"Martelli, O'Keeffe, get your collective butts to my office. Now!" O'Keeffe had been in Martelli's office in the basement of the First when the call from Hanlon came in on Martelli's phone. It was Monday morning, a little after 8 AM.
"Well, he sounds like he's in a good mood," deadpanned O'Keeffe, picking up a pad of paper and a pen from Martelli's desk and heading for the door. Martelli was right behind him.
O'Keeffe laughed nervously. "Yet another beautiful week in the First starting with a chewing out by the ever-loving Sweetheart of Ericsson Place."
"Oh, shit, Sean, I've been chewed out by bigger assholes than him in the Army, and so have you. Wasn't it you who told me, ‘If they ain't shootin' at you, don't sweat it!'?"
"Yeah, but this time it sounds as if the chief's shoved a poker up the captain's ass. And given how things work in the real world, we are the ones who are about to feel the pain."
Hanlon was an interesting study in human nature. Like most men, he was half good guy, half asshole. He lived with his wife Trish, whom he referred to as the ‘War Department,' and their sheltie Dakota—which they picked up while driving across the country on vacation after the dog had been abandoned by his previous owner near Wall Drug in South Dakota—on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Hanlon was a no-nonsense police captain who gave 110 percent to the Force. He expected the same from his officers and staff. In return, he gave them his undying loyalty and support.
But disappoint or cross the man and there was hell to pay. Several years earlier, following a sting operation in which three undercover narco cops were found to have been selling drugs out of their unmarked cars, Hanlon not only terminated them but stripped them of their pensions as well.
This did not sit well with the former cops' high-ranking union boss, a cigar-chomping monster of a man with an insufferable ego who probably got his start in local politics and fought his way up the union hierarchy until he sat near the top.
Within a day of Hanlon's actions, the union boss burst into captain's office unannounced.
"Do you remember that incident, Sean?"
"Hell, yes. You could see steam coming out of the guy's ears."
Martelli threw his head back and laughed as they rounded the corner near their captain's office. "He and Hanlon met for five minutes before the captain's door flew open and the guy hightailed it out of there without saying so much as a ‘fuck you and the horse you rode in on!' I don't know what Hanlon said or showed to him—maybe some pictures of the guy's wife doin' another guy—but that was the end of it. I'll tell you this, Sean, don't you ever, ever get on Hanlon's Shit List. He'll make you wish you were never born."
O'Keeffe, the younger of the two, chuckled nervously. "Why do I get the feeling we are about to have our names entered into the Book of Love."
Captain Hanlon was standing at his office door, waiting for them. Without a word, he pointed the men toward two chairs located to front of his desk. Once Martelli and O'Keeffe entered and were in the process of taking their seats, the chief slammed the door, closed the Venetian blinds on his office's windows, sat behind his large oak desk, and folded his hands in front of him.
Hanlon's face was crimson, his lips pursed. It appeared he was doing everything in his power to suppress the molten lava that lay boiling within the caldron just beneath the surface of his neatly pressed uniform. His hands started to tremble. And then he spoke, starting almost as a whisper, metering his words out in a slow, methodical fashion.
"I have just returned from Commissioner Field's office." He paused. "I would by lying to you if I said he, His Honor the Mayor, and I had a pleasant conversation."
Hanlon's volume now was rising. "We have been working the Tribeca murder case for two months. As far as I can see, we're no further along than we were a month ago. So please, gentlemen, enlighten me. What are we missing? Why haven't we been able to crack this case? Don't we have enough people working it? Has the DA's office not provided you with the subpoenas needed for any searches required? Have I let you down in some way?"
Hanlon suddenly raised his clenched right fist and slammed it onto his desktop. The noise startled Martelli and O'Keeffe. "What in goddamned hell is going on, Lou?"