And the first supervisor to show up at the scene was Sergeant Jason Treakle, who’d been on a suck-up mission to buy two hamburgers and an order of fries for the night-watch lieutenant. Sergeant Treakle had gotten a brainstorm the moment he’d heard the call. The idea actually made him say “Wow!” aloud, though he was alone in the car. Then he looked at the bag of burgers next to him, turned on his light bar, and sped to the location of the jumper call.
The young sergeant had recently read about an attempted suicide where a jumper had been talked down by a crisis negotiator who’d bought him a sandwich that they shared while talking at length about the people, real and imagined, who were tormenting him. The crisis negotiator had gotten her photo in the L.A. Times and had done several TV interviews.
When the midwatch supervisor ascended to the tower, carrying the bag of burgers, and brushed past Cat Song and Hollywood Nate, Cat said, “Sergeant Treakle, wait! Ronnie’s talking to the guy. Wait, please.”
Hollywood Nate said, “Don’t go out there, Sergeant.”
The sergeant said, “Don’t tell me my job, Weiss.”
Nate Weiss, who had several years in age and job experience on his former supervisor, said, “Sergeant, nobody should ever bust in on a suicide standoff. This might be Hollywood but this is not a movie, and there’s no air bag down there.”
“Thanks for your wise counsel,” Sergeant Treakle said with a chilly glance at Nate. “I’ll keep it in mind if you ever become my boss.”
Ronnie turned and saw him striding confidently along the deck and said, “Sergeant! Go back, please! Let me handle —”
The anguished moan from Randolph Bronson made her spin around. He was staring at the uniformed sergeant with the condescending smile and the bulging paper bag in his hand, into which he was reaching.
The boy’s pale eyes had gotten huge behind the eyeglasses. Then he looked at Ronnie and said, “He’s going to kill me!”
And he was gone. Just like that.
The screams from the crowd, a gust of wind, and Cat’s and Nate’s shouts all prevented Ronnie from hearing her own cry as she lunged forward and gaped over the railing. She saw him bounce once on the pavement. Several bluesuits immediately began holding back the most morbid of the boulevard onlookers.
A few minutes later, there were a dozen more uniforms in the lobby of the building who observed Ronnie Sinclair, eyes glistening, yelling curses into the face of Sergeant Jason Treakle, who had gone pale and didn’t know how to respond to his subordinate.
Ronnie didn’t remember what she’d yelled, but Cat later said, “You started dropping F-bombs and it was beautiful. There’s nothing Treakle can do about it, because now he knows he was dead wrong. And now that kid is just plain dead.”
When they got out to the street, they were amazed to see that Randolph Bronson’s wire-rimmed glasses were still affixed to his face and only one lens was broken. He had not blown apart, as some of them do, but there was a massive pool of blood.
Cat put an arm around Ronnie’s shoulder, squeezed it, and said, “Gimme the keys to our shop. Let me drive us to the station.”
Ronnie handed Cat the car keys without objection.
Compassionate Charlie Gilford, who never missed a newsworthy incident, especially with carnage involved, arrived in time to observe them picking up the body, and he offered his usual on-scene commentary.
The lanky veteran detective sucked his teeth and said to the body snatcher driving the coroner’s van, “So, one of our patrol sergeants thought he could keep this looney tune from a back flip by feeding him a meal, right? Man, this is fucking Hollywood! Everybody knows you can walk a couple blocks to Musso and Frank’s and dine with movie stars on comfort food. And Wolfgang Puck’s got a joint right inside the Kodak Center with some of the trendiest eats in town. But what does our ass-wipe sergeant do to cheer up a depressed wack job? He brings the dude a fucking Big Mac! No wonder the fruitloop jumped.”
Later that night, Compassionate Charlie Gilford saw Ronnie Sinclair in the report room massaging her temples, waiting for the interrogation from Force Investigation Division, knowing that this one would be handled just like an officer-involved shooting.
The detective said merrily, “I hear you really carpet bombed Chickenlips Treakle, Ronnie. Hollywood Nate told me you wouldn’t hear that many ‘motherfuckers’ at a Chris Rock concert. Way to go, girl!”
“Blisteringly funny police procedural.”
—New York Times Book Review
DON’T MISS JOSEPH WAMBAUGH’S CLASSIC NOVEL
THE BLUE KNIGHT
Ex-cop turned #1 New York Times bestselling writer Joseph Wambaugh forged a new kind of literature with his great early police procedurals. Gritty, luminous, and ultimately stunning, this novel is Wambaugh at his best—a tale of a street cop on the hardest beat of his life.
Available wherever books are sold from
Grand Central Publishing
The New Centurions Page 42