Cop Hater Read Free Page A

They went up for a total of sixteen risers, then turned back on themselves and continued on up for another sixteen risers, and there you were.
    Where you were was a narrow, dimly-lighted corridor. There were two doors on the right of the open stairway, and a sign labeled them LOCKERS. If you turned left and walked down the corridor, you passed a wooden slatted bench on your left, a bench without a back on your right (set into a narrow alcove before the sealed doors of what had once been an elevator shaft), a door on your right marked MEN'S LAVATORY, and a door on your left over which a small sign hung, and the sign simply read CLERICAL.
    At the end of the corridor was the Detective Squad Room.
    You saw first a slatted rail divider. Beyond that, you saw desks and telephones, and a bulletin board with various photographs and notices on it, and a hanging light globe and beyond that more desks and the grilled windows that opened on the front of the building. You couldn't see very much that went on beyond the railing on your right because two huge metal filing cabinets blocked the desks on that side of the room. It was on that side of the room that Foster was interrogating the man he'd picked up in the bar earlier that night.
    "What's your name?" he asked the man.
    "No hablo ingles," the man said.
    "Oh, hell," Foster said. He was a burly man with a deep chocolate coloring and warm brown eyes. He wore a white dress shirt, open at the throat. His sleeves were rolled up over muscular forearms.
    "Cual es su nombre?" he asked in hesitant Spanish.
    "Tomas Perillo."
    "Your address?" He paused, thinking, "Direccion?"
    "Tres-tres-cuatro Mei-son."
    "Age? Edad?"
    Perillo shrugged.
    "All right," Foster said, "where's the knife? Oh, crap, we'll never get anywhere tonight. Look, donde esta el cuchillo? Puede usted decirme?"
    "Creo que no."
    "Why not? For Christ's sake, you had a knife, didn't you?"
    "No se."
    "Look, you son of a bitch, you know damn well you had a knife. A dozen people saw you with it. Now how about it?"
    Perillo was silent.
    "Tiene usted un cuchillo?" Foster asked.
    "No."
    "You're a liar!" Foster said. "You do have a knife. What'd you do with it after you slashed that guy in the bar?"
    "Donde esta el servicio?" Perillo asked.
    "Never mind where the hell the men's room is," Foster snapped. "Stand up straight, for Christ's sake. What the hell do you think this is, the pool room? Take your hands out of your pockets."
    Perillo took his hands from his pockets.
    "Now where's the knife?"
    "No se."
    "You don't know, you don't know," Foster mimicked. "All right, get the hell out of here. Sit down on the bench outside. I'm gonna get a cop in here who really speaks your language, pal. Now go sit down. Go ahead."
    "Bien," Perillo said. "Donde esta el servicio?"
    "Down the hall on your left And don't take all night in there."
    Perillo went out. Foster grimaced. The man he'd cut hadn't been cut bad at all. If they knocked themselves out over every goddamn knifing they got, they'd be busy running down nothing but knifings. He wondered what it would be like to be stationed in a precinct where carving was something you did to a turkey. He grinned at his own humor, wheeled a typewriter over, and began typing up a report on the burglary they'd had several days back.
    When Carella and Bush came in, they seemed in a big hurry. Carella walked directly to the phone, consulted a list of phone numbers beside it, and began dialing.
    "What's up?" Foster said.
    "That homicide," Carella answered.
    "Yeah?"
    "It was Mike."
    "What do you mean? Huh?"
    "Mike Reardon."
    "What?" Foster said. "What?"
    "Two slugs at the back of his head. I'm calling the Lieutenant. He's gonna want to move fast on this one."
    "Hey, is he kidding?" Foster said to Bush, and then he saw the look on Bush's face, and he knew this was not a joke.
    Lieutenant Byrnes was the man in charge of the 87th Detective Squad. He had a small, compact body and a head like a rivet. His eyes were blue