The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Roy returned to the bar and ordered a second beer and a third. It was almost one-thirty and he thought the information had been false when suddenly the jukebox was unplugged and the crowd became silent.

  “Lock the door,” shouted the bartender, a hairy giant, who announced to the crowd, “The show starts now. Nobody leaves till it’s over.”

  Roy watched the butch waitress switch on the movie projector which was placed on a table near the latticework that divided the two sections of the room. The white wall was the projection screen and the crowd burst into laughter as a silent Woody Woodpecker cartoon flashed on the wall.

  Roy was trying to figure it all out when Woody Woodpecker was suddenly replaced by two oiled naked men who were wrestling on a filthy mat in a ramshackle gymnasium. A cheer went up from the leather jackets across the floor, but after a few moments the scene shifted abruptly to two naked women, one young and reasonably attractive, the other puffy and middle-aged. They nibbled and kissed and fondled on an unmade bed for a few moments while the lesbian tables whistled, but the scene shifted another time to a backyard where a woman in a puckered bathing suit orally copulated a fat man in khaki shorts and most of the crowd laughed but no one cheered. Then it was back to the naked male wrestlers which brought some more groans and catcalls from the leather jackets. When the film slipped off the sprocket and the picture jumped out of focus in a crucial scene in the lewd wrestling match, Roy was surprised to see the bald man, who had previously been interested in the Negro prostitute, jerk off his brown loafer and begin banging on the bar shouting, “Fix it! Hurry up, fix the goddamn thing!” After that, he left the prostitute and joined the leather jackets in the other room.

  They were still working on the film when Roy sidled along the bar toward the men’s restroom. He walked unnoticed through a doorway and found himself in a dimly lit corridor and saw a sign marked “Women?” on the left and “Men?” on the right. He entered the men’s restroom, smelled marijuana unmistakably, and found a leather jacket just coming from the toilet by the open window.

  Roy pretended to wash his hands while the young man, in Levis, cleated boots, and leather jacket, fumbled drunkenly with the chain around his waist. He had an enormous head with unkempt hair and a ragged light brown moustache.

  Roy stalled for a moment and fidgeted with a paper towel but could not get to the window for the signal.

  Finally the leather jacket looked at him. “I’m not interested right now, blondie,” he leered. “See me later. Give me your phone number.”

  “Go to hell,” Roy said, infuriated, forgetting the window for a moment.

  “Oh, you got a little spunk? I like that,” said the leather jacket and he put his fists on his hips and looked even thicker through the chest and back. “Maybe you could interest me after all,” he grinned lasciviously.

  “Stay right there,” warned Roy to the advancing barrel-chested sadist, who began uncoiling the chain around his waist.

  Roy then, at that moment, for the first time in his life knew real fear, hopeless fear, which debilitated, overwhelmed, flashed and froze him. He was panic-stricken and never clearly knew how he had done it, but he knew later that he kicked the assailant once, just as the chain writhed and slid around his fist. The leather jacket screamed and fell to the floor holding his groin with one hand but grabbed Roy’s leg with the other and as Roy pulled frantically the whiskered face pressed on his leg and Roy felt the teeth, but jerked free as the teeth closed on his calf. He heard a tearing noise and saw a patch of his trousers hanging from the whiskered mouth, and then Roy leaped over him into the toilet area and thought wildly that the other leather jackets had heard the scream. Roy hurled a metal wastebasket through the glass and scrambled out the window, dropping five feet to a concrete walk where he was struck by the beam of a flashlight in the hand of a uniformed policeman.

  “You the vice officer we’re waiting for?” the officer whispered.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” Roy said and ran for the front of The Cave where he saw a dozen blue uniforms already approaching. The vice car zoomed up in the front of the bar and Gant and Ranatti alighted carrying “the key” and they slammed it into the double doors of The Cave as Roy shuffled across the sidewalk and sat on the fender of the vice car and felt like he would vomit.

  Roy stepped back away from the entrance and decided he was too sick to go back into that foul steamy place and he watched the door finally fall from the hinges and the wagon pulled up in front. Now there were at least fifteen bluesuits and they formed a sweeping V and Roy was panting from his heart-cracking effort, thinking now he would vomit, and he watched the vast blue wedge of bodies insert itself into the opening of The Cave. Soon the blue line disappeared inside and the others came squirming, running, tumbling out. The drunks were thrown into the wagon expertly by two big policemen wearing black gloves. The others were shoved into various directions, and Roy, holding a handkerchief over his mouth, watched them as they spilled into the street, all gray and brown and faceless now as the lights over the entrance were turned off and the garish colors and frivolity were extinguished. Roy wondered when they would stop coming but after five minutes they still flowed out into the street, noisy and perspiring. Roy thought he could smell them, and they flowed swiftly up and down the street when they hit the sidewalk, those who were not being booked. Soon Roy saw two policemen helping the leather-covered bear out the door and he was still holding his groin. Roy was about to tell them to book that one, but he saw he was being put in the wagon anyway so he remained silent and continued watching in sickened fascination until the street was quiet and the cathartic blue wedge of policemen withdrew from the mouth of The Cave. The wagon drove off as Ranatti and Simeone and Gant had the owner and two barmaids in custody and were nailing the broken front door closed and padlocking it.

  “What’s the matter, kid?” asked Gant walking up to Roy who still had the handkerchief held to his mouth.

  “I had a little scuffle in there.”

  “You did?” said Gant, putting a hand on each of Roy’s shoulders.

  “I’m sick,” said Roy.

  “Did you get hurt?” asked Gant, his eyes wide as he examined Roy’s face.

  “I’m just sick,” said Roy, shaking his head. “I just saw the asshole of the world get a blue enema.”

  “Yeah? Well get used to it, kid,” said Gant. “Everything you seen in there will be legal before long.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Simeone called from behind the wheel of the vice car. He pointed at a crawling yellow street cleaner which was inching down Main Street. Roy and Gant squeezed in the car with the arrestees and Simeone and Ranatti.

  Roy leaned out the window as they drove away and saw the street cleaner squirt a stream of water over the street and curb around The Cave. The machine hissed and roared and Roy watched the filth being washed away.

  AUGUST 1963

  13

  THE MADONNA

  SERGE WONDERED IF any of his academy classmates had plainclothes assignments yet. Probably Fehler or Isenberg and a few of the others had made it to vice or to a felony squad. But not many of them, he guessed. He had been astonished when Sergeant Farrell asked him if he would like to work felony cars this month and then if he worked out it might be a permanent assignment.

  This was his second week in F-Cars. He had never realized how much more comfortable it could be to do police work in a business suit rather than the heavy woolen uniforms and unwieldy Sam Browne belt. He wore a four-inch lightweight Colt which he had just bought last payday after seeing how heavy the six-inch Smith rides on your hip in a plainclothes holster.

  He suspected that Milton had recommended him to Sergeant Farrell for the F-Car. Milton and Farrell were friends and Farrell seemed to like and respect the old man. However he got here, it was fine to get out of the black and white car for a while. Not that the street people did not know them, two men in business suits, in a low priced, four-door Plymouth—two men who drove slowly and watched
streets and people. But at least they were inconspicuous enough to avoid being troubled by the endless numbers of people who need a policeman to solve an endless number of problems that a policeman is not qualified to solve, but must make an attempt to solve, because he is an easily accessible member of the establishment and traditionally vulnerable to criticism. Serge happily blew three smoke rings which would have been perfect except that the breeze took them, the breeze which was pleasant because it had been a very hot summer and the nights were not as cool as Los Angeles nights usually are.

  Serge’s partner, Harry Ralston, seemed to sense his contentment.

  “Think you’re going to like F-Cars?” he grinned, turning toward Serge who was slumped in the seat, admiring an exceptionally voluptuous girl in a clinging white cotton dress.

  “I’m going to like it,” Serge smiled.

  “I know how you feel. It’s great to get out of uniform, ain’t it?”

  “Great.”

  “I was in uniform eight years,” said Ralston. “I was really ready. Got five years in felony cars now, and I still like it. Beats uniform patrol.”

  “I’ve got a lot to learn,” said Serge.

  “You’ll learn. It’s different from patrol. You’re already learning that, I think.”

  Serge nodded, dropping the cigarette out the window, a luxury he never could have allowed himself in a black and white car where some citizen with an ax to grind might take his car number and report him to his sergeant for the vehicle code violation of dropping the lighted substance from a car.

  “Ready for code seven?” asked Ralston, looking at his watch. “It’s not nine o’clock yet, but I’m hungry as hell.”

  “I can eat,” said Serge, picking up the mike. “Four-Frank-One requesting code seven at Brooklyn and Mott.”

  “Four-Frank-One, okay seven,” said the Communications operator and Serge checked his watch to be sure and clear over the radio when their forty-five minutes were up. It irritated him that the Department made them work an eight hour and forty-five minute shift. Since the forty-five minutes was his own time, he made sure he used every minute of it.

  “Hello, Mr. Rosales,” said Ralston, as they took the booth on the far wall nearest the kitchen. It was noisy and hot from the stoves in this particular booth, but Ralston loved to be near the kitchen smells. He was a man who lived to eat, Serge thought, and his incredible appetite belied his lankiness.

  “Good evening, señores,” smiled the old man, coming from behind the counter where three customers sat. He wiped the table which needed no wiping. He poured two glasses of water for them after swiping at the inside of Ralston’s already sparkling glass with a dazzling white towel he carried over a sloping shoulder. The old man wore a full moustache which exactly suited him, Serge thought.

  “What will you have, señores?” asked Mr. Rosales, giving them each a hand-printed menu that misspelled the dishes in Spanish on the right side as well as in English on the left side. They can live here all their lives and never learn English, thought Serge. They never learn Spanish either. Just a strange anglicized version of both, which the educated, old country Mexicans scoff at.

  “I’ll have huevos rancheros,” said Ralston, with an accent that made Serge wince in spite of himself.

  The old man seemed to love it however, when Ralston tried Spanish. “And you, señor?”

  “I guess I’ll have chile relleno,” said Serge with a pronunciation that was every bit as anglicized as Ralston’s. All of the officers knew by now that he spoke no Spanish and understood only a few words.

  “Smell the onions and green chile,” said Ralston while Mr. Rosales’ pudgy little wife was preparing the food in the back room which had been converted into an inadequately ventilated kitchen.

  “How can you tell it’s green chile?” asked Serge, feeling jovial tonight. “Maybe it’s red chile or maybe it’s not chile at all.”

  “My nose never fails,” said Ralston, touching the side of his nostril. “You should quit smoking and your sense of smell would become acute like mine.”

  Serge thought that a beer would go good with the chile relleno and he wondered if Ralston knew Serge better, would he order a beer with his dinner? They were working plainclothes now, and a beer with dinner wouldn’t hurt. Vice officers of course drank freely, and detectives were legendary lushes, so why not F-Car officers? he thought. But he realized that he was drinking too much beer lately and was going to have to trim off ten pounds before his next physical or the doctor would surely send his captain “a fat man letter.” He hadn’t had much beer in Hollywood where martinis were his drink. It had been very easy to get to enjoy martinis. He had been drunk a good deal of his off-duty time. But that was all part of his education, he thought. The body should not be mistreated, at least not badly. He was considering cutting down his smoking to a pack a day and had again begun playing handball at the academy. There was something about being back in Hollenbeck that restored his health.

  He looked more than casually at the girl who brought their dinners, holding the burning dishes with two colorful pot holders, the drops of perspiration shining on her bronze cheekbones and on the too long upper lip. She wore her hair braided, close to the head like an Indian and Serge guessed she was not more than seventeen. Her hands were ghostly white from the flour and they reminded him of his mother’s hands. He wondered how long she had been this side of the border.

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling as she set the plate in front of him. She smiled back, a clean smile, and Serge noticed she wore only a little lipstick. The heavy eyelashes and perfect brows were not man-made.

  “Gracias, señorita,” said Ralston, leering at the plate of huevos rancheros and ignoring the girl who placed it in front of him.

  “De nada, señor,” she smiled again.

  “Cute kid,” said Serge, toying with the rice and refried beans which were still too hot to eat.

  Ralston nodded with enthusiasm and dumped another ladle of homemade chile sauce on the eggs, the rice, everything. Then he sloshed his large flour tortilla around through all of it and took an enormous bite.

  Mr. Rosales whispered to the girl and she returned to the table just as Serge’s food was becoming cool enough to eat and Ralston’s was half gone.

  “Joo wan’,” she said. “Joo weesh . . .” She stopped and turned to Mr. Rosales who nodded his approval.

  “Coffee,” he urged her. “Coff—ee.”

  “I don’ talk inglés good,” she laughed to Serge who was thinking how smooth and slim she looked, yet how strong. Her breasts were round and the extra weight womanhood brings could only improve her.

  “I’ll have some more coffee,” Serge smiled.

  “Sé, café, por favor,” said Ralston, a forkful of frijoles poised at his mobile lip.

  When the girl disappeared into the kitchen Mr. Rosales came over to the table. “Everything is alright?” he smiled through the great moustache.

  “Dee-licious,” Ralston murmured.

  “Who’s the little girl?” asked Serge, sipping at the last of his water which Mr. Rosales hurried to refill.

  “She is the daughter of my compadre. She just got here from Guadalajara last Monday. I swore to my compadre many years ago that if I ever made good in this country I would send for his oldest girl, my godchild, and educate her like an American. He said it would be better to educate a boy and I agreed, but he never had a boy. Not to this day. Eleven girls.”

  Serge laughed and said, “She looks like she’ll do.”

  “Yes, Mariana is very smart,” he nodded enthusiastically. “And she was just eighteen. I am sending her to night school next month to learn English and then we shall see what she wants to do.”

  “She’ll probably find some young guy and get married before you have anything to say about it,” said Ralston, punctuating his pronouncement with a repressed belch.

  “Maybe so,” Mr. Rosales sighed. “You know, it is so much better here than in Mexico that the people do not
care to make themselves a great success. Just to be here is so much more than they ever dreamed, that it is enough. They become content to work in a car wash or a sewing factory. But I think that she is a smart girl and will do better.”

  The girl made three trips to their table during the remainder of the meal, but didn’t try English again.

  Ralston caught Serge watching her because he said, “She’s legal, you know. Eighteen.”

  “You’re kidding. I wouldn’t raid a nursery.”

  “Some baby,” said Ralston and Serge hoped he wouldn’t light one of his cheap cigars. When they were in the car with the windows open they weren’t so bad. “She looks like a young Dolores Del Rio to me,” said Ralston, blowing two heavy palls of smoke over the table.

  She did not resemble Dolores Del Rio, Serge thought. But she had the thing that made Del Rio the beloved woman of Mexico, an object of veneration by millions of Mexicans who had seldom if ever seen her in a movie—she too had the madonna look.

  “What’s your last name?” asked Serge, as she made her last trip to the table with a coffee refill. He knew it was customary for policemen who had received a free meal to tip a quarter, but he slipped seventy-five cents under a plate.

  “Mande, señor?” she said turning to Mr. Rosales who was busy with a counter customer.

  “Your last name,” said Ralston carefully. “Mariana qué?”

  “Ah,” she smiled. “Mariana Paloma,” and then she turned from Serge’s steady gaze and took some of the plates to the kitchen.

  “Paloma,” said Serge. “A dove. It fits.”

  “I eat here once a week,” said Ralston eyeing Serge curiously. “We don’t want to burn the place up with too many free meals.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Serge quickly, getting the implication. “This is your eating spot. I’ll never come here unless I’m working with you.”