The New Centurions Part 21

"Well I'm ready for anything," said Gus, careful not to use any of the forbidden words of entrapment, even though Sal often argued with him that it is obviously impossible to entrap a wh.o.r.e, and he should only worry about entrapment later while writing the report because following the rules of the game was crazy. But Gus had answered that the rules made it all civilized. civilized.

"Look, Officer," said the girl suddenly, "why don't you go on up to the academy and play yourself a nice game of handball?"

"What?" said Gus blandly, as she examined his eyes.

"Jist a joke, baby," she said finally. "We got to be careful of vice officers."

"Vice officers? Where?" said Gus gunning his motor. "Maybe we better forget all about this."

"Don't git nervous, honey," she said, getting in the car and moving over to him. "I'll give you such a nice French that you goin' to be glad you came down here tonight and don't worry none about the vice, I got them all paid off. They never bother me."

"Where should I drive?" asked Gus.

"Down La Brea there. The Notel Motel. They got electric beds that vibrate and mirrors on the walls and ceilings and I got my own room reserved and it ain't goin' to cost you nothin' extra. It's all yours for fifteen dollars."

"That sounds about right," said Gus turning around and bouncing into the drive-in parking lot where Bonelli waited and Sal smiled through the heavy whiskers when he saw the prost.i.tute.

"Hi baby, how's tricks?" said Bonelli opening the door for her.

"Tricks was fine, Mr. Bonelli, till I hit on this one," said the girl looking at Gus in disbelief. "I would a swore he was a trick. He really a cop?"

Gus showed the prost.i.tute his badge and got back in the car.

"He looks too motherf.u.c.kin' peaceable to be a cop," said the prost.i.tute in disgust as Gus drove out of the lot for another try before they made the long drive to Lincoln Heights jail.

Gus swept the block twice and then made a wider arc and finally decided to drive north on La Brea toward Venice where he had seen prost.i.tutes the last few nights, and then he saw three Cadillacs parked side by side in the motel parking lot. He recognized a prost.i.tute standing outside the purple Cadillac talking to Eddie Parsons and Big Dog Hanley and another Negro pimp he didn't recognize. Gus remembered the time they had arrested Big Dog when Gus had just arrived in Wilshire Division last year and was still working uniform patrol. They had stopped Big Dog for an unsafe lane change and while Gus was writing the ticket, his partner Drew Watson, an aggressive and inquisitive policeman, had spotted the pearl handle of a .22 revolver protruding from under the seat. He had retrieved it and arrested Big Dog, taking him to the detectives who, since Big Dog was a pimp, and had a five-page rap sheet, decided to book him for robbery, impound his car, and book his roll of flashmoney as evidence. When they counted out the bills which came to eight hundred dollars and told Big Dog they were booking the money, he broke down and wept, begging the detective not to book his money because it had been done to him before and it took months to get it back and it was his his money so please don't book it. This surprised Gus in that Big Dog was at once the most insolent and arrogant of all the pimps and here he was begging for his roll and crying. Then Gus realized that without the roll and the Cadillac, he was nothing, and Big Dog knew it and realized that the other pimps and prost.i.tutes knew it, and he would lose everything. It would be taken away by pimps with a bankroll who commanded respect. money so please don't book it. This surprised Gus in that Big Dog was at once the most insolent and arrogant of all the pimps and here he was begging for his roll and crying. Then Gus realized that without the roll and the Cadillac, he was nothing, and Big Dog knew it and realized that the other pimps and prost.i.tutes knew it, and he would lose everything. It would be taken away by pimps with a bankroll who commanded respect.

Then Gus saw the white prost.i.tute at Venice and La Brea. He accelerated but she had already reached a red Cadillac hardtop and she was alone and getting in the driver's side when Gus slowed and double-parked next to her. He smiled his carefully rehea.r.s.ed smile which had seldom failed so far.

"Looking for me, sweetie?" asked the girl, and up close she did not look nearly as good although the tight silver pants and black jersey fit well. Gus could see even in this light that the swirling blond hair was a wig and the makeup was garish.

"I think you're the one I've been looking for," Gus smiled.

"Pull up in front of me and park," said the girl. "Then walk on back here and let's talk."

Gus pulled in at the curb and turned his lights out, slipped the holstered two-inch Smith & Wesson under the seat, got out, and walked back to the Cadillac and up to the driver's side.

"Looking for action, sweetie?" asked the girl with a smile that Gus thought was rehea.r.s.ed as carefully as his. "Sure am," he shot back with his own version of a smile.

"How much you willing to spend?" she said coyly and reached out the window with a long clawed finger and ran it seductively over his torso while she felt for a gun and he smiled to himself because he had left the gun in the car.

She seemed satisfied not feeling a gun or other evidence that he was a policeman and she apparently saw little use in wasting more time. "How about a nice ten dollar f.u.c.k?" she said.

"You don't mince words," said Gus, pulling out the badge he had in his back pocket. "You're under arrest."

"Oh c.r.a.p," moaned the girl. "Man, I just got out of jail. Oh no," she wailed.

"Let's go," said Gus, opening the door of the Cadillac. "Awright, lemme get my purse," she spat, but turned the key and cramped the wheel hard to the left as the Cadillac lurched forward and Gus, not knowing why, leaped on the side of the car and in only seconds he was clinging to the back of the seat and standing on nothing as the powerful car sped east on Venice. He reached desperately across her for the keys, but she drove her little fist into his face and he slid back and tasted the blood from his nose. His eye caught the speedometer registering sixty and quickly seventy and his lower body was swept backward in a rush of wind and he clung to the seat as the cursing prost.i.tute swerved the Cadillac across three lanes attempting to hurl him to his death and now for the first time he was conscious of exactly what he was doing and he prayed to G.o.d the body would not fail him now and it would just cling-that was all-just cling.

There were other cars on Venice. Gus knew this from the blasting horns and squeal of tires but he kept his eyes closed and clung as she beat at his hands with a purse and then with a high-heeled shoe as the Cadillac swerved and skidded on Venice Boulevard. Gus tried to remember a simple prayer from his boyhood because he knew there would be a jarring flaming crash but he couldn't remember the prayer and suddenly there was a giddy sliding turn and he knew this was the end and now he would be hurtled through s.p.a.ce like a bullet, but then the car righted itself and was speeding back westbound on Venice the way it had come and Gus thought if he could reach his gun, if he dared release the grip of one hand, he would take her with him to the grave and then he remembered the gun was in his car and he thought if he could crank the wheel now at eighty miles an hour he could flip the Cadillac and that would be as good as the gun. He wanted to, but the body would not obey and would only cling stubbornly to the back cushion of the seat. Then the prost.i.tute began pushing the door open as she cut the wheel back and forth and the force hurtled his feet straight back and Gus found his voice, but it was a whisper and she was shrieking curses and the car tape deck had somehow been turned as loudly as it would go and the music from the car stereo and roar of the wind and screams of the prost.i.tute were deafening and he shouted in her ear, "Please, please, let me go! I won't arrest you if you'll let me go. Slow down and let me jump!"

She answered by cutting the wheel recklessly to the right and saying, "Die, you dirty little motherf.u.c.ker."

Gus saw La Brea coming up and the traffic was moderate when she slashed through the red light at ninety miles an hour and Gus heard the unmistakable screech and crash but still they flew and he knew another car had crashed in the intersection and then all lanes were blocked east and west just west of La Brea as a stream of fire trucks lumbered north at the next intersection. The prost.i.tute slammed on her brakes and turned left on a dark residential street, but made the turn much too sharply and the Cadillac slid and righted and careened to the right and up over a lawn taking out twenty feet of picket fence which hurtled in clattering fragments over the hood of the car and cracked the windshield of the Cadillac which sliced across lawns and through hedges with the prost.i.tute riding the burning brakes and the lawns hurtling by were coming slower and slower and Gus guessed the car was going only thirty miles an hour when he let go but he hit the gra.s.s with a shock and his body coiled and rolled without command but he was still rolling when he crashed into a parked car and sat there for a long moment as the earth moved up and down. Then he was on his feet as the lights were being turned on all over the block and the neighborhood dogs had gone mad and the Cadillac was now almost out of sight.

Gus then started to run as the people poured from the houses. He was almost at La Brea when he began to feel the pain in his hip and his arm and several other places and he wondered why he was running, but right now it was the only thing that made sense. So he ran faster and faster and then he was at his car and driving, but his legs, although they would run, would not be still enough to maneuver the car, and twice he had to stop and rub them before reaching the station. He drove his car to the rear of the station and went in the back door and down to the bathroom where he examined his gray face which was badly scratched and bruised from the blows. When he washed away the blood it didn't look bad but his left knee was mushy and the sweat dried cold on his chest and back. Then he noticed the terrible smell and his stomach turned as he realized what it was and he hurried to the locker thankful that he kept a sport coat and slacks in case he tore his clothing prowling or in case an a.s.signment demanded a dressier appearance. He crept back down to the restroom and cleansed his legs and b.u.t.tocks, sobbing breathlessly in shame and fear and relief.

After he was washed, he put on the clean slacks and rolled the trousers and soiled underwear into a ball and threw the stinking bundle outside in the trash can at the rear of the station. He got back in the car and drove to the drive-in where he knew Bonelli would be frantic because he had been gone almost an hour and he was still uncertain if he could carry off the lie when he drove to the rear of the restaurant. He found Bonelli with two radio cars who had begun a search for Gus. He told the lie which he had formulated while the tears choked him as he drove to the restaurant. He had to lie because if they knew they had a policeman who was so stupid he would jump on the side of a car, why they would kick him off the squad, and rightly so, for such an officer certainly would need more seasoning-if not a psychiatrist. So he told them an elaborate lie about a prost.i.tute who had hit him in the face with a shoe and had leaped from his car and how he had chased her through alleys on foot for a half hour and finally lost her. Bonelli had told him it was dangerous to go off alone away from your car but he was so d.a.m.ned glad to see Gus was alright that he dropped it at that not even noticing the clothes change, and they drove to the Main Jail. Several times Gus thought he would break down and weep and in fact he twice stifled a sob. But he did not break down and after an hour or so his legs and hands stopping shaking completely. But he could not eat and when they stopped later for a hamburger he had almost gotten sick at the sight of food.

"You look awful," said Bonelli, after he had eaten and they were cruising down Wilshire Boulevard. Gus was looking out the window at the street and the cars and people, feeling not elated at being still alive but darkly depressed. He wished for a moment that the car had overturned during that bowel-searing moment when she had skidded and he knew they were doing ninety.

"I guess that ha.s.sle with the wh.o.r.e was a little too much for me," Gus said.

"How far you say you chased that wh.o.r.e?" asked Bonelli with a look of disbelief.

"Several blocks I guess. Why?"

"I happen to know you run like a cougar. How come you couldn't catch her?"

"Well, the truth is, she kicked me in the b.a.l.l.s, Sal. I was ashamed to tell you. I was lying in the alley for twenty minutes."

"Well, why in the h.e.l.l didn't you say you caught a nut shot for chrissake? No wonder you been looking sick all night. I'm taking you home."

"No. No, I don't want to go home," said Gus and thought he would a.n.a.lyze later why he preferred being at work even now when he was despairing of everything.

"Suit yourself, but I want you to really go through that wh.o.r.e mug book tomorrow night and keep looking till you find that b.i.t.c.h. We're going to get a warrant for battery on a police officer."

"I told you, Sal, she was a new one. I never saw her before."

"We'll find the c.u.n.t," said Bonelli and seemed content with Gus's explanation. Gus felt better now and his stomach hardly hurt at all. He sat back and wondered where he would get the money for his mother this payday because the furniture payment was due, but he decided not to worry about it because thinking about his mother and John always made his stomach tighten up and he had enough of that tonight.

At eleven o'clock, Sal said, "Guess we better go see the boy leader, huh?"

"Okay," Gus mumbled, unaware that he had been dozing.

"You sure you don't want to go home?"

"I feel fine."

They met Anderson at the restaurant looking sour and impatient as he sipped a cup of creamy coffee and tapped on a table with a teaspoon.

"You're late," he muttered as they sat down.

"Yeah," said Bonelli.

"I took a booth so we wouldn't be overheard," said Anderson, worrying the tip of the spa.r.s.e moustache with the handle of the teaspoon.

"Yeah, can't be too careful when you're in this business," said Bonelli, and Anderson glanced sharply at the stony brown eyes looking for irony.

"The others aren't coming. Hunter and his partner got a couple wh.o.r.es and the others took a game."

"Dice?"

"Cards," said Anderson and Gus became irritated as he always did when Anderson referred to Hunter and his partner his partner or or the others the others when there were only eight of them altogether and he should know their names well enough by now. when there were only eight of them altogether and he should know their names well enough by now.

"The three of us working the bar?" asked Bonelli.

"Not you. They know you so you stay outside. I've got a good place picked out for surveillance across the street in an apartment house parking lot. You be there when we bring out an arrestee, or if we get invited to the apartment for after-hour drinking like I hope, we may just have a drink and leave and call for reinforcements."

"Don't forget to pour the drink in the rubber," said Sal.

"Of course," said Anderson.

"Don't pour too much. Those rubbers break if you pour too much booze in."

"I can manage," said Anderson.

"Especially that that rubber. Don't pour too much in." rubber. Don't pour too much in."

"Why?"

"I used that one on my girlfriend Bertha last night. It ain't brand-new anymore."

Anderson looked at Bonelli for a second and then chortled self-consciously.

"He thinks I'm joking," said Bonelli to Gus.

"Great kidders," said Anderson. "Let's get going. I'm anxious to do police work."

Bonelli shrugged to Gus as they followed Anderson to his car and drove behind him to within a block of The Cellar where they decided Anderson and Gus would go in separately at five-minute intervals. They might find an excuse to get together once inside, but they were going to act like strangers.

Once inside, Gus wasn't interested in arrests or police work or anything but the drink in front of him when he sat at the leather-padded bar. He drank two whiskeys with soda and ordered a third, but the peace-giving warmth started before he had finished the second and he wondered if his was the type of personality that was conducive to alcoholism. He guessed it was, and that was one reason he seldom drank, but it was mainly that he hated the taste except for whiskey and soda which he could tolerate. Tonight they were good, and his hand began to beat time to the blaring jukebox and for the first time he looked around the bar. It was a good noisy crowd for a week night. The bar was crowded as were the booths and the tables were almost all occupied. After his third drink he noticed Sergeant Anderson sitting alone at a tiny round table, sipping a c.o.c.ktail and staring hard at Gus before getting up and going to the jukebox.

Gus followed and fumbled in his pocket for a quarter as he approached the glowing machine which flickered green and blue light across the intense face of Anderson.

"Good crowd," said Gus, pretending to pick out a recording. Gus noticed that his mouth was getting numb and he was lightheaded and the music made his heart beat fast. He finished the drink in his hand.

"Better take it easy on the drinking," whispered Anderson. "You'll have to be sober if we're going to operate this place." Anderson punched a selection and pretended to search for another.

"You operate better if you look like one of the boozers," said Gus, and surprised himself because he never contradicted sergeants, least of all Anderson whom he feared.

"Make your drink last," said Anderson. "But don't overdo it that way either or they'll suspect you're vice."

"Okay," said Gus. "Shall we sit together?"

"Not yet," said Anderson. "There're two women at the table directly in front of me. I think they're hustlers, but I'm not sure. It wouldn't hurt to try for a prost.i.tution offer. If we get it, we could always try to use them to duke us into the upstairs drinking. Then we could bust them when we bust the after-hours place."

"Good plan," said Gus, belching wetly.

"Don't talk so loud for crying out loud."

"Sorry," said Gus, belching again.

"You go back to the bar and watch me. If I'm not doing well with the women you stroll over to their table and hit on them. If you score, I'll invite myself over again."

"Okay," said Gus and Anderson punched the last record on the jukebox and the buzz of voices in the bar threatened to drown out the jukebox until Gus's ears popped and he knew most of the buzz was in his head and he thought of the speeding Cadillac, became frightened, and forced it from his mind.

"Go back to your table now," whispered Anderson. "We've been standing here too long."

"Shouldn't I play a record? That's what I came here for," said Gus, pointing to the glowing machine.

"Oh yes," said Anderson. "Play something first."

"Okay," said Gus, belching again.

"You better take it easy with the booze," said Anderson, as he strode back to his table.

Gus found the blurred record labels too hard to read and just punched the first three b.u.t.tons on the machine. He liked the hard rock that was now being played and he found his fingers snapping and his shoulders swaying as he returned to the bar and had another whiskey and soda which he drank furtively hoping Anderson would not see. Then he ordered another and picked his way through the crowd to the two women at the table who did indeed look like prost.i.tutes, he thought.

The younger of the two, a slightly bulging silver-tipped brunette in a gold sheath, smiled at Gus immediately as he stood, tapping a foot to the music, in front of their table. He sipped his drink and gave them both a leer which he knew they would respond to, and he glanced at Anderson who glared morosely over his drink and he almost laughed because he hadn't felt so happy in months and he knew he was getting drunk. But his sensibility had become actually more acute, he thought, and he saw things in perspective and G.o.d, life was good. He leered from the younger one to the bleached fat one who was fifty-five if she was a day, and the fat one blinked at Gus through alcoholic blue eyes and Gus guessed she was not a true professional hooker, but just a companion for the younger. She would probably join in if the opportunity arose, but who in h.e.l.l would pay money for the hag?

"All alone?" slurred the older one, as Gus stood before them, growing hilarious now, as he bounced and swayed to the music which was building to a crescendo of drums and electric guitar.

"n.o.body's alone as long as there's music and drink and love," said Gus, toasting each of them with the whiskey and soda and then pouring it down as he thought how d.a.m.ned eloquent that was, and if he could only remember it later.

"Well, sit down and tell me more, you cute little thing," said the old blonde pointing to the empty chair.

"May I buy you girls a drink?" asked Gus, leaning both elbows on the table and thinking how the younger one really wasn't too bad except for her bad nose which was bent to the right and her fuzzy eyebrows which began and ended nowhere, but she had enormous b.r.e.a.s.t.s and he stared at them frankly and then hurled a lewd smile in her face as he snapped his fingers for the waitress who was giving Anderson another drink.

Both women ordered manhattans and he had whiskey and soda and noticed Anderson looked angrier than usual. Anderson finished two drinks while the fat blonde told a long obscene joke about a little Jew and a blue-eyed camel and Gus roared even though he failed to get the punch line, and when he calmed himself the old blonde said, "We didn't even get introduced. I'm Fluffy Largo. This is Poppy La Farge."

"My name is Lance Jeffrey Savage," said Gus, standing shakily and bowing to both giggling women.

"Ain't he the cutest little s.h.i.t?" said Fluffy to Poppy.

"Where do you work, Lance?" asked Poppy letting her hand rest against her forearm as she dipped her torso forward revealing a half inch more cleavage.

"I work at a cantaloupe factory," said Gus staring at Poppy's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I mean a dress factory," he added looking up to see if they caught it.

"Cantaloupes," said Fluffy and burst into a high whooping laugh that ended in a snort.

d.a.m.n good, thought Gus. That was d.a.m.n good. And he wondered how he could so easily think of such spectacularly funny things tonight, and then he looked over at Anderson who was paying for another drink and Gus said to the women, "Hey, see that guy over there?"

"Yeah, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d tried to pick us up a minute ago," said Fluffy, scratching her vast belly and pulling up a slipping bra strap which had dropped below the shoulder onto the flabby pink bicep.

"I know him," said Gus. "Let's invite him over."

"You know him?" asked Poppy. "He looks like a cop to me."