on a hot hot hot Miami halogen-heat-lamp day like this… but it was the best he could do. It was pretty ugly, actually, and he wore it hanging outside the pants to make himself look like a feed sack full of modesty… all this, because he knew the story in the Herald this morning would be the Godzilla in the room anywhere his CSTeammates laid eyes on him. The thing was on the front page, with a smaller version of the picture of him with his shirt off after the Mast incident.
Sure enough, Nestor, Hernandez, Nuñez, and Flores, another cop in the unit, had just settled into a booth at Kermit’s, the little short-order joint just down the block from the big CVS—come to think of it, every joint in Miami seemed to be just down the block from one big CVS or another—anyway, they had just sat down in the booth when Hernandez said, “Who is this John Smith, Nestor? What’s it cost to hire a PR man, anyway?”
Oooof! That one nailed Nestor right between the eyes. But he managed to lie coolly, in a put-on tone, “As far as I know, Sarge, he’s just a guy who recognizes real talent when he sees it.”
Good one. Nuñez and Flores laughed appreciatively. Sergeant Hernandez didn’t. “Yeah, but he didn’t see it. He wasn’t there. But you’d never know it from this—” Hernandez picked up a copy of the Yo No Creo el Herald as if it were a toxic object and began reading out loud. “ ‘The rope-climbing cop, twenty-five-year-old Nestor Camacho, Police Department medal-of-valor winner a couple of months ago for carrying a panicked Cuban refugee down, bodily, from atop a seventy-foot-high schooner mast, yesterday left fellow cops—and a pair of Overtown crack house suspects—agog’—what the hell’s a gog?”—appreciative chuckles from Nuñez and Flores—“ ‘With yet another feat of strength. Camacho and his partner, Sergeant Jorge Hernandez,’ unfortunately not a legend in his own time himself—” More chuckles from Flores and Nuñez, and Hernandez swelled up with his newly found gift for wit—
Nestor broke in. “Hey, come on, Sarge, it doesn’t say that!”
“Gee, maybe I misread it,” said Hernandez. He continued reading, “Camacho and his partner, Sergeant Jorge Hernandez, still a virgin in the Land of the Legends—were trying—”
Nestor rolled his eyes up into his skull and moaned, “Give me—a—break…”
“—‘trying to arrest TyShawn Edwards, twenty-six,’ ” Hernandez went on, “ ‘and Herbert Cantrell, twenty-nine, both of Overtown, on drug charges when things turned deadly. According to police, Edwards, six-five and 275 pounds, had both hands around Hernandez’s neck, choking him, when Camacho, five-seven and 160 pounds, jumped on Edwards’s back and clamped him in a wrestling hold called “a figure four with a full nelson” and rode him rodeo-style until Edwards collapsed, gasping for breath. Nuñez tied Edwards’s hands behind his back and completed the arrest. Camacho credits an unorthodox training regimen’—”
Nestor broke in: “Okay Sarge—SARGE! We got it, we got, it!” Nestor’s cheeks were burning with embarrassment.
“Sure, you got it,” said Hernandez. “But what about Nuñez here and Flores and the rest of the unit? Most a them don’t read the Yo No Creo el Herald. You wanna deprive them?”
He continued reading the article aloud… hugely enjoying Nestor’s discomfort. Nestor’s cheeks were burning so, he figured his face must be one blazing ball of red. Then Nuñez and Flores really got into the spirit of it. They began hooting… “Wooop! Wooooop!”… as the details of Nestor’s triumph began to accumulate.
“Hey, Sarge!” said Flores. “What happened to you? Last I heard, some big negro had his hands around your neck, and then we don’t hear no more. Did you get offed or something?” Laughs all around for Nuñez, Flores, and the Sergeant.
Flores said to Hernandez, “Where do you suppose the guy got all those details? You know, like giving the big mook a ‘rodeo ride’ and all that.”
Hernandez looked at Nestor and said, “Well…?”
Mierda… Nestor didn’t know whether the Well…? was laden with accusation or not.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “They told me to go ahead and answer some questions right after that mast thing. Captain Castillo was standing right there. But nobody’s said go ahead and answer questions about this thing. Where do these guys get those details in those crime stories? They’re always talking about ‘according to police’ or ‘police said’ or ‘according to a police spokesman’… I mean, who’s a ‘police spokesman’… and who’s saying it when it says, ‘police said’? Is it Public Affairs?—and