‘I think the word is ambulance, for after you’ve eaten here.’
A waitress scrapes her shoes across to the table and asks for his order. Doyle requests a coffee.
‘And donuts,’ Paulson says. ‘We agreed donuts.’
Doyle nods his assent to the waitress and she shuffles off again.
‘We could have done this on the phone,’ Doyle says.
‘No, we couldn’t,’ Paulson responds. ‘Sure, we could have traded questions, information, facts, whatever. But true social interaction — you can’t get that in a phone call. That’s the tragedy of today’s cellphone culture. Too many people think they’re socializing when in fact they’re avoiding it. It’s a sad situation. I mean, look at us here. The two of us, drinking coffee, eating donuts, passing the time. There’s no substitute for that, is there?’
‘What do you want me to say, Paulson? That this is the highlight of my week? It ain’t gonna happen. There’s too much shit gone under the bridge for that. I came to you because I got a question that maybe you can answer. I thought maybe, just this once, you might be willing to try and help a cop out instead of doing what you can to get him jammed up.’
Paulson takes a sip of his coffee, licks his lips, then nods as if in satisfaction with the drink’s consistency and flavor.
‘What is it with cops like you, Doyle? How is it you manage to see everything in black and white? Where does this notion of simplicity come from? The boys in blue, the precinct DTs — they’re all good guys, right? Doing everything they can to put the world to rights. Doing it on piss-poor pay, too, and under conditions of service that get lousier every time the commissioner puts pen to paper. And then you got people like me. The ones who crossed to the dark side. The ones who will use any means at their disposal to hurt honest, hard-working officers. That about sum it up for you, Doyle?’
Doyle nods, more to humor Paulson than anything else. He’s not in the mood for joining a debating society right now.
‘Something like that,’ he mutters.
Paulson takes another sip. ‘You know what I was doing two weeks ago today?’
Doyle wants to groan in despair. He just wants to lay down his questions and get out of here.
‘I dunno. Helping old ladies cross the street and then asking them what their cop grandsons do when they’re off duty?’
‘No. I was arresting a cop. I made the collar personally. Even put the cuffs on myself.’
‘Well, that sounds like a good day’s work. Shame on me for thinking badly of you.’
‘You want to know what the guy did?’
Not really, Doyle thinks. ‘He take home an official NYPD pencil? That would be pretty serious, I think. Hard prison time for that one. Maybe even the death penalty if you play your cards right.’
‘I’ll tell you what he did. .’
Paulson pauses while the waitress brings over Doyle’s coffee and the two donuts. Paulson takes a bite of his donut and gives another nod of satisfaction. Doyle wonders how long it’ll be before Paulson goes hyper when the sugar and caffeine rush kicks in.
‘I’ll tell you what he did,’ Paulson repeats. ‘Porn. On his computer. Masses of it.’
‘Well, thank God you uncovered that one, Paulson. You never know, could be the guy was even planning to jerk off sometime. Where would we be then?’
Paulson stuffs another chunk of food into his mouth, but doesn’t let it stop him from speaking. ‘I’m talking thousands of images here. Movies, even. Some of them pretty hardcore stuff. Stuff that would make your hair curl.’
Doyle flicks particles of jettisoned food from his jacket sleeve. ‘Yeah, well, don’t let it worry you too much. One of these days you’ll get a real live girlfriend of your own and you’ll realize it’s not so disgusting. Some of it is actually pretty good fun.’
‘I’m talking kiddie porn,’ Paulson says.
Doyle stares at him, but Paulson isn’t even looking back. He’s raising his coffee cup, blowing across the surface of the steaming liquid. Doyle realizes he’s just been led into a well-prepared trap.
Paulson continues: ‘Kids of all ages, both sexes. Far as we can tell, the youngest is about six months old. You shoulda seen the look in her eyes. I’ll never forget that look.’
Doyle fills his own mouth with coffee, providing himself with an excuse for not speaking. He gulps audibly and feels the burning run down to his stomach.
‘And you know what the worst of it was?’ Paulson says. ‘The thing that made me want to be there for the collar? The thing that gave me so much pleasure to slap on the cuffs and tighten them so they practically cut off his circulation? It was him, Doyle. In the pictures, in the movie files. It was the cop. The worthless piece of shit who defiled the bodies and destroyed the souls of little children — he once wore a uniform and a badge. Now you tell me which one of us was wrong, Doyle. Tell me which one of us wears the black hat and which one wears the white. Maybe all hats are just shades of gray.’
Almost a full minute passes before Doyle answers. ‘Okay, Paulson, you got me with your little story there. You convinced me that you’re a force for good, that you provide a useful and valuable service. That what you wanted to hear? Feeling good about yourself now? Can we move on? Can I ask my question and get the fuck outta here?’
And then Paulson does something unexpected. He brings his fist crashing down on the table so hard that the coffee cups and plates do a little jig, and the head of every other customer turns to glance at them.
‘Fuck you, Doyle!’ he spits. ‘You want something from me, then you stop acting like a fucking asshole. You stop pretending that everyone can be put into neat little boxes, and you start accepting that some of us do what we do because it’s right, not because it’s easy.’
In that moment, Doyle sees something in Paulson he has never seen before. A spark of humanity. In that flash of emotion, Doyle sees vulnerability, outrage, morality and devotion to a cause, all combining to make Paulson something more than the obsessed automaton he has always appeared. Despite his antipathy, Doyle finds himself no longer able to be so dismissive of Paulson, no longer able to prevent himself from engaging with his old adversary.
‘Because it’s right? You gave me one chapter, Paulson. A few pages where things worked out for once, where you really did end up catching the bad guy. Well done to you. Good catch. But what about the rest of the story? What about all the other times you and your IAB pals made life miserable for cops who never did so much as accept a cookie without paying for it? What about all the cops who ate their guns because of pressure from IAB? What about me? You forget about that? You forget about how you told me I was no better than a cop killer? Saying to me that maybe I didn’t pull the trigger, but I damn well may as well have done? Telling me about how you were going to talk to my wife about all those nasty rumors going around? How you were going to interrogate her about my sex life? Any of this coming back to you, Paulson, or do you have some kind of selective memory in that head of yours, only able to remember the cases that fall right for you?’
Doyle pauses for breath, and notices that the waitress is at his elbow.
‘Guys,’ she says. ‘You mind calming it down a little, please? You’re making the other customers a little uncomfortable.’
The way he feels, Doyle is on the verge of yelling at the rest of the dump’s clientele to mind their own fucking business, but the waitress’s practiced smile defuses his anger. He nods at her, then distracts himself with his coffee, the cup in his hand trembling with the memories that have resurfaced.
When he speaks again, Paulson’s voice is quieter, more reasoned. ‘This is where I say something like I was only doing my job, and you say something about Nazis, right? So let me say this instead. Suppose you
‘What?’
‘I’ll make it easier for you. Take yourself out of the equation. Suppose you’d heard that another cop had been making whoopee with your partner Laura Marino. Suppose that same cop had gone into a building with Laura, and he’d come out alive and she’d come out in a body bag. What would you have me do? Should I say to the cop, “Hey man, you’re wearing a badge, so you must be okay, have a good day, officer?” Or, given that your partner’s now six feet under, would you prefer I push him a little bit more than that? What about our Kindergarten Cop? Should I maybe have given him the heads-up? Give him a chance to wipe the porn from his computer
