There was something about the warm weather that brought them out like cockroaches. The cops of the 87th Precinct rarely enjoyed what could be called a “slow season,” but it did appear to them that less crimes were committed during the winter months. During the winter months, it was the firemen who had all the headaches. Slum landlords were not particularly renowned for their generosity in supplying adequate heat to tenement dwellers, despite the edicts of the Board of Health. The apartments in some of the buildings lining the side streets off Culver and Ainsley avenues were only slightly warmer than the nearest igloo. The tenants, coping with rats and faulty electrical wiring and falling plaster and leaking pipes, often sought to bring a little extra warmth into their lives by using cheap kerosene burners that were fire hazards. There were more fires in the 87th Precinct on any given winter’s night than in any other part of the city. Conversely, there were less broken heads. It takes a lot of energy to work up passion when you’re freezing your ass off. But winter had all but fled the city, and spring was here, and with it came the attendant rites, the celebrations of the earth, the paeans to life and living. The juices were beginning to flow, and nowhere did they flow as exuberantly as in the 87th, where life and death sometimes got a little bit confused and where the flowing juices were all too often a bright red.
The man clinging to the patrolman’s arm had an arrow in his chest. They had called for a meat wagon, but in the meantime they didn’t know what the hell to do with him. They had never before had a man up here with an arrow sticking in his chest and protruding from his back.
“Why’d you bring him up here?” Willis whispered to the patrolman.
“What’d you want me to do? Leave him wandering around in the park?”
“Yeah, that’s what you should have done,” Willis whispered. “Let the Department of Hospitals worry about him. This guy can sue us, did you know that? For bringing him up here?”
“He can?” the patrolman whispered, and went immediately pale.
“All right, sit down,” Willis said to the man. “Can you hear me? Sit down.”
“I got shot,” the man said.
“Yeah, yeah, we know that. Now sit down. Will you please sit down? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I got shot,” the man said.
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know. Are there Indians in this city?”
“The ambulance is coming,” Willis said. “Sit down.”
“I want to stand up.”
“Why?”
“It hurts more when I sit.”
“You’re not bleeding much,” Willis said softly.
“I know. But it hurts. Did you call the ambulance?”
“I just told you we called the ambulance.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
“I was taking a walk in the park,” the man said. “I felt this sharp pain in my chest, I thought I was having a heart attack. I look down, there’s an arrow in me.”
“All right, sit down, will you, you’re making me nervous.”
“Is the ambulance coming?”
“It’s coming, it’s coming.”
In the detention cage across the room, a tall blond girl wearing a white blouse and a short tan skirt paced nervously and angrily, and then stepped up to the grilled metal and shouted, “I didn’t do nothing, let me out of here.”
“The patrolman says you did plenty,” Carella said. “You slashed your boyfriend across the face and throat with a razor blade.”
“He deserved it,” the girl shouted. “Let me out of here.”
“We’re booking you for first-degree assault,” Carella said. “As soon as you calm down, I’m going to take your fingerprints.”
“I ain’t never calming down,” the girl shouted.
“We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“You know what I’m going to do?”
“You’re going to calm down, and then we’re going to take your fingerprints. And then, if you’ve got any sense, you’re going to start praying your boyfriend doesn’t die.”
“I hope he dies. Let me out of here!”
“Nobody’s letting you out. Stop yelling, you’re busting my ears.”
“I’m going to rip off all my clothes and say you tried to rape me.”
“Go ahead, we’ll enjoy the show.”
“You think I’m kidding?”
“Hey, Hal, the girl here’s going to take off her clothes.”
“Good, let her,” Willis said.
“You mother-fuckers,” the girl said.
“Nice talk,” Carella said.
“You think I won’t do it?”
“Do it, who cares?” Carella said, and turned away from the cage to walk toward a patrolman who stood behind two teenage boys handcuffed to each other and to the heavy wooden leg of the fingerprinting table. “What’ve we got here, Fred?” Carella asked the patrolman.
“Smashed a Cadillac into the window of a grocery store on the Stem. They’re both stoned,” the patrolman said. “The Caddy was stolen two days ago on the South Side. I’ve got it on my hot-car list.”
“Take off your blouse, honey,” one of the boys yelled across the room. “Show us your tits.”
“We’ll say they jumped you,” the other boy yelled, giggling. “Go ahead, baby, do it.”
“Anybody injured?” Carella asked the patrolman.
“Nobody in the store but the owner, and he was behind the counter.”
“How about it?” Carella asked the boys.
“How about what?” the first boy said. He had long black curly hair and a thick black beard. He was wearing blue jeans and a striped polo shirt over which was a tan windbreaker. He kept looking toward the detention cage, where the girl had begun pacing again.
“You crash that car into the window?”
“What car?” he said.
“The blue Caddy that was stolen from in front of 1604 Stewart Place Wednesday night,” the patrolman said.
“You’re dreaming,” the boy answered.
“Rip off your blouse, honey!” the second boy shouted. He was shorter than his companion, with long stringy brown hair and pale blue eyes. He was wearing tan chinos and a Mexican poncho. He did not have a shirt on under the poncho. He, too, kept watching the detention cage, where the girl had approached the locked door again and was peering owlishly into the room, as though contemplating her next move. “Do it!” he shouted to her. “Are you chicken?”
“Shut up, punk,” she answered.
“Did you steal that car?” Carella asked.
“I don’t know what car you’re talking about,” the boy said.
“The car you drove through the grocery-store window.”
“We weren’t driving no car, man,” the first boy said.
“We were flying, man,” the second boy said, and both of them began giggling.
“Better not book them till they know what’s going on,” Carella said. “Take them down, Fred. Tell Sergeant Murchison they’re stoned and won’t understand their rights.” He turned to the nearest boy and said, “How old are you?”
“Fifty-eight,” the boy answered.
“Sixty-five,” the second boy said, and again they giggled.
“Take them down,” Carella said. “Keep them away from anybody, they may be juveniles.”
The patrolman unlocked the cuff holding them to the leg of the table. As he led them toward the slatted railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor, the bearded boy turned toward the detention cage again and shouted, “You got nothing to show, anyway!” and then burst into laughter as the patrolman prodded him from behind with his nightstick.