Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“Now you’ll have Cassie. You’ll be ten times closer with her.” She held my hand then. Both her hands were tough and hard.

“You sound like your old man.”

“We talk about you a lot.”

“Good night,” I said, kissing her on the cheek. “Cassie and me are coming by before we leave to say good-bye to all of you.”

“Good night, Bumper.”

“Good night, old shoe,” I said to Cruz in a loud voice and he snorted and blew and I chuckled and descended the stairs. I let myself out after turning out the hall light and locking the door.

When I went to bed that night I started getting scared and didn’t know why. I wished Cassie was with me. After I went to sleep I slept very well and didn’t dream.

THE NEXT MORNING I worked on my badge for five minutes, and my boondockers were glistening. I was kind of disappointed when Lieutenant Hilliard didn’t have an inspection, I was looking so good. Cruz looked awful. He sat at the front table with Lieutenant Hilliard and did a bad job of reading off the crimes. Once or twice he looked at me and rolled his eyes which were really sad this morning because he was so hung over. After rollcall I got a chance to talk to him for a minute.

“You look a little crudo ,” I said, trying not to smile.

“What a bastard you are,” he moaned.

“It wasn’t the mescal. I think you swallowed the worm.”

“A complete bastard.”

“Can you meet me at noon? I wanna buy you lunch.”

“Don’t even talk about it,” he groaned, and I had to laugh.

“Okay, but save me your lunch hour tomorrow. And pick out the best, most expensive place in town. Someplace that doesn’t bounce for bluecoats. That’s where we’re going for my last meal as a cop.”

“You’re actually going to pay for a meal on duty?”

“It’ll be a first,” I grinned, and he smiled but he acted like it hurt to grin.

“Ahí te haucho,” I said, heading for the car.

“Don’t forget you have court this afternoon, ’mano ,” he said, always nagging me.

Before getting in my black-and-white I looked it over. It’s always good to pull out the back seat before you leave, in case some innocent rookie on the nightwatch let one of his sneaky prisoners stash his gun down there, or a condom full of heroin, or a goddamn hand grenade. It takes so long to make a policeman out of some of these kids, nothing would surprise me. But then I reminded myself what it was like to be twenty-two. They’re right in the middle of growing up, these babies, and it’s awful tough growing up in that bluecoat as twenty-two-year-old Establishment symbols. Still, it chills my nuts the way they stumble around like civilians for five years or so, and let people flimflam them. Someday, I thought, I’ll probably find a dead midget jammed down there behind the friggin’ seat.

As soon as I hit the bricks and started cruising I began thinking about the case I had this afternoon. It was a preliminary hearing on a guy named Landry and the dicks had filed on him for being an ex-con with a gun, and also filed one count of possession of marijuana. I didn’t figure to have any problems with the case. I’d busted him in January after I’d gotten information on this gunsel from a snitch named Knobby Booker, who worked for me from time to time, and I went to a hotel room on East Sixth Street on some phony pretext I couldn’t completely remember until I reread the arrest report. I busted Landry in his room while he was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon. He had about two lids of pot in a sandwich bag in a drawer by his bed to give him guts when he pulled a robbery, and a fully loaded U.S. Army forty-five automatic under his mattress. He damned near went for it when I came though the door, and I almost blew him up when he started for it. In fact, it was a Mexican standoff for a few seconds, him with his hand an inch or so under the mattress, and me crouching and coming to the bed, my six-inch Smith aimed at his upper lip, and warning about what I was going to do if he didn’t pull his hand out very very slow, and he did.

Landry had gotten out on five thousand dollars’ bail which some old broad put up for him. He’d been a half-assed bit actor on TV and movies a few years back, and was somewhat of a gigolo with old women. He jumped bail and was rearrested in Denver and extradited, and the arrest was now four months old. I didn’t remember all the details, but of course I would read the arrest report and be up on it before I testified. The main thing of course was to hold him to answer at the prelim without revealing my informant Knobby Booker, or without even letting anyone know I had an informant. It wasn’t too hard if you knew how.

It was getting hot and smoggy and I was already starting to sweat in the armpits. I glanced over at an old billboard on Olive Street which said, “Don’t start a boy on a life of crime by leaving your keys in the car,” and I snorted and farted a couple times in disgust. It’s the goddamn do-gooder P.R. men, who dream up slogans like that to make everybody but the criminals feel guilty, who’ll drive all real cops out of this business one of these days.

As I pulled to the curb opposite the Grand Central Market, a wino staggering down Broadway sucking on a short dog saw me, spun around, fell on his ass, dropped his bottle, and got up as though nothing happened. He started walking away from the short dog, which was rolling around on the sidewalk spilling sweet lucy all over the pavement.

“Pick up the dog, you jerk,” I called to him. “I ain’t gonna bust you.”

“Thanks, Bumper,” he said sheepishly and picked up the bottle. He waved, and hustled back down Broadway, a greasy black coat flapping around his skinny hips.

I tried to remember where I knew him from. Of course I knew him from the beat, but he wasn’t just a wino face. There was something else. Then I saw through the gauntness and grime and recognized him and smiled because these days it always felt good to remember and prove to yourself that your memory is as sharp as ever.

They called him Beans. The real name I couldn’t recall even though I’d had it printed up on a fancy certificate. He almost caused me to slug another policeman about ten years ago and I’d never come close to doing that before or since.

The policeman was Herb Slovin and he finally got his ass canned. Herb was fired for capping for a bail bondsman and had a nice thing going until they caught him. He was working vice and was telling everybody he busted to patronize Laswell Brothers Bail Bonds, and Slim Laswell was kicking back a few bucks to Herb for each one he sent. That’s considered to be as bad as stealing, and the Department bounced his ass in a hurry after he was caught. He would’ve gone behind something else though if it hadn’t been that. He was a hulking, cruel bastard and so horny he’d mount a cage if he thought there was a canary in there. I figured sooner or later he’d fall for broads or brutality.

It was Beans that almost caused me and Herb to tangle. Herb hated the drunk wagon. “Niggers and white garbage,” he’d repeat over and over when something made him mad which was most of the time. And he called the wagon job “the N.H.I. detail.” When you asked him what that stood for he’d say “No Humans Involved,” and then he let out with that donkey bray of his. We were working the wagon one night and got a call on Beans because he was spread-eagled prone across San Pedro Street blocking two lanes of traffic, out cold. He’d puked and wet all over himself and didn’t even wake up when we dragged him to the wagon and flipped him in on the floor. There was no problem. We both wore gloves like most wagon cops, and there were only two other winos inside. About ten minutes later when we were on East Sixth Street, we heard a ruckus in the back and had to stop the wagon and go back there and keep the other two winos from kicking hell out of Beans who woke up and was fighting mad for maybe the first time in his life. I’d busted him ten or twenty times for drunk and never had any trouble with him. You seldom have to hassle a stone wino like Beans.