Free Cop Hater by Ed McBain Page B

jobs."
    "Do I detect sarcasm in your voice, Lieutenant?" Savage asked.
    "Sarcasm is a weapon of the intellectual, Savage. Everybody, especially your newspaper, knows that cops are just stupid, plodding beasts of burden."
    "My paper never said that, Lieutenant."
    "No?" Byrnes shrugged. "Well, you can use it in tomorrow's edition."
    "We're trying to help," Savage said. "We don't like cops getting killed anymore than you do." Savage paused. "What about the teen-age gang idea?"
    "We haven't even considered it This isn't the way those gangs operate. Why the hell do you guys try to pin everything that happens in this city on the teen-agers? My son is a teenager, and he doesn't go around killing cops."
    "That's encouraging," Savage said.
    "The gang phenomenon is a peculiar one to understand," Byrnes said. "I'm not saying we've got it licked, but we do have it under control. If we've stopped the street tumbles, and the knifings and shootings, then the gangs have become nothing more than social clubs. As long as they stay that way, I'm happy."
    "Your outlook is a strangely optimistic one," Savage said coolly. "My newspaper doesn't happen to believe the street rumbles have stopped. My newspaper is of the opinion that the death of those two cops may be traced directly to these 'social clubs.'"
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah."
    "So what the hell do you want me to do about it? Round up every kid in the city and shake him down? So your goddamn newspaper can sell another million copies?"
    "No. But we're going ahead with our own investigation. And if we crack this, it won't make the 87th Precinct look too good."
    "It won't make Homicide North look too good, either. And it won't make the Police Commissioner look good. It'll make everybody in the department look like amateurs as contrasted with the super-sleuths of your newspaper."
    "Yes, it might," Savage agreed.
    "I have a few words of advice for you, Savage."
    "Yes?"
    "The kids around here don't like questions asked. You're not dealing with Snob Hill teen-agers who tie on a doozy by drinking a few cans of beer. You're dealing with kids whose code is entirely different from yours or mine. Don't get yourself killed."
    "I won't," Savage said, smiling resplendently.
    "And one other thing."
    "Yes?"
    "Don't foul up my precinct. I got enough headaches without you and your half-assed reporters stirring up more trouble."
    "What's    more   important   to   you,    Lieutenant?"    Savage
    asked. "My not fouling up your precinct—or my not getting killed?"
    Byrnes smiled and then began filling his pipe. "They both amount to about the same thing," he said.
    The call from Danny Gimp came in fifty minutes. The desk Sergeant took the call, and then plugged it in to Carella's line.
    "87th Detective Squad," he said. "Carella here."
    "Danny Gimp."
    "Hello, Danny, what've you got?"
    "I found Ordiz."
    "Where?"
    "This a favor, or business?" Danny asked.
    "Business," Carella said tersely. "Where do I meet you?"
    "You know Jenny's?"
    "You kidding?"
    "I'm serious."
    "If Ordiz is a junkie, what's he doing on Whore Street?"
    "He's blind in some broad's pad. You're lucky you get a few mumbles out of him."
    "Whose pad?"
    "That's what we meet for, Steve. No?"
    "Call me 'Steve' face-to-face, and you'll lose some teeth, pal," Carella said.
    "Okay, Detective Carella. You want this dope, I'll be in Jenny's in five minutes. Bring some loot."
    "Is Ordiz heeled?"
    "He may be."
    "I'll see you," Carella said.
    La Via de Putas was a street which ran North and South for a total of three blocks. The Indians probably had their name for it, and the teepees that lined the path in those rich days of beaver pelts and painted beads most likely did a thriving business even then. As the Indians retreated to their happy hunting grounds and the well-worn paths turned to paved roads, the teepees gave way to apartment buildings, and the practitioners of the world's oldest profession claimed the plush-lined cubby holes as their own. There was a time