the New Centurions (1971)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Roy did not walk down the stairs with Rolfe, his partner. The laughter and voices of the others angered him for no apparent reason. The uniform clung wetly on this hot evening and chafed and hung like an oppressive blue pall. Roy dragged himself to the radio car and was glad it was Rolfe's turn to drive tonight. He hadn't the energy. It would be a sultry night as well as hot.

  Roy wrote his name mechanically in the log and wrote Rolfe's name on the line below. He made a few other notations, then slammed the notebook as Rolfe drove out of the station parking lot and Roy turned the windwing so that what breeze there was cooled him a little.

  "Anything special you want to do tonight?" asked Rolfe, a young, usually smiling ex-sailor who had been a policeman just one year and who still had a bubbling exuberance for police work that Roy found annoying.

  "Nothing special," said Roy, closing the windwing when he lit a cigarette which tasted bad.

  "Let's drive by Fifty-ninth and Avalon," said Rolfe. "We haven't been giving the pill pushers too much attention lately."

  "Okay," Roy sighed, thinking that only one more night and then he was off for three. And then he began thinking of Alice, the buxom nurse who for six months he watched leaving the apartment house across the street from his, but whom he never tried before last week because he was keeping well satisfied by fair and fragile Jenny, the steno who only lived across the hall. Jenny was so available and so convenient and so eager for love at any hour, sometimes too eager. She insisted on lovemaking when he was exhausted from an overtime shift and any sane person should have been long asleep. He would stumble into his apartment and close the door quietly and before he could even get into his pajamas she would be in his bedroom, having heard him enter and having used the key he never should have given her. He would turn around suddenly when he felt her presence in the silent room and she would burst into a fit of giggling because she had scared hell out of him. She would be in her nightgown, not a well-shaped girl, far too thin, but very pretty and insatiable in her lust. He knew there were other men too despite what Jenny said, but he didn't give a damn because she was too much for him anyway, and besides, now that he had met Alice, milky, scrubbed and starched Alice, and had luxuriated in her yielding softness one fortunate night last week, now he was going to have to discourage Jenny.

  "Looks like a good crowd this evening," said Rolfe. Roy wished he would be quiet when he was thinking about Alice and her splendid gourd-shaped breasts which in themselves provided him with hours of excitement and wonder. If Jenny was two feverish eyes, Alice was two peace-giving breasts. He wondered if there lived a woman whom he could think of as a whole person. He didn't think of Dorothy at all anymore. But then he realized he never thought of anyone as a whole person anymore. Carl was a mouth, an open mouth that criticized incessantly. His father was a pair of eyes, not devouring him like Jenny's, but entreating him, mournful eyes that wanted him to submit to the suffocation of his and Carl's tyranny.

  "If only I could add an S to the Fehler and Son sign," his father had pleaded. "Oh Roy, I'd pay a fortune for that privilege." And then he had come to think of his mother as only a pair of hands, clasped hands, moist hands, talking hands which cajoled, "Roy, Roy, we never see you anymore and when are you leaving that city and coming home where you belong, Roy?"

  Then he thought of Becky, and he felt his heart race. He could think of her as a whole person. She was scampering about now and she seemed so happy to see him when he came. He would never let a week pass without seeing her and to hell with Dorothy and her fat-assed henpecked fiance, because he would never let a weekend pass without seeing Becky. Never. He would bring her presents, spend whatever he wished, and they could go to hell.

  The evening dragged even though many radio calls were being given to Seventy-seventh cars. He was afraid to ask for code seven for fear they'd get a call. His stomach was rumbling. He should have eaten lunch today.

  "Ask for seven," said Rolfe.

  "Twelve-A-Five requesting code seven at the station," said Roy, wishing that he had packed something better than a cheese sandwich in his lunch. It was too close to payday to be buying dinner. He wished there were more eating spots on Seventy-seventh Street. He had long since decided that free food was not unprofessional. Everyone accepted meals and the restaurant proprietors did not seem to mind. They wanted policemen in the place or they wouldn't do it. But he and Rolfe had no eating spot in their district that would even feed them at a discount.

  "Twelve-A-Five, continue patrol," said the operator, "and handle this call: See the woman, unknown trouble, eleven-o-four, east Ninety-second Street, code two."

  Roy rogered the call and turned to Rolfe, "Shit! I'm starving."

  "I hate unknown trouble calls," said Rolfe. "They always make me nervous. I like to know what to expect."

  "This goddamned jungle," said Roy, flipping his cigarette out the window. "You don't get off on time, you miss your meals, fifteen radio calls a night. I've got to get a transfer."

  "Do you really feel that way?" asked Rolfe, turning to Roy with a surprised look. "I like it here. The time passes fast. We're so busy that it's time to go home when I feel like I just came to work. All this action is pretty exciting to me."

  "You'll get over that crap," said Roy. "Turn left here. This is Ninety-second."

  There was a woman in a clean white turban standing in the front yard of the house next to eleven-o-four. Rolfe parked and she waved nervously as they got out of the car.

  "Evening," said Rolfe as they approached the woman, putting on their caps.

  "I'm the one that called Mr. PO-lice," she whispered. "They's a lady in that house that is terrible drunk all the time. She got a new baby, one of them preemeys, jist a tiny bug of a chil', and she always drunk, 'specially when her man at work, and he at work tonight."

  "She bothering you?" asked Roy.

  "It the baby, Mr. PO-lice," said the woman, her arms folded over the ample stomach, as she glanced several times at the house. "She dropped that chil' on the ground last week. I seed her, but my husband say it ain't none our business, but tonight she was staggerin' around' that front porch wif the chil' again and she almost fell right off the porch and I tol' my husband I was calling the PO-lice and tha's what I done."

  "Okay, we'll go have a talk with her," said Roy, walking toward the one-story frame house with a rotting picket fence.

  Roy walked carefully up the dangerous porch steps and stood by habit to one side of the doorway as Rolfe stood to the other side and knocked. They heard the shuffling of feet and a crash and then they knocked again. After more than a minute a woman with oily ringlets opened the door and stared at the policemen with watery little eyes.

  "What you want?" she asked, weaving from side to side as she held tightly to the doorknob for support.

  "We were told you might be having some trouble," said Rolfe with his young easy smile. "Mind if we come in? We're here to help you."

  "I know how the PO-lices helps," said the woman, bumping the doorway with her wide shoulder during a sudden lurch sideways.

  "Look, lady," said Roy, "We were told your baby might be in some danger. How about showing us that the baby's okay and we'll be on our way."

  "Get off my porch," said the woman as she prepared to close the door, and Roy shrugged at Rolfe because they couldn't force their way in with no more cause than her being drunk. Roy decided to stop and buy a hamburger to go with the cheese sandwich that he had begun to crave. Then the baby shrieked. It was not a petulant baby scream of anger or discomfort, but it was a full-blown scream of pain or terror and Rolfe was through the door before the shriek died. Pushing past the drunken woman he bounded across the small living room into the kitchen. Roy was just entering the house when Rolfe emerged from the kitchen carrying the incredibly tiny nightgown-clad baby in his arms.

  "She laid the baby on the kitchen table next to her ashtray," said Rolfe, awkwardly rocking the moaning brown-skinned infant. "It got hold of the burning cigarette. Hand's burned,
and the stomach too. Look at the hole in the nightgown. Poor thing." Rolfe glared at the angry woman over his shoulder as he cradled the baby in one big arm away from the mother who looked on the verge of drunken decision.

  "Give me my chil'," she said stepping toward Rolfe.

  "Just a minute, lady," said Roy, grabbing her by a surprisingly hard bicep. "Partner, I think we've got enough to book her for child endangering. Lady, you're under ar..." She drove an elbow into the side of Roy's neck and his head struck the edge of the door with a painful shock and he heard Rolfe shout as she lunged for him and Roy stared transfixed as he saw the fragile, screaming baby being pulled by the woman who had the left arm and Rolfe who had the right leg in one hand while his other hand clawed the air in horror and helplessness.

  "Let it go, Rolfe," Roy shouted, as the woman jerked backward viciously and Rolfe followed her, unwilling to surrender the wailing infant completely.

  Finally Rolfe released the child, and Roy shuddered as the woman fell heavily back into a chair holding the baby by one leg across her lap.

  "Let her keep it, Rolfe!" Roy shouted, still unable to decide what to do because they would surely kill it, but Rolfe had pounced on the woman who was digging and punching at his face, still holding the baby in a death grip, first by the leg, then by the arm when Rolfe pulled a hand free. Roy leaped forward when she grabbed the now silent baby by the throat.

  "My God, my God," Roy whispered, as he tore the fingers free one at a time while Rolfe pinned the woman's other arm and she cursed and spat and he had the last finger twisted free and was lifting the trembling little body in one hand when the woman's head snapped forward and her teeth closed first on Roy's hand and he shouted in sudden pain. She released him and bit at the child as Rolfe grabbed the woman's neck, and tried to force the head back, but the large white teeth flashed and snapped again and again at the baby, and then the baby shrieked once more, long and loud. Roy pulled the infant and the night-gown ripped away in the woman's mouth and Roy did not look at the baby, but ran to the bedroom with it and put it on the bed and came back to help Rolfe handcuff her.

  It was after midnight when they got the woman booked and the baby admitted to the hospital. It was too late to eat now and Roy could not eat anyway and he told himself for the tenth time to stop thinking about what the baby's body looked like there on the shockingly white table in the emergency ward. Rolfe had also been unusually silent for the past hour or so.

  "Someone else tried to bite me once," Roy said suddenly as he puffed on a cigarette and leaned back in the car as Rolfe was driving them to the station to complete the reports. "It wasn't like this at all. It was a man and he was white, and there was no excuse at all. I was trying to get away from him. It was in a restroom."

  Rolfe looked at him curiously and Roy said, "I was working vice. He was trying to devour me. People are cannibals I guess. They just eat each other. Sometimes they don't even have the decency to kill you before they eat you."

  "Hey, there's a waitress I know pretty good down at a restaurant at a Hundred-fifteenth and Western. I go there after work for coffee all the time. How about us stopping there for a few minutes before we go to the station? We could at least drink some coffee and unwind. And who knows, maybe we'll get hungry. I think she'd bounce for a free meal if the boss isn't there."

  "Why not?" said Roy, thinking the coffee sounded good and it would be a pleasure to drive through the west side of the division for a change, which was only part Negro and relatively peaceful. Roy hoped he could work Ninety-one next month and get as far west and south as the division went. He had to get away from black faces. He was starting to change toward them and he knew it was wrong. But still it was happening.

  They were only two blocks from the restaurant and Roy was already feeling reassured at seeing the predominantly white faces driving and walking by when Rolfe said, "Fehler, did you look in that liquor store we just passed?"

  "No, why?" asked Roy.

  "There was nobody behind the counter," said Rolfe.

  "So he went in the back room," said Roy. "Look, do you want to play cops and robbers or do we get some coffee?"

  "I'm just going to have a look," said Rolfe, making a U-turn and driving north again while Roy shook his head and vowed to ask for an older, more settled partner next month.

  Rolfe parked across the street from the store and they watched the interior for a second. They saw a sandy-haired man in a yellow sport shirt run from the back room to the cash register where he punched several keys, and then they saw him clearly shove the gun inside his belt.

  "Officers need help, One one three and Western!" Rolfe whispered into the radio, and then he was out of the car, hatless, flashlight in hand, running low to the north side of the building. He evidently remembered Roy who was just getting around the front of the car because he stooped, turned, and pointed to the rear door indicating that he would take the rear and then he disappeared in the shadows streaking for the darkness of the rear alley.

  Roy debated a moment where he should place himself, thought of lying across the hood of a car that was parked directly in front of the store and was probably the suspect's car, but changed his mind and decided to get behind the corner of the building at the southwest corner where he could have a clear line of fire if the man came out the front. He began trembling, wondered for a moment if he could shoot a man, and decided not to think about that.

  Then he saw that one of the cars in the bar parking lot next door was occupied by a man and woman who sat in the front seat apparently oblivious to the policemen's presence. Roy saw that they would be directly in the line of fire of the gunman if he would shoot at Roy hiding behind the corner of the building. His conscience nagged and his hand trembled more, and he thought if I leave here to run across the vacant lot and tell them to get the hell out, he might come out the door and I'll be caught out of position. But Jesus Christ, he might kill them and I'd never be able to forget... Then he decided, and made a dash to the yellow Plymouth thinking: Stupid bastard, probably sitting there playing with her tits and doesn't even know they might get killed. Roy was beside the car and he saw the girl look at him wide-eyed as he held his revolver at his side. The man opened the door quickly.

  "Get that car the hell out of here," said Roy and he never forgot the foolish grin and the look of patent unconcern on the face of the little freckled man who leveled the sawed-off shotgun. Then the yellow and red flame crashed into him and he flew back across the sidewalk. He slid off the curb into the gutter where he lay on his side weeping because he could not get up and he had to get up because he could see the slimy intestines wet in the moonlight flopping out of his lower stomach in a pile. They began touching the street and Roy strained to turn over. He heard footsteps and a man said, "Goddammit Harry, get in!" and another male voice said, "I didn't even know they was out here!" Then the car started and roared across the sidewalk and off the curb and it sounded like more footsteps farther away. He heard Rolfe shouting, "Stop! Stop!" and heard four or five shots and tires squeal. Then he remembered that the intestines were lying on the street and he was filled with horror because they were lying there in the filthy street getting dirty and he began to cry. He squirmed a little to get on his back and get them bunched up because if he could just shovel them back inside and brush the dirt off them he knew he'd be alright because they were oh so dirty now. But he couldn't lift them. His left arm wouldn't move and it hurt so much to try to reach across the bubbling hole with his right arm so he began to cry again, and thought: Oh, if only it would rain. Oh, why can't it rain in August, and suddenly as he cried, he was deafened by thunder and the lightning flashed and clattered and the rain poured down on him. He thanked God and cried tears of joy because the rain was washing all the dirt off the heap of guts that was hanging out. He watched them shine wet red in the rain, clean and red, as all the filth was flushed away and he was still crying happily when Rolfe leaned over him. There were other policemen there and none of them were wet from th
e rain. He couldn't understand that.

  Roy could not have said how long he had been in the police ward of Central Receiving Hospital. Could not at this moment say if it was days or weeks. It was always the same: blinds drawn, the hum of the air conditioning, the patter of soft-soled footsteps, whispers, needles and tubes which were endlessly inserted and withdrawn, but now he guessed perhaps three weeks had passed. He wouldn't ask Tony who sat there reading a magazine by the inadequate night light with a grin on his effeminate face.

  "Tony," said Roy, and the little male nurse put the magazine on the table and walked to the bed.

  "Hello Roy," Tony smiled. "Woke up, huh?"

  "How long I been sleeping?"

  "Not too long, two, three hours, maybe," said Tony. "You were restless tonight. I thought I'd sit in here, I figured you'd wake up."

  "It hurts tonight," said Roy, sliding the cover back to look at the hole covered with light gauze. It no longer bubbled and sickened him but it could not be sutured because of its size and had to heal on its own. It had already begun to shrink a little.

  "It looks good tonight, Roy," Tony smiled. "Pretty soon no more I. V.'s, you'll be eating real food."

  "It hurts like hell."

  "Dr. Zelko says you're doing wonderfully, Roy. I'll bet you're out of here in two more months. And back to work in six. Light duty of course. Maybe you can work the desk for a while."

  "I need something for the pain tonight."

  "I can't. I've had specific orders about that. Dr. Zelko says we were giving you too many injections."

  "Screw Dr. Zelko! I need something. Do you know what adhesions are? Your goddamn guts tighten up and come together like they were glued. Do you know what that's like?"

  "Now, now," said Tony, wiping Roy's forehead with a towel.

  "Look how my leg's swollen. There's a nerve that's damaged. Ask Dr. Zelko. I need something. That nerve keeps me in terrible pain."