Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

He knocked twice on my file with his chunky NYU law school ring before smiling again.

“That’s why, in the spirit of shaking things up, I’ve ordered your transfer. Let me congratulate you on your new assignment, running the NYPD’s brand-new Ombudsman Outreach Squad at a Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street in Harlem.”

CHAPTER 7

I STOOD THERE BLINKING, trying not to topple, as I sifted through the rubble of the ten-story building that had just collapsed on top of me.

I’d thought I would be getting a plum assignment after my hard work of bringing down Manuel Perrine. At the very least, I thought I’d be returning to my desk with the Major Crimes Division. What the heck was an Ombudsman Outreach Squad? I didn’t know. And definitely didn’t want to find out.

“The ombudsman squad is the mayor’s idea,” Starkie said, reading my mind. “Its mission is simple: to help the city’s most vulnerable victims. It’s a second chance for the department to laser-focus on victims whose concerns have fallen through the bureaucratic cracks. It’s up and running, but there are still some glitches that need ironing out.”

Starkie blinked at me elaborately to show how badly I was being screwed. “But nothing that a veteran investigator like yourself can’t handle,” he said, smiling. “When I heard about the fledgling squad’s challenges, and the fact that you’d just come back, I couldn’t think of a better match.”

I stood there staring at Starkie. We both knew what was going on. This wasn’t a promotion. If anything, my new assignment, some mayoral pet project that sounded like a disaster in the making, was a massive demotion, a bald, backhanded slap right across my face.

I’d put in over twenty years on the job racking up collars, crushing case after complicated case. I’d risked my life, the lives of my family, and now, as a reward, I was being ramrodded to some backwater political pet project?

Over what? A silly twenty-year-old rivalry? One little chipped tooth?

I kept staring at him across the desk. Starkie stared back serenely with his cold, twinkly blue eyes. He wasn’t smiling now, but I could tell he wanted to. I could also tell he wanted me to freak out and scream bloody murder about my transfer. I definitely wanted to. I would have loved nothing better than to chip another tooth for Starkie, or maybe resign.

Instead, I took a deep breath. I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. It took everything I had to cool my engines, to keep my powder dry, but I managed it. Barely.

“So, any questions?” he said in a pleasant voice as he reached across the desk and handed me my transfer papers.

“None, Chief,” I said, accepting the sheets.

I folded them neatly and tucked them into my jacket pocket before I extended my hand. I even put a happy salesmanlike ear-to-ear grin on my face that hopefully masked the fantasy of crashing a chair over his head that I was having.

“In fact, I’m raring to get started serving the department in my new capacity, with your permission, of course, sir,” I continued, offering my hand with a happy wink of my own.

After a long, puzzled moment, Starkie stood. He finally took my hand warily.

“OK, then. Um, carry on, Bennett,” he said.

“Will do, Chief. Thanks for meeting with me. Bye now,” I said before turning and walking out the door.

CHAPTER 8

THERE WAS A TICKET on my cop car when I got back to it.

Of course there was. I’d parked it in the only free spot available in Lower Manhattan during a workday, namely in front of a fire hydrant. If I hadn’t put my police business placard on the dash, it would probably have been towed.

I was kind of sorry it hadn’t been, I thought as I got in and started it. At that point, a day at the tow yard seemed preferable to dealing with the rank garbage Starkie had just gleefully dumped into my lap.

Harlem is toward the north end of Manhattan Island, a pretty direct shot from southern Manhattan, where I currently was. But since this was the new NYPD, as Starkie had described it, I decided to take an alternate route over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn.

I drove around on the BQE and then around the maze of Queens side streets, weighing my new situation. My first and most tempting option was retirement. Having over twenty years in, I could easily put in my papers and just wash my hands of the whole thing.

Because I had accomplished what I had set out to do in life: be a pretty damn good cop. Like my father before me, I’d sent some monstrous people away to prison, a few of them even to the graveyard.

Maybe this was it, I thought. Maybe it was time to hang it up.

But after a while, I started thinking about it, about Starkie and his petty bullshit. I couldn’t let him win that easily. I had outmanned him when we were rookies, and I would outman him now. I’d take anything and everything Starkie could dish out and throw it back in his face. Somehow. As with our little head-to-head in that Bronx bar, I definitely wasn’t going down without a fight.

I was actually a little excited, at least about the idea of the new squad. Despite the glitches Starkie had mentioned, and the fact that the mayor was involved, the idea of a squad devoted solely to helping the city’s most vulnerable people sounded somewhat intriguing.

I looked around for a sign back to Manhattan to find out what exactly was an Ombudsman Outreach Squad.