Reversible Error Read Online Free PDF Page A

Deuce. Picks the moppets up at the Port Authority. OK, we'll check it out."
    Fulton said, "Good, that's a start. Now, on these other dope-dealer hits, we're taking all of them over."
    Groans all around. Dugman said, "Loo, what the damn hell! We don't pull enough murders in Harlem? You got to drag in stale fucked-up cases from all round town?"
    Fulton set his jaw. "Can it, guys! This is real, and this is big, and I want complete control of it all. I want every one of those case files squeezed until the juice comes out. There's a pattern here, and you're gonna find it. That's all!"
    He turned and strode into his private office, slamming the door behind him.
    The three detectives looked at one another, their expressions exhibiting mixed feelings of disbelief, annoyance, resignation-the standard cop expressions. But there was also the beginning of something else, a kind of fascination, the first faint scent of prey in the air. The King Cole Trio hated mysteries too.

THREE
    "What did he do then?" asked Marlene Ciampi, trying to keep the weariness out of her voice as she moved through yet another rape interview. This victim-she glanced down at the name… Paula Rosenfeld-was shut down, reciting the facts of her recent violation as if she were reading off the periodic table. You got them like that; you also got the one who couldn't stop shaking, and the weepers, and the cursers. Those were just the ones who came in. Marlene suspected that the majority of the raped of New York were in another class entirely-the no-shows, the ones who turned off the memory, told no one, denied it happened, took a long bath and tried to get on with life.
    Rosenfeld shrugged and said, "He didn't do anything. He got off me, pulled on his pants, and went out."
    "He didn't say anything to you?" The woman thought for a moment. Marlene observed the signs of grief and stress ooze subtly onto her face. It was a pretty little face- short dark hair, small even features, big brown eyes that would have looked better without the dark circles beneath them. A good figure too, small and slim, not unlike Marlene's own, but muffled by a shapeless black sweater and jeans. After a while she cleared her throat and said, "Yes, he did say something. He smiled and waved and said, 'Well, be seeing you.'"
    Marlene wrote it down in the appropriate space on her five-by-eight index card, the space for "vocalizations-post" Marlene had designed the card herself and had paid for the two rubber stamps that printed the categories on the front and the back of each card. The card was supposed to help you to set down in an orderly way all the information about a rape: about the victim, about the setting (place, time of day, phase of moon), about the rapist. There was a space marked "signatures." Marlene tapped her pencil on this spot and reread what she had written there.
    "About the panty hose-you said he wrapped it around your neck. Did you think he was going to strangle you?"
    The woman shook her head. "No, it wasn't like that. He had this big knife, you know? He didn't need anything else. No, he just draped it around my neck and sort of played with it while he… you know."
    Marlene knew. She nodded, made a note, and looked up brightly. "Well, Ms. Rosenfeld, I'd like to thank you for coming in. We'll get in touch with you if we need you again, when we make an arrest."
    The woman looked at her dully. "They're not even going to look for him, are they?"
    "Who told you that?"
    "Nobody. But I could just tell-the cops who interviewed me after-they thought it was, like, an argument on a date or something. It got out of hand, no big thing. They kept asking me if I was going to press charges."
    Marlene sighed, leaned back in her chair, and stuck her pencil in her hair. "OK, look-from the point of view of the law and law enforcement, rape is an unusual crime because almost always the only witness is the victim. We can have evidence of the sex taking place, but whether it's rape or not is a