“The Mayor said that it was not any of his detectives who marched into The Catacombs downtown on Saturday night and beat up Hector Milagros, and that is not truth!”
“Character is what comes through.”
“Sincerity.”
“Character and sincerity, right.”
“The Mayor said that Hector Milagros is a self-confessed murderer and not entitled to the pity of the people of this great city, and that is not justice!”
“Right on!”
“I don’t care if you are some kind of belligerent black man, all he needs is a gun…”
“Tell ‘em, Rev!”
“I don’t care if that’s the kind of bellicose person you are, or whether you are an abstemious soul goes smiling at white folks and behind their backs wishes they were dead…”
“Oh Lordy!”
“Whatever kind of African-American you are, rich or poor, whether you a doctor or a homeboy, whether you clever or dim…”
“Cheers,” Lorraine said at last, and raised her glass.
“Cheers,” he said.
“… whether you a telephone operator or somebody scrubs floors on her hands and knees…”
They clinked glasses and drank.
There were at least three dozen people marching back and forth and chanting in front of the station house when Arthur Brown got to work on Wednesday morning. A black man carrying a sign reading TRUTH AND JUSTICE gave Brown a dirty look and said, “I wouldn’t go in there I was you, brother.”
“I work here, brother.”
“You should fine another job.”
Brown walked right on by, and up the familiar steps, and past the uniformed officer standing on the top step in front of the scarred wooden doors flanked by green globes with the numerals 87 on each. Sergeant Murchison, sitting behind the muster desk said, “They still dancing out there?”
“Looks like,” Brown said, and started up the iron-ranged steps leading to the second-floor squadroom.
Actually, he didn’t know how he really felt about those people outside marching and yelling. He knew it was wrong for two detectives to have gone in there and beaten up a prisoner in custody, white or black. But that man down there in The Catacombs worked for a dope dealer and the job he performed for him was the same as what had happened to him: he beat people up. Sometimes killed them, in fact, like he’d done to Danny Nelson.
The question Brown had to ask-and this was a question the reverend Foster never asked-was whether the man had been beaten up cause he was black or just cause he was an evil piece of shit. Wasn’t no way you could learn the truth of that situation till you found the deuce of dicks who’d gone in there for whatever reason. Way Brown figured it, you let somebody beat up any black man just cause he was black, then next time it could be your own ass.
He knew there were white sons of bitches in this world would think nothing of laying a pipe upside his head just for his color alone, he knew that. But he was a cop. And in his day and time, he had clipped many a black son of a bitch coming at him, and in those instances color’d had nothing to do with anything. Nor had he regretted it. That was the truth. Justice was another story.
First thing he saw on his way into the squadroom was a redheaded girl sitting at Bert Kling’s desk.
Meyer told him she was waiting for somebody from the Rape Squad.
She didn’t look like a cop at all, much less someone here to talk to Lorraine about a rape. She was in her mid-thirties, Lorraine guessed, with black wedge-cut hair and brown eyes behind designer eyeglasses, a slender woman of medium height wearing what looked like a naval officer’s greatcoat, hatless and gloveless though the temperature outside this morning was in the low twenties and the wind was blowing fiercely. A blue leather shoulder bag dangled from a strap over her left shoulder. Lorraine guessed there’d be a pistol in it if she was a cop, though she didn’t look at all like a cop. “Miss Riddock?” she said, and extended her hand, “I’m Detective Annie Rawles.”
They shook hands briefly. “Let’s go down the hall, okay?” she said. “Be a bit more private.”
Lorraine nodded and followed her through the gate in the slatted wooden railing, and then down the corridor to a door marked INTERROGATION on its upper frosted-glass panel. There were no windows in the room. They sat at a long table scarred with cigarette burns. A mirror hung on one wall.
Lorraine wondered if it was a one-way mirror. She wondered if anyone was watching and listening beyond the smudged apple green wall.
“Want to tell me about it?” Annie said.
The girl did not look like your average rape victim. Usually, there was a stunned demeanor, a glazed look to the eyes. Usually, the shoulders were slumped, the fingers interlaced as if in prayer, the knees pressed together defensively, a shamed expression on the face. Instead, Lorraine Riddock’s eyes were filled with anger, her mouth a tight little line across her face, her fists clenched. When she spoke, her voice was clear and resonant.
“I was raped,” she said.
“When did this happen?”
“Last night.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t…”
“Sometime after eleven o’clock.”
“Where, Miss Riddock?”
