Love or Honor by Joan; Barthel Page A

said something like that, too.” He felt cops were often trapped in a tough, even an impossible situation. “Legislatures take months to put something into law, then they expect a cop to make a split-second decision, with no time for a committee meeting or a conference or any kind of huddle, and then enforce the law instantaneously and exactly right. And they say to a cop, ‘If you make a mistake, we’ll prosecute you .’” One way or another, Chris felt, a suspect was likely to slip through—by copping a plea, or claiming mitigating circumstances, or by having some sharp Legal Aid guy confuse the issue enough so that the case got thrown out. And Chris had learned not to take it personally.
    Except in the case of “The Bronx Bull Rapist.” Chris remembered how terrified the fifteen-year-old girl had been, how she’d backed away from him, whimpering, her face quivering, when he tried to talk to her. “Once a woman is raped, she’s never the same again,” Chris said moodily. “A part of her is stolen and she will never get it back.” He’d handled a rape case in which the woman had just sat there as he tried to get her to speak, with her jaw so tightly locked, the doctor found, that she physically couldn’t open her mouth to get the words out.
    Chris was determined that the Bronx Bull not get away. He called up some women he didn’t know but knew something about, whose bylines he’d seen, including “the one with the glasses,” Gloria Steinem. “I think the judge is coddling this guy,” Chris told them. “I think he’s completely insensitive to the women who were raped, and I’m afraid he’s going to sabotage this case and let the guy go.” On the next trial day, Chris’s team was lined up in the front rows. Each woman had a notebook and pen in hand, and kept her eyes riveted on the judge. Chris watched happily as the judge’s attitude changed, “from night to day. He got sixty-five years, baby!” Chris told Liz.
    Liz had been singing at a nightclub in Manhattan, when Chris dropped in one night to hear the flute player in the combo. He’d always liked the flute. The owner of the place knew Chris and, between sets, brought Liz over to say hello.
    â€œI hear you’re a policeman,” Liz said lightly.
    â€œWell, yeah, I am,” Chris mumbled awkwardly.
    â€œWell, I feel real safe now,” Liz said, and everybody laughed. Chris stayed until she was finished, then drove her home to her apartment on the upper east side. When he dropped her off, he didn’t ask for her phone number.
    When he went back to the club a few nights later, she asked why not. Chris mumbled something vague, because he didn’t have an answer. Liz was lovely, with blond hair in a classic pageboy cut, wide blue eyes and, in her black dress with a ruffled skirt and a string of pearls, she was sexy in a cool, sophisticated way.
    â€œWell, here it is,” she said, handing him a slip of paper. “Call me up sometime.” So he called, and they went to dinner. When she got a part in an off-Broadway revue, he went to see it twice. When the show closed, she invited him to Massachusetts for the weekend, to the small town where she’d grown up and where her parents still lived. Chris enjoyed the trip and he liked her parents, who seemed to like him, too, even though Liz’s dad was an avid golfer and Chris had always hated golf, along with most sports. As a kid, he’d always been the last to be picked for a team, any team, in any game. When he was the only kid left, just standing there, one team captain or the other would shrug and say, okay Chris, you’re with us. On Saturdays and Sundays, when other kids were playing ball, Chris was at home, practicing drums.
    Chris had never said “I love you” to anyone. Even when he felt that he loved someone, he didn’t say it in those words,