Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

And then Wingnut Bates heard his mother-in-law scream, “Willard! Willard! Have you gone crazy ?”

That was the kind of thing that happened to new vice cops. Once he was operating a complaint about wienie waggers inside a movie house adjoining a dirty bookstore that was disturbingly close to Disneyland. The cinema was showing Doing Debbie Dirty , which starred a surprisingly hot-looking porn star with a supporting cast of thirty-seven guys. They put Wingnut down in the front row with instructions to come running toward the back of the theater if they gave a signal. A signal meant they’d caught some guy milking the anaconda. They also told him they hoped he’d worn a jockstrap because it would be very unprofessional if he were to grow a woody watching Debbie being done dirty.

Five minutes later, one of the vice cops posing as a customer stormed huffily out to the lobby and told the manager, “That little guy in the front row with the gremlin ears, he’s low-crawling people’s crotches! He’s a pervert! I want my money back!”

And then another vice cop posing as a customer stalked out saying indignantly, “I goddamn near broke my ankle slipping on the floor down in front! There’s a little jerkoff down there going splooey all over the place! You could hydroplane on all the sapazzola in this freak show! I want my money back!”

And so forth.

While the vice cops went outside to giggle, the theater manager, who was sick and tired of dummy floggers chasing off legitimate customers, grabbed Wingnut by the scruff of the neck and dragged him right out of his seat, which resulted in a reflexive swing by Wingnut and a retaliatory punch by the theater manager, and pretty soon there was a screaming wrestling match that had all the customers pouring out of the cinema in panic.

By the time the other cops realized that another prank had backfired, and came running back into the theater, the fight had spilled over next door into the X-rated bookstore where the theater manager was doing a rain dance from having taken a swing and smacked the wall. He was jumping up and down with a busted hand, yelling and screaming, and Wingnut was sprawled between the dildos and the transvestite pinups thinking that vice wasn’t going to be much better than patrol.

His Orange County police career ended not because of any backfired pranks but on a legitimate whore operation at a high-rise hotel where he almost got shot. On this operation, Wingnut was supposed to be a young insurance adjuster who was in town to assess the damage that a winter storm had done to a piece of waterfront property in Seal Beach. That was the cover story if he was lucky enough to meet a suspected hooker who’d been working a certain hotel bar for several weeks.

Wingnut was under strict instructions not to make any overt move with the hooker until midnight, which was the earliest that the cover team could finish a surveillance they were doing across town. He was just supposed to mosey around the bar and engage the girl in conversation if he was lucky enough to make contact, and then to stall until the cover team arrived. He was to give them a prearranged signal if she made an offer of prostitution. Then they’d move in, hook her up and haul her off to the slam.

That was the plan. Except that Wingnut had three margaritas before he saw the petite young lollipop stroll in and sit at the bar two stools away. She wasn’t any older than Wingnut. She sort of reminded him of Debbie of the aborted movie review. Wingnut was feeling sorry for her but he’d already worked vice long enough to have regretted feeling sorry for hookers. He had once let one go pee during a vice raid, and when they broke down the locked bathroom door they found only the curtains blowing through an open window. That, after she’d already asked six other cops if she could go to the john and been refused, earning dipshit-of-the-month award for Wingnut.

So Wingnut, fried on tequila and salt, made friends with the girl. Her name was Sally, and she wouldn’t go far enough with her “offer” to satisfy the state penal-code requirements. She asked Wingnut if they could go to his room to continue his conversation.

“Lets wait awhile,” Wingnut said. “What’s your hurry?”

“Ain’t you in a hurry?” Sally smiled slyly. “Ain’t I something you wanna hurry for?”

“Yeah, sure,” Wingnut said. “But we haven’t talked … business yet.”

“Let’s do that in your room,” she said.

“It might not be agreeable, the terms I mean.”

“It’ll be agreeable,” she said.

“Gimme a hint,” Wingnut said, and now he was trying to be sly except that she was starting to look fuzzy. That was a lot of cactus juice for the young cop.

“Let’s go on up and I’ll talk more when we’re alone in the elevator,” she said.

“Let’s have another drink,” Wingnut said.

“Listen, honey, you’re awful cute,” Sally said, “but I ain’t got all night. If you’re not interested I’m gonna have to move on down the road.”

“Wait a minute!” Wingnut said, seeing his arrest slipping away. “Okay, we’ll talk on the elevator.” What the hell. He couldn’t have much trouble from such a frail little girl.

The hotel was very quiet at that time of night. There was a nice-looking fellow already standing at the elevator when they strolled up arm in arm like honeymooners. The young man was wearing a cardigan, pants with cuffs, and penny loafers, so it never occurred to Wingnut that he could be a hooker’s main man. They were all supposed to be bad-looking spades with silk shirts and earrings and alligator boots.

Wingnut wished the elevator was empty. He had to have the offer quick because there was no hotel room. “Which floor you want?” Wingnut said to the young man in the cardigan, hoping he’d get off on a lower floor, giving Wingnut some time with the hooker.

“All the way up,” the young fellow smiled, and when Wingnut pushed the button the young fellow said, “All the way up.”

“I pushed the top floor,” Wingnut said testily.

“I mean your hands ,” the young man said, producing a chrome-plated.32-caliber revolver. “Put them all the way up.”

They took him out on the tenth floor. They were efficient and very fast. While the hooker held the elevator doors open, her partner pushed Wingnut against the wall and had his wallet, wristwatch and flash money within thirty seconds. Then the partner found Wingnut’s handcuffs in the young cop’s back pocket.

“Are you a cop?” the hooker gasped.

“Yeah, I’m vice,” Wingnut said. “You’re under arrest.”

“You’re dead,” the young man said.

“You’re not under arrest,” said Wingnut.

“Get back in the elevator,” the young man commanded, but Wingnut said, “Hey, tell you what! You let me go and I’ll let you go!”

“I ain’t as stupid as you,” the young guy said, handcuffing both Wingnut’s wrists to the handrail in the elevator.

“Please don’t do that,” Wingnut said, as the elevator descended. “Just go ahead and run. I’ll give you a head start.”

“You already did,” the young guy said, before he and the whore got out, waved bye-bye and pushed the button that sent Wingnut to the penthouse.

The handcuff chain allowed him to reach the elevator panel all right. Wingnut mashed the emergency button with his freckled little nose, and when the hotel employees found him and called the police station for a spare handcuff key, Wingnut Bates decided that Orange County was full of hard luck.

He had a feeling he might still like a career in law enforcement, but maybe in a less populated, quieter sort of place. He heard they were looking for cops at a small department near Palm Springs. Wingnut met Sergeant Harry Bright who interviewed him and said that he had potential and seemed to be a good lad.