the New Centurions (1971)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Roy could hear Dugan racing the engine of the wagon as he fumbled in the darkness for his car keys and at last was forced to use the flashlight, but this side of the parking lot was still and quiet and he knew he was worrying unnecessarily. He wouldn't do it if he weren't feeling a little depressed again. Finally he unlocked the car, held the button on the door post in so the overhead light stayed out as he opened the bottle one-handed, expertly, and sat with his legs out of the car ready to jump out in case he heard footsteps. He finished the pint in four or five swallows and felt in the glove compartment for the other but couldn't find it, and he realized there was no other. He had finished it this morning. Funny, he chuckled silently, that's pretty funny. Then he locked the car and walked woodenly to the wagon which Dugan was revving in front of the station. He chewed the mints as he walked and lit a cigarette he didn't really want.

  "Might be kind of fun working a drunk wagon," said Dugan, "I've never done it before."

  "Oh yeah," said Roy. "Soon as a drunk pukes on you or rubs his shit-covered pants against your uniform, let me know how you like it."

  "Never thought of that," said Dugan. "Do you think I should get my gloves? I bought some."

  "Leave them. We'll just hold the door open and let the other guys throw the drunks in."

  The rattling bumping panel truck was making Roy slightly sick as he leaned his head out the window. The summer breeze felt good. He began to doze and awakened with a start when Dugan drove over the curb into the parking lot at Ninety-second and Beach and the arrests began.

  "Maybe we'll find somebody with a little marijuana or something," said Dugan, jumping out of the wagon as Roy looked sleepily at the throng of Negroes, who had been drinking in the parked cars, shooting dice against the back wall of the liquor store, standing, sitting, reclining in discarded chairs, or on milk crates, or on hoods and bumpers of ancient cars which always seemed to be available in any vacant lot or field in Watts. There were even several women among them in the darkness and Roy wondered what the hell was the attraction in these loitering places amid the rubble and broken glass. But then he remembered what some of the houses were like inside and he guessed the smell outdoors was certainly an improvement, although it wasn't any too good because in the loitering places were always packs of prowling hungry dogs and lots of animal and human excrement and lots of winos with all the smells they brought with them. Roy walked carefully to the rear of the wagon and slid the steel bolt back and opened the double doors. He staggered as he stepped back and this annoyed him. Got to watch that, he thought, and then the thought of a drunken policeman loading drunks in the drunk wagon struck him as particularly funny. He began giggling and had to sit in the wagon for a few minutes until he could control his mirth.

  They arrested four drunks, one of whom was a ragpicker, lying almost unnoticed against the wall behind three overflowing trash cans. He held a half-eaten brown apple in one bony yellow hand and they had to carry him and flip him into the wagon onto the floor. The other drunks sitting on the benches on each side of the wagon didn't seem to notice the foul bundle at their feet.

  They patrolled One Hundred and Third and then drove down Wilmington. In less than a half hour the wagon was filled with sixteen men and each radio car held three more. Betterton waved to Roy and sped ahead toward the Harbor Freeway and downtown as the slower wagon rumbled and clunked along.

  "Mustn't be too comfortable back there," said Dugan, "maybe I should drive slower."

  "They can't feel anything," said Roy, and this struck him as very amusing. "Don't take the freeway," said Roy. "Let's go on the surface streets. But first go up Hoover."

  "What for?"

  "I want to call the station."

  "We can go by the station, Roy," said Dugan.

  "I want to call in. No sense going in. It's out of the way."

  "Well, your favorite call box is out of the way, Roy. I think you can use another call box."

  "Do as I ask you, please," said Roy deliberately. "I always use the same call box."

  "I think I know why. I'm not completely stupid. I'm not driving to that call box."'

  "Do as I say, goddamnit!"

  "Alright, but I don't want to work with you anymore. I'm afraid to work with you, Roy."

  "Fine. Go tell Schumann tomorrow that you and _me__ have a personality conflict. Or I'll tell him. Or tell him whatever you want."

  "I won't tell him the truth. Don't worry about that. I'm no fink."

  "Truth? What the hell is the truth? If you've got that figured out, let _me__ know, not Schumann."

  Roy sat silently as Dugan drove obediently to the call box and parked in the usual place. Roy went to this box and tried to put his car key in the lock, then he tried his house key, and finally used the call box key. This was very funny too and restored his good humor. He opened it and drank until he finished. He threw it behind the hedge as he always did after his last call of the evening, and he laughed aloud as he walked back to the wagon when he wondered what the resident there thought when he found an empty half-pint in his flower garden each morning, "Drive up Central Avenue," said Roy. "I want to drive through Newton and see if I see any of the guys I used to know." He was talking slightly slurred now. But as long as he knew it he'd be alright. He was always very careful. He put three fresh sticks of gum in his mouth and smoked as Dugan drove silently.

  "This was a good division to work," said Roy, looking at the hundreds of Negroes still on the streets at this hour. "People never go home in Newton Street. You can find thousands of people on the corners at five in the morning. I learned a lot here. I used to have a partner named Whitey Duncan. He taught me a lot. He came to see me when I was hurt. When not many other guys came, he came to see me. Four or five times Whitey came and brought me magazines and cigarettes. He died a few months ago. He was a goddamn drunk and died of cirrhosis of the liver just like a goddamn drunk. Poor old drunk. He liked people too. Really liked them. That's the worst kind of drunk to be. That'll kill you fast. Poor old fat bastard."

  Roy began dozing again and checked his watch. After they got rid of the drunks and got back to the station it would be end of watch and he could change clothes and go see her. He didn't really still want her so much physically, but she had eyes he could talk to, and he wanted to talk. Then Roy saw the huge crowd at Twenty-second and Central.

  "There's a place you can always get a load of drunks," said Roy, noticing that his face was becoming numb.

  Dugan stopped for the pedestrians and Roy had a hilarious thought.

  "Hey, Dugan, you know what this wagon reminds me of? An Italian huckster that used to peddle vegetables on our street when I was a kid. His panel truck was just like this one, smaller maybe, but it was blue and closed in like this one and he'd bang on the side and yell, 'Ap-ple, ra-dish, coo-cumbers for sale!'" Roy began laughing uproariously and Dugan's worried look made him laugh even harder. "Turn left quick and drive through the parking lot where all those assholes are standing around shuckin' and jivin'. Drive through there!"

  "What for, Roy? Damn it, you're drunk!"

  Roy reached across the cab and turned the wheel sharply to the left, still chuckling.

  "Okay, let go," said Dugan, "I'll drive through, but I promise you I'm not working with you tomorrow night or ever!"

  Roy waited until Dugan was halfway through the parking lot, parting the worried throngs of loiterers before him, moving slowly toward the other driveway and the street. Some of the more drunken ones scurried away from the wagon. Roy leaned out the window and slapped the side of the blue panel truck three times and shouted, "Nig-gers, nig-gers, niggers for sale!"

  AUGUST 1965

  Chapter 19

  THE QUEUE

  IT WAS BAD ON WEDNESDAY. The Hollenbeck policemen listened in disbelief to their police radios which broadcast a steady flow of help and assistance calls put out by the officers from Seventy-seventh Street Station.

  "The riot is starting," said Blackburn as he and Serge patrolled ne
rvously in the juvenile car but could not concentrate on anything but what was happening in the southeast part of the city.

  "I don't think it'll be a real riot," said Serge.

  "I tell you it's starting," said Blackburn, and Serge wondered if he could be right as he listened to the frantic operators sending cars from several divisions into Seventy-seventh Street where crowds apparently were forming at One Hundred Sixteenth Street and Avalon Boulevard. By ten o'clock a command post had been set up at Imperial and Avalon and a perimeter patrol was activated. It was obvious to Serge as he listened that there were insufficient police units to cope with a deteriorating situation.

  "I tell you it's starting," said Blackburn. "It's L. A.'s turn. Burn, burn, burn. Let's get the hell to a restaurant and eat because we ain't going home tonight I tell you."

  "I'm ready to eat," said Serge. "But I'm not going to worry too much yet."

  "I tell you they're ready to rip loose," said Blackburn, and Serge could not determine if his partner was glad of it or not. Perhaps he's glad, thought Serge. After all, his life has been rather uneventful since his wife sued him for divorce and he was afraid to be caught in any more adulterous situations until the case was decided.

  "Where do we want to eat?" asked Serge.

  "Let's go to Rosales' place. We ain't ate there in a couple weeks. At least I haven't. Is it still on with you and the little waitress?"

  "I see her once in a while," said Serge.

  "Sure don't blame you," said Blackburn. "She's turned out real nice. Wish I could see somebody. Anybody. Doesn't she have a cousin?"

  "Nope."

  "I can't see my own women. My goddamn wife got my notebook with every goddamn number in it. I'm afraid she's got the places staked out. I wish I had one she didn't know about."

  "Can't you wait until your divorce goes to trial?"

  "Wait? Goddamn, You know I'm a man that needs my pussy. I ain't had a goddamn thing for almost three months. By the way, your little girlfriend ain't working as much as she used to, is she?"

  "She's going to college," said Serge. "She still works some. I think she'll be working tonight."

  "What's with your other girlfriend? That blonde that picked you up that night at the station. It still on with her?"

  "Paula? It's more or less on, I guess."

  "Bet she wants to marry you, right? That's what all those cunts want. Don't do it, I'm telling you. You got the life now, boy. Don't change it."

  Serge could never control his heartbeat when he was near her and that was the thing that most annoyed him. When they left their car parked at the curb and entered the restaurant only minutes before Mr. Rosales put up the closed sign, his heart galloped, and Mr. Rosales nodded his gray head and waved them to a booth. He had thought for months that Mr. Rosales had guessed how it was with him and Mariana, but there had been no indication, and at last, he decided it was only the tattered remnants of his conscience fluttering in the hot wind of his passion. He made it a point not to meet her more than once a week, sometimes less, and he always brought her home early and feigned perfect innocence even though they had just spent several hours in a tiny motel room which the management kept for Hollenbeck policemen who only had to show a badge in lieu of payment. He thought at first that it would be only a short time before the inevitable melodrama would begin and she would wail and weep that she couldn't go on like this in a cheap motel and that her tears would destroy the pleasure--but it hadn't happened yet. When he was making love to Mariana it was the same no matter where, and it seemed to be so with her also. She had never complained and there were never any serious promises made by either of them. He was glad it was so, and yet he waited anxiously for the melodrama. Surely it would come.

  And making love with Mariana was something to analyze, he thought, but he had as yet been unable to understand how she alone had made it so different. It wasn't only because he had been her first, because he had felt like this with that dark-eyed little daughter of the bracero when he was fifteen, and he was certainly not the first with that one, and sometimes he was not the first on any given evening with that one. It was not only that he had been first, it was that he was purged each time when it was over. Her heat burned him from the inside out and he was at peace. She opened his pores and drained the impurities. That was why he kept coming back for more although it was difficult enough to single-handedly match the sexual prowess of Paula who was suspecting there was another girl and was demanding more and more of him until the ultimatum and melodrama was certainly overdue with Paula also. Paula had almost exploded in tears two nights before when they were watching an inane television movie and he had commented on the aging spinster in the story who was unhappily pursuing a fat little stockbroker who was not able to break the stranglehold of a domineering wife.

  "Show a little pity!" she almost shouted when he snorted at the miserable woman. "Where's your compassion? She's scared to death of being alone. She needs love, damn it. Can't you see that she has no love?"

  He decided to be careful after that, very careful about what he said because the end was very near. He would have to decide whether to marry Paula or not. And if he didn't, he decided he would probably never marry because the prospects would never again be this good.

  He thought this as they waited for Mariana to come from the kitchen and take their order, but she didn't come. Mr. Rosales himself came to the table with coffee and a writing pad and Serge said, "Where is she?" and watched closely but detected nothing in the eyes or manner of the proprietor who said, "I thought she should study tonight. I told her to stay home and study. She does so well with her studies. I do not want her to become too tired or upset because of overwork or anything else." He glanced at Serge when he said "anything else," and it was not a malicious glance, but now Serge was positive the old man knew how it was, but Christ, anyone with any intelligence would know that he wasn't taking her out several times a month this past year just to hold her hand. Christ, he was almost twenty-nine years old and she was twenty. What the hell did anybody expect?

  Serge toyed with his food, and Blackburn as usual devoured everything in sight and without much urging finished most of what Serge didn't eat.

  "Worried about the riot?" asked Blackburn. "Don't blame you. Makes me a little queasy to think that they might do here what they did in the East."

  "It'll never be like that here," said Serge. "We're not going to tolerate the bullshit as long as they did back East."

  "Yeah, we're the best Department in the country," said Blackburn. "That's what our press notices say. But I want to know how a few hundred bluesuits are going to turn back a black ocean of people."

  "It won't be like that, I'm sure it won't."

  They were all held over in Hollenbeck that night. But at 3:00 A.M. they were permitted to secure, and Blackburn only shrugged when Serge told him that it was evidently quelled and that tomorrow things would be normal.

  But on Thursday things were not normal and at 7:05 P.M. a crowd of two thousand again gathered at One Hundred Sixteenth and Avalon and units from Central, University, Newton and Hollenbeck were rushed to the trouble spot. At 10:00 P.M. Serge and Blackburn had given up all pretense of patrolling and sat in the station parking lot listening to the police radio in disbelief as did four of the uniformed officers who were preparing to leave for the Watts area.

  Shots were fired at a police vehicle at Imperial Highway and Parmelee, and an hour later Serge heard a sergeant being denied a request for tear gas.

  "I guess they don't think the sergeant knows what the fuck is going on out there," said Blackburn. "I guess they think he should reason with them instead of using gas on them."

  The word came again a few hours past midnight that they would not be sent to Watts and Serge and Blackburn were given permission to secure. Serge had called Mariana at the restaurant at ten-thirty and she had agreed to meet him in front of the Rosales house whenever he could get there. She often studied until late in the morning and Serge would come
by when the Rosales family was asleep. He would park across the street in the shade of an elm and she would come out to the car and it would always be better than he remembered. He could not seem to hold the moment in his mind. Not the moment with Mariana. He could not remember the catharsis of her lovemaking. He could only remember that it was like bathing in a warm pool in the darkness and he felt refreshed and never at any time did he think it was not good for _him.__ For _her__, he wondered.

  He almost didn't stop because it was fifteen past two, but the light was burning and so he stopped, knowing that if she were awake she would hear. In a moment he saw her tiptoe out the front door wearing the soft blue robe and filmy pink nightgown he had come to know so well even though he had never seen it in the light. But he knew the feel of it well and his mouth became dry as he held a hand over the dome light and opened the door for her.

  "I thought you would not come," she said when he stopped kissing her for a moment.

  "I had to come. You know I can't stay away very long."

  "It is the same with me, Sergio, but wait. Wait!" she said, pushing his hands away.

  "What is it, little dove?"

  "We should talk, Sergio. It is exactly one year since we went to the mountain and I saw my first lake. Do you remember?"

  This is it, he thought almost triumphantly, I knew it would come. And though he dreaded the weeping, he was glad it would be finally ended. The waiting.

  "I remember the mountain and the lake."

  "I regret nothing, Sergio. You should know that."

  "But?" he said, lighting a cigarette, preparing for an embarrassing scene. Paula will be next, he thought. After Mariana.

  "But it is so much better if it should stop now while we both feel what we feel for each other."

  "You're not pregnant, are you?" Serge said suddenly as the thought struck him that this was what she was preparing to tell him.

  "Poor Sergio," she smiled sadly. "No, _querido,__ I am not. I have learned all the ways of prevention well even though they shame me. Poor Sergio. And what if I was? Do you think I would go away with your baby in my stomach? To Guadalajara perhaps? And live my poor life out raising your child and yearning only for your arms? I have told you before, Sergio, you read too many books. I have my own life to live. It is as important to me as yours is to you."