Joseph Wambaugh - The Blue Knight

“How’d you work that scam?”

“I’d tell them Mister Freeman, the retail manager, sent me to pick up their receipts. He didn’t want too much in the registers, I’d say, and I’d stick out my money bag and they’d fill it up for Mister Freeman.” Wimpy started to laugh and ended up wheezing and choking. He settled down after a minute.

“I sure owe plenty to Mister Freeman. I gotta repay that sucker if I ever meet him. I used that name in maybe fifty department stores. That was my real father’s name. That’s really my real name, but when I was a kid I took the name of this bastard my old lady married. I always played like my real old man would’ve did something for us if he’d been around, so this way he did. Old Mister Freeman must’ve gave me ten grand. Tax free. More than most old men ever give their kids, hey, Bumper?”

“More than mine, Wimpy,” I smiled.

“I did real good on that till-tap. I looked so nice, carnation and all. I had another scam where I’d boost good stuff, expensive baby clothes, luggage, anything. Then I’d bring it back to the salesman in the store bag and tell him I didn’t have my receipt but would they please give me back my money on account of little Bobby wouldn’t be needing these things because he smothered in his crib last Tuesday. Or old Uncle Pete passed on just before he went on his trip that he saved and dreamed about for forty-eight years and I couldn’t bear to look at this luggage anymore. Honest, Bumper, they couldn’t give me the bread fast enough. I even made men cry. I had one woman beg me to take ten bucks from her own purse to help with the baby’s funeral. I took that ten bucks and bought a little ten-dollar bag of junk and all the time I was cutting open that balloon and cooking that stuff I thought, ‘Oh you baby. You really are my baby.’ I took that spike and dug a little grave in my flesh and when I shoved that thing in my arm and felt it going in, I said, ‘Thank you, lady, thank you, thank you, this is the best funeral my baby could have.’” Wimpy closed his eyes and lifted his face, smiling a little as he thought of his baby.

“Doesn’t your P.O. ever give you a urinalysis or anything?” I still couldn’t get over an old head like him not having his arms or urine checked when he was on parole, even if he was paroled on a non-narcotics beef.

“Hasn’t yet, Bumper. I ain’t worried if he does. I always been lucky with P.O.’s. When they put me on the urine program I came up with the squeeze-bottle trick. I just got this square friend of mine, old Homer Allen, to keep me supplied with a fresh bottle of piss, and I kept that little plastic squeeze bottle full and hanging from a string inside my belt. My dumb little P.O. used to think he was sneaky and he’d catch me at my job or at home at night sometimes and ask for a urine sample and I’d just go to the john with him right behind me watching, and I’d reach in my fly and fill his little glass bottle full of Homer’s piss. He thought he was real slick, but he never could catch me. He was such a square. I really liked him. I felt like a father to that kid.”

The girl came to the phone and read me Wimpy’s record, telling me there were no wants.

“Well, you’re not running,” I said, hanging up the phone, closing the metal call box door, and hanging the brass key back on my belt.

“Told you, Bumper. I just saw my P.O. last week. I been reporting regular.”

“Okay, Wimpy, let’s talk business,” I said.

“I been thinking, Bumper, there’s this dog motherfucker that did me bad one time. I wouldn’t mind you popping him.”

“Okay,” I said, giving him a chance to rationalize his snitching, which all informants have to do when they start out, or like Wimpy, when they haven’t snitched for a long time.

“He deserves to march,” said Wimpy. “Everybody knows he’s no good. He burned me on a buy one time. I bring him a guy to score some pot. It’s not on consignment or nothing, and he sells the guy catnip and I told him I knew the guy good. The guy kicked my ass when he found out it was catnip.”

“Okay, let’s do him,” I said. “But I ain’t interested in some two- or three-lid punk.”

“I know, Bumper. He’s a pretty big dealer. We’ll set him up good. I’ll tell him I got a guy with real bread and he should bring three kilos and meet me in a certain place and then maybe you just happen by or something when we’re getting it out of the car and we both start to run but you go after him, naturally, and you get a three-key bust.”

“No good. I can’t run anymore. We’ll work out something else.”

“Any way you want, Bumper. I’ll turn anybody for you. I’ll roll over on anybody if you give me a break.”

“Except your best connection.”

“That’s God you’re talking about. But I think right this minute I’d even turn my connection for a fix.”

“Where’s this pot dealer live? Near my beat?”

“Yeah, not far. East Sixth. We can take him at his hotel. That might be the best way. You can kick down the pad and let me get out the window. At heart he’s just a punk. They call him Little Rudy. He makes roach holders out of chicken bones and folded-up matchbooks and all that punk-ass bullshit. Only thing is, don’t let me get a jacket. See, he knows this boss dyke, a real mean bull dagger. Her pad’s a shooting gallery for some of us. If she knows you finked, she’ll sneak battery acid in your spoon and laugh while you mainline it home. She’s a dog motherfucker.”

“Okay, Wimpy, when can you set it up?”

“Saturday, Bumper, we can do it Saturday.”

“No good,” I said quickly, a gas pain slicing across my stomach. “Friday’s the latest for anything.”

“Christ, Bumper. He’s out of town. I know for sure. I think he’s gone to the border to score.”

“I can’t wait past Friday. Think of somebody else then.”

“Shit, lemme think,” he said, rapping his skinny fingers against his temple. “Oh yeah, I got something. A guy in the Rainbow Hotel. A tall dude, maybe forty, forty-five, blondish hair. He’s in the first apartment to the left on the second floor. I just heard last night he’s a half-ass fence. Buys most anything you steal. Cheap, I hear. Pays less than a dime on the dollar. A righteous dog. He deserves to fall. I hear these dope fiends bring radios and stuff like that, usually in the early morning.”

“Okay, maybe I’ll try him tomorrow,” I said, not really very interested.

“Sure, he might have lots of loot in the pad. You could clear up all kinds of burglaries.”

“Okay, Wimpy, you can make it now. But I want to see you regular. At least three times a week.”

“Bumper, could you please loan me a little in advance?”

“You gotta be kidding, Wimpy! Pay a junkie in advance?”

“I’m in awful bad shape today, Bumper,” he said with a cracked whispery voice, like a prayer. He looked as bad as any I’d ever seen. Then I remembered I’d never see him again. After Friday I’d never see any of them again. He couldn’t do me any good and it was unbelievably stupid, but I gave him a ten, which was just like folding up a saw-buck and sticking it in his arm. He’d be in the same shape twelve hours from now. He stared at the bill like he didn’t believe it at first. I left him there and walked back to the car.

“We’ll get that pothead for you,” he said. “He’s sloppy. You’ll find seeds between the carpet and the molding outside the door in the hall. I’ll get you lots of probable cause to kick over the pad.”

“I know how to take down a dope pad, Wimpy,” I said over my shoulder.

“Later, Bumper, see you later,” he yelled, breaking into a coughing spasm.