by Don Winslow
Where did the chimp get the revolver?
There are only so many possibilities, all of them exhaustively covered and debated on the Net.
Some commentators go with a conspiracy theory, that animal-rights activists tossed the pistol into the ape enclosure. Like what? Chris thinks, dismissing the argument. The Primate Liberation Front?
Others have it that it was just a wacko, a sick headcase or just a practical joker who wanted to see what would happen if you gave a handgun to a chimp. Of course it gets political. These days everything does. The right-wing nuts connect the incident to Hillary Clinton, claiming that she was trying to make some kind of point about gun control and at the same time deflect attention away from her thirty-three thousand missing emails, the left-wing nuts blame the NRA, claiming that it was trying to make some kind of point about gun control and deflect attention from Trump’s . . .
Well, everything.
Chris isn’t buying any of it.
He thinks the real explanation is more mundane. It’s just a matter of finding out what it is.
But really, what kind of total dumb-ass would toss a revolver away in a zoo?
Hollis Bamburger is thrilled.
Looking at Twitter on his phone, he sees that he’s finally gone viral. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, you name it—the chimp with the revolver is on it.
Not the revolver, Hollis thinks.
My revolver.
For his entire twenty-three years, Hollis Bamburger has wanted to be special for something. He wasn’t special at home, where he was just one of six kids by three different fathers, none of them conspicuously present, and a meth-head mother. Wasn’t special in elementary school, middle school or high school, which he dropped out of after his third unsuccessful try at tenth grade. He wasn’t special at the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility, aka “Birdland”—named for its location, not its inhabitants—just there for truancy and a B&E. Wasn’t special at Chino, where he went at eighteen for sticking up a liquor store.
If you asked anybody at those institutions about Hollis Bamburger, you’d probably get a blank stare, and then a check of their records would reveal a skinny, undersize white kid whose only evolution would seem to be a growing catalog of bad tattoos that started on his arms and now run up his neck.
Hell, even if you asked his family about Hollis, you’d probably get the same blank stare.
His younger sister, Lavonne, even once vocalized this to a probation officer.
“There’s nothing special about Holly,” she said. Then she thought for a second and added, “Except that he’s really stupid.”
Sad but true.
The only thing that ever made Hollis exceptional was his uncannily stupid screwups. So much so that at Clark Middle School any phenomenal act of idiocy became known as a “Bamburger.”
You shoved enough toilet paper down the john to cause a flood?
A Bamburger.
You downloaded a term paper and turned it in with the Wikipedia heading still on it?
A Bamburger.
You broke into a teacher’s car and fell asleep in it?
Bamburger.
But even that distinction faded by high school, leaving Hollis with . . .
Nothing.
But now . . .
Now Hollis is special for something. He’s responsible for the “Champ the Gunslinging Chimp” vid-clips.
Which are being seen all over the world.
Like, people in Africa, China, Europe and France are seeing his handiwork, laughing at the chimp, getting off on the cop falling into the net. That was the best part, the monkey making the cop a bitch.
Hollis hates cops.
The only thing he hates more than cops are COs. Correctional officers are just assholes even too brutal and dumb to be police. But Hollis is too happy right now to be eaten up by hatred. The bright white heat of his newfound internet celebrity has washed away all darkness.
He holds the phone up to Lee. “Dude, check this out!”
Lee Caswell, who has twenty years, six inches, thirty pounds and two felony beefs on Hollis, looks at the vid-clip and then hands the phone back.
“I’m famous,” Hollis says.
“You’re not famous,” Lee says. “The monkey is.”
“Yeah, but I set the monkey up,” Hollis says.
“But you can’t tell anyone about it,” Lee says.
This is a real kick in the gonads.
Hollis hadn’t thought about that.
Now it drops him into a deep pit of despair. Finally, after twenty-three years, he has done something special and he can’t reveal it. The whole world is watching his achievement, and none of them can ever know that it was Hollis Bamburger.
He’s devastated, his short-lived joy now ashes in his mouth.
“And you lost the gun,” Lee says.
“You told me to get rid of it,” Hollis says. More like whines.
“Not like that!” Lee yells. He yells at Hollis a lot, in fact, ever since the first moment when Hollis became his cellmate at Chino. Now he starts yelling again. “You think this is funny?! First thing, we’re out a gun! Second thing, you embarrassed a cop! You think cops forget that kind of thing!?”
It’s been Lee’s experience that you can lie to a cop and he’ll think it’s just business as usual, you fight a cop and he’ll forget about it, but you show one up and he’ll hate you for life.
“They’ve got the gun,” Lee says. “They’ll be tracking it down.”
“They can’t track it to us.”
“You mean they can’t track it to you,” Lee says.
This is true, Hollis thinks. He’s the one who bought the gun from a Mexican in a vacant lot on Thirty-second Street, not far from the shitty motel they’re staying in now.
Montalbo assured him it was clean.
“What if the cops track the gun to the Mexican?” Lee asks. “And the Mexican gives you up?”
“I used a fake name,” Hollis says.
“Yeah?” Lee asks. “Did you use a fake appearance?”
Hollis hadn’t thought of that.
“The tattoo on your neck?” Lee asks.
The one that reads HOLLIS. He was going to have it read BAMBURGER, but his neck isn’t that long.
“How many Hollises do you think there are in the system?” Lee asks.
“Probably not very many,” Hollis says.
Sadly.
“So when you go out to get another gun,” Lee says, “cover your damn neck.”
“Why do I have to do it?” Hollis asks. Again, more like whines, but then he turtles his head when he sees Lee’s face get all red and threatening.
“Because you’re the one who threw our gun away,” Lee says. “And we can’t very well do a stickup with just our dicks, can we? At least not with yours.”
A comment Hollis feels is unnecessary.
He’s miserable now.
This was supposed to have been a triumphant moment, something really special. And now it’s turned into a . . .
Bamburger.
The reaction to Chris’s return to duty is pretty much what he expected.
Brutal.
He’s greeted with, “Welcome back, Monkey-Man!” “Hey, Donkey Kong!” and guys scratching their armpits while making ape sounds. He loses track of the times he’s told not to “monkey around” on his shift.
Herrera holds up his phone to show Chris a vid-clip of him falling from the tree with the chyron NO ACTUAL CHIMPS WERE INJURED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FILM.
His locker is festooned with bunches of bananas.
Chris opens it to find a paperback volume of Jane Goodall’s My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees, DVDs of Planet of the Apes, a King Kong poster, a photo of Michael Jackson with Bubbles, several monkey masks, a full gorilla suit on a hanger and a can of grape soda with the GR crossed out.
On a piece of tape stuck on the locker, his name reads CHRIS “COCONUT” SHEA.
“Why Coconut?” Chris asks.
&
nbsp; “Because,” Harrison says, “coconuts drop out of palm trees.”
Lieutenant Brown wants to see him. “You’re famous now. A celebrity cop.”
“I just want to do my job, sir,” Chris says.
“We’ve had a request from the Tonight show,” Brown says. “They want you and Champion to appear together. Public Affairs wants you to do it.”
“I don’t want to, sir.”
“I nixed it,” Brown says. “You’re a joke already. A cop who falls out of a tree going after a monkey. It’s all over social media.”
Chris feels sick to his stomach.
“And you’ve made enemies in the department,” Brown says.
“What enemies?” Chris asks, feeling sicker. “Who? How?”
“The SWAT guys think you made them look bad.”
They can do that without my help, Chris thinks, but he’s smart enough not to say it. He just wants to get out of the lieutenant’s office without hearing anything more about how his career is toast.
“You feel good enough to do your shift?” Brown asks.
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, go,” Brown says. “But do me a favor? If Shamu escapes from SeaWorld, you stay out of the water, okay?”
Okay, Chris thinks.
He leaves the office feeling as low as he has in his life. He’ll never get the bump to Robbery now.
Lou Lubesnick is never going to take on a joke.
Chris gears up.
It’s a lot of gear.
First there’s the soft body armor, aka bulletproof vest (Chris knows there’s no such thing as bulletproof—bullet-resistant would be more accurate) with front and side panels. Chris has opted out of the rear panels in favor of less weight and greater flexibility. Then there’s a flashlight, a can of OC spray (basically tear gas), a PR-24 side handle baton, handcuffs, and his radio.
A waist holster with his Glock 9mm and spare ammunition.
Then there’s the badge over his left breast pocket and an ID tag, gold with black lettering, over the right pocket.
Central Division patrols the neighborhoods of Balboa Park, Barrio Logan, Core-Columbia, Cortez, East Village, the Gaslamp, Golden Hill, Grant Hill, Harborview, Horton Plaza, Little Italy, Logan Heights, Marina, Park West, Petco, Sherman Heights, South Park and Stockton.
This basically means that if anything violent, twisted, gang-related, random or just plain strange happens in San Diego, it’s very likely to happen in Central.
Which is why Chris loves working it.
That night, cruising Fifth Avenue west of the park, he sees:
A WM, who can’t go five-three, dressed only in a gold lamé jockstrap and a dog collar, crying, being led down the sidewalk on a leash by a six-five BM, muscled like an NFL linebacker, wearing a Superman costume complete with cape.
Which would all be okay with Chris except Superman is flogging the WM with a silver cat-o’-nine-tails. Chris pulls over, gets out of the car and puts his hand up for them to stop walking.
“What is this, gay Comic-Con?” Chris asks the floggee.
“He came . . . to my apartment,” the guy blubbers, “made me wear . . . just this . . . put on this collar . . . and he’s been walking me down the street, whipping me.”
“Why didn’t you call for help?” Chris asks.
“Because . . .” He stops for a couple sobs and a deep sniff. “I’m . . . enjoying . . . it.”
The black guy says, “He’s my slave.”
“And you’re Superman?” Chris asks.
“What, a black man can’t be Superman?” the black guy asks. “Who says Superman has to be white?”
Chris regrets it the second it comes out of his mouth. “But he was. In the comic books, Superman was a white guy.”
“In the movies, too,” the black guy says. He starts counting off on his fingers. “Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain, Henry Cavill, Tyler motherfucking Hoechlin of 7th Heaven fame. Eleven Supermans, all white. It’s a conspiracy.”
“Okay.”
“Why not Jim Brown?” the black guy says. “What’s wrong with Idris Elba, how about Denzel?”
Chris says, “I could see that.”
“Batman, too,” the black guy says. “Same thing—Adam West, George Clooney, Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton. Why not Jim Brown, Idris Elba—”
“Or Denzel,” Chris says.
“That’s right.” Superman turns to his slave and says, “Next time I’ll be Batman, you be Robin.”
“Why can’t I be Batman, you be Robin?”
“Because that would be ridiculous.”
These guys are both higher than kites, Chris thinks. He doesn’t know what they’re on, but it must be pretty good.
“Yeah,” Chris says, “you guys can’t be out here doing this.”
“Why not?” Superman asks.
“Come on,” Chris says.
“We have a right to our sexual self-expression,” the slave says.
“Not on a public sidewalk you don’t,” Chris says. “Look, Spartacus, I’m trying to cut you a break here. Go home. Put some clothes on. If I see you out on the street again like this tonight, I’m taking both of you in.”
“For what?” Superman asks.
“Disturbing the peace,” Chris says. “Public indecency . . .”
“Are you calling us indecent?” the slave asks.
“You only doing this because I’m black and gay,” Superman says. “You’re a hater.”
Chris sees this blowing up. People across the street are starting to stop and look, and it will be a matter of minutes at most before another car rolls up. It could be Harrison or, worse, Grosskopf or, worst, Villa—who really does hate gays and blacks, more so gay blacks, and probably superheroes, too, because Villa hates . . . well, everybody—and then Superman and Spartacus are both going to jail, and Chris will have a pile of paperwork to do.
But if I have to put this guy in cuffs, I’m going to need backup, because Superman here—big as he is, high as he is—if he wants to, will kick my ass.
He pulls a desperation play. “Look, don’t make me break out the Kryptonite.”
Superman looks concerned. “You got Kryptonite?”
Chris nods. “In the car.”
Superman gets skeptical. “Red or green?”
“Both,” Chris says. “Of course.”
“Red makes me crazy,” Superman says.
Yeah, Chris thinks, that’s what makes you crazy. “But green could kill you, right?”
“Let me see it,” Superman says, calling Chris’s bluff.
Chris shakes his head. “If I let you see it, I have to let you have it. Department rules.”
“Y’all cops got Kryptonite?”
“Only the good ones,” Chris says. Which is sort of true. “So what’s it going to be? You going to go home, or do I have to go all Brainiac on you?”
Spartacus, apparently unaware of Jim Croce, tugs on Superman’s cape. “We’ll go home.”
Chris watches him lead Superman back up the street.
It’s sort of sad.
One of those nights, one of those shifts.
They’re always worse in summer, when air-conditioners strain to work, or there’s no AC at all, and people are on the street or in the parks instead of at home in bed.
Tempers are short and fuses shorter.
Arguments all too quickly become fistfights, fists yield to knives, knives to guns, and it happens like that. In an ill-considered second, lives are changed forever. People are scarred for life, or maimed, or killed, or they spend what would have been their best years in the purgatory that is the prison system.
Add alcohol and drugs to the summer heat and you have a combustible brew, always just a spark from flaming up.
So after the benign Superman/Spartacus situation, Chris rapidly and in short order pulls a domestic in Golden Hill in which a drunk middle-aged husband was beating the shit out of his drunk middle-aged wife, who in response smashed a beer bottle (Heineken) on the kitchen co
unter and jammed the jagged glass into hubby’s face. Chris rolls up in support to find that Grosskopf and Harrison already have both parties cuffed, the husband (understandably) howling in pain and the wife, despite both her eyes being swollen to slits, screaming at Grosskopf, “Leave him alone! He didn’t do nothin’!”
“Don’t say that again,” Chris says to her. “You’ll blow your self-defense case.”
She doesn’t care. “Don’t hurt him! I love him!”
It’s unreciprocated. “That dumb bitch poked out my eye!”
“Your eye is still there,” Chris says.
For how long is another issue.
“We’re taking you both in,” Harrison says.
“For what?!” the woman screams.
“Seriously?” Harrison asks.
The EMTs arrive. Grosskopf takes the husband and cuffs him to the gurney and then supervises as they put him in the ambulance. Grosskopf is pissed, because now he’ll have to go to the ER.
Harrison and Chris walk the wife out to Harrison’s car and put her in the back.
“This is the third time we’ve been to your place for this kind of thing,” Chris says to her.
“And it don’t do no good!” she says.
“I guess that’s my point,” Chris says. “When you talk to the detectives, tell them you were in fear for your life.”
“I love him.”
“Okay.” Chris shuts the door.
“Why are you trying to help her out?” Harrison asks him.
“Did you see her face?”
“She’s safer in jail,” Harrison says.
Probably true, Chris thinks.
The evening’s next event is a liquor-store robbery on Twenty-eighth and B in Golden Hill.
Chris responds and rolls up just after Grosskopf.
The clerk knows the drill, because robberies at this location are a semi-regular occurrence.
“About five-ten, wearing a denim shirt, cargo pants and work boots. Sounded white.”
“What do you mean, ‘sounded’?” Grosskopf asks.
“I didn’t see his face,” the clerk says. “He was wearing a mask. One of them ski masks.”
The robber stuck a pistol in his face and told him to open the till. The clerk did the right thing and let him have the money. The robber got about a hundred twenty in cash and also scooped up some of those little airline bottles of vodka and a 5-hour ENERGY.
