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“Call the cops? What are you going to say, ‘The lady next door’s boyfriend screwed her so hard the mirror fell off our wall’?”

“Unless we do something about it, we’re going to have to pay for that mirror,” Joanne argued.

“Okay,” Herb said after a moment’s thought. “Go tell her what happened.”

“If I go over there, what she’s going to say is that she doesn’t have any idea what I’m talking about. Would you?”

“Would I what?”

“Say, ‘Gee, I’m sorry my scre… lovemaking broke your mirror, and I’ll write you a check’?”

“And what good do you think calling the cops is going to do?”

“It can’t do any harm, can it?” Joanne asked reasonably. “Maybe something is wrong next door-with her. And I don’t want us to have to pay for the mirror.”

Joanne went to the telephone on the bedside table and punched 911.

At 1:57 A.M., a call went out from Police Radio:

“Disturbance, house, 600 Independence Street, second-floor left apartment.”

Officer James Hyde, a tall, thin, dark-haired young man of twenty-four, reached for his microphone in his patrol car, pushed the button, and replied:

“Thirty-five twelve, got it.”

A moment later, there was another response, this one from Officer Haywood L. Cubellis, a 210-pound, six-foot-seven, twenty-five-year-old African-American from his patrol car:

“Thirty-five seventeen, I’ll back him up.”

Whenever possible-in other words, usually-two cars will respond to a “Disturbance, House” call. Such calls usually involve a difference of opinion between two people of opposite-or the same-sex sharing living accommodations. By the time the cops are called, tempers are at-or over-the boiling point.

If two officers are present, each can listen sympathetically to the complaints of one abused party vis-a-vis the other, which also serves to keep the parties separated. One lonely police officer can be overwhelmed.

Both cars arrived at 600 Independence Street a few minutes after 2 A.M., although neither-there was little traffic- had used either siren or flashing lights.

While it might be argued that neither Officer Hyde nor Officer Cubellis was a highly experienced police officer-Hyde had been on the job three years and Cubellis four-they had enough experience to know that it was better for officers responding to a “Disturbance, House” call to bring with them calm, reason, and order, rather than the heightened excitement that howling sirens, flashing lights, and screaming tires produce.

“Hey, Wood,” Jim Hyde called as both got out of their cars and started into the apartment complex.

Officer Haywood Cubellis waved but did not respond.

He followed Hyde to the second-floor door of apartment 12B, and stood to one side as Hyde both knocked with his nightstick and pushed the doorbell.

Mrs. McGrory answered the door, in her bathrobe, with Herb standing behind her in trousers and a sleeveless undershirt, looking a little uncomfortable.

Both Hyde and Cubellis made a quick analysis.

Nice people. Looked sober. No bruises or signs of anything having been thrown or overturned in the apartment.

“You called the police, ma’am?” Hyde asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“What seems to be the trouble?”

“I like to think of myself as a reasonable person,” Joanne said. “Live and let live, as they say. But this is just too much.”

“What is it, ma’am?”