The Policewomen's Bureau

by Edward Conlon

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Stop! And take it easy! That’s my coffee mug!”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Stop,” Ed said. “Don’t worry, kids. I got friends downtown, and I talked to a lot of ’em today. They know Macken made a mess of it.”

  If they’d harbored any doubts the case was over, the wiretap laid them to rest hours before. Cheech called Tommy to tell him about Fifi, who had passed away over the weekend. Tommy responded, “The job is dead and buried, too. Pass on my condolences to the widow, because it’s too hot for me to stop by the wake.”

  And they’d found out about what had happened in Hoboken, because Ed had driven out to talk to the cops there. He was dressed in a navy blue pinstriped suit, his Emerald Society pin prominent on his lapel. He’d found the guy who’d been stuck with Macken, and, after the first, defensive reaction—“It wasn’t me! It wasn’t us who screwed up!”—Ed learned the story of the siren. When the ice cream truck pulled up to the park, it had blocked the lieutenant’s view. Macken leaned out the window, screaming at the driver to move on, and drew an upraised middle finger in response. Inside the police car, there was a switch on the instrument panel that changed the horn to a siren. With the NYPD cars, there were two positions—up and down, for horn and siren—but with the new models Hoboken had just acquired, there were three, in a triangle, for horn, siren, and klaxon. Their case had been destroyed by the half-inch flick of an infinitely idiotic thumb.

  “So take it easy,” Ed concluded, gently removing the coffee mug from Al’s hand. “The bosses know who handed Tommy his get-out-of-jail-free card. Take it from me—you’re not gonna spend the next two weeks getting paper cuts, and I’m not gonna spend any nights in Brooklyn hotels.”

  As Ed walked out of the office, Al began to follow, hectoring him with questions, but he wouldn’t answer. Marie and Al fretted for an hour until the order came over the teletype: All personnel assigned to borough burglary squads are to report to the Safe, Loft, and Truck Squad at 0800 hours.

  As a title, “Safe, Loft, and Truck” had all the glamor of a label on a packing crate, but it was one of the most elite units on the Job. They didn’t deal with amateurs: safes attracted safecrackers; lofts were commercial warehouses, and those that held furs or high-end electronics were well-defended; and trucks didn’t stop unless men with guns stopped them. The heists were associated, more often than not, with one of the organized crime syndicates. That there had never been a corruption scandal at SLATS was a matter of deserved pride. The selection process was rigorous, and only men with exceptional arrest records and impeccable reputations were allowed in. To have a “rabbi”—cop slang for any kind of patron, whether police, political, or clerical—never hurt, but neither was it enough to win assignment. A man’s record and reputation had to be of his own making.

  Unlike the rest of the department, where somebody’s rabbi might be an actual rabbi, SLATS had its own idea of kosher. Aside from a few stray Italians or Poles, the squad was overwhelmingly Irish and devoutly Catholic. A number of senior detectives served as a confidential squad for the Archdiocese, dealing with problem priests who risked scandal, either by arrest or blackmail. Membership in the Holy Name Society was assumed, and weekend retreats at one of the friaries or monasteries around the city, once or twice a year, were customary. There were no divorced men in the squad. Church and state were in unison there, and bad men feared them.

  Marie did not expect to be welcomed aboard. Until yesterday, SLATS had been a proud island of the chosen hundred, where no one was admitted except after long quarantine; overnight, a fleet had run aground on its shores, depositing seventy-odd refugees with dubious papers. In a way, the men of SLATS were like a hundred trousered Melchionnes, except for the lack of vowels at the end of their names. And she was delighted to see Lt. Macken get a cold shoulder from their captain the next morning, when he strode up to shake his hand at the auditorium at headquarters.

  The captain was military in bearing, tall and regular in his features, but when he addressed the group, his voice wasn’t any louder than if he’d been chatting with friends in his kitchen. Few heard what he said beyond the first rows. Marie was close enough to catch enough: all of this was regrettably unexpected, and everyone was to continue working as before. There was a choral mutter of What-what-whats? in the cheap seats before he declaimed his last words, which filled the room. “That’s all. Dismissed. However, all females, all policewomen should follow me over to the room to the left.”

  The captain walked away as the women rose from their seats, slowly and warily. There were eight in all. Marie knew three, no four, from the Policewomen’s Endowment Association—none terribly well, but they were all workers, real cops. It felt as if some terrible test or ritual awaited them. One was a Negro, and another was Jewish. Marie reproached herself for taking comfort in the idea that they might be even more undesirable than she was. Would it matter? Eight would go into the room. How many would leave? It was said that you could tell a witch if she floated. Maybe the captain was leading them to a pool of water. Oy vey. Marie missed her old rabbi.

  After the ladies filed in to the appointed chamber, the captain shut the door. He did not prolong the suspense. For what it was worth, none were singled out. And none had a problem hearing him. “I do not want women in my squad. I have never tolerated a woman here, and I do not intend to start now. I’ve only called you in to tell you that if you have any preferences as to where you’d like to be assigned, I would suggest that you make whatever telephone calls you can, because I intend to get you transferred forthwith.”

  The women stared at him, agape. They were finished before they’d begun, sent away as abruptly as yesterday’s teletype had ordered them to come. They couldn’t go back to their old squads; they didn’t exist anymore. Where would they be tomorrow? What if they had no favors to call in?

  The captain tempered his tone as he went on. He didn’t intend to be cruel but fatherly, it seemed, as if he were telling his teenage daughter she would not be going to the movies on Friday, no matter how nice the boy seemed to be. “Otherwise, I wish you the very best. This is nothing personal. I don’t want my men distracted. I have good men here, and I don’t want them to get in trouble.

  “I mean this without any disrespect. I’m going over right now to the Chief of Detectives to request that all of you are transferred out of my command. I am confident that he’ll understand. I’ll tell him that my men are just not equipped to work with women.”

  The shock had worn off, and the way the captain kept on yapping made Marie angry. What did he want from them, a thank-you card? If they weren’t staying, she wasn’t going to sit and listen. And she certainly didn’t have to bother with making a good impression. “What kind of equipment do you think they’ll need, Captain?”

  The captain couldn’t believe Marie had missed his point so completely. When he realized that she hadn’t, his mouth tightened and he walked out. The other women looked at her, some admiring, others appalled. All were amazed that she’d mouthed off to a boss on their first day in the squad, even if it was also their last.

  Back in the auditorium, Marie apprised her partners of the news, as did the other women with their respective teams. She was cheered when Ed pointed out that, until there was a formal order by the Chief of Detectives, the policewomen would remain assigned to SLATS, no matter who was unhappy about it. Her hopes rose for a moment, and then they fell again when a sergeant approached her.

  “Carrara? You have to see the inspector.”

  The captain reported to the inspector. She wondered if her wisecrack about equipment had been wise; maybe she’d be the only policewomen who wouldn’t remain. She trudged to the inspector’s office grinding her teeth, resolved to keep her mouth shut.

  The inspector’s hair was white, his skin pale to the point of transparency, and his eyes were so barely blue that they looked like a drop of ink in a quart of milk. He didn’t rise to meet her or shake her hand, and
he looked at her only briefly before returning his attention to papers on his desk. “Sit down, sit. So, you’re in one of my squads, eh? What did you say your name was?”

  Marie was elated that he hadn’t asked about the captain, but he cut her off before she finished saying her name. “What? Could you spell that? Hmm. What kind of name is that? Italian? I see. Are you married? Oh, all right, it’s your husband’s name. What church were you married in? Uh-huh. Are you there now? What parish are you in now?”

  He badgered her with questions that had nothing to do with police work, and her replies seemed to baffle and irritate him. “How many children do you have? Two? That’s all?

  “What’s your maiden name? Panza—what? I won’t even try to spell that, it’s even more Italian than the other one. What school do you send your daughter to? Public school? What’s wrong with the parish school?”

  Marie didn’t want to talk to him anymore. They didn’t want her here, and she wasn’t exactly crazy about them, either. But it was better to play nice. The interview itself could be taken as a sign that the policewomen were staying put, at least for the time being. As the subject of family seemed to be of such abiding concern, Marie redirected the talk to the two photographs on his desk. One was of an older woman, the other of a young man. “Is that your son? What an attractive boy. You must be very proud of him.”

  “Yeah, that’s him all right,” the inspector replied, without the slightest trace of warmth. He lifted his eyes from his papers and stared at the picture. “I used to have great faith in him, but he let me down. He let me down terribly.”

  Marie felt pity for him and then grew anxious. Was the boy in prison? Was he dead? Did he run away to join the circus? Not for nothing, but if the kid was a disaster, why was his picture on the desk? Marie didn’t believe the next thing she’d say would be any more apt than the last, but it was too painful to sit there in silence.

  “I’m so sorry, Inspector. Maybe, maybe it was something he couldn’t help?”

  That was innocuous enough, wasn’t it?

  “Oh, he could help it, all right. No one forced him, no one made him do anything. Did everything to try and stop him, for my part.”

  “What did he do?”

  She had to ask, didn’t she? Maybe it would be for the best if the captain succeeded in his mission with the chief, and she was sent somewhere far away. The inspector’s voice rose in anger as he repeated the question, “What did he do?” And then it trailed off in disgust. “What he did was marry a Guinea.”

  Marie heard what he said, but the words lodged in her ears without moving to her brain. She knew how daft it must have sounded when she suggested, “She must have been a lovely girl, for him to have picked her.”

  The inspector glared at the photograph as if it were a mug shot. “And now, to add insult to injury, they’ve got a half-breed son. I never even let one in my squad before. Now I got one in my own family!”

  It may have been that when the second slur landed in her ears, it pushed the first one farther inside, and the neon malice lit up in her mind like Times Square. “That’s your grandson you’re talking about!”

  The inspector seized the silver frame and shook it, yelling, “He’s no grandson, he’s a goddamn half-breed!”

  Marie jumped up, toppling her chair, and shouted as she left the office, “That’s the best blood your family ever had! Ciao, gentilissimo Ispettore!”

  When she returned to the auditorium, Ed ran to greet her, his smile bright and wide. “Great news, Marie! The Chief of Ds told the captain to take a hike—you’re staying!”

  “Let’s get some breakfast.”

  After she told Ed and Al about the second interview, neither offered any empty assurances that things would work out in the end. She wasn’t wrong, but what she’d done just wasn’t done. She’d be back on matron duty tomorrow, she guessed. Maybe even brought up on department charges, as her insubordination had risen from rank to rank. They decided to make the best of their last day together. They ate quickly and went to work, tight-lipped and resolute.

  But in the postriot quiet, the Manhattan streets were anxious, hunkered down. They rolled from the Bowery to Hell’s Kitchen without seeing anyone spit on the sidewalk. By midday, she insisted on driving back to her car to get her old leopard-skin fedora from the trunk. Any kind of luck was better than no luck at all. It was after four when they dropped by the Automat at Eighth Avenue for some iced tea. Their mood was grim.

  Marie’s saw the man filling his cup at the coffee spigot and paid him little mind. He looked like a working stiff, in a tan summer suit and straw boater. But when he noticed her, his glance was anything but casual. He was a light-skinned black man with a lean build, clean-shaven, in his late twenties, and he looked exceedingly pleased to see her. She didn’t recognize him, but her guard was up, and she alerted Ed and Al when he approached. His demeanor was anything but hostile, but they didn’t often run into old fans of their work. Marie studied his face, searching her memory. Nope.

  “Hey, guys! I can’t believe I ran into you,” the man said, shaking his head, his voice almost bashful. “How are you doing?”

  “Just fine,” Ed replied cheerily, though his eyes never left the man’s hands. “And yourself?”

  “Better than fine,” the man said. He looked at Marie and smiled. “Better than ever. How’s the baby?”

  Marie tried harder to concentrate, to recall. Nada. Niente. Who the hell was this guy? “The baby’s fine, thanks.”

  “Was it a boy?”

  “Yeah, it was a boy,” she said, making an effort to smile. “He’s a real tiger.”

  “I knew it! I just had a feeling.”

  This was killing her. Couldn’t Al or Ed step up here and admit that they’d forgotten his name? She kicked Al under the table, and he flinch-ingly followed her lead. “Don’t take this the wrong way, buddy,” he said. “But I’m better with names than faces. Who are you?”

  The man laughed. “None of you know, do you? After all we done together? Nah, I don’t mind. I’m glad I look different, because I am.”

  There was no meanness in his voice, but there was nothing familiar about him. Bupkes. She asked, “Can you give me a hint?”

  The man put his coffee down and paused to consider. His face was suddenly transfixed with pain, his eyes half-closed, mouth open, showing his teeth. Tilting his head to the left, he leaned right and brought up his right hand to the shoulder.

  Marie shouted, “No!” and the patrons around them started. Now, she got it! Ed and Al reached for their guns. “Oliver!” she cried. “Theodore Oliver!”

  Oliver had reenacted his pose from the front page of the Daily News. He put his hands up, as if to say, “You got me!” Or maybe it meant, “Don’t shoot!”

  Marie jumped up and hugged him. Maybe that was a little much; when she looked over at her partners, they weren’t smiling. She didn’t care. She was delighted to see Oliver. She wasn’t ashamed she hadn’t recognized him—the man who stood before her was truly not the man she’d chased down that afternoon. Had it been ten months before? “Look at you! You could be a movie star. Look at you!”

  She stepped back to take him in. “You look great, you really do. Tell me, what’s going on? How have you been since . . . since that day?”

  “The day she shot you,” Ed added helpfully.

  “Yeah. Since then? Well, I cleaned up, that’s the main thing,” Oliver said, his effusive tone shifting to the contemplative. “I did six months. I’m not proud of what I did, who I was, but I gotta tell you, I was kind of famous in jail. Not everybody gets shot by a lady cop. A pregnant lady cop! But, believe me, they get the newspapers there, too, and there was guys who asked me for autographs. Anyway, I got clean. And I’m gonna stay clean. I’m working. My wife took me back. My kids thought I was in the Army. It’s good. Yeah. It’s all good now.”

  For a moment, Marie thought Oliver would break down as he counted his blessings, and that she might shed a few tears as well
. He recovered, smiling again.

  “And you?” he asked. “All good with you?”

  Marie nodded.

  “The baby’s healthy? Good. I won’t take up any more of your time. I was just coming by, and I saw that hat with the spots, and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to let you know. To say . . . thanks?”

  “Thank me by staying as good as you are,” Marie replied, clasping his hand. “Honest to God, you really made my day, Mr. Oliver. I’m so glad you came up and said something. Take care of your wife and kids.”

  “I will. God bless.”

  “God bless you, too.” As Oliver walked away, Ed called out, “And stay away from pregnant ladies with guns!”

  Oliver laughed and waved. Al didn’t know what to say, and he got up from the table to call the office to check in. Ed waited a while before he offered any comment. “You know, I’m glad he found Jesus and all that, but he could have said he was sorry for trying to knock my head off with that suitcase.”

  Marie nodded.

  “It’s still could have been me who shot him,” he went on. “But who gets the credit? Not the Irishman, not the first-grade detective. All the bosses, all the papers, they have to make it a big whoop-de-doo about the new Italian chickadee, just because she’s got a bun in the oven. Is that fair? I ask you, is it?”

  Marie shrugged.

  “Aren’t you glad that you shoot like a girl?”

  Marie rolled her eyes. Ed stood up. “I’m going to get us a couple more ice teas.”

  Marie nodded. She didn’t want to talk, just yet. What had just happened? She felt as if she’d never done a truly good thing before. How could that be? Maybe it was because what she’d done—what cops did—was always on the negative side: You stopped bad things, bad people. She’d stopped hundreds of them, at least for a while, from Mr. Todd to Mrs. Abbie, Nunzi and Gino, from Dr. D. and his nurse to thieves and killers like Shep. But the damage had already been done, sometimes beyond repair. The highest score in the game was zero. For Theodore Oliver to pop out of nowhere and say she’d saved his life—on today of all days, maybe her last as a real cop—made her so happy it hurt. She listened to the nickels drop into the chambers for plates of macaroni salad and cherry pie. Ed came back with the iced tea. He raised his glass for a toast.