Chapter SIXTEEN
I GOT BACK IN MY CAR and cruised down Main Street, by the parking lot at the rear of the Pink Dragon. I was so sick of pushing this pile of iron around that I stopped to watch some guys in the parking lot.
There were three of them and they were up to something. I parked the car and backed up until the building hid me. I got out and walked to the corner of the building, took my hat off, and peeked around the corner and across the lot.
A skinny hype in a long-sleeved blue shirt was talking to another brown-shirted one. There was a third one with them, a little T-shirt who stood a few steps away. Suddenly Blue-shirt nodded to Brown-shirt, who walked up and gave something to little T-shirt, who gave Brown-shirt something back, and they all hustled off in different directions. Little T-shirt was walking toward me. He was looking back over his shoulder for cops, and walking right into one. I didn't feel like messing around with a narco bust but this was too easy. I stepped in the hotel doorway and when T-shirt walked past, squinting into the sun, I reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him inside. He was just a boy, scared as hell. I shoved him face forward into the wall, and grabbed the hip pocket of his denims.
"What've you got, boy? Bennies or reds? Or maybe you're an acid freak?"
"Hey, lemme go!" he yelled.
I took the bennies out of his pocket. There were six rolls, five in a roll, held together by a rubber band. The day of ten-benny rolls was killed by inflation.
"How much did they make you pay, kid?" I asked, keeping a good grip on his arm. He didn't look so short up close, but he was skinny, with lots of brown hair, and young, too young to be downtown scoring pills in the middle of the morning.
"I paid seven dollars. But I won't ever do it again if you'll lemme go. Please lemme go."
"Put your hands behind you, kid," I said, unsnapping my handcuff case.
"What're you doing? Please don't put those on me. I won't hurt you or anything."
"I'm not afraid of you hurting me," I laughed, chewing on a wet cigar stump that I finally threw away. "It's just that my wheels are gone and my ass is too big to be chasing you all over these streets." I snapped on one cuff and brought his palms together behind his back and clicked on the other, taking them up snug.
"How much you say you paid for the pills?"
"Seven dollars. I won't never do it again if you'll lemme go, I swear." He was dancing around, nervous and scared, and he stepped on my right toe, scuffing up the shine.
"Careful, damn it."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Please lemme go. I didn't mean to step on you."
"Those cats charged you way too much for the pills," I said, as I led him to the radio car.
"I know you won't believe me but it's the first time I ever bought them. I don't know what the hell they cost."
"Sure it is."
"See, I knew you wouldn't believe me. You cops don't believe nobody."
"You know all about cops, do you?"
"I been arrested before. I know you cops. You all act the same."
"You must be a hell of a heavyweight desperado. Got a ten-page rap sheet, I bet. What've you been busted for?"
"Running away. Twice. And you don't have to put me down."
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen."
"In the car," I said, opening the front door. ""And don't lean back on the cuffs or they'll tighten."
"You don't have to worry, I won't jump out," he said as I fastened the seat belt over his lap.
"I ain't worrying, kid."
"I got a name. It's Tilden," he said, his square chin jutting way out.
"Mine's Morgan."
"My first name's Tom."
"Mine's Bumper."
"Where're you taking me?"
"To Juvenile Narcotics."
"You gonna book me?"
"Of course."
"What could I expect," he said, nodding his head disgustedly. "How could I ever expect a cop to act like a human being."
"You shouldn't even expect a human being to act like a human being. You'll just get disappointed."
I turned the key and heard the click-click of a dead battery. Stone-cold dead without warning.
"Hang loose, kid," I said, getting out of the car.
"Where could
I go?" he yelled, as I lifted the hood to see if someone had torn the wires out. That happens once in a while when you leave your black-and-white somewhere that you can't keep an eye on it. It looked okay though. I wondered if something was wrong with the alternator. A call box was less than fifty feet down the sidewalk so I moseyed to it, turning around several times to keep an eye on my little prisoner. I called in and asked for a garage man with a set of booster cables and was told to stand by for about twenty minutes and somebody'd get out to me. I thought about calling a sergeant since they carry booster cables in their cars, but I decided not to. What the hell, why be in a rush today? What was there to prove now? To anyone? To myself?
Then I started getting a little hungry because there was a small diner across the street and I could smell bacon and ham. The odor was blowing through the duct in the front of the place over the cooking stoves. The more I sniffed the hungrier I got, and I looked at my watch and thought, what the hell. I went back and unstrapped the kid.
"What's up? Where we going?"
"Across the street."
"What for? We taking a bus to your station or something?"
"No, we gotta wait for the garage man. We're going across the street so I can eat."
"You can't take me in there looking like this," said the kid, as I led him across the street. His naturally rosy cheeks were lobster-red now. "Take the handcuffs off."
"Not a chance. I could never catch a young antelope like you.
"I swear I won't run."
"I know you won't, with your hands cuffed behind you and me holding the chain."
"I'll die if you take me in there like a dog on a leash in front of all those people."
"Ain't nobody in there you know, kid. And anybody that might be in there's been in chains himself, probably. Nothing to be embarrassed about."
"I could sue you for this."
"Oh could you?" I said, holding the door and shoving him inside.
There were only three counter customers, two con guys, and a wino drinking coffee. They glanced up for a second and nobody even noticed the kid was cuffed. I pointed toward a table at the rear.
"Got no waitress this early, Bumper," said T-Bone, the proprietor, a huge Frenchman who wore a white chef's hat and a T-shirt, and white pants. I'd never seen him in anything else.
"We need a table, T-Bone," I said, pointing to the kid's handcuffs.
"Okay," said T-Bone. "What'll you have?"
"I'm not too hungry. Maybe a couple over-easy eggs and some bacon, and a few pieces of toast. And oh, maybe some hash browns. Glass of tomato juice. Some coffee. And whatever the kid wants."
"What'll you have, boy?" asked T-Bone, resting his huge hairy hands on the counter and grinning at the boy, with one gold and one silver front tooth. I wondered for the first time where in the hell he got a silver crown like that. Funny I never thought of that before. T-Bone wasn't a man you talked to. He only used his voice when it was necessary. He just fed people with as few words as possible.
"How can I eat anything?" said the kid. "All chained up like a convict or something." His eyes were filling up and he looked awful young just then.
"I'm gonna unlock them," I said. "Now what the hell you want? T-Bone ain't got all day."
"I don't know what I want."
"Give him a couple fried eggs straight up, some bacon, and a glass of milk. You want hash browns, kid?"
"I guess so."
"Give him some orange juice too, and an order of toast. Make it a double order of toast. And some jam."
T-Bone nodded and scooped a handful of eggs from a bowl by the stove. He held four eggs in that big hand and cracked all four eggs one at a time without using the other hand. The kid was watching i
t.
"He's got some talent, hey, kid?"
"Yeah. You said you were taking these off."
"Get up and turn around," I said, and when he did I unlocked the right cuff and fastened it around the chrome leg of the table so he could sit there with one hand free.
"Is this what you call taking them off?" he said. "Now I'm like an organ grinder's monkey on a chain!"
"Where'd you ever see an organ grinder? There ain't been any grinders around here for years."
"I saw them on old TV movies. And that's what I look like."
"Okay, okay, quit chipping your teeth. You complain more than any kid I ever saw. You oughtta be glad to be getting some breakfast. I bet you didn't eat a thing at home this morning."
"I wasn't even at home this morning."
"Where'd you spend the night?"
He brushed back several locks of hair from his eyes with a dirty right hand, "I spent part of the night sleeping in one of those all-night movies till some creepy guy woke me up with his cruddy hand on my knee. Then I got the hell outta there. I slept for a little while in a chair in some hotel that was open just down the street."
"You run away from home?"
"No, I just didn't feel like sleeping at the pad last night. My sis wasn't home and I just didn't feel like sitting around by myself."
"You live with your sister?"
"Yeah."
"Where's your parents?"
"Ain't got none."
"How old's your sister?"
"Twenty-two."
"Just you and her, huh?"
"Naw, there's always somebody around. Right now it's a stud named Slim. Big Blue always got somebody around."
"That's what you call your sister? Big Blue?"
"She used to be a dancer, kind of. In a bar. Topless. She went by that name. Now she's getting too fat in the ass so she's hustling drinks at the Chinese Garden over on Western. You know the joint?"
"Yeah, I know it."
"Anyway, she always says soon as she loses thirty pounds she's going back to dancing which is a laugh because her ass is getting wider by the day. She likes to be called Big Blue so even
I started calling her that. She got this phony dyed-black hair, see. It's almost blue."
"She oughtta wash your clothes for you once in a while. That shirt looks like a grease rag."
"That's 'cause I was working on a car with my next door neighbor yesterday. I didn't get a chance to change it." He looked offended by that crack. "I wear clothes clean as anybody. And I even wash them and iron them myself."
"That's the best way to be," I said, reaching over and unlocking the left cuff.
"You're taking them off?"
"Yeah. Go in the bathroom and wash your face and hands and arms. And your neck."
"You sure I won't go out the window?"
"Ain't no window in that john," I said. "And comb that mop outta your face so somebody can see what the hell you look like."
"Ain't got a comb."
"Here's mine," I said, giving him the pocket comb.
T-Bone handed me the glasses of juice, the coffee, and the milk while the kid was gone, and the bacon smell was all over the place now. I was wishing I'd asked for a double order of bacon even though I knew T-Bone would give me an extra big helping.
I was sipping the coffee when the kid came back in. He was looking a hundred percent better even though his neck was still dirty. At least his hair was slicked back and his face and arms up to the elbow were nice and clean. He wasn't a handsome kid, his face was too tough and craggy, but he had fine eyes, full of life, and he looked you right in your eye when he talked to you. That's what I liked best about him.
"There's your orange juice," I said.
"Here's your comb."
"Keep it. I don't even know why I carry it. I can't do anything with this patch of wires I got. I'll be glad when I get bald."
"Yeah, you couldn't look no worse if you was bald," he said, examining my hair.
"Drink your orange juice, kid."
We both drank our juice and T-Bone said, "Here, Bumper," and handed a tray across the counter, but before I could get up the kid was on his feet and grabbed the tray and laid everything out on the table like he knew what he was doing.
"Hey, you even know what side to put the knife and fork on," I said.
"Sure. I been a busboy. I done all kinds of work in my time."
"How old you say you are?"
"Fourteen. Well, almost fourteen. I'll be fourteen next October."
When he'd finished he sat down and started putting away the chow like he was as hungry as I thought he was. I threw one of my eggs on his plate when I saw two weren't going to do him, and I gave him a slice of my toast. He was a first-class eater. That was something else I liked about him.
While he was finishing the last of the toast and jam, I went to the door and looked across the street. A garage attendant was replacing my battery. He saw me and waved that it was okay. I waved back and went back inside to finish my coffee.
"You get enough to eat?" I asked.
"Yeah, thanks."
"You sure you don't want another side of bacon and a loaf or two of bread?"
"I don't get breakfasts like that too often," he grinned.
When we were getting ready to leave I tried to pay T-Bone.
"From you? No, Bumper."
"Well, for the kid's chow, then." I tried to make him take a few bucks.
"No, Bumper. You don't pay nothin'."
"Thanks, T-Bone. Be seeing you," I said, and he raised a huge hand covered with black hair, and smiled gold and silver. And I almost wanted to ask him about the silver crown because it was the last time I'd have a chance.
"You gonna put the bracelets back on?" asked the boy, as I lit a cigar and patted my stomach and took a deep sniff of morning smog.
"You promise you won't run?"
"I swear. I hate those damn things on my wrists. You feel so helpless, like a little baby."
"Okay, let's get in the car," I said, trotting across the street with him to get out of the way of the traffic.
"How many times you come downtown to score?" I asked before starting the car.
"I never been downtown alone before. I swear. And I didn't even hitchhike. I took a bus. I was even gonna take a bus back to Echo Park. I didn't wanna run into cops with the pills in my pocket."
"How long you been dropping bennies?"
"About three months. And I only tried them a couple times. A kid I know told me I could come down here and almost any guy hanging around could get them for me. I don't know why I did it."
"How many tubes you sniff a day?"
"I ain't a gluehead. It makes guys crazy. And I never sniffed paint, neither."
Then I started looking at this kid, really looking at him. Usually my brain records only necessary things about arrestees, but now I found myself looking really close and listening for lies. That's something else you can't tell the judge, that you'd bet your instinct against a polygraph. I knew this boy wasn't lying. But then, I seemed to be wrong about everything lately.
"I'm gonna book you and release you to your sister. That okay with you?"
"You ain't gonna send me to Juvenile Hall?"
"No. You wanna go there?"
"Christ, no. I gotta be free. I was scared you was gonna lock me up. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I just gotta be free. I couldn't stand being inside a place like that with everybody telling you what to do."
"If I ever see you downtown scoring pills again, I'll make sure you go to the Hall."
The kid took a deep breath. "You'll never see me again, I swear. Unless you come out around Echo Park."
"As a matter of fact, I don't live too far from there."
"Yeah? I got customers in Silverlake and all around Echo Park. Where do you live?"
"Not far from Bobby's drive-in. You know where that is? All the kids hang around there."
"Sure I do. I work with this old guy who's got this pickup truck and
equipment. Why don't you let us do your yard? We do front and back, rake, trim, weed and everything for eight bucks."
"That's not too bad. How much you get yourself?"
"Four bucks. I do all the work. The old guy just flops in the shade somewhere till I'm through. But I need him because of the truck and stuff."
This kid had me so interested I suddenly realized we were just sitting there. I put the cigar in my teeth and turned the key. She fired right up and I pulled out in the traffic. But I couldn't get my mind off this boy.
"Whadda you do for fun? You play ball or anything?"
"No, I like swimming. I'm the best swimmer in my class, but I don't go out for the team."
"Why not?"
"I'm too busy with girls. Look." The boy took out his wallet and showed me his pictures. I glanced at them while turning on Pico, three shiny little faces that all looked the same to me.
"Pretty nice," I said, handing the pictures back.
"
Real nice," said the kid with a wink.
"You look pretty athletic. Why don't you play baseball? That used to be my game."
"I like sports I can do by myself."
"Don't you have any buddies?"
"No, I'm more of a ladies' man."
"I know what you mean, but you can't go through this world by yourself. You should have some friends."
"I don't need nobody."
"What grade you in?"
"Eighth. I'll sure be glad to get the hell out of junior high. It's a ghoul school."
"How you gonna pass if you cut classes like this?"
"I don't ditch too often, and I'm pretty smart in school, believe it or not. I just felt rotten last night. Sometimes when you're alone a lot you get feeling rotten and you just wanna go out where there's some people. I figured, where am I gonna find lots of people? Downtown, right? So I came downtown. Then this morning I felt more rotten from sleeping in the creepy movie so I looked around and saw these two guys and asked them where I could get some bennies and they sold them to me. I really wanted to get high, but swear to God, I only dropped bennies a couple times before. And one lousy time I dropped a red devil and a rainbow with some guys at school, and that's all the dope I ever took. I don't really dig it, Officer. Sometimes I drink a little beer."
"I'm a beer man myself, and you can call me Bumper."
the Blue Knight (1972) Page 27
