"Don't think of leaving us, Bumper," she said and stared me in the eye.
"Here's a few bucks for Sissy," I said, fumbling in my pocket for a ten.
"I don't have any information this time," she said, shaking her head, but I tucked it inside her G-string and she grinned.
"It's for the kid."
There were some things I'd intended asking her about some gunsel I'd heard was hanging out in the skin houses and taxi-dance joints, but I couldn't trust myself alone with her for another minute. "See you later, kid," I said weakly.
"Bye, Bumper," she said as I picked my way through the darkness to the stage door. Aside from the fact that Cassie gave me all I could handle, there was another reason I tore myself away from her like that. Any cop knows you can't afford to get too tight with your informant. You try screwing a snitch and you'll be the one that ends up getting screwed.
Chapter TWO
AFTER LEAVING GLENDA it actually seemed cool on the street. Glenda never did anything like that before. Everyone was acting a little ding-a-ling when I mentioned my retirement. I didn't feel like climbing back inside that machine and listening to the noisy chatter on the radio.
It was still morning now and I was pretty happy, twirling my stick as I strolled along. I guess I swaggered along. Most beat officers swagger. People expect you to. It shows the hangtoughs you're not afraid, and people expect it. Also they expect an older cop to cock his hat a little so I always do that too.
I still wore the traditional eight-pointed hat and used a leather thong on my stick. The Department went to more modern round hats, like Air Force hats, and we all have to change over. I'd wear the eight-pointed police hat to the end, I thought. Then I thought about Friday as being the end and I started a fancy stick spin to keep my mind off it. I let the baton go bouncing off the sidewalk back up into my hand. Three shoe shine kids were watching me, two Mexican, one Negro. The baton trick impressed the hell out of them. I strung it out like a Yo-Yo, did some back twirls and dropped it back in the ring in one smooth motion.
"Want a choo chine, Bumper?" said one of the Mexican kids.
"Thanks pal, but I don't need one."
"It's free to you," he said, tagging along beside me for a minute.
"I'm buying juice today, pal," I said, flipping two quarters up in the air which one of them jumped up and caught. He ran to the orange juice parlor three doors away with the other two chasing him. The shoe shine boxes hung around their necks with ropes and thudded against their legs as they ran.
These little kids probably never saw a beat officer twirl a stick before. The Department ordered us to remove the leather thongs a couple years ago, but I never did and all the sergeants pretend not to notice as long as I borrow a regulation baton for inspections.
The stick is held in the ring now by a big rubber washer like the one that goes over the pipe in the back of your toilet. We've learned new ways to use the stick from some young Japanese cops who are karate and aikido experts. We use the blunt end of the stick more and I have to admit it beats hell out of the old caveman swing. I must've shattered six sticks over guys' heads, arms and legs in my time. Now I've learned from these Nisei kids how to swing that baton in a big arc and put my whole ass behind it. I could damn near drive it through a guy if I wanted to, and never hurt the stick. It's very graceful stuff too. I feel I can do twice as well in a brawl now. The only bad thing is, they convinced the Department brass that the leather thong was worthless. You see, these kids were never real beat men. Neither were the brass. They don't understand what the cop twirling his stick really means to people who see him stroll down a quiet street throwing that big shadow in an eight-pointed hat. Anyway, I'd never take off the leather thong. It made me sick to think of a toilet washer on a police weapon.
I stopped by the arcade and saw a big muscle-bound fruit hustler standing there. I just looked hard at him for a second, and he fell apart and slithered away. Then I saw two con guys leaning up against a wall flipping a quarter, hoping to get a square in a coin smack. I stared at them and they got nervous and skulked around to the parking lot and disappeared.
The arcade was almost deserted. I remember when the slimeballs used to be packed in there solid, asshole to belly button, waiting to look at the skin show in the viewer. That was a big thing then. The most daring thing around. The vice squad used to bust guys all the time for masturbating. There were pecker prints all over the walls in front of the viewer. Now you can walk in any bar or movie house down here and see live skin shows, or animal flicks, and I don't mean Walt Disney stuff. It's women and dogs, dykes and donkeys, dildos and whips, fags, chickens, and ducks. Sometimes it's hard to tell who or what is doing what to who or what.
Then I started thinking about the camera club that used to be next door to the arcade when nudity was still a big thing. It cost fifteen bucks to join and five bucks for every camera session. You got to take all the pictures of a naked girl you wanted, as long as you didn't get closer than two feet and as long as you didn't touch. Of course, most of the "photographers" didn't even have film in their cameras, but the management knew it and never bothered putting in real camera lights and nobody complained. It was really so innocent.
I was about to head back to my car when I noticed another junkie watching me. He was trying to decide whether to rabbit or freeze. He froze finally, his eyes roaming around too casually, hitting on everything but me, hoping he could melt into the jungle. I hardly ever bust hypes for marks anymore, and he looked too sick to be holding, but I thought I recognized him.
"Come here, man," I called and he came slinking my way like it was all over.
"Hello, Bumper."
"Well, hello, Wimpy," I said to the chalk-faced hype. "It took me a minute to recognize you. You're older."
"Went away for three years last time."
"How come so long?"
"Armed robbery. Went to Q behind armed robbery. Violence don't suit me. I shoulda stuck to boosting. San Quentin made me old, Bumper."
"Too bad, Wimpy. Yeah, now I remember. You did a few gas stations, right?"
He was old. His sandy hair was streaked with gray and it was patchy. And his teeth were rotting and loose in his mouth. It was starting to come back to me like it always does: Herman (Wimpy) Brown, a lifelong hype and a pretty good snitch when he wanted to be. Couldn't be more than forty but he looked a lot older than me.
"I wish I hadn't never met that hangtough, Barty Mendez. Remember him, Bumper? A dope fiend shouldn't never do violent crime. You just ain't cut out for it. I coulda kept boosting cigarettes out of markets and made me a fair living for quite a while."
"How much you boosting now, Wimpy?" I said, giving him a light. He was clammy and covered with gooseflesh. If he knew anything he'd tell me. He wanted a taste so bad right now, he'd snitch on his mother.
"I don't boost anywhere near your beat, Bumper. I go out to the west side and lift maybe a couple dozen cartons of smokes a day outta those big markets. I don't do nothing down here except look for guys holding."
"You hang up your parole yet?"
"No, I ain't running from my parole officer. You can call in and check." He dragged hard on the cigarette but it wasn't doing much good.
"Let's see your arms, Wimpy," I said, taking one bony arm and pushing up the sleeve.
"You ain't gonna bust me on a chickenshit marks case, are you, Bumper?"
"I'm just curious," I said, noticing the inner elbows were fairly clean. I'd have to put on my glasses to see the marks and I never took my glasses to work. They stayed in my apartment.
"Few marks, Bumper, not too bad," he said, trying a black-toothed smile. "I shrink them with hemorrhoid ointment."
I bent the elbow and looked at the back of the forearm. "Damn, the whole Union Pacific could run on those tracks!" I didn't need glasses to see those swollen abscessed wounds.
"Don't bust me, Bumper," he whined. "I can work for you like I used to. I gave you some good things, remember? I turned the guy t
hat juked that taxi dancer in the alley. The one that almost cut her tit off, remember?"
"Yeah, that's right," I said, as it came back to me. Wimpy did turn that one for me.
"Don't these P. O.'s ever look at your arms?" I asked, sliding the sleeves back down.
"Some're like cops, others're social workers. I always been lucky about drawing a square P. O. or one who really digs numbers, like how many guys he's rehabilitating. They don't want to fail you, you know? Nowadays they give you dope and call it something else and say you're cured. They show you statistics, but I think the ones they figure are clean are just dead, probably from an overdose."
"Make sure you don't O. D., Wimpy," I said, leading him away from the arcade so we could talk in private while I was walking him to the corner call box to run a make.
"I liked it inside when I was on the program, Bumper. Honest to God. C. R. C. is a good place. I knew guys with no priors who shot phony needle holes in their arms so they could go there instead of to Q. And I heard Tehachapi is even better. Good food, and you don't hardly work at all, and group therapy where you can shuck, and there's these trade schools there where you can jive around. I could do a nickel in those places and I wouldn't mind. In fact, last time I was sorta sorry they kicked me out after thirteen months. But three years in Q broke me, Bumper. You know you're really in the joint when you're in that place."
"Still think about geezing when you're inside?"
"Always think about that," he said, trying to smile again as we stopped next to the call box. There were people walking by but nobody close. "I need to geez bad now, Bumper. Real bad." He looked like he was going to cry.
"Well, don't flip. I might not bust you if you can do me some good. Start thinking real hard, while I run a make to see if you hung it up."
"My parole's good as gold," he said, already perking up now that he figured I wasn't going to book him for marks. "You and me could work good, Bumper. I always trusted you. You got a rep for protecting your informants. Nobody never got a rat jacket behind your busts. I know you got an army of snitches, but nobody never got a snitch jacket. You take care of your people."
"You won't get a jacket either, Wimpy. Work with me and nobody knows. Nobody."
Wimpy was sniffling and cotton-mouthed so I unlocked the call box and hurried up with the wants check. I gave the girl his name and birthdate, and lit his cigarette while we waited. He started looking around. He wasn't afraid to be caught informing, he was just looking for a connection: a peddler, a junkie, anybody that might be holding a cap. I'd blow my brains out first, I thought.
"You living at a halfway house?" I asked.
"Not now," he said. "You know, after being clean for three years I thought I could do it this time. Then I went and fixed the second day out, and I was feeling so bad about it I went to a kick pad over on the east side and asked them to sign me in. They did and I was clean three more days, left the kick pad, scored some junk, and had a spike in my arm ever since."
"Ever fire when you were in the joint?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation going until the information came back.
"I never did. Never had the chance. I heard of a few guys. I once saw two guys make an outfit. They were expecting half a piece from somewheres. I don't know what they had planned, but they sure was making a fit."
"How?"
"They bust open this light bulb and one of them held the filament with a piece of cardboard and a rag and the other just kept heating it up with matches, and those suckers stretched that thing out until it was a pretty good eyedropper. They stuck a hole in it with a pin and attached a plastic spray bottle to it and it wasn't a bad fit. I'd a took a chance and stuck it in my arm if there was some dope in it."
"Probably break off in your vein."
"Worth the chance. I seen guys without a spike so strung out and hurting they cut their arm open with a razor and blow a mouthful of dope right in there."
He was puffing big on the smoke. His hands and arms were covered with the jailhouse tattoos made from pencil lead shavings which they mix with spit and jab into their arms with a million pinpricks. He probably did it when he was a youngster just coming up. Now he was an old head and had professional tattoos all over the places where he shoots junk, but nothing could hide those tracks.
"I used to be a boss booster at one time, Bumper. Not just a cigarette thief. I did department stores for good clothes and expensive perfume, even jewelry counters which are pretty tough to do. I wore two-hundred-dollar suits in the days when only rich guys wore suits that good."
"Work alone?"
"All alone, I swear. I didn't need nobody. I looked different then. I was good looking, honest I was. I even talked better. I used to read a lot of magazines and books. I could walk through these department stores and spot these young kids and temporary sales help and have them give me their money.
Give me their money, I tell you."
"How'd you work that scam?"
"I'd tell them Mister Freeman, the retail manager, sent me to pick up their receipts. He didn't want too much in the registers, I'd say, and I'd stick out my money bag and they'd fill it up for Mister Freeman." Wimpy started to laugh and ended up wheezing and choking. He settled down after a minute.
"I sure owe plenty to Mister Freeman. I gotta repay that sucker if I ever meet him. I used that name in maybe fifty department stores. That was my real father's name. That's really my real name, but when I was a kid I took the name of this bastard my old lady married. I always played like my real old man would've did something for us if he'd been around, so this way he did. Old Mister Freeman must've gave me ten grand. Tax free. More than most old men ever give their kids, hey, Bumper?"
"More than mine, Wimpy," I smiled.
"I did real good on that till-tap. I looked so nice, carnation and all. I had another scam where I'd boost good stuff, expensive baby clothes, luggage, anything. Then I'd bring it back to the salesman in the store bag and tell him I didn't have my receipt but would they please give me back my money on account of little Bobby wouldn't be needing these things because he smothered in his crib last Tuesday. Or old Uncle Pete passed on just before he went on his trip that he saved and dreamed about for forty-eight years and I couldn't bear to look at this luggage anymore. Honest, Bumper, they couldn't give me the bread fast enough. I even made men cry. I had one woman beg me to take ten bucks from her own purse to help with the baby's funeral. I took that ten bucks and bought a little ten-dollar bag of junk and all the time I was cutting open that balloon and cooking that stuff I thought, `Oh you baby. You really are my baby.' I took that spike and dug a little grave in my flesh and when I shoved that thing in my arm and felt it going in, I said, `Thank you, lady, thank you, thank you, this is the best funeral my baby could have.'" Wimpy closed his eyes and lifted his face, smiling a little as he thought of his baby.
"Doesn't your P. O. ever give you a urinalysis or anything?" I still couldn't get over an old head like him not having his arms or urine checked when he was on parole, even if he was paroled on a non-narcotics beef.
"Hasn't yet, Bumper. I ain't worried if he does. I always been lucky with P. O.'s. When they put me on the urine program I came up with the squeeze-bottle trick. I just got this square friend of mine, old Homer Allen, to keep me supplied with a fresh bottle of piss, and I kept that little plastic squeeze bottle full and hanging from a string inside my belt. My dumb little P. O. used to think he was sneaky and he'd catch me at my job or at home at night sometimes and ask for a urine sample and I'd just go to the john with him right behind me watching, and I'd reach in my fly and fill his little glass bottle full of Homer's piss. He thought he was real slick, but he never could catch me. He was such a square. I really liked him. I felt like a father to that kid."
The girl came to the phone and read me Wimpy's record, telling me there were no wants.
"Well, you're not running," I said, hanging up the phone, closing the metal call box door, and hanging the brass key back on my belt.
"Okay, Wimpy, let's talk business," I said.
"I been thinking, Bumper, there's this dog motherfucker that did me bad one time. I wouldn't mind you popping him."
"Okay," I said, giving him a chance to rationalize his snitching, which all informants have to do when they start out, or like Wimpy, when they haven't snitched for a long time.
"He deserves to march," said Wimpy. "Everybody knows he's no good. He burned me on a buy one time. I bring him a guy to score some pot. It's not on consignment or nothing, and he sells the guy catnip and I told him I knew the guy good. The guy kicked my ass when he found out it was catnip."
"Okay, let's do him," I said. "But I ain't interested in some two- or three-lid punk."
"I know, Bumper. He's a pretty big dealer. We'll set him up good. I'll tell him I got a guy with real bread and he should bring three kilos and meet me in a certain place and then maybe you just happen by or something when we're getting it out of the car and we both start to run but you go after him, naturally, and you get a three-key bust."
"No good. I can't run anymore. We'll work out something else."
"Any way you want, Bumper. I'll turn anybody for you. I'll roll over on anybody if you give me a break."
"Except your best connection."
"That's God you're talking about. But I think right this minute I'd even turn my connection for a fix."
"Where's this pot dealer live? Near my beat?"
"Yeah, not far. East Sixth. We can take him at his hotel. That might be the best way. You can kick down the pad and let me get out the window. At heart he's just a punk. They call him Little Rudy. He makes roach holders out of chicken bones and folded-up matchbooks and all that punk-ass bullshit. Only thing is, don't let me get a jacket. See, he knows this boss dyke, a real mean bull dagger. Her pad's a shooting gallery for some of us. If she knows you finked, she'll sneak battery acid in your spoon and laugh while you mainline it home. She's a dog motherfucker."
the Blue Knight (1972) Page 3
