He glanced over at his wife, who was in the seat beside him gazing intently at the stage. She seemed to be enjoying herself. No, not seemed to be. Was. He could tell from the tilt of her chin, the faint dimples at the corners of her mouth. When two people were married as long as they’d been, it got so you could read each other at a glance. Later, over coffee and cake, she would speak appreciatively of the sets, the score, the choreography, the staging. And he would study her with something akin to the love-struck awe he’d felt thirty years ago on their first high school date, admiring her lively, intelligent features, her smooth coffee-brown skin, the way she put together her clothes, and the graceful movements of her hands as she commented on the various aspects of the show, marveling at everything about her for that matter, and wondering what he had ever done to deserve the constant support she had given him throughout their marriage, a faith and perseverance that helped lift him from the tough streets of Harlem to the highest post in the New York Police Department.

But later was later, and now was still Act One of a maddeningly incomprehensible songfest about a magnificent wreck whose passengers had suffered a cold, airless death. Harrison glanced at his watch, wondering how much longer his own torment would last. Nine P.M. An hour to go. Maybe more. Didn’t some plays run until ten-thirty or eleven?

Harrison felt a sudden twinge of embarrassment. That was something the city’s top cop really should know, wasn’t it? He damn well hoped he wasn’t losing touch. You could dress Times Square up all you wanted, you could even push the sex shops off the strip to make room for the wonderful world of Disney, but the hands under those bright white Mickey Mouse gloves would always have grimy fingernails, and it would always be a place where vice and violence could reach out of the shadows and drag you down like those dancing fools onstage. So much fuss had been made about the neighborhood’s renaissance in recent years, one could sometimes forget that a decrease in crime did not necessarily mean the criminals had packed their bags and gone south. In fact, it was only an intensified and very visible police presence in the area that held the bump-and-run muggers, junkies, hookers and other lowlife at bay. There were still pockets of darkness amid the lights of the Great White Way, and people needed to be aware of them. Especially the PC.