by Mark Johnson
“Officer of the Year! Impressive! How long you been on?”
“Three years,” Slocumb replies.
“Really,” I reply, tamping down my disbelief, thinking wow. This guy must be a police whiz-kid or the nephew of the chief—and he certainly is not the latter. I deduce this because I am a detective now. And our chief is black, which Slocumb is not.
Our two-desk suite adjoins another two-desk suite for two more detectives. There had at one time been a door between the two rooms, as evidenced by the surviving hinges on the frame. The door’s removal was probably an anti-claustrophobia measure, I figure. Neither room has any windows, though each has a door. Theirs leads to the precinct’s parking lot, ours to the center hallway.
Slocumb sees me looking at the other room, which is equally cramped with two battered desks and mismatched file cabinets.
“Lopez sits there. He was mostly in the Third ’cept for about a year or so up in Citronelle. Been on altogether five or six years. And that one’s O’Malley’s. He’s a corporal. Did a couple years with NOPD before coming back home. He’s got lotsa stories about policing the Big Sleazy. They both should be rollin’ in anytime now.”
I take it all in. It occurs to me that the space is less than half the size of my old office at United Way, yet is occupied by four men. And I used to think that my old office was modest, even by nonprofit standards. Slocumb seems to hear my thoughts.
“It’s cozy in here, but we’re all out of the office a lot, and most of us shower at least once a week, so it usually don’t get too ripe in here.” He spits a brown stream of tobacco juice into a plastic Dr. Pepper bottle half full of Levi Garrett–infused saliva.
The door to the parking lot opens and we’re greeted with “Morning, bitches” even before a grinning, cherubic fella makes his appearance. It’s the spittin’ image of Barney Rubble, a uniformed leprechaun with corporal’s stripes and a mean-looking scar across the top of his shaved head.
My presence startles Corporal O’Malley, who hastily retracts his irreverent greeting.
“’Scuse me, sir. Didn’t realize we had company in here.”
“He ain’t company, Devin. It’s just our new partner, Johnson. But he’s old enough to be your daddy, so I think he deserves a little more respect than ‘Morning, bitches.’”
O’Malley offers his hand.
“Devin O’Malley. I’ve heard about you. Didn’t you use ta be, like, the Red Cross president or something?”
“Right, but United Way.”
“Yeah, United. That’s it. Same thing. That charity deal they give us the pledge cards for every year. United Fund. Yeah, I always sign up for a few bucks.”
“So do I, but I never got any,” Earl says.
“You retard!” Devin says, as if he believes Earl. “They take it outta your paycheck, they don’t give it to you.”
“Well I don’t know why not,” Earl protests. “I’m a single father of two. I don’t make the big bucks corporals do, Devin. With my pay, I could get food stamps. Ain’t the United Fund s’posed ta help the needy?”
“‘Yes indeedy,’” I declare. “‘We help the needy!’ That’s one of my favorite old campaign slogans. And I have no doubt you’d qualify, Earl. You should getcha some free groceries at the Downtown Pantry. Stretch those food stamps a little further.”
“Problem is, if I went there for some a’ that guv’ment cheese they givin’ out, I’d probably get overbese and they’d hafta put me on the Michelle Obama diet and workout. Not to mention I’d end up arresting half the people standing in line with me,” Slocumb says.
“Yeah, come to think of it, Earl, isn’t that how you got Officer of the Year practically right out of the academy? All those arrests you made at the Sally and the Food Pantry?”
“You’re just jealous ’cause you didn’t think of it, Devin.”
Now I’m not sure who’s kidding and who’s not.
“So how old are you, anyway?” Slocumb asks. “I’ve heard you’re, like, retired already, and rich, and just doing this job like some kinda hobby or something?”
“Shit, Earl!” chides O’Malley. “You just tol’ me I owe the man more respect, and now you’re all up in his bidness, just like that? Where’s your manners?”
“How’m I disrespectin’ the man, Dev? I’m just bein’ friendly.”
“No offense taken,” I say. “I’m fifty-six. Old enough to be your daddy—both y’all’s daddy. I guess that’s why they made me a detective. Puttin’ me out to pasture.”
“Don’t let him fool ya, Earl,” O’Malley says. “I’ve heard about this guy. Don’t matter how old he is, he ain’t no hobby cop. Man’s been in patrol six years, all here in the First—that’s like three times longer’n your whole police career, Earl—and he did it all in 12’s beat. Man’s a legend. He’s the Dirty Harry of the First Precinct.”
Before I could question O’Malley’s sources or protest the flattery, the door opens and a little guy with tats on his arms who does not look Hispanic enters with the greeting, “Hola muchachos!” Then, to me, he says, “You must be the new old guy. Been lookin’ forward to meeting you. Nash Lopez.”
As we shake hands, Earl interjects, “Also known as ‘Nashty.’”
“Or more commonly, ‘Lusty,’” adds Devin.
Unfazed, Nash continues, and I quickly perceive whence cometh his monikers: “I bet you could let me have a couple of your spare Viagras, huh? I tried one once from a guy who’s about your age: old. But that little blue pill? Aye Chihuahua! Coulda hung a wet towel on my pecker, y’hear me? Got my nut three times in one night! Wife never knew what hit her. Poor girl couldn’t walk straight for a week, know what I’m sayin’?”
Lusty Lopez, reporting for duty. I’m thinking “Kid Id” could be a good alternate moniker for him but refrain from mentioning it. “Id” would probably be mistaken as short for idiot, therefore insulting.
“I mean I played the whole repertoire that night! Tell ’im, Earl.”
“Yeah, we got every detail of that night’s playbook,” Earl says, counting them off on his fingers. “Let’s see, there was the Russian Trombone, the Meat Curtain Mudflaps, the Naughty Pirate, the Nasty Rooster, the Mexican Mustache . . .”
“What’s a Russian Trombone?”
“It’s pretty obvious,” Lusty says. “She fills her mouth with vodka and your balls and hums while giving you a hand job.”
Devin shakes his head and says, “It’s the man’s first day, Lusty. I think he’s heard enough.” Turning to me he says, “Don’t even ask about the rest—especially the Meat Curtain Mudflaps, Mark. Trust me.”
One of the cases I got in my first week as an investigator made headlines when we broke it and made two arrests several weeks later. Front page, above the fold. It was not a particularly remarkable case, nor was it solved by brilliant detective work. It was a collaborative effort, spanning three precincts, and the main break in the case was actually made by a colleague in the Third, Detective Roshunda Carter, a soft-spoken little wisp of a thing with less time in the department than me, but powers of observation and recall that surpass mine and those of many investigators. It takes all kinds to make a good PD, and Carter’s kind is essential. I’ve heard several cops speak of her disparagingly, mostly about her quiet nature and small stature. Comments like “I don’t know how she ever made it through the academy” and “I sure wouldn’t want her backing me” were typical and understandable, but unfair.
“Say what you want, I never rode a beat with her, but she’s a damn good detective” would be my standard response. This would invariably be met with a grudging shrug of acknowledgment (not to be mistaken for agreement). The department is and always will be a boys’ club, and the sexual orientation of its capable females is a common topic of speculation.
My case with Roshunda was dubbed “The Wedding Crashers” by the Press-Register. At weddings all over town, in congregations of diverse races and classes, and denominations mainstream and fringe (Central Africa
n Methodist Episcopal Zion, Jacob’s House of Blessings Assembly of God, Ebenezer Apostolic, Holy Name Catholic, Baltimore Street Baptist, even a Jewish ceremony at the swanky Country Club of Mobile), some enterprising thieves discovered that a common practice at weddings is for all of the bridesmaids to leave their purses, and often gifts for the newlyweds, in an unsecured anteroom somewhere near the sanctuary, ripe for the picking. In one particularly sad case, the newlyweds’ passports and cruise tickets were stolen with the bride’s purse, ruining their honeymoon.
Two such thefts occurred in my areas in my first two weeks. The others had happened in other precincts, primarily in Roshunda’s beats in the Third, over preceding months. But I got lucky. My Jacob’s House of Blessings church had security cameras that captured pretty good images of the thieves: a black male, late twenties to mid-thirties, and a black female, about the same age. They were both dressed as if they had been invited to attend the wedding. Nobody in the wedding parties knew who they were, but everyone had assumed they were friends or family of the bride or the groom. It’s a good plan and worked well, over and over, even after the first couple of thefts were reported in the paper. The crashers were either bold enough or desperate enough to do two more even after their images were broadcast on local TV from clips of the footage at the Jacob’s House of Blessings Assembly. Or, just as likely, neither of them (nor any of their friends or family) reads the paper or watches local TV news.
The Jacob’s video had even caught the thieves departing from the church in a battered white Toyota with a dented trunk, though the tag number was not visible. That dent in the trunk proved to be their undoing, thanks to Roshunda’s sharp eye and luck. She was driving to a call one day on I-65 and a battered white Toyota with a dented trunk passed her. It was driven by a black male who could have been the male half of the wedding crashers. She radioed in the tag, which came back to a residence in Citronelle, a small farming community forty-five minutes from Mobile. Then she called me, and together we went to Citronelle, where we were met by a couple local units who took us to the white Toyota, which was parked at the home of the female wedding crasher’s grandmother. There we took the female crasher into custody, and she told us where we could find her boyfriend, at his mama’s in the Bottoms neighborhood of the Third Precinct. We even recovered some of the stolen wedding gifts, still in their gift-wrapped boxes, in the barn behind granny’s in Citronelle and in mama’s house in the Bottoms.
It wasn’t until the story broke on the arrests of the crashers that we received the call from the wedding party at the exclusive Country Club. Though the club is not in the First Precinct, I received the call from the mother of the bride, who knew of me from my United Way days and knew my wife, Nancy, through her circle of associates. She had not learned of the wedding crashers in the papers or on TV but by word of mouth. Then she had looked up the news stories online and was certain they were responsible for ripping off her daughter’s bridesmaids. My first reaction was skepticism.
“With all due respect, Mrs. Finkel, I’m not doubting that some items may have been misplaced, or even stolen, at your daughter’s wedding, but I’m not sure the people we arrested did it. I mean, have you seen their pictures? They don’t exactly blend with your guest list.”
“We did have several African Americans on the guest list, Mistah—excuse me, Sergeant Johnson.”
“It’s Detective, but just call me Mark, Mrs. Finkel.”
“Certainly, and just call me Sarah, Detective Johnson. Anyway, as I’m sure you’re aware, the club relaxed its guest policy and even the membership policy ye-ahs ago. And there were several black Afro Americans invited. But I understand yoah hesitation, as I’m sure you’ll understand ours. Frankly their presence was a source of some consternation to our family as well as to that of the groom on the weddin’ day. No one could place them at the time . . . but finally someone said they thought the girl was the daughtah of her housekeepah, who had helped out several times as a servah when they had entertained large holiday gatherins, and though they couldn’t recall inviting the girl, they couldn’t bring themselves to confront their housekeepah to ask her if the girl was her daughtah, so we all just let it go. Actually, even aftah I saw their pictures online, I couldn’t be sure they wuh the ones who had worried us on the weddin’ day. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it had happened to us. It took Mistah Jeffahson, who’s in charge of the help at the club, to call me and inform me, when he saw their pictures in the papah, that he recognized them from our event, and I can’t tell you how hard it hit us all. We’re still recoverin’ from the shock of it all. I hope you’ll understand, we’d prefer not to heah from reportahs, or participate in the mattahs at the courthouse, if there’s a way all that business can be avoided. I know you’ll handle this with discretion, Sergeant Johnson.”
The crashers had told me, in their interview confessions, that they had picked their jobs by simply checking the wedding listings in the paper and going to ones where they figured there was a good chance some black people would be among those invited. Neither of them had mentioned their grandest larceny in one of the grandest settings in Mobile during their interrogations. Why would they?
After the call from Mrs. Finkel, I went to Metro to reinterview the female crasher. She didn’t play any games and admitted they had done the heist at the Country Club.
“How did you figure you’d blend in at a Jewish wedding, at the Country Club, of all places?”
“My auntie worked for the groom’s mama her whole life. She wasn’t there—she been real sick. If she woulda been there, we wouldna went, cuz she woulda knowed we ain’t been s’posedta be there. But I knowed we could pass ’cause e’rbody would think we was there representin’, know what I’m sayin’? An’ they wouldn’t say anything cuz those people don’t be frontin’ nobody out, ’specially at a fancy thang like that. And I was right. Nobody said nu’n to us. It was easier than a reg’lar church.”
So easy that even after the theft, even after seeing the mugs of the perps in the paper and remembering that a couple of similar-looking folk of uncertain origin had been at the wedding, it had taken a call from the help at the club to prompt a call to the authorities. And even then, not just a call to the Second Precinct captain, in whose precinct the Country Club is located. The call was made only to a cop who could be trusted to handle the matter with discretion.
The Country Club had been a good lick for both parties: for the wedding crashers (until it wasn’t) and for Roshunda and me. Though Roshunda deserves most of the credit.
17
Oedipus Wrecks
The sins of the father are laid upon the children unto the the third and fourth generation.
—Deuteronomy 5:9
About a year after finding and meeting Judy Culkin, I “escaped” the sales rep biz, thanks to a brutal termination that completely blind-sided me. Nancy was seven months pregnant at the time.
I was selling Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks (as well as other lines of home repair, gardening, hobby, and craft titles) for Meredith Publishing Company out of Des Moines, Iowa, in the Rocky Mountain territory. It had been a step-up in salary from my stint with R. T. French Company out of Rochester, New York (makers of French’s mustard, Worcestershire sauce, Big Tate instant potato buds, and a line of instant powdered sauce and gravy mixes) and (in my hopelessly hopeful way of self-deception) I believed it was a step closer to my true calling, since the cookbook people were, after all, publishers. Instead of supermarkets, I would be making sales calls on bookstores, way more befitting someone of my interests, education, and talents.
But I inherited a territory that had been vacant for over a year and was full of disgruntled customers. Pallets of dead, unsold Meredith books in bookstore backrooms all across the Rockies were awaiting return credit authorizations by a sales rep. My first six months of return credits had exceeded my sales; the home office was pissed, and the Big Guy came out from Des Moines to ride my territory with me. At the end of the day we
were in the airport bar at Stapleton International in Denver, where I was to put him on a plane back to Des Moines.
He bought me a few rounds, then informed me that in his judgment, the problem with my territory was me. “You’re an order taker, not a salesman,” he said. He waved off my protests of backlogged returns, pissed-off customers, the need to rebuild confidence and trust in the brand. But I had a belly full of whiskey and a mouth full of bluster.
“I won every damn sales contest they had at French’s. Set records, won a full set of luggage, a free vacation to San Francisco. You don’t think I can sell?” I demanded, slapping the keys to the company car on the bar. “By God, here’s your keys: fire my ass.”
To my horror, he picked up the keys, said “You’re fired,” and drove my company car back to Des Moines.
After breaking the news to Nancy, I skulked home to St. Louis seeking solace, comfort, and encouragement from my folks. Dad told me to meet him for lunch at Busch’s Grove, a clubby gathering place for St. Louis’s old-money crowd, not far from his office at Monsanto and near St. Louis Country Day School, my preppy alma mater.
I still nursed a deep resentment for the betrayal I had felt when, after assurances by Mom and Dad that I wouldn’t be forced to go to that stuck-up, all-boys, coat-and-tie school Ernie had transferred to from our public elementary in the fourth grade (“Just take the entrance exam to see how well you score,” they had said), they had enrolled me anyway. There I rubbed shoulders with Danforth and Pulitzer and Budweiser scions who heaped scorn on me for my address out in the sticks and the JC Penney labels on my blazer and tie. As I got older and better able to return the scorn to the most loathsome of my classmates, my father’s encouragement changed from “Toughen up” to “Think of the contacts for a lifetime you’re making!” What I considered his blatant social climbing embarrassed me. Of course I later felt much (unexpressed) gratitude when, at the University of Colorado I was able to drink Coors by the pitcher and sleepwalk through classes by simply recycling my high school homework, thanks to that excellent prep school education.
