The Loser

Twenty-first precinct Detective Golden. What do you mean, Rob? Held up? Where is it? Thirty-five or thirty-nine? What is it there? The bar? How many holds up? You are in the master room at the twenty-first precinct, the NERF Center.

A call is coming through. You will follow the action taken pursuant to that call from this minute until the final report is written in the one-twenty-four room at the twenty-first precinct. All right. I'll send the officers right over there.

Yeah, right away. They'll be there. Okay. Yeah. Twenty-first precinct transcribed. It's just lines on a map of the city of New York. Most of the 173,000 people wedged into the 9th and the square mile between Fifth Avenue and the East River wouldn't know if you asked them that they lived or worked in the 21st.

Whether they know what or not the security of their homes, their security of their homes, their persons, and their property is the job of the men of the Twenty-first Precinct. The Twenty-first, one hundred and sixty patrolman, eleven sergeants, and four lieutenants of whom I am the boss. My name is Finelli, Frank Finelli. I am Captain

in command of the Twenty-first. I was working my day tour, eight AM to six PM. It was a cold winter day in the precinct, and our patrol problems had been increased enormously because of men drawn away from the command for temporary duty elsewhere. Orders had come by a teletype at 7am from the Bureau of Orders to detail four men to the Manhattan West borough command

because of a parade on Broadway. In addition, the Shah of Iran had been scheduled to visit the exhibit of ancient Persian relics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 11am, and consequently six patrolmen and the sergeant were assigned from the 21st to duty on Fifth Avenue in the vicinity of the museum. Because we were short of men in the precinct for the day, I went