Stephen Solomita - A Piece of the Action

“There’re no rules, are there?” he asked.

“There are nothing but rules,” Morton responded. “Pages and pages and pages of rules. The only question is which of them apply to what situation.”

“All right. You can call in your marker whenever you want. Only I’m not a trained poodle so don’t expect blind obedience. You ask and I’ll check the rules to see which ones apply to the situation. In the meanwhile, I expect to do my job.”

Morton puffed on the cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs before slowly exhaling. “Did I tell you that Captain McElroy is being transferred out of the Seventh?”

“No.”

“You might be surprised to hear this, but he’s not being transferred because he’s an incompetent moron who lost control of his command. Nor is he being transferred because I want to put my own man in charge of the Seventh. McElroy, who will soon retire, is being transferred because he let a cop die unnecessarily. Keep it in mind, detective. The first rule is to succeed. If McElroy had handled Jake Leibowitz without incident, he would have been a hero. Especially if he did it before the reporters arrived. But he didn’t and now he’s out.”

“Bad for him, good for me,” Moodrow said. “We weren’t the best of friends.”

“As a matter of fact, he blamed you for all his troubles.” Morton ground out the cigarette. “Is something wrong, detective?”

Moodrow snorted. If he started naming all the things that were wrong, he’d be sitting in Milton Morton’s office until he retired. Maybe, he thought, I oughta start with what’s right. The list’ll be a lot shorter.

“Because,” Morton continued, “you don’t seem very happy, detective. Which I find somewhat surprising. You did get what you wanted, didn’t you? You did get yourself a piece of the action.”