Page 27 of One of Us Is Guilty

‘I made detective a year ago.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, you’re how old?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘Then you’re one of the youngest detectives in the NYPD. Congratulations, that’s a real achievement. How do your colleagues feel about—’

‘We need your client to come in and answer some questions,’ she said, cutting me off.

‘Is she under arrest?’

Silence. Then . . .

‘No, not at this time.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk about the weather? Because if you keep me on this call for another ten minutes, I can charge my client for a full half-hour.’

A sigh on the other end of the line.

‘So she’s not coming in?’ she asked.

‘Now I understand how you made detective so young.’

There was a loudCLICK, which you only hear these days from people in offices slamming a phone handset into its cradle.

Damn, I missed that sound.

‘Is she mad at you?’ asked Denise.

‘I have that effect on certain people,’ I said, looking around the office. Only Harry and Clarence were in.

‘Where’s Bloch?’

‘She’s in Chinatown on a private assignment.’

‘What’s she doing there?’

‘She’s trying to get robbed.’

‘You said that like it’s something that should make sense to me.’

‘What can I say – that’s our Bloch.’

7

Bloch

New York, like most cities, goes through changes with administrative policy, migration, the economy, social and cultural dynamics, and political earthquakes. The result is usually mixed, but the current climate felt worse than perhaps other challenging eras.

Crime, which had plagued New York in the seventies and eighties, rendering parts of the city no-go areas even for cops, was going through a statistical spike. So much so that the NYPD, the mayor’s office and the district attorney’s office couldn’t do what they normally did and massage the figures to make them look a lot better than they were in reality.

It was all over the news. Every day.

Robberies, homicides, burglaries, sex crimes and hate crimes were rising. Had been for a while. But nobody realizes they’re being cooked until they see the water in the pot bubbling.

Manhattan was on the brink of boiling over.

Cops were stretched thin on the ground. It was Christmastime for anyone with no prospects, no self-control and a dubious moral relationship with the law. And that was just the government.