Blue Eyes Read Free Page B

make you so fast?”
    In a month’s time the ring was broken up and the rogue cops from safe and loft were exposed, without much help from Coen. He was returned to the academy. He took target practice with the other probies. In bed before midnight, he followed all the Cinderella rules. After graduation the First Dep picked him up. Coen had a rabbi now. Isaac assigned him to the First Dep’s special detective squad. Half a year later Coen had a gold badge. He rose with Isaac the Chief, making first grade at the age of twenty-nine. On occasion the First Dep loaned him out to the Bureau of Special Services, so Coen could escort a starlet who had been threatened by some Manhattan freak. BOSS wanted a softspoken cop, handsome and tough, preferably with blue eyes. He was the department’s wonderboy until his rabbi fell from grace. A numbers banker indebted to the District Attorney’s office for pampering him after he strangled his wife showed his gratitude by mentioning a Jew inspector on the payroll of a gambling combine in the Bronx. The District Attorney sang to the First Dep. Isaac sent his papers in and disappeared without a pension. The First Dep waited a month before dropping Coen.
    Brodsky delivered him to one of the First Dep’s rat-holes on Lexington and Twenty-ninth. Herbert Pimloe conducted his investigations here; he had replaced Isaac as the First Dep’s “whip.” Coen sat with Brodsky on a bench outside Pimloe’s office. The building was devoted to the manufacture of sport shirts, and Coen compared the design of his pajama tops with the shirt samples on the wall. Brodsky left at five. Coen thought of his wife’s two girls. He smiled at the tactics the First Dep men liked to use, sweating you on a wooden bench, forcing you to wonder how much they knew about the fragments of your life until you were willing to doubt the existence of your own dead father and mother. The company watchman arrived on the floor and stared at Coen. “Hello,” Coen said. He was getting sleepy. The watchman seemed indignant about having pajamas in his building. Coen straightened his tie and dozed on the bench. A hand gripped his collarbone. He recognized Pimloe by the attaché case and the Italian shoes. Pimloe was disgruntled. He expected his hirelings to stay awake. Coen stumbled into the office. Pimloe closed the door.
    â€œYou’re enjoying the Apple, aren’t you?”
    â€œI can live without it, Herbert.”
    â€œBullshit. You’d fall apart outside the borough. The cunt are scarier in Queens. No one would notice your pretty fingers. You couldn’t nod to Cary Grant on the street. I know you, Coen. Take away the Apple, and you’d never make it.”
    â€œI’m from the Bronx, Herbert. My father sold eggs on Boston Road.”
    â€œThe Bronx,” Pimloe said. “The jigs own spear factories in the Bronx. Hunts Point is perfect training ground for the tactical units. They could parachute over Simpson Street and kill the Viet Cong. Manfred, you’d freeze your ass in the Bronx. You’d have a shriveled prick.”
    Coen threaded a hand through the opposite sleeve of his pajamas. “Herbert, what do you want?”
    â€œChange your pajamas, Coen. They stink.” Pimloe touched his paperweight, a brass sea lion with painted whiskers. “I need a girl.”
    Coen forced down a smile.
    â€œNot for me, stupid. This girl’s a runaway. She’s been missing over a month. Her father thinks some West Side pimp caught hold of her.”
    â€œHerbert, maybe it was the lipstick freak. Did you try the morgue?”
    â€œShut up, Coen. Her father’s the Broadway angel, Vander Child.”
    â€œHerbert, why me? What about Missing Persons or one of your aces over at the burglary squad?”
    â€œVander doesn’t like cops. He’ll take to you. I told him you’re the man who guards Marlon Brando in New