The Misfortune Cookie

breaths—and realized they were my own.

“That does it,” said Napoli. “Put your hands behind your back, Miss Diamond.”

“What?” I said distractedly. It seemed a peculiar request.

“Pete, no,” Lopez said suddenly. “Don’t.”

“I warned her,” Napoli said. “Hands behind your back now, Miss Diamond.”

“Huh?” I said in confusion.

Lopez stepped close to us and said to his colleague in a low voice, “Come on, don’t do this.”

“You know I can’t let it go,” Napoli replied, also in a low voice, as he pulled out his handcuffs. “Slugging a cop during a bust?”

“Wait a minute,” I said, realizing what was happening as Napoli snapped a cuff around my right wrist. “No!”

“Hitting an officer in front of witnesses,” Napoli continued to Lopez. “And in front of these witnesses. I can’t give her a pass on this one.”

“Oh, come on, Pete, you know why she hit me.”

“Ow! That’s pinching!” I tried to wriggle out of Napoli’s grasp.

“Hold still,” he said tersely to me. “Don’t make things worse for yourself.”

Lopez persisted, “It had nothing to do the bust. Or with me being a cop.”

“Believe me,” said Napoli, “I sympathize with Miss Diamond’s motives and understand her actions.”

“Then let me go,” I urged as he pulled my arms behind my back and snapped the other cuff on my left wrist.

“But she picked the wrong time and place. I gave her two warnings in a row about violent behavior to a police officer—”

“You can’t be serious!” I said.

“—and she did it, anyhow.” Napoli added, “In the middle of a high-profile bust, while arguing with the cop in question. You know I can’t let it go.”

Lopez rubbed his forehead and said, “I’d really like to wake up now. Please, God, let me wake up.”

“You’re going to let him arrest me?” I demanded of Lopez. “You’re really letting this happen?”

“Shut up,” he said without looking at me. “I’m trying to think.”

“This is no time for thinking,” I insisted, feeling the cold weight of police metal encircling my wrists. “Do something.”

“Esther Diamond,” said Napoli, “I’m arresting you for—”

“Wait!” Lopez was apparently done thinking. “I’ve got it. I’ll do it.”

Napoli and I both stared at him.

“I’ll book her,” he clarified.

“What?” I blurted.

“No, I’ve got this,” said Napoli. “You don’t . . . Oh. I see.”

“You’re going to arrest me?” I said incredulously.

“Yeah, I’m going to arrest you,” Lopez said with resignation.

“That’s your bright idea?” I said. “Swapping places with Detective Charm?”

Napoli asked him, “Are you sure you want to do this? It won’t look good.”

“It already doesn’t look good,” I said. “How dare you two arrest me, when he had the nerve, the gall—”

“You’ll catch some shit for this,” Napoli warned him.

“You bet he will,” I confirmed.

“I’ll deal with it,” Lopez said.

“Stop!” I said as Lopez took a step toward me. “I don’t want to be arrested by you. I want someone else! Haven’t you done enough to me already?”

Ronnie, who was being led to the door in cuffs, burst out laughing again. “Oh, buddy,” he said to Lopez, “your love life is deader than a thirty-year-old corpse in a Jersey landfill.”

“Yeah, I’m sensing that,” Lopez said tersely as he brushed Napoli aside and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” I jerked reflexively away from him—and, in doing so, accidentally banged the back of my head into Napoli’s nose.

“Agh!” the detective staggered backward, clutching his face.

The Gambellos who were still inside the restaurant cheered again. So did some of the diners who were still waiting to be allowed to leave.

“Whoa! Esther clips two of New York’s finest inside of five minutes!”

“Go, Esther!” said Stella. “Do them all! The bums!”

Napoli’s eyes were tearing as he snatched up a dirty napkin from a nearby table to dab at his nose, which was bright red now. “Arrest her, goddamn it!” he said to Lopez. “And get her the hell out of my sight!”

“Honor is due, Esther,” Jimmy Legs said as the redheaded cop led him past me and out the door. “You are one fine dame.”

“She’s about to become a dame with an assault record,” muttered Napoli.

Looking very sad that he had ever met any of us, Lopez gave a heavy sigh and said, “Esther Diamond, I am placing you under arrest.”

3 The Eight Immortals

These legendary figures embody the various conditions of human life—poverty and wealth, youth and age, male and female. Born human, they achieved immortality through their deeds.

It turned out that being arrested for assaulting a police officer put me at the pinnacle of the criminal pantheon inside the women’s holding cells. Even Stella ranked below me. I would have thought that laundering money for the mob was a more impressive deed than slapping your former almost-boyfriend. But slugging a cop evidently imbued me with legendary status among the hookers, crack addicts, and shoplifters sharing this illustrious space with me in the wee hours of New Year’s morning.

Also, I don’t think any of them had the faintest idea what money laundering was, and Stella and I were both too agitated to explain it well.

I settled into my demoralizing situation—starting off the New Year in jail—by trying to distract myself and use the time productively. In pursuit of my craft, I attempted to study my fellow prisoners, who represented diverse conditions of human existence.

I was initially interested in the prostitutes, since I had played one recently—a guest role on the cable TV cult hit, The Dirty Thirty—and might play one again someday. But apart from their enthusiasm over my having hit a cop, they just seemed sleepy and bored, providing me with very little material.

Still trying to be conscientious—and still trying not to think about my immediate future, which I wasn’t ready to face—I focused next on three Ivy League coeds who were also locked up in here tonight. I didn’t know what they were charged with, but the extent of their inebriation suggested several possibilities. They were obviously from wealthy backgrounds, and just as obviously not used to surroundings like this. I decided to observe how these three young women reacted to the gravity of their situation and to being in close quarters with streetwalkers, thieves, addicts, and a furious restaurateur.

But this was pretty dull, too. One of the girls promptly fell asleep and was snoring away peacefully. Another had vomited twice and was rocking back and forth now with her arms folded over her stomach. And the third one kept hitting on me. As a waitress who’d clobbered a cop in a mob joint, I evidently represented exciting erotic