Superbia (Book One of the Superbia Series) by Bernard Schaffer

fridge,” Frank said.  
    Vic stared at him
as they crossed the parking lot.   “Did
you play lacrosse in school?”
    “What the hell
kind of question is that?”
    “It’s an inquiry
about your former recreational sports activities.   So did you?   I bet you did.   Out there
frolicking with all your preppy friends running around with your baskets,
playing catch.”
    “Lacrosse is an
incredibly rough sport, Vic.   It takes
more strength than baseball and is more dangerous than football.”
    Vic nodded and
said, “That must be why they let chicks play it.”
    Bells rang on the
glass of the pizza shop door as they opened it.   The old man was waiting at a table for them with three drinks on the
table.   Frank looked at the straws inside
the cups and said, “Dad, I told you not to put the straws in the cups for
people.   It’s not sanitary.”   He yanked the straws out and winged them into
the trashcan.   He grabbed two new ones
and tossed one at Vic.   “Some people like
their straws to not taste like your grubby fingers before they drink out of
them.”
    Mr. O’Ryan looked
down at his cup and Vic leaned forward, “Was he always this big of a pussy?”
    Frank held up his
hands and said, “Hey!   Not cool,
man.   Not cool.”
    The old man
chuckled, “Nah, he was always a good kid.   Popular with the ladies.   Captain
of his lacrosse team.”
    Vic spun to look
at Frank, their faces just an inch away.   “I knew it.”
    “Shut up.   Listen, dad,” Frank said, “We can’t
stay.   We’ve got to run down to the city
to meet up with the FBI about a drug case.”
    “Oh,” Mr. O’Ryan
said.   “That’s too bad.   I was looking to hear how you were making out
as a dick.”
    “Detective,”
Frank said.
    “Sorry.   We called them dicks.”   He looked at Vic and said, “And they lived up
to the name, too, I’ll tell you.”
    Vic said, “Screw
the FBI.   They can wait.”
    “You know what
FBI stands for?” Mr. O’Ryan said.   “Famous
But Ineffective.”
    Vic smiled and
nodded to Frank, “That’s what I’m talking about.   Old School.   I love this guy.”   He held up his
hand and called out to the man behind the counter to make them a large
pie.   “So tell me about what it was like
when you first came on.”  
    “My very first
week on the job, we get a body dumped in the crick down by the old Watson
factory.   There’s three feet of water and
this girl is stuck in the reeds and wrapped up in a tarp.   So’s I get there and see my Chief standing
there with these two guys in real fancy suits.   They had the hats, the trench coats, the whole nine.   My Chief says to me, ‘Detective So-and-so
needs to go take a look at the body.   Carry him acrost.’”
    “Wait?   On your back?”
    Mr. O’Ryan
nodded, “That’s right.   I bent down and
carried the first detective over, then I took him back and had to carry the
next one.”
    “No way,” Vic
said.
    “Hand to God.”
    “I’d have dumped
their asses in the creek halfway across.”
    Mr. O’Ryan
shrugged and said, “That ain’t how it was back then.   We didn’t have none of the union protection you
guys get now or nothing like that.   The
Chief said to do it, and that was it.”
    “Unbelievable,” Vic
said.  
    “It wasn’t so
bad.   I liked it better than driving a
milk truck, that’s for sure.   I was just
a city kid.   Getting a cop job in the
burbs was a good gig.”
    “How come you
didn’t work in the city?”
    Mr. O’Ryan
shrugged and said, “Wrong color.   Back
then the mayor was making a push to put all the darkies in uniform.”
    “Dad!” Frank
said, looking around.  
    “Sorry, sorry,”
Mr. O’Ryan said.   “I meant the, you know,
blacks or colored people, or whatever they call themselves now.”  
    “I bet you saw
some crazy stuff.   Back then you guys
didn’t have all these cellphone cameras and internet garbage to worry
about.   It was just good old fashioned
police