He opened his eyes and recognized the police commissioner's office. It
would be hard not to recognize: the room was large, devoid of furniture
except for a desk and chairs, but the walls were lined with the
controls of television screens, electronic calculators and a hundred
other machines that formed New York's mechanical police force.
Commissioner Hendricks was a remarkable character. There was something
wrong with his glands, and he was a huge, greasy bulk of a man with
bushy eyebrows and a double chin. His steel-gray eyes showed something
of his intelligence and he would have gone far in politics if fate
hadn't made him so ugly, for more than half the voters who elected men
to high political positions were women.
Anyone who knew Hendricks well liked him, for he was a friendly,
likable person. But the millions of women voters who saw his face on
posters and on their TV screens saw only the ugly face and heard only
the harsh voice. The President of the United States was a capable
man, but also a very handsome one, and the fact that a man who looked
something like a bulldog had been elected as New York's police
commissioner was a credit to Hendricks and millions of women voters.
"Where's the girl?" Joe asked.
"I processed her while you were out cold. She left. Joe, you--"
"Okay," Joe said. "I'll save you the trouble. I admit it. Attempted
rape. I confess."
Hendricks smiled. "Sorry, Joe. You missed the boat again." He reached
out and turned a dial on his desk top. "We had a microphone hidden in
that alley. We have a lot of microphones hidden in a lot of alleys.
You'd be surprised at the number of conspiracies that take place in
alleys!"
Joe listened numbly to his voice as it came from one of the hundreds of
machines on the walls, "_Scream. Scream as loud as you can, and when
the cops get here, tell 'em I tried to rape you._" And then the girl's
voice, "_Sorry, buddy. Can't help--_"