Rocco, feeling the car lurch again, turned to see Thumper fly out onto the street, reach into the crowd, pluck the kid loose and hold him up by his T-shirt.

“Yeah? Let me tell you something, you E.T.-looking motherfucker.” Thumper was talking close enough for a kiss. “You best watch that fucking car. We come back to get it? It better be in mint condition or I’m takin’ you for a ride, you understand?”

The crowd pulsed around the new confrontation, opening and closing in little waves, Big Chief bellowing, “Yo Thumper; c’mon there,” the kid squealing, “Yo Thumper, man, I was goofin’, I was goofin’.”

Thumper flicked the kid free and backpedaled to the Aries again. “That’s your fucking car, E.T. Remember that.” Slamming his door, Thumper hung out the window for a last stare.

“Take us to the office there, fellas?” Big Chief cleared his throat, the noise sounding like a thunderclap, making the kid in cuffs flinch.

Rocco had known Big Chief since high school, had known him when he played semipro football, when he had spent six months in the hospital with a broken back, when he was a stockbroker and when at thirty-six he had become the oldest rookie in the history of the Dempsy P.D., and in all that time his name had been Artie. He had become Big Chief only in the last two years, since he had organized the Fury. All the cops in Big Chief’s squad were given their street names by the kids they policed, and by now they had heard the names so often, they had started using them among themselves. Even their wives and children used them after a while.

Rocco finally rolled off, his rear view completely blocked by the kid on Big Chiefs lap. “You guys radio for repair?”

“We get back there tonight?” Thumper said, pausing to light a cigarette. “We’ll be lucky if the thing’s only on fire.”

“Yeahp, yeahp,” Rocco said, thinking about how many cops, lawyers, social workers and politicians in this town he had known since high school—easily more than a hundred.

“What’s your name?” Big Chief asked the kid on his lap.

“Stan.” The compressed space forced the kid’s chin into his chest and his voice came out somewhat strangled.

“What’s your name, Stan?”

“The Man. They call me the Man.”

“Oh yeah? You weren’t acting like no man out there on the street. What you cry for?”

“‘Cause I knew you were gonna grab me and I was clean, so…”

“What you think, you’re gonna get everybody all worked up, get a little riot going, get us all distracted so you could like, sneak out the back door? We’ll arrest all your friends too. You want that?”

“No, you know I was clean so like, I got upset, you know?”

“You clean? OK, fine, we’ll take you to the office, give you a strip search. If you’re clean, we’ll only charge you with the clips in the bag, OK?”

“That bag ain’t mine.”

“Yeah OK.” Big Chief sighed.

“Stan the Man,” Thumper snorted.

“Who these guys?” The kid tilted his chin to Rocco and Mazilli. “They knocko too?”

Rocco held his prosecutor’s ID behind his head. “Vatican Secret Service.”

“What? What’s that?”

Rocco saw Mazilli smile out the window.

“They be Homicide, Stan.” Thumper delicately removed a shred of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. “You kill anybody?”

“Homicide?” The kid caught Rocco’s eyes in the rearview mirror and Rocco saw something working in his face.

“They’re probably jacking off on the steering wheel right now,” Big Chief muttered.

“I got the tapes out at least.” Crunch held up two Rolling Stones cassettes, a Megadeth, Willie Nelson.

“Hey Big Chief, can Stan the Man sit on my lap for a while?” Thumper goosed the kid, made him bump his head.

“Awright, awright.” The kid sighed theatrically. “I’m gonna save you a strip search. I got a clip in my drawers.”

“There you go.” Big Chief patted his head.

“I never did that before,” the kid said, his tone mournful.

“What?” Thumper and Crunch said simultaneously.

“I never did that before.” Rocco thought the kid sounded a little shaky this time.

“Never did what before?” Thumper scowled in concentration.

“Sell. I never—”

“Excuse me?” Thumper hunched up, mouth hanging open. “You never—I’m sorry, say that again?”

“I only been doing it a month.” The kid’s voice was down to a small mutter.

“A month.” Thumper bobbed his head in mock enlightenment.

“I quit, I tell you that.”

“Fuckin’ A skippy you did,” Thumper sputtered with delight. “Five clips? I’d say you just quit for at least ninety days, wouldn’t you?”

The kid gave Rocco another look in the rearview, and Rocco saw that Stan the Man was thinking hard about a trade, maybe something for the gray-hairs in the front seat.

 

In the heart of the Sullivan projects, across town from the Eisenhower development, where he had been arrested, Stan sat handcuffed to his chair at the far end of the converted storage room that served as the city wide office for the Housing police. Protocol required that Rocco and Mazilli be in isolation with the kid, but the room was so long—seven unused desks between them and the Housing cops, all of whom were now clustered around the TV, sofa and refrigerator—that for all intents and purposes they were alone, except for a parrot that Big Chief kept in a cage right over their heads, the thing squawking periodically like a smoke detector, making Rocco feel as if he was conducting the interview in a pet shop.

Rocco watched the kid try desperately to come off like he was in control. Sitting back in his wooden swivel chair, his legs crossed, the Troop jacket still down around his biceps, the kid affected a hiked-eyebrow smirk, as if this whole situation was nothing more than an amusing inconvenience, the handcuffs an annoying but obligatory part of his wardrobe.

“So OK. Nelson Maldonado—where’s he at?” Rocco absently swung side to side in his swivel chair, picked at a stain on his tie. Mazilli remained standing, sucking his teeth and squinting longdistance at the TV.

“Well, what kind of deal I got here?” The kid said, then flinched as the parrot squawked.

“Well, what do you want?” As usual, Rocco did all the talking. Mazilli was better at other things.

“I want to walk.” The kid smiled as if he’d been asked a stupid question.

“Well, I tell you what. You give me Nelson Maldonado right now, you can walk. I’ll pick up this phone”—Rocco placed his hand on the receiver—“call the prosecutor and work it out right in front of your face.”

“Sounds good.” The kid shrugged, but there was a pearl-size tic pulsing in the corner of his eye.

“What kind of history you got?”

“This my first arrest.”

“What?”

“As a adult.”

“Good.” Rocco nodded approvingly. “Beautiful.”

Rocco walked to the other end of the office, sat next to Big Chief on the sofa, cracked a beer.

“Kid giving you anything good?” Big Chief spoke directly to the television.

“Yeah, well, he says he can serve up one of the do-ers on the Henderson job.”

A month earlier, a local landlord named Frank Henderson was speeding through a Puerto Rican block when he struck a child.