Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Moon

According to the attorney’s statement alleging the officer’s unbecoming conduct, as well as during later verbal testimony before a trial board heard by a tribunal consisting of two command officers and a civilian, the lawyer said of the incident, “It was rude. It was insulting. It was disgusting. It was unprofessional. It was outrageous.”

When it was his turn, Officer R.T. Dibney simply said, “It was frijoles.”

Thus, R.T. Dibney’s explanation for the infamous caboose chirps made him a minor LAPD legend after the tribunal cleared him of misconduct through what eventually became known throughout the Department as “the frijoles defense.”

On his midwatch deployment at Hollywood Station, R.T. Dibney was assigned to 6-X-46 with P2 Mindy Ling, a twenty-eight-year-old Chinese-American cop with six years on the LAPD, the last three being at Hollywood Station. Mindy Ling was as tall as R.T. Dibney and studious, ambitious, and serious, everything that R.T. Dibney was not. She wore her black hair pulled back severely and rolled into a bun, and she was one of the few cops of either gender at Hollywood Station to wear an easy-access shoulder mike, while others simply carried the radio on their Sam Browne belt. Mindy Ling used that kind of caution in everything she did in life. She hated to make mistakes.

One of the reasons that Sergeant Lee Murillo assigned them together for the current deployment period was that he didn’t want someone riding with R.T. Dibney who could be influenced by his lothario ways. Sergeant Murillo didn’t want to end up creating another pair like the surfer cops, whom the sergeant called his Tylenol Team. That particular pair of supervisory headaches made quality arrests but were always just a big toe away from stepping over the line while getting it done. As long as no-nonsense P2 Mindy Ling was riding with R.T. Dibney, Sergeant Murillo figured he’d be under control, and the slightest romantic overture toward her or anyone else would be dealt with instantly. Sergeant Murillo felt certain of that.

This was brought home on their first night working together in 6-X-46. Mindy Ling, who usually stayed home on her nights off to study for a master’s degree in public administration, occasionally watched Turner Classic Movies with her parents. While R.T. Dibney was loading up their black-and-white with their gear, Mindy began conversing with the cinematic scholar, Hollywood Nate Weiss, about her partner’s style choices. R.T. Dibney saw them looking his way from across the parking lot but didn’t know they were discussing his lounge-lizard mustache and tinted puffy coif reminiscent of yesteryear’s movie stars.

Because the gossipy world of street cops brooks no secrets, Hollywood Nate was also informing her that R.T. Dibney lost his most recent wife by going to Las Vegas with his buddies after telling her he was on a fishing trip. He blew $2,000 on a weekend of fun and frolic at the tables and in hotel bedrooms, and it just about cleaned out their bank balance. Nearly broke and remorseful, he’d returned to L.A. and gone straight downtown to the diamond district, where two Iranian jewelers called Eddie and Freddie sold him a beautiful cubic zirconium ring for his last $200. R.T. Dibney told his wife that the ring had cost $2,500, and though it broke their piggy bank temporarily, he’d felt compelled to purchase it in order to renew their wedding vows, so deep was his love for her.

That particular wife had a cousin in the jewelry business, and when she showed the cousin her ring, he pointed out to her that her diamond was bogus and her husband was a conniving turd that she should flush away before spawning something that carried his genetic profile. R.T. Dibney’s divorce lawyer told the cop that he alone was putting the lawyer’s kid through college and in essence thanked him for being such a conniving turd.

Mindy Ling thanked Hollywood Nate for the information on R.T. Dibney, and by way of introduction that ultimately left her new partner gob-smacked, she got behind the wheel of their car, turned to R.T. Dibney, and said, “I’ve heard a lot about you and your devil-may-care swashbuckling exploits. Tell me, how many times have you been married?”

“I’ve been married three-point-five times,” R.T. Dibney said with a semi-leer. “It must be that I give off a certain musk that makes me a marriage target, but I’m technically still on the market… in case anyone’s interested.”

R.T. Dibney was enjoying this unexpected attention from Mindy Ling until she added, “Partner, I’m as much into nostalgia as the next girl, so I gotta respect someone in this day and age with the chutzpah to sport a toothbrush stash and a Lady Clairol blow-dried do. But while you’re with me, I’d like you to keep in mind that no matter how hard you try channeling Errol Flynn, he’s dead and gone, and nobody gives a damn how many women he balled. Now, let’s try to concentrate on good police work the whole time we’re together, shall we?”

Late that afternoon, while 6-X-46 was still in the parking lot with the rest of the midwatch, fourteen-year-old Naomi Teller was near Fairfax High School, walking home to Ogden Drive, when a slender, smiling boy in a light blue T-shirt and jeans, who she thought was at least eighteen years old, walked up behind her on the sidewalk and said, “Yo, Goldilocks, you can’t be just getting out of summer school this late.”

Naomi hesitated but was reassured by his brilliant smile, which produced deep dimples in his cheeks. She liked the way his black hair curled over his ears and on his neck, and she liked his flaming dark eyes and tawny cheeks, which sported a young man’s light growth of soft dark whiskers. She felt that he might be Hispanic, but he had no accent, so she wasn’t sure. It was flattering to have such a very cute older boy paying attention to her.

Naomi had small bones, narrow shoulders, and still-developing breasts. Eyes too large and mouth too small, she hadn’t received much attention from the boys in middle school, but this older boy was looking at her and talking to her in a way that no one had before, and it was superexciting.

“I won’t be going to Fairfax until September,” Naomi Teller said truthfully, even though she was tempted to lie about her age.

“You and me should maybe go someplace and hang out,” he said. “I’d like to get to know you and make some friends around here. Most girls with hair like yours have to dye it to get it so gold, but I can see that yours was a gift from God. My name’s Clark, what’s yours?”

“Naomi,” she said, and she couldn’t help smiling back at him, his dimpled smile was so infectious. “That’s the name of the guy in Superman, Clark Kent.”

“That’s why my adopted parents named me that when they found me near a crashed spaceship.”

Naomi giggled, and he smiled more broadly and said, “Your hair is exactly the color of the honey I spread on my peanut butter sandwiches.”

That made her laugh. “I guess that’s a compliment.”

“Yours is a natural color,” he said. “Anybody can see that. I hate all those old women who try to make their hair look like yours. They can’t do it and shouldn’t try.”

“My mom tries,” Naomi said.

“Maybe we should go to the movies sometime, Naomi,” he said. “Can I have your number?”

“Well…,” she said.

“What time do you go to bed?”

“In the summer? About eleven. My mom’s strict.”

“I’ll call you at ten forty-five to say good night,” he said.

Naomi thought those dimples and that smile were to die for. And his teeth? So straight and white, natural white, not that phony bleached white that so many older people like her father were doing these days.

She said, “Okay, you can call me.” And she gave him her cell number, which he wrote on the back of his hand with a ballpoint pen.