Chapter 20

My nightmare had me underwater and I could barely breathe. I struggled to get back up to the surface but got all confused between up and down. I reached up and felt what I thought was a huge rope around my neck and opened my eyes to Julie’s arm resting comfortably across my nose and mouth.

I carefully pushed it away from my face and turned over and immediately fell back into a deep sleep that was only broken by the sound of screeching brakes down on the street outside.

I saw that Julie was up and about a lot earlier than me and I scanned the little note she had placed on the refrigerator door telling me, “Went into the office to straighten out the mail and pay the bills. See you later, xxx Julie”

Thankfully, there was hot coffee still in the pot and I poured a cup before I strolled over to the large window that had three sides to it and hung out over the street in majestic splendor.

There was a uniformed cop directing traffic on the corner. That seemed strange to me because my street was one that hardly ever saw a uniformed policeman even walking a beat.

I leaned out next to the glass pane and saw a trio of cop cars parked right outside my building and felt a sudden churning in my stomach.

I had not the slightest doubt that they were there for me.

Outside my door, I heard a shuffling of heavy feet and then a pounding on the front door that was accompanied by a loud voice proclaiming,

“Michael Malone, we have a warrant for your arrest. Open the door and put your hands on top of your head!”

I knew there was no chance in escaping as the fire escape was not dependable for the weight of an adult man and only small children used them to visit their friends.

I had no choice but to quickly get dressed and follow the orders hoping there were no itchy trigger fingers on any of the arresting officers waiting outside. I left my gun in full view on top of the bedroom bureau and only carried my wallet with my identification inside.

The pricks outside even had a couple of photographers which I knew was totally against the department policy and they frisked me giving them a good shot of the arrest for the evening edition. It was a set-up from the get-go and there was not a thing I could do about it except to plot my revenge.

I was on the wrong end of the stick with the fingerprinting and the photo with my new New York City criminal serial number underneath. I was sure it would also find its way into the tabloids because the guys working that desk treated all the photos as their private property to be sold to the highest bidder There was not a familiar face in the area but that was understandable because it was an unwanted assignment for the newly graduated recruits and not in the least bit as romantic or exciting as patrolling and making arrests.

The good-looking female cop that set up the mugshot had her hands all over me and I could tell from the glint in her bedroom eyes that she really enjoyed her job.

Her shield said “O’ Reilly” followed by her badge number and I had no doubt that she was new on the job.

They put me in the cattle pen down in the basement and I put on my meanest look to keep anyone from getting too friendly. The crowded conditions got a lot better after they weeded out all the homeless bums and the drunks because they were in no position to house them overnight and they usually got rid of them before noontime.

The rest of us numbered about forty and I guess that was close to an average catch for one day in the Big Apple. Then, they separated us into Felonies and Misdemeanors putting me in the smaller group of about fifteen souls in the felony category.

I knew they would use bail and defense lawyers paid by the city to discard the misdemeanors as quickly as possible and the rest of us would be seeing the processing judge for pre-trial incarceration. The bullshit about having a phone call was all a bunch of crap and I surmised I would be heading either to the Tombs or to Ryker’s Island by mid-afternoon. Julie and Uncle Joe would not get an inkling of my arrest until the evening edition came out with my photo on with the caption “Dirty Ex-Cop”.

My assigned lawyer was a Jewish girl just out of law school with the unlikely name of Ruth Swartzman. She spent all of five minutes with me before the hearing and she told me the facts of life even though I was already aware of how the system works. She had a comb in her kinky hair like she had slept with it all night. The poor thing had a stack of files for all her cases and she couldn’t find mine before the hearing. I explained I was picked up on the “Dirty Cop” case and since there was Federal interest, I had no idea what the charges were because I was totally innocent.

All I saw in her interesting eyes was a sense of pity but she was overworked and underpaid.

I was just a number to be soon forgotten.

They put me in a paddy wagon with seven other miscreants and left us handcuffed to be bounced around all the way to the prison. It was obvious they were trying to hit every pot-hole in the city on the trip and I could hear them laughing up front as our bodies hit the walls and fell to the floor on the turns. I managed to hit my head on a metal bench and saw stars for the remainder of the journey.

When we arrived at the intake tunnel at the jail, I was still a bit woozy from the fall inside the van and the guards poked me with their thick nightsticks to get me to stand up straight.