Golden Orange

by Joseph Wambaugh

  He tossed the empty cans into the dinghy, started the dinghy motor, and made sure it was securely tied. Then he climbed back on deck with the flare gun. He glanced down the hatch for only a second or two. He fired once and ran aft. There was a loud PLOOM! and fire burst out of the companionway within seconds. He got the dinghy untied just before the flames spread topside. It was correct what he’d always been told—the resin in a fiberglass boat burns extremely hot and is almost impossible to extinguish.

  The burning boat powered out into the bleak infinite ocean, sails alight in the darkness, blazing through sapphire water. The moon had vanished for a while.

  When Winnie walked into the office of the Harbor Patrol an hour later, he was greeted with skepticism. An Orange County sheriff’s deputy said, “Your boat caught fire the same day you took it from the broker?”

  “It was my own fault,” Winnie said. “I bought a lotta gas for my dinghy and I accidentally dropped a can into the galley. The stove was lit.”

  The deputy obviously suspected a torching. He said, “And how much insurance did you have on this new boat, Mister Farlowe?”

  “None,” Winnie said. “Not a dime’s worth.”

  That stunned the deputy, who said, “Damn! You should’ve gotten insurance before taking it out!”

  “I’ve always been a loser,” Winnie Farlowe said.

  It was after ten o’clock when he arrived at Spoon’s Landing. All the regulars hollered his name, and made a fuss, and shook hands with him the moment he entered. Guppy Stover was there and Bilge O’Toole with his turtle, Irma. Carlos Tuna was there with Regis, his stud turtle, who was in a carrying bag on the bar. Tripoli Jones was berating two Vietnam vets who worked at the boatyard next door.

  Everyone said how good Winnie looked and how much they’d missed him. But they seemed to sense that he was much changed after two months of sobriety. In that they were all alcoholics, they were confused and threatened by such a change. But Spoon understood.

  When everyone drifted off and Winnie was alone at the bar, Spoon said, “You sure look different.”

  “Yeah,” Winnie said. “Gimme a Polish vodka on the rocks. Double.”

  Spoon’s grin faded. He started to speak. He thought it over, then said, “Not here, kid. I don’t want your business no more. I was hopin I’d never see you again.”

  “I read your warning, ‘Alcohol can harm an unborn fetus.’ Now gimme the drink.”

  Spoon started wiping the bar nervously. He said, “Why’nt ya give A.A. a try? Ain’t ya had enough misery?”

  “You got a liquor license on the wall,” Winnie said, a throb in his voice. “I’m a paying customer! I demand a drink!”

  “Okay,” Spoon said. “May as well be me makes a few bucks off your corpse.”

  While Spoon poured the drink, Winnie went to the old Wurlitzer and dropped in a quarter. The drink was on the bar when he got back, a double shot of Polish vodka on the rocks. In a bucket glass. A sturdy honest bucket. Then Frank Sinatra began to sing.

  It seems we stood and talked like this before

  We looked at each other in the same way then

  But I can’t remember where or when.

  Winnie Farlowe touched the glass. He left his finger mark in the condensation. A puddle was already forming around the base. He could smell it. American vodka smelled and tasted like nothing, but Eastern Europeans understood that vodka should have flavor and aroma.

  The clothes you’re wearing are the clothes you wore

  We smiled at each other in the same way then

  But I can’t remember where or when.

  Spoon pretended not to look at Winnie. He went to the other end of the bar and talked to Bilge O’Toole. In fact, several of the others tried not to look at him. Winnie didn’t notice anybody. He was thirty-eight miles away, on a hill overlooking two lovely harbors, where a zephyr blew gently and he could smell jasmine mingled with the gardenia in her hair.

  And so it seems that we have met before

  And laughed before and loved before

  But who knows where or when.

  When Spoon looked up again, Winnie Farlowe was gone. Spoon moved quickly back down the bar. The bucket glass was still full.

  The saloonkeeper picked it up, toasted the empty doorway and said, “Okay, kid, you made it through one more day.”

  Spoon drank the Polish vodka himself, then said to Tripoli Jones, “Hey, this ain’t too bad. Them Polacks can do something besides go on strike!”

  While everyone was watching the big TV, while the Dodgers were rallying from a two-run deficit, Carlos Tuna’s stud turtle, Regis, crawled out of his leather carrying sack with a blink of surprise. Bilge O’Toole had left Irma on the bar, dozing in a saucer of beer. Regis eyed the sleeping Irma with a sidelong reptile glance. Then Regis began creeping stealthily along the bar top.

  HARBOR

  NOCTURNE

  Joseph Wambaugh

  Mysterious Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  New York

  Copyright © 2012 by Joseph Wambaugh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or permissions@groveatlantic.com.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-2610-8

  Mysterious Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As ever, special thanks for the terrific anecdotes and great cop talk goes to officers of the Los Angeles Police Department:

  Randy Barr, Jeannine Bedard, Jennifer Blomeley, Adriana Bravo, Kelly Clark, Pete Corkery, Dawna Davis-Killingsworth, Jim Erwin, Brett Goodkin, Jeff Hamilton, Brett Hays, Craig Herron, Jamie Hogg, Mark Jauregui (ret.), Rick Knopf, Rick Kosier (ret.), Fanita Kuljis, Cari Long, Rich Ludwig, Al Mendoza, Buck Mossie, Thongin Muy, Julie Nelson, Scarlett Nuño, Al Pacheco (ret.), Victor Pacheco, Bill Pack, Helen Pallares, Jim Perkins, Robyn Petillo, Kris Petrish (PSR ret.), Brent Smith, Bob Teramura, Rick Wall, Evening Wight

  And to officers of the Los Angeles Port Police:

  Kent Hobbs, Ken Huerta, Rudy Meza

  And to officers of the San Diego Police Department:

  Michael Belz, Matt Dobbs, Mike Fender, Doru Hansel, Fred Helm, Jeff Jordon, Charles Lara, Lou Maggi, Adam Sharki, Mike Shiraishi, Merrit Townsend, Steve Willard (S.D. Police Historical Association)

  And to Debbie Eglin of the San Diego Sheriff’s Department

  And to Erik Nava and Ken Nelson of the San Diego District Attorney’s Office

  And to Mike Matassa (ret.) of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives

  And to Danny Brunac, longshoreman of San Pedro

  HARBOR

  NOCTURNE

  ONE

  “SO NOW I’M like, a hottie hunk on account of my fake foot, is that what you’re telling me? I’m all irresistible or something?”

  “It’s not that you’re irresistible,” the young sergeant said. “It’s what your prosthesis represents to certain people, those who suffer from a kind of paraphilia. Specifically
, their disorder is called apotemnophilia.”

  “And what’s that mean exactly?”

  “The manifestation of a desire so intense that therapists have a hard time even explaining it, possibly a desire with a powerful sexual component. It’s a fascination with amputation that sometimes goes so far that the person wants to be an amputee.”

  Sergeant Thaddeus Hawthorne was a twenty-eight-year-old UCLA graduate who, like thousands of Angelenos before him, had learned that his BA degree in the liberal arts had very little practical application in the job market of the twenty-first century. He had tested for, and joined, the LAPD just shy of his twenty-second birthday because of the good pay and job security. He had a very high forehead, and a sparse dark mustache crowded the limited space between his long, bulbous nose and upper lip. He anxiously looked from one blue uniformed cop to another as he spoke, both sitting across the table from him in a booth farthest from most of the bustle on this Friday evening at Hamburger Hamlet.

  The recently appointed sergeant, who had just finished his probationary period at Van Nuys Division as a patrol supervisor before transferring to Hollywood Division, knew he should use “college talk” sparingly, if at all, in the company of street cops, especially this pair of weathered surf rats with their doubtful smirks and sea salt stuck to their eyebrows and lashes.

  They were several years older than he, both being divorced womanizers, and they unnerved him with their reputations for sneaky get-back when it came to supervisors they didn’t like, especially young supervisors.

  “You mean there’s nobody else but him that can do it?” the taller one said, nodding toward his partner.

  Sergeant Hawthorne knew that this tall one had been driving during the fateful pursuit a year prior where his partner had suffered a hopelessly smashed foot in a traffic collision. It had ended with the pursued killer in a stolen van being shot to death by Officer Britney Small, then a probationary boot, currently working Watch 5 along with these two.

  The sergeant said, “Your partner happens to be one of the few law enforcement amputees in all of California. It would be greatly appreciated by everyone in the Hollywood vice unit if we could eventually get the guys bankrolling their operation, and I’d certainly write you a glowing commendation that would look good in your personnel package.”

  Sergeant Hawthorne looked uncertainly at his massive burger, wishing he could cut it in half but not daring to, not when the tall cop across from him was effortlessly mashing his with one big paw and tearing into it like a wolf.

  The taller of the suntanned cops scoffed at that lame enticement of a written attaboy but flashed a grin at his partner, saying, “See, dude? I told you when we got our new foot, fame would follow.” Then he told the sergeant with pride, “You should see when this crusher catches a juicy at Malibu. He can even, like, hang three inches of our fiberglass foot and rip that kamikaze just like always. My pard’s got a pair hanging on him!”

  The sergeant was trying to figure out exactly what the hell the tall one had just said to him when the shorter one said, “Carbon, not plastic. The surfing skate is made from carbon and polyurethane, not fiberglass.” Then he told the sergeant, “I got two models. The on-duty foot is way different and fits real good in my boot, and it’s pretty easy to run on.”

  The tall one said, “You should see all the Emmas in butt-floss bikinis start jiggling their chesticles when they ogle the robo kahuna with the bionic hoof. It’s all beer, bubble baths, and blow jobs for him. Me, I’m happy just to get his leftovers.”

  “He’s always pimping me out at Malibu,” the shorter one said dryly. “He, like, tries to sell them on sympathy disrobing for a handicapped kahuna.”

  Bewildered by the surfer-speak and opting instead for flattery, Sergeant Hawthorne said to the shorter one, “I think it was pretty gutsy of you not to take a medical pension and retire when the accident happened. A lot of officers would have.”

  That didn’t work. Both cops shot the sergeant a snarky look that said, “We don’t quit, dude,” and the shorter one said, “What you want me to do is way twisted. Even for Hollywood, this is sick shit.”

  “I can’t deny it,” Sergeant Hawthorne said, taking the first bite of his cheeseburger and sadly watching a dollop of ketchup squirt out onto the yellow L of the sky-blue UCLA sweatshirt he wore when working vice to make himself look less like a cop. The troops around Hollywood Station said he was so lacking in copper machismo that he could dress in an LAPD raid jacket and still nobody would ever make him for Five-Oh.

  “Whose idea was this, anyways?” the shorter cop asked.

  “Sort of my idea, I guess,” Sergeant Hawthorne said. “I talked to your watch commander as well as your midwatch sergeant about it before I decided to invite you here for a bite to eat.”

  The shorter cop said, “Lemme lock in on this. Are you telling me that Sergeant Murillo actually thought I should do this demented shit?”

  It was Sergeant Lee Murillo who’d pointed out that the young vice sergeant resembled the nineteenth-century writer Edgar Allan Poe, and had begun referring to him as “Sergeant Edgar.”

  “Well, no,” Sergeant Hawthorne admitted. “Your sergeant said it was completely up to you and that nobody should try to influence you one way or the other.”

  “Does the croaker who does the kind of freaky swashbuckling surgeries you talked about still practice around here?” the tall cop asked, starting on the second burger he’d ordered because, what the hell, little Sergeant Edgar with the big vocabulary was sponsoring the meal, wasn’t he? In fact, the tall cop had ordered the burgers with fries, plus a side of onion rings, and was even considering a piece of cherry pie with a double scoop of ice cream.

  The vice sergeant said, “Not anymore. He’s a burned-out crack addict now. He was fairly notorious for doing various kinds of edgy operations in a certain Tijuana clinic. It’s an abattoir.”

  “A what?” the tall one said.

  “A slaughterhouse.” Sergeant Hawthorne instantly regretted using a word they might not understand. He was aware that everyone at Hollywood Station knew this pair by their surfing monikers of “Flotsam and Jetsam,” and he noted that Flotsam always referred to Jetsam’s prosthesis as our foot, so it appeared that these two were Velcroed. He began to think of possibly including the tall partner in the deal as a way to persuade Jetsam to accept the assignment.

  Jetsam said, “He probably got one of those craigslist doctor degrees where they treat all ailments with leeches.”

  “No, Dr. Maurice Montaigne’s medical degree is legitimate,” Sergeant Hawthorne said. “But his license to practice was pulled long ago.”

  “What was that word you used to describe this creepy crap?” Jetsam asked.

  “Apotemnophilia,” the sergeant said, this time leaning over the plate before taking a second bite of his burger. “I’ve been reading up on it.”

  Flotsam said, “That’s the biggest word I’ve heard since ‘pica and pagophagia.’ We got a call about a dude from his momma. He used to get all weirded out when he got drunk, and he’d eat red clay and ice cubes. She got scared he was gonna clog his colon. He told his momma it was for an iron deficiency. I told her it was just fucking Hollywood.”

  Sergeant Hawthorne stared at Flotsam for a moment before saying, “That’s very interesting.”

  Jetsam asked the sergeant, “Why would anybody go all off the hook with fantasies of doing something like that to himself?”

  “I told you, it’s truly incomprehensible,” the sergeant said, after chewing and swallowing a modest bite. “There aren’t many people in the entire world who have this condition.”

  “And they all live around here, probably,” Flotsam said with a head shake. “Fucking Hollywood.”

  The sergeant had been assigned to the station long enough to know that in these parts, cops always uttered the mantra “This is fucking Hollywood” to explain anything inexplicable, so he merely nodded and said, “It’s illegal to amputate a healthy limb in Me
xico as well as the U.S., but of course it’s a lot easier to get it done across the border. So that’s why I’ve prepared a cover story for you about a place in T.J. called Clínica Maravilla.”

  Jetsam said, “How could I fool anybody? Wouldn’t the quack see my amputation was, like, done by skilled surgeons?”

  “No doctor will be seeing you at all. We’ve been told that Dr. Maurice is effectively retired, holed up somewhere smoking crack twelve hours a day. He’s harder to find than John the Baptist’s head.”

  “Who the fuck’s looking for that?” Flotsam wanted to know, and Sergeant Hawthorne cursed himself again for using an obscure metaphor.

  “Who’s the freak you’re dying to pop?” Jetsam asked.

  “We’re not really dying to pop the Russian with paraphilia. He’s just a very important client being serviced by the collector and the big boss. The collector is the guy who takes the money and pays all the bills, and sets up the special dates, and arranges for the girls to get medical care when needed, and—”

  “With the weird croaker we’re talking about?” Jetsam asked.

  “At one time.” Sergeant Hawthorne nodded. “But now that the dangerous doctor’s a hopeless crackhead, they no doubt use somebody else these days. What we’re hoping you can do is to get enough info that we can jack the collector for a few felonies and use that to persuade him to trade up for his boss. The collector’s name is Hector Cozzo. The girls call him Hector the collector, and he’s got a minor rap sheet for identity theft, forgery, and possession. The most time he’s ever done is sixty days in county jail. He’s a small-timer who somehow got this pretty good gig of collecting from massage parlor girls and from dancers working at a nightclub in east Hollywood that I’m sure you know about, Club Samara.”