Joseph Wambaugh: Hollywood Moon

The third book in the Hollywood Station series, 2009

As ever, special thanks for the terrific anecdotes and great cop talk goes to officers of the Los Angeles Police Department:

Randy Barr, Gabriel Blanco, Sue Brandstetter, Alma Burke, Vicki Bynum, Holly Daniel, Bob Deamer, Mike Diaz, Bill Duke, Bob Duretto (ret.), Klaus Edgell, Irma Foster, Dan Gomez, Brett Goodkin, Craig Herron, Diana Herron, Lin Hom, John Incontro, LaMont Jerrett, Corina Lee, J. J. Leonard (ret.), Sig Lo, Al Lopez, Kathy McAnany, Steve McClain, Paul McKechnie, Joan McNamara, Greg Nichols, Maligi Nua Jr., Bill Pack, Kim Porter, Armando Romero, Ken Smith (ret.), Nick Titiriga, Terri Utley, Ray Valois, Jody Wakefield, Ed Whyte, Tracy Wolfe, Eddie Yoon

And to officers of the San Diego Police Department:

J. B. Boyd, Silvia Brown, Laurie Cairncross, Paul Conley, Carlton Hershman, Mike Holden, Lou Johns, Howard Labroe, Duane Malinowski, Vic Morel, Paul Phillips, Tony Puente (ret.), Cori Queen, Dani Resch, Dave Speck, John Teft

And to Officer Arvar Elkins of the Huntington Beach Police Department

And to investigators of the San Diego District Attorney’s Office: Joe Cargel, Paul Libassi

And to San Diego deputy district attorney Joan K. Stein

And to special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Mike Matassa (ret.)

And to special agent of the Secret Service Elizabeth McCaffree

HOLLYWOOD NATE RENTS midgets,” the long-legged, sunbaked surfer cop whom the others called Flotsam said to his partner while 6-X-32 was passing Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, cruising east on Hollywood Boulevard at twilight.

The dying spangled sunlight ricocheted off the windows of the taller buildings, and his shorter surfer partner, also weathered and singed, whom of course they called Jetsam, glanced at the driver through the smoked lenses of his wraparound shades and said, “What?”

Flotsam wore his two-inch hair gelled up in front like a baby cockatoo, and Jetsam’s was semispiked, both coifs streaked with highlights not provided by sun, sea, or nature. And with just enough gel to get it done and still not annoy the watch commander, a lieutenant in his early fifties, twenty years their senior, and very old-school.

“In fact,” Flotsam continued, “last Wednesday, Nate hired one to bowl with him for twenty bucks an hour. That’s when five coppers from the midwatch and Watch 2 got together at the bowling alley in the Kodak Centre with a bunch from north Hollywood and Wilshire. I heard that Nate, like, stole the spotlight with his midget.”

“Where did you hear about Hollywood Nate and midget love?” Jetsam wanted to know.

“I got it from Sheila,” Flotsam said, referring to Officer Sheila Montez, a midwatch P2 whom both surfer cops lusted for. “And I ain’t saying he loves little people, but, dude, he’s so cinematically dialed-in, he devised this way to capture the attention of all the bowling alley Sallys. His little fella gets all flirty and cute with the Sallys, and it sets things up for Nate to move in and close the deal.”

Officer Nathan Weiss, a hawkishly handsome thirty-seven-year-old, physically fit gym rat, was called Hollywood Nate because he possessed a SAG card and had actually appeared briefly in a few TV movies. And he always volunteered to work every red carpet event at the Kodak Theatre in his thus-far futile quest for cinematic discovery and eventual stardom.

Jetsam envisioned those feverishly hot Sallys as he shot a casual glance toward the Walk of Fame, where lots of curb creatures were already out. He saw a tweaker sidling closer toward the purse of an obese tourist who was busy yelling at her much smaller husband. The tweaker backed off and slithered into the crowd when Jetsam gave him the stink eye as the black-and-white passed. The Street Characters-Batman, Superman (two Supermans, actually), Darth Vader, Spider-Man, Bart Simpson, SpongeBob, and Catwoman-were all mingling with tourists in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, posing for camera shots in an endless quest for tourist bucks.

“Maybe we oughtta hire a midget too,” Jetsam said. “I used to bowl a lot when I was married to my second ex-wife, who I miss like a prostate infection. It was a low-rent bowling alley in Long Beach, and I was, like, the only bowler in the whole place who wasn’t sleazed-out. Even my second ex-who loved bowling, Leonardo DiCaprio, and pharmaceuticals-was inked-up, a butterfly on her belly and my name on her ass. Her girlfriend told me how that prescription zombie screamed like a cat when they lasered my name off. I’da coughed up two weeks’ pay for a video of it. Her exotic girlfriend, by the way, might be worth your attention, bro. She’s an Indian.”

“Feather or dot?”

“Dot.”

“No way, dude,” Flotsam said. “Every time my laptop goes sideways, I get one of them on the line and always end up tossing my cell phone against the wall in frustration. I buy more cells than every cartel in Colombia. But I agree, we should definitely not overlook the target-rich environment at the Kodak Centre.”

Jetsam said, “Being where it’s located makes it, like, the most lavish bowling alley this side of the palace of Dubai. Maybe we can’t afford it?”

“ ‘Can’t’ is a frame of mind that don’t hold our photo,” Flotsam said. “Hollywood Nate claims that on certain nights, it’s full of bowling alley Sallys hoping Matt Damon will come in to roll a line or two, or maybe Brad Pitt when Angelina’s in Africa looking for sainthood with people even skinnier than she is.”

Jetsam said, “I hear what you’re saying, bro. I mean, there’s gotta be opportunities on those lanes for coppers as coolaphonic and hormonally imaginative as the almost four hundred pounds of male heat riding in this car.”

Flotsam thought about it some more and then said, “There’s a midget that works at the newsstand on Cahuenga. And there’s that roller-skating midget at Hollywood and Highland. The one that throws water balloons at tourists? He’d crawl in a clothes dryer for twenty bucks an hour.”

“A plethora of midgets ain’t gonna get us our way,” Jetsam said, showing off the new vocabulary he was acquiring from his community college class. “We gotta think original. Maybe we could, like, hire a clown to bowl with us. That would amaze those ten-pin tootsies.”

“I’m scared of clowns,” Flotsam blurted, and it was out of his mouth before he could take it back.

“You’re what?” Jetsam said, and this time he turned fully toward his partner as the late-summer sun dropped into the Pacific and lights came on in Hollywood, the fluorescent glow making the boulevard scene look even weirder to the swarming tourists.

Flotsam and Jetsam had been midwatch partners and fellow surfers for more than two years, but this was the first time Jetsam had learned this incredible secret: His tall, rugged partner was afraid of clowns!

“Maybe I said it wrong, dude,” Flotsam quickly added. “It’s just that they, like, shiver me. The way a snake creeps you out, know what I mean?”

“Snakes don’t creep me out, bro,” Jetsam said.

“Rats, then. I seen you that time we got the dead-body call where rats were all eating the guy’s eyeballs. You were ready to blow chunks, dude.”

“It wasn’t the rats themselves, bro,” Jetsam said. “I just wasn’t ready for an all-out rodent luau.”

“Anyways, I’m just saying, clowns, like, make me, like, all… goose-bumpy. I mean, maybe I saw too many movies about slasher clowns or something, I don’t know.”