It is all over the newspapers that night, hours after it actually happens.
"Cop Pops Pol", it says, a glaring reminder of what he has done. Stupid move, really, decking a city councilman in front of the courthouse, where all the reporters were. Still, if given the choice, he has the feeling that he'd do it again. And if he hadn't been so pissed off about the crap that said city councilman had been shooting off, he might have actually laughed.
Instead, he finds himself sitting in some bar, waiting for morning to come, even though it probably isn't the greatest idea in the world. The funny thing about this is that he hasn't even been there that long, and already, he's thinking about leaving. A glass sits in front of him, half-full, but it is the voice behind him that catches his attention.
"Thought I might find you here."
The stupid thing about it is that he hadn't actually said where he was taking off to, and yet Lennie seemed to know where he was going. When Mike looks at his watch, he realizes that it's been an hour and a half since he left the precinct.
"You're not gonna deck me if I sit here, are you?" Lennie asks, in familiar sarcasm that makes Mike shake his head as a faint smile crosses his face.
"Nah…you haven't pissed me off yet," he replies. Lennie shakes his head and sits, eyeing the glass and then his partner.
"How many have you had?" he asks.
"Too much and not enough," says Mike, which really isn't an answer, at least, not as far as Lennie's concerned, but it is to him. "I'm screwed, aren't I?"
"Probably," says Lennie, and when he doesn't go on, there is silence, except for the television in the background and other bar patrons.
When it finally starts getting on Mike's nerves, he speaks again. "Tell me something, Lennie," he says, and waits until he sees the older man nod before going on. "You think he deserved it?"
"Who, Crossley?" says Lennie, and then "Yeah. Just wish it hadn't been coming from you."
Mike gives a derisive snort. "If it hadn't come from me, the next thing we know, someone would've shot him up, and we'd be trying to figure out who killed him."
"Everyone's got a problem with someone else for one reason or another. The world's just made that way."
"Yeah, but come off it. Just 'cause a guy's got a right to free speech doesn't necessarily mean he's got a right to run his mouth."
He has a point, and he knows it, and he knows that Lennie knows it, too, because he doesn't say anything, and once again, there's a moment of silence between them.
"Can't always force people to shut up, Mike," Lennie says, finally. "Guess that's what we're supposed to call the 'beauty' of it."
But there is no real beauty in it, in any of this, and they both know it. Mike looks towards the glass that remains in front of him, a low sigh escaping him as he does.
"I don't get it," he says. "I mean, I do, but I don't. If people just left each other the hell alone about the way they are, things like this wouldn't happen. What sense does it make to give someone crap when you know they're not going to change."
"None, really," says Lennie, shaking his head. "Then again, somehow I doubt the world was meant to make sense in the first place."
Mike reaches for the glass and downs the remainder of the contents. The liquor burns down his throat, but does little to make whatever it is that he's really feeling go away.
"A person's life is none of anyone's business but their own, unless they've actually gone and done something," he remarks, finally. "What the hell don't people understand about that?"
The question is a good one, but also one that neither of them have an answer to. And both of them are well aware of the fact that they aren't likely to get a real answer anytime soon, so Lennie changes the subject.
"Heard they got you going up in front of the brass tomorrow morning," he remarks, carefully. Mike snorts.
"Yeah, they do," he says, as another glass appears in front of him. He lifts it in a mock toast. "Here's to another citation in my jacket."
"Ten-day rip at the most," says Lennie, "They can't honestly sit there and tell you that everyone in the city wants to see you punished; Crossley pissed a lot of people off."
"Sure he did, but we're talking about the almighty department hierarchy here," says Mike, acidly. "No one ever gets away with embarrassing them, remember?"
Lennie rolls his eyes. "If that's the case, then they're blinder than I thought," he says.
Mike gives a faint laugh, but then shakes his head. "I'm probably gonna be on a desk for a while."
What he is really thinking, however, is not something that he's about to admit to anyone, least of all Lennie, who'd probably get it, but would at the same time give him hell for it.
The thought of being forced out of the two-seven come morning scares the hell out of him.
"Told ya I was jinxed," he says, downing the contents of this new glass. "Every time someone gets stuck with me, something goes wrong."
"I don't believe that," says Lennie. "Nothing's ever happened until now, and I wouldn't exactly call Crossley getting popped in the face 'wrong'."
"'Course not," says Mike, and just to get on his partner's nerves, "There something you ain't telling me, Lennie?"
"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that."
After a while, they wander out of the bar, because the place is getting too crowded, and besides that, it's a cop bar, which probably wasn't the smartest place to go, but Mike hadn't thought about it until just then.
"Gonna be all over the precincts by the end of the night," he says. "Think I'll become the latest disgrace?"
"There are other guys who've done worse than you," Lennie tells him, "Doubt it's going to amount to much. It'll blow over in a few days."
Mike ignores this, more because he doesn't agree than because he doesn't want to hear it. "Popular opinion says that I'm gonna get booted out to Staten Island."
"The career graveyard?" Lennie asks, looking at him with raised eyebrows, and then, "Nah. They wouldn't do that to you."
"How do you know? Department can't afford any more of a bad image than it's already seemed to pick up lately. People don't like the cops. They let me off for decking this guy…"
He trails off, and Lennie picks up right where he left off talking. "You saying you'd go to Staten Island?" he asks.
Mike shakes his head, all sense of cocky bravado disappearing, though whether it's because of the liquor or because of Lennie, he doesn't know.
"No," he says, almost too quietly to be heard, deciding that keeping quiet about what he's thinking isn't really going to help. "I'm saying the thought of having to leave the two-seven scares me."
It isn't exactly what Lennie expected, but then again, it isn't, even though he isn't altogether sure of what he expected in the first place.
"Cops get transferred all the time," he says, but Mike shakes his head again.
"Not like this," he replies. "Not 'cause they popped someone and got caught by the cameras doing it. They go because they wanted to, because they chose to, whether it was because of a career choice, or because they got shot…"
But then, he trails off, because getting shot is the reason why Ceretta left, and he doesn't want to jinx things further than they already have been.
"Yeah, and some cops leave because they don't have any other choice," Lennie points out, "They leave 'cause they did something stupid and no one else wants 'em there, or because the brass find out something and make 'em leave…"
"You saying you want me to leave?" Mike asks, almost amused by this, though he isn't particularly sure why. Lennie gives him a look.
"Hell no, I'm not saying I want you to leave," he tells him. "I'm saying that every now and then, you just gotta swallow your pride and take what they give."
"And be grateful they don't bust you back down to uniform," says Mike.
They leave it at that, and continue on to the place where they have to go in different directions to go home.
When morning comes, Mike finds himself in front of the brass with the union lawyer that he doesn't really need because Crossley's embarrassed enough at being plastered across the front pages of papers in an unflattering light that he won't press charges.
They talk, but he doesn't really listen. He was provoked, says the union lawyer, and Mike has to keep from laughing, because it's true, but at the same time, he didn't technically have to do anything. He could have just walked away, but he didn't.
When it's all over and done with, the verdict is quick, but not painless, and he barely hears the voice of the one who's been assigned the burden of letting him know what his fate will be.
"You're being reassigned to Staten Island and their Domestic Dispute unit," says the voice. "The time you spend there is to be determined by your actions."
By my actions, Mike thinks, but nods, says nothing, and gets up and leaves, to go to the two-seven and clean out the desk that now used to be his and will now belong to someone else. It seems to him that a lot rides on what he does and doesn't do, which technically, it always has, but it never really hit him until now.
And suddenly, Lennie's words come back to him: "You just gotta swallow your pride and take what they give."
Later on, while he's packing up his desk, he looks across at Lennie and sighs. "If this is what swallowing your pride is supposed to feel like, I really hope I don't have to do it again."
Lennie smirks at him, and in that same familiar sarcasm that he will come to miss over the next ten years, replies.
"Keep your hands to yourself, and maybe you won't have to."