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"Well?" Foster Lewis asked.
"Well, what? Oh, do you want to know why I need a suit?"
"I asked. Where were you when I asked?"
"You asked if you were permitted to ask, and I said, 'Certainly,' but you didn't actually ask."
"Wiseass." His father chuckled. "There's a piece of cake in the refrigerator."
"Thank you," Tiny said, and helped himself to the cake.
"You know a Homicide-ex-Homicide-detective named Harris? Tony Harris?"
"Yeah. Not well. But he's supposed to be good."
"You are now looking, sir, at his official errand runner," Tiny said.
"What does that mean?"
"I suppose it means that if he says 'Go fetch,' I go fetch, happily wagging my tail."
"If you're being clever, stop it," his father said. "Tell me what' s going on."
"Well, I was told to report to a Captain Sabara at Highway. When I got there, he wasn't, but Inspector Wohl called me into his office-"
"You saw him?" Foster Lewis, Sr., asked.
"Yeah. Nice guy.Sharp dude.Nice threads."
I was on the job, Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis thought, for two or three years before I ever saw an inspector up close.
"Go on."
"Well, he said that Harris has the Magnella job, and that he needed a second pair of hands. He said it would involve a lot of overtime, and if I had any problem with that to say so; he didn't want any complaints later. So I told him the more overtime the better, and I asked him what I would be doing. He said-that's where I got thatthat if Harris said 'Go fetch,' I was to wag my tail and go fetch. He said the detail would last only until Harris got whoever shot Magnella, but it would be good experience for me."
"That's it?"
"Well, he gave me a speech about what not to do with the car-"
"What car?"
"A '71 Ford. Good shape."
"You have a Department car?"
"Yeah. Unmarked, naturally," Tiny said just a little smugly.
"My God!"
"What's wrong?"
Lieutenant Foster H. Lewis, Sr., thought,When I got out of the Academy, I was assigned to the 26^th District. A potbellied Polack sergeant named Grotski went out of his way to make it plain he didn't think there was any place in the Department for niggers and then handed me over to Bromley T. Wesley, a South Carolina redneck who had come north to work in the shipyards during the Second World War and had joined the cops because he didn't want to go back home to Tobacco Road.
I walked a beat with Bromley for a year. When he went into a candy store for a Coke or something, he made me wait outside. For six months he never used my name. I was either "Hey, You!" or worse, "Hey, Boy!" I was told that if I turned out okay, maybe after a year or so, I could work my way up to a wagon. The son of a bitch made it plain he thought all black people were born retarded.
Bromley T. Wesley was an ignorant bigot with a sixth-grade education, but he was a cop. He knew the streets and he knew people, and he taught me about them. Between Wesley and what I learned on the wagon, when I went out in an RPC by myself for the first time I was a cop.
What the hell is Peter Wohl thinking of, putting this rookie in civilian clothes instead of in a wagon, at least?
