12 Quotes by Edward Conlon

Good cops make their bosses look good, and Hector was a one-man beauty school.

The bulletproof vest--'bullet resistant,' technically--is made of two double panels of a synthetic material called Kevlar, inside a cloth carrier that holds it around your torso like a lead X-ray smock. One cop wrote phrases from the Bible on his, 'Yea, though I walk in the valley of the Shadow of Death...' Other cops wrote their blood type.

When I had to work Shea Stadium for a Mets-Braves game – Atlanta pitcher John Rocker had recently given an interview in which he denounced New Yorkers of all Colors and preferences – I was assigned to a parking lot, where numerous drivers asked me for directions to various highways. When my first answer – “I have no idea” – seemed to invite denunciation and debate, I revised it to “Take the first left.” For all I know, those people are still lost in Queens.

What is the world coming to, when you can't trust a whore named Snake?

In any case, I was less unhappy than the teammate who wondered whether the purported tribute of being a "well-rounded detective" was a jibe around his weight.

On Sunday mornings, as the dawn burned into day, swarms of gulls descended on the uncollected trash, hovering and dropping in the cold clear light.

It wasn't as if crack was getting great press in the South Bronx in 1999, but it took a particular kind of idiot to wake up one day and say, 'Angel dust is a product I've heard nothing but good about, and it's about time I was involved.

Later that day when I passed the Admin lieutenant and the Sargeant standing by the Desk, I said casually, "I'm leaving too, Sarge.""Okay," he said, and I kept on walking.

Do you like being a cop?""I love it, when it doesn't suck, sir.