The hearing looked like a trial but it wasn’t. It was a bag job. The “judge” was a deputy appointed by the Commissioner, serving at the pleasure of the Commissioner, there to do the Commissioner’s bidding. The prosecutor was an I.A. lieutenant whose evidence consisted of a transcript of the CBS documentary and not much else. Joe had been forced to hire a lawyer, a shifty shyster he knew from the BMC, who made a few desultory objections. But everyone knew the verdict. Walter Cronkite had announced it on TV: Joe Daley was a bag man for the crooked cops in Station Sixteen. The inconvenient fact that the charge was true did not make the whole thing any easier for Joe to take.
After he testified, Joe paced the hallway on the sixth floor of BPD headquarters, where the hearing took place. There were no reporters, no crowds. It was a family matter, for now.
Brendan Conroy was still inside, shilling for Joe. His muffled voice carried through the door: Joe was a good kid, a good soldier. Third-generation Boston police. Son of a fallen cop. No one was defending what the kid did, of course. Of course. But then, there was honor in the way Joe’d come in there and kept his mouth shut and refused to roll over on anyone. Now, there was a time when cops were brothers, let’s remember. Did they mean to throw out the baby with the bath water? Did they really want to lose a kid like Joe Daley? Let’s not be more Catholic than the Pope here, fellas-if they were going to start canning every cop who ever took a few bucks, or who ate dinner at the kitchen door of a restaurant, well, let’s face it, before long there wouldn’t be a police department left. Anyway, the last Brendan Conroy had heard, Walter Cronkite had not been appointed commissioner of the Boston police.
Joe tried not to listen. He trusted that Conroy would pull it off. Conroy knew which strings to pull. He’d take care of the whole thing. No big deal. In time everyone would come to realize that this whole bookie thing was no big deal.
So why did Joe feel so aggrieved? It could have been worse, after all. The Monkey’s was not the only place Joe had ever picked up an envelope or put down a few bucks on a puppy or on his badge number. For Christ’s sake, if they had followed Joe around with a camera, Walter Cronkite would have shat in his CBS trousers. As it was, no one was going to throw Joe under the train for stopping by The Monkey’s once or twice. So it wasn’t the accusation that was so troubling to Joe. It was the sense of unseen forces, the infuriating awareness that he would never quite understand what had gone on here. He wasn’t fucking smart enough to figure it all out, to see the connections, the complexities. Why on earth had Walter fucking Cronkite come to Boston? Why the key shop? Why him? Joe thought he had it sometimes, that the truth was about to come shivering through, but it never quite did. So the answers hovered out there in the air somewhere, just out of sight. He was like a kid. He could hear it in the way they spoke to him, that pizzicato pick-pick-pick tone the deputy had lectured him withDetective Daley, you’ve embarrassed this en-tire department in front of the en-tire country. It was precisely the pissy tone Joe used with his own kid when he did bad. Now the adults were meeting behind closed doors to pass sentence on him. Well, so what could he do about it? He was not Michael or Ricky or Conroy. Guys like Joe had to just hold on to what they knew, cling to the catechism that had worked for cops for a hundred years. Rule one: Keep your mouth shut when you’re supposed to keep your mouth shut. He leaned his forehead against the wall, mashed it against the dusty ancient plaster. What he wouldn’t give to have Mikey’s brain just for an hour or two, just to see things clear, to figure out what he should do, then he could happily go back to just bulling his way ahead without all this worry and frustration. The decision, the right decision, would already be made. But he would never have that kind of peace. Joe was forty-two; he was what he was.
Conroy came out of the room and marched up to Joe with his arms extended in a conciliatory way. A reassuring smile. Everything was taken care of.
“How bad?”
“Not so bad, boyo, not so bad. You’ll keep your job-”
“My job! Jesus, Bren! For Christ’s sake, I’m just the fucking errand boy.”
“Keep your voice down-”
“Half the department’s on the sleeve, you know that!”
“This is the New Boston. Maybe you haven’t heard.”
“What fucking new Boston?”
“Just keep your voice down, Joe. You’ll keep your job and your lieutenant’s rank. But you’re off the detective bureau.”
Joe shook his head and sniffed at the injustice of it.
“Joe, what did you expect? You’re lucky you’re still in Station Sixteen. You know where they wanted to send you? Roxbury. How would you like that, chasing spooks all day?”
“Jesus, Brendan. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Show up in uniform for last half tomorrow.”
“You gotta be shitting me.”
“Be smart, son. Report in uniform for last half tomorrow.”
“And do what? Walk a beat?”
“Yes.”
“For how long? What, am I gonna walk a fucking beat the rest of my life?”
“No. You’re going to be patient and do what I tell you. You’re going to take the deal and lie low, play the game. This is just politics. It’ll blow over. Remember, boyo”-Brendan hoisted a thumb over his shoulder toward the hearing room-“they come and go; we stay. You think your old man and I didn’t look out for each other?”
Joe shook his head. Whatever.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Alright, then. What are you going to do tomorrow?”
“Show up in uniform for last half.”
“Attsaboy.”
“Brendan. When am I gonna be a detective again?” Conroy patted Joe’s meaty cheek. “When the time comes.”