Continuing south, the precinct ran through the gaudy commercialism of The Stem, and then Ainsley Avenue, and then Culver with its dowdy tenements, its unfrequented churches, and its overflowing bars. Mason Avenue, familiarly known as "La Via de Putas" to the Puerto Ricans, "Whore Street," to the cops, was south of Culver and then came Grover Avenue and the park. The precinct stretch was a short one from north to south. Actually, it extended into Grover Park but only on a basis of professional courtesy; the park territory was officially under the joint command of the neighboring 88th and 89th. The stretch from east to west, however, was a longer one consisting of thirty-five tightly packed side streets. Even so, the entire territory of the precinct did not cover very much ground. It seemed even smaller when considering the vast number of people who lived there.
The immigration pattern of America and, as a consequence, the integration pattern were clearly evident in the streets of the 87th. The population was composed almost entirely of third-generation Irish, Italians, and Jews, and first-generation Puerto Ricans. The immigrant groups did not make the slum. Conversely, it was the slum with its ghetto atmosphere of acceptance which attracted the immigrant groups. The rents, contrary to popular belief, were not low. They were as high as many to be found anywhere else in the city and, considering the services rendered for the money, they were exorbitant. Nonetheless, even a slum can become home. Once settled into it, the inhabitants of the 87th put up pictures on chipped plaster walls, threw down scatter rugs on splintered wooden floors. They learned good American tenement occupations like banging on the radiators for heat, stamping on the cockroaches which skittered across the kitchen floor whenever a light was turned on, setting traps for the mice and rats which paraded through the apartment like the Wehrmacht through Poland, adjusting the unbending steel bar of a police lock against the entrance door to the flat.
It was the job of the policemen of the 87th to keep the inhabitants from engaging in another popular form of slum activity:
the pursuit of a life of criminal adventure.
Virginia Dodge wanted to know how many men were doing this job.
"We've got sixteen detectives on the squad," Byrnes told her.
"Where are they now?"
"Three are right here."
"And the rest?"
"Some are off duty, some are answering squeals, and some are on plants."
"Which?"
"You want a complete rundown, for Christ's sake?"
"Yes."
"Look, Virginia…" The pistol moved a fraction of an inch deeper into the purse.
"Okay. Cotton, get the duty chart."
Hawes looked at the woman.
"Is it okay to move?" he asked.
"Go ahead. Don't open any desk drawers.
Where's your gun, Lieutenant?"
"I don't carry one."
"You're lying to me. Where is it? In your office?"
Byrnes hesitated.
"Goddamnit," Virginia shouted, "let's get something straight here! I'm dead serious, and the next person who lies to me, or who doesn't do what I tell him to do when
I-"
"All right, all right, take it easy," Byrnes said.
"It's in my desk drawer." He turned and started for his office.
"Just a minute," Virginia said.
"We'll all go with you." She picked up her bag gingerly and then swung her gun at the other men in the room.
"Move," she said.
"Follow the lieutenant."
Like a small herd of cattle, the men followed Byrnes into the office. Virginia crowded into the small room after them.
Byrnes walked to his desk.
"Take it out of the drawer and put it on the desk," Virginia said.
"Grab it by the muzzle. If your finger comes anywhere near the trigger, the nitro ..
"All right, all right," Byrnes said impatiently.
He hefted the revolver by its barrel and placed it on th desk top. Virginia quickly picked up the gun and put it into the left hand pocket of her coat.
"Outside now," she said.
Again, they filed into the squad room
Virginia sat at the desk she had taken as her command post. She placed the purse on the desk before her, and then leveled the .38 at it.
"Get me the duty chart," she said.
"Get it, Cotton," Byrnes said.
Hawes went for the chart. It hung on the wall near one of the rear windows, a simple black rectangle into which white celluloid letters were inserted. It was a detective's responsibility to replace the name of the cop he'd relieved with his own whenever his tour of duty started. Unlike patrolmen, who worked five eight-hour shifts and then swung for the next fifty-six hours, the detectives chose their own duty teams.
Since there were sixteen of them attached to the squad, their teams automatically broke down into groups of five, five and five-with a loose man kicking around from shift to shift. On this bright everyday afternoon in October, six detectives were listed on the duty chart. Three of themHawes, Kung and Meyer -were in the squad room
"Where are the other three?" Virginia asked.
~LareIIa took his wife to the doctor," Byrnes said.
"How sweet," Virginia said bitterly.
"And then he's got a suicide he's working on."
