Hollywood Hills (2010)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 04

  That one got a few hoots and some thumbs-down from skeptics who didn't believe it happened. And then Snuffy Salcedo said, "We pulled over a guy on Cahuenga last night for busting a light, and when I said he had a mutilated driver's license, he said, 'My license don't mutilate for another year.'"

  That one got more hoots and a few thumbs-up.

  Before he dismissed them, Sergeant Murillo made an announcement that concerned Britney Small and Della Ravelle.

  "Six-X-Forty-. Six," he said, "I'd like you to stop by the library on Ivar and talk to the librarian about the Wedgie Bandit. He's at it again."

  The veteran midwatch cops groaned at the news, and Sergeant Murillo said, "For you new people, the Wedgie Bandit is a white male, about thirty years old, five ten, one forty, brown and blue. He usually wears long-sleeved jerseys or sweatshirts, jeans, and tennis shoes. And he is an unparalleled menace to the safety and security of Hollywood's citizens. It's imperative that we get this villain off the street."

  Snuffy Salcedo said, "Wedgie Bandit? Why do they call him that?"

  Sergeant Murillo said, deadpan, "He assaults any unsuspecting person he encounters with very forceful wedgies."

  "With wedgies?" Snuffy said.

  "Do you know what a wedgie is, Officer Salcedo?" Sergeant Murillo asked. "It's very unpleasant. How would you like someone to give you one?"

  "I know they're unpleasant, boss," Snuffy said, "but why does he do it to strangers?"

  Sergeant Murillo said, "That is the question that the watch commander wants answered, and the station captain, and the division captain, and the bureau commander. I wouldn't be surprised if the chief of police wants to know his motive. When he's caught, we'll find out why he does it, but we can't catch him. Six-X-Thirtytwo almost caught him one time, I believe. I'm not sure what happened."

  Flotsam said, "Yeah, my little pard here chased him through Griffith Park, but the Wedgie Bandit left him panting on the grass with his tongue hanging out like one of them Frisbee-chasing border collies that scoot around there all day."

  "He runs like a cheetah," Jetsam said defensively.

  Sergeant Murillo said, "You all should be aware of how serial wedgies are committed. This fiend just walks up behind victims of either gender, even senior citizens, and grabs a handful of underwear from the back and pulls up as hard as he can. Then he beats feet and vanishes."

  Jetsam said, "I almost had that little booger eater till he ran right through a bunch of bird-watchers that're always out there looking for the Painted Redstart, whatever the hell that is. One of the old babes was, like, taking a bunch of pictures with a telephoto lens and another one was chirping with a birdcall. And pretty soon both were sitting on the grass after he bowled them over. I'm only surprised he didn't stop long enough to give one of them a wedgie."

  Flotsam said, "Sarge, remember the time the vice unit helped us out and put an undercover guy out there, and the bandit snuck up behind him and gave the UC cop a wedgie? And got away again!"

  "Yes, he's been imaginative and resourceful," Sergeant Murillo said, still deadpan. "If a unit from Watch Five can jam him tonight, I will buy two large pizzas with the works for that team. Of course, with the price of two pizzas, I hope you'll wait until about, oh, two thirty for me to buy them, when they're older and cheaper, at an hour when only coppers will eat them."

  Hollywood Nate said to Britney Small of 6-X-46, "Be super-careful at the library, Britney. Make sure Della's got your back at all times. It'd be a real feather in his cap to give a uniformed female copper a wedgie."

  Britney blushed and the troops hooted and whistled and were all ready to go out and do police work.

  When Watch 5 cleared and was on the streets, there was a cyclist causing a disturbance on Santa Monica Boulevard. But this wasn't any ordinary cyclist. He was unique even for this attention-getters Mecca. This cyclist kept cruising on the sidewalk past a beauty shop, honking a horn attached to his handlebars. He wasn't satisfied until he got several women to go to the windows with their hair rolled in goop and tinfoil, with strands protruding in all directions. Then he'd ride no hands and wave at them.

  The cyclist was reptile-thin, of indeterminate age, with his hair done in purple spikes, and as far as face metal went, there was nothing left to pierce. He had rings or studs through his nose, ears, eyebrows, lips, and tongue. He was inked on most of his upper body and had only a bit of bare flesh untatted from his knees down.

  He wore flip-flops and violet short shorts decorated with sparkles. The proprietor of the beauty shop, a no-nonsense Cambodian woman, went outside several times and yelled, "You stop this! You go way! I call police!"

  But that only made him emit a lunatic laugh and honk his horn and make another pass in front of the beauty shop window.

  Finally one of the customers said, "I'm sick of this shit!"

  She went outside, still wearing her black wraparound smock, and when the cyclist cruised by again, she shouted, "Hey, freako! Get outta here!"

  All she got was the cry of a loon, and he sped right past her no hands as she yelled, " You asshole!"

  Which turned out to be the apt epithet. She got a good look at him from the back, and when she ran inside to call the police, she said to the other women, "There's no seat on the bike!"

  Six-X-Seventy-six got the call about a "415 cyclist" at the beauty shop, and Viv Daley said to Georgie Adams, "The message doesn't say how he's disturbing the peace."

  "In Hollywood it could mean anything," Georgie said. "Probably DUI and doing wheelies to impress the ladies while they're getting their hair bleached. I'm glad you don't go in for that highlights stuff, sis. It's so lame and boring. I think half the people in Hollywood do it these days, even Flotsam and Jetsam."

  "Those surfer boys swear their golden streaks are from the sun and surf," Viv said as she turned eastbound through the Sunset Boulevard early evening traffic.

  "Yeah, right," Georgie said.

  "Where the hell does all this traffic come from?" Viv said.

  "It can't be explained," Georgie said. "I think it's immaculate congestion."

  When they arrived at the beauty shop, the outraged proprietress met them at the curb and pointed to the cyclist, who pedaled off in the opposite direction very fast upon seeing the black-and-white.

  The Cambodian beautician tried to explain to them in broken English about the cyclist causing a disturbance, but "Look at ass!" was the best they could get from her.

  Not knowing what that meant, 6-X-76 made a dodgy U-turn through the traffic and caught up with the cyclist. Viv beeped her horn and gestured for him to stop, and when he did, she pulled the Crown Vic to the curb beside him.

  "What the hell was that woman trying to tell us?" Georgie said. "I don't get it."

  They got out and approached the cyclist, who was still astride his bike with one foot on the sidewalk. Since he was wearing only the sparkled short shorts, there was no need for a pat down.

  Georgie said to Viv, "The dude's got enough face metal to trade at a junkyard for a 'sixty-eight Torino."

  "First of all," Viv said to the cyclist, "you're riding a bike on the sidewalk. Secondly, you were beeping your horn and causing an unnecessary disturbance." Then she took a closer look at him and said, "Get off the bike, sir."

  Obediently he swung his leg over the saddle, except there was no saddle. Georgie looked at the steel seat post and said, "What the hell?"

  Viv said to the cyclist, "Turn around sir and face away from me."

  He smiled amiably and complied, and she got a rear view of him and said, "Don't look, Gypsy. You're too squeamish for this."

  But Georgie looked anyway and saw the opening in the shorts. After that he refused to look at either the man's shorts or the metal seat post.

  "You talk to him," he said to Viv Daley. "I'm getting nauseous." "Sir," Viv said to the cyclist, "where's the seat that goes on this bike?"

  "Wore it out," he said.

  "Why don't you buy another one?"

 
"I got used to this," he said. "It's more comfortable. And I think it gives me greater control of the bike. Why? Is there any law against it?"

  "You're exposing yourself indecently," she said.

  "No, Officer," he said. "I'm all covered, if you'll notice. The hole in my shorts is only an inch and one eighth in diameter to fit snugly over the metal post. So you see, I'm not indecent at all."

  Viv said patiently, "If I don't write you a ticket for riding on the sidewalk, will you promise me to go home and get yourself a bike seat and never ride like this again, even if it gives you greater control of your bike?"

  His mouth turned down at the corners. No mean feat with all the lip rings and studs, and he sighed and said, "If you say so, Officer. I want to always obey the law."

  "Okay," Viv said. "Walk your bike home, sew up your shorts, and buy a bike seat ASAP."

  When they got back in the car, Georgie Adams said, "We should get a pay bump for dealing with Hollywood weirdness."

  Viv said, "The next time you go for a bike ride ..."

  "Please don't clown me, sis," Georgie said. "I'm feeling queasy. There's stuff out here that you people with X chromosomes can handle but us Ys can't. This is definitely one of them."

  That evening started out on an annoying note. There was a disturbance at a house just off Franklin near Bronson Avenue where there had been any number of disturbances in recent years. A Goth family who played their role to the hilt occupied an old two-story house. Every family member, including children under the age of ten, was always clothed in black. And their parents, a pair of scarecrows in their late forties, usually wore theatrical makeup with their hair dyed black, parted in the middle, and combed down to their shoulders. It was said that the wife had a trust account that provided the money for the spooky games they played, as well as for their toys and exhibits. The cops referred to them as Mr. Goth and Mrs. Goth.

  In their large living room were three coffins and an antique embalming table. In two of the coffins there were mannequins that popped up and scared the hell out of anyone who had never been to the house before. The Goths had drug parties in that living room, which detectives had tried unsuccessfully to infiltrate. The couple would probably be chosen as the area's most despised householders by the cops at Hollywood Station because they were Addams Family wannabes. And in their efforts to be "authentic Goths," they sometimes invited what they considered to be interesting party guests to their home, who often ended up being more than troublesome to their hosts.

  Six-X-Sixty-six was called to the Goth residence just after midnight, and Mrs. Goth was waiting on the sidewalk in front. She was in her Morticia costume: a straight, black, floor-length, formfitting gown with a neckline plunging almost to her naval. Her lashes were an inch long and her eye shadow was so black and heavy, it looked like patches of corduroy.

  Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo followed her into the residence, and Snuffy paused to gape at the coffins with mannequins lying in repose. The candelabras, which contained not wax candles but electric fixtures, were lit, and baskets of plastic flowers surrounded the coffins. The antique embalming table was in a spotlight and made to look like a medical surgery in Victorian times, and the sound of an organ playing a funereal dirge was coming from stereo speakers in the walls.

  Mrs. Goth said to them, "One of our guests won't leave and go home. We don't really know him very well. He's a friend of a friend, and, well, he's a bit frightening."

  Hollywood Nate, who had twice been called to the Goth house for similar disturbances and thought they were about the lamest of Hollywood's present crop of attention getters, said, "Upstaging you, is he? When you're supposed to be the weird and scary ones."

  Mrs. Goth was trying to decide how to respond to that impertinence when Snuffy Salcedo said, "Did you tell him to go home?"

  "A dozen times," she said. "He's a very difficult and very strange man."

  They could hear a television going, and Snuffy said, "What's he doing in there?"

  "Watching porn," she said.

  Hollywood Nate asked, "Where'd he get it?"

  "My husband gave it to him," she said. "A mistake. My husband sometimes gets enthusiastic when he's with barbarians, and he tends to indulge them."

  "Where's your husband?" Snuffy asked.

  "With our children."

  "In the house?"

  "No, he took them for a hamburger until it's over. He always leaves me to deal with the party detritus."

  "Until what's over?" Snuffy Salcedo asked.

  "Whatever happens between you and him," she said. "He claims his name is Rolf Thunder. That's all I know."

  "Let's have a look at your barbarian," Snuffy said.

  Mrs. Goth just gestured down a darkened hallway.

  Snuffy Salcedo led the way to a lighted sitting room and quietly pushed the door open a few inches to take a peek inside. Rolf Thunder sat in a La-Z-Boy recliner in the lamp-lit room eating potato chips and watching porn. They could hear the heavy breathing and orgasmic moans coming from the video. One hand was holding an object on his lap.

  Snuffy Salcedo came back into the corridor and said to Mrs. Goth, "What's that on his lap?"

  "A penis pump," she said.

  "Where did he get it?" Nate asked.

  "My husband lent it to him," she said. "We didn't know he'd fall in love with it and decide to spend the night playing with it."

  Snuffy Salcedo turned to Nate, who had not yet had a look at Rolf Thunder, and said, "Let's get some backup here."

  "Any particular reason I should know about?" Nate said.

  "About two hundred eighty of them," Snuffy said. "That's about how many pounds he weighs. And I'd guess it's spread over about six and a half feet of very large and heavy bones. And on his shoulder he's got some White Power jailhouse tatts, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't like Mexicans. And he won't like Jews either, so hide your nameplate."

  Nate said, "Are you sure we'll need backup? He's only one guy."

  Snuffy said, "Partner, I got a real bad feeling about this one. He's only slightly smaller than a bulldozer and he's ready to tear things down. Take my word for it. I'm older and wiser than you."

  Hollywood Nate walked back to the living room with Snuffy to make the backup request on his rover. Like all male cops with sufficient machismo, Hollywood Nate was reluctant to request code 2 assistance, and only once or twice in his entire career had he resorted to a code 3 "officers need help" request. He just spoke into the rover and subtly requested "a unit to assist" at the Goth family address.

  He got two units: 6-X-46, with Della Ravelle and Britney Small, and 6-X-32, with Flotsam and Jetsam. Mrs. Goth walked to the street to meet the arriving radio cars, and she looked decidedly uncomfortable to see Flotsam and Jetsam get out of their blackand-white. They had been called to the Goth house on other occasions.

  "Dude, I truly hate these Goth show-offs," Flotsam said to Jetsam. "They are mega-phony."

  When the surfer cops entered the living room of the house, Snuffy said to them, "I got a bad vibe going here. An acquaintance of this lady and her husband does not want to leave their premises and I think he ain't gonna listen to reason."

  "Have you talked to him yet?" Flotsam asked.

  "Not yet," Snuffy Salcedo said.

  "Why not?" Jetsam asked.

  "He's busy pumping his penis," Snuffy Salcedo said. "I figured it's best to wait till he's finished."

  "What?" said Flotsam.

  Just then Della Ravelle and Britney Small entered the house to join the other cops, and Snuffy said to them, "I'm glad to see you have your regular batons with you and not those cheesey expandable ones. I would prefer we had Louisville sluggers for this gig. I suggest you be ready with Tasers and pepper spray. And an M-sixteen if you got one."

  "Who're we evicting this time?" Della asked. "King Kong?"

  "Pretty close," Snuffy Salcedo said. "If King Kong was a skinhead with jailhouse swastikas on his twenty-two-inch neck and a pentagram inked on the side of hi
s shaved melon. And if King Kong liked penis pumps."

  "What?" Britney Small said.

  "Do you want us to try talking to him first?" Della asked. "The woman's touch?"

  "It's our call to handle," Hollywood Nate said. "We wanted backup just in case."

  Snuffy Salcedo led the way to the sitting room, followed by Hollywood Nate, with the other four midwatch cops standing outside in the corridor near the living room.

  Snuffy pushed open the door and saw that nothing had changed. Rolf Thunder was still watching porn and still wearing the penis pump. He looked to be in his late forties, about the same age as Snuffy Salcedo.

  He didn't look up until Snuffy said, "Mr. Thunder, we need to talk."

  Only then did the man glance at Snuffy with unfocused brown eyes, and Snuffy could plainly see that the guy was fried, probably on crystal or some other lowlife drug. Rolf Thunder didn't say anything to Snuffy but just went back to watching the porn video.

  Hollywood Nate stepped in behind Snuffy and said, "Dude, you're gonna have to get up and leave here, so you might as well understand that. You got any ID?"

  Finally, Rolf Thunder spoke without looking at Nate, saying, "Yeah, do you?"

  "I'm wearing mine," Nate said.

  Rolf Thunder then looked at both cops and smirked. "Are you bad cop?" he said to Nate. "And what's little homeboy, good cop? Do you two make tamales after work and sleep together or what?"

  When he grinned, they saw at least three teeth missing from his upper grille. The man had a simian brow and flaring nostrils exposing what looked like a nose full of steel wool. His jaw was massive and square with a bulldog underbite, and he looked like he could chew through handcuff links. Flotsam and Jetsam stood in the doorway so the giant could clearly see how badly he was outnumbered.

  Rolf Thunder looked at the surfer cops and said, "Oh, so you brought a couple of the other girls along. I like blond candy. We woulda had fun with them up at Corcoran."

  "Yeah, we get it that you're a badass ex-con," Snuffy said, "so don't even go there."