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He smiled broadly, and, his right hand high over his head, waved, as he said: “Dick, a wise man named Anthony once cautioned me to be very wary of wrestling with a pig . . .”
“Because you can get very dirty,” Harris finished. “And the pig likes it.”
McCrory grunted.
“Hey, Killer Cop!” the tall teenager yelled, then leaned forward and with both hands gave Payne the bird.
“That’s just his way of saying the police are Number One,” Payne said, ignoring the teenager.
“But, for christsake, this is not a police problem,” McCrory said. “It’s a society problem. We’re just sent in to clean up the messes. How the hell is it the fault of cops that there’re no jobs for these delinquents? That they can’t fucking read or write?”
“You’re right, Dick,” Payne said.
“It’s like Jamal the Junkie. He got booted from Mansion. And that fine eighth-grade education of his? You can bet he stopped learning anything around maybe fourth, fifth grade. The schools—ones like those with teachers who get caught changing test answers—just kept bumping him to the next level. Until it all caught up with him in high school. Then he went to the streets.” He nodded toward the row house. “And Pookie here. Another fine example. He’s—what?—murder victim number 370.”
“It’s all way above our pay grade,” Payne said. “They should be protesting at City Hall, blaming the crooked city council members they elected over the last forty years.”
Payne looked at McCrory. He put his hand on McCrory’s shoulder.
“Dick, you really think we have it bad being cops? Let me tell you, it could be worse.”
McCrory was quiet a moment. Then he grunted again.
“Okay, I’ll bite. How could it be worse, Sarge?”
“Could be Santa at an Eagles game.”
“Not that one,” Harris said.
Kennedy was shaking his head.
“What are you guys talking about?” McCrory said.
“You never heard that heartwarming Philly tale?” Payne said. “From back in, maybe, 1968? It’s legend.”
McCrory pointed to his New England Patriots knit cap. “I ain’t from around here, you know.”
Payne went on: “Made national news after the football game was televised. Anyway, it was halftime and the Eagles were losing—”
“Of course they were,” McCrory said, smirking. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“And the weather was miserable, bitter cold and snowing. And of course everyone’s been sucking down the brandy and whatever else rotgut they’d snuck into the stadium. So, out comes Santa Claus—actually, the drunk who was supposed to do it was a no-show, so some poor schmuck actually volunteered at the last moment—and the minute he walks out onto the sidelines, waving to the crowd and doing his Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! schtick—Wham!—he gets pelted by a snowball. Then the others in the stands, all in Eagles gear, join in. Wham! Wham! Wham! And Santa has to haul ass off the field.”
“That’s terrible,” McCrory said, but he was grinning.
“Became one of those things that shored up Philly’s tough reputation with the rest of the country,” Harris said.
“Nice,” Kennedy said. “Real point of pride right there.”
“You know our motto,” Payne added, “Philly, Kicking Ass Since 1776.”
Payne saw that the group of teenagers had walked down the street.
“Notice they don’t leave their sidewalk,” Payne said, as he grandly waved again at them. “Tough guy’s not so tough—he’s a dead guy if he doesn’t stay on his corner and out of someone else’s turf.”
A woman who looked to be in her late thirties stood at the police tape. Over her gray sweatshirt she wore a white T-shirt silkscreened with a photograph of a smiling, very young black male in a coat and bow tie and the words DANTE HOLMES, AT PEACE AT LAST.
She said, just loud enough for Payne and the others inside the yellow tape to hear, “I have to apologize for him. Rayvorris, he don’t speak for all of us.”
