Read Grief Street for Free Online Page B

handed me.
    “Over to West Forty-sixth, Restaurant Row. Some con’s running the coronary scam. The guy is old, could be eighty. But he’s spry, and smooth. Get this—he wears kid gloves. He can make any regular-looking cop—in a suit or wearing the bag, don’t matter. Talks like an Irishman who read some books.” Rankin looked me over, nodding his approval of my own low-profile ensemble: khakis, gray sweatshirt, Yankees cap, worn-out tennis shoes, a face in need of a shave. I could be some ordinary neighborhood idler—a guy on his way to the OTB parlor or a blocked novelist, say. “The restaurant owners, they’re squawking. You know how they got the mayor’s ear. So we got orders. Somebody’s got to pull a stake.”
    I knew the grift without having to read through the complaints: Cauc male, neat dresser, distinguished type with silver wings in his hair, a charming accent from the other side, and just enough in his spiel to give the reassuring impression of old money and an old boy school. He takes a good table at Barbetta’s, say, and after a fine meal with all the proper wines he drops over in his chair and his face pinches up and he claws at his chest and somebody calls 911 and then the EMS unit comes and carts off the poor gasping heart attack victim. In all the commotion, the check for the guy’s meal is the last thing anybody thinks about. And by the time the gasper reaches the emergency room at Roosevelt or , he is miraculously recovered. A guy can get away with murder if he wears the right color skin and his breath smells like cash when he wants something.
    “I can’t be working a Mickey Mouse today,” I told Rankin.
    “How’s that?”
    “You heard about the rabbi who got it at the temple on the overnight?”
    “Sure.”
    “Friend of mine.”
    “You ain’t Jewish.”
    “So I’m told.” I stepped over to my desk. Like static cling, some of the lieutenant’s dampness followed me. “Sorry, Looey, but I’m putting in for a waiver on this one.”
    Rankin fumed and pawed through more paper. Nobody likes being overruled. A spark from his cigarette fell, landing on his shirt. It sizzled out in a circle of sweat. I sat down at my desk, picked up the telephone, and dialed Inspector Tomasino Neglio’s office downtown.
    For months, I had not spoken to Neglio on the subject of my beef with Kowalski. This was on purpose for two good reasons. First, whenever I run up against a lot of bureaucratic twaddle about the slow-grinding wheels of justice, I remember about Scotch whisky, which I do not want to think about. Second, reminding the boss at just the right time about something he was duty-bound to perform was a good tactic for getting something I might need in the short-term.
    “What do you want now, Hock?” This was Neglio’s usual hello to me. Today was no different from any other.
    “You have to give me clearance for special assignment. By the way, what’s happening with King Kong?”
    “For your information, I just gave Kowalski the word. He’s going to charm school, starting tomorrow.” Neglio’s tone had finality to it, as if the two of us were even; as if he owed me no special favors. “And don’t be telling me what I got to give you or anybody else.”
    I thought, For what that hump Kowalski has done, he gets classes at charm school—that’s it? I decided for the moment against squawking. Instead, I shifted to new grounds of negotiation. I said, “Maybe I’ll be filing a whole new complaint.”
    “You want more trouble in your life?”
    “How would you mean that. Inspector?”
    “You know what I’m talking about. Anyhow, skip it. Kowalski hasn’t done the dickprint number since you filed on him—and you know it, Hock.”
    “It’s not Kowalski I’m talking about now. I’d be filing against a Sergeant Becker, up here at Midtown South.” f “So what’s he done to give you the hard-on?”
    “Interesting. Becker asked the same as you asked—if I want more trouble.” I