Evan Hunter - Candyland

"You okay?" Morgan whispers.

"Yes, I'm fine," she says.

But she isn't.

"Do either of you recognize the man you saw this morning?" Manzetti asks the witnesses. The male witness turns to see where the voice is coming from, and then looks back at the stage again. The black woman, who earlier studied the supposed offenders as they came onto the stage, one of them possibly the real offender, now studies them with even closer scrutiny.

The room is silent.

On the stage, everyone tries to look nonchalant. Even Edward Nelson, who may or may not have killed Cathy Frese but who most certainly was caught with his hand in a young girl's bloomers, tries to look nonchalant. All six gentlemen up there on the stage could be partners in a respectable law firm. Put Andrew Cullen up there with them, he'd look right at home. But Andrew Cullen is a rapist, did you know that, Your Honor? Andrew Cullen has been raping Emma Boyle Cullen for the past two years, Your Honor, and now he's stolen my daughter and taken her to Westport, Connecticut, where there are no rapists and ergo no need for a rape squad or a rape-squad detective, not in lily-white Westport, Connecticut, oh no indeed.

"See anyone?" Manzetti prompts.

The black woman turns to look at him where he sits in the back row with the other detectives. Cranes her neck at all of them. Squints at them in the dark.

"No, sir, I do not," she says.

"How about you, sir?" Manzetti asks.

"Nobody," the bartender says.

A uniformed cop walks onto the stage to lead the six men out. Nelson isn't going anyplace except downtown for booking. Manzetti thanks the two witnesses and asks another cop to show them downstairs.

They both look offended, as if they should have been paid for their time.

"Thought she was gonna pick you for a minute," Harmon tells Manzetti. "Way she was looking back here."

"They always look to the back row for a clue," Manzetti says. "To them, it's like a television quiz show they wanna win, some kind of freakin game."

Some game, Emma thinks.

"Let's see how we make out with the apple," Manzetti says.

"Who's for a beer?" Harmon asks.

At this hour, the night shift has just been relieved and the tiny bar on 131st and Broadway is packed with uniformed cops and undercovers from the Two-Six, Homicide detectives wearing what they wore to work that afternoon, male and female officers alike gathering to wind down after a day that started at three-forty-five p.m. and did not end until half an hour ago — except for the detectives who were unlucky enough to have caught the Cathy Frese squeal at six this morning.

Emma feels very much at ease in these surroundings. Perhaps it's because she's Irish, or perhaps it's because she's a cop. The bar is very definitely an Irish-looking and Irish-sounding bar, the distinctive accents of Brooklyn and Queens lilting on the air as if these men and women are in County Clare sipping beer on the banks of the Fergus, instead of on Upper Broadway a block from the Hudson. None of these men or women are drinking hard liquor. There are pitchers of beer on the table and sitting on the bartop because these men and women aren't here to get drunk — most of them will be going home to wives or husbands — but merely to talk about the day's work. They are in a dangerous occupation, these men and women, and these nightly confabs are not unlike debriefings after a bombing raid or an incursion into enemy territory. This is CopLand After Dark.

"Was there anything from the Coast?" she asks Harmon.

"Nothing," he says.

"Any record on Thorpe?" Morgan asks.

"Clean as a whistle. Nothing in their files."

"Did they roll by his house?"

"All the lights were on, nobody home."

"What time did they go by?" Manzetti asks.

"Around eight their time. They'll make another run along about eleven. What time is that here?" Harmon asks. He spots a female officer he knows, most likely from the Two-Six, standing at the bar with a couple of Homicide detectives. He waves to her, and she comes on over. She is a delicate Hispanic woman, perhaps five-feet three-inches tall, in her mid-twenties, still in uniform, strapped with a nine bigger than she is, hanging in a black leather holster on her right hip.

"They're three hours behind us," Morgan answers, and looks her over.

"I hear you just took the test for third," Harmon tells the woman. He, too, is giving her the eye. She's really quite pretty. Black curly hair sprouting from under her peaked uniform hat, full hips swelling above the holster belt, good breasts filling her tailored uniform shirt. Emma wonders if they piss in her shoes back at the precinct.

The girl is lingering by the table, not sure whether or not she should join them, four detectives and all. Uniformed cops know immediately who is or who isn't a detective. It's the same sense that allows enlisted men in the military to know who's an officer, even if they're off the base wearing civvies. Harmon has not yet introduced the girl.

Perhaps he senses Morgan's interest and is protecting his own turf. Or perhaps he's just a male chauvinist pig cop who doesn't think women need to be introduced, especially if they're cops. Sometimes Emma gets sick to death of the whole damn thing.

"Who's your rabbi?" Manzetti asks.

The expression is a holdover from the old days, when somebody had to sponsor you for the blue-and-gold shield, and it didn't hurt to have powerful friends in high places. There were hardly any Jewish cops at that time, so the expression was meant to be ironic — or perhaps anti-Semitic. Back in those days, it was a given that nobody had a shot at rising above the rank of captain unless he was Irish. Nowadays, you could be black and get to be police commissioner. Lucky Irish Emma, who is still a Detective/Second after twelve years on the force. How long will it take little Chiquita Banana here to get to be captain?

"I'll see you later, huh, Danny?" the girl tells Harmon, but her eyes dance over Morgan, who immediately says, "Have a seat. We'll teach you some detective tricks."

"Detective tricks, huh?" she says, and slides into the booth alongside Manzetti.

"Emma Boyle," Emma says, and extends her hand across the table.

"Tess Ortega," the girl says, and takes Emma's hand.

The other detectives — all except Harmon, who knows her — belatedly introduce themselves. Morgan holds her hand a trifle too long for comfort, so she eases it back with a roll of her eyes, telling him he's coming on too strong here in the company of other cops, so cool it, amigo, okay? For now, anyway. Morgan catches the clue, big detective that he is, and backs off. Emma figures if anything's going to happen here between them, it'll be after everybody else at the table goes home. From what she guesses, however, a Homicide cop like Harmon isn't about to relinquish the field to a mere Vice cop from the East Side.

Manzetti's married with three kids. He has no time for, and very little interest in, The Dating Game. While Morgan pours a beer from the pitcher for Tess, and Harmon reaches over to the bar for a bowl of pretzels to offer the girl, Manzetti asks Morgan if he thinks this Thorpe character is really their guy.

"On a scale of one to ten?" Morgan says.

"Whatever."

"If he's still here in the city, I'd rate him a solid nine. If he's back in L.A. already, that's another story. Lots of planes left early this morning. He checked out of the Palmer around six-thirty. If he caught any one of those early-morning flights, he'd have been in L.A. by noon or thereabouts."

"So where is he? The cops out there drive by at eight, all the lights are out?"

"Could be out to dinner."

"Unless he's still running on New York time. In which case, he'd be asleep by now."

" We're not," Emma says brightly.