trendy bar to the next while the homeless sleep on the unused loading docks of abandoned factories.
It was mostly old news, but it seemed fresh to me. I watched the life of the streets as if I was still a twenty-one-year-old veteran just back from Vietnam. I’d vowed never to return to Paris, New York, on the day I’d walked into the recruiter’s office, but that didn’t mean I’d been prepared for Manhattan. Manhattan was another world altogether, as different from the DMZ as the DMZ had been from Whiteface Mountain. I breathed New York back then, sucked it in as a kind of celebration of my ability to survive.
Well, I’d managed to survive again and now the littered streets seemed as exotic as ever. Above Houston Street, the warehouse district gives way to Greenwich Village, with its town-houses and meandering lanes. On impulse, I took a left at Christopher Street and walked down to what was left of the old West Side Highway, six lanes of asphalt punctuated with traffic lights and divided by concrete barriers.
Across the highway, a few rotting piers jutted out into the Hudson River. Between the piers and the roadway, more concrete barriers sectioned off a long promenade. On this particular afternoon, the piers were almost deserted, but after dark, winter or summer, rain or shine, West Street was the center of a homosexual meat market that had almost nothing to do with the large gay community in Greenwich Village.
That was the strangest part about it. The whores were young runaways from all over the country, and the customers were from New Jersey and Connecticut and Long Island. The newspapers claim that eighty percent of the male prostitutes working the piers are HIV positive. (Only slightly higher, by the way, than the percent of female prostitutes working Midtown.) Back when I’d been assigned to Vice, one of my jobs had been to pose as a prostitute and lure the johns into making a proposition. I was still young and pretty in those days and I never had much trouble making arrests. What amazed me (in the beginning, at least) was the simple fact that almost all of the johns were married. And they weren’t anxious to use condoms, either. I know because, mostly out of boredom, I tested them.
“Forty bucks? Okay, but you gotta use a rubber. I don’t wanna get AIDS.”
“Ha, ha, ha. You kids sure learn to hustle early. Make it sixty. But no scumbags, sonny. I wanna feel something.”
I continued on up to Jane Street, then turned east. The one-story brick structure housing the task force had originally been a garage. The faded sign above the door read “MANGANARO TKG.” There was nothing to announce the presence of a police task force (the NYPD, if it had its choice, would probably make 911 an unlisted number) except the actual address. I tried the door, found it locked, rang the bell.
“Yeah?” The cop who answered was in uniform. He stared at my face for a moment, trying to guess who or what I was, then repeated, “Yeah?”
“Detective Means,” I responded, deadpan.
“There’s no Detective Means here.”
“ I’m Detective Means, you asshole. I’m looking for Pucinski.”
He didn’t like my answer, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Eating shit is an important part of the police experience. He let me inside and I spotted Pucinski sitting in front of a computer off to one side of the room.
I knew Pucinski from the ballistics lab. In some ways, he was the ultimate cop, a thirty-five-year man with no intention of retiring. The job was his family, his religion, his life. Five years ago, he’d run into the wrong alley and been rewarded with a shotgun blast that took off most of his right leg. He could have retired on the spot with a three-quarter pension, but, as he explained to me later, he’d never even considered the possibility. Instead, after the surgery, the prosthesis, and the rehab, he’d clomped into the office of Inspector George Dimenico, his rabbi, and begged to be
It was mostly old news, but it seemed fresh to me. I watched the life of the streets as if I was still a twenty-one-year-old veteran just back from Vietnam. I’d vowed never to return to Paris, New York, on the day I’d walked into the recruiter’s office, but that didn’t mean I’d been prepared for Manhattan. Manhattan was another world altogether, as different from the DMZ as the DMZ had been from Whiteface Mountain. I breathed New York back then, sucked it in as a kind of celebration of my ability to survive.
Well, I’d managed to survive again and now the littered streets seemed as exotic as ever. Above Houston Street, the warehouse district gives way to Greenwich Village, with its town-houses and meandering lanes. On impulse, I took a left at Christopher Street and walked down to what was left of the old West Side Highway, six lanes of asphalt punctuated with traffic lights and divided by concrete barriers.
Across the highway, a few rotting piers jutted out into the Hudson River. Between the piers and the roadway, more concrete barriers sectioned off a long promenade. On this particular afternoon, the piers were almost deserted, but after dark, winter or summer, rain or shine, West Street was the center of a homosexual meat market that had almost nothing to do with the large gay community in Greenwich Village.
That was the strangest part about it. The whores were young runaways from all over the country, and the customers were from New Jersey and Connecticut and Long Island. The newspapers claim that eighty percent of the male prostitutes working the piers are HIV positive. (Only slightly higher, by the way, than the percent of female prostitutes working Midtown.) Back when I’d been assigned to Vice, one of my jobs had been to pose as a prostitute and lure the johns into making a proposition. I was still young and pretty in those days and I never had much trouble making arrests. What amazed me (in the beginning, at least) was the simple fact that almost all of the johns were married. And they weren’t anxious to use condoms, either. I know because, mostly out of boredom, I tested them.
“Forty bucks? Okay, but you gotta use a rubber. I don’t wanna get AIDS.”
“Ha, ha, ha. You kids sure learn to hustle early. Make it sixty. But no scumbags, sonny. I wanna feel something.”
I continued on up to Jane Street, then turned east. The one-story brick structure housing the task force had originally been a garage. The faded sign above the door read “MANGANARO TKG.” There was nothing to announce the presence of a police task force (the NYPD, if it had its choice, would probably make 911 an unlisted number) except the actual address. I tried the door, found it locked, rang the bell.
“Yeah?” The cop who answered was in uniform. He stared at my face for a moment, trying to guess who or what I was, then repeated, “Yeah?”
“Detective Means,” I responded, deadpan.
“There’s no Detective Means here.”
“ I’m Detective Means, you asshole. I’m looking for Pucinski.”
He didn’t like my answer, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Eating shit is an important part of the police experience. He let me inside and I spotted Pucinski sitting in front of a computer off to one side of the room.
I knew Pucinski from the ballistics lab. In some ways, he was the ultimate cop, a thirty-five-year man with no intention of retiring. The job was his family, his religion, his life. Five years ago, he’d run into the wrong alley and been rewarded with a shotgun blast that took off most of his right leg. He could have retired on the spot with a three-quarter pension, but, as he explained to me later, he’d never even considered the possibility. Instead, after the surgery, the prosthesis, and the rehab, he’d clomped into the office of Inspector George Dimenico, his rabbi, and begged to be
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