Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

I drove to Seymour’s and when I pulled up in front I saw two guys across Fourth Street in the parking lot at the rear of the Pink Dragon. I watched for thirty seconds or so and it looked like they were setting something up, probably a narcotics buy. Even after twenty years I still get that thrill a cop gets at seeing things that are invisible to the square citizen. But what was the use? I could drive down Main Street anytime and see hugger-muggers, paddy hustlers, till-tappers, junkies, and then waste six or eight man-hours staking out on these small-timers and maybe end up with nothing. You only had time to grab the sure ones and just make mental notes of the rest.

The two in the parking lot interested me so I decided to watch them for a minute. They were dumb strung-out hypes. They should’ve made me by now. When I was younger I used to play the truth game. I hardly ever played it anymore. The object of the game is simple: I have to explain to an imaginary blackrobed square (His Honor) how Officer William A. Morgan knows that those men are committing a criminal act. If the judge finds that I didn’t have sufficient probable cause to stop, detain, and search my man, then I lose the game. Illegal search and seizure-case dismissed.

I usually beat the game whether it’s imaginary or for real. My courtroom demeanor is very good, pretty articulate for an old-time copper, they say. And such a simple honest kisser. Big innocent blue eyes. Juries loved me. It’s very hard to explain the “know.” Some guys never master it. Let’s see, I begin, I know they are setting up a buy because of… the clothing. That’s a good start, the clothing. It’s a suffocating day, Your Honor, and the tall one is wearing a long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the cuff. To hide his hype marks, of course. One of them is still wearing his “county shoes.” That tells me he just got out of county jail, and the other one, yes, the other one-you only acquire that frantic pasty look in the joint: San Quentin, Folsom, maybe. He’s been away a long time. And I would find out they’d just been in the Pink Dragon and no one but a whore, hype, pill-head, or other hustler would hang out in that dive. And I’d explain all this to my judge too, but I’d be a little more subtle, and then I’d be stopped. I could explain to my imaginary jurist but never to a real one about the instinct-the stage in this business when, like an animal, you can feel you’ve got one, and it can’t be explained. You feel the truth, and you know. Try telling that to the judge, I thought. Try explaining that , sometime.

Just then a wino lurched across Main Street against the red light and a Lincoln jammed on the binders almost creaming him.

“Goddamnit, come over here,” I yelled when he reached the sidewalk.

“Hi, Bumper,” he croaked, holding the five-sizes-too-big pants around his bony hips, trying his best to look sober as he staggered sideways.

“You almost got killed, Noodles,” I said.

“What’s the difference?” he said, wiping the saliva from his chin with the grimy free hand. The other one gripped the pants so hard the big knuckles showed white through the dirt.

“I don’t care about you but I don’t want any wrecked Lincolns on my beat.”

“Okay, Bumper.”

“I’m gonna have to book you.”

“I’m not that drunk, am I?”

“No, but you’re dying.”

“No crime in that.” He coughed then and the spit that dribbled out the corner of his mouth was red and foamy.

“I’m booking you, Noodles,” I said, mechanically filling in the boxes on the pad of drunk arrest reports that I carried in my hip pocket like I was still walking my beat instead of driving a black-and-white.

“Let’s see, your real name is Ralph M. Milton, right?”

“Millard.”

“Millard,” I muttered, filling in the name. I must’ve busted Noodles a dozen times. I never used to forget names or faces.

“Let’s see, eyes bloodshot, gait staggering, attitude stuporous, address transient…”

“Got a cigarette?”

“I don’t use them, Noodles,” I said, tearing out the copies of the arrest report. “Wait a minute, the nightwatch left a half pack in the glove compartment. Go get them while I’m calling the wagon.”

The wino shuffled to the radio car while I walked fifty feet down the street to a call box, unlocked it with my big brass key, and asked for the B-wagon to come to Fourth and Main. It would’ve been easier to use my car radio to call the wagon, but I walked a beat too many years to learn new habits.

That was something my body did to me, made me lose my foot beat and put me in a black-and-white. An ankle I broke years ago when I was a slick-sleeved rookie chasing a purse snatcher, finally decided it can’t carry my big ass around anymore and swells up every time I’m on my feet a couple of hours. So I lost my foot beat and got a radio car. A one-man foot beat’s the best job in this or any police department. It always amuses policemen to see the movies where the big hood or crooked politician yells, “I’ll have you walking a beat, you dumb flatfoot,” when really it’s a sought-after job. You got to have whiskers to get a foot beat, and you have to be big and good. If only my legs would’ve held out. But even though I couldn’t travel it too much on foot, it was still my beat, all of it. Everyone knew it all belonged to me more than anyone.

“Okay, Noodles, give this arrest report to the cops in the wagon and don’t lose the copies.”

“You’re not coming with me?” He couldn’t shake a cigarette from the pack with one trembling hand.

“No, you just lope on over to the corner and flag ’em down when they drive by. Tell ’em you want to climb aboard.”

“First time I ever arrested myself,” he coughed, as I lit a cigarette for him, and put the rest of the pack and the arrest report in his shirt pocket.

“See you later.”

“I’ll get six months. The judge warned me last time.”

“I hope so, Noodles.”

“I’ll just start boozing again when they let me out. I’ll just get scared and start again. You don’t know what it’s like to be scared at night when you’re alone.”

“How do you know, Noodles?”

“I’ll just come back here and die in an alley. The cats and rats will eat me anyway, Bumper.”

“Get your ass moving or you’ll miss the wagon.” I watched him stagger down Main for a minute and I yelled, “Don’t you believe in miracles?”

He shook his head and I turned back to the guys in the parking lot again just as they disappeared inside the Pink Dragon. Someday, I thought, I’ll kill that dragon and drink its blood.

I was too hungry to do police work, so I went into Seymour’s. I usually like to eat breakfast right after rollcall and here it was ten o’clock and I was still screwing around.

Ruthie was bent over one of the tables scooping up a tip. She was very attractive from the rear and she must’ve caught me admiring her out of the corner of her eye. I suppose a blue man, dark blue in black leather, sets off signals in some people.

“Bumper,” she said, wheeling around. “Where you been all week?”

“Hi, Ruthie,” I said, always embarrassed by how glad she was to see me.

Seymour, a freckled redhead about my age, was putting together a pastrami sandwich behind the meat case. He heard Ruthie call my name and grinned.

“Well, look who’s here. The finest cop money can buy.”

“Just bring me a cold drink, you old shlimazel.”

“Sure, champ.” Seymour gave the pastrami to a takeout customer, made change, and put a cold beer and a frosted glass in front of me. He winked at the well-dressed man who sat at the counter to my left. The beer wasn’t opened.