Cop Job Read Online Free Page A

wounded in Vietnam. Lived in a chair, like Alfie. Though not that long. Too many complications.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “I’m sick of conflict. I don’t want to fight with anyone anymore, especially you. Maybe it’s age. Just stay inside the legal lanes—Jackie knows what they are—talk to us on a regular basis and don’t get in our way when things heat up.”
    Ross grew up like me in Southampton, but spent the first half of his career as a homicide detective in the most savage neighborhood in New York City during some of the bloodiest, crack-infested times. It was hard to overlook the weirdness, but the wise never underestimated the man.
    “I hear you,” I said.
    His face slipped into serious.
    “The same goes for that freckle-faced cyclone. Latitude doesn’t mean carte blanche. Remind her of that, if you would.”
    “Jackie’s her own girl, Ross. You know that. Anyway she’s my boss. She tells me what to do.”
    “Interesting role reversal. You know you need a license to be a PI in this state.”
    “I’m not a PI. I’m a personal assistant.”
    “Right. You know Esther Ferguson accused us of harassing Alfie,” he said.
    “I didn’t.”
    “He lived in the Village. Not even our jurisdiction. But he insisted that Town cops were threatening him.”
    “How so?” I asked.
    “Looking at him, as it turned out. Even Esther backed off after that.”
    “The Town and Village have different uniforms, patrol cars.”
    “He described us,” said Ross. “Pretty accurately.”
    “Alfie surprised me plenty of times.”
    “Terrible thing to be afraid of your own mind,” said Ross. “It scares the hell out of the general public, but their fear is nothing compared to what people like Alfie go through. Did you know the incidence of violent crime perpetrated by paranoid schizophrenics is roughly the same as the population at large?”
    “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
    “I didn’t think you were such a sensitive guy,” said Ross.
    “Sensitivity’s got nothing to do with it. Simple fairness. Even lunatics have a right to life.”
    “You almost just improved my opinion of you, Sam.”
    “Always the underachiever.”
    “I’ve got another Alfie problem,” he said.
    “What’s that?”
    “Alfie himself. Can’t find any next of kin. Carlo’s okay keeping him on ice for now, but he’ll be needing the drawer space.
    “Jimmy Watruss might know,” said Ross.
    “I’ll talk to him.”
    Despite all that talk about cooperation, Ross knew a lot more than he was willing to share, but it was all I’d get. So we tossed around the Latin allusions, semi-non sequiturs, and trivia one-upsmanship that served as conversation between us, and then I got the hell out of there.
    E STHER F ERGUSON ’ S office was on the way back to the cottage, and it was still early, so despite some trepidation, I stopped in to see her.
    The Social Services Department for Eastern Suffolk County was in a converted Victorian house in a mixed residential-commercial zone at the western end of Hill Street in Southampton. Not in the Village exactly, though not all the way out. The porch was deep, the ceilings high, and the smell was all damp, moldy rugs and stale cigarette smoke. The interior surfaces were freshly painted, though no one thought to strip off the underlayment. This turned the elegant old crown moldings and baseboards into congealed, linear blobs. I stood in the foyer and tried to remember behind which of the unmarked four doors Esther captained her social welfare ship.
    I picked the one in least repair.
    “Come on in,” I heard in response to the knock. I walked in and she said, “Sam Ah-cquillo. I been expectin’ you.”
    “I figured.”
    I sat in one of her visitors’ chairs. The office was sparsely decorated, but bright and inviting, nearly elegant, as if the shopworn foyer was a ruse to throw off intruders. The walls were paneled in the original wide-board chestnut tongue and groove, which nicely set off