Brian shrugged. “Jesus, don’t you stand there and criticize me, buddy. I mean, what the hell, kid, you’ve walked away from it, right? That’s damn easy, to just walk out and the hell with it. Okay, I think the whole system stinks too but I’m not willing to just let it go on. I’ve done what I can, the only way I’ve ever found to work. Okay, we can be very technical: fighting immorality with immorality; ends justifying the means and the means are maybe worse than the ends. But you don’t have any platform to preach at me, Pat. I’m not the guy who said this whole thing is too rotten, therefore I’ll condemn it from outside. I don’t know if I can change it from inside, but I’m trying. Don’t you get up on your holy little ladder and look down and condemn me, buddy, not when you haven’t got any other way but to turn tail and run.”
Patrick stood and stared at the fireplace, turned when he heard his father at the desk, heard the metallic sound of the patrolman’s shield which Brian extracted from the top drawer and tossed on the desk.
Brian jutted his chin toward his son and his voice was bantering now, challenging. “Go ahead. Pick up the gauntlet. Show the old man. Christ, you can’t prove anything unless you can beat me at my own game using your own rules.”
Patrick picked up the shield, held it in the palm of his left hand while he idly stroked the lettering and embossed numbers with the fingers of his right hand. When he looked up finally, there was an odd, sheepish smile on his lips. He looked somewhat embarrassed and flushed. “I guess I didn’t mention this to you, but I took the sergeant’s exam last month. I guess I didn’t want to mention it until I found out where I stood on the list.”
Brian said tersely, “Number seven out of a list of one hundred and twenty-four.”
Patrick’s hand tightened into a fist over his silver shield, he tensed and tightened for a brief moment, then, as though making an important decision, he sighed and nodded.
“What the hell, you’re my son, right?”
“I figure to make captain by thirty,” Patrick said.
“You won’t even make sergeant by twenty-five with five days A.W.O.L. against you,” Brian said.
Patrick studied his father for a moment, then smiled with a strange acknowledgment. He scraped his chin with the metal shield. “Have I been assigned to your office for those five days?”
Brian shook his head. “For the first two days, special assignment, office of the Deputy Chief Inspector in Charge of Public Affairs. The next three days were death-leave days because of your grandmother.” Brian lit a cigarette, carefully tossed the match into the fireplace. “Well,” he asked softly, “do you feel corrupted or corrupt?”
Patrick reached into his father’s breast pocket, helped himself to a cigarette. “In a way, that’s how it starts, though, isn’t it, Dad?”
“God knows how it starts or how far it goes before it has no way of stopping. It’s life, kid. It’s a gamble. I do the best I can, Patrick. I try. Maybe I’m a corrupt man, maybe not. Maybe there are circumstances none of us really knows how to cope with, but I do try. Now you start doing the best you can. If you can teach me, okay, kid, I’m willing to learn. But let’s both keep open minds, Pat, okay?”
Patrick reached for his father’s arm and pressed it tightly and swallowed hard and studied his father as though he was just becoming familiar with his face beneath the hard and mocking mask.
“That’s a deal, Dad. Let’s see where it takes us.”
A Biography of Dorothy Uhnak
Dorothy Uhnak (1930–2006) was the bestselling, award-winning author of nine novels and one work of nonfiction.
Uhnak was born in New York City, where she attended the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Before she turned to writing, Uhnak spent fourteen years as a detective with the New York City Transit Police Department, where she was decorated for bravery twice. Her memoir, Policewoman (1964), chronicles her career in law enforcement, and was written while she was still on the force.
The Bait (1968), Uhnak’s first novel, won the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and introduced NYPD detective Christie Opara, who appeared in Uhnak’s next two novels, The Witness (1969) and The Ledger (1970). All three novels were adapted for television and eventually became the series “Get Christie Love!” starring Teresa Graves. Uhnak followed the Opara trilogy with Law and Order (1973)—a novel about three generations of Irish American police officers—which earned critical praise and was considered her breakout novel. Next came The Investigation (1977), another blockbuster. Both of these were also adapted for television.
Uhnak has been credited with paving the way for authors such as Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Patricia Cornwell, and many others who write crime novels and police procedurals with strong heroines. Additionally, she was hailed by George N. Dove as “an experimental writer who . . . tried new approaches with each undertaking.” Her books have been translated into fifteen languages. Uhnak died on Long Island in 2006.
Dorothy Uhnak, around age one.
Uhnak, age four, holding a childhood pet.
A teenage Uhnak pictured with Mildred Goldstein, her only sister. Throughout her youth, Uhnak enjoyed doing odd jobs at the 46th Precinct station house on Ryer Avenue in the Bronx, near her family’s home.
Sixteen-year-old Uhnak at the beach, around 1946.
Uhnak, age twenty-four, poses with her husband Anthony “Tony” Uhnak. (Photo courtesy of Harold Ellis.)
A feature on Uhnak in the American Electric Power Company’s CURRENT magazine, following the release of her second book, The Bait. “It’s been a fantastic year,” Uhnak said. The Bait went on to win a 1969 Edgar Award.
Uhnak with Police Chief Thomas O’Rourke, in a photo taken during the ceremony promoting her to detective in the New York City Transit Police Department. Uhnak would keep this title for fourteen years.
Uhnak poses in front of Scottish wards at the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens—one of the largest world’s fairs to ever be held in the United States.
Uhnak pictured with her husband, Anthony; mother, Josephine Goldstein; and daughter, Tracy.
Uhnak with her daughter, Tracy, and husband, Anthony.
Uhnak and her mother, Josephine, at her daughter’s wedding in 1987.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1973 by Dorothy Uhnak
cover design by Kelly Parr
978-1-4532-9104-7
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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