The Blue Knight
Joseph Wambaugh
He's big and brash. His beat is the underbelly of Los Angeles vice-a world of pimps, pushers, winos, whores and killers. He lives each day his way-on the razor's edge of life. He was a damn good cop and LAPD detective. For fifteen years he prowled the streets, solved murders, took his lumps. Now he's the hard hitting, tough talking best selling writer who tells the brutal, true stories of the men who risk their loves every time a siren screams.
Joseph Wambaugh
The Blue Knight
© 1972
To my parents
And to
Upton Birnie Brady
I often remember the rookie days and those who had discovered the allure of the beat. Then I thought them just peculiar old men. Now I wish they were all still here and that they might approve of this book.
WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS
AN APPRECIATION OF JOSEPH WAMBAUGH
THERE IS A BEDROCK TRUTH that resides in the heart of this book. And that is that the best crime stories are not about how cops work on cases. They are about how cases work on cops. They are not about how the cops work the streets. They are about how the streets work the cops. Procedure is window dressing. Character is king.
This is a truth we learn when we read the work of Joseph Wambaugh. No assessment of this novel or the other work of this policeman turned writer can conclude that he is anything other than one of the great innovators of the crime novel. Wambaugh brought the truth with him when he left the police department for the publishing house.
A century after its first inception the crime novel had moved from the hands of Edgar Allan Poe to the practitioners of the private eye novel. More often than not, these tomes told the story of the loner detective who works outside of the system he distrusts and even despises, who must overcome obstacles that often happen to be the corrupted police themselves. It fell to Wambaugh, with his stark and gritty realism, to take the story inside the system to the police station and the patrol car where it truly belonged. To tell the stories of the men who did the real work and risked their lives and their sanity to do it. And to explore a different kind of corruption-the premature cynicism and tarnished nobility of the cop who has looked too often and too long into humanity’s dark abyss.
Wambaugh used the crime novel and the lives of his character cops as the lens with which he examined society. Within the ranks of his police officers he explored the great socio-economic divide of our cities, racism, alcoholism and many other facets of the rapidly changing world. He used cops to make sense of the chaos. And he did it by simply telling their stories. The episodic narrative of this book and those that followed became his signature. And along the way he gave us looks into the lives of characters like Serge Duran, Roy Fehler and Bumper Morgan, full blooded and flawed, and placed them on the sunswept streets of Los Angeles. His first two books, The New Centurions and The Blue Knight, are perfect bookends that offer the full scope of police life and Wambaugh’s power. The former traced three officers through the police academy and their early years on the job. The latter traced a veteran officer’s last three days on the job. No one had ever read books like these before. They were the mark of a true innovator.
It is important to note that Wambaugh wrote his first books while still on the job. The detective sergeant did the real work by day while pounding out the made up stuff at night on a portable Royal typewriter. His family had to sleep through the clatter. The results were uncontested as some of the most vivid police prose ever put on paper. Wambaugh opened up a world to the reader, a world no one outside of those who did the real work had ever seen before. Cop novelist Evan Hunter called it right on the money in the New York Times when he said, “Mr. Wambaugh is, in fact, a writer of genuine power, style, wit, and originality who has chosen to write about police in particular as a means of expressing his views on society in general.”
A hundred years ago the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warned us that whoever fights monsters should take care not to become a monster himself. He reminded us that when we stare into the abyss that the abyss stares right back into us. So then these are the poles that hold up the Wambaugh tent. These are the battle lines that every cop faces and Wambaugh so intimately delineates in this book and others. He writes about how cops shield themselves, medicate themselves and distract themselves from the view of the abyss. Think of it in terms of a physics lesson. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So then if you go into darkness then darkness goes into you. The question is how much darkness has gotten inside and what can be done about it. How can you pull yourself back from the edge of the abyss. In this book, and all of his books, Joseph Wambaugh tells us the answers.
– Michael Connelly
WEDNESDAY, THE FIRST DAY
ONE
THE WHEEL HUMMED and Rollo mumbled Yiddish curses as he put rouge on the glistening bronze surface.
“There ain’t a single blemish on this badge,” he said.
“Sure there is, Rollo,” I said. “Look closer. Between the s in Los and the big A in Angeles. I scratched it on the door of my locker.”
“There ain’t a single blemish on this badge,” said Rollo, but he buffed, and in spite of his bitching I watched bronze change to gold, and chrome become silver. The blue enameled letters which said “Policeman,” and “4207,” jumped out at me.
“Okay, so now are you happy?” he sighed, leaning across the display case, handing me the badge.
“It’s not too bad,” I said, enjoying the heft of the heavy oval shield, polished to a luster that would reflect sunlight like a mirror.
“Business ain’t bad enough, I got to humor a crazy old cop like you.” Rollo scratched his scalp, and the hair, white and stiff, stood like ruffled chicken feathers.
“What’s the matter, you old gonif, afraid some of your burglar friends will see a bluesuit in here and take their hot jewelry to some other crook?”
“Ho, ho! Bob Hope should watch out. When you get through sponging off the taxpayers you’ll go after his job.”
“Well, I’ve gotta go crush some crime. What do I owe you for the lousy badge polishing?”
“Don’t make me laugh, I got a kidney infection. You been free-loading for twenty years, now all of a sudden you want to pay?”
“See you later, Rollo. I’m going over to Seymour’s for breakfast. He appreciates me.”
“Seymour too? I know Jews got to suffer in this world, but not all of us in one day.”
“Good-bye, old shoe.”
“Be careful, Bumper.”
I strolled outside into the burning smog that hung over Main Street. I started to sweat as I stopped to admire Rollo’s work. Most of the ridges had been rounded off long ago, and twenty years of rubbing gave it unbelievable brilliance. Turning the face of the shield to the white sun, I watched the gold and silver take the light. I pinned the badge to my shirt and looked at my reflection in the blue plastic that Rollo has over his front windows. The plastic was rippled and bubbled and my distorted reflection made me a freak. I looked at myself straight on, but still my stomach hung low and made me look like a blue kangaroo, and my ass was two nightsticks wide. My jowls hung to my chest in that awful reflection and my big rosy face and pink nose were a deep veiny blue like the color of my uniform which somehow didn’t change colors in the reflection. It was ugly, but what made me keep looking was the shield. The four-inch oval on my chest glittered and twinkled so that after a second or two I couldn’t even see the blue man behind it. I just stood there staring at that shield for maybe a full minute.
Seymour’s delicatessen is only a half block from Rollo’s jewelry store, but I decided to drive. My black-and-white was parked out front in Rollo’s no parking zo
ne because this downtown traffic is so miserable. If it weren’t for those red curbs there’d be no place to park even a police car. I opened the white door and sat down carefully, the sunlight blasting through the windshield making the seat cushion hurt. I’d been driving the same black-and-white for six months and had worked a nice comfortable dip in the seat, so I rode cozy, like in a worn friendly saddle. It’s really not too hard to loosen up seat springs with two hundred and seventy-five pounds.
I drove to Seymour’s and when I pulled up in front I saw two guys across Fourth Street in the parking lot at the rear of the Pink Dragon. I watched for thirty seconds or so and it looked like they were setting something up, probably a narcotics buy. Even after twenty years I still get that thrill a cop gets at seeing things that are invisible to the square citizen. But what was the use? I could drive down Main Street anytime and see hugger-muggers, paddy hustlers, till-tappers, junkies, and then waste six or eight man-hours staking out on these small-timers and maybe end up with nothing. You only had time to grab the sure ones and just make mental notes of the rest.
The two in the parking lot interested me so I decided to watch them for a minute. They were dumb strung-out hypes. They should’ve made me by now. When I was younger I used to play the truth game. I hardly ever played it anymore. The object of the game is simple: I have to explain to an imaginary blackrobed square (His Honor) how Officer William A. Morgan knows that those men are committing a criminal act. If the judge finds that I didn’t have sufficient probable cause to stop, detain, and search my man, then I lose the game. Illegal search and seizure-case dismissed.
I usually beat the game whether it’s imaginary or for real. My courtroom demeanor is very good, pretty articulate for an old-time copper, they say. And such a simple honest kisser. Big innocent blue eyes. Juries loved me. It’s very hard to explain the “know.” Some guys never master it. Let’s see, I begin, I know they are setting up a buy because of… the clothing. That’s a good start, the clothing. It’s a suffocating day, Your Honor, and the tall one is wearing a long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the cuff. To hide his hype marks, of course. One of them is still wearing his “county shoes.” That tells me he just got out of county jail, and the other one, yes, the other one-you only acquire that frantic pasty look in the joint: San Quentin, Folsom, maybe. He’s been away a long time. And I would find out they’d just been in the Pink Dragon and no one but a whore, hype, pill-head, or other hustler would hang out in that dive. And I’d explain all this to my judge too, but I’d be a little more subtle, and then I’d be stopped. I could explain to my imaginary jurist but never to a real one about the instinct-the stage in this business when, like an animal, you can feel you’ve got one, and it can’t be explained. You feel the truth, and you know. Try telling that to the judge, I thought. Try explaining that, sometime.
Just then a wino lurched across Main Street against the red light and a Lincoln jammed on the binders almost creaming him.
“Goddamnit, come over here,” I yelled when he reached the sidewalk.
“Hi, Bumper,” he croaked, holding the five-sizes-too-big pants around his bony hips, trying his best to look sober as he staggered sideways.
“You almost got killed, Noodles,” I said.
“What’s the difference?” he said, wiping the saliva from his chin with the grimy free hand. The other one gripped the pants so hard the big knuckles showed white through the dirt.
“I don’t care about you but I don’t want any wrecked Lincolns on my beat.”
“Okay, Bumper.”
“I’m gonna have to book you.”
“I’m not that drunk, am I?”
“No, but you’re dying.”
“No crime in that.” He coughed then and the spit that dribbled out the corner of his mouth was red and foamy.
“I’m booking you, Noodles,” I said, mechanically filling in the boxes on the pad of drunk arrest reports that I carried in my hip pocket like I was still walking my beat instead of driving a black-and-white.
“Let’s see, your real name is Ralph M. Milton, right?”
“Millard.”
“Millard,” I muttered, filling in the name. I must’ve busted Noodles a dozen times. I never used to forget names or faces.
“Let’s see, eyes bloodshot, gait staggering, attitude stuporous, address transient…”
“Got a cigarette?”
“I don’t use them, Noodles,” I said, tearing out the copies of the arrest report. “Wait a minute, the nightwatch left a half pack in the glove compartment. Go get them while I’m calling the wagon.”
The wino shuffled to the radio car while I walked fifty feet down the street to a call box, unlocked it with my big brass key, and asked for the B-wagon to come to Fourth and Main. It would’ve been easier to use my car radio to call the wagon, but I walked a beat too many years to learn new habits.
That was something my body did to me, made me lose my foot beat and put me in a black-and-white. An ankle I broke years ago when I was a slick-sleeved rookie chasing a purse snatcher, finally decided it can’t carry my big ass around anymore and swells up every time I’m on my feet a couple of hours. So I lost my foot beat and got a radio car. A one-man foot beat’s the best job in this or any police department. It always amuses policemen to see the movies where the big hood or crooked politician yells, “I’ll have you walking a beat, you dumb flatfoot,” when really it’s a sought-after job. You got to have whiskers to get a foot beat, and you have to be big and good. If only my legs would’ve held out. But even though I couldn’t travel it too much on foot, it was still my beat, all of it. Everyone knew it all belonged to me more than anyone.
“Okay, Noodles, give this arrest report to the cops in the wagon and don’t lose the copies.”
“You’re not coming with me?” He couldn’t shake a cigarette from the pack with one trembling hand.
“No, you just lope on over to the corner and flag ’em down when they drive by. Tell ’em you want to climb aboard.”
“First time I ever arrested myself,” he coughed, as I lit a cigarette for him, and put the rest of the pack and the arrest report in his shirt pocket.
“See you later.”
“I’ll get six months. The judge warned me last time.”
“I hope so, Noodles.”
“I’ll just start boozing again when they let me out. I’ll just get scared and start again. You don’t know what it’s like to be scared at night when you’re alone.”
“How do you know, Noodles?”
“I’ll just come back here and die in an alley. The cats and rats will eat me anyway, Bumper.”
“Get your ass moving or you’ll miss the wagon.” I watched him stagger down Main for a minute and I yelled, “Don’t you believe in miracles?”
He shook his head and I turned back to the guys in the parking lot again just as they disappeared inside the Pink Dragon. Someday, I thought, I’ll kill that dragon and drink its blood.
I was too hungry to do police work, so I went into Seymour’s. I usually like to eat breakfast right after rollcall and here it was ten o’clock and I was still screwing around.
Ruthie was bent over one of the tables scooping up a tip. She was very attractive from the rear and she must’ve caught me admiring her out of the corner of her eye. I suppose a blue man, dark blue in black leather, sets off signals in some people.
“Bumper,” she said, wheeling around. “Where you been all week?”
“Hi, Ruthie,” I said, always embarrassed by how glad she was to see me.
Seymour, a freckled redhead about my age, was putting together a pastrami sandwich behind the meat case. He heard Ruthie call my name and grinned.
“Well, look who’s here. The finest cop money can buy.”
“Just bring me a cold drink, you old shlimazel.”
“Sure, champ.” Seymour gave the pastrami to a takeout customer, made change, and put a cold beer and a frosted glass in front of me. He winked at the well-dressed man who sat
at the counter to my left. The beer wasn’t opened.
“Whadda you want me to do, bite the cap off?” I said, going along with his joke. No one on my beat had ever seen me drink on duty.
Seymour bent over, chuckling. He took the beer away and filled my glass with buttermilk.
“Where you been all week, Bumper?”
“Out there. Making the streets safe for women and babies.”
“Bumper’s here!” he shouted to Henry in the back. That meant five scrambled eggs and twice the lox the paying customers get with an order. It also meant three onion bagels, toasted and oozing with butter and heaped with cream cheese. I don’t eat breakfast at Seymour’s more than once or twice a week, although I knew he’d feed me three free meals every day.
“Young Slagel told me he saw you directing traffic on Hill Street the other day,” said Seymour.
“Yeah, the regular guy got stomach cramps just as I was driving by. I took over for him until his sergeant got somebody else.”
“Directing traffic down there is a job for the young bucks,” said Seymour, winking again at the businessman who was smiling at me and biting off large hunks of a Seymour’s Special Corned Beef on Pumpernickel Sandwich.
“Meet any nice stuff down there, Bumper? An airline hostess, maybe? Or some of those office cuties?”
“I’m too old to interest them, Seymour. But let me tell you, watching all that young poon, I had to direct traffic like this.” With that I stood up and did an imitation of waving at cars, bent forward with my legs and feet crossed.
Seymour fell backward and out came his high-pitched hoot of a laugh. This brought Ruthie over to see what happened.
“Show her, Bumper, please,” Seymour gasped, wiping the tears away.
Ruthie waited with that promising smile of hers. She’s every bit of forty-five, but firm, and golden blond, and very fair-as sexy a wench as I’ve ever seen. And the way she acted always made me know it was there for me, but I’d never taken it. She’s one of the regular people on my beat and it’s because of the way they feel about me, all of them, the people on my beat. Some of the smartest bluecoats I know have lots of broads but won’t even cop a feel on their beats. Long ago I decided to admire her big buns from afar.
The Blue Knight Page 1
