Law and Order

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  “Listen, you’re O’Malley, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, why? What’s doing?”

  The detective cupped a hand over his mouth and spoke in a quick sharp whisper. “Listen, kid, it’s none of my business, but you ought to keep your lady friends from visitin’ ya at the house.”

  “My lady friends? What...”

  Detective Schenkel jerked his thumb toward the caged staircase which led to the detectives’ squad room. “Jeez, she come up there lookin’ for you. What’d you do, tell her you’re outta uniform?”

  Brian frowned. “I don’t know anybody. Looking for me?”

  “Well, she asked for you by name, kid. Look, take a run up there and straighten it out, okay? Lucky for all of us the squad boss is out sick. He don’t take too much to that kind of thing.”

  For one second, Brian hesitated, turned toward Molly, but Schenkel assured him Molly would stay put and led the way.

  Brian bolted up the two flights of iron steps and felt a slight sense of wariness when Schenkel stepped back for Brian to enter the squad room first. Detective Ed Kelly was seated at a desk, hat on the back of his head, which nodded in weary boredom over his telephone conversation. When he saw Brian, he gestured toward the inner room, raised brows and shoulders to indicate ignorance of the matter.

  Brian approached the small inner room where the detectives kept a few cots against one wall for when they had double tours or quiet nights and could catch a few hours. There was one small lamp burning a yellow circle on the surface of a desk and Brian’s eyes, unaccustomed to the dark, couldn’t make out the shape which moved toward him.

  “I’m O’Malley,” he said. “What’s all this about? Who are you?”

  The shape moved into him, wrapped itself around him in a tangle of sharp bony arms and legs. He felt the sweet fragrance of cheap perfume and powder scrape along his face. He grappled with thin wrists and tried to pry frantic clawing fingers from his arms. There was a desperate panting flow of words and questions directly into his ear.

  “Is it you, my darling? Is it really you? They told me it was. They told me you’d come back to me, but I couldn’t be sure. But I’ve always believed you would, no matter how long it took. I waited, I was true to you, my lover, I was faithful and now you’re back...”

  Brian tried to pull away but the woman clung to him, forced herself against him; fingers, steel-strong, dug into his flesh, tore at his clothing. Incredulously, he felt her hands, fingers, plucking at his trousers, yanking the buttons, reaching for him.

  He shoved her away from him and slammed the back of his legs against the desk.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Jesus, lady. Come on!”

  She lunged at him and he fled to the outer room, his hands furiously clutching at his disheveled clothing. He whirled around to confront her in the light of the detectives’ squad room.

  She stood, open mouthed, staring at him, unmoving now. Her thin, skull-like, ruined face froze; the eyes, burned out with desperation, were black glass, uncomprehending, gazing vacantly now. Her cheeks, sunken and fleshless, were smeared with bright blotches of powdery rouge. Her lips were thickly greased with orange lipstick, sharp points of color reaching nearly to her nostrils and down toward her chin, a mouth for a mad clown. Her hair, dyed black with sprouts of white at the roots, was a tangled mass, filthy, greasy, falling on her bone-thin shoulders. Slowly, she moved her head back and forth, whispered, “No. No. No. No. That’s not him. That’s not Albert. Not yet. No. No. No. No. That’s not him. That’s not Albert. Not yet. Not yet.”

  As she spoke, her eyes still on Brian, she moved about the room, hit into desks, chairs, without noticing, until she reached the doorway. Then she bolted from the room and they could hear the sound of her footsteps as she lunged down the stairs.

  “Christ,” Brian asked breathlessly, “who the hell was that?”

  “Jeez,” Detective Schenkel said, “that’s what we wanted to ask you, kid. Hey, O’Malley, Christ, you better button up, kid, before we get you on indecent exposure.” He opened the top drawer of his desk, searched around until he found a cake of soap which he tossed to Brian. “Hey, kid, if she touched your pecker, you better give it a real good wash. She looked like she was crawling with all kinda things.”

  Brian went into the men’s room and inspected the damage to his uniform. The crazy bitch had ripped two buttons off his fly and his tunic was smeared with lipstick, rouge and powder. He scrubbed himself, then rubbed a damp paper towel over his uniform. He used his anger, not trusting himself to go back to the squad room to search for his missing buttons. He could hear the two detectives laughing; he knew he’d been had and that the story would make the rounds and that he’d just have to take it.

  He checked his pants, decided he could risk it.

  “Hey, Schenkel, here’s your soap.” He tossed the slippery bar just over the detective’s head. “Thanks.” He stopped at the doorway and grinned. “By the way, Schenkel. That’s a lousy way to get rid of your old girl friends. Next time you want to palm one off, try your partner there. He’s a lot more her type than me.”

  He took the steps two at a time, adjusted his collar, entered the ready room and felt a weight in his stomach. Molly, her cartons and pretzels and the newspaper were gone.

  He glanced at Sergeant Weber, bent over some papers on his high desk, didn’t know what to do until the clerical man signaled him silently, jerked an index finger toward the back exit.

  Out in the alley, the patrol wagon waited impatiently. A uniformed man opened the cage door and Brian climbed into the back of the wagon while a motley assortment of pickups complained.

  “Nu, you got all night maybe, making us wait, you’re fooling around with your friends. Well, I ain’t got all night. You should be ashamed.”

  Softly, Brian said, “Molly, shut up.”

  The Night Court detention pen was a Saturday-night madhouse. Through some error, twenty-five derelicts had been misrouted and their stench permeated the wire-meshed enclosure long after they had been collected and sent to another court.

  “Holy shit, this place smells like a fucking zoo,” a patrolman observed bitterly.

  Detective Horowitz, from the Ninth Squad, whom Brian knew by sight and reputation, commented, “You can always tell a Catholic; whenever he shits, it’s holy.” His prisoner, a young Negro homosexual, kept his face down so that no one could see that he was crying.

  Brian tried to detach himself from Molly and her boxes of pretzels. There was something big going on downstairs, where male prisoners were held prior to being brought up to the detention pen adjacent to the courtroom. Several reporters and press photographers were circulating and there was a general air of something happening.

  Detective Horowitz yanked his prisoner to Brian’s side and asked him, “Hey, Jeffrey, ain’t this young patrolman cute?” He punctuated his question with a light, friendly jab of his elbow. The homosexual pretended not to be interested but he raised his face shyly and studied Brian, then smiled and blinked.

  “How do you like this little fickle bastard?” Horowitz asked with feigned anger. “An hour ago, he had the hots real bad for me; now he’s rolling them big eyes at you, O’Malley. Just don’t go reaching, Jeffrey. Remember, that’s how come you’re here in the first place.”

  Brian had heard that Julie Horowitz was a dangerous man, despite the wide, friendly face. He was about forty, nearly as tall as Brian but much broader, more solid, though not yet fat. He had a thick fringe of yellowish-red hair surrounding a huge freckled skull and his tiny eyes were constantly disappearing into the crinkles of his laughter. He laughed a lot, but the laugh was deceptive: loud, frequent but humorless.

  “Hey, O’Malley, you know what they got down there?”

  “No, but I’ve noticed a lot of action. What gives?”

  Horowitz leaned into Brian. At the same time, he firmly pushed his prisoner around in back of him. “They got some big jigaboo bastard on a rape. Little kid on a roof. She was a littl
e colored kid, but what the hell, rape is rape.” He laughed in anticipation of what he was to say. “The arresting officers seen it that way too. See, they was a couple spade sleuths who took him and they really creamed the guy. I was talking to this guy from the Journal, a pal of mine. You know Sid Lewis? Well, he told me they put the cuffs on this guy and they nearly butchered him.”

  The laugh spilled over the words and Brian had some difficulty in understanding what Horowitz was saying. “Christ, the guy is a real nut, you know? Built like a brick shithouse, and Sid tells me they beat up on him and he keeps trying to fight back. You gotta be crazy, right? They finally knock him cold and he comes to and tries to rise up, roaring like a ruptured bull and wants to take them on. He ended up by smashing his head into the bars downstairs.” Horowitz took a deep wheezy breath and sputtered more words in a gush of breath and laughter. “Now get this, get this. This dumb bastard, see, he’s all beat the hell up, and he starts ramming his head against the bars in the holding cell. And every time he bangs his head, see, he yells, ‘Bang!’; rams his head, yells, ‘Bang!’” Horowitz turned away for a moment to regain his composure. “Like he was making music on a drum, only the drum was his stupid head.”

  “He must be a nut,” Brian said, impressed.

  “Or pretending to be a nut case. They sent for the nut wagon and he’ll get carted off to Bellevue.” His thick lashes batted a few times, eyes darted, examined the crowded room. “Well, kid, wadda you got?”

  Brian ran his finger around the inside of the stiff collar of his tunic and shrugged. “I had to take the old woman. You know. The pretzel seller.”

  Sound sputtered from Horowitz’ mouth. “Oh, kid, you’re in for it tonight. We got old Morry Glittsman sitting. You know about him?”

  Everyone knew about Magistrate Morris Glittsman. He was the weekend drawing attraction at Night Court and deserved the attention accorded him. He conducted each session with the wit and timing and pace and audience sense of a master showman. Anyone coming before him might be the target of his sudden, biting, searing verbal assault: police officer, alleged culprit, complainant, court clerk, it was all the same to Glittsman. The perpetrator of the most horrendous crime might, for some unknowable reason, bring forth a kind, concerned, gentle bit of fatherly advice and encouragement and the most timid miscreant might be the recipient of a cruel, malicious tongue-lashing.

  “I’ll give ya some advice, kid,” Horowitz offered. “Ya don’t say nothin’, nothin’ at all, no matter what Glittsman pulls. Don’t let the mob in the courtroom bother ya neither; they’re nothin’ but a bunch of fucking cheap-date phonies and don’t you provide them with no free entertainment. You just ‘Yes, your Honor,’ ‘No, your Honor’ and...Jeez, I remember one time a coupla years back...”

  The broad smile froze on Horowitz’ face, his eyes congealed into a glinting bright awareness and he moved swiftly and decisively before Brian realized there was a need to move.

  By the time he turned toward the terrible noise which shrieked through the thick stale air, it was difficult to determine what he saw, to understand the sudden, unexpected burst of violence all around him.

  The man was some nightmare apparition, a dark face contorted with pain and anguish and madness. Blood streaked unbelievably from heavy lips and flared nostrils, in long smears, bright and star-ding against the strange garment. He seemed partially encased in a white wrapping, and as he relentlessly raised tremendous arms against Horowitz’ onslaught, a collection of belts and buckles clattered against the escaped prisoner’s body. He received the impact of Horowitz’ strength without a sound and Brian tried to get to the man but found himself caught up amidst the bodies which moved toward the confusion or away from it

  A small hand clutched frantically, childlike, at his sleeve and it was with considerable difficulty that he managed to break free of the terrified grasp which Horowitz’ prisoner had on him.

  Finally, Horowitz pinned the man’s arms from behind and two Negro detectives placed themselves in front of him, one on each side. A team, perfectly coordinated, wordless, soundless, expressionless, they grasped the flapping material, twisted it about the man’s body so that his arms were firmly secured. Finally, an animal cry came from deep within the man’s throat as he twisted wildly against the restraint He began to buck his head, bent forward suddenly for balance, and as he did so, one dark hand reached out, pressed on the bloodied wool-matted skull. Two fists raised, hammerlike, crashed down with a sickening, smashing sound. Brian caught a glimpse of the blunt end of a blackjack within one of the clenched fists.

  The prisoner lay motionless on his stomach. One of the Negro detectives reached down and turned him over. The man’s eyes were rolled back in their sockets and the white that showed was bloodshot and yellow. Horowitz stepped back, disclaiming any part of what might take place. The two detectives breathed heavily with exertion and excitement, regarded the man, then each other. With a curiously passive concentration and a savagery that seemed devoid of anger or passion, they kicked the prisoner’s body deliberately and professionally. They stopped, regarded the trussed body, and without a word or signal between them, each in turn delivered one devastating kick to the groin.

  Brian clenched his teeth, felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach, a sudden ache along his navel, down into his groin. The homosexual sobbed and pressed his face into his hands. Someone sighed “Oh, Jesus,” but whether in supplication or admiration was not clear.

  The two detectives reached for their prisoner and dragged him back inside toward the waiting ambulance attendants.

  Brian lit a cigarette and tried to hold his hands steady or at least to hide the tremble.

  Horowitz’ laugh was a little thin and stretched but otherwise he seemed untouched by what had just happened. He jerked his thumb over his shoulders toward the door. “Listen,” he said and moved his head to one side, “you are now gonna hear a body make contact with some steps.”

  His prediction was almost immediately confirmed. There was a heavy dull thudding sound. Horowitz rested a heavy freckled hand on his prisoner’s shoulder. “Come on, Jeffrey, stop crying. Aren’t you lucky you didn’t play games with them boys?”

  For a moment, Brian didn’t see Molly and he looked around wildly, but before panic set in, she pulled herself heavily to her feet from behind her boxes. She looked better than he felt.

  “To be in such company, I had to lose my whole night?” she complained. “Ach, these Schwartzes, they want to kill each other, they shouldn’t do it here.”

  Horowitz engaged in a loud and friendly conversation with a plain-clothes man. Brian watched the detective with admiration. He was a big, boisterous, laughing man who knew how to move, what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.

  The court attendant appeared and announced that the judge would be off the bench for a ten-minute break. This was greeted with groans and curses.

  “Shit, there goes another hour. Okay, move your ass,” a detective instructed his prisoner back into the detention cells.

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes the most,” the court attendant assured them. “Look, if he ain’t heavy stuff, don’t bring him back down. They’re loaded already.”

  “This bastard cut his girl friend’s throat, Hennessy. That heavy enough, for Christ’s sake?”

  There was a shuffle of feet and rearrangement of bodies as some policemen returned prisoners to detention and others, resigned, slumped on available benches or leaned against the wall and lit cigarettes or read folded newspapers or exchanged gossip or opinions with each other.

  Brian opened his tunic, rubbed his flat empty stomach and debated briefly whether he ought to risk one of Molly’s pretzels. He was pretty hungry but her hard, scarred hands were dirty and he saw her dig her index finger into an ear or her nose from time to time.

  Horowitz lit a cigar and told his prisoner he could sit on the floor if he wanted. A young patrolman, pale, tightly buttoned, bewildered, came from the door leading to the holding cells.<
br />
  “Hey. Hey, Francis,” Brian called out.

  Francis Kelly looked around, then waved. “Hey, Brian.” He came to Brian’s side and spoke in a low, tense voice. “Jesus, Brian, it’s a madhouse down there. Listen, I gotta go and get commitment papers. I don’t know where the hell I’m supposed to get them or who’s supposed to give them to me. Jesus, I don’t know anything that’s going on, Bri, but I’ll tell you one thing: I’m getting a royal hosing.”

  Julie Horowitz blew acrid smoke into the air and studied it thoughtfully. He made no attempt to turn from the two patrolmen; he was frankly interested.

  “What do you mean, Francis? What’ve you got?”

  Francis Kelly looked strange. There was a gray circle around his mouth and his skin had a white cast. He blinked a few times and his eyes moved restlessly around the small, crowded enclosure.

  “Brian, you know that big colored guy that they took outta here in a strait jacket? Well, I’m the guy that caught him. And those two, those colored detectives, they just barged right in and took the collar offa me.”

  “You got him?” Brian asked incredulously. Francis Kelly was a slight, wiry guy, fast and tough, but the prisoner was a gigantic raving maniac. And Francis didn’t have a scratch on him.

  Francis understood Brian’s surprise. “Yeah, well, he wasn’t playing King Kong when I collared him, Bri. See, I was doing my post, and I was just looking things over when this colored woman, she comes up to me yelling and all that this guy took her little kid to the roof. And I ran up.” Francis Kelly wiped a thumb over his lower lip thoughtfully. “Jesus, I don’t even remember taking those steps, I swear I don’t. Okay, I hit the roof and there was this guy, standing there, looking down at the little kid and she was, well, the little kid was like spread out, you know. And I had the gun out and the guy, Christ, he was a big sonuvabitch, and he sees me, and he just says, ‘Okay, okay, okay, no trouble, man, no trouble,’ and he comes along. I got the cuffs on him nice as you please and the mother rushes past me to the little kid and starts screaming and down we go and I call for a wagon and for an ambulance.