nodded toward the bulletin board where the two-week-old word-processed directive from the police commissioner’s office had been push-pinned. “Budget time in Nueva York. El capitano wants to goose those percentages.”
Cardozo’s eyes went across the deserted room. The detention cage, butted into a corner, was empty for the moment, with a two-year-old copy of Penthouse magazine spread facedown on the bench.
He crossed to his office, a cubicle with precinct green walls.
His desk was the same gray metal as the desks outside. The phone was an early touch-tone model that Bell had discontinued in 1963; it had had a crack under the cradle since ’73 and the tape on the crack got changed whenever it dried up. The typewriter was a model-T Underwood that you couldn’t have donated to a reform school.
He frowned. A dismal-looking pile of departmental forms had accumulated around the typewriter since Saturday. Today was supposed to be his RDO, his regular day off; he was supposed to be in Rockaway with his little girl.
He sat in the swivel chair and saw that the top piece of paper was a hand-scrawled note: CALL CHIEF O’BRIEN AT HOME A.S.A.P. , followed by the captain’s home phone and the initials of the sergeant who had taken the call.
Cardozo dialed the Woodlawn number.
As the phone rang he glanced through the rest of the paper. Mostly it was a bunch of fives, DD5
Similar Books
