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collided on a regular basis. It was ugly for a real long while.
    But strangely, the situation was a boon to her career. The fact that the ex
didn’t
bust her made it clear that Kaz was in fact clean beyond all doubt. If she had so much as a friggin’ recycling violation, the ex would have crucified her naked on the top of the Art Museum steps and hired little kids to throw rocks at her all day. After the public scandals of the past year, the mayor himself appointed Kaz head of NFU-CS, with carte blanche to clean house and set things back on course.
    Kaz appraises the girl, shoes to head. “What, did you catch her copping some Adderall?”
    “A little more than that, Loot. I’ll fill you in.”
    “You’re liking them younger and younger.”
    “Nah, you know I’m into the older women. Keep hoping to catch myself a Betty White type hooked on smack.”
    Wildey has an uneasy relationship with Kaz. She likes to goof around with him, calling him “Wild Child” even though his name was pronounced
will-dee
and was not supposed to rhyme with
wild
. And he jokes back most times, which is good. In building the ranks of her newly formed Narcotics Field Unit-Central South, she was careful to pull guys from all over the city to bust up any existing allegiances. But she could be frustratingly cryptic and hard to read. Frankly, Wildey never quite knew where he stood with her.
    At first she told Wildey he was the perfect fit for the unit. Wildey was fresh off a commendation for his role in taking back the notorious McPherson Square Park from drug dealers last year. For three decades “Needle Park” had been littered with syringes and gun casings and junkies dozing on benches. When the Twenty-fourth District decided to take it back, Wildey was one of the bicycle cops who was racking up steady and constant arrests. Which was impressive alone, considering his size. (He dropped twenty pounds riding that damn bike.) Somehow, word of his exploits found their way to Kaz. She liked that he was a lone wolf with no wife, no kids, not much of a life outside the job. But all of his work so far seems to have vaguely disappointed her. “Keep digging” is a common refrain. No leads excite her. Sometimes, Wildey thinks he’d be better off on his bike, picking off street dealers one at a time.
    Wildey puts Serafina Holland, a.k.a. Honors Girl, in one of their birdcages—what they call their meeting rooms—then returns to brief his boss. “I’m making some real progress on Chuckie Morphine,” he says.
    “Who’s this now?” Kaz asks.
    “The guy I think’s dealing to college kids, high school kids, based out of the house on Ninth—you remember. His name kept coming up in September. A couple of my CIs came up with an address and I’ve been watching it.”
    “So this girl is one of his dealers?”
    “No—her boyfriend is.”
    “Where’s he?”
    “Probably still running through South Philly.”
    “So what did you catch her with?”
    Wildey tells her: Oxys, Mollies, stop signs. Kaz nods appreciatively.
    “That’s a fairly solid haul. You sure she’s not the dealer?”
    “Positive.”
    Kaz nods for a good half minute then looks steadily, calmly into Wildey’s eyes.
    “Let’s do this.”
     
    I’ve never been inside a police station before but this looks like no police station I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure most police stations don’t smell like cheese curls, chalk, and bleach. Or have blackboards.
Maybe it’s just late and I’m working on no sleep, but the whole building looks like a former school. The cop who arrested me—I don’t even know his name at this point—leads me down a cramped hallway until he makes a sharp turn into a tiny room, pointing to a chair where I’m supposed to sit. Nothing else in the room but a dented metal folding table and gunmetal gray shelves lining the walls. I’m guessing this used to be the school library. Too bad there are no law books in here.
The advice from every cop movie and