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1 NARCOTIC AGENT T he first three days that I spent at the John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building in downtown Boston were three of the longest days in my recent memory. I was fresh out of the agents academy of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. My group supervisor, Todd Downs, called me into his office a couple of minutes after eight o’clock on Monday morning, my first day. I checked the knot on my tie to make sure that it was perfectly straight, then followed my fingers down to make certain that my shirt buttons lined up perfectly with my belt buckle, military style, as I hurried toward Downs’s office. My white shirt was starched, my shoes were shined, and my pistol was holstered snugly on my hip. With eager anticipation, I stood in the doorway of the boss’s office cubicle, ready for action. ‘‘We got a big day ahead of us,’’ Downs said from behind his desk. I looked at him earnestly. Action scenes came to mind. I pictured myself crashing through a door, as I had been practicing at agent school, arresting a suspect at gunpoint, and putting the cuffs on him. That tingly feeling started in my stomach. ‘‘There’s a lot to do,’’ Downs continued in a confidential tone, almost solemnly, with a pained expression on his face. Imagining the serious, difficult assignment he was about to give me, I nodded my head to assure him that I was ready to spring into action. Then, Downs squinted his eyes, as he fixed his stare at me and stood up. He was a big man physically and he .......................... 10590$ $CH1 03-12-04 13:06:11 PS seemed to fill the room with his bulk, his head almost touching the ceiling of his office. ‘‘Let’s go!’’ Downs ordered. He walked around the desk and ducked his head to get through the door as he marched out of the cubicle. I stepped aside to make way for him. When he passed by, I fell in behind him like a soldier. Downs stopped abruptly, maybe six feet from his office door. I would have walked into him if I had not reacted quickly and stopped. Downs turned, and almost like an afterthought, he motioned toward the secretary with his big hairy hand, which was almost in my face. He began to speak. ‘‘We gotta purge the files,’’ Downs announced. I stood obediently, listening politely to Downs’s instructions to the secretary. I tried to appear as if I was interested, while he went on much longer than necessary about secretarial matters. Feeling self-conscious, I looked down at my shoes, then glanced at the secretary and smiled. The secretary was struggling to be patient with Downs’s endless instructions while her eyes moved from Downs’s to mine. Her eyes landed on me just as I was smiling at her feigned look of interest and she smiled slightly, rolling her eyes to convey her frustration. I could sense the eyes of the other agents in the group on my back, watching me standing helplessly next to Downs. Finally, the tone of Downs’s voice signaled that he was coming to the end of his talk, so I straightened up and looked at him. He lifted his eyes from the manila file folder at which he had been staring during his entire talk, and he turned to me and said with an inappropriate smile: ‘‘Mary’s on vacation for the week, but I know that you and Jen can get the job done. Go get ’em.’’ My heart sank at the realization that he had been talking to me all along and that I was being relegated to a clerical assignment. I could feel my face drop as I looked at Downs in disbelief. I stood still momentarily in the wake of his departure, stunned at the put-down, and half listening to the sound of his shoes klunking down the hallway. I looked up at Jen and she returned a sympathetic look. Feeling totally foolish with a Smith and Wesson strapped to my side as I combed through the file cabinets looking for outdated files, I decided to remove my pistol and lock it in my desk. It was not until the end of the day that Downs, after walking by Jen and me all day long, stopped and gave me an incredulous stare. Tucking his chin in, so that the skin...

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