drive me home. Instead he parks in here and goes at me like King Kong.”
While Tebbet listened gravely, Sergeant Rusty Boyle put his hands on his hips and stared at a group of what he judged to be whip-dick hippies bunched together on the sidewalk. They wore ponchos and dirty jeans and were grinning at Hilda Smedley, obviously savoring her flushed, swollen face, ripped blouse, and hysterical tears.
A third-grade detective from the 10th Precinct arrived, Dennis St.
John, a bulky man in his forties who was wearing a windbreaker and a beret. St. John double-parked his car alongside Boyle’s unmarked vehicle, blocking traffic and touching off a fusillade of blasting horns.
Christ, Rusty Boyle thought, with swiftly mounting exasperation and anger. Chaos was part of a police officer’s life, Detective Sergeant Rusty Boyle knew full well; death in its most violent forms, from gunshots, fires and drownings, from knives, razors, the strangling hands of maniacs, these were the items stacked up on the shelves of every policeman’s shop. But Rusty Boyle hated the merchandise he dealt with and traded in and thus tried with all his skill and strength to prevent its occurrence or at least to camouflage it with some semblance of form and discipline. And that was why the present scene so offended him, with its noisy untidiness, its disheveled and violated Hilda Smedley, the gawking street freaks, and the other pedestrians stopping to stare with insulting intensity at the ravaged woman and even, he thought furiously, goddamn dumb Denny St.
John from the 10th, puffing officiously onto the scene and contributing to the turmoil by double-parking his car and blocking traffic all the way back to Sixth Avenue.
Rusty Boyle began shouting orders, beginning with the hippies, and scaring them half out of their wits by bellowing at them in a voice that was like a clap of thunder.
“Get moving, you kinks. Go find some school to drop out of, or I’ll kick your butts up between your shoulders.”
As they backed away from him, covering their embarrassment with awkward grins, Sergeant Boyle turned and stared with cold eyes at the other pedestrians who had stopped to witness Hilda Smedley’s pathetic anguish.
“Everything snap-ass in your homes? Kids all straight-A students? Nobody banging his secretary or sneaking a few belts of whiskey before breakfast? Take care of your own lives. You heard me. Move!”
Dennis St. John tapped Sergeant Boyle on the arm and nodded with an air of gravity and importance toward Hilda Smedley.
“What we got here, Rusty?”
“What the fuck you think we’ve got?” Rusty Boyle said. “I’ll tell you what we got here. We got a fucking traffic jam here. Will you get your car off the street? Pull it into the parking lot.”
There was no reason to shout at him, Sergeant Boyle realized; St. John would probably handle this case, but the detective’s dumbness, which was annoyingly coupled to a manner of pompous self-importance, gave Boyle a pain in the ass.
“I’ll move it,” St. John said. “But I thought something was breaking. That you guys might need some muscle.”
Sergeant Boyle stared in disgust at the backed-up lines of honking automobiles. “What’s breaking are my damned eardrums,” he said.
“Come on, cool it, Sergeant,” St. John said in a petulant voice, and waddled back to his car.
Rusty Boyle noticed then that one man still stood on the sidewalk at the entrance to the parking lot. The man was forty or forty-five, Rusty Boyle judged, wearing slacks and a sweater over a sports shirt. His hair was thinning and gray, and his features were nondescript; a worthy burgher, a taxpaying Mr. Straight, Boyle thought, except there was something haunted in his eyes which were large and clear behind bifocals. He didn’t look the type, Boyle thought, to be getting his jollies at the sight of a sobbing, battered woman, but Boyle had stopped judging people by appearances ever since he collared an altar
While Tebbet listened gravely, Sergeant Rusty Boyle put his hands on his hips and stared at a group of what he judged to be whip-dick hippies bunched together on the sidewalk. They wore ponchos and dirty jeans and were grinning at Hilda Smedley, obviously savoring her flushed, swollen face, ripped blouse, and hysterical tears.
A third-grade detective from the 10th Precinct arrived, Dennis St.
John, a bulky man in his forties who was wearing a windbreaker and a beret. St. John double-parked his car alongside Boyle’s unmarked vehicle, blocking traffic and touching off a fusillade of blasting horns.
Christ, Rusty Boyle thought, with swiftly mounting exasperation and anger. Chaos was part of a police officer’s life, Detective Sergeant Rusty Boyle knew full well; death in its most violent forms, from gunshots, fires and drownings, from knives, razors, the strangling hands of maniacs, these were the items stacked up on the shelves of every policeman’s shop. But Rusty Boyle hated the merchandise he dealt with and traded in and thus tried with all his skill and strength to prevent its occurrence or at least to camouflage it with some semblance of form and discipline. And that was why the present scene so offended him, with its noisy untidiness, its disheveled and violated Hilda Smedley, the gawking street freaks, and the other pedestrians stopping to stare with insulting intensity at the ravaged woman and even, he thought furiously, goddamn dumb Denny St.
John from the 10th, puffing officiously onto the scene and contributing to the turmoil by double-parking his car and blocking traffic all the way back to Sixth Avenue.
Rusty Boyle began shouting orders, beginning with the hippies, and scaring them half out of their wits by bellowing at them in a voice that was like a clap of thunder.
“Get moving, you kinks. Go find some school to drop out of, or I’ll kick your butts up between your shoulders.”
As they backed away from him, covering their embarrassment with awkward grins, Sergeant Boyle turned and stared with cold eyes at the other pedestrians who had stopped to witness Hilda Smedley’s pathetic anguish.
“Everything snap-ass in your homes? Kids all straight-A students? Nobody banging his secretary or sneaking a few belts of whiskey before breakfast? Take care of your own lives. You heard me. Move!”
Dennis St. John tapped Sergeant Boyle on the arm and nodded with an air of gravity and importance toward Hilda Smedley.
“What we got here, Rusty?”
“What the fuck you think we’ve got?” Rusty Boyle said. “I’ll tell you what we got here. We got a fucking traffic jam here. Will you get your car off the street? Pull it into the parking lot.”
There was no reason to shout at him, Sergeant Boyle realized; St. John would probably handle this case, but the detective’s dumbness, which was annoyingly coupled to a manner of pompous self-importance, gave Boyle a pain in the ass.
“I’ll move it,” St. John said. “But I thought something was breaking. That you guys might need some muscle.”
Sergeant Boyle stared in disgust at the backed-up lines of honking automobiles. “What’s breaking are my damned eardrums,” he said.
“Come on, cool it, Sergeant,” St. John said in a petulant voice, and waddled back to his car.
Rusty Boyle noticed then that one man still stood on the sidewalk at the entrance to the parking lot. The man was forty or forty-five, Rusty Boyle judged, wearing slacks and a sweater over a sports shirt. His hair was thinning and gray, and his features were nondescript; a worthy burgher, a taxpaying Mr. Straight, Boyle thought, except there was something haunted in his eyes which were large and clear behind bifocals. He didn’t look the type, Boyle thought, to be getting his jollies at the sight of a sobbing, battered woman, but Boyle had stopped judging people by appearances ever since he collared an altar
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