Tucked into the Times's huge account of life in a lower Manhattan police precinct (the officers are glad there's so little crime now, but sort of disappointed to be, e.g., following up noise complaints about ice cream trucks) is the story of a dyke-with-a-heart-of-gold lieutenant who's in the middle of a donor sperm IVF cycle:
Late one night, Lieutenant Fanale sits in the passenger seat of her unmarked car, waiting for the undercover cadet to enter a pool hall that is not supposed to be selling alcohol, but may be anyway. Beside her is Officer Jacqueline Peters, her driver and friend since the lieutenant arrived in the Fifth. "I wish Sonny would get here with my shots," the lieutenant says. She left her hormone injections back at the precinct house. The officer finally calls her cellphone.
"I'm on the corner of Eldridge and Hester," Lieutenant Fanale says. She hangs up and chuckles. "It's like a drug transaction."
Another unmarked car pulls up. An officer, Richie Stellmann, leans out with a paper bag. "We got the goods," he says, passing it over and driving away.
Her driver, Officer Peters, takes the needles and small bottles that Lieutenant Fanale hands her and arranges them on the keyboard of the laptop computer between the front seats. Working in the pale glow of the screen, she draws liquid from the bottles into the syringe, tapping the tube with a fingernail to get the bubbles out. "You know somebody's going to call this in," the lieutenant says. " 'They're shooting up in the car and they're wearing N.Y.P.D. jackets.' "
She kneels sideways on the seat, ducking her head and spiked gray hair against the roof. Officer Peters leans forward and carefully inserts the needle into her lieutenant's belly and pushes the plunger. Done.
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