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desk, a flashing six-screen array like an investment banker’s. Staring at the monitors, I suddenly remembered that Starkie was a vocal champion of CompStat, the computer- and statistics-based method of policing that the NYPD had first spearheaded in the ’90s. Because of this, his nicknames included Numbers, Compstarkie, and HAL 9000 for his sometimes emotionless, single-minded devotion to the computer-driven stats.
    There were stacks of paper on another desk in the corner, obscuring a commanding view of the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a chair opposite his desk, but he didn’t offer me a seat, so I just stood there.
    As Starkie sat, he lifted a white file folder off his desk and leaned back in his big tufted leather chair, licking a thumb as he leisurely went through it. It was my file, I realized. It wasn’t too hard to pick up on his ham-handed theatrics. My career was literally in his hands.
    “So, how was California? Did you enjoy your leave of absence?” Starkie said, glancing at me over the edge of the file after a long minute.
    Leave of absence? I thought, perplexed. Why did he somehow make my being forced into witness protection with my family seem frivolous, like I was trying to take a stab at landscape painting?
    “Busy,” I said.
    Between tanning sessions, I teamed up with the feds and helped bring down the cop-killing Mexican drug cartel kingpin Manuel Perrine , I thought but didn’t say. Maybe you heard about it?
    “Well, since you haven’t been around,” he said, finally setting down the file, “you’ll find that there are a lot of new things happening here in the department. I know in the past you’ve benefited from loosened departmental guidelines, from superiors looking the other way. So let me be the first to inform you that those days are over.
    “This is the new NYPD, Bennett,” he said, gesturing at the computers behind him. “That’s why I’m here. To shake things up, to usher in a new era of accountability and a new emphasis on chain of command.”
    He knocked twice on my file with his chunky NYU law school ring before smiling again.
    “That’s why, in the spirit of shaking things up, I’ve ordered your transfer. Let me congratulate you on your new assignment, running the NYPD’s brand-new Ombudsman Outreach Squad at a Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street in Harlem.”

CHAPTER 7
     
    I STOOD THERE BLINKING, trying not to topple, as I sifted through the rubble of the ten-story building that had just collapsed on top of me.
    I’d thought I would be getting a plum assignment after my hard work of bringing down Manuel Perrine. At the very least, I thought I’d be returning to my desk with the Major Crimes Division. What the heck was an Ombudsman Outreach Squad? I didn’t know. And definitely didn’t want to find out.
    “The ombudsman squad is the mayor’s idea,” Starkie said, reading my mind. “Its mission is simple: to help the city’s most vulnerable victims. It’s a second chance for the department to laser-focus on victims whose concerns have fallen through the bureaucratic cracks. It’s up and running, but there are still some glitches that need ironing out.”
    Starkie blinked at me elaborately to show how badly I was being screwed. “But nothing that a veteran investigator like yourself can’t handle,” he said, smiling. “When I heard about the fledgling squad’s challenges, and the fact that you’d just come back, I couldn’t think of a better match.”
    I stood there staring at Starkie. We both knew what was going on. This wasn’t a promotion. If anything, my new assignment, some mayoral pet project that sounded like a disaster in the making, was a massive demotion, a bald, backhanded slap right across my face.
    I’d put in over twenty years on the job racking up collars, crushing case after complicated case. I’d risked my life, the lives of my family, and now, as a reward, I was being ramrodded to some backwater political pet project?
    Over what? A silly