The Policewomen's Bureau

by Edward Conlon

  She’d opted against saying “Policewoman Carrara” as too stiff and stuffy, but her informality made it sound like they were on a double date. One of the patrolmen extended his hand. He had a hungry look, and his grin had a belated aspect, as if he’d made it halfway out the door before he remembered to put on his hat. It reminded Marie that she still wasn’t wearing her rings. He asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You sure? I could swear. . . . Anyway, maybe we could maybe get a drink—”

  “Well, I’ve got one of those faces,” Marie replied, quoting Adele for the second time that afternoon. Adele took the hint and charged in: “Well, you just might have seen her before, in the papers. Or maybe you know Marie’s husband, Sid, he’s a patrolman in the Bronx. Know him? He’s a giant of a man, a Golden Gloves heavyweight, but awfully sweet when you get to know him.”

  “Let’s get this dope out of here,” the cop said, no longer interested in palaver, now that his prospects for a date had dimmed. He tapped his partner on the shoulder, and they pulled Todd to his feet. He rose unsteadily, as if on roller skates. Marie looked at his blood-streaked pate and wondered how much damage she’d done to his brain.

  “I n-n-n-never,” Todd stammered.

  “What gives, fella?” asked the second cop, warning in his voice.

  “I knew, I knew deep down she wasn’t on the level! I knew all along—”

  The first cut him off. “But you didn’t know, did you, jerkoff?” They helped him hoist his trousers and hustled him away.

  At the precinct, all of the men’s faces were strange to Marie, and few were friendly. The smallest towered over her, at the department minimum height of 5’8”, and most had been in the military before joining the department. They saw her as a skirt who’d snuck into their locker room. Still, Marie preferred them to the ones who were all too happy to see her.

  From floor to ceiling, she couldn’t see a foot of space, a stick of furniture, that wasn’t scuffed, dented, or dirty. Derelicts wailed from the cells. There was a miscellany of pop-eyed stares from random cops as they passed, followed by reliable guffaws, some politely stifled, when they noticed that Todd’s fly was still undone. She supposed that should have been attended to, but she was—most certainly—not the man for the job. What Marie had accomplished that afternoon wasn’t earthshaking. She knew that the press coverage of her escapade would be out of proportion to its significance. But she’d put herself in harm’s way, and it wasn’t a gag or a game.

  The lieutenant behind the desk was a white-haired, white-shirted Irishman with eyes like chips of ice. He looked at Marie reprovingly when she told him that the charges were assault and indecent exposure. He inscribed their names in a leather-bound book with a fountain pen and asked, “Is it Mrs. or Miss Carrara?”

  “It’s ‘Policewoman,’” Adele said. “They’re not booking a room in a motel.”

  Marie felt a surge of gratitude until she realized she had to come back to the desk later on. Once she finished with her reports, she’d have to ask the lieutenant to assign patrolmen to transport Todd to court. She knew he’d treat her like a beggar with a tin cup when she returned.

  Arrests by the Policewomen’s Bureau were processed upstairs in the detective squads, where even veteran patrolmen knew to knock and wait at the half-gate until invited to enter. As a rookie chickadee from somewhere downtown, Marie didn’t expect to be welcomed like Casey Jones on Decoy—the men on TV were always glad for her help—but the three detectives in the squad room made a show of their indifference. They were in their midthirties—two stout, one wiry, concentrating, respectively, on the telephone, a typewriter, and a newspaper.

  “Lemme ask you again,” said the detective on the phone. “Was she a hooker or not? I’ll try to get your wallet back, either way. I never laid eyes on you myself, so do me a favor, take a look in the mirror, tell me if a young blonde would be swept off her feet by what she sees.”

  The thin man with the newspaper said to no one, “Ten bucks says the Dodgers are back in Brooklyn next year. It was all a big stunt. Trust me, I know.”

  Several of the department forms Marie needed were missing, and the typewriter she was assigned scarcely impressed the letters e, d, and t, without which the word “indecent” wasn’t a word at all. When she had to fill in the caption for “Time of occurrence,” she was stumped. She hadn’t been looking at her watch when he jumped her. Besides, to pick a single instant didn’t seem right. Had it begun when he placed the ad, or when she answered it? Maybe when she walked into the apartment. How could you specify—

  “Three-ish. Say quarter-after.”

  Marie felt Adele’s hand on her shoulder. She nodded and typed: 1515 HOURS. When it was time to fingerprint Todd, Adele escorted him from the holding cell and stood by his side. And now the third man, the typist—hefty, in shirtsleeves and a porkpie hat—began to stare at Marie with such avid interest that she missed the old, communal cold shoulder. She took out the three fingerprint cards and rolled ink from a pad onto the glass strip. Once she uncuffed Todd, he fidgeted and scanned the room. She knew that if he made a scene, she’d appear all the more trifling and unworthy in front of the men. She felt the third detective’s eyes on her still. When she ordered Todd to give her his right hand, he extended it with a gentle flourish, as if she’d asked him to dance. “Anything for you, Lana.”

  Marie heard a chuckle from one of the detectives. It was the one with the newspaper, she suspected, though she refused to look to see. She took the thumb and rolled it in the ink on the glass.

  “You have a lovely touch,” Mr. Todd went on. “And I’d still like to make movies with you. Both of you. The dark ladies of the law, justice swift and sure, with a certain amount of spanking . . .”

  There were more snorts of hilarity, and Marie ground her teeth. Though she’d hardly warmed to Mr. Todd since he’d been in custody, she had to admire his perseverance. And then his tone shifted again, from seduction to disdain. “Do you know how much money I make with those pictures? I bet I make more in a week than you do in a year.”

  Marie gripped his hand. She’d had enough. “Don’t you worry, big shot. I found your dirty pictures, and I threw them out. Not to mention the funny sugar you had in the kitchen. What is that, something from a joke store? Does it make your teeth black or something? Whatever it is, it’s gone, and the joke’s on you.”

  “You what? You stupid little—”

  Todd yanked his hand away. Marie stiffened, but then she saw Todd’s head snap back. Had Adele done that? She heard a male voice behind her, and when she turned, she saw the porkpie hat. Todd was the larger man, by far, but the detective hoisted him by the collar and belt and flung him against the wall like a bag of trash. Adele joined the other two detectives in helpless laughter. In a tremulous whisper, Todd said, “I think I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Say that again, and you’ll have to go to the dentist, too,” the detective growled. “Go ahead, get in the cell. You’ll feel better after you sit down a while.”

  The detective unlocked the cell door with a medieval-looking brass key. Todd went in, and the gate slammed shut with a mournful clang. Marie could see another prisoner inside, hunched in the shadowed corner. The detective smiled at Marie and Adele, extending an arm toward the exit. “All right, ladies, I’ll print him for you later, after he settles. If you finished your paperwork, just leave it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Marie wasn’t especially troubled by the roughness, but she had to appear in court with Mr. Todd in the morning, and she already had enough things she had to keep from the judge. She tried to think about how she might convey that without sounding like a prissy schoolgirl. “Thank you, Detective. I appreciate your offer, but I can handle it. My name is Marie Carrara.”

  “I’m Marino. Call me Ralph.”

  Despite the brightness of his smile, there was a fixity to his eyes that made her uncomfortable. At first, she guessed
he was going to propose they meet later for a nightcap, as the patrolman had done. Having two cops try to pick her up in one day wasn’t typical, but it wasn’t the record. Still, Marino’s expression seemed more particular, more reaching than a run-of-the-mill pass. Adele was on board with Marie’s first take, and she attempted to run interference again, with the same breathless badinage: “You know, maybe you know her from the papers. Or her husband, Sid, he’s a patrolman in the Bronx. A giant of a man—”

  Marino blinked and shook his head. “All I’m saying is, I’ll take him downtown later. No need to go ask the lieutenant for transport. I have a collar, too, and I have to spend the night in court anyway, so it’s no trouble to take two perps.”

  Marie felt bad for being suspicious of him. Any cop might have made the same offer to a brother officer without expectation of payback beyond a backslap and a beer. Marino didn’t seem lecherous any more, but plaintive, beseeching. He seemed to want something from her, but she couldn’t fathom what it might be. “You know, Detective Marino, I gotta say—”

  “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Marino cut her off, anticipating the objection. “Don’t worry, Marie. I know you girls do Gypsy cases, like the one in the papers last week. I got another one for you. A con game somebody’s running on a relative, the wife’s side of the family. I done everything to try to figure out these Gypsies, even looked them up in the encyclopedia. What they got there, it’s wrong. I really need your help. And please, call me Ralph.”

  Marie now felt twice as bad about the conversation. No cop had ever asked Marie to do a cop-favor before. It must have been embarrassing for him to ask her for help, and she didn’t want to make it any worse. Both knew that to become a police officer was to enroll in a master class in petty indignity, beginning at academy graduation, when they charged you six cents for the shield. But what he was asking for wasn’t in her power to grant.

  “You gotta call the inspector, Ralph. I’m still new, and you know how it goes.”

  “I did, I called the Women’s Bureau. They told me that a couple of you girls tried to get inside the place, but it didn’t happen.”

  Marie’s appreciation for the unpredictability of undercover work had grown considerably in the past hours, and she knew that even the best operators had bad days. She’d almost had a very bad day herself. But she’d be willing to bet that at least one of the ladies who had failed with Todd had been given the Marino job. Lazy people didn’t last long in Mrs. M.’s special details, Marie knew, but informers against fellow cops were considered the lowest of the low. Better to begin again fresh than to dwell on who failed, or why.

  “Call again next week,” she said. “And say that you talked to me about it.”

  “Thank you, Marie! Trust me, I will never forget what you’re doing for me. I owe you one, Marie. I owe you.”

  MARIE HADN’T DONE anything for him yet, but on the subway ride home, her spirits soared even as her thoughts scattered. Adele had kidded her about getting her autograph. Her first arrest! Famous Marie! And a real detective asked her for a favor—not a silly autograph, but a favor, the true currency of the job. Big shots did favors—bosses, like Inspector Melchionne, but also monsignors, union leaders, politicians and their brothers and nephews. Marie wasn’t a big shot, but she was a different person now, she felt it. When had she changed? In the moment, it was so hard to tell the moments that mattered: Three-ish. Say quarter after.

  When she got off the train, she felt fresh and ready, as if she were heading in to work instead of coming home from a long and daunting day. Now, she knew what she had dressed up for in her pigeon-gray suit with the pencil skirt and matching trilby, faux-pearled, with her second set of borrowed white gloves. She’d have to wash them, of course, though she secretly hoped the inspector would tell her to keep them as a souvenir. What should she wear tomorrow? She had to look her best for the newspapers. Her wrist hurt, and she’d be wise to ice it, but she needed the bruises to show. Would it be wrong to touch them up a bit with blush or lipstick, in case the judge asked to see?

  As she mounted the front steps, it occurred to her that she’d never had to put on makeup to highlight her bruises before, only to cover them up. She stood in front of the door and stared at it. Suddenly, she was exhausted, as if the cares of the day had caught up with her, all at once. She was more nervous than she had been at the threshold of the inspector’s office, or outside of Mr. Todd’s apartment. She didn’t know what she was fighting for here, or why.

  And then the door flew open, and Sid looked at her, almost smiling, though his eyes were wet and mopey. He embraced her, kissing her cheek and mussing her hair like a child. She felt like a child when he held her, wonderfully small and safe, loved. Yes, things would be different now, she would be different, and things would be good.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” he said. “You know how I get, you know how crazy you make me. Let’s not argue again . . .”

  3 YOU WILL MEET A STRANGER

  The saints are like the stars. In his providence Christ conceals them in a hidden place that they may not shine before others when they might wish to do so.

  —St. Anthony of Padua

  AUGUST 22, 1958

  1300 HOURS

  Who could have predicted this? Last year, she was Mrs. Carrara, a first-class nobody, an outerborough housewife at loose ends; this year, she was Policewoman Carrara of the City of New York, a star in the making, Broadway bound. Who knew what anno Domini 1959 would hold? The amazing Mrs. Abbie, that’s who! Marie felt bad that it had taken her so long to visit the fortune-teller in Silver Beach, but the past months had been so frenetic—a wonderful week up in the Catskills, an awful week with Sandy down with the croup, one crazy case after another, half of them making the papers. She’d started to save the clips in a scrapbook. Plus, all the fuss of trying to close on the house in Yonkers. And there were, ahem, those four evenings on Treasure Hunt. Telling Sandy about it cured her of the croup the next day, just so she could run outside to shout to her friends: “Mommy’s gonna be on TV!”

  And she was on TV, winning furniture and pots and pans and the car she was driving right now, a pool-blue Renault Dauphine. Mon Dieu! The pull-apart chunks of the burgundy velvet sectional crowded the house like ships in a harbor before a storm. Sid wasn’t any less goofy about it than Sandy had been, and Marie suspected he’d only agreed to leave the Bronx because the couch deserved better accommodations. She was still basking in the afterglow of celebrity, at home and at work, and she’d never deny what it had meant—Beep! Beep!—but there was always a next thing, at home or at work, that she had to think about more.

  The morning after her last TV appearance, Mrs. M. sent her to visit a dentist who was too free with laughing gas, and his hands. Marie had one question: What’s the address? On the way out, she saw Adele, who gasped before she hugged her. “Oh, Marie! How can you go undercover, right after the whole country saw you on TV? Honestly, I don’t know how you stand the pressure!”

  On the set, Marie hadn’t felt any pressure at all. The spotlights felt like sunshine on her skin. The producers went on and on about how the sponsors loved her. She had to beat out another contestant with a couple of easy-peasy questions, like “Who painted the Mona Lisa?” And then she got to take home free stuff. She didn’t believe that she’d pick the Mystery Box that contained the bag of cabbages. The odds were in her favor—all but two or three held something she’d be happy to have. Astrakhan coat with sable collar? She’d take it. Vacation to Palm Beach? Yup. The audience wanted her to come out on top, and they screamed when she won the car.

  Besides, how could other people recognize Marie when she didn’t recognize herself? After she locked up the dentist, Mrs. M. put her on pickpockets for a few weeks, and then on lower-profile perverts. “We don’t want you in the newspapers every day, like Dick Tracy,” she said. Marie wasn’t any less busy, or any less content. She still played the ingénue for most cases, a damsel made for distress, but by convincing peo
ple she wasn’t a cop, she started to believe she really was one. She followed Mrs. M.’s script for reporters: Yes, police work can be a challenge, but I always make it home by six to make dinner for my family! They always come first! That part wasn’t exactly true, but the boss insisted that she say it.

  SILVER BEACH WAS a onetime summer colony on a little bluff in the Bronx between the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge and the new one they were building farther east on the Long Island Sound. Mostly Irish, with some Germans and Italians. When the Depression hit, the summerhouses became year-rounders. There was a gate and a security guard, and uninvited guests—including two undercover policewomen, in the recent past—were turned away. Marie had never heard of a legally private neighborhood, though there were many parts of the city bound by tribal lines, beyond which it was unwise for outsiders to trespass.

  Marie needed a diversion, a disguise. It was a Saturday, her day off. And since she hated to lose a minute of weekend time with her daughter, it occurred to her that she could kill two birds with one stone. Some experts said that juvenile delinquents were the last casualties of the war; they were the kids of Rosie the Riveter and G.I. Joe, left motherless and fatherless until Hitler and Hirohito were defeated. Others said the problem was caused by comic books. Either way, Marie wasn’t taking any chances with Sandy. She loved their time together, and they’d rehearsed: “What does Mommy do for work?”

  “Mommy doesn’t work,” said Sandy with some vehemence, before a warm and wishful note crept into her voice. “She’s at home with me, all day.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Marie felt a shiver of guilt at the conviction with which Sandy spoke, at the loneliness it betokened. Despite the pains she had taken to keep her lives separate, wife-wise and work-wise, it seemed sensible to bring her daughter, using her as a prop in her latest scam-the-scammer play. This wasn’t a caper with the Degenerate Squad, just an old-fashioned Gypsy swindle. Good clean fun. There wasn’t any danger, and it was a gorgeous day, maybe the last beautiful Saturday of the summer, as Hurricane Daisy was gathering in the South. So why not make it an adventure?