Joseph Wambaugh - The Choirboys

“No sense anybody else riding this beef,” Harold said stubbornly. “Spermwhale, you’ve got almost twenty years to protect. It’s too late for you to be involved in something like this.”

Spermwhale Whalen sighed and the others waited for him. He walked over to Sam Niles and put his hand on Sam’s shoulder without looking at him. He patted Sam’s shoulder and walked wearily to his blanket to gather up his belongings. Choir practice was over.

Within ten minutes Roscoe was pushing the blue truck for all it was worth down Venice Boulevard.

Within fifteen minutes hasty plans were made after several violent arguments as to whether they should lie, but finally Harold Bloomguard replaced four of the empty shells in Sam’s gun with four live rounds.

Within thirty minutes Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard were sitting in the detective bureau at Wilshire Station and a homicide team was on the way as was Captain Drobeck, as was a team of officers from Internal Affairs Division.

Since the killing was officer-involved, the homicide team that showed up at Wilshire Station that night were strangers. There was an old one with bifocals who was even more nearsighted than Sam Niles. There was a young one with a hair style longer than was permitted at Wilshire station.

Harold Bloomguard had swabbed most of the blood from around the eyes of Sam Niles before they were separated. When the detectives entered the interrogation room Sam’s right eye was puffy and cut at the corner. He squinted myopically at the detectives until they sat down in front of him.

“Lost your glasses, huh, Sam?” the older detective asked.

“Yes.”

“Wanna talk about it now? Tell us how it happened.”

“Yes. We went to the park just like Harold said. We drank some b-b-b-beer. W-w-w-we…”

“Wanna smoke, Sam?”

“Th-th-th-thank you,” Sam Niles said, accepting the cigarette from the detective.

“Internal Affairs will be here real soon,” the younger detective said. “Let’s get the story now before you have to tell the head-hunters.”

“Sure,” said Sam Niles, looking blankly at both detectives. “W-w-w-well, I d-d-d-dropped my gun and p-p-p-…”

“You picked it up?”

“Sure,” Sam nodded, looking from one face to the other.

He sat perfectly still, did not sweat, did not tremble, looked normal, except more earnest than laconic. It was only the stutter which was different.

“Did the gun go off, Sam?” the younger detective asked impatiently as the older detective sat back and studied the choirboy.

“Y-y-y-y…”

“All right, that’s enough for the moment,” the older detective said.

As the two detectives started out the door Sam Niles made his last statement on the subject of the shooting at MacArthur Park. He said, “The h-h-h-head was all shot off. The b-b-b-blood was everywhere!”

“Whose?” the young detective asked as they turned in the doorway.

“Th-th-th-the Moaning Man!” cried Sam Niles. “He said, ‘Mmmmmmmmmm. Uuuuuuuuuuh.’”

“Who?” the younger detective asked.

“Baxter! He said, ‘Mmmmmmmmmm. Uuuuuuuhhhh!’ I couldn’t touch him! He was too … revolting! How could I take his hand? How could I?”

“Who?” the younger detective asked.

“Baxter Slate!” Sam Niles sobbed.

“Holy mother,” said the younger detective.

“Okay, Sam,” the older detective said. “You just relax and finish your smoke. We’re gonna let you go to bed soon.”

The older detective came out of the interrogation room and walked straight to Sergeant Nick Yanov and said, “I want a radio car to take this boy to the Hospital Detail for immediate commitment to the psycho ward at General Hospital.”

“But the headhunters’re on the way” said Nick Yanov.

“It’s my case and I’ll take the responsibility” the old detective answered. “This boy isn’t fit to be interrogated by anyone , especially not the headhunters.”

“They won’t be able to get to him in the hospital,” Nick Yanov said with a grim smile. “They’re not gonna like it.”

“Too goddamn bad,” the old detective said, making a decision which would cost him a suspension and ten days’ pay.

By the time the black and white arrived at Unit Three, Psychiatric Admitting, Sam Niles was described by a young intern as catatonic.

DR. EMIL MOODY

Niles and Bloomguard!” said Lieutenant Elliott “Hardass” Grimsley formerly of Wilshire nightwatch, now of Internal Affairs Division, when he was telephoned at home that morning by his investigators who could not break Harold Bloomguard’s spurious story. Nor could they gain admission to General Hospital Psychiatric Ward to talk to Sam Niles, who by now could not even have told them his name.

“I remember them,” Lieutenant Grimsley said. “Troublemakers. Friends of that slob, Spermwhale Whalen. Listen, I heard rumors they used to go to choir practice with several other officers from the nightwatch. MacArthur Park? Maybe that’s where they go. Get to Whalen’s house. Roust the fat pig outta bed and bring him down to IAD. Let’s sweat him.”

At 9:00 A.M. the two headhunters sat with Spermwhale Whalen in an interrogation room on the fifth floor of the police building. They looked at his bristling red jowls and huge stomach and fierce little eyes filled with contempt and rebellion.

“You don’t expect us to believe that you know nothing about this shooting?” the unsmiling investigator said. “We have reliable information that you were there.”

Spermwhale Whalen looked at both young plainclothes sergeants and said, “You know so much, what’re you fuckin with me for?”

“Listen, Whalen.” The other plainclothes sergeant leaned over the table. “We found empty booze bottles not far from the body. You boys didn’t clean up everything well enough. And we found tire tracks and casts’ve been made. One of you had a car parked there.”

“I told you I went home after work last night. I don’t know what this’s all about and I resent the shit outta you two bringin me here.”

The investigator who played bad guy stood up disgustedly and stormed out of the door so his partner could play good guy which of course Spermwhale wasn’t buying.

“He say anything?” asked Lieutenant Grimsley who was waiting in the corridor outside with Commander Hector Moss and Deputy Chief Adrian Lynch who had spent the night in a motel with his passionate secretary Theda Gunther, and predictably had his toupee twisted.

“Whalen’s a good actor, Lieutenant,” the investigator said. “Unless it’s the truth. Maybe Bloomguard isn’t lying. He’s sticking to the original story right down the line.”

“Bullshit!” Lieutenant Grimsley interrupted. “I know Bloomguard’s lying. Those beer cans and bottles …”

“We can’t prove they put them there,” the investigator said.

“How about that bra you found?” Lieutenant Grimsley asked.

“Looked like it’d been there several days. Covered with leaves and debris.”

“What size was it?”

“Enormous. Forty-four, D cup.”

“Any station groupies with tits that big?” pondered Lieutenant Grimsley, unconsciously glancing at the amorous deputy chief.

“What’re you looking at me for, Lieutenant?”

“Oh. Sorry, sir,” Hardass Grimsley blanched.

“Why don’t you have a try at him, Lieutenant?” asked Commander Moss, and Lieutenant Grimsley smiled nervously as he visualized a scene with Spermwhale Whalen telling about the black woman from Philadelphia he had caught Grimsley going down on when he was the Wilshire watch commander.

“I don’t like to interfere with my men’s investigations,” Lieutenant Grimsley said, hoping that Spermwhale Whalen wouldn’t see him and wink and muss up his hair.