Sons of the City by Scott Flander Read Free Book Online

I followed his line of vision. A TV news van was pulling up, the first, I was sure, of many. I told a couple of cops to stretch some tape—the yellow kind that says ”police line—do not cross“—from tree to tree in a big circle around the front of the house.
    I wanted to call the hospital, see how Steve was doing, and I remembered there was a pay phone in front of the bar on the corner. As I headed down the sidewalk toward the bar, I saw the white shirts arriving: captains, inspectors, chief inspectors. Commissioner’s son gets shot, they start calling everybody in.
    The phone was all beat up, and I was amazed I even got a dial tone. I called HUP, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and got through to the emergency room. I identified myself, and asked if there were any 20th District cops around. I was surprised when Michelle came on the line.
    “He’s just going into surgery,” she said. “I keep asking how he is, and they won’t tell me, they just say they’re doing all they can. I don’t know what that means. Do you know what that means?”
    I said I didn’t.
    “My father’s on his way here, maybe he can find out.”
    I told her everyone was praying for Steve, and hung up.
    When I got back to the crackhouse, a small crowd was gathering, and three or four television crews were standing in the street filming the porch with their harsh bright lights. Just in time for the fucking eleven o’clock news. I was glad the TV cameras were too far away to see the blood.
    Buster’s voice suddenly came over Police Radio: “We got ‘em!”
    Typical of Buster. Forgets to say who or where he is.
    “Unit coming in?” the dispatcher asked.
    “This is twenty-oh-seven,” said Buster, out of breath. “We got ‘em, Six-two and Locust. Matches the flash perfectly.”
    That was about nine blocks away. Was it possible we had actually got the shooter? I got on the radio and told Buster to bring the suspect to Tyler Street, we’d have the witness ID him here.
    A couple of minutes later, Buster pulled up. There, in the back of his car, was a young guy in a red T-shirt and black Yankees cap, angry as hell. There was something wrong, though. He didn’t look like a crackhead, he didn’t look like he belonged in that house. His eyes were too clear, his clothes were too nice. But I didn’t care, I was excited, we all were. We all wanted the asshole that shot Steve.
    Two of my cops were escorting a middle-aged black woman down the steps of her front porch. With the description she had given us, obviously her eyes were good, but there was something else I was worried about. She might get intimidated by the suspect and change her mind, and I didn’t want to lose our only witness. We had to keep the suspect from seeing her face. I told the cops to bring her directly behind the patrol car, and then about four of us stood in front of her, so she could sort of peek between us. As Buster got the guy out of the backseat, we shined our flashlights right in his eyes. He came out blinking, blinded by the lights.
    I could hear the woman gasp. “That’s him,” she said. “That is definitely him.”
    We had the motherfucker cold.
    “That’s my son,” a woman somewhere yelled. “That’s my son you got there.”
    Now what?
    A thin, haggard black woman was coming toward us. “That’s my boy you got there,” she yelled. “He didn’t do nothin', why you got him?”
    “Ma’am,” I said, “we have a witness.”
    “What witness?” She spotted the older woman. “Now Miss Jones, don’t you recognize my boy, this is my boy Charles.”
    So much for keeping the witness anonymous.
    “Ma’am,” I said, “this woman saw your son running from the crime scene.”
    “What crime scene?” she yelled. “He was just walking out the house, he didn’t no sooner get out the door when we heard this loud bang. We thought it was a firecracker.”
    “How long from the time he left the house until you heard the bang?” I