the New Centurions (1971)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

"Jas."

  "Not jas," he laughed. "Yes."

  "Jes," she smiled.

  "Like this. Y-y-yes. Here, put your chin forward just a little bit." He held her chin in his fingers and tugged lightly. But her whole face came forward to him.

  "Yes," he said, and his fingers trembled. "I told you I'd teach you to say yes."

  "Yes," she said.

  "You said it."

  "Yes, Sergio, oh, yes, yes," she breathed.

  "Fly away, little dove," he said not knowing the strange hollow voice. "Please fly away," he said, and yet he held her shoulders fearing she would.

  "Yes, Sergio, yes."

  "You're making a mistake, little dove," he whispered, but her lip touched his cheek.

  "I say yes, Sergio. For you, yes. _Para ti,__ yes, yes."

  Chapter 17

  KIDDY COPS

  LUCY WAS MERELY ATTRACTIVE, but her eyes were alert and missed nothing and devoured you when you were talking to her. Yet you were never uncomfortable because of it. Instead, you succumbed to being devoured and you liked it. Yes, you liked it. Gus took his gaze from the road and examined her long legs, crossed at the ankle, hose sheer, pale and subtle. She sat relaxed much like a male partner and smoked and watched the street as Gus cruised, much like a male partner would, but it was nothing like working with a male partner. With some of the other policewomen there was no difference, except you had to be more careful and not get involved in things where there was the slightest element of danger. Not if you could help it, because a policewoman was still a woman, nothing more, and you were responsible for her safety, being the male half of the team. With some policewoman partners it was almost like being with a man, but not with Lucy. Gus wondered why he liked being devoured by those brown eyes which crinkled at the corners. He was normally shriveled by eyes which looked too hard.

  "Think you're going to stay with police work, Lucy?" asked Gus, turning on Main Street thinking she would probably enjoy touring the skid row streets. Most new policewomen did.

  "I love it, Gus," she said. "It's a fascinating job. Especially here in Juvenile Division. I don't think working the women's jail would've been nearly as good."

  "I don't think so either. I can't picture you in there pushing those bull daggers around."

  "I can't either," she grimaced, "but I guess sooner or later I'll get assigned there."

  "Maybe not," said Gus. "You're a good juvenile officer, you know. For just being a few weeks out of the academy I'd say you're exceptional. They may keep you in Juvenile."

  "Oh sure, I'm indispensable," she laughed.

  "You're smart and quick and you're the first policewoman I ever enjoyed working with. Most policemen don't like working with women." He pretended to watch the road very closely as he said it because he felt the brown eyes. He hadn't meant to say this. It was only 7:00 P.M., not dark yet, and he didn't want to blush and let her see it. But then, she would probably even see it in the dark with those eyes.

  "That's a fine compliment, Gus," said Lucy. "You've been a patient teacher."

  "Oh, I don't know it all myself yet," said Gus, working hard at not blushing by thinking of other things as he talked, like where they would eat, and that they should walk through the Main Street bus depot and look for runaway juveniles because Sunday night was a slow night, or maybe they should cruise through Elysian Park and look for the kids who would surely be there on a Sunday drinking beer on the grass. Lieutenant Dilford loved them to make arrests for minors' possession of alcohol and Dilford treated it like patrol watch commanders treated good felony arrests.

  "You've been working Juvenile about six months, haven't you?" asked Lucy.

  "About five months now. I've still got lots to learn."

  "Where did you work before that, Central Vice?"

  "Wilshire Vice."

  "I can't picture you as a vice officer," she laughed. "When I worked Lincoln Heights Jail on weekend assignments, the vice officers would be in and out all night. I can't picture you as a vice officer."

  "I know. I don't look man enough to be a vice officer, do I?"

  "Oh, I didn't mean that, Gus," she said, uncrossing her ankles and drilling him with her brown eyes. When they were working they darkened her face which was smooth and milky. "I didn't mean that at all. In fact, I didn't like them because they were loud and talked to policewomen like they talked to their whores. I didn't think all that bravado made them more manly. I think that being quiet and gentle and having some humility is very manly, but I didn't see many vice officers like that."

  "Well, they have to construct some kind of defense against all the sordid things they see," said Gus, elated because she as much as admitted that she was fond of him and saw things in him. Then he became disgusted and thought viciously, you simpering little bastard. He thought of Vickie who was recovering from an appendectomy and he hoped she would sleep tonight, and he swore that he would stop this childish flirtation before it went any further because Lucy would soon see it even though she was not a self-conscious person and did not notice such things. But when she did, finally, she would probably say, that's not what I meant, that's not what I meant at all. Simpering little bastard, he thought again, and peeked in the rearview mirror at his sandy receding hair which was hardly noticeable. In a few years he would be completely bald and he wondered if he would still be dreaming of a bright, pale, brown-eyed girl who would smile in pity or perhaps revulsion if she knew the thoughts he had about her.

  "What time should we check out the unfit home?" asked Lucy, and Gus was glad she had changed the subject. He couldn't help smiling at the man walking up Hill Street who turned his head to look at Lucy as they passed. He remembered how men used to turn like that to look at Vickie when they were first married, before she got so heavy. He thought of how he and Lucy must look, two young people, he in a suit and tie and white shirt and her in a modest green dress which fit so well. They might be going to dinner, or to the Bowl for a concert, or to the Sports Arena. Of course, all the street people recognized the plain four-door Plymouth as a police car, and knew the man and woman were juvenile officers, but to anyone else they might just be lovers.

  "What time, Gus?"

  "It's twenty after seven."

  "No," she laughed. "What time do we check out the unfit home the lieutenant mentioned?"

  "Oh, let's do it now. Sorry, I was dreaming."

  "How's your wife recovering from her appendectomy?" asked Lucy. Gus hated to talk about Vickie to her, but she always asked things about his family as partners did, often in the early morning hours when things were quiet and partners talked.

  "She's getting along all right."

  "How's your little one? He's talking, isn't he?"

  "Chattering," Gus smiled, and he never hesitated to talk about his children to her because she wanted to hear, he was sure of it.

  "They look so beautiful in the pictures. I'd love to see them some time."

  "I'd like you to," said Gus.

  "I hope it's quiet tonight."

  "Why? The night passes slow when it's quiet."

  "Yes, but I can get you talking then," she laughed. "I learn more about being a cop in the late hours when I get you talking."

  "You mean when I tell you all the things Kilvinsky taught me?" he smiled.

  "Yes, but I bet you're a better teacher than your friend Kilvinsky was."

  "Oh, no. Kilvinsky was the best," said Gus, his face burning again. "That reminds me, I've got to write him. He hasn't been answering my letters lately and I'm worried. Ever since he took the trip East to see his ex-wife and children."

  "Are you sure he came back?"

  "Yes. I got one letter right after he came back, but it didn't say anything."

  "Isn't it strange that he never visited his own children before that?"

  "He must've had a reason," said Gus.

  "I don't think you could abandon your children like that."

  "He didn't abandon them," said Gus quickly. "Kilvinsky wouldn't do th
at. He's just a mysterious man, that's all. He must've had good reasons."

  "If your wife ever left you, you wouldn't abandon your children, Gus, not you. Not for any reason."

  "Well, I can't judge him," said Gus, glad darkness was settling on downtown as he stopped for a light.

  "He's not the father you are, I bet," said Lucy and she was watching him again.

  "Oh, you're wrong," said Gus. "Kilvinsky would be a good father. He'd be as good a father as anyone could want. He could tell you things, and when he talked you knew he was right. Things seemed all in place when he explained them."

  "It's getting dark."

  "Let's go handle the unfit home," said Gus, growing uneasy at the deprecating talk about Kilvinsky.

  "Okay, it was on West Temple, wasn't it?"

  "It might be a phony call."

  "Anonymous?"

  "Yeah, a woman called the watch commander and said a neighbor in apartment twenty-three had a cruddy pad and left a little kid alone all the time."

  "I haven't been in a real unfit home yet," said Lucy. "They've all turned out to be false alarms."

  "Remember how to tell a real unfit?" smiled Gus.

  "Sure. If you stomp your foot and the roaches are so tame they don't run, then you know it's a real unfit."

  "Right," Gus grinned. "And if we could bottle the smell we'd win every case in court."

  Gus drove through the Second Street tunnel and over the Harbor Freeway and turned north, then west on Temple, the setting sun glowing dirty pink on the horizon. It had been a smoggy day.

  "I bet it's the white apartment building," said Lucy pointing toward the three-story stucco with an imitation stone facade.

  "Eighteen thirteen. That's it," said Gus parking in front and wondering if he had enough money to buy a decent dinner tonight. With anyone else he ate hamburgers or brown bagged it, but Lucy ate well and liked a hot dinner. He went along with her, pretending this was what he wanted too, even though he had less than five dollars to last until payday, and less than a half tank of gas in his car. Monday night he had an argument with Vickie over the check to his mother which had shrunk to forty-five dollars a month because John was in the army, thank God.

  The argument was so violent it made him sick. Lucy had noticed his depression the next evening. And now he thought of how he had blurted it out to Lucy that night, and how kind she had been and how ashamed he had been and still was that he had told her. Yet it had lifted his spirits. And come to think of it, she hadn't asked to eat in a real restaurant since that night, and she had insisted on buying the coffee or Cokes more often than she should.

  It was built to wear only for a time, like so many southern California apartment houses. Gus parked in front and they climbed the twenty-four steps to the second floor. Gus noticed that the metal railing, which only vaguely resembled wrought iron, was loose. He drew his hand back and guessed that someday a drunk would stagger from his apartment door and hit the railing and plunge twenty feet to the concrete below, but being drunk, he would probably receive only abrasions. Apartment twenty-three was in the back. The drapes were drawn and the door was closed, and this alone made Gus suspect there was no one home, because in all the other occupied apartments the doors were open. All had outside screen doors and the people were trying to catch the evening breeze because it had been a hot smoggy day.

  Gus knocked and rang the tinny chime and knocked again. Finally, Lucy shrugged and they turned to go and Gus was glad because he didn't feel like working; he felt like driving through Elysian Park pretending to look for juvenile drinkers and just look at Lucy and talk to her perhaps on the upper road on the east side near the reservoir which looked like black ice in the moonlight.

  "You the cops?" whispered a woman who suddenly appeared inside the dusty screen door of apartment number twenty-one.

  "Yes. Did you call?" asked Gus.

  "I'm the one," said the woman. "I called but I said I didn't want nobody to know I called. They aren't home now, but the kid's in there."

  "What seems to be the problem?" asked Gus.

  "Well, come on in. It looks like I'm going to get involved anyway," she muttered holding the screen and licking the absurdly made-up lips which were drawn on halfway to her nose. In fact, all her makeup had a theatrical exaggeration designed for an audience that must be far far away.

  "I talked to some Lieutenant Whatzizname and told him that place isn't fit for pigs most of the time and the kid gets left alone and I never see him outside hardly. Last night he was screaming and screaming and I think the old man was beating him 'cause the old lady was screaming too."

  "Do you know the people in that apartment?" asked Gus.

  "Lord, no. They're trash," said the woman, uncoiling a wiry wisp of blond hair with gray roots. "They only been living here a month and they go out almost every night and sometimes they have a babysitter, a cousin or something, staying with their kid. And sometimes they got nobody staying with him. I learned a long time ago to mind my own business but today it was so damn hot they had the door open and I happened to walk by and the place looks like a slit trench and I know what a slit trench is because I like war novels. There was dog crap from this dirty little terrier they got, and food and other crud all over the floor and then when they left the kid today I just said what the hell, I'll call and remain anonymous but now it looks like I can't be anonymous, huh?"

  "How old is the child?" asked Gus.

  "Three. A little boy. He hardly never comes outside. The old man's a souse. The mother seems okay. Just a dirty little mouse, you know what I mean. A souse and a mouse. I think the old man pushes her around when he's drunk, but it don't matter much to her probably, because she's usually drunk when he is. Fine neighbors. This place had class a few years ago. I'm moving."

  "How old are they? The parents?"

  "Young people. Not thirty I don't think. Dirty people though."

  "You sure the little boy's in there alone? Right now?"

  "I saw them leave, Officer. I'm sure. He's in there. He's a quiet little guy. Never hear a peep out of him. He's in there."

  "What apartment is the landlady in? Well need a passkey."

  "Martha went to the movies tonight. She told me she was going. I never thought about the key." The woman shook her head and tugged at the frayed waistband of the olive stretch pants that were never meant to be stretched so much.

  "We can't just break the door down on this information."

  "Why not? The kid's only three and he's in there alone."

  "No," said Gus, shaking his head. "He could be in there and maybe they took him when you weren't looking. Maybe a lot of things. We'll just have to come back later when they're home and try to get invited inside to take a look around."

  "Goddamn," said the woman. "The one time in my life I call a cop and try to do a decent thing and look what happens."

  "Let me go try the door," said Gus. "Maybe it's open."

  "The one time I call the cops," said the woman to Lucy as Gus stepped outside and walked down the walkway to number twenty-three. He opened the screen and turned the knob and the door slid open.

  "Lucy," he called, and stepped inside the stifling apartment, looking carefully for the "dirty little terrier" that might suddenly grab him by the ankle. He stepped around a moist stinking brown heap in the center of the floor and decided the dog must be large for a terrier. Then he heard the pat pat on the vinyl tile floor and the gaunt gray dog appeared from the bathroom, looked at Gus, wagged his stumpy tail, yawned, and returned to the bath-room. Gus glanced in the empty bedroom and pointed to the pile in the floor when Lucy entered and she walked around it and followed him into the living room.

  "Dirty people," said the woman, who had followed Lucy inside.

  "This certainly isn't bad by unfit home standards," explained Gus. "It has to be really dangerous. Broken windows, leaky stove. Clothes hanging over an open flame. Knee-deep in defecation, not just a pile in the floor. And garbage laying around. Clogged toile
t. I've seen places where the wall seems to move and then you realize that it's a solid sheet of roaches. This isn't bad. And there's no child in that bedroom."

  "He's here I tell you!"

  "Look for yourself," said Gus, and stood aside as the woman bounced into the bedroom. Her cheeks shook with every step, she walked so heavily.

  It was now quite dark and Lucy switched on the hall light and walked toward the small bathroom.

  "He's got to be here," said the woman. "I watched them leave."

  "Gus!" said Lucy, and he came to the bathroom door as she switched on the light and he saw the little boy on the floor by the bathtub curled up with the dog on a pile of bath towels. The boy was asleep and even before Lucy turned on the light Gus saw the absurd purple rings around his eyes and the swollen mouth cracked and raw from a recent beating. The boy slobbered and wheezed and Gus guessed the nose was broken. The coagulation had the nostrils blocked and Gus saw the way the hand was bent.

  "Dirty people," whispered the woman, and then began crying at once, and Lucy took her out without Gus saying anything. Lucy was back in a moment and neither of them spoke as Lucy lifted him in her arms and took him to the bedroom where he didn't awaken until she had him dressed. Gus marveled at her strength and how she gently managed the broken wrist and never woke him until they were starting out of the apartment.

  The boy saw Gus first when he awoke and the swollen eyes stared for a second and then through pain or terror the fearful moaning started which never ceased for the hour they were with the boy.

  "We'll be back," said Gus to the woman who stood sobbing in the doorway of her apartment. Gus tried to take the boy when they started down the stairway, but when he touched the boy he recoiled and uttered a shriek. Lucy said, "It's okay, Gus, he's afraid of you. There, there, darling." And she patted him as Gus shined his light on the stairway for her. In a few moments they were driving to Central Receiving Hospital and each time Gus got too near the little boy, the moan became a terrible cry so he let Lucy handle him.

  "He doesn't even look three years old," said Gus when they parked in the hospital parking lot. "He's so little."