Meet the New Boss
Chapter 2
Detective third grade Jim Dunbar didn't bother to hide the swagger in his step as he walked into the squad room at the 32nd Precinct, returning from Central Booking. Two weeks into his first assignment as a detective, he'd made his first major collar – a gangbanger who had repeatedly stabbed his rival for leadership in the gang and left him for dead. The lieutenant stepped out of his office. "Good work, Dunbar," he said.
"Thanks, boss."
As Jim crossed the squad room to his desk, his fellow detectives were strangely quiet. The squad's senior detective, Phil Krause, a burly, balding man in his forties whose habitual irritated look did little to mask his barely-controlled hostility, glowered at him. Jim wondered why they didn't congratulate him on the collar, but when no one said anything, he sat down at his desk and got to work on his report.
A half hour later, Jim looked up from his work and noticed a tall, slender woman with sleek dark hair walking out of the squad room. He watched her, admiring the way she filled out her uniform, until she disappeared around the corner at the end of the hall. From the desk across from him, Detective Bob Franks gave Jim an amused look. "Nice ass, huh?" Jim asked, not at all embarrassed to have been caught looking.
Franks shook his head. "You're wasting your time, buddy," he told Jim, then, seeing Jim's puzzled look, he added, "She's – uh, you know – " He tilted his hand from side to side.
"You're shittin' me," Jim replied in disbelief.
"Nope," Franks assured him.
Jim shook his head. "What a fuckin' waste," he observed as he went back to writing his report.
His report completed, Jim headed to the locker room at the end of the tour. Krause followed and cornered him at the end of the row of lockers. "You think you're a smart guy, is that it, Dunbar?"
Jim folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. He looked at Krause coolly but said nothing.
"Here's how it is, kid," Krause continued. "You're not here to think, you're here to do the legwork. I'm the one who does the thinking in this squad. You get any more bright ideas, hotshot, you bring them to me. You got that?"
Jim met Krause's gaze. "I hear you," he said.
"Good, because I'm not gonna tell you twice. And don't waste your time running to the lieutenant. He's just marking time until he retires. I clear cases and make him look good. Who d'you think he's gonna back – me or you? If I tell him you can't cut it, you'll be back on the streets in uniform the next day. So forget about the lieutenant. It's my squad. As long as you're here, you're mine. You do what I tell you. Understood?"
"I said I heard you."
Krause turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at Jim. "Oh, one other thing – I make the collars. You want to last around here, you remember that."
Jim glared at Krause as he walked out of the locker room, slamming the door behind him.
Jim had been at the 3-2 for two months when the squad caught an especially nasty case – a prostitute who had been viciously beaten and slashed. Her doctor told them she'd sustained severe brain damage; it was unlikely she'd ever be able to remember the attack, much less identify her assailant. Their investigation was going nowhere until Charles Harris walked into the station house and announced he was turning himself in for the "hooker attack."
Krause and his partner Greg Jennings took the interview. Jim watched part of the questioning from the observation room, then returned to his desk, looking troubled. A half hour later, Krause and Jennings emerged from the interview room. "We got his statement," Krause announced, dropping a legal pad on his desk.
"Good," the lieutenant grunted, then returned to his office.
Jennings spoke up. "I'll get him to Central Booking."
"Yeah," Krause replied as he sat down at his desk.
"You know, Phil," Jim began, "I've been thinkin' – "
"You've been doing what?" Krause demanded.
Jim ignored him. "Don't you think it was a little too convenient, him just walking in the front door like that?" he asked.
Krause frowned. "No," he said firmly.
"Well, I do," Jim asserted. "I was watching, and it looked to me like he was covering for someone."
"Like who?" Krause asked scornfully.
"What about his son?" Jim suggested.
"You're kidding, right? The kid's a scholarship student at NYU. Dad in there – " Krause pointed at the interview room. " – is a gangbanger from way back."
"I know," Jim admitted, "but that was twenty years ago. He's been clean since then."
"Doesn't matter," Krause declared, "once a gangbanger, always a gangbanger."
"I dunno," Jim observed, "there aren't a lot of fifty-year-old gangbangers."
"So what? Most of 'em are dead or in prison by then," Krause pointed out.
"But what's the motive?" Jim persisted.
Krause shrugged off the question. "Not important." He snorted derisively. "Maybe he couldn't get it up and took it out on the girl. That would explain the injuries."
"Could be," Jim conceded, then added, "I did a little checking anyway."
"Oh, yeah?"
"It turns out the son isn't squeaky clean, after all. He's out on bail from a recent collar for drug possession with intent to sell, and NYU says he dropped out three months ago."
"That doesn't mean he's good for the assault."
"Maybe not," Jim said, "but I checked with the plastics factory over in Long Island City where Harris works. They say he worked a swing shift the day before yesterday. There are at least ten guys who'll say he was there at the time of the assault. He can't be our guy."
Krause glared at Jim, then turned to Jennings. "Cut him loose," he snarled.
A week later, at 6 a.m., Jim and the rest of the squad were crouched in the reeking stairwell of a tenement on West 138th Street which, according to Krause's CI, was the current residence of one Demetrius Jefferson, who was selling crack cocaine out of his apartment. Krause nodded to Jim. "Go," he whispered.
Without acknowledging Krause, Jim started up the stairs to the third floor, where Jefferson's apartment was located. Krause, Jennings, and Frank followed. When there was no response to their pounding on the door or their shouted orders to open it, they broke down the door and entered the apartment. They found Jefferson, still groggy from sleep or drugs or both, in the bedroom. Jennings cuffed him and led him from the apartment, followed by Franks and Jim. Krause remained behind in the apartment.
Halfway down the stairs, Jim stopped abruptly. "I should go back," he said, "and help Phil secure the scene." He started back up the stairs.
"Jim, don't – " Jennings began, but Jim was already gone.
Jim stopped in the apartment doorway, which opened directly into the living room. Krause was at the opposite end of the room, his back to him. Jim opened his mouth to speak, then shut it when he realized what Krause was doing. As Jim watched, Krause pulled two plastic bags from the inside pocket of his NYPD jacket and placed them under the cushions of the sofa in front of him. The bags were full of irregularly shaped, off-white lumps, which Jim recognized as "rocks" of crack cocaine. When Krause straightened up and began to turn around, Jim took a step into the apartment and spoke up, as if he'd just arrived. "Hey, Phil, you need some help securing the scene?"
Krause turned around quickly and glared at Jim. "You didn't see that," he snapped.
"Didn't see what?" Jim asked, assuming what he hoped was a clueless expression.
Krause studied Jim for a moment, then said, "I don't need any help from you. Get lost."
Jim turned away from the apartment and walked slowly down the stairs, considering what he had just seen. When he became a cop, he'd quickly learned police work was not always black-and-white. More often than not, the perps were not evil monsters. Mostly, their violence was mindless and inexplicable, often fueled by drugs or alcohol or both. Some of them were just plain stupid or even pathetic. But all of them knew the overriding truth of their lives. In the eyes of the larger society, outside the gang culture which validated them, they were nothing. They were the disposable people. Not that he had much sympathy for them. He knew what it was like to grow up in a rough neighborhood, with an alcoholic father who was either absent or interested only in his next drink. Several of his childhood friends were now long-term guests of the State of New York, their lives effectively over. The odds had been against him, too, but he had overcome them. Jim knew he was exceptional, but that didn't stop him from judging, sometimes harshly, those who lacked his brains and determination.
If a perp needed to be put away, Jim would do what was necessary. He had learned how to operate in the gray areas the courts sanctioned or turned a blind eye to. He had no compunction about slanting or even embellishing the facts, if that was what it took to put away a perp. And since becoming a detective, he relished coming up with new ways to trick a suspect into giving up himself or an accomplice. But he never forgot there were lines he couldn't – and wouldn't – cross. He wasn't about to jeopardize a case or his career. What he'd just seen shattered those lines. He wasn't sure what to do about it.
For the next two weeks, Jim mulled over his options while he kept his head down and stayed out of Krause's way as much as possible. Krause's clearance rate told him this wasn't the first time Krause had pulled something like this. But he couldn't afford to get sideways with Krause, any more than he already was – not if he valued his career. He was still trying to come up with a plan when a spot opened up for a detective on the night shift. He immediately took it, telling the lieutenant he could use the extra money from the shift differential. Two long years of night shifts later, he found a way out of the 3-2, when he was promoted to Detective second grade. He seized the opportunity to transfer to the 3-4 to work Anti-Crime, relieved to be done – finally – with the 3-2 and Phil Krause.