Ed Lacy - Dead End

When I told her to shut up, that the watch was still working fine, she repeated her favorite four-letter word half a dozen times—as if proving something.

Whatever we needed for the house had to be bought on time, so we were always in debt, really strapped. Elma's beef about money was legit, but what sent me straight up was this dumb idea she had that there was all sorts of graft for a beat cop to put his hands on. She would nag that I was a dummy who wasn't trying. I'd keep telling her the old days of a patrolman even taking apples on the cuff were gone. I didn't doubt but that there was cushion money around, but only for the brass. Like I knew damn well there was a book working in the rear of a meat store on my post. I also knew—also damn well—it couldn't operate without the knowledge of the precinct captain and downtown. This joint had been taking bets for years. So I began dropping into the store, pretending I was asking the counterman about the best kind of meat for my sick wife. We both knew my presence wasn't helping “business,” and if they wanted to they could have called downtown and maybe have me sent to another precinct. But the counterman (and he was a real butcher, too—they did a good meat business) would tell me to stop by when I was off and give me a steak, or a ham. It was understood I could stop by once a week.

It was so petty it made me feel lousy. Ollie told me, “Why bother with that stuff? You get a few bucks' worth of meat for free—big deal.”

But Ollie could talk; his wife was a schoolteacher. When they bought a new car and I made the mistake of mentioning it to Elma, she blew her stack. “And we haven't even got decent furniture, a rug, a vacuum cleaner, much less a car! I'm ashamed to ask my folks up here.”

“If they ever should decide to come, tell 'em to take a bath first. Honey, Ollie makes it because his wife has this good job. Why don't you try for some part-time work? Not for the dough so much, but it would be good for you.”

After sputtering her favorite word, she said, “You know I'm not strong, that I nearly died. What you trying to do, get rid of me?”

“Stop it. The operation was almost a year ago. If you got out of the house more, you wouldn't be so sickly.”

You see, I tried as best I could. For a time I had a job as a bouncer in a small cafe, but that only lasted a few weeks. My change of tours killed it, and then the sergeant called me in for another session, warning me it was against some civil service law for a cop to have an outside job.

Elma seemed to think I was holding out, rolling in dough. She began sopping up a lot of beer during the afternoons—or as much as we could afford—and reading these fact-crime magazines. When I'd come home Elma would give me a beer-breath full of, “I was reading about this cop who they found had a ten-thousand-dollar boat, a Caddy, and owned a small apartment house. And he was a hick cop, making less than three grand a year.”

“What jail is he in now?”

“Don't you be so damn smart with me, Bucky. Smarten up on the job if you got to be a wise guy. Yeah, he was caught, but think of all the cops with their hands out who don't get nabbed. How about that traffic-cop ring in New York selling protection cards for fifty bucks a shot?”

“Aw Elma, stop clawing at me. If there was any graft around I'd get it but—”

“But all you get is a few pounds of leftover meat now and then.”

“Lay off me. I'm trying to get something going for myself. My best bet is to make a good collar, be made a detective third grade. It would mean an immediate raise of a few hundred dollars, then almost a thousand more a year soon. And in plain clothes, a guy could find a lot of gravy. Look, instead of beefing all the time, at least clean up the house. It's a pigpen.”

“That's me, Mrs. Pig Penn,” she said, well knowing any cracks about my name made me get up steam.

I slapped her moon face. She broke into tears and I said, “I'm fed up with all your self-pity. You remind me of my old man and his—”

“Nate wasn't your old man.”

I backhanded her and she fell to the floor. I stared down at her, remembering how she had stood by me in my trouble with Nate, the rest of the block. And I hate hitting women. I pulled her up—which was hard work—held her as I said, “Okay, Hon, I'm sorry. You think I like scrimping? I'm trying my best to get my hands on more dough. But you have to try too. Stop bloating yourself with beer. Watch your diet, get out of the house every day. You're still young, no sense in looking... so big.”

“You don't even love me any more,” Elma whined.

“Sure I do. It's merely my change of tours, and you being so sickly that... Come on, let's go to bed.”

But her soft bulk, along with the knowledge that she didn't get the slightest kick out of it any more, made it impossible for me to have relations with her, and she began sneering at me for that, too. I didn't worry. I never was much of a lover-boy; sex was rarely on my mind. I started staying out of the house as much as possible. After my tour of duty I would take a few drinks and roam the streets. It wasn't just keeping out of Elma's way; I liked being a cop, hunting crooks. I told myself that by walking around I might luck up on a good collar, make detective. It wasn't only for Elma; I wanted to be able to buy a tie or pack of butts without a debate with myself as to whether I could afford it.

I'd often read in the papers about some off-duty cop coming on a stick-up, or something. When I was on the four-to-midnight shift I loved roaming the dark streets in the early morning hours, looking for trouble. I found it once—a squad car in a downtown precinct stopped me early one morning, thinking I was a suspicious character.

Another time I collared a drunk stealing a car. I got a pat on the back from the desk lieutenant and a sarcastic request to keep to my own precinct. I really tried, even paid out eating money to bone up on the sergeant's exam at some school. But I didn't pass high enough to make it count.

Things work out funny. The thing I thought would make me a dick was a silly deal that happened on my own beat. I was on an eight-to-four tour and at 3:15 p.m. there's a loony kid perched on the roof of a tenement. He was a skinny, nervous boy of about eighteen, upset because the Army had rejected him, of all dumb things. I went up to the roof and there's his bawling mother and a couple other old women. We couldn't get close—he threatened to jump. I had to race down six flights of stairs to put in a call for the emergency squad and then back up to the roof again. Somebody had called a priest and he was up there, trying to talk the kid out of it.

I had a deal cooking for 4:30 p.m. Some babe was having trouble with her boy friend and wanted to move her things out of his room without getting her head handed to her. She had a trunk and a TV to move, so she had set up a date with a moving van. When I told her I'd be off duty then, she said it would be worth a five spot for me to be around, in case her guy talked out of turn with his mitts. The emergency squad sergeant had a net below and there was several of his men around, but when I told him I was due to go off at four, he said for me to stick around.

It's getting near 4 p.m. and now they got a rabbi and the priest talking to this dumb kid, and he still wanted to jump. The two ministers were putting their heads together for a conference and I was mad as hell. If I didn't show, all the babe had to do was call the beat cop and I'd be out my five bucks. All because of a nutty jerk.

At five to four I walked across the roof toward him, and he wailed, “I'll jump if you come a step nearer!”

I said, in a loud whisper, “Go ahead and jump, you dumb sonofabitch! Go on, get it over with!”