Killer’s Choice (87th Precinct) by Ed McBain

Author:Ed McBain [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781612181691
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2013-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

When a new man joins a firm, the other employees are apt to talk about him, speculate about him, generally form their own conclusions about him. If he contributes something colorful to the working day, the employees very often will take their talk home to their wives. They will dissect the newcomer at the dinner table.

Cops are only employees of the city. Cotton Hawes had contributed a most colorful tidbit to the working day, and so that night…

“All right, so he’s polite,” Meyer Meyer said to his wife as he sliced the steak. “This I can understand. A man is polite, he’s polite. You can’t separate a man from good manners that have been bred into him, am I right?”

Sarah Meyer nodded and spooned mashed potatoes onto the plates of the three Meyer children. She was a woman of thirty-four, with brown hair and eyes as blue as Meyer’s. Around the table, Alan, Susie, and Jeff sat, three miniature blue-eyed reproductions of their parents.

“But now politeness,” Meyer said, putting the first slice of steak onto Sarah’s plate, “is a thing you have to be careful about.” He put the second slice of steak onto Susie’s plate and then served the boys. He served himself last. The children bowed their heads and clasped their hands. Meyer bowed his head and said, “Thank you, dear Lord, for providing.” He picked up his fork. “It may be polite to knock on a door and say, ‘Excuse me, sir, this is the police. Would you be so kind as to open up?’ This may be considered very polite in the 30th Precinct. Maybe in the 30th Precinct, they got butlers to open the doors for cheap thieves. Maybe that’s the way it works there.”

“Did Steve get shot?” Sarah asked.

“No,” Meyer said. “Thank God, he didn’t get shot. But that is not this Cotton Hawes’s fault. Hawes was doing his polite best, you can bank on that.” Meyer nodded emphatically.

“Cotton is a stupid name, anyway,” Jeff, who was eight, said.

“Nobody asked you,” Meyer told him. “Steve could have got his head blown off. He’s lucky he didn’t get it at least creased. Would you pass the green beans, please, Sarah darling?”

Sarah passed the green beans.

“He knocked on the door! Can you imagine that? He actually knocked on the door.”

“Ain’t you supposed to knock on doors, Pop?” Alan, who was eleven, asked.

“Aren’t,” Sarah corrected.

“Yeah, aren’t?” Alan said.

“If you come to our bedroom,” Meyer said judiciously, “and the door is closed, certainly you should knock. That’s manners. Or even if you’re visiting outside, and you come to a closed door, you should knock, certainly. That, too, is manners. We are not discussing your manners, Alan; or yours, Susie; or yours, Jeff.”

“Then whose?” Susie, who was ten, asked.

“We are discussing the manners of the police department,” Meyer said. “And the best police department is the one which has hardly any manners at all.”

“Meyer,” Sarah warned. “The children.”

“We already separated children from cops,” Meyer said. “Would you pass me

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