stone.
Danny walked along the sidewalk that edged the hotel side of the underpass. He stopped at the top of a stairway leading under
the hotel, where the driver of a refrigerated truck had been sliding boxes of filet mignon down a metal chute. Danny used
the truck for cover in case Winters came back out. He began playing back the tape. Danny’s voice sounded small in comparison
with that of Winters. The conversation was short. He played it again.
The first thing Danny felt was the man’s wetness against his back, the heat from his body. Then the arm around his throat.
He grabbed the tape recorder out of Danny’s hands. And shoved. Danny flew headfirst, reaching for anything, clutching only
air. His left knee slammed down on the metal chute, his right knee missed the chute, and he spun right and tumbled down the
steps, twisting as he grabbed a pipe with his right arm and heard the pop. He came to rest on the stacks of filet mignon,
his right shoulder directly under his chin. He closed his eyes.
8
H ow’s Ryan’s nephew?” Chief of Detectives Paddy “Roses” Ferguson said without looking up. He’d heard Joe Gregory’s signature
knock on his open door.
“Feeling no pain,” Gregory said. “They didn’t admit him. We brought him home from the emergency room, put him to bed. I told
him he was lucky, his first mugging and all he lost was a tape recorder.”
The Chief, known to his old friends as Paddy Roses, shoved a file in his bottom desk drawer, then waved them in, pointing
to the chairs.
“The kid’s pretty banged up,” Ryan said. “Dislocated shoulder is painful.”
“I coulda fixed that myself,” Gregory said, raising his own arm to demonstrate. “I watched the surgeon at St. Luke’s. Nothing
to it. All he did was pick his arm up and twist, then he snapped it in. Like this. Rolled it back… then
craaaack!
Sounded like a gunshot in an alley.”
Ryan and Gregory belonged to a small cadre of experienced detectives personally assigned to the Chief’s office. They handled
high-profile homicides and crimes that lingered on the front page. Informally they were referred to as the “Political Response
Team.”
“The mugging thing is a little hinky,” Ryan said. “The guy didn’t take his cash, just the tape recorder. Danny had just finished
interviewing Trey Winters, and like a dope, walks ten feet and starts playing the conversation back. The guy comes up behind
him, grabs the tape recorder, and shoves him down into the cellar.”
“I’ve seen rookie undercover cops do that,” the Chief said. “They can’t wait to hear their own voices on tape.”
“So waddaya figure, pally, Winters’s bodyguard sees it and coldcocks him?”
“Makes more sense than a mugging.”
“Find out if he has a bodyguard,” the Chief said. “We’ll throw the prick in a lineup.”
“The kid didn’t see shit, Paddy,” Gregory said. “All Danny knows is the guy was strong and smelled like Vicks VapoRub.”
“Vicks VapoRub?”
“That’s what he says,” Gregory said. “I say, mugger or not, you gotta admire the work ethic. Chest congestion, bad cold and
all, he’s out there hustling.”
“I was just hoping some cop didn’t do it,” the Chief said.
Longtime New York City cops refer to the people with whom they started their careers by saying, “We were cops together.” It’s
a specific identification of a specific time: the rookie years in uniform. Chief Paddy Ferguson and Joe Gregory were “cops
together” in Brooklyn, where the Chief earned his nickname because his preferred drink was a lower-shelf whiskey called Four
Roses with a water chaser. In the days when foot cops drank free and freely in uniform, Paddy, after first checking his post
for Internal Affairs spies called “shooflys,” would back into local bars, in a Rockaway version of the moonwalk, while knowing
customers crooned, “Roses and water, roses and water.”
“How about this
Danny walked along the sidewalk that edged the hotel side of the underpass. He stopped at the top of a stairway leading under
the hotel, where the driver of a refrigerated truck had been sliding boxes of filet mignon down a metal chute. Danny used
the truck for cover in case Winters came back out. He began playing back the tape. Danny’s voice sounded small in comparison
with that of Winters. The conversation was short. He played it again.
The first thing Danny felt was the man’s wetness against his back, the heat from his body. Then the arm around his throat.
He grabbed the tape recorder out of Danny’s hands. And shoved. Danny flew headfirst, reaching for anything, clutching only
air. His left knee slammed down on the metal chute, his right knee missed the chute, and he spun right and tumbled down the
steps, twisting as he grabbed a pipe with his right arm and heard the pop. He came to rest on the stacks of filet mignon,
his right shoulder directly under his chin. He closed his eyes.
8
H ow’s Ryan’s nephew?” Chief of Detectives Paddy “Roses” Ferguson said without looking up. He’d heard Joe Gregory’s signature
knock on his open door.
“Feeling no pain,” Gregory said. “They didn’t admit him. We brought him home from the emergency room, put him to bed. I told
him he was lucky, his first mugging and all he lost was a tape recorder.”
The Chief, known to his old friends as Paddy Roses, shoved a file in his bottom desk drawer, then waved them in, pointing
to the chairs.
“The kid’s pretty banged up,” Ryan said. “Dislocated shoulder is painful.”
“I coulda fixed that myself,” Gregory said, raising his own arm to demonstrate. “I watched the surgeon at St. Luke’s. Nothing
to it. All he did was pick his arm up and twist, then he snapped it in. Like this. Rolled it back… then
craaaack!
Sounded like a gunshot in an alley.”
Ryan and Gregory belonged to a small cadre of experienced detectives personally assigned to the Chief’s office. They handled
high-profile homicides and crimes that lingered on the front page. Informally they were referred to as the “Political Response
Team.”
“The mugging thing is a little hinky,” Ryan said. “The guy didn’t take his cash, just the tape recorder. Danny had just finished
interviewing Trey Winters, and like a dope, walks ten feet and starts playing the conversation back. The guy comes up behind
him, grabs the tape recorder, and shoves him down into the cellar.”
“I’ve seen rookie undercover cops do that,” the Chief said. “They can’t wait to hear their own voices on tape.”
“So waddaya figure, pally, Winters’s bodyguard sees it and coldcocks him?”
“Makes more sense than a mugging.”
“Find out if he has a bodyguard,” the Chief said. “We’ll throw the prick in a lineup.”
“The kid didn’t see shit, Paddy,” Gregory said. “All Danny knows is the guy was strong and smelled like Vicks VapoRub.”
“Vicks VapoRub?”
“That’s what he says,” Gregory said. “I say, mugger or not, you gotta admire the work ethic. Chest congestion, bad cold and
all, he’s out there hustling.”
“I was just hoping some cop didn’t do it,” the Chief said.
Longtime New York City cops refer to the people with whom they started their careers by saying, “We were cops together.” It’s
a specific identification of a specific time: the rookie years in uniform. Chief Paddy Ferguson and Joe Gregory were “cops
together” in Brooklyn, where the Chief earned his nickname because his preferred drink was a lower-shelf whiskey called Four
Roses with a water chaser. In the days when foot cops drank free and freely in uniform, Paddy, after first checking his post
for Internal Affairs spies called “shooflys,” would back into local bars, in a Rockaway version of the moonwalk, while knowing
customers crooned, “Roses and water, roses and water.”
“How about this
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