The Policewomen's Bureau

by Edward Conlon

  When she felt his weight shift, from one leg to the next, she kneed him at the back of his knee, knocking out the solid leg from beneath him. When he fell, she tossed her gun like a juggler, an inch in the air, and grabbed the barrel to smash him in the head with the butt. She’d never done that before. It must have looked like rodeo trick, but she wasn’t showing off. It was the fastest way to change her grip. There was no anger in her when she struck him, no flicker of malice, as she’d felt with Jack. She was no more emotional than the bullets she’d just fired, and her path would be no less direct. Everything was simple. The only thing she had to do in her life was to move this man down a flight of stairs, and into the street. She flipped the gun again and put her finger on the trigger. Gleason was on the floor of the stair landing. It was better for him to stay down.

  “Make your way downstairs.” When he began to rise, she kicked him. “I didn’t say to stand. Down on your belly.”

  “You can’t . . . I can’t go out like a snake!”

  Now, it seemed as if he’d given in, given up. He sounded utterly humiliated. Marie didn’t care. “Move. When we get out of the stairwell, you can get on your feet.”

  “I can’t—”

  Marie kicked him. “You can, or you’ll never walk again.”

  Gleason half-slid, half-clambered down the stairs. When he reached the first floor, he began to stand, and Marie kicked him back down. There was another metal door, heavier than she was, and she wasn’t going to be hit with it. She heard the sirens, closer now, but not close enough. If only she had another pair of handcuffs. Gleason began to cry. She didn’t hear him, but she could see his chest heave, and his hands covered his face. She remembered how many times she’d lain on the ground like that, with Sid standing above her, one hand over her eyes, so she couldn’t see, the other shoved in her mouth, so she wouldn’t wake the baby. Not when the baby was two, not when she was twelve. Marie always tried not to cry aloud. Kids need their sleep. Marie didn’t enjoy what she was doing. She had broken this man because he needed breaking.

  “Please, Miss, don’t make me go outside in front of everybody, crawling like an animal. Officer, Miss, please . . .”

  Maybe Sid didn’t enjoy what he’d done to Marie, either. Maybe he thought what he did was right and necessary—urgent, even, as if he were a doctor in the emergency room, pounding on a chest to revive a stalled heart. How much did she have to hurt Gleason? She didn’t know. He lay on the floor below her, on the first and second stairs, covering his eyes like a child afraid of the dark. The woeful tone could be a con to make her lower her guard. For what it was worth, she could now rule out the possibility that Harvey and Gleason were cops. She nudged him with her foot. “What’s your name?”

  “Tommy.”

  “Tommy, take your hands from your face, and look at me. Tommy what?”

  “Tommy O’Brien.”

  “All right, Tommy O’Brien. My name is Detective Carrara, and you’re under arrest, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He sounded defeated, but she couldn’t be sure. He might not be sure, either. She didn’t want to shoot him. She hadn’t wanted to shoot Harvey, but there wasn’t time to talk when he came at her with a knife. She’d try to talk to Gleason—Tommy O’Brien, whoever he was. The little stairwell was crowded with aliases. Marie the old lady, the abused wife, the no-longer-young cop. Her mind was noisy with voices. She had to shut them up. “You’re in a little trouble now, Tommy, I won’t lie to you, but there’s no need to make it any bigger than it is. So let’s try and get you outside without any foolishness. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  This was the last door before the exit. Marie didn’t want to get stuck here. “Once we get out of here, you can stand up. But you’re on your knees until we get into the lobby. Got it?”

  Tommy O’Brien took his hands from his face, exposing the real tears that dripped sideways down his cheeks, the snot that spilled sideways from his nose. He nodded and wiped his face with his hands, his hands with his undershirt. He rose on an elbow, and then a knee, and then he was on all fours. One of his hands went up to the door, to reach for the knob. There wasn’t any knob or handle; it pushed out. Marie was about to say that when he bucked and tried to mule-kick her with both feet. She jumped and shot at once. All instinct, she was all instinct, except—

  Marie couldn’t hear anything. When her arm was against the wall where she had landed, three steps up, she could feel all kinds of vibrations. The building hummed like a beehive. Shakes and rumbles, the slamming of doors and lowering of gates. She thought she could feel the sound of cop cars rolling down the block. She still couldn’t hear. She should look down, she knew. Strands of gray matted her face, and she felt the sweat on her cheeks and brow when she brushed them away. When she looked down, she saw O’Brien motionless on the ground. This was sad. This was not how Marie wanted this to end. She’d tried to talk to him, to avoid this. When his hand moved, she was overjoyed. And then it shoved the door open. She realized she didn’t see any blood. She was glad, at first, and then he rose to his knees again, readying to break out. Nope. Marie jumped down on his lower back, stomping him back to the floor. She stepped onto his shoulders, flattening him. The deal was off. He would stay down until the cops came. She pushed open the door and saw everyone running. Black suits running outside, blue suits running in.

  “Police! Policewoman! Here!”

  Marie couldn’t hear herself when she yelled. She put a foot down on O’Brien’s shoulder. She holstered her gun and signaled with her right hand, holding out the shield on her lapel with her left. Could they see the gold, in this light? Two patrolmen saw her, and she waved them over—Move faster!—and yelled, “Cuff him up!” She couldn’t hear what she said, or what they said. They looked at her, and then they looked at each other, and then one leaned down to put cuffs on O’Brien. When the perp stood, he spat at Marie, and she felt the spit catch on one of the loose tresses of her wig. That persuaded the cops that they’d arrested the right party. One of them punched O’Brien, and the other held him out, as if to offer Marie a turn, out of courtesy. She shook her head. She still couldn’t hear them. It didn’t really matter, she thought. This was over.

  They made their way back to 45th Street, where half the cops in Manhattan seemed to have assembled. Cops and detectives and bosses, in uniforms and suits. Most seemed to be yelling, and she could feel their excited breaths buffet the air. She made out a dozen mouths shape the words, “What happened?” and “Are you okay?” When she nodded, only the first question was repeated. She pointed to her ears and shook her head. Can’t hear. She made a trigger-pull motion with her hand and pointed to her ears again. She really was deaf, but she had to pretend muteness. She had no idea where Millie was, and she had no idea what to say about it.

  Most of the men asking questions were in uniform. They were in white shirts instead of blue, with gold on their shoulders. Oak leaves, eagles, stars. Stars were the most important. Those were the questions she’d answer first, if she could hear them. And then she saw another man, a pale man in a green corduroy suit, push past the men with the stars. She tried not to smile when she saw him and pantomimed again how she couldn’t hear. She took out the knife from her pocket, the four decks of heroin, and pointed to Harvey where he lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by paramedics. She handed the contraband to Lennon and said, “Buyer. Tried to stab me. Harvey. Shot him. Knife and drugs are from him. Exchange was observed, cash outside the Automat, drugs right here. Drugs from the seller, just brought out. Said his name is O’Brien.”

  That was all they needed to know right now. She didn’t want to say anything else. No need to include the lesser characters in the cast, like Three-Finger Jack or Millie. She’d done wrong to one, and she’d been wronged by the other. Could they call it even? Ed turned to the nearest boss and translated her remarks. He seemed to be satisfied. Ed took her by the arm and led her
away. She needed to sit down. She didn’t even look up until she was at the door of the Automat. She didn’t want to go in. Was Jack there? With all the cops around, he was likely more sensible about leaving than Marie had been about coming back. When she took her seat, she didn’t see him, but she didn’t look very hard.

  Ed returned with several glasses of ginger ale, and she gulped them down. Her hearing was beginning to return. She tried not to shout when she told him about how Millie failed to follow her, twice. Had the nice man she’d met led her away, offering candy? Unless Millie had been run over by a taxi, there weren’t many excuses Marie was willing to entertain. “Honest to God, Ed, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but I don’t care if she gets jammed up over this. She was useless. I would have been better off working alone. And—”

  “Hold on, let’s see what we can do. I can’t think of anything she’d say that doesn’t make her look bad, but we should try to get her side of the story. Let me try to get hold of her.”

  When Ed stepped back outside, she could see that reporters had gathered amid the throng of cops. This was a story the bosses would be eager to get out, and they’d push Marie in front of the microphones as soon as they could. The cameras, too, she realized. She pulled off the wig and dropped it on the table. It looked like an opossum, flattened on the side of the road. She supposed that she ought to fix herself up a bit. When she looked toward the restroom, she saw two young men walk out, side by side. One was ragged and pale, in a long-sleeved sweatshirt; the other was rough-looking, with a tank top and tattoos on both shoulders. The ragged man turned to the exit and said, “Thanks.” Tattoo walked away and returned to the far side of the Automat. Marie shook her head. Hadn’t they noticed all the cops outside? Kids these days! Why couldn’t she have spotted this pair of junkies first? It wasn’t as if she were looking for another collar, but she still had eyes in her head. Cop eyes, that didn’t always see the best in people.

  Marie picked up her wig and went to the restroom. She didn’t have a change of clothes, but she could at least wash her face, touch up her makeup. Should she put the wig back on? It would be better for the story to model her masquerade. Maybe muggers would see tomorrow’s papers and hesitate the next time they saw an old woman doddering down the street. These things mattered, they helped shape what people believed. As she combed the dead possum, she was doubly furious at Millie, knowing what could be made of the story, if it became known. Millie would become the poster girl for why women didn’t belong in the police department. Marie finished with her repairs and turned away from the mirror, her stomach tight.

  When she walked back out into the restaurant, she saw Ed, and they sat down again together to confer. He’d dispatched several detectives to find her erstwhile partner. He’d also bought time with the bosses. A paramedic had examined Marie’s ears, he’d told them. She needed at least fifteen minutes for the ringing to subside, but that she’d soon be ready to make statements that would make them all proud. Ed and Marie nattered on about nothing in particular, as if nothing had happened this afternoon, and all the travails of the intervening years hadn’t happened at all. Al had been at court that day, and Ed had been nearby, interviewing an informant. But they didn’t talk about work, mostly, not nearly as much as they had in the past. “The kids, how are the they?”

  “All good. Yours?”

  “Can’t complain. A nice summer, sad that it’s over. Some great days on the boat. With the garden, I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with.”

  “That’s because you’re Irish. What kind of tomatoes, beefsteak or plum?”

  “Both.”

  “I should come out there, show you how to make sauce, or soup, and you can freeze it, or put it in jars.”

  “Would you? That would be great. Saturday?”

  Not long after, Millie was hauled into the Automat by two detectives. She wasn’t in cuffs, but she hadn’t been collected respectfully. Ed had told the men Millie had tried to impersonate a policewoman, and not to trust a thing that she said. Marie couldn’t even look at her when she began her charade, lips aquiver in helpless protest: “Marie! Thank heaven you’re all right! I didn’t even notice when you left—”

  Ed played the role of the inquisitor with unfeigned disdain. “Cut the shit. Thank heaven all you want. If Marie’s all right, it’s no thanks to you. Where the hell were you?”

  Millie stuttered and dodged and even tried to attribute blame to Marie, because of her mastery of disguise. Marie looked at the detectives who had brought Millie in, but they’d turned away from the interrogation. It was too shameful to witness. “When she bumped into me, I didn’t even recognize her! When I realized it must have been her, she was already gone. And the man I was talking to, he said he was new in town, and he didn’t know how to get to the Statue of Liberty—”

  “Stop,” Ed said, flatly. “Don’t embarrass yourself. The guy knew where he wanted to go, and so did you. As for asking directions, once all the radio cars in midtown were flying by, why didn’t you try to find where they were going?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Why didn’t you go to a call box and ask the switchboard at the precinct?”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “Why don’t you go down to Missing Persons, and file a report on yourself? Do you even know where you are, right now?”

  Millie began to cry. Marie wished that her hearing hadn’t come back yet. She stopped watching as Ed told Millie to get a grip on herself. “Knock off the waterworks! Nobody cares. Listen to what I tell you, if you don’t want to get fired. You shouldn’t say anything to anybody, but in case you have to, maybe you followed Marie as she tailed these two mutts down Broadway, then east on 45th . . .”

  Marie didn’t want to hear any more. She detested the thought that Millie’s failings might become part of some larger argument. Millie didn’t prove that females shouldn’t be cops, any more than Sid, Macken, Stackett, or any number of other creeps and goons demonstrated why men shouldn’t be. There were so many real-deal policewomen Marie had known—Olga Ford, Claire Faulhaber, Johanna MacFarland, Laurette Valente, Gloria O’Meara, Dorothy Uhnak. To say nothing of Peg Disco, or Mrs. M. But as Millie began to protest that it was all too much for her to remember, Marie decided to get out of earshot, before she started to have second thoughts on the subject.

  Marie walked over to the vending machines. She hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. What time was it now? Almost three, she saw. She fished out nickels from her purse, dropping them in slots for an egg salad sandwich, a slice of pound cake. She would have a long night ahead of her, and she was more than a little rusty on the paperwork. What did she need? Vouchers for the drugs and knife. A complaint report, for sale and possession, attempted felony assault, criminal possession of a weapon. Two arrest reports, for Harvey and Tommy. There might be other department forms that had been introduced over the years. Ed would stay to help her, she knew. There would likely be a few other familiar faces in the squad room. Maybe even Moriarty, behind the smoky mountain of cigarette butts in his ashtray. Did he still live and breathe, in spite of himself? Marie took a seat a few tables away from where Ed was schooling Millie. She’d save her indigestion for later.

  Que sera, sera. The egg salad needed a little salt and pepper. A few shakes later, Marie thought the sandwich was the best thing she’d ever tasted. She was content, ready to collect herself and tell her story. And then Tattoo led another man in long sleeves toward the men’s room. Really? Did they have to do this now, right in front of her, in front of all of them? She didn’t have to do anything about it. Not long ago, her sole mission in life was to move a man down a flight of stairs; now, it was to eat an egg salad sandwich. She saw Tattoo and his customer scope out the Automat from one side of the room to the other, as if they were master spies. There were four detectives within fifteen feet, and a hundred cops outside. Marie threw a fork at the long-sleeved customer, and it hit him in the shoulder. The junkie didn’t even turn around; h
e scratched his back, as if bitten by a flea. Marie would leave them alone. She finished her pound cake with her fingers.

  Marie could picture tomorrow’s headlines. And when tomorrow came, she knew she was shrewd to keep the opossum on her head. She was all over the front pages: LADY COP IN WIG SHOOTS DOPE ADDICT. Showdown—when the little old lady pulled her gun on the dope peddlers. TIMES SQUARE SHOOTING! Police Tigress Shoots Dope Suspect. Another medal, another ceremony at headquarters. Again, Marie was offered her choice of assignments. Fan mail arrived from all over the country. When she was given the Daily News “Hero of the Month” award, in front of a cheering crowd at Yankee Stadium, it was more than a little unreal. The half-seconds of half-catastrophe when she’d shot one man, and tried to shoot another, were recounted like a highlight from last week’s game: “A great catch, that turned into a double play!” The applause sounded like surf breaking on the shore.

  Marie knew the rekindled romance with the Job wouldn’t last. She’d been through this before. And maybe that let her take all the more pleasure in the moment, the many moments, as they happened. She could see the stagecraft and still enjoy the show. The Daily News award came with a five-hundred-dollar check. Regulations forbade Marie from accepting money—at least for the picture—but Mama posed for the photos, as her proxy, and gave her the cash, later on. Marie had seen her cry before, but never from pride. Her own eyes—a cop’s eyes still—stayed dry, but it warmed her heart to see Mama’s old heart soften. People changed, sometimes. Later still, Marie heard that Millie had been badmouthing her, griping that the reward money hadn’t been split: “Wasn’t that the right thing to do? Weren’t we partners? No wonder her husband left her! Did’ja hear they got in a shoot-out with each other?” Some people never changed, never learned.

  But all that happened later on. Marie was finishing her pound cake when she saw the man in the pale blue summer suit amble through the revolving door. He was sweating and preoccupied, reading the Times folded in narrow quarters, as men did with broadsheets on crowded subways, their elbows tucked in like chicken wings. He didn’t notice as two other men, slim and small of stature, took their positions, one in front of him, the other behind. Pickpockets, she made them instantly. What would they do—the Bump, Lift, and Toss? Marie wanted to take the newspaper, roll it up, and rap the mark on the nose with it. Wake up! Pay attention! The mark headed toward the vending machines without looking up, one hand reaching blindly into his pants pocket for nickels. Marie scanned the room for the third man, who would walk away with the wallet. There he was, on the move from the dessert section.