The Heckler

“There’s a boy who keeps getting into trouble, a nice kid, but he keeps swiping things from the fruit carts, little things, nothing to get upset about, except he’s done it maybe seven, eight times already, he’s a Puerto Rican kid, Frankie, and I think you know him, and I think we can save both him and the law a lot of headaches if somebody talks to him right now, which is why I’m coming to you, I’m sure you know the kid, his name is Juan Boridoz, would you talk to him please, Frankie, before he gets himself in trouble? His mother was in here yesterday afternoon and she seems like a nice hardworking lady, and she doesn’t deserve a kid who’ll wind up in the courts. He’s only twelve, Frankie, so we can still catch him. Will you talk to him?”

“Sure, I will,” Hernandez said.

“You know the kid?”

Hernandez smiled. “No,” he said, “but I’ll find him.” It was a common assumption among the men of the 87th that Frankie Hernandez knew every single person of Spanish or Puerto Rican descent in the precinct territory. He had, it was true, been born and raised in the precinct, and hedid know a great many of the residents therein. But there was more to the assumption of the other men than a simple recognition of his birthplace. Frankie Hernandez was a sort of liaison between the cops and the Puerto Ricans in the precinct. The other cops came to him when they wanted advice or information. Similarly, the people came to him whenever they needed protection, either from criminal elements or from the law. There were people on both sides of the fence who hated Frankie Hernandez. Some men in the department hated him because he was Puerto Rican and, despite department edicts about the prevalence of brotherhood among the men in blue, these men simply felt a Puerto Rican had no right being a cop and certainly no right being a detective. Some people in the streets hated him because he had flatly refused to square any raps for them, raps ranging from speeding tickets to disorderly conduct, or sometimes assault, and on several occasions burglary. Hernandez wanted no part of it. He let it be known quickly and plainly that, old neighborhood ties be damned, he was a cop and his job was enforcing the law.

For the most part, Frankie Hernandez was a highly respected man. He had come out of the streets in one of the city’s hottest delinquency areas, carrying the albatross of “cultural conflict” about his youthful neck, breaking through the “language barrier” (only Spanish was spoken in his home when he was a child) and emerging from the squalor of the slums to become a Marine hero during the Second World War, and later a patrolman ironically assigned to the streets which had bred him. He was now a Detective 3rd/Grade. It had been a long hard pull, and the battle still hadn’t been won—not for Frankie Hernandez, it hadn’t. Frankie Hernandez, you see, was fighting for a cause. Frankie Hernandez was trying to prove to the world at large that the Puerto Rican guy could also be thegood guy.

“So will you talk to him, Frankie?” Frick asked again.

“Sure I will. This afternoon some time. Okay?”

Frick’s mouth widened into a grateful smile. “Thanks, Frankie,” he said, and he clapped him on the shoulder and went hurrying off down the corridor to his office downstairs. Hernandez opened the door to the Clerical Office and said, “Miscolo, we’re out of towels in the bathroom.”

“Okay, I’ll get some,” Miscolo said, without looking up from his typing. Then, as an afterthought, he wheeled from the machine and said, “Hey, Frankie, did Steve mention about May Reardon ‘’

“Yeah.”

“You in?”

“I’m in.”

“Good, good. I’ll get a fresh roll of towels later.”

Hernandez went into the squadroom. He was just about to sit at his desk when the telephone rang. He sighed and picked it up.

Behind the closed door markedLT .PETER BYRNES , Steve Carella watched his superior officer and wished this were not quite as painful for Byrnes as it seemed to be. The lieutenant clearly had no stomach for what he was doing or saying, and his reluctance to carry out an obviously unpleasant task showed in his face and in the set of his body and also in the clenching and unclenching of his hands.

“Look,” Byrnes said, “don’t you think I hate that son of a bitch as much as you do?”

“I know, Peter,” Carella said. “I’ll do whatever—”