Free Love or Honor by Joan; Barthel

to figure out where the guy stashed his junk. He’d approached the pusher a few times, in various disguises—once, even sporting a chestnut-colored wig—but Pumpkin was tuned in to trouble and had never been willing to deal. Then Chris had put on a master act. Wearing a red bandanna tied around his head gypsy-style, a stained fatigue jacket, with a canvas pouch dangling from his shoulder, he’d stumbled down the block, appearing to be drunk, sick, stoned.
    Past the liquor store, where sales were made from behind a thick Plexiglas shield, past the vacant lot piled with rubbish, he had stopped in the middle of the block, where Pumpkin was leaning against the brick wall of an abandoned tenement.
    Chris lurched toward the curb, reaching out to grab on to a parking meter for support. When he seemed to regain his balance, he turned and shuffled across the sidewalk.
    â€œHey man,” he mumbled, “you got something for me today?”
    Pumpkin said nothing. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored dark glasses.
    â€œI’m sick, brother,” Chris pleaded in a rasping voice. “I gotta get high.”
    â€œI don’t know you,” Pumpkin said shortly.
    â€œHey, I just want to cop some junk, you know?” Chris moaned.
    â€œWho sent you down?”
    â€œOh, some brother—hey man, what difference?” Chris turned, as though to move away. “Okay, okay, I don’t need to buy from you, man.”
    Pumpkin called him back. “How much you want?”
    â€œGimme a dime bag.” Chris groped in his jeans pocket and brought out a folded ten-dollar bill.
    Pumpkin eased down the side of the building, very slowly, his long legs bending as gracefully as a dancer’s. Near the bottom of the wall he turned slightly, sliding his hand along the wall. He removed a loose brick, took a glassine envelope from the hole, and deftly pushed the brick back into place. In a swift handshake, the envelope and the money were exchanged. “Move,” Pumpkin hissed.
    Chris moved, bobbing his head as he turned away. At the curb, he stopped. He stood up straight. The handcuffs in his pouch made a satisfying clank as he walked briskly back to Pumpkin to deliver the curtain line. “I forgot to tell you: You’re under arrest.”
    It was a very good line, but clearly it had merely been the end of the first act, in what looked to be a long-running show. Here was Pumpkin, back on the street, having breezed through the judicial revolving door. Frustrated and depressed, Chris decided to stay off the streets until it was time to go downtown.
    Yet he didn’t like hanging around the precinct, either, in the midst of the everyday activity, the hustle and bustle that had nothing to do with him. It was disappointing to be leaving without a transfer party, the traditional sendoff that reminded cops of their indissoluble fellowship, that reinforced the feeling that even when they left, they belonged. When Chris left, he didn’t know where he would belong.
    It was tough not to talk about his assignment, not even about the meeting, among guys who talked incessantly about what they were doing, the collars they’d made, and the ones they intended to make. “What should I tell people?” Chris had asked Harry. “Tell them you can’t tell them,” Harry said shortly. When the message came over the 4-oh wire: P O ANASTOS TEMP REASSIGN —everybody knew the terseness meant they shouldn’t ask questions, but not everybody could resist. Chris had never been much of a liar, probably because his father had always made lying sound like the deadliest of all deadly sins. “If you do a wrong thing you must say so,” George had lectured his children. “No matter how bad, it is not so bad as a lie. My daughters do not lie. My son does not lie.” For all the faults and character flaws he’d accumulated over the years, Chris thought wryly, he found it hard to