And the very next call of the night did nothing to change Spermwhale’s mind.
“Think I’ll go see my ex-wife tomorrow,” Spermwhale said to Baxter who had just suggested taking code seven at the half price restaurant north of Wilshire on Western.
“Which one?” asked Baxter.
“The second ex-wife,” Spermwhale said. “I like her best in some ways. She had the most balls. Took every dime I had. I like to see her once in a while and visit my ex-dog and my ex-car.”
“She still give you a little?”
“Wouldn’t want it. Her ass is so big she has to sit down in shifts. And she’s as old as runnin water. I like them young animals like Carolina Moon. Her fat’s all smooth and bouncy. I like em with enough strength to fight!”
“Gonna have to call a choir practice one of these nights,” said Baxter Slate, as the Regretful Rapist was pulling a black woman out of her Ford sedan just two blocks ahead and trying to drag her off behind a large trash dumpster in the darkness.
She screamed at two men passing by who just kept walking, observing the golden rule of city dwellers: Do unto others if you want to risk getting your fucking head blown off.
“I’m getting awfully hungry” Baxter Slate said as the Regretful Rapist was discovering that the black woman was almost as strong as he and was not going to submit, knife or no knife. The rapist was furiously trying to find the dagger she had knocked from his hand to plunge it into her throat.
“You know, there’s somethin about Nick Yanov reminds me a my youngest kid,” Spermwhale said as he lit a fresh cigar and Baxter glided slowly around the traffic consisting of diners looking for parking off La Cienega’s Restaurant Row, to avoid tipping valet parking lot attendants.
“Your kid isn’t that old,” Baxter said.
“No,” said Spermwhale, “but he just looks somethin like Yanov. You know, I’m afraid he’s gonna get in trouble like the others. Last time he came to see me he wouldn’t even accept some clothes I bought him. Only wants to hang around Venice Beach with the hippies. Don’t even want some clean underwear. You see, he can’t stand ownin anything. He only wants the clothes on his back. Can’t even stand the responsibility of changin his skivvies. I’m afraid if he ever went to jail and had someone make all his decisions for him, he might like it.”
Baxter Slate tried to think of something to change the subject because he didn’t want Spermwhale to start thinking of the oldest boy.
And the Regretful Rapist, not a bit regretful at the moment, grabbed the black woman by the throat and almost choked the life out of her before she succeeded in burying her teeth in his bicep and squirming free just long enough to manage a chilling scream which was nearly her very last.
“Jesus Christ, what was that?” Spermwhale jerked upright in his seat and grabbed the flashlight as Baxter wheeled the car around and screeched into the darkened parking lot, catching the screaming woman and the raging rapist full in the headlight beams as they fought on the ground.
Then Spermwhale, moving like a younger, slimmer man, was out of the car before it stopped, chasing the fleeing rapist across the parking lot shouting, “Stop, you motherfucker, or you’re maggot meat!”
Baxter Slate, finally getting his flashlight to work by banging it on his hip as he ran, caught up with Spermwhale who was standing motionless and aiming two handed at a running shadow eighty feet away. Then there were three explosions in Baxter’s ear and the Regretful Rapist dropped to the asphalt shrieking in terror from a slight wound which entered his lower back, broke two ribs, ricocheted around the rib cage, following the path of least resistance, and exited in the front, causing, aside from the broken ribs, little more than a flesh wound. And this caused Roscoe Rules at the next afternoon’s rollcall to scream loudly for the hundredth time that they should be permitted to carry dumdums and high velocity ammo.
When the two policemen got to the wounded suspect and stood over him, he shook his mop of sweaty hair out of his face and yelled in panic and shock, “You shot me in the back, you chickenshit!”
Spermwhale, panting heavily from excitement and exhaustion, yelled back, “There ain’t no rules out here, you cock-sucker! The Marquis of Queensberry’s just some fag over on Eighth Street!”
And the Regretful Rapist was caught. Spermwhale Whalen and Baxter Slate each received a Class A commendation which was worth exactly nothing in terms of promotion, prestige or economic remuneration. They both offered to trade it for the four days’ pay which had been taken away for accepting the imprudent avocados, but the watch commander told them he didn’t think that was very funny.
Perhaps Spermwhale Whalen’s greatest contribution was the rapport he established with the rapist in the five hours they were together at the emergency hospital, the detective bureau and finally the General Hospital jail ward where they booked him.
It started when Spermwhale bought two candy bars for himself and his starving partner and discovered that he had punched the wrong button and got one full of caramel which he never ate because it stuck to his partial plate.
“Here, want some candy?” he asked the rapist as the young man was sitting handcuffed to a chair in the emergency ward.
“Thanks,” the rapist said, and Spermwhale noticed that his eyes were glassy and shining from tears, and though he had refused to speak to detectives, the fat policeman said, “Pretty good candy, ain’t it? You like candy?”
“It’s okay,” the rapist said, his large blue eyes moving around the room.
Then Spermwhale said, “I did you a favor by shootin you.”
The rapist turned, wiped his face on the shoulder of his torn jacket and said, “How’s that?”
“You woulda been booked in an LAPD jail. We wake our prisoners up at five A.M. and serve them meals of red death, Gainesburgers and donkey dicks. This way you’re gonna be in the hospital jail ward and then in the county jail when you heal up. Chow’s a hundred percent better. Same with the bed and cell. I did you a favor.”
“Thanks.”
“You know, I don’t blame you for what you done. I get the urge sometimes myself. Ugly guy like me and all the pussy around just teasin a guy with this no bra stuff and tight pants. Shit, they ask for it.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. We all got our bad habits. Hell, I can’t quit smokin and drinkin, how can I criticize you?”
The Regretful Rapist smiled at the fat policeman and eventually accepted two more candy bars with caramel and almonds and confessed to more than thirty rapes, including twelve which had never been reported to the police but were verified through a detective follow-up.
Spermwhale Whalen was given his usual subpar score the very next time he went before a board on a promotional exam. He had for years been wasting his off-duty time flying 200,000 pounds of mechanized and human cargo for his country instead of taking police science classes at night school.
As Captain Drobeck said at a private staff meeting, who in the hell wants supervisors and executives who were only good for flying airplanes and catching dangerous crooks like the Regretful Rapist? Besides, Spermwhale Whalen was unpolished and fat and had ridiculous feet. He wore a wide triple E shoe but his feet were an abnormally short size 7 1/2. It looked like he was walking on waffles.
NINE
TOMMY RIVERS
Kudos to Roscoe Rules!” Sergeant Nick Yanov announced at rollcall on the night Baxter Slate shot the ordinary guy. “Roscoe just had his annual physical, and the medical report here says his Phthirius pubis count is very low this year. I looked that up and it means body crabs.”
After the nightwatch stopped applauding the scowling Roscoe Rules, Lieutenant Finque tried to get everyone in really good spirits by showing them photos he had borrowed from homicide detectives of the monstrously bloody corpse of Nathan Zelinski, a seventy-two year old janitor who had been stomped to death by two sixteen year old boys during a burglary at a junior high school three years earlier.
“Drove his nose bones right do
wn his throat,” Lieutenant Finque said. “Old man actually drowned on his own blood. Took him almost forty-five minutes to die. According to their confessions they kept coming over and looking at him every once in a while.”
“They have a fascination for such things,” Baxter Slate whispered to no one in particular.
“Who?” Spermwhale asked.
“Kids.”
“Reason I showed you,” the lieutenant continued, “is that the second boy was just released from camp and is back in our division. The first got out four months ago.”
And while the nightwatch passed the pictures around and cursed the courts and penal authorities and their lot in general, Sergeant Nick Yanov asked under his breath, “Lieutenant, did you have to do this?”
“Of course,” the lieutenant answered. “I want them to know what kind of idiots we have to fight within the system.”
“Don’t you think they know? Why keep reminding them they’re shoveling shit against the tide? Why?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Lieutenant Finque said.
But they never did. On Nick Yanov’s next rating report Lieutenant Finque wrote, “Sergeant Yanov needs a lot of seasoning before he can hope to be a top supervisor. Lacks maturity.”
And to continue to show Sergeant Yanov who was boss, Lieutenant Finque said to the assembly, “Oh, and by the way, did you hear about the other young kids the Youth Opportunity folks placed at General Hospital for summer employment. They had lengthy drug records so they put them in the pharmacy washing bottles. You can guess the rest. And a couple of things we discussed at the supervisors’ meeting,” the lieutenant went on, now that he was getting warmed up. “We have some local businessmen who make frequent burglary and theft reports and don’t want uniformed officers coming in the front door to take reports. Gives the place a bad name.”
The lieutenant smiled smugly when he heard the roar this tidbit aroused. “Of course the captain gave them what for. You would’ve been proud of him.”
“I always knew he was behind us,” said Spermwhale Whalen. “I felt him there many times.”
The lieutenant didn’t know how to interpret Spermwhale’s observation so he continued with the good news. “And you can all just quit grousing about how long you have to wait in court until your case is called. I’ve talked it over with the captain and he talked it over with the commander and he talked it over with the deputy chief…”
“And he talked it over with Dear Abby who’s runnin this fuckin department,” said Spermwhale Whalen.
“And he talked it over with his counterpart at the courts,” said Lieutenant Finque ignoring the laughter. “Private counsel simply has priority at court trials over defendants with public defenders.”
“Yeah,” Spermwhale said, “most a the people we bust have public defenders who don’t have to get out quick to make a few more bucks from some other client, so us cops and our civilian witnesses and victims have to cool our heels while these black-robed pussies take care a their fuckin fraternity brothers. If they ain’t got a monopoly I don’t know who does. Who worries about cops?”
“Who worries about victims?” Baxter Slate observed.
“Them too,” Spermwhale nodded.
“Well, it’s good to get these things off our chests at roll-call,” Lieutenant Finque said jauntily now that he had turned twenty-eight cheerful men into seething blue avengers. Then Lieutenant Finque said, “Sergeant Yanov’s going to hold a gun inspection while I keep an appointment with the captain. There’ve been some dirty guns in recent inspections and the captain says he’s going to start coming down hard on you men. You may not appreciate it but you work a damned good division. Even the people we serve are the best. Our citizens show a great interest in the Basic Car Plan meetings and they purchase lots of whistles.”
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Spermwhale said. “Is it true the station buys those whistles for seven cents?”
“I don’t know the details,” said Lieutenant Finque.
“That’s a forty-three cent profit on each whistle,” said Spermwhale.
“I don’t know the details.”
“Jesus, we musta made thousands a bucks with this caper,” Spermwhale observed.
“I don’t know, but it’s for our Youth Services Fund so it’s a worthy cause.”
“Is is true there’s some civilian whistle maker flyin all over the goddamn country tryin to sell the idea to other departments?”
“I’m not familiar.”
“What a scam. You gotta hand it to some a the eunuchs in this department. Once in a while they come up with an idea. Why didn’t I think a that? I coulda made enough in one year to pay off all my ex-wives!”
“Enough on whistles,” Lieutenant Finque smiled nervously since he was the eunuch who thought of it or at least who stole the idea from the senile old lady who thought crime could be stamped out if there were thousands of other old ladies running around blowing whistles at bad guys.
“Maybe I could get in on the action, Lieutenant,” Spermwhale persisted. “I got this idea for sellin one to every broad in the city. See, we design a whistle shaped like a cock and the part you hold is shaped like a pair a balls with two LAPD badges pinned to them. Our sales motto could be ‘Blow for your local policeman.’”
“It might work, Lieutenant!” cried Francis Tanaguchi.
“That’s a swell idea, Spermwhale!” cried Spencer Van Moot.
“I know a guy could design the whistles!” cried Harold Bloomguard.
Lieutenant Finque felt like crying. It always happened like this. He’d discuss a serious subject with the men and they’d end up making fun of him. Supervisor or not, he would have given anything to punch Spermwhale Whalen right in his big, red, scarred up nose. And he’d have done it too if he weren’t petrified of the fat policeman and if he weren’t absolutely sure Spermwhale would break his back.
“I think you better hurry if you’re going to make your appointment,” Sergeant Yanov suggested, to save his superior officer from further trauma.
But before Lieutenant Finque walked out the door he said, “I’ll tell you men one thing. Because of our whistles we’ve developed excellent rapport with the people we serve. If you should get in a fight with a suspect out there on these streets you don’t have to worry. Our good people won’t stand by and let you get kicked in the head!”
“No, they’ll cut it off and shrink it,” Roscoe Rules said dryly as Lieutenant Finque exited trembling.
Sergeant Yanov tried to make the gun inspection palatable by taking Harold Bloomguard’s gun, looking down the barrel and saying, “Kee-rist, Harold, when was the last time you cleaned this thing? There’s a spider been down there so long he has three hash marks on his sleeve.”
Baxter Slate was one of three college graduates among the choirboys, the others being Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard, both of whom obtained degrees while police officers. Two of the others were upperclassmen in part time studies, and all but Spermwhale Whalen had some college units. Baxter Slate not only had his baccalaureate in the classics, but had been a graduate student and honors candidate when he dropped out of college in disgust and impulsively joined the Los Angeles Police Department five years earlier. He was an unusually handsome young man, almost twenty-seven years old. He lived alone in a one bedroom apartment. He had no plans for marrying and no ambition to advance in rank. He said he liked working uniform patrol, that it gave him a chance to live more intensely, that sometimes he seemed to live a week or a month in a single night.
Whereas Calvin Potts read every new book in the police library which he thought might help him pass the coming sergeant’s examination, Baxter Slate read no books in the police library since they invariably dealt with law, crime and police. Though Baxter Slate enjoyed doing police work he hated reading about it. And though Baxter Slate firmly believed that his extensive education in the classics had been the most colossal waste of money his mother had ever squandered and that his degree would never at any time in his l
ife be worth more than the surprisingly cheap paper it was printed on, he nevertheless could not break old habits. He would occasionally for the fun of it, struggle with Virgil and Pliny the Elder to see if he could apply their admonitions to the sensual, self-contained, alcoholic microcosm of choir practice which to Baxter Slate made more sense than the larger world outside.
Most of the choirboys had worked with Baxter as a partner at one time or another. He had been in the division three years and had worked Juvenile for nine months until he discovered he was a lousy Juvenile officer. Baxter thought he was also a lousy patrol officer. No one else said that Baxter was a lousy anything, except Roscoe Rules, who disliked Baxter for having ideas which confused Roscoe. At choir practice Roscoe often drunkenly accused Baxter of using ten dollar words just to show off in front of Ora Lee Tingle who was so bombed out on gin and vodka she wouldn’t have known the difference if Baxter had spoken Latin. And as a matter of fact, Baxter could tell dirty jokes in Latin which amused the choirboys except for Roscoe.
“You and your faggy big words,” Roscoe shouted one night as he soaked his feet in the MacArthur Park duck pond, watching warily that the ducks did not swim by and attack his toes.
“Baxter don’t use big words,” Spermwhale Whalen said, looking as though he would like to pulverize Roscoe Rules, who feared and hated Spermwhale even more than he feared and hated the little ducks.
The Choirboys Page 16
