Law and Order

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  Brian, briefed at home, made two telephone calls and had TV news people on the scene to interview the detectives.

  “It was a nice job,” Arthur said. “How about their narco case?”

  “It’s still alive. They gave the impression they were cruising when they spotted the guy.”

  “Okay,” Arthur Pollack said, “what do we tell the Man about these damn articles in the News?”

  Brian could hear the newspaper rustling over the telephone and he held his own copy flat on the desk and scowled. A young reporter had taken the patrolman’s exam, passed, gone through an accelerated training program at the Academy the previous spring when the Department was on emergency status, served as a probationary patrolman for two months, then resigned. From that experience, he wrote a six-part article “telling all” about the New York City Police Department.

  Brian rubbed his eyes briskly as he spoke. “Well, if you break it down to what he’s had to say in these first two articles, you got: One—the training was insufficient. Okay, we concede that; we were on riot alert. Most of the men have gone back for in-service training. Junior here didn’t stick around long enough. Today, when you come down to it, all he’s griping about are small acts of kindness on the part of older officers.” Brian ran his finger down the column of print. “You got the article there, Arthur? Third paragraph, quote, ‘The sergeant poked me in the ribs and said “Just take it easy, sonny. Nobody expects you to go out and fight the wars; stay kind of to one side if anything happens,” ’ unquote. He was told where he could duck in for a smoke and a cupa. Minor violations when it gets down to being technical.”

  Arthur hummed into the phone for a minute, then said, “Well, my thinking is that we ought to wait and see what the rest of the articles are like and make no comment until then.”

  Brian agreed. “In fact, I think the best damn thing probably would be to make no comment on any of them at all. If asked directly, I would take the line “We’re waiting for the full series before any comment’; from then on, “We’re checking into the veracity or lack of veracity of various allegations.’ You know, that kind of thing.

  “Now, to counter whatever impact these articles might have, I would suggest a bit of a stepped-up campaign in print. We could pick a couple of good collars out of the hopper and get them in print. One good ‘chase-’em, catch-’em’ could grab a headline and shove this crap back where it belongs.”

  “Right, Brian, I’ll see you get a complete list of activities from detectives and uniformed. Oh, yeah, we got a request from The David Susskind Show for four guys on a panel. What’s your reaction?”

  Brian jotted a note on his pad. “I’ll look into it. We don’t want to walk into a setup. Hell, offhand I can’t think of any four guys I’d trust sitting on a panel with Susskind.”

  “Except you and me, Bri,” Arthur said lightly. “Okay, kid, I’m off to meet the Man.”

  The new Police Commissioner, on first viewing, didn’t make much of an impression. He was physically slight, soft-voiced, articulate, didn’t resort to the dramatic theatrical pronouncements of some of his predecessors.

  The impact came when he backed up his soft words with hard action. When the P.C. said something, he meant it. As the wave of retirements rose, newer, younger men stepped into vacated positions with a slight stir of excitement. Textbooks appeared at Police Headquarters; young lieutenants and captains exchanged course material and crib notes for graduate courses at the City University.

  All personnel of the rank of captain and above were required to attend seminars in public affairs; community and minority workshops were held in the various neighborhoods where problems arose. Various programs were initiated whereby unofficial leaders of black and Puerto Rican communities would be able to communicate directly with a superior officer of the Department, bypassing what many found to be a nerve-racking, frightening visit to the local precinct house.

  Most of the men attended the various classes because they were ordered to do so.

  They sat in the clean square classrooms of the Police Academy and listened, expressionless, while criminologists, sociologists, psychologists and penologists told them how to do their jobs.

  The selection of Arthur Pollack to replace the newly retired Chief Inspector came as a shock to everyone, including Arthur Pollack. He was fully qualified for his position: one of the most decorated police officers on the job; passed every promotion exam he’d ever taken at the top of the fist; served every post assigned in an exemplary manner.

  But he wasn’t one of the boys. It was the first time in the history of the Department that a Jew was included in the highly exclusive inner circle of top echelon. From the Irishmen who were disappointed by the new P.C. came word that for all his Irish Catholic background, the P.C. might just as well be a Chinese Jew.

  Down the line, the lower ranks waited to see what new innovations would be inflicted on them.

  Brian O’Malley was recommended for his new post of Deputy Chief Inspector in Charge of Public Affairs by Arthur Pollack, his predecessor. O’Malley had a facile mind, an easy way of controlling and guiding and turning a line of interrogation to the best interests of the Department. He had good rapport with the press and other media people; he had many friends and good connections. He could move easily into and out of a wide range of situations and leave behind him soothed egos and a sense of satisfactory responses, whether that was the case or not.

  He met Karen Day when he’d been on his new assignment for less than a month.

  The crime had been committed on the twelfth floor of a luxury co-op in the East 50’s and it was one of the most bizarre murders any of the men present could recall. Two young women and one young man had been bound, mutilated, sexually attacked and slaughtered. The apartment reeked with violence, drapes ripped, furniture slashed, pieces of flesh hacked from the bodies, arranged, rearranged to satisfy some depraved appetite. The stereo had been set full blast as had three transistor radios and two color TV sets in the apartment. It was the electronic noises that had finally annoyed the other tenants. They claimed to have heard nothing else of an unusual nature.

  Brian briefed the waiting news people in the lobby of the building; he gave the barest details allowable at the time. Names of victims to be withheld pending notification of next of kin; victims had been sexually molested; all died as result of multiple stab wounds; the Department was conducting an intensive investigation into the matter and would have no further statement at this time.

  He politely stared straight ahead and pretended not to hear the repeated demands for more information. What was the relationship of the three victims? In whose name was the apartment held? Were any perversions involved? “Come on, Chief, how the hell can we deliver any copy when we don’t know anything more than this?”

  “See ya later, fellas.” He waved and entered the elevator, which stopped on the sixth floor. Karen Day got into the elevator with him and he nodded at her, as though he knew her, then he stared at her, frankly puzzled.

  “Hello, Chief O’Malley,” she said in a husky voice. “I’m Karen Day. From NBC.”

  It didn’t register immediately that she was a newswoman and had no right to be beyond the lobby. “Jesus,” he said softly, “you’re the living image of Karen Duvall.”

  “I’m Karen Duvall’s daughter,” she said crisply. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the victims, Chief. You really didn’t tell us anything. White or black? Homo? Lesbo? Was the apartment a setup? What did they do for a living? Come on, Chief, start me on something for the eleven o’clock.”

  She was very tall and she regarded him with bright dark eyes and a sharp aggressive expression. She spoke rapidly, in a deep, familiar voice, and as she spoke, she ran her long fingers through thick, straight dark hair, brushed it idly from her face.

  He shook his head and said quietly, “Jesus, I used to break my neck to see your mother. I must have seen her twenty or thirty times. I remember when she sang with Dorsey—” />
  “And I bet you collected every record she ever cut,” the girl said acidly.

  Brian stared at her, at the image of the popular singer whose sad big voice had touched and remained in some vulnerable center of himself. The girl was prettier than her mother had ever been but in a cold, hard way. She spoke and moved and studied him with an assurance and arrogance that destroyed memory of another girl, denied the relationship between them.

  Karen Duvall, soft, tiny, hurt by the world which both loved and tormented her, had drawn forth collective waves of protecting masculinity. By the time of her death at thirty-eight, she had been four times married, many times beaten and cured and beaten again by drink. Occasionally, some sentimental disc jockey would dig out a Karen Duvall and the powerful voice, lamenting the world, would evoke, for all who had ever been moved by her, other, simpler times.

  “What did you say your name was?” Brian asked sharply.

  “Karen Day, NBC News.” She hooked a thumb under the press card, which was pinned carelessly to the lapel of her suede coat.

  “Well. I’ll tell you what Karen Day. NBC News. You get your ass the hell back down to the lobby where you belong or Mr. Jason Harris, NBC News, will get a phone call advising him that in the future you’re barred from any and all police calls.”

  Her mouth fell open for a moment, then she said, “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, buster?”

  Brian leaned toward her, tapped her press card with his index finger. “To Karen Day, NBC News. Now beat it.”

  Within a month, what had been a tantalizing mystery became a sordid, predictable story of perversion, drugs, cultism and various forms of insanity. Through diligent, plodding, methodical detective work, the culprits, two males and one female, were apprehended and subsequently indicted for the homicides. The story played itself out with its explanations and was of no further interest outside the judicial setting. There were hundreds of new sensations of greater interest to the news media.

  One morning, Lieutenant Mike Fitzgerald, one of the bright boys, with two college degrees, early thirties, Brian’s assistant, called his attention to a request made by NBC.

  “What they want to do, Chief,” Fitzgerald explained earnestly, “is to have a camera crew assigned to ride with a patrol-car team for a week or two. Format will be to show that with all the modernization and new technology, et cetera, the basic job of policing still involves the man out there, on patrol. The slant is okay, but...”

  Brian scanned the notes he’d been presented with quickly and looked up. “But what? What’s the problem?” There had been similar accommodations in the past. As long as they were handled carefully, a good patrol team in a good location, it could turn out to the benefit of the Department.

  “Well, the thing is, the reporter is a girl.” Fitzgerald clearly didn’t think much of the situation.

  Brian looked closely at the official request for departmental cooperation. It was signed by Karen Day, NBC News. “I’ll look into it myself, Mike,” Brian said.

  He watched her on the eleven o’clock news that night. She had one quick spot-report about a school board meeting.

  He called her the next day and invited her for a drink.

  It ran as a three-part five-minute addition to the Eleven O’Clock News Roundup and Brian thought it caught the pace of the men who worked the car to advantage. The camera stayed with them through routine patrol, which included answering two crime-in-progress calls, the fortunate apprehension of a liquor store holdup man fleeing the scene of the crime, the delivery of a baby to a bewildered Puerto Rican mother with the incredibly lucky fact that one of the patrolmen had a good smattering of Spanish. It added a nice warm human touch.

  After the third part had been aired, Karen Day called him.

  “Well, what did you think of it?”

  It had been a fair, intelligent job and showed the Department in a good light. That was always his first concern.

  “Fine. I think you handled it very well.”

  Her voice came through the telephone clear and sharp. “It was pure shit. It was edited down to absolute shit. The bastards cut my best footage. They promised me a straight thirty minutes, primetime viewing. They left me with the merry adventures of Patrolman Huff and Patrolman Puff, five minutes here and five minutes there. It didn’t convey any of the feeling I was trying for.” Abruptly she said, “Meet me for a drink. I’d like to see you. Come on over to my place tonight.”

  If he’d expected something exotic, he was disappointed. She looked as though she didn’t belong in the expensive, beautifully furnished apartment. She wore faded dungarees and a body-hugging jersey top which emphasized her thinness. She pulled her bare feet onto the sofa and rested her hands on her knees. She jerked her head vaguely toward the bar. “Help yourself, O’Malley.”

  Brian didn’t move. “In a little while.”

  He didn’t like the way she sat there, studying him, evaluating, measuring. Deciding. There was a great deal about her that irritated him, not just her sloppiness and the fact that she hadn’t bothered to put on any make-up, not even a little lipstick. She gnawed on her index finger for a moment and there was a flash of that familiar face: Karen Duvall, with the great pain-filled black eyes, the helpless quality of a trapped animal.

  She laughed suddenly and rocked back on the couch, her face to the ceding, then she finger-combed the long, straight dark hair. “Boy, that got to you, right? You really must have been stuck on Mama, huh? I can do her for you if you want me to.” She stood up, moved toward him. “I can even get that little ‘oh-gee-gosh’ catch in my voice. ‘Gosh, mister, see, I’m just so damn open and honest and trusting that I was born to be a loser, but no matter how many times I fall—’”

  Brian grabbed her by the shoulders roughly. “Okay, knock it off.” The parody was too good. It was vicious and bitter, more so because she had her mother’s face and could imitate the voice perfectly.

  Karen pulled away from him. She hooked her thumbs into the empty belt loops. “Jesus, it’s a long time since I ran into a genuine Karen Duvall freak. It’s really funny. I mean, you’re defending her and you don’t even know who the hell she was. Well, O’Malley, she was a fucking lush, baby.”

  He didn’t know why he felt so angry but he wanted to hit her. It made him even angrier to know that she was daring him, trying to provoke him. Without moving, his voice steady, he said, “I don’t like pretty girls with dirty mouths.”

  She smiled and shifted her body, took a deliberate, posed stance, one sharp hipbone higher than the other. Her dark eyes moved slowly over him, studied, lingered, speculated. Her voice went low and husky and warm. “Well, what do you like, O’Malley?”

  Tersely, he said, “I like to make my own moves, for one thing.”

  “You scared off by aggressive girls? They threaten your whole male thing? You’re supposed to make the advance? That’s the way things should be?” She walked to the bar and poured a drink for herself. As she brought the drink to her lips, Brian took the glass from her and drained it in one steady swallow.

  “Thanks for the drink, Karen. Good night.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and raised her face toward him. “Hey, O’Malley. I’ll tell you why I asked you here tonight. I thought you might be good in the sack. I won’t say I thought you might be a good fuck, because you don’t like pretty girls with dirty mouths.”

  He cupped his hand under her chin and when she closed her eyes expectantly he turned her face and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  “Good night, baby. I’ll let you know when.”

  He watched her on the late news every night for a week before he went back to her apartment. She opened the door, stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.

  “Uh-uh. I don’t think so.”

  He pushed the door with his shoulder and was inside the apartment before she could stop him. Until the instant he saw her, standing beside the open door, those huge black eyes confronting him, the vagu
ely forlorn quality beneath the toughness, he didn’t realize how much he wanted her. He’d been watching the electronic image for a brief few minutes each night but it wasn’t the electronic image that aroused him. It had been the haunting, ghostlike image of her mother which had somehow transmitted itself from the television screen more insistently than through the medium of her actual flesh. It had been the ghost of her mother that had brought him to her apartment. It was the daughter, Karen Day, who aroused him now.

  “I told you I’d let you know when.”

  She stood against the closed door, arms folded over the man’s large shirt worn over her dungarees. “Tonight, sweetie,” she said with acid in her voice, “you go fuck yourself. That’s what I had to do the other night.”

  That triggered his anger as precisely as if she had planned it, but her startled cry was as much of surprise as of pain when he grabbed her arm and pulled her through the apartment. He swung about from the kitchen, found the bedroom door and shoved her ahead of him.

  “I told you I don’t like girls with dirty mouths, so cut it out.” She started to say something; her mouth twitched but she bit her lip, let her teeth linger on her lower lip until he pressed his mouth on hers. Her teeth went into his lip but he didn’t notice until she bit hard and tasted his blood. He pushed her back and touched his mouth, saw blood on his fingertips.

  “You little bitch. Get outta your clothes. Now.” She shook her head slowly and smiled. “You undress me.”

  “Your way?” He pulled off his own clothes as she watched, then grabbed her by the shirt. “How about my way instead?” He ripped the shirt, pulled it from her, broke the zipper on her dungarees and pushed her onto the bed. She tensed her legs to make it difficult for him to strip her but the struggle changed, took on a different quality. She relaxed her foot when he slid the bikini underpants down and threw them to the floor.

  She was bone thin, model thin. His hands could feel the structure of her body through the smoothness of her skin. His mouth moved along her throat, upward along the sharp cheekbones; his tongue tasted her ear; his breath made her shake her head from side to side until his mouth contacted hers; then he pulled away sharply.