My wedding went off without a hitch. Lynn and I had a very small ceremony. We took a relaxing boat cruise down the East Coast. The time spent away from the job was a much-needed rest for both of us. What I had gone through in the last couple of years, so had Lynn. It was just the two of us, and I made it a point to be there with her 100 percent. I can't say that my mind didn't wander back to the case, because it did. I knew that the next part of the investigation was either going to make or break the case. And this time away allowed me to clear all the thoughts of the betrayal, and backbiting among the cops, and to completely concentrate on the next plan of attack. I knew I had to become proactive in the case, and not actually being able to knock on the front door of the mosque was going to make this task difficult. So on my fabulously relaxing honeymoon, I planned the second part of my investigation: bringing the Muslims to the cops.
I knew I had Muldoon painted into a corner. The brass knew my investigation was focused solely on a Muslim, not on them. They also knew that I was given strict orders to stay away from the mosque. So in the eyes of the job, I was a harmless antidote to the angry cops. There was no way they were going to give Lieutenant Muldoon the power to bounce me off the case. I knew this, and Muldoon knew I knew this.
First day back, I met Vito in the 2-5. Our snazzy new office wasn't really an office at all. We were banished to the men's locker room where broken, discarded lockers were used to construct two walls. The good news was that it was situated right next to the men's bathroom, bad news, faucets leaked and toilets never really flushed; the stench was unbearable. For a second I was furious. But then I saw the upside. No one, including Muldoon, would show his face in this sewer. We were alone, nomads of the job, and this suited me just fine.
Vito gave me the lowdown on the past week. Muldoon didn't believe that I was on my honeymoon. He assumed I was out in the field working the case, off the short leash he had me on. I had to laugh.
My batteries were recharged, and I knew how to handle the rest of the case. Anything I needed, I was going to ask for. Surveillance equipment, extra undercovers, unmarked cars; I knew I wasn't going to get them, but there had to be a paper trail, showing that my requests had been denied. If I was the fall guy for the brass, Muldoon was going to be my fall guy.
I brought to Muldoon the five on the missing gun, which had to be answered. It was a part of the case, and as long as that cop's gun was still missing, there'd be an alarm on it, and the catching detective—me—was going to have to address it.
I didn't say “hello.” Those days were over. I laid the five on his desk. “That's the five on Padilla's gun. I have to do a follow-up on it.”
He slid the paper to the edge of the desk without looking at it. “So, do the follow-up on it.”
“Okay. I'll go to the mosque and inquire whether it's turned up since the day of occurrence.” I snatched up the five and turned to walk out.
He yelled, “Woah, woah, woah, hold up, Jurgensen.”
I turned. “Yeah, Lieutenant?”
“What do you mean, you're going to the mosque? You can't go to the mosque. We've already been through this.”
Again, his demeanor wasn't as forthright. He almost seemed to be deferring to me. I didn't want to overplay my hand.
“Well, Sir, for me to address the alarm on the gun properly, I have to go to the location where it was stolen. That would be the mosque, no?”
He held up his forefinger as he moved quickly to the door. He gently closed it, pressing his back firmly against it. Now both forefingers were pointed at me like little pink pistols. “You wanna start another riot, Jurgensen? Or you wanna get yourself killed? Or better yet, you wanna get killed, and have me thrown to the wolves. That's it, isn't it? Am I speaking in Swahili or are you simply pretending that your ears are flapping over. You are not allowed to go near the fucking mosque, period.”
I blinked at him a number of times. He moved back to his desk, sitting heavily in the chair. “Okay, Lieutenant. So you dictate to me exactly what it is you want me to write on the five. The five, mind you, that has to be addressed relatively soon.”
He looked confused. I asked, “Do you want me to write that I made the request to go to the mosque, which would be the proper procedure, but you denied me that request?”
I received the same blank stare. He couldn't say anything, because he wasn't going to put his name on the five saying he forbade me access to the mosque. No one was going to put a name on a court document illuminating the fact that they'd impeded this investigation. If the cops knew about this, the job would implode. And that was my bargaining chip with him and the rest of the hierarchy on the job. I now had a weapon called plausible deniability in my arsenal, and I was going to use it every chance I got. What Muldoon and the rest of the brass didn't know wasn't going to get them censured for nonfeasance of duty. They weren't going to ask me anything, because they didn't want to know anything.
He remained quiet, hands resting on his belly, surrendering to the impasse I had presented. I folded the five, placed it in my pocket, and walked out of his office. Muldoon had become as docile as a puppy. Now it was time to work the case.
I prepared a list of the equipment I'd need: 35mm camera, lots of film, and an unmarked truck with an undercover operator. Then I drew up the five on the missing gun. Every one of these requests was dispatched through the proper channels, eventually ending up at One PP. Now there was a paper trail, and it would only get larger as the case dragged on.
The denials were inevitable. I didn't wait. Vito and I drove up to the Manhattan North Narcotics Division. The unit was housed in a nondescript factory way up in the confines of the 3-4 Precinct. I knew most of the guys assigned to the unit, and when I walked in with Vito, they knew exactly why I was there.
José Acevedo was a skinny Hispanic UC, who at thirty-eight looked like a senior in high school. He was an excellent undercover who had worked narcotics with me ten years prior. “Oh shit, if it ain't the Kid! To what we owe this honor?” he said as he approached and hugged me.
I laughed sarcastically, “You either doing something very right, or very wrong, José. I mean ten years narcotics? C'mon, Son.”
“You know how it goes. What you up to? We hear you as hot as a pistol, Kid.”
Hot as a pistol meant I was under a microscope and other cops would do well to stay far the fuck away, and that sucked because all I was doing was working the case of a dead cop.
“What, you here for a package?” he asked.
“Camera, film, and a vehicle, José.”
“You got it, Kid.”
We followed him through double security doors to a large windowless room with cinderblock walls. It looked like a hardware and electronics emporium. Metal shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, containing dozens of 35mm cameras, lenses of every size and dimension, rolls of film, Kel wire sets, walkie-talkies, flashlights, shotguns, ammunition, gas-powered generators, sledgehammers, bolt cutters, and chain saws. I hadn't worked narcotics for more than ten years. The upgrade was impressive. I playfully elbowed Vito; we both smiled.
“This lens will read you a license plate at a thousand yards, or erect nipples on a cold day, same distance.” Then he handed me a bag full of film. “Type of truck you need Kid?”
“As nondescript as you got.”
We followed him out to the parking lot. There were flash cars, work vans, and yellow taxis. I saw a Con Edison work truck, bucket included. That would be the perfect surveillance vehicle. “I'll take the Con Ed truck.”
I turned to Vito, “You're gonna look good in that cherry picker, Vito.” We laughed, two kids in a candy store.
Back inside, José handed me the keys to the truck. He slid a giant logbook at me. “All's I need is your John Hancock, Kid.”
We stared at the open logbook. “José, we can't sign for this stuff. That's why we're here. We just need a loan for a couple of days. The job won't give us this equipment.”
“Job won't give it to you?”
“No, man, they don't want us anywhere near the mosque. We're on our own on this case. We're pretty much poaching for a collar.”
He slowly pulled the book toward him, realizing his own anger at the job, slamming it closed. “You've got to be fucking kidding me.”
Both Vito and I shook our heads. He said, “I'm so sorry, Randy. I mean really, this is fucked, but I can't backdoor this stuff, especially the truck, unless you give me a signature.”
Vito shook his head once again and walked out. José called after him, “Guy, I'm really sorry!” And I know he was, but that didn't help us. “Randy, I don't know what to say.”
“It's alright, José. I don't wanna get you jammed up.” I turned, “Be safe, José.” As I walked out of the building, I felt as though I was no longer a member of the NYPD. I was on the outside looking in. I realized that this was definitely going to be my last case. But I wasn't going to slip on the bullshit so easily.
I had another plan.
I put on a good face for Vito as I got back in the car. He didn't try to hide his contempt one bit. “This job's got a million motherfucking dollars' worth of equipment to collar dope heads, but for a dead cop, we can't get a camera and a roll of film. I wanna vomit, Randy, you know that? This job and those cocksuckers downtown are a fucking joke. A dead cop, Randy, a dead cop. My partner...” His head dropped into his hands.
I drove for a while, not saying anything. Vito was right. He had every right to shut down. He didn't engage me, just stared out the window, eyes watery, red rimmed. He was hurt, lost. I knew he was never going to get over this. After a while, I said, “Vito, this case lives or dies with us. And whatever happens, good or bad, stays between us. You and I need to be simpatico on this. That shit that happened back there, it has to roll off our shoulders. If it doesn't, we're going to fall into a deep fucking hole, one we ain't getting out of so easily. I need you to promise me that whatever else happens, including this horseshit today, doesn't leave this car. We're partners now. I got your back, and I know you got mine, right?”
He nodded.
Sam DeMilia was an old friend from my patrol days who was now the president of the PBA. Since the very beginning of this fiasco, Sam was extremely vocal against the brass, particularly the police commissioner, and Mayor Lindsay himself. He called press conferences on the steps of City Hall where he rallied thousands of cops in protest. When he proclaimed that a citywide slowdown was imminent, the twelfth floor of One PP took particular notice. The PBA had essentially forced the job's hand into having the case properly investigated.
Sam and I both agreed that we should meet far away from the borough of Manhattan. I was too hot, and Sam and the PBA, in general, were always hot. We met at a low-key restaurant on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn. He was alone and already seated when I entered the tiny family-style trattoria. Sam was an impeccably dressed bull of a man with a quiet take-charge personality, and he was a wildly popular union chief among the rank-and-file cops. He stood, holding out both his hands. We shook. At that moment in time, Sam was One PP's biggest enemy, and I, basically represented One PP. By taking this meeting, though we were old friends, I was meeting with the enemy. I had suddenly switched flags.
I explained my case to him, told him what I needed. I skipped over the speed bumps we'd hit. It would only have pissed him off even more and gotten us off course. He was inquisitive as to why the Chief of Detectives' office wasn't supplying me with the necessary equipment. I lied and told him the requests were caught up in bureaucracy, and it was holding me up.
He sat back, contemplating the nonsense I'd just fed him. Sam DeMilia was no understudy. Though his ID card read patrolman—the lowest rank in the NYPD—he wielded as much power as anyone at the porcelain palace. He was the shaman to the 30,000-member police union. Sam DeMilia was the man who negotiated pay raises, holidays, and sick leave with the city's administrators, and he protected that lowly cop on patrol from the councils of power at One PP. There wasn't one aspect of the Phil Cardillo case he wasn't aware of. He knew I was lying. But Sam was still a cop who wanted the killer brought in above all else. Sometimes people need to hear certain untruths to allow them move forward.
After a thoughtful pause, he began nodding his head slowly. He pulled a thin gold monogrammed cardholder out of his breast pocket. He removed a card, writing his direct work and home numbers on its back. He slid it across the table. “Where you working this, Randy?”
I lied again. “2-5 squad.” 2-5 locker room just didn't have the pizzazz.
“You'll have the truck and equipment by tomorrow's day tour. From now on, call me direct. If I'm not at the office, you can get me at home. Whatever you need, please, come to me.”
“This has got to be on the down-low, Sam. The least amount of people involved, the better off I am, and the faster I can identify the suspects at the mosque.”
“Randy, I know they got your balls in a vice. The last thing I'm gonna do is help those pricks suppress their cowardice any further. Mark my words, Randy, I have a blanket party in store for all of them.”
The next morning, as promised, an undercover cop met me in the 2-5 squad. He handed me a canvas bag and a set of keys. He told me where the vehicle was parked, and turned and walked out as quickly as he had come in.
Inside the bag were three Nikons, as expensive and powerful as the Narcotics Bureau cameras, and boxes and boxes of film.
The truck was an excellent vehicle for the task at hand. It was an old-fashioned ice cream truck with a small cab in the front and a larger stand-up cab in the rear, with slider-type windows on its sides and back. Wrapped in a large black duffle bag in the rear cab were police flares, a truck wrench, searchlights, a door ram, bolt cutters, an acetylene torch, and an assortment of sledgehammers and pickaxes. This would have been overkill on a bank heist. I got the message the PBA was sending loud and clear: Anything needed would be provided.
I hit the ground running. I set up one block west of the mosque. The rear of the cab had an unobstructed view of the front double doors. I focused the 800mm zoom lens on the entrance and I waited and waited and waited. Very few people entered the building, and the ones who had, moved in and out very quickly, making it impossible to get a clear frontal shot. I sat there for two days, grinding my teeth. I had to start thinking out of the box.
I walked to a pay phone and placed a call to the 2-8 telephone switchboard. I requested an RMP to eighty-five me, no emergency, three blocks west of the mosque. In seconds an RMP with two uniforms was there. I told them to double-park the RMP across the street from the mosque, pointing in the wrong direction about five car lengths to the west. I told them to do nothing, just sit in the car with the turret light on. They did as requested—no questions asked.
Back in the truck, I waited. I didn't wait long. The front door of the mosque opened, spilling curious FOI soldiers out onto the sidewalk to see what the cops were up to. click-click-click-click-click-click-click. The RMP pulled away in a matter of minutes, as instructed, and the FOI men filed back into the building. We did this for three straight days, until all the film was used.
The truck and all its equipment was returned, and I decided I'd need to find a new office where I could be alone.
We decided that Vito and I should work opposite tours, he in the mornings, I in the afternoons and evenings, which was a moot point since I'd been working sixteen-hour tours since catching the case. Vito's job was to field all calls and personal visits into the 2-5 that were pertinent to the case. What he was really doing was cooling out all the cops who wanted to know the progress of the case. He was happy. The cops were happy. I was free to develop and hopefully solve.
Larry Marinelli's office was located at Fifty-fourth Street and Tenth Avenue. It was a large facility with three smaller offices situated off its main reception area. Larry had one office, another office housed flatbed, plus upright editing bays, a film-developing kiosk, and a third office was vacant. Larry was well aware of my real estate problems in the NYPD, so he magnanimously offered this space to me, no strings attached.
I was way off the radar and couldn't tell anyone, Vito included. By conducting an investigation at an unrecognized police facility, I was breaking NYPD operating procedure. If I got caught, I'd be fired, and I wasn't about to bring Vito down with me. That office was to become the unofficial Cardillo/Jurgensen war room.
I brought the film into the office and Larry developed the cartridges into black–and-white eight-by-tens. I'd acquired twenty excellent shots, all men. I pinned every picture to the cork wall, and I studied each face for hours, trying to decipher if I'd seen any of these men the day of occurrence, trying to jog anything in my memory. Only one of these men was familiar to me: Captain Youseff Shau, the militant leader of the Fruit of Islam. I'd met him on a prior assault case that I had caught, which involved one of his underlings at the mosque. I drew a blank on everyone else.
I took them to the street. I hit shooting galleries, numbers joints, and dope spots. I searched out every CI and wanna-be CI I'd ever met. I called in every favor I had ever given out. I wanted names to go with the faces. I came up empty.
I was faced with two problems. Once a guy became a part of the Black Muslims, he became a recluse from the community he came from. Many of the Muslims who were members of Mosque Number 7 were from outside the borough, so it was going to be almost impossible to get any credible street intel on them. Out of the twenty photos, I had just ID'd three. But I only had their Muslim names, not their birth names. After weeks of pounding the pavement and crashing dope spots, I was still coming up empty on any real pedigrees. I'd been through the NYPD Intelligence Division's files, and what they had on Muslims in New York could fit on the inside a matchbook. It was time to bring the case to someone else, and if I was caught, I'd be up for an early retirement. I was going to the FBI.
Every Wednesday night, agents from the FBI and cops from the NYPD played each other in a high-tension game of basketball at Manhattan's Regis High School. Bragging rights were on the line so the games were nice and spirited. Through all the wins, defeats, unpaid bets, and barbs, through all the trash-talk—somehow—lifetime friendships were made. That's how I'd become friends with a field agent named Joe Pistone. He was only six foot, but he could rebound better than anyone. Joe Pistone would go on to a lot of success within the bureau, and in the public eye, most notably as undercover agent, Donnie Brasco where he single-handedly tore apart the hierarchy of the Bonanno crime family. He was also portrayed in the film Donnie Brasco by the actor Johnny Depp.
At the time, the FBI was finding and detaining draft dodgers of the Vietnam War. On numerous occasions, agents would turn up in Zone-6 with photos, looking for street names and aliases. If there was a familiar face, we'd share whatever info we had. Now it was time to reverse the process.
When I entered the building, I signed in as Detective Eveready. This was to insulate as many men as I could from the possible firestorm ahead.
Joe and another agent I'd known from the Regis basketball games, Al Genkinger, were waiting for me as the elevator doors slid open. I realized that they were leery about the prospect of helping me.
I followed the agents into a smallish clerical office/coffee room. Joe closed the door, offering us privacy, but this was the FBI, so I assumed even this room was wired for sound.
Joe and Al both knew of the case. Hell, if you worked New York law enforcement, you'd have to be in a coma not to know. They seemed concerned. For me to come to them had to be a last-ditch effort on my part, and it was.
Pistone leaned against a table, suddenly cocky. “Randy, you here to collect on a bet?” He looked to Genkinger confused, “Wait a minute, Al, we won Wednesday night, didn't we? Oh that's right, you weren't there, Randy.” He smiled.
I laughed, “That's cold Joe. Are we ever gonna get over this damn rivalry?”
Genkinger poured three cups of coffee. With his back to me, he asked, “So what's up, Randy?”
I zipped open my field jacket, removing the manila envelope that contained the photos. I pulled out the stack, handing them to Pistone. He went through them quickly, passing them to his partner, who breezed through them as well.
Pistone was careful not to use the words Muslim, FOI, or mosque. I took that as an affirmative; the room was wired for sound. He pointed at the photos. “The guys on your team, they gonna put their names on the jerseys?”
“Yeah, I'm having problems with them, though. They want their nicknames on the backs. I want real names to go on the jerseys.”
Pistone nodded. I'd already written my contact numbers on a slip of paper. I handed it to him. “I'm getting hammered on the prices for these damn things. Who are you using for your jerseys?”
“Guy I know in Brooklyn, he's cheap as hell. I'll call you in a couple of days when I find out the real numbers on the jerseys.”
He and Al hit me with some more barbs about my jump shot. As they led me from the room, we didn't talk about anything else.
I found myself moving quickly through the lobby. I tried desperately not to look at it, but there it was, that unmistakable iconic symbol in a field of blue: Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Underneath it read, “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”
The betrayal I felt wasn't going away. I'd been done dirty by the job, the New York City Police Department, but now it was my turn at infidelity. I'd turned a corner that only brought me closer to my own demise. I wasn't the NYPD's devoted little foot soldier anymore. I was a rogue operator, with no handlers and no support.
The turnover on the info was quick. While at my Hollywood office on Fifty-fourth Street, the receptionist buzzed me, “There's a Joe Murphy on line two, Mr. Jurgensen.”
I had to look around the room to see if my father had snuck in. Mr. Jurgensen? I had no idea who Joe Murphy was. “This is Jurgensen.” I heard street life in the background.
“Randy, I got those prices on the jerseys. Do you know where the Saint George Hotel is?”
“In Brooklyn?”
“Yeah, why not meet me there.”
“Now?”
“Is good'a time as any,” Pistone said dryly.
I'd been to the Saint George Hotel as a kid on field trips with my grammar school, Corpus Christi. My class would take the train, and within forty minutes we were whisked back in time to old New York. The Saint George was located in historic Brooklyn Heights. They were truly inspirational field trips for a bunch of rough and tumble Harlemites. After picnic lunches on the esplanade, we'd walk two short blocks to the Saint George Hotel for a swim in its indoor saltwater pool, which at the time was the largest in the country. Now, twenty-five years later, riding that same train, I was propelled back to the innocence of my childhood. I got lost in warm reminiscence, how as a kid everything seemed so possible, filled with such promise and certainty. Suddenly I was surged forward, and the train's screeching wheels brought me back to the miserable uncertainty of what my life had become. I began to question myself. Would all this deceit be justified in the end? Would it be the end of the case or the end of my career? Was my disloyal behavior getting me anywhere? Was it just pride pushing me? Was the vengeance I wanted for Phil's murder worth this disconnection from all the protocol I had ever known?
But then the train stopped and I didn't have time to ponder all these questions. Though it had been two and a half decades since I'd been in the building, I had no trouble finding the pool.
I noticed Joe lounging on a deck chair, wearing a pair of sunglasses and a thick white terrycloth robe. In hindsight, I assume that Joe was boning up for the part of his lifetime, but from where I stood, he resembled less an FBI agent than Al Capone. I chuckled as I made my way to him. Only thing missing are the cucumber slices for his eyes, I thought.
“You guys really know how to live, Joe.”
“So I've heard, Randy. So I've heard.”
He seemed preoccupied, slid the sunglasses half-way down his nose, watching everyone in the huge quad, never looking into my eyes. “I'm gonna get up. Take the seat. Underneath the pad is what you asked for. It's all there.”
He stood and began to walk away. I asked, “Is this a one-time thing, Joe?”
He stopped with his back to me, pulling off his glasses to clean them. “Up to you, Randy.” He walked away.
As Pistone walked past the pool, Al Genkinger emerged from the water with two other men. They followed Pistone through double doors, toward the locker rooms.
I didn't open the manila envelope until the train pulled out of the station. My hands were shaking. Each picture was numbered one through twenty. I unfolded a legal-size paper. On it were the numbers corresponding with the photos. Next to each number was a name, date of birth, and address. Some even had Social Security numbers. At the bottom of the paper, a type written message read: “please destroy.”
I slid the pictures back into the envelope. I was giddy. I now had real names and addresses to go with the faces.
The thoughts I had had on the way there suddenly gave way to an intense feeling of euphoria. I wasn't betraying the job, not the way the job had betrayed Phil. I was working it, rolling with it; and in doing so, I was damn close to avenging the senseless death of a New York City cop, my friend, Phil Cardillo. At that moment, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be in life, and it felt good to be alive.
Once the pedigrees were transferred to the pictures, I did as requested, destroyed the paper. Handwriting analysis and fingerprints were infallible pieces of evidence. I was sure they had wiped or dry-cleaned the pictures. The information could never be doubled back to the FBI.
I called Sam DeMilia again, requesting the truck and camera. I wanted to fill my corkboard with as many faces as I could. The more pictures I had, the better my chances were that one of them would turn out to be a witness, and maybe just maybe, the shooter.
I went back to work. Day after day, the same trap was set for the mosque and its members. The second they noticed the RMP across 116th Street, the doors would open and the FOI men would file out onto the sidewalk. Some days, I had duplicate photos, other days I'd have all new faces. After collecting about twenty new faces, I called Joe Murphy, who met me at the Saint George, and then again a week later to switch envelopes. I gave him the new photos; he passed me the dry-cleaned envelope filled with pedigrees.
In all I had sixty identified Muslims. Now was the hard part, placing them at the scene. It was time to call The Bull, John Van Lindt.
Van Lindt's office was on Baxter Street, which was located in the rear of 100 Centre Street, Manhattan's Supreme Court. He was the number one gun in the homicide division. He was the protégé of famed Bureau Chief John Keenan, who had convicted more murderers than any other ADA in the Manhattan DA's office, including the two cop killers I'd arrested, Victory and Bornholdt. Van Lindt was a serious-minded attorney who lived by the letter of the law. He was an introvert with a keen ear for listening and an eye on the smallest detail of any case. His sleeves were rolled up, tie loosened over a crisp snow-white shirt when I walked in. He sat back and listened intently as I broke the case down for him. What I didn't give him was the fact that a Hollywood film editor and agents from the FBI had inadvertently become my cornermen on the case. John Van Lindt and every other ADA in the entire tristate area knew all the scummy details of this case. I didn't feel the need to add any more negativity, especially with the man who was going to work this case.
After hearing my account of the ID'd Fruit of Islam soldiers, he was emphatic that not one of the Muslims be interviewed unless I was absolutely positive that the man was at the scene and he in fact saw the shooter. “You only have one chance at this, Randy. You grab the wrong man, he gives you a total lie. Then we have to start disproving the lies. It just makes it that much harder to make the case.”
I knew what he was saying all too well. I also knew that if I started detaining Muslims, two things were going to happen: the Muslims would coordinate their stories into one big gelatinous lie, and the real shooter would be in the wind.
We agreed, the only way to get any decent statements would be to turn one of the witnesses at the scene. That would mean one of them had to get himself arrested, I'd have to be informed of the collar, and then I'd have to turn him. My biggest problem was that out of the sixty ID's I had that at that moment, I couldn't place any one of them in that lobby.
It was time to go back to the cops.
My plan was to conduct photo arrays with all the cops I'd originally designated in tier one at the mosque. I'd been worried about doing this before, because once they'd ID'd the men, the cops would be howling for arrests. But I couldn't make an arrest until I knew who the shooter was. I didn't have a choice, so I hoped I could keep a handle on things.
I then had another idea. I would type up a UF49, which would simply state, that if an arrest was made of any Muslim, man or woman, I was to be notified immediately at the 2-5 Precinct so I could debrief and question the person or persons. The forty-nine would also state that a deal could be bartered if the information given was truthful and led to an arrest. I could circulate the forty-nine to all seventy-five precincts through the department mail.
I typed the forty-nine and brought it to Lieutenant Muldoon, where I was immediately denied the request. I didn't argue or imply a threat. I did what I was told to do. I put all my requests on paper. That paper trail was growing, and cutting a wide swath from the 2-5 directly to the twelfth floor of the puzzle palace, One PP.
I wasn't deterred. Muldoon wasn't running the case; I was. I typed and printed the forty-nines anyway. This was before Xerox machines. They had to be duplicated by hand, not an easy task. Once I was done, I set sail for Brooklyn, my first of many stops.