The man stands stock-still. His hands rise slowly. Keeping the suspect at arm's length, Marino uses his free hand to guide him against a tree and runs his hand up and down the man's legs and inside his coat. He can feel the suspect's heart beating like a bird's.

Marino calls the borough-wide robbery unit, which has the victim in an unmarked car not far away. "77 CO on the air. I have suspect on that 30. Classon and Eastern." Moments later, a sedan with two burly detectives in the front seat and the slim victim in the back glides to the curb for a "show-up," a personal identification. The victim leans forward to talk to one of the detectives, who puts his thumb down. It's the wrong guy.

Marino apologizes, explains to the man why he was stopped, and takes down some information. "So you can put me in the system for next time," he protests. "No," Marino explains. "This is to protect you against unwarranted searches. If you notice, you're black and I'm white, so we have to make sure that everything is on the up and up."

A week later, Marino is back at his desk with circles under his eyes. The robber still hasn't been caught, but the precinct detectives have come up with a suspect, a bull-necked ex-con with a history of armed street robberies. The crime numbers are still teetering, two weeks up and two weeks down in November. And there's a new problem: An anonymous typewritten letter has been delivered to community leaders and Precinct Community Council members detailing "Racism in the 77."

The letter accuses Marino of giving white officers preferential treatment and unequal punishments for similar infractions. A black officer received a written "command discipline" for being off post, the letter alleges, while a white officer didn't. But the worst part for Marino is when he hears the word in the precinct is that the letter is endorsed by half a dozen of the 60 or so black cops under his command.

"Mike Marino leads by example. That's why his cops named him after a part of the elephant's private anatomy."

The phone rings, and Marino reaches slowly for the receiver. It's his brother, Steven, also a city cop, on the line. "Yeah, it's me, the racist," Marino says bitterly. He hangs up and rocks mutely in his swivel chair while Sergeant Charlie Broughton stalks the floor in front of him, cursing the letter.

The refrigerator-shaped Broughton is one of the most active cops in the city. The 77 leads the city in gun arrests, and Broughton's five-man Anti-Crime unit accounts for many of them. Though Broughton denies it, he says that other cops whisper that he "tosses the world" -- searches people indiscriminately -- to get his guns. He's black, and on the street, he's called a sellout for his zeal. Broughton has learned to ignore the taunts, but he's incensed that Marino is being called a racist. So is Sergeant Gary Lemite and a number of other black officers, who blame the accusations on cops pushed out of their comfort zones by Marino's insistence that every officer do some real patrol work.

For at least several weeks, investigators from the NYPD's Office of Equal Employment Opportunity have been questioning cops in the 77. No matter what the tenor of their report, the potential for poisonous publicity alone makes it likely the Mike Marino experiment in Crown Heights will soon be over.

But Marino's supporters in the community don't abandon him. "We are blessed to have Mike Marino. He is fair," insists Trinidadian-born Precinct Community Council member Marlene Saunders. "You look in his eyes and you know he is like us."

Marino won't discuss the letter, but I learn that soon after it surfaced, he took steps to stop the precinct from splitting into camps. "Let the investigators do their job," he reportedly told the rank and file. "If something is wrong, they'll find it." But Marino's poker face doesn't fool everyone. "He's dyin' inside," Lemite observes.

The next week, when Marino steps up to the podium at CompStat, the chiefs want to know why the precinct didn't identify the robbery pattern sooner. Even though there were a number of mitigating factors, including the fact that some of the victims wouldn't or couldn't describe the gunman, Marino takes full personal responsibility. He then points out that his cops are working closely with neighboring precincts and Transit police to catch the robber, and that arrests and quality-of-life summonses are up. According to those present, his talk is comprehensive and blunt, vintage Marino.

The following Saturday night, Marino gets a call at home to appear in the commissioner's office at One Police Plaza on Monday morning.

Careers in the NYPD, built carefully over decades, can be lost over failure to react quickly to a pattern, damaged irreparably by a letter like the one circulated at the 77. Marino never held his tongue, never covered his back. Now it looks as though that's finally caught up with him.

Police Commissioner Kerik gestures for Marino to sit down. "How's the morale of your men?" he asks.

"As well as can be expected," Marino answers, "given the circumstances."

"They're working hard, Mike. You're doing a good job."

"They're good guys," Marino responds.

"You think you could do as good a job if I promoted you to deputy inspector?" Kerik says, extending his hand.