“Give those Bolshie’s hell,” one of them called, and the rest of them cheered. The silence that followed was awkward, the silence of strangers introduced at a party neither had much wished to attend, and then three men walked out of a coffee shop a few doors down. Two wore spectacles and carried books. All three wore the coarse clothing of Slavic immigrants. Danny saw it happening before it actually did:

One of the Slavic men looked over his shoulder. Two of the men on the sidewalk pointed. Matt March called, “Hey, you three!”

That was all it took.

The three men ran, and the dockworkers broke off in pursuit, and Hardy and Jeffries ran after them. A half block down the Slavs were tackled to the pavement.

Hardy and Jeffries reached the pile and Hardy pulled one of the dockworkers back and then his nightstick caught the glow of the streetlamp as he swung it down on the head of one of the Slavs.

Danny said, “Hey!” but Matt March caught him by the arm.

“Dan, wait.”

“What?”

March gave him a level gaze. “This is for Stoddard.”

Danny pulled his arm free. “We don’t know they’re Bolsheviks.”

“We don’t know they’re not.” March twirled his nightstick and smiled at Danny.

Danny shook his head and walked up the street.

March called, “You’re taking the narrow view, Officer.”

By the time he reached the dockworkers, they were already turning away. Two of the victims crawled along the street while the third lay on the cobblestones, his hair black with blood, his broken wrist cradled against his chest.

“Jesus,” Danny said.

“Oops,” Hardy said.

“Hell you guys doing? Get an ambulance.”

“Fuck him,” Jeffries said and spit on the guy. “Fuck his friends, too. You want an ambulance? You find a call box and ask for one yourself.”

Up the street, Sergeant Billups appeared. He talked to March, met Danny’s eyes and then walked up the street toward him. The dock-workers had disappeared. Shouts and breaking glass echoed from a block or two over.

Billups looked at the man on the ground, then at Danny. “Problem, Dan?”

“Just want an ambulance for the guy,” Danny said.

Billups gave the man another glance. “He looks fine to me, Officer.”

“He ain’t.”

Billups stood over the man. “You hurt, sweetheart?”

The man said nothing, just held his broken wrist tighter against his chest.

Billups ground his heel into the man’s ankle. His victim writhed and moaned through cracked teeth. Billups said, “Can’t hear you, Boris. What’s that?”

Danny reached for Billups’s arm and Billups slapped his hand away.

A bone cracked and the man let out a high sigh of disbelief.

“All better now, sweetie?” Billups took his foot off the man’s ankle. The man rolled over and gasped into the cobblestones. Billups put his arm around Danny and walked him a few feet away.

“Look, Sarge, I understand. We’re all looking to knock some heads. Me, too. But the right heads, don’t you think? We don’t even—”