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“What do I think of him? Good cop. Smart. Straight arrow.”

“Not always smart,” Cohan said.

“Oh?”

“Assault is a felony,” Cohan said carefully. “A police officer who is found guilty of committing any crime, not just a felony, is dismissed. A Mormon FBI guy would say, ‘That’s the law. Fire him. Put the felon in jail.’”

But you’re Irish, right?

“You may have noticed, Peter, that I’m Irish,” Cohan said.

“Who did he hit?”

“It’s not important, but you’d probably hear anyway. A lawyer named Howard B. Candless.”

Wohl shrugged, signaling he had never heard of him.

“Jack did quite a job on him,” Cohan said. “Knocked a couple of teeth out. Caused what the medical report said were ‘multiple bruises and contusions.’ They kept Candless in the hospital two days, worrying about a possible concussion.”

“Why?” Wohl asked. “That doesn’t sound like Malone.”

“And when he was finished with the lawyer, Jack had a couple too many drinks and went home and slapped his wife around.”

“On general principles?”

“Jack is a very simple guy. He believes that when a woman marries one man, she should not get into an

other man’s bed.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“They kept her in the hospital overnight; long enough to make Polaroid pictures of her bruises and contusions. That’s important.”

“But he’s not going to be charged? Or did I get the wrong impression?”

“It took some doing. He wasn’t charged.”

Malone wasn’t charged because Deputy Commissioner Cohan is his rabbi. Every up-and-coming police officer has a rabbi. My father was Jerry Carlucci’s rabbi. Jerry Carlucci was Denny Coughlin’s rabbi. Denny Coughlin, it is said, is my rabbi. Even Officer Matthew M. Payne has a rabbi, I have lately come to realize—me.

The function of a rabbi is to select a young officer and guide him through the mine fields of police department politics, try to see that he is given assignments that will broaden his areas of expertise and enhance his chances of promotion. And, of course, when he gets in trouble, to try not only to fix it, so he doesn’t get kicked off the cops, but to try to insure that he won’t do what he did again.

“He was lucky to have you as a friend,” Wohl said.

“He’s a good man,” Cohan said. “And a good cop.”

“Yes, sir, I think so.”

“I had him assigned to Major Crimes Division, to the Auto Squad,” Cohan said. “And I arranged for him to stay there after he made lieutenant. All this took place, you understand, right around the time they were making up the lieutenant’s list. If there had been an Internal Affairs report—”

“I understand,” Wohl said. “What’s his status with his wife?”

“They were divorced. I was a little slow on that one, Peter. A little naive. I thought the lawyer had gone along with withdrawing the assault charges because he was either ashamed of what he had done, didn’t want the story repeated around the courtrooms, and/or didn’t want to have any scandal floating around Mrs. Malone, who he intended to marry.”

“But?”

“It would not have solved his purpose to have Jack locked up or even fired. That might have tended to make the judge feel a little sympathetic toward Jack when he got him in court and showed the judge the color photos of Mrs. Malone’s swollen, black-and-blue face. And, Jesus, tell it all, the bruises on her chest and ass. Jack literally kicked her ass all over the house.”

“Oh, Christ! Who was the judge?”