"Fuck it, Chief, I quit!" Manny Lopez said.
And then Chief Kolender, who was no slouch at handling legendary Gunslingers as well as ordinary macho cops, said, "Manny if you quit, I'll get fired."
It was worthy of Manny Lopez himself, this piece of : If you quit, I'll get fired. The implication being that Manny Lopez was such a fabled and mythic and legendary celebrity that he could displace the chief of police. And by implication, maybe the mayor. And shit, Governor Jerry Brown wasn't even safe!
It was like a diva refusing to sing until the impresario takes her in his arms and says, "But, Divinity, I'll be finished if you don't sing!"
Deep down she knows it's bullshit, but it sounds so glorious she goes out there and gets so many curtain calls the stagehands get hernias.
Then the chief added, "What if we issue assault charges and bind him over for trial at a preliminary hearing? Will that be enough for you?"
And Manny Lopez, now a king breaker as well as everything else, said, "Sure. I don't care if he never goes to trial. At least bind him over and that shows we didn't fuck up. Okay! And, Chief, how about coming down to the station some night and telling my guys how much you think a them? It might be nice."
There was a person connected to the Barf squad by umbilical cord whom the chief did not particularly appreciate, nor did Deputy Chief Burgreen. Nor did lots of other ranking brass who felt that BARF was the tail wagging the dog. That was the man who had created it, Lieutenant Dick Snider.
Dick Snider at this point was like poor old Victor Frankenstein: nobody remembered his intent. And Dick Snider, as was his way, remained totally loyal to his mutant creation. He accepted the official interpretation-that is, the Manny Lopez interpretation of the international shootout-without much soul searching. Though he had long since been officially relieved of duty as the BARF officer-in-charge, unofficially, as a Southern Division watch commander, he was still the Barfers' uncle. Manny almost always showed him the courtesy of keeping him informed. Dick Snider repaid the courtesy with total allegiance to BARF, alienating the department brass in the process.
Of course the alienation of the department brass had probably begun many months earlier when Dick Snider, through his one-man canyon crawling and publicity campaign, got the experiment going in the first place. When a deputy chief or inspector would suggest something like keeping the Barfers farther than fifty yards from the international border, Dick Snider would reply, "We already have one invisible line to work with. Don't give us another. Either let us work or disband us."
Deputy Chief Burgreen, whom the troops refer to as Bobby, and who looked like a blow-dried middle-aged cherub, spoke for the administration when he said, "Lieutenant Snider was not interested in evaluations, route slips, councilmanic reports. He was vocal, a street cop, not an administrator, but his rank demanded an administrator. He might be a good guy and he might even be a good street cop. But he was not a good lieutenant."
The department's position on the BARF creator was dramatized during a meeting of the big chief and several of his immediate subordinates during the difficult weeks following the international shootout. There was some serious talk about disbanding BARF.
Manny Lopez, Dick Snider and the captain of Southern Division were there to opt for continuing the experiment. There were ideas being tossed around as to the feasibility of uniformed cops patrolling the canyons. There were suggestions of begging for federal troops to be stationed in the hills. There were suggestions that the city should somehow cede the land to the federal government and let Uncle Sam worry about all of it Finally, there was a growing consensus that the BARF experiment was just too dangerous.
Manny Lopez was showing his reptilian sidewinding eyebrow and pointing his finger like a gun and talking triple time in his disingenuous style that charmed the chief of police, and he said, "We're safer than the guys on the street! They're not ready for it when some dude smokes them down while they're writing a traffic ticket! But my guys're always ready!"
Dick Snider then removed his dangling cigarette and in his country drawl tried to add his thoughts. "Chief, I think what Manny is trying to say is."
"Lieutenant, we know your position," a deputy chief interrupted icily. "I was talking to Manny."
And that was it. Manny Lopez returned to the Barfers and told them sadly that Burl the Pearl was no longer as big as John Wayne. He'd just been sawed off at the knees.
Manny said, "Snider's sweet-guy personality. his . . niceness-it's a detriment to me now."
Manny added something else when he'd had a Chivas or two that evening after work: "I got a relationship with the politicians. I got a relationship with the chief. I'm surrounded by news media. I love Dick Snider, but he can't help BARF anymore."
Manny Lopez genuinely admired Dick Snider for qualities he did not himself possess. Manny privately said, "I had this interview with a young reporter and I told him that me and my guys have a Don Quixote syndrome. And sure enough he does this flowery piece about us fighting windmills. Well, maybe part of it was true, at least so far as Dick Snider's concerned. Saving people would be his motive. But the fact is, BARF was giving me this tremendous feeling! That I could do anything out there in those canyons! That was my motive."
Dick Snider, as correctly pointed out by Manny Lopez, did not have the temperament or the glibness to slug it out with the brass. Debate was an outlet for Manny Lopez. He was very good at it. Dick Snider had no outlet. And now Dick Snider knew for sure that they didn't need him. And didn't want him.
As for Manny, the meeting ended when the chief of police stopped all argument by saying, "I don't think you gentlemen understand. Manny's saying that if it's not his way he's not leading the squad anymore."
The experiment was permitted to continue. And Chief Kolender tacitly approved whacking Dick Snider off at the knees that afternoon.
One day when the city council of San Diego drew up a resolution to honor the Barfers with a piece of parchment full of fancy "whereofs," the chief of police was supposed to make a speech on behalf of hitmen. Except that Manny Lopez was suddenly asked to say a few words. Manny wisely stood up and thanked all the politicians present and the chief of police for giving his men the chance to do what they did. He got a standing ovation from all.
When the chief did make speeches about the border crime problem he said it should be made a federal responsibility and he spoke like a Republican about the lack of direction in the Jimmy Carter administration. When Manny gave speeches, it was about facing bandits in the night and drawing against the drop. It was easy to guess whom people wanted to hear, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Dick Snider was never heard to verbalize a whit of resentment about being effectively banished from any further decisions regarding his brainchild. BARF belonged exclusively to Manny Lopez. Even when his career was, in the words of Deputy Chief Burgreen, "on the slide," Dick Snider was uncomplaining.
Just so long as they kept it going, just so long as Manny and his men were arresting bandits and protecting the aliens of the canyons, in his city, in his country.
As Manny put it: "Dick Snider's motives were pure till the end. He was the only one of us whose motives were always pure. And the brass not only couldn't forgive him for it, they couldn't even believe it."
As to the danger to the Barfers themselves, Dick Snider would only say, "If there was a threat of robbery and rape and murder to the millionaires of La Jolla, we'd all be asked to give our lives if necessary. Without question."
During the weeks to come, during a media barrage on both sides of the border about the international shootout, Chief of Police Kolender, true to his word, did come to Southern Division to reassure Manny's men of what a hell of a bunch of gutsy hardballers they really were, and what a job they were doing out there, and that he was behind them all the way.
The chief addressed the Barfers on their own turf just before they went out canyon crawling. After the pep talk he said, "The charges against the Tijuana policeman may
be dismissed after the preliminary hearing. You should be aware of that."
And suddenly up popped Ken Kelly, who, feeling especially militant and goofy, had the concoction of instant coffee and powdered chocolate smeared all over his face. And he'd wrapped his long blond hair in a bun and covered it all with a stocking cap to be less visible in the hills. He looked like a cocaine-inspired Hollywood version of a loony G. I. in Vietnam, sort of a cross between a punk rocker and a Jivaro headhunter.
Ken Kelly, suffering the results of having been the only San Diego cop ever convicted in court of assaulting a civilian, wiggled his walrus moustache and said, "Chief, how come the Tijuana cop shoots a San Diego cop and walks? And I dust a number one prick asshole with a flashlight and get honked? How come?"
And the chief of police changed the subject by saying, "Who're you?" Then he smiled and added, "You are one of the most ominous people I've ever seen in my life!"
The Barfers were all tickled by that because Ken Kelly did look pretty loony, all right. They were flattered as hell that the chief had stroked them, whether or not charges were dropped on Chuey Hernandez.
The chief ended it by saying of the Tijuana lawman: "He paid some pretty heavy dues, you know."
The one thing that the chief also said during that meeting which filled the Barfers with all kinds of conflicting emotions was this: "I have to be honest about something else. It's been a miracle that nobody's been killed yet. I'm awfully worried about you guys. I've had many second thoughts about letting it continue. If someone'd get killed, well, I just don't want to go to police funerals. I'd stop it then."
The Barfers did lots of soul-searching over this one. If one of them gets killed BARF is stopped? Then why not stop it now, because the way it's going it's a sure bet! There seemed to be a bunch of things wrong with the philosophy behind a statement that their job was worth getting shot over, but not fatally.
It seemed like a warning. As soon as one of them died, the rest would be getting new jobs. Don't die if you like your job. Die if you don't like it! Oh, their brains were parboiled by this one. The chief sort of absolved himself, it seemed. He said he wanted to stop it. He'd warned them: Don't die or you'll lose your job. Was he saying that he was blameless if one of them got smoked?
Suddenly the chief of police looked exactly like Pontius Pilate in a Hart Schaffner & Marx.
Chapter SEVENTEEN
PHANTOMS
THE BARF SQUAD HAD DONE A NUMBER ON THE BANDITS. They'd really knocked down the alien robberies on the streets of San Ysidro. Street thugs couldn't miss the publicity generated by the Barfers. Even though all of the shootings had taken place in the canyons, there had been some pretty good thumpings administered in San Ysidro, so there were easier ways to make a dishonest buck, the hoodlums decided.
As to the canyons where the real bandits plied their trade, even they were not unaware of the Barfers' celebrity. Not that the bandits were ever going to stop being bandits, but no one wanted to get shot to death by these canyon-crawling San Diego cops who were maniacal enough to burn down Tijuana Municipal Police if they got in the way. At least that was the word filtering back through the alien grapevine.
The real bandits from the south were survivors though. They began to alter their tactics and rob aliens right at the line. This was riskier because the judiciales didn't like crimes taking place on Mexican soil. Still, the Barf squad was making them do it, at least for now. The robberies began occurring within a few feet of the tumbledown cyclone fence-where the fence even existed. And where it did not exist, which was in most areas patrolled by BARF, the bandits became acutely aware of such things as concrete monuments and other man-made markers which defined an imaginary line.
As dangerous as it was to commit what the judiciales considered an enormous crime, namely armed robbery on the soil of Mexico, the bandits had decided that it was safer for now to risk the wrath of the Mexican lawmen than to encounter the Barf squad.
So the Barfers found they were working themselves out of a job. The number of significant bandit arrests after the shooting of the Tijuana policemen plunged. And actually, there were a few Barfers giving silent thanks for this turn of events. But Manny Lopez was going bonkers.
The Loco shootout, followed within days by the international shootout, had been powerful stuff and had produced even more changes in Manny Lopez: "I felt I could do anything out there."
There was much more driving him than the publicity, which the Barfers believed was his sole motivation. Manny Lopez was starting to feel some seductive and overpowering emotions that many a man before him had felt down through history: Alexander, Bonaparte, Hitler, Dustin Hoffman. Manny Lopez was beginning to feel omnipotent.
Since the mountain wouldn't come to Mahomet, Manny was going south. When he made the matter-of-fact announcement in the tiny little Barf squad room one night in later summer, several Barfers said that it was like the captain of a jumbo jet announcing that the next sound you hear will be the bomb exploding in the cockpit. Or maybe getting a call from Lana Banana saying, "Gee, fellas, I've started getting these little sores and the doctor says I should call every one a my friends and."
It was that kind of announcement. People wanted to speak right up, but nobody could even talk at the moment. People wanted to say a whole lot of things to Manny Lopez but everyone was waiting for someone else to begin. There was a certain amount of machismo required just to be a cop, of course. And there was about eighty-seven times as much required to be a Barfer nowadays. And even by being of Mexican blood, thereby culturally programmed with enough machismo to get yourself in all sorts of trouble all your life, there are certain things you do not do. Not for duty, not for glory, not to prove God knows what to God knows whom. And one of the things you don't do is go south, What Manny Lopez was telling them was that since they couldn't catch any bandits on American soil these days, maybe they should, you know, just fudge a little? Just trip on down past that imaginary line or, where that beat-up little old fence is standing, just slip on through one of the holes and walk on the south side. Only a few paces, you understand. Therein fooling the shit out of these smartass bandits who were frustrating them with their new tactic. And just think how many good bandit busts they could make before the robbers got the word. A regular blitzkreig! Can you dig it, fuckers?
Manny was showing his impish grin when he said it. His gap-toothed boyish smile was just full of fun and his eyebrow had squiggled and locked into the question mark as he envisioned shocking the crap out of some robbers right down there on the dirt belonging to the Republic of Mexico.
There were so many things wrong with this idea that everyone was dumbstruck. Not the least wrong was that word had already come back from pretty reliable sources that some judiciales and Tijuana police wanted revenge. There were even rumors that Mexican lawmen had put together a few pesos and promises. That it would be given to anyone who returned a favor. Bring me the head of Manny Lopez! And by implication, his men.
There were all sorts of rumors of this kind flying around. And whether or not the rumor of a price on Manny's head was true, just common sense told them that if they were caught by some Tijuana lawmen on the Mexican side after what they'd done to Chuey Hernandez and Pedro Espindola, well.
When they left the briefing that night-and everyone looked like a bat had sucked his blood, and not a word was spoken, not a peep-Ken Kelly made a remark that absolutely no one found funny. He said maybe they should start carrying cyanide capsules in their teeth.
It was during these weeks of walking south of the imaginary line, more fearful of Tijuana lawmen than they were of bandits who smelled like murder, that they began to talk among themselves, and with wives, and best friends. After being properly lubricated, of course, because hardball macho Gunslingers don't talk about such things while sober. It was about this time that they began talking about Fear.
And any discussion of Fear necessarily included a discussion of Manny Lopez. Not as to whether each man feared him; that
was absolutely against the code of machismo to discuss openly, although it is virtually certain that they did, with the possible exception of Big Ugly. The reason being that Joe Vasquez respected and admired and even liked Manny Lopez too much to fear him as the others did.
Big Ugly put it this way: "Maybe we should a got more credit out there, but the thing is I always knew Manny wouldn't make us do nothing he wouldn't do. And I knew that whatever it was, he could probably do it better than any of us. Thing is, Manny was born to lead. I never came to hate him like some a the other guys."
Fred Gil said, "Manny gave you the feeling that you wouldn't want to cross him and not have him on your side."
Ernie Salgado said, "I worked for a lot a sergeants and lieutenants when I was in Nam. I saw them come and go and die. But I never met a leader like him. The nearest thing I can say is I started to feel like I felt toward my D. I. when I was a Marine recruit." And that could be interpreted easily enough.
The outsiders like Robbie Hurt and Ken Kelly, who were not raised under the cultural code of machismo, were more direct.
"We were scared of him. Period," Robbie Hurt said. "Whatever it was Manny felt, that he called fear, it wasn't what I felt, what I called fear."
It no longer did them any good at all to know that Manny Lopez would never ask them to do something he wouldn't do. That was the trouble. They knew he'd do it, whatever he asked! Manny was a family man with bright handsome children, yet each Barfer came to the inescapable conclusion that Manny Lopez simply did not know self-preserving fear. And that knowledge became the most frightening thing of all.
"It's like the way you're scared of psychotics," Ken Kelly said of their fear of Manny. "Unpredictable, dangerous, lucky psychotics."
Manny had them always looking over their shoulders: Is he just a spot on the horizon, or is he about to land on my head like a falling safe?
Lines and Shadows (1984) Page 27