“Don’t get wise with me, Fortune!”

Freedman makes big fists for a short man. He’s a hitter, a Johnny Broderick detective. But the famous Broderick was a good cop, hard and smart, while Freedman is a bad cop who is hard in place of being smart. The police have a normal quota of stupid men; no more and no less than any other big organization. I was no match for Freedman. I wouldn’t have been with two hands, but I keep a hammer handy in my kitchen. In my work I need the police, but I draw the line at Freedman. I touched the hammer.

“I didn’t ask you in,” I said. “You’ve got no warrant, and I’m not a reasonable suspect in a felony. You’re out of your precinct. Lay off, or I’ll fight back and apologize later.”

Freedman has no sense of humor. Vicious men seldom do. He watched me as if deciding whether I would really fight or not. His fists clenched and unclenched.

“Weiss told people he was going to hire you.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “What’s he wanted for?”

Freedman laughed. “He’s one Jew-boy’s gonna hang slow.”

Freedman has a mission-to destroy any of his fellow Jews who break the law. A self-appointed scourge of the tribe.

“Why?” I said.

“He’s dirt,” Freedman said. “A bug, a grease spot. You see him, or hear from him, you tell me fast. Just me, no one else.”

“If he’d shot Moses,” I said, “I’d tell you last. I’d want him to get to the Tombs on his feet and breathing.”

Freedman couldn’t really hurt me as long as I was clean with Centre Street and my own precinct squad. He opened and closed his fists a few more times, and then he left. He slammed the door.

Outraged voices along the hall complained bitterly. I hardly heard them. My mind was on Sammy Weiss. Freedman had not acted as if he wanted Weiss for punching a man-not even a rich man.

The Medical Examiner’s Building in New York is on the East Side near the river. It stands between the old buildings of Bellevue Hospital and the new buildings of New York University’s Medical School. Snow had started falling again, and it hung over the river like a swirling mist as I went down into the main autopsy room.