Murphy's Beat
by Marvin Pinkis
The scene
played like an Edward Hopper painting - the one
called "Nighthawks." The setting was an
all-night coffee shop, just three customers,
sitting stools apart from each other at the long
counter, the counterman in white cap and apron,
pouring coffee and solving the world's problems
with the patrons. You could tell it was a dated
painting. Some of them were smoking. Must have
been before they enforced the smoking ban in art.
Some illicit art was still produced showing
smokers but those were destined to be exhibited
in after-hour or subterranean smoking sections of
certain galleries or museums. But who knows how
long even that would last.
Well, as
desolate as the Hopper depiction was, it was
worse outside where it rained buckets. Even in
the gloom, a man huddled in the shop doorway
could be made out, trying to light a cigarette
from soggy matches. There, he got it. His face
was faintly illumined. Sharp features, up close a
distinct jagged scar on his right cheek, raincoat
collar turned up, hat slouched down on his
forehead, a desperate air. It was nobody we knew.
Officer
("I never forget a face, even in dim light")
Murphy, nightstick swinging, sauntered around the
corner. Even with his oilskin slicker, the
relentless rain and biting chill of the November
night pierced through to his aching bones.
The man in the
doorway spotted Murphy. The man, even after more
than twenty years on the bum or in the hoosegow,
recognized Murphy from long before. In that same
neighborhood the man had swiped a head of lettuce
from the old green grocer and had run smack into
Murphy, then a rookie cop who had been on the
same beat since.
Murphy had a
unique method of apprehending the bad guys and
had no necessity to be armed. Instead, he
resorted to ear-splitting, terribly shrill,
imitations of birds, notably owls. His reputation
was widely known. Many a felon had been stopped
in his tracks, totally incapable of enduring
another blast.
The doorway
lurker knew Murphy would question him and not
hear credible answers for certain questions. The
lurker, launched into his larcenous life with the
lifting of the lettuce, made a break for it.
Murphy, even with failing vision in the night
gloom, saw him and shouted, "Halt, halt or I'll
hoot."
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