The Blue Knight (7 page)

“Shhh,” Cruz grinned. “Haven’t you heard? We’re the new breed of professionals. We don’t accept gratuities.”

“Who said anything about gratuities? I only take tribute.”

Cruz shook his head and said,
“Ahí te huacho,”
which is anglicized slang meaning I’ll be seeing, or rather, watching for you.

“Ahí te huacho,”
I answered.

After I left Cruz I went back to the vice squad office and found Zoot hanging his head, and Charlie downright happy, so I figured Charlie had done all right.

“I’d like to talk to you alone for a minute, Bumper,” said Charlie, leading me into the next room and closing the door while Zoot sat there looking miserable.

“He told me lots more than he thinks he did,” said Charlie. He was charged up like any good cop should be when he has something worthwhile.

“He thinks you re taking me off his back?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie smiled. “Play along. He thinks I’m going to save him from you. Just lay off him for a while, okay, Bumper? He told me he’s planning on moving his territory out of the division to Alvarado in a couple of weeks but he has to stay around Figueroa for the time being. I told him I’d talk to you.”

“Tell Zoot he doesn’t have to worry about old Bumper anymore,” I said, getting another gas pain. I vowed to myself I’d lay off the soy sauce next time I ate in J-town.

“Yeah, he’ll be a problem for the Rampart vice squad then,” said Charlie, not getting my meaning.

“Want me to take him back to Fig?”

“I’ll take him,” said Charlie. “I want to talk a little more.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure, Bumper.”

“You think there’s any chance of something going down because of what Zoot told you?”

“There’s a damn good chance. Zoot half-assed copped that he thinks the broad at the relay spot that takes his action is Reba McClain, and if it is we might be able to swing real good with her.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s Red Scalotta’s girlfriend. We took her down in another relay about six months ago and she got probation with a six months’ jail sentence hanging. She’s a meth head and an ex-con and stir crazy as hell. Kind of a sex thing. She’s got a phobia about jails and bull dykes and all that. Real ding-a-ling, but a gorgeous little toadie. We were just talking last week about her and if we could shag her and catch her dirty we might get to Scalotta through her. She’s a real shaky bitch. I think she’d turn her mama to stay on the street. You bringing in Zoot with that phone number was a godsend.”

“Okay, then I’m really going to ask the favor.”

“Sure.”

“Take her today or tomorrow at the latest. If she gives you something good, like a back office, take it down on Friday.”

“A back office! Jesus, I don’t think she’ll have that kind of information, Bumper. And hell, Friday is just two days away. Sometimes you stake out for weeks or months to take a back office. Jesus, that’s where the book’s records are kept. We’d have to get a search warrant and that takes lots of information beforehand. Why Friday?”

“I’m going on vacation. I want to be in on this one, Charlie. I never took a back office. I want it real bad, and it has to be before I go on vacation.”

“I’d do it for you, Bumper, if I could, you know that, but Friday’s only two days away!”

“Just do police work like I taught you, with balls and brains and some imagination. That’s all I ask. Just try, okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie said. “I’ll give it a try.”

Before I left I put on an act for Zoot so he’d think Charlie was his protector. I pretended I was mad at Charlie and Charlie pretended he was going to stop me from any future attempts to stuff Zoot down the goddamn mail chute.

SIX

A
FTER
I got in my car I remembered the friendly ass bite Cruz gave me and I picked up the hand mike and said, “One-X-L-Forty-five, clear.”

“One-X-L-Forty-five, handle this call,” said the operator, and I grumbled and wrote the address down. “Meet One-L-Thirty, Ninth and Broadway.”

“One-X-L-Forty-five, roger,” I said disgustedly, and thought, that’s what I get for clearing. Probably some huge crisis like taking a chickenshit theft report from some fatass stockbroker who got his wallet lifted while he was reading dirty magazines at the dirty bookstore on Broadway.

One-X-L-Thirty was a rookie sergeant named Grant who I didn’t know very well. He wore one five-year hashmark showing he had between five and ten years on. I’d bet it was a whole lot closer to five. He had a ruddy, smooth face and a big vocabulary. I never heard him swear at any roll-call he conducted. I couldn’t trust a policeman who didn’t swear once in a while. You could hardly describe certain things you see and feelings you have in this job without some colorful language.

Grant was south of Ninth near Olympic, out of his car, pacing up and down as I drove up. I knew it was snobbish but I couldn’t call a kid like him “Sergeant.” And I didn’t want to be out and out rude so I didn’t call these young sergeants by their last names. I didn’t call them anything. It got awkward sometimes, and I had to say, “Hey pal,” or “Listen bud” when I wanted to talk to one of them. Grant looked pretty nervous about something.

“What’s up?” I asked, getting out of my car.

“We have a demonstration at the Army Induction Center.”

“So?” I said, looking down the street at a group of about fifteen marchers picketing the building.

“A lot of draftees go in and out and there could be trouble. There’re some pretty militant-looking types in that picket line.”

“So what’re we gonna do?”

“I just called you because I need someone to stand by and keep them under surveillance. I’m going in to talk to the lieutenant about the advisability of calling a tactical alert. I’d like you to switch to frequency nine and keep me advised of any status change.”

“Look, pal, this ain’t no big thing. I mean, a tactical alert for fifteen ragtag flower sniffers?”

“You never know what it can turn into.”

“Okay,” and I sighed, even though I tried not to, “I’ll sit right here.”

“Might be a good idea to drive closer. Park across the street. Close enough to let them see you but far enough to keep them from trying to bait you.”

“Okay, pal,” I muttered, as Grant got in his car and sped toward the station to talk to Lieutenant Hilliard, who was a cool old head and wouldn’t get in a flap over fifteen peace marchers.

I pulled out in the traffic and a guy in a blue Chevy jumped on his brakes even though he was eighty feet back and going slow. People get black-and-white fever when they see a police car and they do idiotic things trying to be super careful. I’ve seen them concentrate so hard on one facet of safe driving, like giving an arm signal, that they bust right through a red light. That’s black-and-white fever for you.

The marchers across Broadway caught my eye when two of them, a guy and a girl, were waving for me to come over. They seemed to be just jiving around but I thought I better go over for several reasons. First of all, there might really be something wrong. Second, if I didn’t, it looked like hell for a big bad copper to be afraid to approach a group of demonstrators. And third, I had a theory that if enough force could be used fast enough in these confrontations there’d be no riot. I’d never seen real force used quick enough yet, and I thought, what the hell, now was my chance to test my theory since I was alone with no sergeants around.

These guys, at least a few of them, two black guys, and one white, bearded scuz in a dirty buckskin vest and yellow headband, looked radical enough to get violent with an overweight middle-aged cop like myself, but I firmly believed that if one of them made the mistake of putting his hands on me and I drove my stick three inches in his esophagus, the others would yell police brutality twice and slink away. Of course I wasn’t sure, and I noticed that the recent arrivals swelled their numbers to twenty-three. Only five of them were girls. That many people could stomp me to applesauce without a doubt, but I wasn’t really worried, mainly because even though they were fist shaking, most of them looked like middle-class white people just playing at revolution. If you have a few hungry-looking professionals like I figured the white guy in the headband to be, you could have trouble. Some of these could lend their guts to the others and set them off, but he was the only one I saw.

I drove around the block so I didn’t have to make an illegal U-turn in front of them, made my illegal U-turn on Olympic, came back and parked in front of the marchers, who ignored me and kept marching and chanting, “Hell no, we won’t go.” And “Fuck Uncle Sam, and Auntie Spiro,” and several other lewd remarks mostly directed at the President, the governor, and the mayor. A few years ago, if a guy yelled “fuck” in a public place in the presence of women or children, we’d have to drag his ass to jail.

“Hi, Officer, I love you,” said one little female peace marcher, a cute blonde about seventeen, wearing two inches of false eyelashes that looked upside-down, and ironed-out shoulder-length hair.

“Hi, honey, I love you too,” I smiled back, and leaned against the door of my car. I folded my arms and puffed a cigar until the two who had been waving at me decided to walk my way.

They were whispering now with another woman and finally the shorter girl, who was not exactly a girl, but a woman of about thirty-five, came right up. She was dressed like a teenager with a short yellow mini, violet panty hose, granny glasses, and white lipstick. Her legs were too damned fat and bumpy and she was wearing a theatrical smile with a cold arrogant look beneath it. Up close, she looked like one of the professionals and seemed to be a picket captain. Sometimes a woman, if she’s the real thing, can be the detonator much quicker than a man can. This one seemed like the real thing, and I looked her in the eye and smiled while she toyed with a heavy peace medal hanging around her neck. Her eyes said, “You’re just a fat harmless cop, not worth my talents, but so far you’re all we have here, and I don’t know if an old bastard like you is even intelligent enough to know when he’s being put down.”

That’s what I saw in her eyes, and her phony smile, but she said nothing for a few more minutes. Then a car from one of the network stations rolled up and two men got out with a camera and mike.

The interest of the marchers picked up now that they were soon to be on tape, and the chanting grew louder, the gestures more fierce, and the old teenybopper in the yellow dress finally said, “We called you over because you looked very forlorn. Where’re the riot troops, or are you all we get today?”

“If you get
me
, baby, you ain’t gonna want any more,” I smiled through a puff of cigar smoke, pinning her eyeballs, admiring the fact that she didn’t bat an eye even though I knew damn well she was expecting the businesslike professional clichés we’re trained to give in these situations. I’d bet she was even surprised to see me slouching against my car like this, showing such little respect for this menacing group.

“You’re not supposed to smoke in public, are you, Officer?” She smiled, a little less arrogant now. She didn’t know what the hell she had here, and was going to take her time about setting the bait.

“Maybe a real policeman ain’t supposed to, but this uniform’s just a shuck. I rented this ill-fitting clown suit to make an underground movie about this fat cop that steals apples and beats up flower children and old mini-skirted squatty-bodies with socks to match their varicose veins in front of the U.S. Army Induction Center.”

Then she lost her smile completely and stormed back to the guy in the headband who was also much older than he first appeared. They whispered and she looked at me as I puffed on the cigar and waved at some of the marchers who were putting me on, most of them just college-age kids having a good time. A couple of them sincerely seemed to like me even though they tossed a few insults to go along with the crowd.

Finally, the guy in the headband came my way shouting encouragement to the line of marchers who were going around and around in a long oval in front of the door, which was being guarded by two men in suits who were not policemen, but probably military personnel. The cameraman was shooting pictures now, and I hid my cigar and sucked in a few inches of gut when he photographed me. The babe in the yellow dress joined the group after passing out some Black Panther pins and she marched without once looking at me again.

“I hear you don’t make like the other cops we’ve run into in these demonstrations,” said the guy with the headband, suddenly standing in front of me and grinning. “The L.A.P.D. abandoning the oh so firm but courteous approach? Are you a new police riot technique? A caricature of a fat pig, a jolly jiveass old cop that we just can’t get mad at? Is that it? They figure we couldn’t use you for an Establishment symbol? Like you’re too fucking comical looking, is that it?”

“Believe it or not, Tonto,” I said, “I’m just the neighborhood cop. Not a secret weapon, nothing for lumpy legs to get tight-jawed about. I’m just your local policeman.”

He twitched a little bit when I mentioned the broad so I guessed she might be his old lady. I figured they probably taught sociology lA and lB in one of the local junior colleges.

“Are you the only swine they’re sending?” he asked, smiling not quite so much now which made me very happy. It’s hard even for professionals like him to stay with a smirk when he’s being rapped at where it hurts. He probably just loves everything about her, even the veiny old wheels. I decided, screw it, I was going to take the offensive with these assholes and see where it ended.

“Listen, Cochise,” I said, the cigar between my teeth, “I’m the only old pig you’re gonna see today. All the young piglets are staying in the pen. So why don’t you and old purple pins just take your Che handbooks and cut out. Let these kids have their march with no problems. And take those two dudes with the naturals along with you.” I pointed to the two black guys who were standing ten feet away watching us. “There ain’t gonna be any more cops here, and there ain’t gonna be any trouble.”

“You
are
a bit refreshing,” he said, trying to grin, but it was a crooked grin. “I was getting awfully sick of those unnatural pseudoprofessionals with their businesslike platitudes, pretending to look right through us when really they wanted to get us in the back room of some police station and beat our fucking heads in. I must say you’re refreshing. You’re truly a vicious fascist and don’t pretend to be anything else.”

Just then the mini-skirted broad walked up again. “Is he threatening you, John?” she said in a loud voice, looking over her shoulder, but the guys with the camera and mike were at the other end of the shouting line of marchers.

“Save it till they get to this end,” I said, as I now estimated her age to be closer to forty. She was a few years older than he was and the mod camouflage looked downright comical. “Want some bubble gum, little girl?” I said.

“Shut your filthy mouth,” he said, taking a step toward me. I was tight now, I wound myself up and was ready. “Stay frosty, Sitting Bull,” I smiled. “Here, have a cigar.” I offered one of my smokes, but he wheeled and walked away with old lumpy clicking along behind him.

The two black guys hadn’t moved. They too were professionals, I was positive now, but they were a different kind. If anything went down, I planned to attack those two right away. They were the ones to worry about. They both wore black plastic jackets and one wore a black cossack hat. He never took his eyes off me. He’d be the very first one I’d go after, I thought. I kept that flaky look, grinning and waving at any kid who gave me the peace sign, but I was getting less and less sure I could handle the situation. There were a couple other guys in the group that might get froggy if someone leaped, and I’ve seen what only two guys can do if they get you down and put the boots to you, let alone nine or ten.

I hated to admit it but I was beginning to wish Grant would show up with a squad of bluecoats. Still, it was a quiet demonstration, as quiet as these things go, and there was probably nothing to worry about, I thought.

The march continued as it had for a few more minutes, with the young ones yelling slogans, and then headband and mini-skirt came back with six or eight people in tow. These kids were definitely collegiate, wearing flares or bleach-streaked Levis. Some of the boys had muttonchops and moustaches, most had collar-length hair, and two of them were pretty, suntanned girls. They looked friendly enough and I gave them a nod of the head when they stopped in front of me.

One particularly scurvy-looking slimeball walked up, smiled real friendly, and whispered, “You’re a filthy, shit-eating pig.”

I smiled back and whispered, “Your mother eats bacon.”

“How can we start a riot with no riot squad,” another said.

“Careful, Scott, he’s not just a pig, he’s a wild boar, you dig?” said the mini-skirt who was standing behind the kids.

“Maybe
you
could use a little bore, sweetheart, maybe that’s your trouble,” I said, looking at the guy in the headband, and two of the kids chuckled.

“You seem to be the only Establishment representative we have at the moment, maybe you’d like to rap with us,” said Scott, a tall kid with a scrubbed-looking face and a mop of blond hair. He had a cute little baby hanging on his arm and she seemed amused.

“Sure, just fire away,” I said, still leaning back, acting relaxed as I puffed. I was actually beginning to
want
to rap with them. One time when I asked some young sergeant if I could take a shot at the “Policeman Bill” program and go talk to a class of high-school kids, he shined me on with a bunch of crap, and I realized then that they wanted these flat-stomached, clear-eyed, handsome young recruiting-poster cops for these jobs. I had my chance now and I liked the idea.