Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

I pulled over at a phone booth then and called Cruz at the station. Lieutenant Hilliard answered and in a couple seconds I heard Cruz’s soft voice, “Sergeant Segovia?” He said it like a question,

“Hello, Sergeant Segovia, this is future former Officer Morgan, what the hell you doing besides pushing a pencil and shuffling paper?”

“What’re you doing besides ignoring your radio calls?”

“I’m just cruising around this miserable beat thinking how great it’ll be not to have to do it anymore. You decided where you want me to take you for lunch?”

“You don’t have to take me anywhere.”

“Look, goddamnit, we’re going to some nice place, so if you won’t pick it, I will.”

“Okay, take me to Seymours.”

“On my beat? Oh, for chrissake. Look, you just meet me at Seymour’s at eleven-thirty. Have a cup of coffee but don’t eat a damn thing because we’re going to a place I know in Beverly Hills.”

“That’s a long way from your beat, all right.”

“I’ll pick you up at Seymour’s.”

“Okay, ’mano, ahí te huacho .”

I chuckled after I hung up at that Mexican slang because watching for me is exactly what Cruz always did when you stop and think about it. Most people say, “I’ll be seeing you,” because that’s what they do, but Cruz, he always watched for me. It felt good to have old sad-eye watching for me.

I GOT BACK IN MY CAR and cruised down Main Street, by the parking lot at the rear of the Pink Dragon. I was so sick of pushing this pile of iron around that I stopped to watch some guys in the parking lot.

There were three of them and they were up to something. I parked the car and backed up until the building hid me. I got out and walked to the corner of the building, took my hat off, and peeked around the corner and across the lot.

A skinny hype in a long-sleeved blue shirt was talking to another brown-shirted one. There was a third one with them, a little T-shirt who stood a few steps away. Suddenly Blue-shirt nodded to Brown-shirt, who walked up and gave something to little T-shirt, who gave Brown-shirt something back, and they all hustled off in different directions. Little T-shirt was walking toward me. He was looking back over his shoulder for cops, and walking right into one. I didn’t feel like messing around with a narco bust but this was too easy. I stepped in the hotel doorway and when T-shirt walked past, squinting into the sun, I reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him inside. He was just a boy, scared as hell. I shoved him face forward into the wall, and grabbed the hip pocket of his denims.

“What’ve you got, boy? Bennies or reds? Or maybe you’re an acid freak?”

“Hey, lemme go!” he yelled.

I took the bennies out of his pocket. There were six rolls, five in a roll, held together by a rubber band. The day of ten-benny rolls was killed by inflation.

“How much did they make you pay, kid?” I asked, keeping a good grip on his arm. He didn’t look so short up close, but he was skinny, with lots of brown hair, and young, too young to be downtown scoring pills in the middle of the morning.

“I paid seven dollars. But I won’t ever do it again if you’ll lemme go. Please lemme go.”

“Put your hands behind you, kid,” I said, unsnapping my handcuff case.

“What’re you doing? Please don’t put those on me. I won’t hurt you or anything.”

“I’m not afraid of you hurting me,” I laughed, chewing on a wet cigar stump that I finally threw away. “It’s just that my wheels are gone and my ass is too big to be chasing you all over these streets.” I snapped on one cuff and brought his palms together behind his back and clicked on the other, taking them up snug.

“How much you say you paid for the pills?”

“Seven dollars. I won’t never do it again if you’ll lemme go, I swear.” He was dancing around, nervous and scared, and he stepped on my right toe, scuffing up the shine.

“Careful, damn it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Please lemme go. I didn’t mean to step on you.”

“Those cats charged you way too much for the pills,” I said, as I led him to the radio car.

“I know you won’t believe me but it’s the first time I ever bought them. I don’t know what the hell they cost.”

“Sure it is.”

“See, I knew you wouldn’t believe me. You cops don’t believe nobody.”

“You know all about cops, do you?”

“I been arrested before. I know you cops. You all act the same.”

“You must be a hell of a heavyweight desperado. Got a ten-page rap sheet, I bet. What’ve you been busted for?”

“Running away. Twice. And you don’t have to put me down.”

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“In the car,” I said, opening the front door. ““And don’t lean back on the cuffs or they’ll tighten.”

“You don’t have to worry, I won’t jump out,” he said as I fastened the seat belt over his lap.

“I ain’t worrying, kid.”

“I got a name. It’s Tilden,” he said, his square chin jutting way out.

“Mine’s Morgan.”

“My first name’s Tom.”

“Mine’s Bumper.”

“Where’re you taking me?”

“To Juvenile Narcotics.”

“You gonna book me?”

“Of course.”

“What could I expect,” he said, nodding his head disgustedly. “How could I ever expect a cop to act like a human being.”

“You shouldn’t even expect a human being to act like a human being. You’ll just get disappointed.”

I turned the key and heard the click-click of a dead battery. Stone-cold dead without warning.

“Hang loose, kid,” I said, getting out of the car.

“Where could I go?” he yelled, as I lifted the hood to see if someone had torn the wires out. That happens once in a while when you leave your black-and-white somewhere that you can’t keep an eye on it. It looked okay though. I wondered if something was wrong with the alternator. A call box was less than fifty feet down the sidewalk so I moseyed to it, turning around several times to keep an eye on my little prisoner. I called in and asked for a garage man with a set of booster cables and was told to stand by for about twenty minutes and somebody’d get out to me. I thought about calling a sergeant since they carry booster cables in their cars, but I decided not to. What the hell, why be in a rush today? What was there to prove now? To anyone? To myself?

Then I started getting a little hungry because there was a small diner across the street and I could smell bacon and ham. The odor was blowing through the duct in the front of the place over the cooking stoves. The more I sniffed the hungrier I got, and I looked at my watch and thought, what the hell. I went back and unstrapped the kid.

“What’s up? Where we going?”

“Across the street.”

“What for? We taking a bus to your station or something?”

“No, we gotta wait for the garage man. We’re going across the street so I can eat.”

“You can’t take me in there looking like this,” said the kid, as I led him across the street. His naturally rosy cheeks were lobster-red now. “Take the handcuffs off.”

“Not a chance. I could never catch a young antelope like you.

“I swear I won’t run.”

“I know you won’t, with your hands cuffed behind you and me holding the chain.”

“I’ll die if you take me in there like a dog on a leash in front of all those people.”

“Ain’t nobody in there you know, kid. And anybody that might be in there’s been in chains himself, probably. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I could sue you for this.”

“Oh could you?” I said, holding the door and shoving him inside.