"We got a couple more guests in since I called you," Whalen said. He leaned his right shoulder against the corridor wall and folded his arms. "Lady barkeep, good-lookin' head, from up Cannonball's, and we assume it's her gentleman friend that was with her. Routine coke buy.
He was scoutin' up the customers; she was keepin' the stash under the service bar.
"Statics got a new choirboy for undercover narc. He's the one who popped 'em. Looks like he's about sixteen. I guess he's actually twenny-three or four. They're workin' him out around here day and night this weekend without stoppin', seems like. Showin' him around like a new movie; anywhere you go you got a chance to see him. Hittin' every place they can. Settin' guys up left and right. Marijuana, cocaine, you-name-it; sellin' booze without asking' ID; solicitin' him for blow jobs; firearms; anything they can.
"Corporal Baker told me you can never tell what the hell is gonna happen, you drop a new young pretty boy into a hard guys' bar. Baker told me they got one guy down in Blackstone last week, had their Little Boy Blue workin' down the Worcester area, guy sold him a fuckin' recurve-crossbow. Looked like the antlers of a goddamned Texas Longhorn, mounted onna fuckin'-gorgeous, inlaid, checkered, big-game rifle stock. Fuckin' thing had to've been custom-made, some guy, most likely, use it to kill silent with. "Magine havin' that around, fuckin' thing like that? Someone must've stolen it somewhere from someone else down in Texas, prolly. Some rich oil man killer weapon, kind ah guy he must've been, and still some guy has got the balls go in and steal it from him.
"You beat that, fuckin' luxury crossbow? Whole buncha those bolts had for it, too, stubby iron arrows they use inna thing there; don't make any noise 'cept this sort of whoosh you let 'em go, but the guy says ah fuckin' thing'll go right through an engine block; right through a Ford engine block. What's this country comin' to, you wanna try an' tell me that! Guys sellin' things like that, people they don't even know, total strangers, even? Someone could wind up getting' killed, that kind of shit goin' on.
"Anyway, they've got him going non-stop, the fake teenager, I mean.
Just as fast as he can move, 'fore his cases start comin' up in court next week and some shyster-lawyer finally gets smart, asks for a hearin' on probable cause; kid hast ah come in, testify.
Everyone gets to see what he looks like, he is no good anymore. Party's over.
"But inna meantime they're sure getting' their money's worth. Corporal Baker, down the Monson station, used to be up in Northampton, brought in the last two the kid bagged. He told me kid made seven buys in nine bars down in Chicopee and Springfield just last night alone, three or four more in Holyoke tonight 'fore they hustle him up here.
"Grabbed one guy, parkin' lot at Donatello's, sellin' crack outta his car. Fuckin' two-year-old Isuzu, whadda they call it, Rodeo, Trooper, something. Trooper, I think it is. Anyway, it looks brand-new. They bust him, he's got two-and-a-half kilos. Run him and they find out that he's also got a couple priors. So they cuff him and they seize his fuckin' truck, all right? On top of charging him. Baker said they thought they could've had another guy that was there, too, in this blue Bronco." Julian, Merrion thought. "Forfeit his fuckin' car too. But before they could get him, they're so busy the guy with the Trooper, guy inna Bronco sees what's goin' down, and peels off. Outta there.
Didn't even get a plate on him. They're pissed; fact he ran, you know he's dirty could've taken his ride too.
"What the hell, huh? I suppose they figure as long's they're already out there, why the hell not? Not gonna do any harm; might just as well go ahead, do it. "Oh, nice car you got there. Sellin' contraband out of it? Sellin' illegal drugs, is that what it's gonna be?
Naughty-naughty." Take his car. He's a big boy, isn't he? Shouldah known better.
"I guess that's the way they look at it, anyway. You want my opinion, though, I would say the guy's been fucked. Serves the bastard right, I guess, peddlin' that shit. He don't care then why should I? Guy he picked to sell's a cop. People sell this guy anything. Then the next thing they know, they're up to their ears in the shit. Well, that's the chance that they took.
'1 don't know, though, you come down to it, what difference it really makes, they do find out he looks like. This's the young trooper I mean. Half these people that're sellin', either so stoned themselves alia time, or else they're always loaded, out of their minds; they dunno the fuck they're doin' anyway. Or else they're just naturally fuckin' stupid. You know what I bet you could do? Could go right up to them and tell 'em, face to face, every single other person inna fuckin' gin-mill with them is an undercover cop, and have it be the fuckin' truth, and you know something'? It wouldn't make any difference; wouldn't make any difference at all. They'd still be there, sellin' stuff an' lettin' the people buy it from them, whether they know them or not, got any idea who it is. It's as simple as that.
"They think it's all a fuckin' joke; a laugh, is what they think. They think that that's all it is. You know, no big deal, they get caught sellin' coke. Year in the can, mandatory? Yeah, sure; tell me another one, willya? Half the time their lawyer's even got a fuckin' clue what he's doin' alia time, he's gonna get a deal, put 'em right back onna street. They get so they know the routine there, you know? You do this; you do that; you get busted; so what? That's what it is. You should know that.
"So, good, they get so they're part of it there. They get into the system, they fin'ly become part of it themselves. "Till their faces start getting' to where they're becomin' familiar, you know? To the people down at Probation; start to get so sick of seeing these bums they can't stand it anymore. "What's this? You back here again, you asshole?" "Till it gets to the point someone goes to the DA and says:
"Hey, get this jerk some time, willya, Christ sake for a change? Sick of lookin' at him every week." And then maybe they go away. Then maybe they do do some time. But then again, maybe they don't. It all sort of just depends, you know? It always all depends." He shrugged.
"Okay with me, I guess."
He snuffled. "So, but what's been goin' on with you, then, huh Amby?
Last time we see you, I mean. That new black kid, Tyrone, he was in here last night with us, you no doubt probably know."
Whalen had continued to practice the nosiness that had made him a good beat-cop after he had his chevrons sewn on and gone indoors to work. It was what he had been trained to do, and therefore what he did. "He can't help himself," he told Hilliard, telling him about Whalen's latest probe. "I don't know what it is he thinks he's doing.
"Investigating," I guess. Keeping an eye out. That's what kept him alive when he was out on the street. Now he can't help doing it. I don't know what he's investigating or who he's investigating for doing it, and neither does he. But that doesn't make any difference. He's interested. He pigeon-holes people for ready reference "there's Bob the fireman, front of the firehouse, right where he oughta be; check" like he did keeping order on his beat. Even though there's no reason for it anymore.
"It isn't that he doesn't like Tyrone or that he treats him badly when Tyrone goes down there. The fact Tyrone's been a clerk here now for over six years probably means he's not "a new black kid" any more, but that's Ev's label for him. When he calls Tyrone "the new black kid" he means that Tyrone is black and still relatively young, and the rest of us clerks are not. He says "new" and "black" when he means "different." It sounds like something's wrong but there isn't.
"I know because I asked Tyrone, came right out and asked him. Made a big fool of myself doing it, too. At first I'm going to be, you know, diplomatic; I'm gonna be suave. Try to dance around it there, like I'm not after anything. I'm just making small' talk Monday morning, after his first night down there by himself: "So, how was it down there?