The Blue Knight (15 page)

TEN

C
ODE TWO MEANS HURRY UP
, and whenever policemen get that call to go to the station they start worrying about things. I’ve had a hundred partners tell me that: “What did I do wrong? Am I in trouble? Did something happen to the old lady? The kids?” I never had such thoughts, of course. A code-two call to go to the station just meant to me that they had some special shit detail they needed a man for, and mine happened to be the car they picked.

When I got to the watch commander’s office, Lieutenant Hilliard was sitting at his desk reading the morning editorials, his millions of wrinkles deeper than usual, looking as mean as he always did when he read the cop-baiting letters to the editor and editorial cartoons which snipe at cops. He never stopped reading them though, and scowling all the way.

“Hi, Bumper,” he said, glancing up. “One of the vice officers wants you in his office. Something about a bookmaker you turned for them?”

“Oh yeah, one of my snitches gave him some information yesterday. Guess Charlie Bronski needs to talk to me some more.”

“Going to take down a bookie, Bumper?” Hilliard grinned. He was a hell of a copper in his day. He wore seven service stripes on his left forearm, each one signifying five years’ service. His thin hands were knobby and covered with bulging blue veins. He had trouble with bone deterioration now, and walked with a cane.

“I’m a patrol officer. Can’t be doing vice work. No time.”

“If you’ve got something going with Bronski, go ahead and work on it. Vice caper or not, it’s all police work. Besides, I’ve never seen many uniformed policemen tear off a bookmaker. That’s about the only kind of pinch you’ve never made for me, Bumper.”

“We’ll see what we can do, Lieutenant,” I smiled, and left him there, scowling at the editorials again, an old man that should’ve pulled the pin years ago. Now he’d been here too long. He couldn’t leave or he’d die. And he couldn’t do the work anymore, so he just sat and talked police work to other guys like him who believed police work meant throwing lots of bad guys in jail and that all your other duties were just incidental. The young officers were afraid to get close to the watch commander’s office when he was in there. I’ve seen rookies call a sergeant out into the hall to have him approve a report so they wouldn’t have to take it to Lieutenant Hilliard. He demanded excellence, especially on reports. Nobody’s ever asked that of the young cops who were TV babies, not in all their lives. So he was generally avoided by the men he commanded.

Charlie Bronski was in his office with two other vice officers when I entered.

“What’s up, Charlie?” I asked.

“We had some unbelievable luck, Bumper. We ran the phone number and it comes back to an apartment on Hobart near Eighth Street, and Red Scalotta hangs around Eighth Street quite a bit when he’s not at his restaurant on Wilshire. I’m betting that phone number you squeezed out of Zoot goes right into Reba McClain’s pad just like I hoped. She always stays close by Red, but never too close. Red’s been married happily for thirty years and has a daughter in Stanford and a son in medical school. Salt of the earth, that asshole is.”

“Gave nine thousand last year to two separate churches in Beverly Hills,” said one of the other vice officers, who looked like a wild young head with his collar-length hair, and beard, and floppy hat with peace and pot buttons all over it. He wore a cruddy denim shirt cut off at the shoulders and looked like a typical Main Street fruit hustler.

“And God returns it a hundredfold,” said the other vice officer, Nick Papalous, a melancholy-looking guy, with small white teeth. Nick had a big Zapata moustache, sideburns, and wore orange-flowered flares. I’d worked with Nick several times before he went to vice. He was a good cop for being so young.

“You seemed pretty hot on taking a book, Bumper, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to go with us. This isn’t going to be a back office, but it might lead to one, thanks to your friend Zoot. What do you say, want to come?”

“Do I have to change to civvies?”

“Not if you don’t want to. Nick and Fuzzy here are going to take the door down. You and me could stiff in the call from the pay phone at the corner. Your uniform wouldn’t get in the way.”

“Okay, let’s go,” I said, anxious for a little action, glad I didn’t have to take the uniform off. “Never went on a vice raid before. Do we have to synchronize our watches and all that?”

“I’ll do the door,” Nick grinned. “Fuzzy’ll watch out the window and keep an eyeball on you and Bumper down at the pay phone on the corner. When you get the bet stiffed, Fuzzy’ll see your signal and give me the okay and down goes the door.”

“Kind of tough kicking, ain’t it, Nick, in those crepe-soled, sneak-and-peek shoes you guys wear?”

“Damn straight, Bumper,” Nick smiled. “I could sure use those size-twelve boondockers of yours.”

“Thirteens,” I said.

“Wish I could take down the door,” said Fuzzy. “Nothing I like better than John Wayne-ing a goddamn door.”

“Tell Bumper why you can’t, Fuzzy,” Nick grinned.

“Got a sprained ankle and a pulled hamstring,” said Fuzzy, taking a few limping steps to show me. “I was off duty for two weeks.”

“Tell Bumper how it happened,” said Nick, still grinning.

“Freakin’ fruit,” said Fuzzy, pulling off the wide-brimmed hat and throwing back his long blond hair. “We got a vice complaint about this fruit down at the main library, hangs around out back and really comes on strong with every young guy he sees.”

“Fat mother,” said Charlie. “Almost as heavy as you, Bumper. And strong.”

“Damn!” said Fuzzy, shaking his head, looking serious even though Nick was still grinning. “You shoulda seen the arms on that animal! Anyway, I get picked to operate him, naturally.”

“’Cause you’re so pretty, Fuzzy,” said Charlie.

“Yeah, anyway, I go out there, about two in the afternoon, and hang around a little bit, and sure enough, there he is standing by that scrub oak tree and I don’t know which one’s the freakin tree for a couple minutes, he’s so wide. And I swear I never saw a hornier fruit in my life ’cause I just walked up and said, ‘Hi.’ That’s all, I swear.”

“Come on, Fuzzy, you winked at him,” said Charlie, winking at me.

“You asshole,” said Fuzzy. “I swear I just said, ‘Hi, Brucie,’ or something like that, and this mother grabbed me. Grabbed me! In a bear hug! He pinned my arms! I was shocked, I tell you! Then he starts bouncing me up and down against his fat belly, saying, ‘You’re so cute. You’re so cute. You’re so cute.’”

Then Fuzzy stood up and started bouncing up and down with his arms up against his sides and his head bobbing. “Like this I was,” said Fuzzy. “Like a goddamn rag doll bouncing, and I said, ‘Y-y-y-you’re u-u-u-under a-a-a-arrest,’ and he stopped loving me and said, ‘What?’ and I said, ‘YOU’RE UNDER ARREST, YOU FAT ZOMBIE!’ And he threw me. Threw me! And I rolled down the hill and crashed into the concrete steps. And you know what happens then? My partner here lets him get away. He claims he couldn’t catch the asshole and the guy couldn’t run no faster than a pregnant alligator. My brave partner!”

“Fuzzy really wants that guy bad,” Charlie grinned. “I tried to catch him, honest, Fuzzy.” Then to me, “I think Fuzzy fell in love. He wanted the fat boy’s phone number.”

“Yuk!” said Fuzzy, getting a chill as he thought about it. “We got a warrant for that prick for battery on a police officer. Wait’ll I get him. I’ll get that prick in a choke hold and lobotomize him!”

“By the way, what’s the signal you use for crashing in the pad?” I asked.

“We always give it this,” said Charlie, pumping his closed fist up and down.

“Double time,” I smiled. “Hey, that takes me back to my old infantry days.” I felt good now, getting to do something a little different. Maybe I should’ve tried working vice, I thought, but no, I’ve had lots more action and lots more variety on my beat. That’s where it’s at. That’s where it’s really at.

“Reba must have some fine, fine pussy,” said Fuzzy, puffing on a slim cigar and cocking his head at Charlie. I could tell by the smell it was a ten- or fifteen-center. I’d quit smoking first, I thought.

“She’s been with Red a few years now,” said Nick to Fuzzy. “Wait’ll you meet her. Those mug shots don’t do her justice. Good-looking snake.”

“You cold-blooded vice cops don’t care how good-looking a broad is,” I said, needling Charlie. “All a broad is to you is a booking number. I’ll bet when some fine-looking whore thinking you’re a trick lays down and spreads her legs, you just drop that cold badge right on top of her.”

“Right on her bare tummy,” said Nick. “But I’ll bet Reba has more than a nice tight pussy. A guy like Scalotta could have a million broads. She must give extra good head or something.”

“That’s what I need, a little skull,” said Fuzzy, leaning back in a swivel chair, his soft-soled shoes propped up on a desk. He was a pink-faced kid above the beard, not a day over twenty-four, I’d guess.

“A
little
skull’d be the first you ever had, Fuzzy,” said Nick.

“Ha!” said Fuzzy, the cigar clenched in his teeth. “I used to have this Chinese girlfriend that was a go-go dancer. . . .”

“Come on, Fuzzy,” said Charlie, “let’s not start those lies about all the puss you got when you worked Hollywood. Fuzzy’s laid every toadie on Sunset Boulevard three times.”

“I can tell you yellow is mellow,” Fuzzy leered. “This chick wouldn’t ball nobody but me. She used to wet her pants playing with the hair on my chest.” Fuzzy stood up then, and flexed his bicep.

Nick, always a man of few words, said, “Siddown, fruitbait.”

“Anyway, Reba ain’t just a good head job,” said Charlie. “That’s not why Scalotta keeps her. He’s a leather freak and likes to savage a broad. Dresses her up in animal skins and whales the shit out of her.”

“I never really believed those rumors,” said Nick.

“No shit?” said Fuzzy, really interested now.

“We had a snitch tell us about it one time,” said Charlie. “The snitch said Red Scalotta digs dykes and whips and Reba’s his favorite. The snitch told us it’s the only way Red can get it up anymore.”

“He
is
an old guy,” said Fuzzy seriously. “At least fifty, I think.”

“Reba’s a stone psycho, I tell you,” said Charlie. “Remember when we busted her, Nick? How she kept talking all the way to jail about the bull daggers and how they’d chase her around the goddamn jail cell before she could get bailed out.”

“That broad got dealt a bum hand,” said Nick.

“Ain’t got a full deck even now,” Charlie agreed.

“She’s scared of butches and yet she puts on dyke shows for Red Scalotta?” said Fuzzy, his bearded baby face split by a grin as he pictured it.

“Let’s get it over with,” said Charlie. “Then we can spend the rest of the day shooting pool in a nice cool beer bar, listening to Fuzzy’s stories about all those Hollywood groupies.”

Nick and Fuzzy took one vice car and I rode with Charlie in another one. It’s always possible there could be more than one in the pad, and they wanted room for prisoners.

“Groovy machine, Charlie,” I said, looking over the vice car which was new and air-conditioned. It was gold with mags, a stick, and slicks on the back. The police radio was concealed inside the glove compartment.

“It’s not bad,” said Charlie, “especially the air conditioning. Ever see air conditioning in a police car, Bumper?”

“Not the ones I drive, Charlie,” I said, firing up a cigar, and Charlie tore through the gears to show me the car had some life to it.

“Vice is lots of fun, Bumper, but you know, some of the best times were when I walked with you on your beat.”

“How long’d you work with me, Charlie, couple months?”

“About three months. Remember, we got that burglar that night? The guy that read the obituaries?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, not remembering that it was Charlie who’d been with me. When they have you breaking in rookies, they all kind of merge in your memory, and you don’t remember them very well as individuals.

“Remember? We were shaking this guy just outside the Indian beer bar near Third, and you noticed the obituary column folded up in his shirt pocket? Then you told me about how some burglars read the obituaries and then burgle the pads of the dead people after the funeral when chances are there’s nobody going to be there for a while.”

“I remember,” I said, blowing a cloud of smoke at the windshield, thinking how the widow or widower usually stays with a relative for a while. Rotten M.O., I can’t stand grave robbing. Seems like your victim ought to have some kind of chance.

“We got a commendation for that pinch, Bumper.”

“We did? I can’t remember.”

“Of course I got one only because I was with you. That guy burgled ten or fifteen pads like that. Remember? I was so green I couldn’t understand why he carried a pair of socks in his back pocket and I asked you if many of these transient types carried a change of socks with them. Then you showed me the stretch marks in the socks from his fingers and explained how they wear them for gloves so’s not to leave prints. You never put me down even when I asked something that dumb.”

“I always liked guys to ask questions,” I said, beginning to wish Charlie’d shut up.

“Hey, Charlie,” I said, to change the subject, “if we take a good phone spot today, what’re the chances it could lead to something big?”

“You mean like a back office?”

“Yeah.”

“Almost no chance at all. How come you’re so damned anxious to take a back?”

“I don’t know. I’m leaving the job soon and I never really took a big crook like Red Scalotta. I’d just like to nail one.”

“Christ, I never took anyone as big as Scalotta either. And what do you mean, you’re leaving? Pulling the pin?”

“One of these days.”

“I just can’t picture you retiring.”

“
You’re
leaving after twenty years aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but not
you
.”

“Let’s forget about it,” I said, and Charlie looked at me for a minute and then opened the glove compartment and turned to frequency six for two-way communication with the others.

“One-Victor-One to One-Victor-Two,” said Charlie.