Even worse than the stories was the way the cops told them, flat and affectless, but with a hint of showmanship. Like they were numb to the horror, yet almost proud of it.
Rebecca barely spoke. She sipped her beer until it was flat and warm. Finally, even Ned seemed to have had enough. He waved them off, went to the bar, came back with two big shots. He lifted his glass.
“To Boston’s finest.”
The whiskey burned her throat. He didn’t even blink.
“Half the guys in here are alcoholics. Maybe two-thirds.”
“You’re not.”
“You’d be surprised how much I drink. Don’t be a cop, Rebecca.”
“I get it.”
“Thought I might have to do this to my boys”—Ned had three sons—“but they just want to go to business school. Marry blondes, live in Cohasset, play golf. God bless ’em.” He grabbed her hand. “Not that I think you can’t do it. I mean, the street, it helps if you can ring somebody’s bell, but the girls find ways around that.”
“The girls. The female cops, you mean?”
He nodded. “It’s everything else. All those cop shows get it wrong. We don’t solve anything. We’re san workers. Clean up after people who are too stupid, too bored, too mean, to do anything but hurt other people. And the bureaucracy, the crap lieutenants who decide they don’t like you and find a hundred different ways to mess up your life—”
“It can’t be that bad. You do it.”
“I don’t have a choice, Rebecca, I didn’t go to Wesleyan. And guess what? The guys in here? They’re the good ones. Not the ones too scared to be out there, or the freaks who’ve gone all the way over and get off on it. They’re drinking because they still care.”
He went back to the bar, left her alone. Occasionally the black-haired cop looked over his shoulder and smirked. Ned came back with four more shots, little ones, the liquor inside yellow and dangerous looking.
“Te-kee-la.” He rattled two home, quick, slamming down the empty glasses. “Don’t forget the guys on the take, we all know them, the smear sticks to everyone. But nobody busts them, nobody says a word. Because anyone who sees what we see is on one side of the line, and everybody else, they’re on the other. Even the DAs.”
Ned didn’t usually talk this much. Now she knew why. She felt like he’d slapped her.
“Asshole.”
“You do this, go in with your eyes open. That’s all.” He pushed a shot of tequila at her, grabbed the last one himself. “I have a solution.” He raised his glass. “Drink, I’ll tell you.”
She’d known him her whole life and not seen him this way before, not ever, the alcohol in charge of him. The view unsettled her. She raised the glass, unwillingly. They drank. The tequila burned.
“Three words.”
“I’m listening.”
But he said nothing, went back to the bar, came back with two pints of beer and another shot of whiskey.
“You going to be okay to drive?”
“Good girl.” He slid his keys to her.
“Three words, you said.”
“FBI.”
She’d always been under the impression Ned hated the FBI. “I’m not sure that’s three words.”
“College girl. How about this? Stupid fuckin’ FBI. That three? Not in Boston, they suck here, protecting half the Irish mob, too dumb to figure out they’re getting played. But over the years a couple of our best boyos have gone to the federales. They make cases, understand? They pick and choose, they have the time and money and toys.”
“I thought you didn’t like them.”
“ ’Cause I’m jealous. ’Cause you need a college degree, plus, to get in. They love lawyers, the feds. ’Cause you wear a suit and go after guys who deserve it. Not some chick who smoked rock laced with PCP and drowned her babies like kittens.”
She remembered that case. She’d been in eighth grade.
Ned slumped in the booth. “First on the scene. Lisa Grant was her name. Sitting on the couch. Leaning forward, watching General Hospital. Didn’t even move when I came in. Just nodded at the bathroom. I take a look, come out, I say, You do this, ma’am? Always give ’em a sir, a ma’am, they love that. Respect. Know what young Miss Grant said to me?”
Rebecca tried to imagine. Couldn’t.
“Suck your dick for rock. Officer.” Ned lifted the shot glass to his mouth. “It’s the officer that always gets me. She wanted me to know she knew who I was. All I could do not to pick her up and put her in the