Ten Things to Keep in Mind if You Ever Become a Hard-Nosed Veteran Police Captain

10. When your most respected senior detective is one day away from retirement, saddle him with an untested rookie partner and a dangerous serial-killer investigation.

9. ALWAYS pair a world-weary, by-the-book detective with a reckless loose cannon.

8. When confronting a wild young officer about his most recent tally of wrecked police cruisers and damaged civilian property, remind him that you worked with his father: a good cop who played by the rules, goddammit.

7. When you take a man’s badge and gun and send him on a forced one-week vacation, he’s going to get in your face and sneer something like, “Make it two.” The appropriate response is “You just bought yourself a month, you son-of-a-bitch. Now get outta my sight.”

6. When you’re having a beer with your veteran colleagues, grudgingly admit that the young officer you had to suspend might not do things the right way, but manages to get results nonetheless.

5. ALWAYS pair a sexist middle-aged male detective with a young female rookie who went to college but has never walked a beat.

4. Keep a picture of your ex-wife in your desk drawer, next to your gun and a bottle of scotch.

3. Stonewall the pricks from Internal Affairs as much as possible.

2. When City Hall is breathing down your neck to solve a high-profile crime by arresting some two-bit scumbag who probably didn’t do it, you’re about to unravel a conspiracy that goes straight to the top.

1. Smoke cigars inside your office. The clean-air mafia doesn’t understand the pressures of your job.