Special Operations (Badge of Honor 2)

Matt got out of the taxi in front of the Fraternal Order of Police Building on Spring Garden Street and looked at his watch. He was five minutes late.

Damn! he thought, and then Double Damn, either I’ve got the wrong place, or this place is closed!

Then, on the right corner of the building, he saw movement, a couple going into a door. He walked to it, and saw there were stairs and went down them. He had just relaxed with the realization that he had found “the bar at the FOP,” even if five minutes late, when a large man stepped in front of him.

“This is a private club, fella,” he said.

“I’m meeting someone,” Matt replied. “Officer McFadden.”

The man looked at him dubiously, but after a moment stepped out of his way, and waved him into the room.

Matt wondered how one joined the FOP; he would have to ask.

The room was dark and noisy. There was a dance floor c

rowded with people and what he thought at first was a band, but quickly realized was a phonograph playing records, very loudly, through enormous speakers. At the far end of the room, he saw a bar, and made his way toward it.

He found Officers McFadden and Martinez standing at the bar, at the right of it.

“Sorry to be late,” Matt said.

“We was just starting to wonder where you were,” Charley McFadden said. “Talking about you, as a matter of fact.”

“You got to learn to be on time,” Jesus Martinez said.

“He said he was sorry, Hay-zus,” McFadden defended him.

McFadden, Matt saw, was drinking Ortleib’s beer, from the bottle. Martinez had what looked like a glass of water.

“You want a beer, Matt?”

“Please,” Matt said. “Ortleib’s.”

“Hey, Charley,” McFadden called to the bartender. “Give us another round here!”

“Two beers and a glass of water?” the bartender said. “Or is Jesus still working on the one he has, taking it easy?”

“Call him, Hay-zus,” McFadden said. “He likes that better. Charley, say hello to Matt Payne.”

Matt was at the moment distracted by something to his right. A woman leaned up off her bar stool, supported herself with one hand on the bar, and threw an empty cigarette package into a plastic garbage can behind the bar. In doing so, her dress top fell open, and her brassiere came into view. Her brassiere was one that Matt had yet to see in the flesh, but had seen in Playboy, Penthouse, and other magazines of the type young men buy for the high literary content of their articles and fiction.

It was black, lacy, and instead of the cloth hemispheres of an ordinary brassiere, this one had sort of half hemispheres, on the bottom only, which presented the upper portion of the breast to Matt’s view, including the nipple.

Matt found this very interesting, and was grossly embarrassed when the woman glanced his way, saw him looking, said “Hi!” and then returned to her bar stool.

She was old, he thought, at least thirty-five, and she had caught him looking down her dress.

Oh, shit! If she says something…

“Matt, say hello to Charley Castel,” Charley McFadden repeated.

Matt offered his hand to Charley Castel. “How are you?”

“Matt’s out with us in Special Operations,” Charley said.

“Is that so?” Charley Castel said.

“He just got out of the Academy,” Jesus Martinez offered.