Ed Mcbain: Cop Hater

"Okay, I don't want to argue. If Reardon got it trying to stop somebody in the commission of a crime..."

"That's another thing that burns me up about cops," Bush said.

"You're a regular cop hater, aren't you?" Carella asked

"This whole goddamn city is full of cop haters. You think anybody respects a cop? Symbol of law and order, crap! The old man ought to get out there and face life. Anybody who ever got a parking tag is automatically a cop hater. That's the way it is."

"Well, it sure as hell shouldn't be that way," Carella said, somewhat angrily.

Bush shrugged. "What burns me up about cops is they don't speak English."

"What?"

"In the commission of a crime!" Bush mocked. "Cop talk. Did you ever hear a cop say 'We caught him?' No. He says, 'We apprehended him.'"

"I never heard a cop say 'We apprehended him,'" Carella said.

"I'm talking about for official publication," Bush said.

"Well, that's different. Everybody talks fancy when it's for official publication."

"Cops especially."

"Why don't you turn in your shield? Become a hackie or something?"

"I'm toying with the idea." Bush smiled suddenly. His entire tirade had been delivered in his normally hushed voice, and now that he was smiling, it was difficult to remember that he'd been angry at all.

"Anyway, I thought the bars," Carella said. "I mean, if this is a grudge kind of thing, it might've been somebody from the neighborhood. And we may be able to pick up something in the bars. Who the hell knows?"

"I can use a beer, anyway," Bush said. "I've been wanting a beer ever since I come on tonight."

The Shamrock was one of a million bars all over the world with the same name. It squatted on Culver Avenue between a pawn shop and a Chinese laundry. It was an all-night joint, and it catered to the Irish clientele that lined Culver. Occasionally, a Puerto Rican wandered into The Shamrock, but such offtrail excursions were discouraged by those among The Shamrock's customers who owned quick tempers and powerful fists. The cops stopped at the bar often, not to wet their whistles—because drinking on duty was strictly forbidden by the rules and regulations—but to make sure that too many quick tempers did not mix with too much whiskey or too many fists. The flareups within the gaily decorated walls of the bar were now few and far between, or—to be poetic— less frequent than they had been in the good old days when the neighborhood had first succumbed to the Puerto Rican assault wave. In those days, not speaking English too well, not reading signs too well, the Puerto Ricans stumbled into The Shamrock with remarkably ignorant rapidity. The staunch defenders of America for the Americans, casually ignoring the fact that Puerto Ricans were and are Americans, spent many a pugilistic evening proving their point. The bar was often brilliantly decorated with spilled blood. But that was in the good old days. In the bad new days, you could go into The Shamrock for a week running, and not see more than one or two broken heads.

There was a Ladies Invited sign in the window of the bar, but not many ladies accepted the invitation. The drinkers were, instead, neighborhood men who tired of the four walls of their dreary tenement flats, who sought the carefree camaraderie of other men who had similarly grown weary of their own homes. Their wives were out playing Bingo on Tuesdays, or at the movies collecting a piece of china on Wednesdays, or across the street with the Sewing Club ("We so and so and so and so") on Thursdays, and so it went. So what was wrong with a friendly brew in a neighborhood tavern? Nothing.

Except when the cops showed.

Now there was something very disgusting about policemen in general, and bulls in particular. Sure, you could go through the motions of saying, "How are yuh, this evenin', Officer Dugan?" and all that sort of rot, and you could really and truly maybe hold a fond spot in the old ticker for the new rookie, but you still couldn't deny that a cop sitting next to you when you were halfway toward getting a snootful was a somewhat disconcerting thing and would likely bring on the goblins in the morning. Not that anyone had anything against cops. It was just that cops should not loiter around bars and spoil a man's earnest drinking. Nor should cops hang around book joints and spoil a man's earnest gambling. Nor should they hang around brothels and spoil a man's earnest endeavors to, cops simply shouldn't hang around, that was all.

And bulls, bulls were cops in disguise, only worse.

So what did those two big jerks at the end of the bar want?

"A beer, Harry," Bush said.

"Comin' up," Harry the bartender answered. He drew the beer and brought it over to where Bush and Carella were seated. "Good night for a beer, ain't it?" Harry said.

"I never knew a bartender who didn't give you a commercial when you ordered a beer on a hot night," Bush said quietly.

Harry laughed, but only because his customer was a cop. Two men at the shuffleboard table were arguing about an Irish free state. The late movie on television was about a Russian empress.

"You fellows here on business?" Harry asked.

"Why?" Bush said. "You got any for us?"

"No, I was just wonderin'. I mean, it ain't often we get the bu ... it ain't often a detective drops by," Harry said.

"That's because you run such a clean establishment," Bush said.

"Ain't none cleaner on Culver."

"Not since they ripped your phone booth out," Bush said.

"Yeah, well, we were gettin' too many phone calls."

"You were taking too many bets," Bush said, his voice even. He picked up the glass of beer, dipped his upper lip into the foam, and then downed it.

"No, no kiddin'," Harry said. He did not like to think of the close call he'd had with that damn phone booth and the State Attorney's Commission. "You fellows lookin' for somebody?"

"Kind of quiet tonight," Carella said.

Harry smiled, and a gold tooth flashed at the front of his mouth. "Oh, always quiet in here, fellows, you know that."

"Sure," Carella said, nodding. "Danny Gimp drop in?"

"No, haven't seen him tonight. Why? What's up?"

"That's good beer," Bush said.

"Like another?"

"No, thanks."

"Say, are you sure nothing's wrong?" Harry asked.

"What's with you, Harry? Somebody do something wrong here?" Carella asked.

"What? No, hey no, I hope I didn't give you that impression. It's just kind of strange, you fellows dropping in. I mean, we haven't had any trouble here or anything."

"Well, that's good," Carella said. "See anybody with a gun lately?"

"A gun?"

"Yeah."

"What kind of a gun?"

"What kind did you see?"

"I didn't see any kind." Harry was sweating. He drew a beer for himself and drank it hastily.

"None of the young punks in with zip guns or anything?" Bush asked quietly.

"Oh, well zip guns," Harry said, wiping the foam from his lip, "I mean, you see them all the time."

"And nothing bigger?"

"Bigger like what? Like you mean a .32 or a .38?"

"Like we mean a .45," Carella said.

"The last .45 I seen in here," Harry said, thinking, "was away back in . . ." He shook his head. "No, that wouldn't help you. What happened? Somebody get shot?"

"Away back when?" Bush asked.

"Fifty, fifty-one, it must've been. Kid discharged from the Army. Come in here wavin' a .45 around. He was lookin' for trouble, all right, that kid. Dooley busted it up. You remember Dooley? He used to have this beat before he got transferred out to another precinct. Nice kid. Always used to stop by and..."

"He still live in the neighborhood?" Bush asked.

"Huh? Who?"

"The guy who was in here waving the .45 around."

"Oh, him." Harry's brows swooped down over his eyes. "Why?"