Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“You try that again and I’ll ding your bells, man,” I said, loud enough for him to hear.

“Who?” he said, with a big grin through the moustache and goatee.

“Who, my ass,” I said. “You ain’t got feet that fit on a limb. I’m talking to you .”

“You fat pig,” he sneered and turned to the crowd. “He wants to arrest me! You pick out a black, that the way you do it, Mister PO-lice?”

“If anything goes down, I’m getting you first,” I whispered, putting my left hand on the handle of my stick.

“He wants to arrest me,” he repeated, louder now. “What’s the charge? Being black? Don’t I have any rights?”

“You’re gonna get your rites,” I muttered. “Your last rites.”

“I should kill you,” he said. “There’s fifty braves here and we should kill you for all the brothers and sisters you pigs murdered.”

“Get it on, sucker, anytime you’re ready,” I said with a show of bravado because I was really scared now.

I figured that many people let loose could turn me into a doormat in about three minutes. My breath was coming hard. I tried to keep my jaw from trembling and my brain working. They weren’t going to get me down on the ground. Not without a gun in my hand. I decided it wouldn’t be that easy to kick my brains in. I made up my mind to start shooting to save myself, and I decided I’d blow up the two Black Russians, Geronimo, and Purple Legs, not necessarily in that order.

Then a hand reached out and grabbed my necktie, but it was a breakaway tie, and I didn’t go with it when the hand pulled it into the crowd. At about the same time the engineering major grabbed my badge, and I instinctively brought up my right hand, holding his hand on my chest, backing up until his elbow was straight. Then I brought my left fist up hard just above his elbow and he yelped and drew back. Several other people also drew back at the unmistakable scream of pain.

“Off the pig! Off the pig!” somebody yelled. “Rip him off!”

I pulled my baton out and felt the black-and-white behind me now and they were all screaming and threatening, even the full-of-shit padre.

I would’ve jumped in the car on the passenger side and locked the door but I couldn’t. I felt the handle and it was locked, and the window was rolled up, and I was afraid that if I fooled around unlocking it, somebody might get his ass up and charge me.

Apparently the people inside the induction center didn’t know a cop was about to get his ticket cancelled, because nobody came out. I could see the cameraman fighting to get through the crowd which was spilling out on the street and I had a crazy wish that he’d make it. That’s the final vanity, I guess, but I kind of wanted him to film Bumper’s Last Stand.

For a few seconds it could’ve gone either way and then the door to my car opened and hit me in the back, scaring the shit out of me.

“Get your butt in here, Bumper,” said a familiar voice, which I obeyed. The second I closed the door something hit the window almost hard enough to break the glass and several people started kicking at the door and fender of my black-and-white.

“Give me the keys,” said Stan Ludlow, who worked Intelligence Division. He was sitting behind the wheel, looking as dapper as always in a dark green suit and mint-colored necktie.

I gave him the keys from my belt and he drove away from the curb as I heard something else clunk off the fender of the car. Four radio cars each containing three Metro officers pulled up at the induction center as we were leaving, and started dispersing the group.

“You’re the ugliest rape victim I ever saw,” said Stan, turning on Ninth Street and parking behind a plainclothes police car where his partner was waiting.

“What the hell you talking about?”

“Had, man. You just been had.”

“I had a feeling something wasn’t right,” I said, getting sick because I was afraid to hear what I figured he was going to say. “Did they set me up?”

“Did they set you up? No, they didn’t have to. You set yourself up! Christ, Bumper, you should know better than to make speeches to groups like that. What the hell made you do it?”

Stan had about fifteen years on the job and was a sergeant, but he was only about forty and except for his gray sideburns he looked lots younger. Still, I felt like a dumb little kid sitting there now. I felt like he was lots older and a damn sight wiser and took the assbite without looking at him.

“How’d you know I was speechmaking, Stan?”

“One of them is one of us,” said Stan. “We had one of those guys wired with a mike. We listened to the whole thing, Bumper. We called for the Metro teams because we knew what was going to happen. Damn near didn’t get to you quick enough though.”

“Who were the leaders?” I was trying to save a grain or two of my pride. “The bitch in the yellow dress and the guru in the headband?”

“Hell no,” said Stan, disgustedly. “Their names are John and Marie French. They’re a couple of lames trying to groove with the kids. They’re nothing. She’s a self-proclaimed revolutionary from San Pedro and he’s her husband. As a matter of fact he picked up our undercover man and drove him to the demonstration today when they were sent by the boss. French is mostly used as errand boy. He drives a VW bus and picks up everybody that needs a ride to all these peace marches. He’s nothing. Why, did you have them figured for the leaders?”

“Sort of,” I mumbled.

“You badmouthed them, didn’t you?”

“Sort of. What about the two in the Russian hats?”

“Nobody,” said Stan. “They hang around all the time with their Panther buttons and get lots of pussy, but they’re nobody. Just opportunists. Professional blacks.”

“I guess the guy running the show was a tall nice-looking kid named Scott?” I said, as the lights slowly turned on.

“Yeah, Scott Hairston. He’s from U.C.L.A. His sister Melba was the little blonde with the peachy ass who was hanging on his arm. She was the force behind subversive club chapters starting on her high school campus when she was still a bubblegummer. Their old man, Simon Hairston’s an attorney and a slippery bastard, and his brother Josh is an old-time activist.”

“So the bright-eyed little baby was a goddamn viper, huh? I guess they’ve passed me by, Stan.”

Stan smiled sympathetically and lit my cigar for me. “Look, Bumper, these kids’ve been weaned on this bullshit. You’re just a beginner. Don’t feel too bad. But for God’s sake, next time don’t start chipping with them. No speeches, please!”

“I must’ve sounded like a boob,” I said, and I could feel myself flushing clear to my toes.

“It’s not that so much, Bumper, but that little bitch Melba put you on tape. She always solicits casual comments from cops. Sometimes she has a concealed hand mike with a wire running up her sleeve down to a box in her handbag. She carrying a big handbag today?”

I didn’t have to answer. Stan saw it in the sick look on my face.

“They’ll edit your remarks, Bumper. I heard some of them from the mike our guy was wearing. Christ, you talked about stick time and putting teeth marks on your baton and kicking ass and collecting names.”

“But all that’s not how I meant it, Stan.”

“That’s the way your comments’ll be presented-out of context. It’ll be printed that way in an underground newspaper or maybe even in a daily if Simon Hairston gets behind it.”

“Oooooh,” I said, tilting my hat over my eyes and slumping down in my seat.

“Don’t have a coronary on me, Bumper,” said Stan. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

“All right? I’ll be the laughingstock of the Department!”