“He’s drunk,” she yelled at the people who’d stopped. “He’s a cop. I saw his badge, and he’s drunk.” He made it to the wall of the building. It was a variety store and across the street was a sign in Arabic and strips of shiny pastry in the window. He was on Atlantic Avenue and he couldn’t remember how he got there. He couldn’t even remember getting into the phone booth in the first place. “Drunk!” the woman yelled.

The sun was over the Island.

It was morning and he couldn’t remember where he’d spent the night. “And they give him a gun,” she yelled. He kept his head down out of the light. He knew there was a bar half a block away that opened at eight-­thirty. He went inside, out of the sunshine, and went right to the can. To himself he looked like an old black bum in the cloudy mirror over the sink, but Lerner would have to listen to him anyway. He had clout in Brooklyn, in Queens, and most of all in Manhattan with the chief and the mayor, and with or without Lerner’s help he was going to start an investigation like they’d never seen.