the New Centurions (1971)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Kilvinsky drove slowly enough for Gus to read the signs in the windows of the drugstores and neighborhood markets, which advertised hair straighteners, skin brighteners, scalp conditioner, pressing oil, waxes and pomades. Kilvinsky pointed to a large crudely lettered whitewashed warning on a board fence which said, "Bab bog," and Gus noticed the professional lettering on the pool hall window which said, "Billard Parler." Kilvinsky parked in front of the pool hall, telling Gus he had something to show him.

  The pool hall, which Gus supposed would be empty at the dinner hour, was teeming with men and a few women, all Negro except for two of the three women who slouched at a table near the small room at the rear of the building. Gus noticed one of the women, a middle-aged woman with hair like flames, scurried into the back room as soon as she spotted them. The pool players ignored them and continued the nine ball contests.

  "Probably a little dice game going in the back," said Kilvinsky as Gus eagerly studied everything about the place, the floor caked with grime, six threadbare pool tables, two dozen men sitting or standing against the walls, the blaring record player being overseen by a pudgy cigar chewer in a blue silk undershirt, the smell of stale sweat and beer, for which there was no license, cigarette smoke, and through it all a good barbecue smell. Gus knew by the smell that whatever else they were doing in the back room, somebody was cooking, and that seemed very strange somehow. The three women were all fiftyish and very alcoholic-looking, the Negro being the slimmest and cleanest-looking of the three although she too was foul enough, Gus thought.

  "A shine parlor or pool hall down here is the last stop for a white whore," said Kilvinsky following Gus's eyes. "There's what I brought you in here to see." Kilvinsky pointed at a sign high on the wall over the door which led to the back room. The sign read, "No liquor or narcotics allowed."

  Gus was relieved to get back in the air, and he inhaled deeply. Kilvinsky resumed patrol and Gus was already starting to know the voices of the female Communications operators, particularly the one with the deep young voice on frequency thirteen, who would occasionally whisper "Hi" into the mike or "roger" in coy response to the policemen's voices he could not hear. It had been a surprise to him that the radios were two-way radios and not three-way, but it was just as well, he thought, because the jumble of women's voices was hard enough to understand without more voices from all the radio cars being thrown in.

  "I'll wait till dark to show you Western Avenue," said Kilvinsky and now Gus could definitely feel the refreshing coolness of approaching night although it was far from dark.

  "What's on Western Avenue?"

  "Whores. Of course there're whores all over this part of town, but Western is the whore center of the city. They're all over the street."

  "Don't we arrest them?"

  "_We__ don't. What would we arrest them for? Walking the street? Just _being__ whores? No crime in that. Vice officers arrest them when they tail them to their trick pad, or when they operate the girl undercover and get an offer of prostitution."

  "I wonder what working vice would be like?" Gus mused aloud.

  "You might get a chance to find out someday," Kilvinsky said. "You're kind of small and... oh, a little more docile than the average pushy cop. I think you'd be a good undercover operator. You don't look like a policeman."

  Gus thought of being here in the streets in plainclothes, perhaps without a partner, and he was glad such assignments were voluntary. He watched a very dark-skinned homosexual mincing across Vernon Avenue when the light turned green.

  "Hope we don't lose our masquerading laws," said Kilvinsky.

  "What's that?"

  "City ordinance against a man dressing up like a woman or vice versa. Keeps the fruits from going around full drag and causing all sorts of police problems. I got a feeling though that that's another law on the way out. Better write that address down."

  "What address?"

  "We just got a call."

  "We did? Where?" asked Gus, turning the radio louder and readying his pencil.

  "Three-A-Ninety-nine, repeat," said Kilvinsky.

  "Three-A-Ninety-nine, Three-A-Ninety-nine, a forgery suspect there now, at Forty-one-thirty-two south Broadway, see the man at that location, code two."

  "Three-A-Ninety-nine, roger," said Gus, rubbing his palms on his thighs impatiently, and wondering why Kilvinsky didn't drive a bit faster. After all, it was a code two call.

  They were only three blocks from the call but when they arrived another car was already parked in the front of the market and Kilvinsky double-parked until Leoni walked out of the store and over to their car.

  "Suspect's a female wino," said Leoni, leaning in the window on Gus's side. "Guy offered her ten bucks to try and pass a hundred and thirty dollar payroll check. Probably a phony, but it looks pretty good. Check writer was used. The bitch said the guy was middle-aged, red shirt, average size. She just met him in a gin mill."

  "Negro?" asked Kilvinsky.

  "What else?"

  "We'll take a look around," Kilvinsky said.

  Kilvinsky circled the block once, studying people and cars. Gus wondered what they were supposed to be looking for because there were less than ten men in the immediate area who were middle-sized and none of them had on a red shirt, but on his second pass around the block, Kilvinsky turned sharply into a drugstore parking lot and zoomed across the alley toward a man who was walking toward the sidewalk. Kilvinsky jammed on the brakes and was on his feet before Gus was certain he was stopping.

  "Just a minute," said Kilvinsky to the man who continued walking. "Hold it, there."

  The man turned and looked quizzically at the two policemen. He wore a brown checkered shirt and a black felt stingy brim with a fat yellow feather. He was neither middle-aged nor of average size, but rather he was in his early thirties, Gus guessed, and was tall and portly.

  "What you want?" asked the man and Gus noticed the deep scar which followed the cheek line and was at first not apparent.

  "Your identification, please," said Kilvinsky.

  "What for?"

  "I'll explain in a minute, but let me see your I. D. first. Something just happened."

  "Oh," sneered the man, "and I'm suspicious, huh? I'm black so that makes me suspicious, huh? Black man is just ol' Joe Lunchmeat to you, huh?"

  "Look around you," Kilvinsky said, taking a giant stride forward, "you see anybody that ain't black except my partner and me? Now I picked you cause I got a motherfuckin' good reason. Break out that I. D. cause we ain't got time for shuckin'."

  "Okay, Officer," said the man, "I ain't got nothin' to hide, it just that the PO-lice is always fuckin' over me ever' time I goes outside and I'm a workin' man. I works ever' day."

  Kilvinsky examined the social security card and Gus thought how Kilvinsky had talked to the man. His rage was profound and with his size it had cowed the Negro, and Kilvinsky had talked like a Negro, exactly like a Negro, Gus thought.

  "This I. D. ain't shit, man," said Kilvinsky. "Got something with your thumb print or a picture on it? Got a driver's license maybe?"

  "What I need a drivin' license fo'? I ain't drivin'."

  "What you been busted for?"

  "Gamblin', traffic tickets, suspicious, a time or two."

  "Forgery?"

  "No, man."

  "Flim flam?"

  "No, man. I gambles a little bit, I ain't no criminal, no jive."

  "Yeah, you jivin'," said Kilvinsky. "Your mouth is dry; you're lickin' your lips."

  "Sheee-it, man, when the bluesuits stops me, I always gets nervous."

  "Your heart is hammerin'," said Kilvinsky, placing a hand on the man's chest. "What's your real name?"

  "Gandy. Woodrow Gandy. Just like it say on that card," said the man who now was obviously nervous. He shuffled his feet and could not control the darting pink tongue which moistened brown lips every few seconds.

  "Hop in the car, Gandy," said Kilvinsky. "There's an old drunk across the street. I want her to take a
look at you."

  "Ohooo man, this is a roust!" said Gandy as Kilvinsky patted him down. "This is a humbug and a roust!"

  Gus noticed that Gandy knew which side of the police car to sit in, and Gus sat behind Kilvinsky and reached across locking the door on Gandy's side.

  They drove back to the bank and found Leoni sitting in his radio car with a frazzled bleary-eyed Negro woman about forty who peeked out the window of Leoni's car toward Gandy when Kilvinsky pulled alongside.

  "That's him. That the nigger that got me in all this trouble!" she shrieked, and then to Gandy she said, "Yeah, you, you bastard, standin' there finger poppin' and talkin' so smart to ever'one and tell me how easy I could earn ten dollars and how smart you was and all, you black son of a bitch. That's the one, Officer, I done told you I would be yo' witness and I means it, no jive. I tol' you he had a big flappy mouf like Cheetah. He the one all right. If I'm lyin, I'm flyin'."

  Gandy turned away from the drunken woman and Gus was embarrassed by her words, but Gandy seemed completely unconcerned and Gus was astonished at how they degraded one another. He guessed they learned from the white man.

  It was after nine o'clock when they finally got Gandy in the booking office of University jail. It was an antiquated jail and looked like a dungeon. Gus wondered what the cells were like. He wondered why they didn't take Gandy's shoelaces like they do in movies, but he remembered hearing a policeman in the academy saying that you can't stop a man from committing suicide who really wants to and then he described the death of the prisoner who tied strips of a pillowcase around his neck and then to the barred door. The man did a backflip, breaking his neck, and the officer quipped that deaths in jail caused tons of paper work and were very inconsiderate on the part of the deceased. Of course everybody laughed as policemen always did at grim humor and attempts at humor.

  Over the booking officer's desk was a sign which read, "Support your local police. Be a snitch," and a toy spear perhaps three feet long decorated with African symbols and colorful feathers. It had a rubber blade and a sign over it said, "Search your prisoners thoroughly." Gus wondered if the Negro policemen were offended by this and for the first time in his life he was becoming acutely aware of Negroes in general, and he guessed he would become even more so because he would now spend most of his waking hours here among them. He wasn't sorry, he was interested, but he was also afraid of them. But then, he would probably be almost as fearful of any people no matter where he was stationed, and then he thought, what if Gandy had resisted arrest and what if Kilvinsky were not with him. Could he have handled a man like Gandy?

  As the booking officer typed, Gus thought of Gus, Jr., three years old, and how chesty he was. Gus knew he would be a big husky boy. Already he could throw a man-sized basketball halfway across the living room and this was their favorite toy even though they broke one of Vickie's new decanters with it. Gus clearly remembered his own father's rough and tumble play although he never saw him again after the divorce, and how they had played. He remembered the moustache with wisps of gray among the brown and the big dry hard hands which tossed him confidently and surely into the air until he could hardly breathe for the laughter. He described this to his mother once when he was twelve, and old enough to see how miserably sad it made her. He never mentioned his father again and tried to be more helpful to his mother than ever because he was four years older than John and was his mother's little man she said. Gus guessed he was fiercely proud of the fact that he had worked since he was a small boy to help support the three of them. Now the pride was gone and it was a genuine hardship to set aside fifty dollars a month for her and John, now that he and Vickie were married and he had his own family.

  "Ready to go, pard?" asked Kilvinsky.

  "Oh, sure."

  "Daydreaming?"

  "Yeah."

  "Let's go eat now, and do the arrest report later."

  "Okay," said Gus, brightening at the thought. "You aren't too mad to eat, are you?"

  "Mad?"

  "For a minute I thought you were going to eat that suspect alive."

  "I wasn't mad," said Kilvinsky, looking at Gus in surprise as they walked to the car. "That was just my act. Change the words once in a while, but I use the same tune. Don't they teach you about interrogation in the academy anymore?"

  "I thought you were blowing your top."

  "Hell, no. I just figured he was the type who only respected naked strength, not civility. You can't use that technique on everybody. In fact, if you try it on some guys you might find yourself on your back looking up. But I figured he'd quiet down if I talked his language, so I did. You have to size up each suspect fast and make up your mind how you're going to talk to him."

  "Oh," said Gus. "But how did you know he was the suspect? He didn't look like her description. His shirt wasn't even red."

  "How did I know," Kilvinsky murmured. "Let's see. You haven't been to court yet, have you?"

  "No."

  "Well, you'll have to start answering the question 'How did you know?' I don't honestly know how I knew. But I knew. At least I was pretty sure. The shirt wasn't red, but it wasn't green either. It was a color that could be called red by a fuzzy-eyed drunk. It was a rusty brown. And Gandy was standing a little too casually there in the parking lot. He was too cool and he gave me too much of an 'I got nothing to hide' look when I was driving by and eyeballing everybody that could possibly be the guy. And when I came back around he had moved to the other side of the lot. He was still moving when I turned the corner but when he sees us he stops to show us he's not walking away. He's got nothing to hide. I know this means nothing by itself, but these are some of the little things. I just _knew__, I tell you."

  "Instinct?"

  "I think so. But I wouldn't say that in court."

  "Will you have trouble in court with this case?"

  "Oh no. This isn't a search and seizure case. If we had a search and seizure case going, that feeling and those little things he did wouldn't be enough. We'd lose. Unless we stretched the truth."

  "Do you stretch the truth sometimes?"

  "I don't. I don't care enough about people in general to get emotionally involved. I don't give a shit if I busted Jack the Ripper and lost him on an unreasonable search. As long as the asshole stays off _my__ property, I don't worry about it. Some policemen become avenging angels. They have a real animal who's hurt a lot of people and they decide they have to convict him even if it means lying in court, but I say it's not worth it. The public isn't worth your risking a perjury rap. And he'll be back on the street before long anyway. Stay frosty. Relax. That's the way to do this job. You can beat it then. You take your forty percent after twenty years, and your family, if you still have one, and you make it. Go to Oregon or Montana."

  "Do you have a family?"

  "I'm single now. This job isn't conducive to stable family relationships, the marriage counselors say. I think we're near the top in suicide rate."

  "I hope I can do this job," Gus blurted, surprised at the desperate tone in his own voice.

  "Police work is seventy percent common sense. That's about what makes a policeman, common sense, and the ability to make a quick decision. You've got to cultivate those abilities or get out. You'll learn to appreciate this in your fellow policemen. Pretty soon, you won't be able to feel the same way about your friends in the lodge or church or in your neighborhood because they won't measure up to policemen in these ways. You'll be able to come up with a quick solution for _any__ kind of strange situation because you have to do it every day, and you'll get mad as hell at your old friends if they can't."

  Gus noticed that now that night had come, the streets were filling with people, black people, and the building fronts shone forth. It seemed that every block had at least one bar or liquor store and all the liquor store proprietors were white men. It seemed to Gus that now you didn't notice the churches, only the bars and liquor stores and places where crowds of people were standing around. He saw boisterous crowds ar
ound hamburger stands, liquor stores, certain porches of certain apartment houses, parking lots, shine stands, record stores, and a suspicious place whose windows advertised that this was a "Social Club." Gus noticed the peephole in the door and he wished that he could be inside there unnoticed, and his curiosity was stronger than his fear.

  "How about some soul food, brother?" asked Kilvinsky with a Negro accent as he parked in front of the neat lunch counter on Normandie.

  "I'll try anything," Gus smiled.

  "Fat Jack makes the best gumbo in town. Lots of shrimp and crab meat and chicken and okra, easy on the rice and lots of down home flavor. Real Looos-iana gumbo."

  "You from the South?"

  "No, I just appreciate the cooking," Kilvinsky said, and held the door as they entered the restaurant. Soon they were served the huge bowl of gumbo and Gus liked the way Fat Jack said, "They was full of shrimps tonight." He poured some hot sauce on the gumbo as Kilvinsky did even though it was tangy enough, but it was delicious, even the chopped-up chicken necks and the crab claws which had to be picked and sucked clean. Kilvinsky poured more ladles of hot sauce over the spicy gruel and ate half a pan of corn bread. But it was spoiled a little because they each left a quarter tip for the waitress and that was all, and Gus felt guilty to accept a gratuity and he wondered how he would explain it to a sergeant. He wondered if Fat Jack and the waitresses called them freeloaders behind their backs.

  At 11:00 P.M. while cruising the dark residential streets north of Slauson Avenue, Kilvinsky said, "You ready to go work the whore wagon?"

  "The what?"

  "I asked the sergeant if we could take the wagon out tonight to roust the whores and he said it'd be okay if the air was quiet and I haven't heard a radio call in University Division for a half hour, so let's go in and get the wagon. I think you might find it educational."

  "There don't seem to be too many whores around," said Gus. "There were those two at Vernon and Broadway you pointed out and one on Fifty-eighth, but..."