Free Buddy Boys by Mike McAlary

made good collars, harassed drug dealers, and just generally broke the bad guys’ chops. When other cops hesitated to chase an armed robber into an abandoned building, Henry charged past them. It never dawned on him to be actually afraid of something in the street. After all, he had a gun and a badge.
    Steadily, Henry became more streetwise. Unlike other white cops in the precinct, he actually seemed to like the people on his beat. Hispanic kids on the block taught him Spanish words and the black kids gave him lessons in cool. It was not uncommon, supervisors noted, to find Police Officer Henry Winter dancing in the streets with kids. He was given an excellent rating in their reports.
    Back in the precinct house, where Henry’s brother-in-law was still working a plainclothes assignment with an anticrime detail, cops were beginning to take notice of his arrests.
    â€œThat kid brother-in-law of yours is pretty active out there,” cops told Caufield. “What’s he trying to do, arrest the whole city?”
    If nothing else, Henry had an active imagination when it came to making arrests. One day he noticed several men lining up outside a building on the corner of Pitkin Avenue and Pine Street. Sitting on a step across the street, Henry watched the men ring an apartment doorbell and then slip dollar bills into a mail slot. A second or two later, the slot reopened and a hand passed out a small white envelope. Henry ambled across the street, rang the doorbell himself and pressed his face close to the peephole, so the people inside couldn’t see his uniform. When the mail slot opened, Henry took five dollars from his wallet and pushed it into the opening. A hand passed back a nickel bag of marijuana.
    â€œBingo,” Henry thought.
    He waited a half hour until a backup unit arrived before kicking down the front door of the apartment. Rushing in with his gun drawn, he arrested two men and found a large supply of cash and fifty nickel bags of marijuana.
    Henry then returned to the precinct with his two suspects and the confiscated cash and drugs. He told his sergeant how he had just made an undercover drug buy while in uniform and the sergeant, who years later would wind up working with him in the Internal Affairs office, shook his head. “Winter, you’re going to become a legend in your own time if you keep this up.”
    Henry vouchered all the confiscated drugs and money with the exception of his own five dollars, which he casually reclaimed once the sergeant left the room.
    Soon he was doing his own stakeouts. Finding it virtually impossible to make any more undercover drug buys in uniform, Henry started bringing binoculars to work. He hid in abandoned homes across from buildings he suspected of being drug spots and waited for something to happen. When he spotted a drug deal, he’d rush to the street and make an arrest. Neighborhood dealers soon referred to the new blonde cop on the beat as ‘the Invisible Man.’”
    Not everyone appreciated Henry’s tactics however. One night as Henry walked his beat on a midnight shift, a green car suddenly leaped the curb and tried to run him down. Henry jumped out of the way at the last moment, escaping injury. As the car passed, he swung his nightstick, shattering the rear window. Henry reported the license number and threat on his life to his superiors.
    Three months later, an alert team of patrolling cops spotted the car and gave chase, running it off the road. The suspect, having tried to murder a cop with a car, took one look at the officers surrounding him and realized his own life was probably in danger. By the time Henry arrived on the scene to identify his attacker, the suspect had defecated in his pants.
    â€œYou want to lock him up or take care of him yourself?” a supervisor asked Henry.
    â€œAh, just lock him up. I don’t want a piece of him. He’s in enough trouble.”
    Six months later, the man who tried to