The New Centurions Part 8

"Kilvinsky got soul," said another voice. "He git us some scotch if we ask him pretty. You got soul, don't you, Mr. Kilvinsky?"

"Baby, ah gots more soul than ah kin control," said Kilvinsky and the girls burst into laughter.

"He sho' kin talk that trash," said a throaty voice that sounded like the girl who had cursed Bethel.

Kilvinsky parked in front of a liquor store and shouted over his shoulder, "Get your money ready and tell me what you want." Then to Gus, "Stay in the wagon. I'll be back."

Kilvinsky went around to the back and opened the door.

"Dollar each," said one of the girls and Gus heard the rustle of clothing and paper and the clink of coins.

"Two quarts of milk and a fifth of scotch. That okay?" asked one of the girls and several voices muttered, "Uh huh."

"Give me enough for paper cups," said Kilvinsky, "I'm not going to use my own money."

"Baby, if you'd turn in that bluesuit, you wouldn't have to worry 'bout money," said the one called Alice. "I'd keep you forever, you beautiful blue-eyed devil."

The girls laughed loudly as Kilvinsky closed the wagon and entered the liquor store, returning with a shopping bag in a few minutes.

He handed the bag in the door and was back in the cab and moving when Gus heard the liquor being poured.

"Change is in the bag," said Kilvinsky.

"Gud-dam," muttered one of the prost.i.tutes. "Scotch and milk is the best motherf.u.c.kin' drink in the world. Want a drink, Kilvinsky?"

"You know we can't drink on duty."

"I know somethin' we can do on duty," said another one. "And yo' sergeant won't smell it on yo' breath. Less'n you want to get down on yo' knees and French me."

The girls screamed in laughter and Kilvinsky said, "I'm too d.a.m.n old for you young girls."

"You ever change yo' mind, let me know," said Alice, "a foxy little wh.o.r.e like me could make you young again."

Kilvinsky drove aimlessly for more than a half hour while Gus listened as the prost.i.tutes laughed and talked shop, each girl trying to top the last one with her account of the "weird tricks" she had encountered.

"h.e.l.l," said one prost.i.tute, "I had one pick me up right here on Twenty-eighth and Western one night and take me clear to Beverly Heels for a hundred bucks and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d had me cut the head of a live chicken right there in some plushy apartment and then squish the chicken aroun' in the sink while the water was runnin' and he stood there and comed like a dog."

"Lord! Why did you do it, girl?" asked another.

"Shee-it, I didn't know what the suckah wanted till he got me in that place and handed me the butcher knife. Then I was so scared I jist did it so he wouldn' git mad. Ol' funky b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he was. Didn' think he could even git a stiff one."

"How 'bout that freak that lives up there in Van Nuys that likes to French inside a coffin. He sho' is a crazy motherf.u.c.ker," said a shrill voice.

"That milk bath guy picked Wilma up one night, didn't he Wilma?" said another.

"Yeah, but he ain't nothin' too weird. Ah don' mind him, 'cept he lives too far away, way up in North Hollywood in one of them pads on a mountain. He jist gives you a bath in a tub full of milk. He pays d.a.m.n good."

"He don' do nothin' else?"

"Oh, he Frenches you a little, but not too much."

"s.h.i.t, they almost all Frenches you anymore. People is gettin' so G.o.dd.a.m.n weird all they evah wants to do is eat p.u.s.s.y."

"That right, girl. I was sayin' that the other day (pour me a little scotch, honey) people jist French or git Frenched anymore. I can't remember when a trick wanted to f.u.c.k me for his ten dollars."

"Yeah, but these is all white tricks. Black men still likes to f.u.c.k."

"Shee-it, I wouldn' know 'bout that. You take black tricks, baby?"

"Sometimes, don't you?"

"Nevah. Nevah. My ol' man tol' me any who' dum 'nuff to take black tricks deserves it if she gits her a.s.s robbed or cut. Ah never f.u.c.ked a n.i.g.g.ah in my life fo' money. An' ah never f.u.c.ked a white man fo' free."

"Amen. Give me another shot of that scotch, baby, ah wants to tell you 'bout this here rich b.i.t.c.h from Hollywood that picked me up one night an' she wanted to give me a hunderd an' fifty dollars to go home an' let her eat mah p.u.s.s.y an' her husband is sittin' right there in the car with her an' she tells me he jist likes to watch."

Gus listened to tale after tale, each more bizarre than the last and when the voices were slurring, Kilvinsky said, "Let's head for the station and let them go a few blocks away. They're too drunk to take them in the station. The sergeant would want us to book them for being drunk and then they might tell him where they got the booze."

As the wagon bounced toward the station, the night drawing to a close, Gus found himself more relaxed than he had been for days. As for a physical confrontation, why, it might never happen and if it did, he would probably do well enough. He was feeling a lot better now. He hoped Vickie would be awake. He had so much to tell her.

"You're going to learn things down here, Gus," said Kilvinsky. "Every day down here is like ten days in a white division. It's the intensity down here, not just the high crime rate. You'll be a veteran after a year. It's the thousands of little things. Like the fact that you shouldn't use a pay phone. The coin chutes of all the public phones around here are stuffed so you can't get any coins back. Then once every few days the thief comes along and pulls the stuffing out with a piece of wire and gets the three dollars' worth of coins that've collected there. And other things. Kid's bikes. They're all stolen, or they all have stolen parts on them, so don't ask questions to any kid about his bike or you'll be tied up all night with bike reports. Little things, see, like New Year's Eve down here sounds like the battle of Midway. All these people seem to have guns. New Year's Eve will terrify you when you realize how many of them have guns and what's going to happen someday if this Civil Rights push ever breaks into armed rebellion. But the time pa.s.ses fast down here, because these people keep us eternally busy and that's important to me. I only have a short time to go for my pension and I'm interested in time."

"I'm not sorry I'm here," said Gus.

"It's all happening here, partner. Big things. This Civil Rights business and the Black Muslims and all are just the start of it. Authority is being challenged and the Negroes are at the front, but they're just a small part of it. You're going to have an impossible job in the next five years or I miss my guess."

Kilvinsky steered around an automobile wheel which was lying in the center of the residential street, but he rolled over another which lay on the other side of the street, un.o.bserved, until they were on it. The exhausted blue van bounced painfully on its axle and a chorus of laughter was interrupted by an explosion of curses.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n! Take it easy, Kilvinsky! You ain't drivin' no f.u.c.kin' cattle truck," said Alice.

"It's the great myth," said Kilvinsky to Gus, ignoring the voices behind them, "the myth whatever it happens to be that breaks civil authority. I wonder if a couple of centurions might've sat around like you and me one hot dry evening talking about the myth of Christianity that was defeating them. They would've been afraid, I bet, but the new myth was loaded with 'don'ts,' so one kind of authority was just being subst.i.tuted for another. Civilization was never in jeopardy. But today the 'don'ts' are dying or being murdered in the name of freedom and we policemen can't save them. Once the people become accustomed to the death of a 'don't,' well then, the other 'don'ts' die much easier. Usually all the vice laws die first because people are generally vice-ridden anyway. Then the ordinary misdemeanors and some felonies become unenforceable until freedom prevails. Then later the freed people have to organize an army of their own to find order because they learn that freedom is horrifying and ugly and only small doses of it can be tolerated." Kilvinsky laughed self-consciously, a laugh that ended when he put the battered cigarette holder in his mouth and chewed on it quietly for several seconds. "I warned you us old coppers are big bulls.h.i.tters, didn't I, Gus?"

6.

THE SWAMPER.

"HOW ABOUT DRIVING to a gamewell phone? I got to call the desk about something," said Whitey Duncan, and Roy sighed, turning the radio car right on Adams toward Hooper where he thought there was a call box. to a gamewell phone? I got to call the desk about something," said Whitey Duncan, and Roy sighed, turning the radio car right on Adams toward Hooper where he thought there was a call box.

"Go to Twenty-third and Hooper," said Duncan. "That's one of the few call boxes that works in this lousy division. Nothing works. The people don't work, the call boxes don't work, nothing works."

Some of the policemen don't work, thought Roy, and wondered how they could have possibly a.s.signed him with Duncan five nights in a row. Granted, August was a time when the car plan was short due to vacations, but Roy thought that was a feeble reason and inexcusable supervisory technique to give a rookie officer to a partner like Duncan. After his second night with Whitey he had even subtly suggested to Sergeant Coffin that he would like to work with an aggressive younger officer, but Coffin had cut him off abruptly as though a new officer had no right to ask for a specific car or partner. Roy felt that he was being penalized for speaking up by being inflicted with Duncan for five days.

"I'll be right back, kid," said Whitey, leaving his hat in the radio car as he strolled to the call box, unsnapped the gamewell key from the ring hanging on his Sam Browne, and opened the box which was attached to the far side of a telephone pole out of Roy's line of sight. Roy could only see some white hair, a round blue stomach and shiny black shoe protruding from the vertical line of the pole.

Roy was told that Whitey had been a foot policeman in Central Division for almost twenty years and that he could never get used to working in a radio car. That was probably why he insisted on calling the station a half dozen times a night to talk to his friend, Sam Tucker, the desk officer.

After a few moments, Whitey swaggered back to the car and settled back, lighting his third cigar of the evening.

"You sure like to use that call box," said Roy with a forced smile, trying to conceal the anger brought about by the boredom of working with a useless partner like Whitey when he was brand-new and eager to learn.

"Got to ring in. Let the desk know where you're at."

"Your radio tells them that, Whitey. Policemen have radios in their cars nowadays."

"I'm not used to it," said Whitey. "Like to ring in on the call box. Besides, I like to talk to my old buddy, Sam Tucker. Good man, old Sammy."

"How come you always call in on the same box?"

"Habit, boy. When you get to be old Whitey's age, you start doing everything the same."

It was true, Roy thought. Unless an urgent call intervened, they would eat at precisely ten o'clock every night at one of three greasy spoon restaurants that served Whitey free meals. Then, fifteen minutes would be spent at the station for Whitey's bowel movement. Then back out for the remainder of the watch, which would be broken by two or three stops at certain liquor stores for free cigars and of course the recurrent messages to Sam Tucker from the call box at Twenty-third and Hooper.

"How about driving through the produce market?" said Whitey. "I never took you in there yet, did I?"

"Whatever you say," Roy sighed.

Whitey directed Roy through bustling narrow streets blocked by a maze of trucks and milling swampers who were just coming to work. "Over there," said Whitey. "That's old Foo Foo's place. He has the best bananas in the market. Park right there, kid. Then we'll get some avocados. They're a quarter apiece, right now. You like avocados? Then maybe a lug of peaches. I know a guy on the other side of the market, he has the best peaches. Never a bruise." Whitey lumbered out of the car, and put on his hat at a jaunty beat officer's angle, grabbed his baton, probably from force of habit, and began twirling it expertly in his left hand as he approached the gaunt Chinese who was sweating in a pair of khaki shorts and an undershirt as he threw huge bunches of bananas onto a produce truck. The Chinese bared his gold and silver bridgework when Whitey approached and Roy lit a cigarette and watched in revulsion as Whitey put his baton in the ring on his belt and helped Foo Foo toss bananas onto the truck.

Professional policeman, Roy thought viciously, as he remembered the suave, silver-haired captain who had lectured them in the academy about the new professionalism. But it seemed the fat cop stealing apples died hard. Look at the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, thought Roy, throwing bananas in full uniform while all the other swampers are laughing their heads off. Why doesn't he retire from the Department, and then he could swamp bananas full time. I hope a tarantula bites him on his fat a.s.s, Roy thought.

How they could have sent him to Newton Street Station, Roy could not understand. What was the sense of giving them three choices of divisions if they were then ignored and sent arbitrarily from the academy to a station twenty miles from home. He lived almost in the valley. They could have sent him to one of the valley divisions or Highland Park or even Central which was his third choice, but Newton Street he had not counted on. It was the poorest of the Negro divisions and the drabness of the area was depressing. This was the "east side" and he already had learned that as soon as the newly emigrated Negroes could afford it, they moved to the "west side," somewhere west of Figueroa Street. But the fact that the majority of the people here were Negro was the one thing that appealed to Roy. When he left the Department to be a criminologist he intended to have a thorough understanding of the ghetto. He hoped to learn all that was necessary in a year or so, and then transfer north, perhaps to Van Nuys or North Hollywood.

When they finally left the produce market, the back seat of the radio car was filled with bananas, avocados and peaches, as well as a basket of tomatoes which Whitey had scrounged as an afterthought.

"You know you got a right to half of these," said Whitey as they loaded the produce into his private car in the station parking lot.

"I told you I didn't want any."

"Partners got to share and share alike. You got a right to half of it. How about the avocados? Why don't you take the avocados?"

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," Roy blurted, "I don't want it! Look here, I'm just out of the academy. I've got eight months more to do on my probationary period. They can fire me on a whim anytime between now and then. No civil service protection for a probationer, you know. I can't be taking gratuities. At least not things like this. Free meals-cigarettes-coffee-that stuff seems to be traditional, but what if the sergeant saw us in the produce market tonight? I could lose my job!"

"Sorry, kid," said Whitey with a hurt expression. "I didn't know you felt that way. I'd take all the heat if we'd got caught, you should know that."

"Yeah? What would I use as an excuse? That you put a gun to my head and forced me to go with you on that shopping tour?"

Whitey completed the transfer of fruit without further comment and didn't speak again until they were back patrolling their district, then he said, "Hey, partner, drive to a call box, I got to ring in again."

"What the h.e.l.l for?" said Roy, not caring what Whitey thought anymore. "What's going on? You got a bunch of broads leaving messages at the desk for you or something?"

"I just talk to old Sam Tucker," said Whitey with a deep sigh. "The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d gets lonesome there at the desk. We was academy cla.s.smates, you know. Twenty-six years this October. It's tough on him being colored and working a n.i.g.g.e.r division like this. Some nights he feels pretty low when they bring in some black b.a.s.t.a.r.d that killed an old lady or some other s.h.i.tty thing like that, and these policemen shoot off their mouth in the coffee room about n.i.g.g.e.rs and such. Sam hears it and it bothers him, so he gets feeling low. Course, he's too old to be a cop anyway. He was thirty-one when he came on the job. He ought to pull the pin and leave this c.r.a.ppy place."

"How old were you when you came on, Whitey?"

"Twenty-nine. Hey, drive to the call box on Twenty-third. You know that's my favorite box."

"I ought to know by now," said Roy.

Roy parked at the curb and waited hopelessly while Whitey went to the call box and talked to Sam Tucker for ten minutes.

Police professionalism would come only after the old breed was gone, Roy thought. That didn't really trouble him though, because he had no intention of making a career of police work. That reminded him he had better get busy and register for the coming semester if he hoped to keep on schedule and complete his degree as planned. He wondered how anyone could want to do this kind of work for a career. Now that the training phase was over, he was part of a system he would master, learn from, and leave behind.

He glanced in the car mirror. The sun had given him a fine color. Dorothy said she'd never seen him so tan, and whether it was the uniform or his fitness she obviously found him more desirable and wanted him to make love to her often. But it may have been only because she was pregnant with their first baby and she knew that soon there would be none of it for a while. And he did it, though the enormous mound of life almost revolted him and he pretended to enjoy it as much as he did when she was lithe with a satin stomach that would probably bear stretch scars forever now that she was pregnant. That was her fault. They had decided not to have children for five years, but she had made a mistake. The news had staggered him. All his plans had to be changed. She could no longer work as a senior steno at Rhem Electronics, and she had been making an excellent wage. He would have to stay with the Department an extra year or so to save money. He would not ask his father or Carl for a.s.sistance, not even for a loan now that they all knew he would never enter the family firm.

Trying to please them was the reason he changed his major three times until he took abnormal psychology with Professor Raymond, and learned from the flabby little scholar who he was. The kindly man, who had been like a father, had almost wept when Roy told him he was leaving college to join the Los Angeles Police Department for a year or two. They had sat in Professor Raymond's office until midnight while the little man coaxed and urged and swore at Roy's stubbornness and at last gave in when Roy convinced him he was tired and probably would fail every cla.s.s next semester if he remained, that a year or two away from the books but in close touch with life would give him the impetus to return and take his bachelor's and master's degrees. And who knows, if he were the scholar that Professor Raymond believed he could be, he might even keep right on while he had the momentum and get his Ph.D.

"We might be colleagues someday, Roy," said the professor, fervently shaking Roy's dry hand in both his moist soft ones. "Keep in touch with me, Roy."

And he had meant to. He wanted to talk with someone as sensitive as the professor about the things he had learned so far. He talked with Dorothy, of course. But she was so involved in the mysteries of childbirth that he doubted that she listened when he brought home the tales of the bizarre situations he encountered as a policeman and what they meant to a behaviorist.

While waiting for Whitey, Roy tilted the car mirror down and examined his badge and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. He was tall and slim but his shoulders were broad enough to make the tailored blue shirt becoming. His Sam Browne glistened and his shoes were as good as he could get them without the fanatical spit shine that some of the others employed. He kept the badge l.u.s.trous with a treated cloth and some jeweler's rouge. He decided that when his hair grew out he would never cut it short again. He had heard that a butch haircut sometimes grows out wavier than before.

"You're absolutely beautiful," said Whitey, jerking open the door and flopping into the seat with a fatuous grin at Roy.

"I dropped some cigarette ash on my shirt," said Roy, tilting the mirror to its former position. "I was just brushing it off."

"Let's go do some police work," said Whitey, rubbing his hands together.

"Why bother? We only have three more hours until end of watch," said Roy. "What the h.e.l.l did Tucker tell you to make you so happy?"

"Nothing. I just feel good. It's a nice summer night. I just feel like working. Let's catch a burglar. Anybody show you yet how to patrol for burglars?"

"Thirteen-A-Forty-three, Thirteen-A-Forty-three," said the operator and Whitney turned up the volume, "see the woman, landlord-tenant dispute, forty-nine, thirty-nine south Avalon."

"Thirteen-A-Forty-three, roger," said Whitey into the hand mike. Then to Roy, "Well, instead of catching crooks, let's go pacify the natives."

Roy parked in front of the house on Avalon which was easy to find because of the porch light and the fragile white-haired Negro woman standing on the porch watching the street. She was perhaps sixty and smiled timidly when Roy and Whitey climbed the ten steps.

"This is it, Mr. PO-lice," she said, opening the battered screen door. "Won't you please come in?"

Roy removed his hat upon entering and became annoyed when Whitey failed to remove his also. It seemed that everything Whitey did irritated him.

"Won't you sit down?" she smiled, and Roy admired the tidy house she kept which looked old and clean and orderly like her.

"No, thanks, ma'am," said Whitey. "What can we do for you?"

"I got these here people that lives in the back. I don't know what to do. I hopes you can help me. They don't pay the rent on time never. And now they's two months behind and I needs the money terrible bad. I only lives on a little social security, you see, and I just got to have the rent."

"I appreciate your problem, ma'am, I sure do," said Whitey. "I once owned a duplex myself. I had some tenants that wouldn't pay and I had a heck of a time. Mine had five kids that like to've torn the place down. Yours have any kids?"

"They does. Six. And they tears up my property terrible."

"It's rough," said Whitey, shaking his head.