to her. He seemed to recall this much fairly well. This was when the shakeups were just starting, the word was just beginning to drift down from the Commissioner’s office that pressure all up and down the line was coming on the squad and that they had better pay attention to what some of the assistant DA’s were saying. Later on, of course, this had ended with revelations that something over eighty percent of the squad was directly or indirectly involved in traffic themselves through actual handling or through payoffs and with the breakup of the squad. That had been wonderful. But this was a long time before that when the first rumblings were coming through and when Wulff had found that the few real busts he was getting were going into the precinct in the morning and coming out on bond in the afternoon, usually forfeiting bond and leaving the state. That had been pretty much par for the course, you expected this all the time but Wulff on an informant had busted a medium-grade seller in Harlem who was holding three or four kilos secreted through his pockets at the time of the bust, and, in the midst of the shakeups and the lectures from the Commissioner, he had been pretty surprised when this bust too had been released on five hundred dollars bond within twenty-four hours (he had spent a full day on the papers) and the lieutenant, when he had complained about it had told him to get lost, there were elements to this Wulff could never understand, he had nothing to do with the legalistics and why didn’t Wulff hit the streets anyway?
It had occurred to him then that he was probably in over his head, that even the easy and necessary cynicism which he had cultivated about narco was not sufficiently protective … no, if even in the face of the pressure coming through from headquarters they could pull a stunt like this, then what he had thought he understood about narco he did not. He understood nothing. All of his assumptions would have to be renegotiated and painfully; the squad appeared to be corrupt not because it was line of least resistance—shit, that part was human nature—but as a matter of conscious, persistent choice, like New York City itself it would stubbornly seize upon the worst alternatives available in any situation, those that would make the most gain for the least amount of people … no, he could not think about it. He did not want to pursue it any further. Yet it sickened him. It occurred to him then for the first time that the sickness might go beyond narco which he had known stunk almost from the beginning, it might go to the heart of the PD itself. It was the PD and its system which were rotten, narco being only a logical extension of this … and if that were true then there was nothing to do but to consider not only getting off the squad but out of PD itself.
That hurt. That would really hurt. Wulff liked being a cop. He still had a modicum of hope then.
He had talked about it with her, the only time, he seems to remember, that they had discussed his job. It must have been his apartment at night; they were spending almost all of their time together in his apartment around then but Marie with a kind of propriety and determination which he could not quite understand had never stayed all night with him … she was not going to wake up in his bed until it was her bed too she had said once with a smile and he had known enough not to push her further. But that had given them hours and hours together, sometimes it had been three or four in the morning when he had driven her to the little studio apartment in Queens which was nominally her own, and those hours were too important to waste in talking about anything as wasteful as narco. Except that this one time the need had overflowed within him and he had found himself ranting to her while she lay on the couch, a blanket drawn up just past her shoulders and had listened to him her eyes wide and luminous, her face impassive except for small convulsions of
It had occurred to him then that he was probably in over his head, that even the easy and necessary cynicism which he had cultivated about narco was not sufficiently protective … no, if even in the face of the pressure coming through from headquarters they could pull a stunt like this, then what he had thought he understood about narco he did not. He understood nothing. All of his assumptions would have to be renegotiated and painfully; the squad appeared to be corrupt not because it was line of least resistance—shit, that part was human nature—but as a matter of conscious, persistent choice, like New York City itself it would stubbornly seize upon the worst alternatives available in any situation, those that would make the most gain for the least amount of people … no, he could not think about it. He did not want to pursue it any further. Yet it sickened him. It occurred to him then for the first time that the sickness might go beyond narco which he had known stunk almost from the beginning, it might go to the heart of the PD itself. It was the PD and its system which were rotten, narco being only a logical extension of this … and if that were true then there was nothing to do but to consider not only getting off the squad but out of PD itself.
That hurt. That would really hurt. Wulff liked being a cop. He still had a modicum of hope then.
He had talked about it with her, the only time, he seems to remember, that they had discussed his job. It must have been his apartment at night; they were spending almost all of their time together in his apartment around then but Marie with a kind of propriety and determination which he could not quite understand had never stayed all night with him … she was not going to wake up in his bed until it was her bed too she had said once with a smile and he had known enough not to push her further. But that had given them hours and hours together, sometimes it had been three or four in the morning when he had driven her to the little studio apartment in Queens which was nominally her own, and those hours were too important to waste in talking about anything as wasteful as narco. Except that this one time the need had overflowed within him and he had found himself ranting to her while she lay on the couch, a blanket drawn up just past her shoulders and had listened to him her eyes wide and luminous, her face impassive except for small convulsions of
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