Sometimes we’d actually get a genuine celebrity stopping by the precinct to say hello. One of the Red Wings, maybe, because we were the precinct closest to Joe Louis Arena. I think I remember Bob Seger stopping by one morning when I wasn’t there to meet him. But no, today we weren’t getting anybody like that at all. The door opened and in walked Detective Arnie Bateman.
“I thought you said we had a special guest star,” my partner Franklin said. It was the kind of thing he could say, being all of six foot four and a few pounds over his two-forty playing weight.
“Just give him a minute of your time,” the sergeant said. “He was so gracious to spare some of his, after all.”
The detective nodded at this, with a smile on his face like he really was giving up some of his valuable time just to favor us with his wonderfulness.
“Thank you, Sergeant. Good morning, men.”
He was dressed just so, as always, still sporting a Detroit version of the Miami Vice look, including the stubble on his chin. His eyes were bright, and he was practically humming with energy, unlike the rest of us overcaffeinated short-shifters, because homicide detectives almost always work regular hours. His gold badge was displayed prominently on his alligator belt. I’m pretty sure he polished that badge at least three times a day.
“As you know,” the detective said, “we’ve got the big annual basketball game against the Thirteenth coming up. They’ve been taking it to us the last few years, but this is the year we turn it around.”
The Thirteenth Precinct was our big rival. The First Precinct extended up Woodward Avenue from downtown, and the Thirteenth was just up the street from us. That left the precincts sitting right on the dividing line in this city, separating the east side from the west side, and it also meant that the infamous “Cass Corridor,” where much of the drug activity in the city was concentrated, ran from one precinct to the other. We’d take turns being the precinct with the highest homicide rate. Once a year we’d try to forget that with a basketball game.
The Thirteenth had the nice indoor gym, so it was always an away game for whoever played for us. I’d never taken part myself, but I’d seen my fellow officers limping around the next day, some of them with loose teeth.
“So we really need some help this year,” he said, his hands on his hips, jacket open, that gold badge blinding everyone in the room. “Some height, some athleticism…”
“Some black guys,” Franklin said. “Tall black guys. Is that what you’re saying?”
Everybody laughed. There were thirty of us in the room, maybe twenty white, ten black, my partner among them. But we were all pretty tight. As a Detroit cop you get over that kind of thing pretty fast. In fact, if you can’t deal with the realities of race, talk about it in the open, joke about it, laugh about it, then you’re on the wrong police force. For that matter, you’re in the wrong city.
The detective laughed along with us. He was one of those guys who had probably never been the butt of a joke, going back to his glorious three-sport high school career, and wasn’t about to acknowledge such a possibility now.
“You can say it that way if you want to,” he said. “But I didn’t, okay? Just see me after roll call if you’re interested. We really need some guys with game this year.”
Thereby insulting everyone who played last year, I thought, but again, guys like Arnie Bateman get away with that kind of stuff all their lives.
“All right, back to the announcements,” Sergeant Grimaldi said. “Thank you, Detective Bateman.”
He waited for the detective to show himself out, then he continued.
“We’re keeping a focus on Roosevelt Park and MCS this month,” he said, MCS meaning Michigan Central Station. “We continue to see some daytime drug activity, both in the park and in the lots by the station itself.”
It was a familiar story. A dealer sets up shop, word gets around, the police crack down on it, and maybe a few low-level runners get arrested. Then it all starts over somewhere else. In this case, though, you’ve got train commuters coming and going, maybe taking a little walk in the park on a nice summer afternoon. Maybe some of them are buyers, but the rest are just people trying to get on with their day. A lot of them don’t live in the city. They live in one of the suburbs, and they come downtown to go to work or to see a ball game at Tiger Stadium. It’s one of the unspoken rules around here that if people like that turn into crime victims, then it’s doubly bad for everyone involved.
And for the city itself.
“We’ll be putting together a buy-and-bust later this month,” the sergeant went on, “maybe even by next week.”
There were a few not-so-subtle groans on that one. Buy-and-busts mean more kids in handcuffs, while the real culprits live to sell another day. Sometimes they ask patrol officers to help out, too-which means you get to dress in street clothes, be bored out of your mind, and then risk your life for a few minutes, all in the same day.
“This is all taking place above and beyond the usual Roosevelt Park activity,” the sergeant said. “The solicitation, both male and female. Now that the candy store has moved to the same location, well… As you can imagine, it’s gonna be a hot spot for a while.”
“One-stop shopping,” somebody said. “Get high and get off.”
“You’ve summarized the point well,” the sergeant said, not looking up from his day sheet. “So just keep an eye on the area whenever you drive by, okay?”
There were a few other announcements that didn’t have anything to do with me or my partner, so I tuned out. A few minutes later the sergeant gave us our ten-eight, meaning “officers on duty” and kind of an inside joke because Detroit cops never use ten codes. Then we were on our feet and heading to the locker room for a last pit stop before hitting the road.
My partner was yet another ex-jock on a squad full of them. An ex-football player, once a promising walk-on at the University of Michigan before he blew out his left knee. He still wore a brace, and he took a moment to adjust it while I waited for him. I was just about to ask why the detective hadn’t come up to us personally when Franklin slammed his locker shut and there, in a perfect movie moment, was the smiling detective himself.
“You gotta be what, six-three?”
“Six-four,” Franklin said. “But I don’t hoop anymore.”
“I understand you might not move like you used to,” the detective said, “but I’d like to see one of those guys at the Thirteenth move you out from under the basket.”
“I’d love to help you out, Detective, but the ligaments in my left knee have their own agenda. Why don’t you ask Alex? He’s the only ex-professional athlete around here.”
I was already composing my thank-you note to Franklin when the detective stepped over to look me up and down. “I thought you never made it to the majors,” he said.
On a morning when I had a little more sleep under my belt, and a little more patience, I might have taken the time to explain it to him. You get paid to play ball in the minors. You can even make a decent living in Triple-A. Which makes you a professional, by any definition.
“No, you’re right,” I ended up saying. “I played four years for free. Now if you’ll excuse us…”
“All right, we’ll talk later,” he said. “You don’t look very fast, but I’m sure you could help us.”
With those words of encouragement ringing in my ears, I grabbed my partner and we rolled out into the day.
CHAPTER THREE
I got an early start the next morning and saw the sun coming up as I crossed the Mackinac Bridge. I grabbed a quick breakfast in Gaylord, got back on the road, and kept going. I can drive as fast as anyone, partly because my old Ford F-150 truck still rides smooth going eighty or over, partly because I’m an ex-cop who took three bullets on the job and nobody’s going to write me a ticket. Not in Michigan, anyway.