As I was cruising I picked a voice out of the radio chatter. It was the girl with the cutest and sexiest voice I ever heard. She was on frequency thirteen today, and she had her own style of communicating. She didn’t just come on the horn and answer with clipped phrases and impersonal “rogers.” Her voice would rise and fall like a song, and getting even a traffic accident call from her, which patrol policemen hate worst because they’re so tedious, was somehow not quite so bad. She must’ve been hot for some cop in unit Four-L-Nine because her voice came in soft and husky and sent a shiver through me when she said, “Foah-L-Ninah, rrrrrrraj-ahh!”
Now that’s the way to roger a call, I thought. I was driving nowhere at all, just touring the beat, looking at people I knew and ones I didn’t know, trying not to think of all the things I’d never do out here. I was trading them for things I’d rather do, things any sane man would rather do, like be with Cassie and start my new career and live a civilized normal life. Funny I should think of it as civilized, that kind of life. That was one of the reasons I’d always wanted to go to North Africa to die.
I always figured kind of vaguely that if somebody didn’t knock me off and I lasted say thirty years, I’d pull the pin then because I could never do my kind of police work past sixty. I really thought I could last that long though. I thought that if I cut down on the groceries and the drinking and the cigars, maybe I could last out here on the streets until I was sixty. Then I’d have learned almost all there was to learn here. I’d know all the secrets I always wanted to know and I’d hop a jet and go to the Valley of the Kings and look out there from a pink granite cliff and see where all civilization started, and maybe if I stayed there long enough and didn’t get drunk and fall off a pyramid, or get stomped to death by a runaway camel, or ventilated by a Yankee-hating Arab, maybe if I lasted there long enough, I’d find out the last thing I wanted to know: whether civilization was worth the candle after all.
Then I thought of what Cruz would say if I ever got drunk enough to tell him about this. He’d say, “’Mano, let yourself love, and give yourself away. You’ll get your answer. You don’t need a sphinx or a pink granite cliff.’”
“Hi, Bumper,” a voice yelled, and I turned from the glare of the morning sun and saw Percy opening his pawnshop.
“Hi, Percy,” I yelled back, and slowed down to wave. He was a rare animal, an honest pawnbroker. He ran hypes and other thieves out of his shop if he even suspected they had something hot. And he always demanded good identification from a customer pawning something. He was an honest pawnbroker, a rare animal.
I remembered the time Percy gave me his traffic ticket to take care of because this was the first one he’d ever gotten. It was for jaywalking. He didn’t own a car. He hated them and took a bus to the shop every day. I just couldn’t disillusion old Percy by letting him know that I couldn’t fix a ticket, so I took it and paid it for him. It’s practically impossible to fix a ticket anymore in this town. You have to know the judge or the City Attorney. Lawyers take care of each other of course, but a cop can’t fix a ticket. Anyway, I paid it, and Percy thought I fixed it and wasn’t disappointed. He thought I was a hell of a big man.
Another black-and-white cruised past me going south. The cop driving, a curly-haired kid named Nelson, waved, and I nodded back. He almost rear-ended a car stopped at the red light because he was looking at some chick in hot pants going into an office building. He was a typical young cop, I thought. Thinking of pussy instead of police work. And just like all these cats, Nelson loved talking about it. I think they all love talking about it these days more than they love doing it. That gave me a royal pain in the ass. I guess I’ve had more than my share in my time. I’ve had some good stuff for an ugly guy, but by Maggie’s muff, I never talked about screwing a dame, not with anybody. In my day, a guy was unmanly if he did that. But your day is over after this day, I reminded myself, and swung south on Grand.
Then I heard a Central car get a report call at one of the big downtown hotels and I knew the hotel burglar had hit again. I’d give just about anything, I thought, to catch that guy today. That’d be like quitting after your last home run, like Ted Williams. A home run your last time up. That’d be something. I cruised around for twenty minutes and then drove to the hotel and parked behind the black-and-white that got the call. I sat there in my car smoking a cigar and waited another fifteen minutes until Clarence Evans came out. He was a fifteen-year cop, a tall stringbean who I used to play handball with before my ankles got so bad.
We had some good games. It’s especially fun to play when you’re working nightwatch and you get up to the academy about one a.m. after you finish work, and play three hard fast games and take a steam bath. Except Evans didn’t like the steam bath, being so skinny. We always took a half case of beer with us and drank it up after we showered. He was one of the first Negroes I worked with as a partner when L.A.P.D. became completely integrated several years ago. He was a good copper and he liked working with me even though he knew I always preferred working alone. On nightwatch it’s comforting sometimes to have someone riding shotgun or walking beside you. So I worked with him and lots of other guys even though I would’ve rather had a one-man beat or an “L” car that you work alone, “L” for lonesome. But I worked with him because I never could disappoint anyone that wanted to work with me that bad, and it made the handball playing more convenient.
Then I saw Clarence coming out of the hotel carrying his report notebook. He grinned at me, came walking light-footed over to my car, opened the door and sat down.
“What’s happening, Bumper?”
“Just curious if the hotel creeper hit again, Clarence.”
“Took three rooms on the fifth floor and two on the fourth floor,” he nodded.
“The people asleep?”
“In four of them. In the other one, they were down in the bar.”
“That means he hit before two a.m.”
“Right.”
“I can’t figure this guy,” I said, popping an antacid tablet. “Usually he works in the daytime but sometimes in the early evening. Now he’s hitting during the night when they’re in and when they’re not in. I never heard of a hotel burglar as squirrelly as this guy.”
“Maybe that’s it,” said Evans. “A squirrel. Didn’t he try to hurt a kid on one job?”
“A teddy bear. He stabbed the hell out of a big teddy bear. It was all covered up with a blanket and looked like a kid sleeping.”
“That cat’s a squirrel,” said Evans.
“That would explain why the other hotel burglars don’t know anything,” I said, puffing on the cigar and thinking. “I never did think he was a pro, just a lucky amateur.”
“A lucky looney,” said Evans. “You talked to all your snitches?” He knew my M.O. from working with me. He knew I had informants, but like everyone else he didn’t know how many, or that I paid the good ones.
“I talked to just about everyone I know. I talked to a hotel burglar who told me he’d already been approached by three detectives and that he’d tell us if he knew anything, because this guy is bringing so much heat on all the hotels he’d like to see us get him.”
“Well, Bumper, if anybody lucks onto the guy I’m betting you will,” said Evans, putting on his hat and getting out of the car.
“Police are baffled but an arrest is imminent,” I winked, and started the car. It was going to be a very hot day.
I was given a report call at Pershing Square, an injury report. Probably some pensioner fell off his soapbox and was trying to figure how he could say there was a crack in the sidewalk and sue the city. I ignored the call for a few minutes and let her assign it to another unit. I didn’t like to do that. I always believed you should handle the calls given to you, but damn it, I only had the rest of the day and that was it, and I thought about Oliver Horn and wondered why I hadn’t thought about him before. I couldn’t waste time on the report call so I let the other unit handle it and headed for the barbershop
on Fourth Street.
Oliver was sitting on a chair on the sidewalk in front of the shop. His ever-present broom was across his lap, and he was dozing in the sunshine.
He was the last guy in the world you would ever want to die and come back looking like. Oliver was built like a walrus with one arm cut off above the elbow. It was done maybe forty years ago by probably the worst surgeon in the world. The skin just flapped over and hung there. He had orange hair and a big white belly covered with orange hair. He long ago gave up trying to keep his pants up, and usually they barely gripped him below the gut so that his belly button was always popping out at you. His shoelaces were untied and destroyed from stepping on them because it was too hard to tie them one-handed, and he had a huge lump on his chin. It looked like if you squeezed it, it’d break a window. But Oliver was surprisingly clever. He swept out the barbershop and two or three businesses on this part of Fourth Street, including a bar called Raymond’s where quite a few ex-cons hung out. It was close to the big hotels and a good place to scam on the rich tourists. Oliver didn’t miss anything and had given me some very good information over the years.
“You awake, Oliver?” I asked.
He opened one blue-veined eyelid. “Bumper, how’s it wi’choo?”
“Okay, Oliver. Gonna be a hot one again today.”
“Yeah, I’m gettin’ sticky. Let’s go in the shop.”
“Don’t have time. Listen, I was just wondering, you heard about this burglar that’s been ripping us downtown here in all the big hotels for the past couple months?”
“No, ain’t heard nothin’.”
“Well, this guy ain’t no ordinary hotel thief. I mean he probably ain’t none of the guys you ordinarily see around Raymond’s, but he might be a guy that you would sometimes see there. What the hell, even a ding-a-ling has a drink once in a while, and Raymond’s is convenient when you’re getting ready to rape about ten rooms across the street.”
“He a ding-a-ling?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he look like?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can I find him then, Bumper?”
“I don’t know, Oliver. I’m just having hunches now. I think the guy’s done burglaries before. I mean he knows how to shim doors and all that. And like I say, he’s a little dingy. I think he’s gonna stab somebody before too long. He carries a blade. A long blade, because he went clear through a mattress with it.”
“Why’d he stab a mattress?”
“He was trying to kill a teddy bear.”
“You been drinkin’, Bumper?”
I smiled, and then I wondered what the hell I was doing here because I didn’t know enough about the burglar to give a snitch something to work with. I was grabbing at any straw in the wind so I could hit a home run before walking off the field for the last time. Absolutely pathetic and sickening, I thought, ashamed of myself.
“Here’s five bucks,” I said to Oliver. “Get yourself a steak.”
“Jeez, Bumper,” he said, “I ain’t done nothin’ for it.”
“The guy carries a long-bladed knife and he’s a psycho and lately he takes these hotels at any goddamn hour of the day or night. He just might go to Raymond’s for a drink sometime. He just might use the restroom while you’re cleaning up and maybe he’ll be tempted to look at some of the stuff in his pockets to see what he stole. Or maybe he’ll be sitting at the bar and he’ll pull a pretty out of his pocket that he just snatched at the hotel, or maybe one of these sharp hotel burglars that hangs out at Raymond’s will know something, or say something, and you’re always around there. Maybe anything.”
“Sure, Bumper, I’ll call you right away I hear anything at all. Right away, Bumper. And you get any more clues you let me know, hey, Bumper?”
“Sure, Oliver, I’ll get you a good one from my clues closet.”
“Hey, that’s aw right,” Oliver hooted. He had no teeth in front, upper or lower. For a long time he had one upper tooth in front.
“Be seeing you, Oliver.”
“Hey, Bumper, wait a minute. You ain’t told me no funny cop stories in a long time. How ’bout a story?”
“I think you heard them all.”
“Come on, Bumper.”
“Well, let’s see. I told you about the seventy-five-year-old nympho I busted over on Main that night?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he hooted, “tell me that one again. That’s a good one.”
“I gotta go, Oliver, honest. But say, did I ever tell you about the time I caught the couple in the back seat up there in Elysian Park in one of those maker’s acres?”
“No, tell me, Bumper.”
“Well, I shined my light in there and here’s these two down on the seat, the old boy throwing the knockwurst to his girlfriend, and this young partner I’m with says, ‘What’re you doing there?’ And the guy gives the answer ninety percent of the guys do when you catch them in that position: ‘Nothing, Officer.’”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Oliver, his shaggy head bobbing.
“So I say to the guy, ‘Well, if you ain’t doing anything, move over there and hold my flashlight and lemme see what I can do.’”
“Whoooo, that’s funny,” said Oliver. “Whoooo, Bumper.”
He was laughing so hard he hardly saw me go, and I left him there holding his big hard belly and laughing in the sunshine.
I thought about telling Oliver to call Central Detectives instead of me, because I wouldn’t be here after today, but what the hell, then I’d have to tell him why I wouldn’t be here, and I couldn’t take another person telling me why I should or should not retire. If Oliver ever called, somebody’d tell him I was gone, and the information would eventually get to the dicks. So what the hell, I thought, pulling back into the traffic and breathing exhaust fumes. It would’ve been really something though, to get that burglar on this last day. Really something.
I looked at my watch and thought Cassie should be at school now, so I drove to City College and parked out front. I wondered why I didn’t feel guilty about Laila. I guess I figured it wasn’t really my fault.
Cassie was alone in the office when I got there. I closed the door, flipped my hat on a chair, walked over, and felt that same old amazement I’ve felt a thousand times over how well a woman fits in your arms, and how soft they feel.
“Thought about you all night,” she said after I kissed her a dozen times or so. “Had a miserable evening. Couple of bores.”
“You thought about me all night, huh?”
“Honestly, I did.” She kissed me again. “I still have this awful feeling something’s going to happen.”
“Every guy that ever went into battle has that feeling.”
“Is that what our marriage is going to be, a battle?”
“If it is, you’ll win, baby. I’ll surrender.”
“Wait’ll I get you tonight,” she whispered. “You’ll surrender all right.”
“That green dress is gorgeous.”
“But you still like hot colors better?”
“Of course.”
“After we get married I’ll wear nothing but reds and oranges and yellows…”
“You ready to talk?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Cruz gave me a talking-to-about you.”
“Oh?”
“He thinks you’re the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”
“Go on,” she smiled.
“Well…”
“Yes?”
“Damn it, I can’t go on. Not in broad daylight with no drink in me…”
“What did you talk about, silly?”
“About you. No, it was more about me. About things I need and things I’m afraid of. Twenty years he’s my friend and suddenly I find out he’s a damned intellectual.”
“What do you need? What’re you afraid of? I can’t believe you’ve ever been afraid of anything.”
“He knows me better than you know me.”
“That makes me
sad. I don’t want anyone knowing you better than I do. Tell me what you talked about.”
“I don’t have time right now,” I said, feeling a gas bubble forming. Then I lied and said, “I’m on the way to a call. I just had to stop for a minute. I’ll tell you all about it tonight. I’ll be at your pad at seven-thirty. We’re going out to dinner, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Then we’ll curl up on your couch with a good bottle of wine.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she smiled, that clean, hot, female smile that made me kiss her.
“See you tonight,” I whispered.
“Tonight,” she gasped, and I realized I was crushing her. She stood in the doorway and watched me all the way down the stairs.
I got back in the car and dropped two of each kind of pill and grabbed a handful from the glove compartment and shoved them in my pants pockets for later.
As I drove back on the familiar streets of the beat I wondered why I couldn’t talk to Cassie like I wanted. If you’re going to marry someone you should be able to tell her almost anything about yourself that she has a right to know.
I pulled over at a phone booth then and called Cruz at the station. Lieutenant Hilliard answered and in a couple seconds I heard Cruz’s soft voice, “Sergeant Segovia?” He said it like a question,
“Hello, Sergeant Segovia, this is future former Officer Morgan, what the hell you doing besides pushing a pencil and shuffling paper?”
The Blue Knight Page 27