The New Centurions

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “I heard enough. I’m going to take a crap and then we’re going to work,” said Bonelli standing up, scratching his stomach and lumbering toward the toilet across the hall.

  “You say you’re going in there to give birth to a sergeant?” said Farrell, winking at Petrie who shook his head and whispered, “Anderson doesn’t appreciate your humor.”

  When Bonelli returned, he and Gus gathered their binoculars and small flashlights and batons which they would put under the seat of the vice car in case of emergency. After reassuring Anderson they wouldn’t forget to meet him they went to their car without deciding what they were going to do.

  “Want to work complaints, or whores?” asked Bonelli.

  “We got some crappy three eighteens,” said Gus. “One about the floating card game in the hotel sounds like fun, but it only goes on Saturdays.”

  “Yeah, let’s work whores,” said Bonelli.

  “Tail or operate?”

  “Feel like operating?”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll get my car,” said Gus.

  “Got enough gas? That cheap prick Anderson won’t break loose with any more operating money till next week. You’d think it was his bread and not the city’s.”

  “I’ve got gas,” said Gus. “I’ll take a sweep around Washington and La Brea and meet you in the back of the drive-in in fifteen minutes. Sooner, if I get a whore.”

  “Get a whore. We need the pinches. This’s been a slim month.”

  Gus drove down West Boulevard to Washington and over Washington toward La Brea, but he hadn’t gotten two blocks on Washington until he spotted two prostitutes. He was preparing to swing in toward the curb when he saw one was Margaret Pearl whom he had arrested almost three months ago when he first came to the vice squad and she would surely recognize him so he drove past. Already the pulse beat was advancing.

  Gus remembered how it had been when he had first come to vice, or rather, he did not remember clearly. Those first nights and those first few arrests were difficult to envision coherently. There was a red cloud of fear enveloping his memory of those nights and that was something else he could not understand. Why did he see or rather feel a red mist about his memories when he was very much afraid? Why were all such memories red-tinged? Was it blood or fire or what? He had been so thoroughly frightened that the prostitutes had come to his car with their offers without questioning his identity. They hadn’t dreamed he was a cop, and he had been a vastly successful vice operator. Now that he had some confidence and was no longer so afraid except of things he should be afraid of, he was having to work much harder to get an offer. He was being turned down occasionally by girls who suspected he might be a policeman. Still, he could get twice the girls that any of the others could, only because he looked less like a policeman than any of them. Bonelli had told him it was not just his size. He was actually as tall and heavy as Marty Hunter. It was his diffidence, and Bonelli said that was a shame because the meek would inherit this miserable earth and Gus was too nice a guy to get stuck with it.

  Gus hoped he would spot a white whore tonight. He had only arrested a few white whores and these were in bars on Vermont. He had never gotten a white streetwalker, although there were some of them here in this Negro half of Wilshire Division, but there weren’t many. He thought Wilshire Division was a good division to work because of the variety. He could leave this Negro section and drive to the northwest boundaries of the division and be on the Miracle Mile and Restaurant Row. There was great variety in a few square miles. He was glad they had transferred him here, and almost immediately he had been marked as a future vice officer by his watch commander Lieutenant Goskin who had finally recommended him when the opening came. Gus wondered how many of his academy classmates were working plainclothes assignments yet. It was good, and it would be very good when the nauseating fear at last disappeared, the fear of being on the streets alone without the security of the blue uniform and badge. There was not too much else to really fear because if you were careful you would never have to fight anyone alone. If you were careful, you would always have Bonelli with you and Bonelli was as powerful and reassuring as Kilvinsky, but of course he did not have Kilvinsky’s intellect.

  Gus reminded himself that he had not answered Kilvinsky’s last letter and he would do that tomorrow. It had worried him. Kilvinsky did not talk of the fishing and the lake and the peaceful mountains anymore. He talked of his children and his ex-wife and Kilvinsky had never talked of them when he had been here. He told of how his youngest son had written him and how his answer to the boy had been returned unopened and how he and his ex-wife had promised themselves years ago that it would be better if the boy forgot him, but he didn’t say why. Gus knew that he had never gone East to visit them at his wife’s home, and Gus never knew why, and he thought he would give a great deal to learn Kilvinsky’s secrets. The latest letters indicated that Kilvinsky wanted to tell someone, wanted to tell Gus, and Gus decided to ask the big man to come to Los Angeles for a visit before the summer ended. Lord, it would be good to see his friend, Gus thought.

  Then Gus realized he also had to send a check to his mother and John because it was less painful than going to see them and hearing how they could no longer make it on seventy-five a month from him even with the welfare check, because things were so dear today and poor John can’t work, what with his slipped disc which Gus knew was an excuse for workman’s compensation and a free ride from Gus. He was ashamed of his disgust as he thought of those weaklings and then he thought of Vickie. He wondered why his mother and his brother and his wife were all weaklings and depended so completely on him, and anger made him feel better as always, purged him. He saw a chubby Negro prostitute wiggling down Washington Boulevard toward Cloverdale. He pulled to the curb beside her and feigned the nervous smile which used to come so naturally.

  “Hi baby,” said the prostitute looking in the window of his car as Gus went through his act of looking around as though fearful of seeing police.

  “Hello,” said Gus. “Want a ride?”

  “I ain’t out here to ride, baby,” said the prostitute watching him closely. “At least I ain’t out here to ride no cars.”

  “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 whore, 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.

  “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 prostitute.

  “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 prostitute his badge and got back in the car.

  “He looks too motherf
uckin’ peaceable to be a cop,” said the prostitute 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 prostitutes the last few nights, and then he saw three Cadillacs parked side by side in the motel parking lot. He recognized a prostitute 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 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 prostitutes 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 prostitute 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 rehearsed 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 rehearsed 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 fuck?” she said.

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

  “Oh crap,” 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 prostitute 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 God 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 space 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 prostitute 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 prostitute 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 motherfucker.”

  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 prostitute 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 prostitute 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 grass 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 assignment demanded a dressier appearance. He crept back down to the restroom and cleansed his legs and buttocks, 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 prostitute 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 damned 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 hassle with the whore was a little too much for me,” Gus said.