The Savage City by T. J. English Read Free Book Online Page A

the guy. He squirms away and starts running down the street. I chase him up the fucking block. Stop or I’ll shoot! Stop or I’ll shoot! I was so fucking scared I couldn’t have pulled the trigger no matter what. Stop, or I’ll shoot! He drops the screwdriver, all the clothes, and he stops.I collar the fucking guy and I drag him back up to the parked car. I tell the broad, get lost, go to your hotel room. I figure I’m now the hero cop of the whole city.
    Police squad cars pulled up from three different directions. A sergeant approached and asked Phillips, “Hey kid, what’ve you got?”
    I told him I caught this guy robbing a car. But I didn’t have nothing, no fucking evidence. All I had was this nigger running down the street with a bunch of clothes. So they go out, find the screwdriver, take the guy to the 14th Precinct station house…. At that time they used interrogation by police psychology—a punch in the mouth, a kick in the ass, a tap in the balls. I’m a fucking dumb kid, what the hell do I know? The detective is beating hell out of this guy. Confess, you cocksucker. Confess? Confess what? I got the guy dead to rights.
    Phillips was sure this would be his first official arrest, but it was not to be. After sitting around the precinct for a couple hours, he was told by a detective, “You can go, kid. It’s been taken care of.”
    Phillips was surprised, but he asked no questions. He figured that some money, or merchandise, must have changed hands and made the matter go away. He vowed that next time, no matter what, he wouldn’t be on the outside looking in.
    Phillips said years later that he didn’t come onto the police force looking for ways to make cash on the side. In fact, the first time he was offered money, he tried to turn it down. One night, when he was a rookie cop in the Nineteenth Precinct on the Upper East Side, he was out patrolling in a radio car with Frankie Olds, a veteran cop in the One-Nine. “Listen, we got a few dollars to pick up,” Officer Olds told him. “Do you mind?”
    â€œWell,” replied Phillips, “no, I don’t mind.”
    Olds pulled in front of a dance club on Eighty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue. “I’ll only be a minute,” he said. The veteran cop returned a few minutes later with two five-dollar bills, one of which he handed to Phillips.
    â€œNo,” said the rookie, “that’s okay. You can keep it.”
    Olds insisted. “Take it. It’s yours.”
    â€œThat was the first, and I still remember how I felt when I took it,” recalled Phillips. “I felt, goddamn, do I have to get involved in this? I don’t really want to, but if I don’t take the money this guy will think I’m some kind of creep. I won’t be able to hang out with the group I hang out with now.”
    Phillips was startled by the offer from Officer Olds, but he’d known the moment was coming.
    When you first get to a precinct, you’re like a wallflower. Nobody even says hello to you. Then, slowly, you begin to build up this trust and they tell you little things in the station house. Like the captain’s man is making a lot of money, or the sergeant is robbing from that guy…. So right away you got to make up your mind. Are you going to go in for it and be one of the guys, or are you going to stay out of it and have everybody look at you like you’re some kind of queer?
    For Phillips, the choice was clear. “I took the five dollars. I really didn’t know what else to do.” Later, after he’d grown accustomed to taking money in much greater denominations on a regular basis, the process became less mysterious. “You know,” said Phillips, “taking money is like getting laid. You remember the first time with a broad; after that it’s a blur.”
    Even after Phillips joined the club, he had much to learn about how the