Love or Honor Read Free Page A

cuffs on one hand, at least, very quickly. Always cuff them behind their back, which makes it much harder to run. Besides, if they’re cuffed in front, they could raise their cuffed hands and swing at you, or smash you in the face with the hardware. Try to get them down on the floor, facedown, with your knee in their back.
    Chris did all that. He was just pulling the guy back up to his feet when a man came running toward them. “That’s my car, Officer, and he was stealing my battery!” the man cried. Whereupon he took a swing at the man in handcuffs. “Hey, hold it, hold it, take it easy!” Chris yelled. “But that’s my car, and he was stealing my battery!” the man cried. He was trying to throw more punches, as the shriek of sirens pierced the street. Someone from inside the school had called the precinct, saying a policeman was in trouble. The call had gone out as a ten-thirteen—assist patrolman—which cops respond to without delay. And thus half a dozen radio cars, sirens screaming, lights flashing, were converging on the crime scene, bumping into one another, skidding in the snow, hurrying to help the cop in such danger from a guy trying to steal a car battery.
    At the station, Chris stood with his prisoner at the big desk on the raised platform in the front hall. “What do you have there, son?” the lieutenant asked.
    â€œI have an arrest for petty larceny,” Chris said proudly.
    â€œOh, so it’s just a petty larceny you have there,” the boss repeated in his thick brogue. He sounded disappointed. “But did he try to assault you, Officer?”
    Chris hesitated. “Well, I had to tackle him,” he said. The boss beamed. “Oh, so he assaulted you, isn’t that correct?”
    â€œWell, I guess so,” Chris said uncertainly. The boss stepped down from the platform and put his arm around him. “Nice work, son,” he said. At the end of the shift, a bunch of the guys took Chris across the street to McSherry’s, the cops’ 19th hole, where he was initiated as a member of the tribe.
    He got his first medal when he was working temporarily in a car with another rookie, Andy Glover, one of the few black guys at the precinct then. They were the same age, with the same amount of experience: none. Andy had married young; he had a nine-year-old son and an infant daughter. Chris enjoyed working with Andy, who always seemed to see the bright side of life. Andy had an ear-to-ear grin, a sensational grin that split his face in half.
    They were cruising down Willis Avenue one afternoon when they spotted a guy running out of a clothing store, a knife in his hand. Right behind him, a woman appeared in the doorway of the little shop, waving her hands wildly and screaming, “Holdup! He gimme holdup!”
    Andy jumped out of the car and gave chase. Chris drove the car around the corner, up over the curb, and boxed them in. Andy tackled the guy and was trying to wrest away his knife when Chris rushed over and fell on both of them. Between the two of them, Chris and Andy disarmed the guy. Andy cuffed him while Chris dug into his pocket for a tattered scrap of paper and read him his rights.
    Chris and Andy took their prisoner in, and that was about it. They hadn’t been in grave danger; still, the guy was armed, so they wrote a suitably interesting account of the incident for the lieutenant, who okayed it, added his comments and sent it downtown. Months later, a set of orders came up from Headquarters: GLOVER AND ANASTOS AWARDED EPD . The EPD—the Excellent Police Duty medal—was the lowest a cop could get, and there was no ceremony involved; Chris just went down to the Equipment Bureau and filled out a form for the property clerk, who handed him a medal as though Chris had just requisitioned a box of paper clips. Still, a medal was a medal, the first for both Chris and Andy. It was a small bar, green and white, worn above