Free Thin Air by Robert B. Parker

whiskey. And poured himself some more.
    "Tell me about San Juan Hill," I said.
    The whiskey was making him expansive. He leaned back in his chair. The bottle on the table now, no more pretense. He eyed the bottle. It was a new one, nearly full. He was able to relax. He knew where the next drink was.
    "The spics are divided into two factions. One of them is San Juan Hill, the other one is Freddie Santiago."
    "Is San Juan Hill a place?"
    "Yeah, north end of the city. It used to be Irish and when it was we called it Galway Bay. My mother was born there. Then the Cha Chas came in and we moved out and now it's San Juan Hill."
    "And Freddie Santiago?"
    "Guy runs a place called Club del Aguadillano in the south end of town. He's the establishment, you know what I mean, sort of a spic Godfather. Kids in San Juan Hill broke with him maybe five, six years ago, and we don't know how organized they are, but you're in San Juan Hill, you're on the other side of whatever fight Freddie's in."
    He sipped some more whiskey, held it in his mouth, then tilted his head and let it trickle down his throat. "You got anybody in there?"
    "Anybody in where?"
    "In San Juan Hill, in with Freddie Santiago."
    "Shit no, man, Anglo won't last ten minutes under cover with one of the spic outfits, fuckers don't even speak English, most of them."
    "I was thinking you might have some Hispanic officers."
    Delaney laughed, started to cough, and swallowed some whiskey. The coughing subsided.
    "His-pan-ic officers?" he started to laugh, caught himself, and drank again. "You think we're going to give one of those assholes a badge and a gun? They'd pawn the badge to buy dope and stick up the pawn shop afterwards."
    "Any Spanish-speaking officers on the force?"
    "Shit no. Freddie speaks English. We get along good with Freddie."
    "I'll bet you do," I said.
    Delaney paid no attention.
    "Freddie's a businessman," Delaney said. "Runs a tight ship."
    There was admiration in Delaney's voice.
    "Gets a lot of dope and pussy traffic from the prep-school kids come in from Andover, and he don't want to scare them away. Walk around the south end, the streets are clean, the street lights work. There's zero street crime in Freddie's area."
    "How about San Juan Hill?"
    Delaney shook his head.
    "Dodge City," he said. "Bunch of coked-up gang bangers. All we can do is pen them in up there, keep it on the Hill."
    "You think Deleon might be connected to Santiago?"
    "Deleon." Delaney shook his head, fumbled on the desk for his bottle, poured a little more into his cup. "What kind of fucking Spanish name is that? De-le-fucking-on?"
    "Probably one of Ponce's offspring," I said.
    "Well I don't know nothing about him."
    "Could he be on San Juan Hill?"
    "Sure, he could be up there, pal. Fucking Elvis could be up there singing `You ain't nothing but a hound dog,' you know?"
    "Think Freddie Santiago would know?"
    "Got no way of knowing, pal. Whyn't you go ask him?"
    "Probably will," I said.
    "You better ask nice, state cop or no."
    "I'm not a state cop."
    "You said…"
    "I said I used to work for the Middlesex DA. I don't anymore. I'm private."
    "Private? A fucking shoofly? Get the fuck out of here before I bust you for impersonating a police officer."
    "Or vice versa," I said.
    "Beat it," he said.
    I took his advice, and as I went out the door I looked back and smiled a friendly smile and said "Skol." and closed the door behind me.
    The fat cop at the desk was still sweating as I passed him.
    "How is he?" he said.
    "Gassed," I said.
    The cop nodded.
    "He wasn't a bad cop, once," the cop said.
    "He's a bad cop now," I said.
    The fat cop shrugged.
    "His brother's a City Councilman," he said.

Chapter 12
    San Juan Hill, when I found it, made you think maybe God liked cinema noir. The streets were narrow and the three-deckers crowded down against them. The buildings were uniformly stoop-shouldered and out of plumb, as if age and sequential squalor had sapped the strength from the wooden framing. The