Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“We’ve all got our skeletons rattling, Maggie,” I said. “Tell me, what’ve you done that makes you jump at the sight of the fuzz?”

“All right, Bumper,” Cassie smiled. I was standing now, and she had me by the arm.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” said Maggie, with a sly wink, just as she’d seen and heard it in a thousand corny love movies.

“Nice kid,” I said, after Maggie closed the door and I kissed Cassie four or five times.

“I missed you last night,” said Cassie, standing there pressed up against me, smelling good and looking good in her yellow sleeveless dress. Her arms were red tan, her hair down, touching her shoulders.

“Your dinner date tonight still on?”

“Afraid so,” she murmured.

“After tomorrow we’ll have all the time we want together.”

“Think we’ll ever have all the time we want?”

“You’ll get sick of seeing me hanging around the pad.”

“Never happen. Besides, you’ll be busy launching that new career.”

“I’m more worried about the other career.”

“Which one?”

“Being the kind of husband you think I’ll be. I wonder if I’ll be really good for you.”

“Bumper!” she said, stepping back and looking to see if I meant it, and I tried a lopsided grin.

I kissed her then, as tenderly as I could, and held her. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

“I know. I’m just a very insecure old dame.”

I could’ve kicked my ass for blurting out something that I knew would hurt her. It was like I wanted to hurt her a little for being the best thing that ever happened, for saving me from becoming a pitiful old man trying to do a young man’s work, and doing brass balls police work was definitely a young man’s work. I never could’ve been an inside man. Never a jailer, or a desk officer, or a supply man handing out weapons to guys doing the real police work. Cassie was saving me from that nightmare. I was getting out while I was still a man alive, with lots of good years ahead. And with somebody to care about. I got a vicious gas pain just then, and I wished I wasn’t standing there with Cassie so I could pop a bubble breaker.

“I guess I’m the silly one,” said Cassie.

“If you only knew how bad I want out, Cassie, you’d stop worrying.” I patted her back like I was burping her when really I was wishing I could burp myself. I could feel the bubble getting bigger and floating up in my stomach.

“All right, Bumper Morgan,” she said. “Now what day are we actually leaving Los Angeles? I mean actually? As man and wife. We’ve got a million things to do.”

“Wait till tomorrow night, me proud beauty,” I answered. “Tomorrow night when we have some time to talk and to celebrate. Tomorrow night we make all the plans while having a wonderful dinner somewhere.”

“In my apartment.”

“Okay.”

“With some wonderful champagne.”

“I’ll supply it.”

“Police discount?”

“Naturally. My last one.”

“And we celebrate tomorrow being the last day you’ll ever have to put on that uniform and risk your neck for a lot of people who don’t appreciate it.”

“Last day I risk my neck,” I nodded. “But I never did risk it for anyone but myself. I had some fun these twenty years, Cassie.”

“I know it.”

“Even though sometimes it’s a rotten job I wouldn’t wish on anyone, still, I had good times. And any risks were for Bumper Morgan.”

“Yes, love.”

“So get your heart-shaped fanny in gear and get your day’s work done. I still got almost two days of police work left to do.” I stepped away from her and picked up my hat and cigar.

“Coming by this afternoon?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tonight,” she said. “I’ll get away before midnight. Come to my apartment at midnight.”

“Let’s get some sleep tonight, baby. Tomorrow’s the last day for us both on our jobs. Let’s make it a good one.”

“I don’t like my job as well since you charged into my life, do you know that?”

“Whadda you mean?”

“The academic life. I was one of the students who never left school. I loved waddling around with a gaggle of eggheads, and then you had to come along so, so… I don’t know. And now nothing seems the same.”

“Come on down, kid, I like your earthy side better.”

“I want you to come tonight,” she said, looking me dead in the eye.

“I’d rather be with you tonight than with anyone in the world, you know that, but I really ought to go by Abd’s Harem and say good-bye to my friends there. And there’re a few other places.”

“You mustn’t disappoint people,” she smiled.

“You should try not to,” I said, heating up from the way she looked me in the eye just then.

“It’s getting tough to make love to you lately.”

“A couple more days.”

“See you tomorrow,” she sighed. “I think I’ll jump you here in my office when I get my hands on you.”

“On duty?” I frowned, and put my hat on, tipping it at a jaunty angle because, let’s face it, you feel pretty good when a woman like Cassie’s quivering to get you in bed.

“Good-bye, Bumper,” she smiled sadly.

“Later, kid. See you later.”

As soon as I cleared after leaving Cassie I got a radio call.

“One-X-L-Forty-five, One-X-L-Forty-five,” said the female communications operator, “see the man at the hotel, four-twenty-five South Main, about a possible d.b.”

“One-X-L-Forty-five, roger,” I said, thinking this will be my last dead body call.

An old one-legged guy with all the earmarks of a reformed alky was standing in the doorway of the fleabag hotel.

“You called?” I said, after parking the black-and-white in front and taking the stick from the holder on the door and slipping it through the ring on my belt.

“Yeah. I’m Poochie the elevator boy,” said the old man. “I think a guy might be dead upstairs.”

“What the hell made you think so?” I said sarcastically, as we started up the stairs and I smelled the d.b. from here. The floorboards were torn up and I could see the ground underneath.

The old guy hopped up the stairs pretty quick on his one crutch without ever stopping to rest. There were about twenty steps up to the second floor where the smell could drop you and would, except that most of the tenants were bums and winos whose senses, all of them, had been killed or numbed. I almost expected the second story to have a dirt floor, the place was so crummy.

“I ain’t seen this guy in number two-twelve for oh, maybe a week,” said Poochie, who had a face like an ax, with a toothless puckered mouth.

“Can’t you smell him?”

“No,” he said, looking at me with surprise. “Can you?”

“Never mind,” I said, turning right in the hallway. “Don’t bother telling me where two-twelve is, I could find it with my eyes closed. Get me some coffee.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“No, I mean dry coffee, right out of the can. And a frying pan.”

“Okay,” he said, without asking dumb questions, conditioned by fifty years of being bossed around by cops. I held a handkerchief over my nose, and opened a window in the hallway which led out on the fire escape in the alley. I stuck my head out but it didn’t help, I could still smell him.

After a long two minutes Poochie came hopping back on his crutch with a frying pan and the coffee.

“Hope there’s a hot plate in here,” I said, suddenly thinking there might not be, though lots of the transient hotels had them, especially in the rooms used by the semipermanent boarders.

“He’s got one,” nodded Poochie, handing me the passkey. The key turned but the door wouldn’t budge.