Weiczorek scratched his head and said, “Here we go…The Seven Two has a kid. That’s Crown Heights—another pocket of black-suiters. Boy like yours would certainly blend in there.”

He picked up the phone and dialed the precinct. Decker held his breath as Weiczorek asked about the pickup.

Weiczorek said, “Yeah, I’ll wait.” He turned to Decker and said, “They’re checking it out for me.”

Melino returned, announcing that Mr. Torrentes had apologized for using bad language.

“Didn’t he get his phone call?” Weiczorek asked.

“First thing, Sarge,” Melino said. “But he was too stoned to remember it.”

“Did you log it?” Weiczorek said.

“You bet,” Melino said. “Made it at ten-oh-seven.”

Weiczorek waved his hand in the air. “Idiot don’t remember a damn thing.” He picked up Noam Levine’s picture and said, “You know, this one looks familiar.”

“Where do you think you know him from?” Decker asked.

“I think he’s one of the wilder boys around here,” Weiczorek said. “Every so often, the boys in this area go nuts, start breaking things. These teenage boys sit all day in school, studying till dark. No physical activity, hormones running wild, no contact with the females. Just awhile back a group of ’em smashed up a parked bus that runs through the area on Saturday. It was a pile of junk by the time we got there and the little suckers ran off before we could catch any of them. Think the rabbis helped us out?”

“No?”

“Couldn’t squeeze a drop of piss out of them as far as who the perps were. But they assured us that they’d take care of the boys who did it. This kid…” Weiczorek hit the photograph with the back of his hand. “I think he was one of them.”

Decker nodded, not surprised at all. “You get into a lot of conflicts—”

Weiczorek interrupted him with a palm-up sign. “Yeah, I’m still here. No, that’s not him. Thanks.” He hung up. “Unless your boy’s got nappy hair and a dark suntan, we ain’t talking about the same kid.”

Damn, Decker thought.

Weiczorek said, “You was saying before I interrupted you?”

Decker thought a moment. “I just wondered if there was a lot of tension between the locals and the law.”

“Not much,” Weiczorek said. “They’re pretty easy once you know what to expect. You don’t muscle these people around. They get mad—not violent but stubborn as a constipated mule. Give you an example. About three years ago one of the officers who hadn’t worked long in this district gave a jaywalking ticket to one of the rabbis. Well, it was on a Saturday and the rabbi wouldn’t sign the ticket cause it was against their law to write on Saturday.”

Decker nodded.