I ask ya, Stanley, why is gettin’ transferred out to the boondocks a punishment?”
“Because there’s no money out there. No pad.”
“Congratulations, my boy, you’ve just won a free trip to the real world.”
What had stuck in Moodrow’s mind was the part about “not everybody participates.” He’d never given it much thought while he was fighting his way into the detectives, but he’d expected to have a choice, to think about it before it was shoved into his face. Sure, people wanted to make bets. They wanted to get laid, too. But when these same people got in over their heads, the bookies sent guys with baseball bats to do the collecting. And the pimps weren’t any better. They controlled their stables with anything that came to hand. Fists, chairs, lit cigarettes, razors, knives. Anything.
Moodrow had seen it close up. It was always a beat cop who arrived first when the bookies got through collecting. A beat cop who picked up the pieces and loaded them into an ambulance. Besides, the story Moodrow kept hearing was that the bookies and pimps were employees. They worked for bosses who also distributed the heroin that’d hit the Lower East Side like a biblical plague.
What it needed was sorting out. No matter what the cops did, even if they never took a dime from anybody, the gambling and the whores would still be there. You couldn’t stop it and the politicians would never legalize it. The cops were the regulators, the only regulators. It wasn’t what they were set up to do, but if they didn’t do it, the situation would be a lot worse.
“You in dreamland, Stanley?”
Sal Patero was smiling. He had no inkling of what was going on behind the swelling and the bruises on Moodrow’s face. Fighters are trained not to show an opponent what they’re feeling. A triumphant grin might inspire a beaten fighter to give it one more try. Showing fear or pain, on the other hand, encourages an even greater beating. If you were smart, you learned to show nothing. You learned, for instance, to hold yourself erect after a left hook just turned your liver to jelly.
“No, no. I’m here. I was just thinking.”
“Have something to eat. It helps prevent that condition.”
The waiter was already standing by the table. He took their order, veal for Patero and the shrimps in hot sauce for Moodrow, then disappeared into the kitchen.
“I was thinking about what we’ve been doing all morning,” Moodrow said.
“I was afraid you were gonna say that.”
“The thing of it is that if you’d given me a choice, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Whether I would’ve gone into it or not. But now that I’m already in the soup, I wanna try to understand what I’m eatin’. So’s I don’t get indigestion.”
“Keep goin’, Stanley.”
Patero was obviously irritated, but Moodrow wasn’t really concerned about Patero. Pat Cohan had set this up and unless Pat Cohan decreed otherwise, they were stuck with each other.
“This is the pad we’re doing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re the precinct bagman, right?”
“Don’t make this into a cross-examination, Stanley. I don’t feature being interrogated. Especially by you.” Patero’s ears were red, the veins along his temples swollen.
“How often do we have to do this?”
“Whenever I say so.”
“C’mon, Sal. I got a right to know. Is this it? Eight hours a day, five days a week until I earn my pension?”
“You want out? There’s ten thousand cops who’d give their right arms to be in your position. You want out, just say the word.”
“That’s not what you told me this morning. This morning you told me if I had a problem, I should take it to Pat Cohan.”
“Fuck Pat Cohan.”
“Ya know, Sal, you should try to put yourself in my position. Five years I’m a cop and the most I ever got out of it was a free hamburger. I’m a detective for five hours and I’ve committed five felonies. Five counts of bribery, if not outright
“Because there’s no money out there. No pad.”
“Congratulations, my boy, you’ve just won a free trip to the real world.”
What had stuck in Moodrow’s mind was the part about “not everybody participates.” He’d never given it much thought while he was fighting his way into the detectives, but he’d expected to have a choice, to think about it before it was shoved into his face. Sure, people wanted to make bets. They wanted to get laid, too. But when these same people got in over their heads, the bookies sent guys with baseball bats to do the collecting. And the pimps weren’t any better. They controlled their stables with anything that came to hand. Fists, chairs, lit cigarettes, razors, knives. Anything.
Moodrow had seen it close up. It was always a beat cop who arrived first when the bookies got through collecting. A beat cop who picked up the pieces and loaded them into an ambulance. Besides, the story Moodrow kept hearing was that the bookies and pimps were employees. They worked for bosses who also distributed the heroin that’d hit the Lower East Side like a biblical plague.
What it needed was sorting out. No matter what the cops did, even if they never took a dime from anybody, the gambling and the whores would still be there. You couldn’t stop it and the politicians would never legalize it. The cops were the regulators, the only regulators. It wasn’t what they were set up to do, but if they didn’t do it, the situation would be a lot worse.
“You in dreamland, Stanley?”
Sal Patero was smiling. He had no inkling of what was going on behind the swelling and the bruises on Moodrow’s face. Fighters are trained not to show an opponent what they’re feeling. A triumphant grin might inspire a beaten fighter to give it one more try. Showing fear or pain, on the other hand, encourages an even greater beating. If you were smart, you learned to show nothing. You learned, for instance, to hold yourself erect after a left hook just turned your liver to jelly.
“No, no. I’m here. I was just thinking.”
“Have something to eat. It helps prevent that condition.”
The waiter was already standing by the table. He took their order, veal for Patero and the shrimps in hot sauce for Moodrow, then disappeared into the kitchen.
“I was thinking about what we’ve been doing all morning,” Moodrow said.
“I was afraid you were gonna say that.”
“The thing of it is that if you’d given me a choice, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Whether I would’ve gone into it or not. But now that I’m already in the soup, I wanna try to understand what I’m eatin’. So’s I don’t get indigestion.”
“Keep goin’, Stanley.”
Patero was obviously irritated, but Moodrow wasn’t really concerned about Patero. Pat Cohan had set this up and unless Pat Cohan decreed otherwise, they were stuck with each other.
“This is the pad we’re doing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re the precinct bagman, right?”
“Don’t make this into a cross-examination, Stanley. I don’t feature being interrogated. Especially by you.” Patero’s ears were red, the veins along his temples swollen.
“How often do we have to do this?”
“Whenever I say so.”
“C’mon, Sal. I got a right to know. Is this it? Eight hours a day, five days a week until I earn my pension?”
“You want out? There’s ten thousand cops who’d give their right arms to be in your position. You want out, just say the word.”
“That’s not what you told me this morning. This morning you told me if I had a problem, I should take it to Pat Cohan.”
“Fuck Pat Cohan.”
“Ya know, Sal, you should try to put yourself in my position. Five years I’m a cop and the most I ever got out of it was a free hamburger. I’m a detective for five hours and I’ve committed five felonies. Five counts of bribery, if not outright
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