Buddy Boys by Mike McAlary Read Free Book Online Page B

of his life. Henry dreamed he was standing before hundreds of bad guys with his gun drawn and his badge sparkling.
    â€œYou’re all under arrest,” the patrolman said in his dream. Before awakening, Henry Winter dreamed he had every bad guy in the city wearing handcuffs.
    The voice of Henry Winter:
    â€œMy first day on the job and I’m standing on the corner of Lexington Avenue and East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street with my thumb up my ass on a foot post when I suddenly get a call on the radio. It’s a ten-two. I didn’t even know the police radio codes yet, so I just ignored the call. A few minutes later a sergeant pulled up to my foot post in a car. He said, ‘Hey, Winter. Didn’t you just get a ten-two?’ I said, ‘Yeah sarge. Should I call the station house or something?’ The sergeant looked at me for a second and then said, ‘You dumb rookie hump. You don’t call the station house on a ten-two. When you get a ten-two, you return to the station house, pronto.’
    â€œSo I ran back to the station house and reported to the front desk. The sergeant there is smiling and holding up my license plate. I said, ‘Oh, did it fall off the car or something?’ The sergeant said, ‘No. And don’t get excited now, Winter, but, ah … this is all that’s left of your car.’ I was stunned. The sergeant had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.
    â€œIt turned out a drunk cab driver had smashed into my car on One Hundred and Nineteenth and Park, pushing it up against a pole. The car looked like an accordion when I got there. It was a beautiful car too—a 1972 Grand Torino with white leather interior and a midnight blue paint job. The car had a 351 Cleveland, a four-barrel engine. I couldn’t believe it. My first day on the job and some drunk turned my car into an accordion. I cried.
    â€œI made my first collar in October on a burglary. It was a radio run—we responded to a call over the radio. We came up the street with our lights off and arrived at a warehouse on the corner of East One Hundred and Eleventh Street and Second Avenue. When we got there a sixteen-year-old kid was swinging down off the roof on a rope with a knapsack full of radios. He looked like Batman. He hit the ground and we arrested him. He was real surprised to see us.
    â€œLater I took him to the old Central Booking at One Hundred Centre Street. In those days you stayed with the suspect right up until his arraignment. The whole process could take thirty hours. Anyway, in the hallways, there were all these empty lounge chairs. Some had little pieces of cardboard tacked to them with names on them. I thought they were police department property, so I fell asleep in one. Finally I wake up and there is this oldtimer kicking at my feet, yelling, ‘Get the fuck out of my chair.’ By the next week I had my own lounge chair. I used to keep it in my car and then grab it out of the trunk whenever I made a collar. I did a lot of sleeping on the job back then.
    â€œI didn’t see much corruption in the beginning. The biggest thing was that we’d go into a store and get a free sandwich. I didn’t think that was wrong. Probably the worst thing I saw was two days before Thanksgiving in 1974—my second month on the job. The city pulled a tractorload of turkeys into the precinct one night and parked it on the corner of Park Avenue and One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. They were going to give the turkeys away to the poor in the morning. I got the foot post guarding the turkeys, to make sure nobody broke in and stole them. But throughout the night I got sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and borough commanders driving up to the truck and demanding free turkeys. I’m just out of the academy. The Supervisors are yelling, ‘Hey kid, let me have a turkey.’ What am I supposed to do? Say, ‘Excuse me, Captain, but you can’t have