The Blue Knight

FIFTEEN

I WOKE UP Friday morning with a terrible hangover. Laila was sprawled half on top of me, a big smooth naked doe, which was the reason I woke up. After living so many years alone I don’t like sleeping with anyone. Cassie, who I made love to maybe a hundred times, had never slept with me, not all night. We’d have to get twin beds, Cassie and me. I just can’t stand to be too close to anybody for too long.

Laila didn’t wake up and I took my clothes into the living room and dressed, leaving a note that said I’d get in touch in a week or so, to work out the details of handling her bank account and dumping a load of snow on Yasser and the family.

Before I left I crept back into the bedroom to look at her this last time. She was sprawled on her stomach, sleek and beautiful.

“Salām, Laila,” I whispered. “A thousand salāms, little girl.”

I very carefully made my way down the stairs of Laila’s apartment house to my car parked in front, and I felt a little better when I got out on the road with the window down driving onto the Hollywood Freeway on a windy, not too smoggy day.

Then I thought for a few minutes about how it had been with Laila and I was ashamed because I always prided myself on being something more than the thousands of ugly old slimeballs you see in Hollywood with beautiful young babies like her. She did it because she was grateful and neurotic and confused and I took advantage. I’d always picked on someone my own size all my life, and now I was no better than any other horny old fart.

I went home and had a cold shower and a shave and I felt more or less human after some aspirin and three cups of coffee that started the heartburn going for the day. I wondered if after a few months of retirement my stomach might begin to rebuild itself, and who knows, maybe I’d have digestive peace.

I got to the Glass House a half hour early and by the time I shined my black high-top shoes, buffed the Sam Browne, hit the badge with some rouge and a cloth, I was sweating a little and feeling much improved. I put on a fresh uniform since the one from yesterday was covered with blood and birdshit. When I pinned on the gleaming shield and slid the scarred baton through the chrome ring on my Sam Browne I felt even better.

At rollcall Cruz was sitting as usual with the watch commander, Lieutenant Hilliard, at the table in front of the room, and Cruz glanced at me several times like he expected me to get up and make a grand announcement that this was my last day. Of course I didn’t, and he looked a little disappointed. I hated to disappoint anyone, especially Cruz, but I wasn’t going out with a trumpet blare. I really wanted Lieutenant Hilliard to hold an inspection this morning, my last one, and he did. He limped down the line and said my boondockers and my shield looked like a million bucks and he wished some of the young cops looked half as sharp. After inspection I drank a quart or so from the water fountain and I felt better yet.

I meant to speak to Cruz about our lunch date, but Lieutenant Hilliard was talking to him so I went out to the car, and decided to call him later. I fired up the black-and-white, put my baton in the holder on the door, tore off the paper on my writing pad, replaced the old hot sheet, checked the back seat for dead midgets, and drove out of the station. It was really unbelievable. The last time.

After hitting the bricks, I cleared over the air, even though I worried that I’d get a burglary report or some other chickenshit call before I could get something in my stomach. I couldn’t stand the idea of anything heavy just now so I turned south on San Pedro and headed for the dairy, which was a very good place to go for hangover cures, at least it always was for me. It was more than a dairy, it was the plant and home office for a dairy that sold all over Southern California, and they made very good specialty products like cottage cheese and buttermilk and yogurt, all of which are wonderful for hangovers if you’re not too far gone. I waved at the gate guard, got passed into the plant, and parked in front of the employee’s store, which wasn’t opened yet.

I saw one of the guys I knew behind the counter setting up the cash register and I knocked on the window.

“Hi, Bumper,” he smiled, a young guy, with deep-set green eyes and a mop of black hair. “What do you need?”

“Plasma, pal,” I said, “but I’ll settle for yogurt.”

“Sure. Come on in, Bumper,” he laughed, and I passed through, heading for the tall glass door to the cold room where the yogurt was kept. I took two yogurts from the shelf, and he gave me a plastic spoon when I put them on the counter.

“That all you’re having, Bumper?” he asked, as I shook my head and lifted the lid and spooned out a half pint of blueberry which I finished in three or four gulps and followed with a lime. And finally, what the hell, I thought, I grabbed another, French apple, and ate it while the guy counted his money and said something to me once or twice which I nodded at, and I smiled through a mouthful of cool creamy yogurt that was coating my stomach, soothing me, and making me well.

“Never saw anyone put away yogurt like that, Bumper,” he said after I finished.

I couldn’t remember this young guy’s name, and wished like hell they wore their names on the gray work uniform because I always like to make a little small talk and call someone by name when he’s feeding me. It’s the least you can do.

“Could I have some buttermilk?” I asked, after he threw the empty yogurt containers in a gleaming trash can behind the counter. The whole place sparkled, being a dairy, and it smelled clean, and was nice and cool.

“Why sure, Bumper,” he said, leaving the counter and coming back with a pint of cold buttermilk. Most of the older guys around the dairy wouldn’t bring me a pint container, and here I was dying of thirst from the booze. Rather than say anything I just tipped it up and poured it down, only swallowing three times to make him realize his mistake.

“Guess I should’ve brought you a quart, huh?” he said after I put the milk carton down and licked my lips.

I smiled and shrugged and he went in the back, returning with a quart.

“Thanks, pal,” I said. “I’m pretty thirsty today.” I tipped the quart up and let it flow thick and delicious into my mouth, and then I started swallowing, but not like before, more slowly. When I finished it I was really fit again. I was well. I could do anything now.

“Take a quart with you?” he said. “Would you like more yogurt or some cottage cheese?”

“No thanks,” I said. I don’t believe in being a hog like some cops I’ve worked with. “Gotta get back to the streets. Friday mornings get pretty busy sometimes.”

I really should’ve talked a while. I knew I should, but I just didn’t feel like it. It was the first time this guy ever served me so I said the thing that all policemen say when they’re ninety percent sure what the answer will be.

“How much do I owe you?”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, shaking his head. “Come see us anytime, Bumper.”

While driving out the main gate of the dairy, I fired up a fresh cigar which I knew couldn’t possibly give me indigestion because my stomach was so well coated I could eat tin cans and not notice.

Then I realized that was the last time I’d ever make my dairy stop. Damn, I thought, everything I do today will be for the last time. Then I suddenly started hoping I’d get some routine calls like a burglary report or maybe a family dispute which I usually hated refereeing. I wouldn’t even mind writing a traffic ticket today.

It would’ve been something, I thought, really something to have stayed on the job after my twenty years. You have your pension in the bag then, and you own your own mortgage, having bought and paid for them with twenty years’ service. Regardless of what you ever do or don’t do you have a forty percent pension the rest of your life, from the moment you leave the Department. Whether you’re fired for pushing a slimeball down the fire escape, or whether you’re booked for lying in court to put a scumbag where he ought to be, or whether you bust your stick over the hairy little skull of some college brat who’s tearing at your badge and carrying a tape recorder at a demonstration, no matter what you do, they got to pay you that pension. If they have to, they’ll mail those checks to you at San Quentin. Nobody can take your pension away. Knowing that might make police work even a little more fun, I thought. It might give you just a little more push, make you a little more aggressive. I would’ve liked to have done police work knowing that I owned my own mortgage.

As I was cruising I picked a voice out of the radio chatter. It was the girl with the cutest and sexiest voice I ever heard. She was on frequency thirteen today, and she had her own style of communicating. She didn’t just come on the horn and answer with clipped phrases and impersonal “rogers.” Her voice would rise and fall like a song, and getting even a traffic accident call from her, which patrol policemen hate worst because they’re so tedious, was somehow not quite so bad. She must’ve been hot for some cop in unit Four-L-Nine because her voice came in soft and husky and sent a shiver through me when she said, “Foah-L-Ninah, rrrrrrraj-ahh!”

Now that’s the way to roger a call, I thought. I was driving nowhere at all, just touring the beat, looking at people I knew and ones I didn’t know, trying not to think of all the things I’d never do out here. I was trading them for things I’d rather do, things any sane man would rather do, like be with Cassie and start my new career and live a civilized normal life. Funny I should think of it as civilized, that kind of life. That was one of the reasons I’d always wanted to go to North Africa to die.

I always figured kind of vaguely that if somebody didn’t knock me off and I lasted say thirty years, I’d pull the pin then because I could never do my kind of police work past sixty. I really thought I could last that long though. I thought that if I cut down on the groceries and the drinking and the cigars, maybe I could last out here on the streets until I was sixty. Then I’d have learned almost all there was to learn here. I’d know all the secrets I always wanted to know and I’d hop a jet and go to the Valley of the Kings and look out there from a pink granite cliff and see where all civilization started, and maybe if I stayed there long enough and didn’t get drunk and fall off a pyramid, or get stomped to death by a runaway camel, or ventilated by a Yankee-hating Arab, maybe if I lasted there long enough, I’d find out the last thing I wanted to know: whether civilization was worth the candle after all.

Then I thought of what Cruz would say if I ever got drunk enough to tell him about this. He’d say, “’Mano, let yourself love, and give yourself away. You’ll get your answer. You don’t need a sphinx or a pink granite cliff.’”

“Hi, Bumper,” a voice yelled, and I turned from the glare of the morning sun and saw Percy opening his pawnshop.

“Hi, Percy,” I yelled back, and slowed down to wave. He was a rare animal, an honest pawnbroker. He ran hypes and other thieves out of his shop if he even suspected they had something hot. And he always demanded good identification from a customer pawning something. He was an honest pawnbroker, a rare animal.

I remembered the time Percy gave me his traffic ticket to take care of because this was the first one he’d ever gotten. It was for jaywalking. He didn’t own a car. He hated them and took a bus to the shop every day. I just couldn’t disillusion old Percy by letting him know that I couldn’t fix a ticket, so I took it and paid it for him. It’s practically impossible to fix a ticket anymore in this town. You have to know the judge or the City Attorney. Lawyers take care of each other of course, but a cop can’t fix a ticket. Anyway, I paid it, and Percy thought I fixed it and wasn’t disappointed. He thought I was a hell of a big man.

Another black-and-white cruised past me going south. The cop driving, a curly-haired kid named Nelson, waved, and I nodded back. He almost rear-ended a car stopped at the red light because he was looking at some chick in hot pants going into an office building. He was a typical young cop, I thought. Thinking of pussy instead of police work. And just like all these cats, Nelson loved talking about it. I think they all love talking about it these days more than they love doing it. That gave me a royal pain in the ass. I guess I’ve had more than my share in my time. I’ve had some good stuff for an ugly guy, but by Maggie’s muff, I never talked about screwing a dame, not with anybody. In my day, a guy was unmanly if he did that. But your day is over after this day, I reminded myself, and swung south on Grand.

Then I heard a Central car get a report call at one of the big downtown hotels and I knew the hotel burglar had hit again. I’d give just about anything, I thought, to catch that guy today. That’d be like quitting after your last home run, like Ted Williams. A home run your last time up. That’d be something. I cruised around for twenty minutes and then drove to the hotel and parked behind the black-and-white that got the call. I sat there in my car smoking a cigar and waited another fifteen minutes until Clarence Evans came out. He was a fifteen-year cop, a tall stringbean who I used to play handball with before my ankles got so bad.

We had some good games. It’s especially fun to play when you’re working nightwatch and you get up to the academy about one a.m. after you finish work, and play three hard fast games and take a steam bath. Except Evans didn’t like the steam bath, being so skinny. We always took a half case of beer with us and drank it up after we showered. He was one of the first Negroes I worked with as a partner when L.A.P.D. became completely integrated several years ago. He was a good copper and he liked working with me even though he knew I always preferred working alone. On nightwatch it’s comforting sometimes to have someone riding shotgun or walking beside you. So I worked with him and lots of other guys even though I would’ve rather had a one-man beat or an “L” car that you work alone, “L” for lonesome. But I worked with him because I never could disappoint anyone that wanted to work with me that bad, and it made the handball playing more convenient.

Then I saw Clarence coming out of the hotel carrying his report notebook. He grinned at me, came walking light-footed over to my car, opened the door and sat down.

“What’s happening, Bumper?”

“Just curious if the hotel creeper hit again, Clarence.”

“Took three rooms on the fifth floor and two on the fourth floor,” he nodded.

“The people asleep?”

“In four of them. In the other one, they were down in the bar.”

“That means he hit before two a.m.”

“Right.”

“I can’t figure this guy,” I said, popping an antacid tablet. “Usually he works in the daytime but sometimes in the early evening. Now he’s hitting during the night when they’re in and when they’re not in. I never heard of a hotel burglar as squirrelly as this guy.”

“Maybe that’s it,” said Evans. “A squirrel. Didn’t he try to hurt a kid on one job?”

“A teddy bear. He stabbed the hell out of a big teddy bear. It was all covered up with a blanket and looked like a kid sleeping.”

“That cat’s a squirrel,” said Evans.

“That would explain why the other hotel burglars don’t know anything,” I said, puffing on the cigar and thinking. “I never did think he was a pro, just a lucky amateur.”

“A lucky looney,” said Evans. “You talked to all your snitches?” He knew my M.O. from working with me. He knew I had informants, but like everyone else he didn’t know how many, or that I paid the good ones.

“I talked to just about everyone I know. I talked to a hotel burglar who told me he’d already been approached by three detectives and that he’d tell us if he knew anything, because this guy is bringing so much heat on all the hotels he’d like to see us get him.”

“Well, Bumper, if anybody lucks onto the guy I’m betting you will,” said Evans, putting on his hat and getting out of the car.

“Police are baffled but an arrest is imminent,” I winked, and started the car. It was going to be a very hot day.

I was given a report call at Pershing Square, an injury report. Probably some pensioner fell off his soapbox and was trying to figure how he could say there was a crack in the sidewalk and sue the city. I ignored the call for a few minutes and let her assign it to another unit. I didn’t like to do that. I always believed you should handle the calls given to you, but damn it, I only had the rest of the day and that was it, and I thought about Oliver Horn and wondered why I hadn’t thought about him before. I couldn’t waste time on the report call so I let the other unit handle it and headed for the barbershop on Fourth Street.

Oliver was sitting on a chair on the sidewalk in front of the shop. His ever-present broom was across his lap, and he was dozing in the sunshine.

He was the last guy in the world you would ever want to die and come back looking like. Oliver was built like a walrus with one arm cut off above the elbow. It was done maybe forty years ago by probably the worst surgeon in the world. The skin just flapped over and hung there. He had orange hair and a big white belly covered with orange hair. He long ago gave up trying to keep his pants up, and usually they barely gripped him below the gut so that his belly button was always popping out at you. His shoelaces were untied and destroyed from stepping on them because it was too hard to tie them one-handed, and he had a huge lump on his chin. It looked like if you squeezed it, it’d break a window. But Oliver was surprisingly clever. He swept out the barbershop and two or three businesses on this part of Fourth Street, including a bar called Raymond’s where quite a few ex-cons hung out. It was close to the big hotels and a good place to scam on the rich tourists. Oliver didn’t miss anything and had given me some very good information over the years.

“You awake, Oliver?” I asked.

He opened one blue-veined eyelid. “Bumper, how’s it wi’choo?”

“Okay, Oliver. Gonna be a hot one again today.”

“Yeah, I’m gettin’ sticky. Let’s go in the shop.”

“Don’t have time. Listen, I was just wondering, you heard about this burglar that’s been ripping us downtown here in all the big hotels for the past couple months?”

“No, ain’t heard nothin’.”

“Well, this guy ain’t no ordinary hotel thief. I mean he probably ain’t none of the guys you ordinarily see around Raymond’s, but he might be a guy that you would sometimes see there. What the hell, even a ding-a-ling has a drink once in a while, and Raymond’s is convenient when you’re getting ready to rape about ten rooms across the street.”

“He a ding-a-ling?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he look like?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can I find him then, Bumper?”

“I don’t know, Oliver. I’m just having hunches now. I think the guy’s done burglaries before. I mean he knows how to shim doors and all that. And like I say, he’s a little dingy. I think he’s gonna stab somebody before too long. He carries a blade. A long blade, because he went clear through a mattress with it.”

“Why’d he stab a mattress?”

“He was trying to kill a teddy bear.”

“You been drinkin’, Bumper?”

I smiled, and then I wondered what the hell I was doing here because I didn’t know enough about the burglar to give a snitch something to work with. I was grabbing at any straw in the wind so I could hit a home run before walking off the field for the last time. Absolutely pathetic and sickening, I thought, ashamed of myself.

“Here’s five bucks,” I said to Oliver. “Get yourself a steak.”

“Jeez, Bumper,” he said, “I ain’t done nothin’ for it.”

“The guy carries a long-bladed knife and he’s a psycho and lately he takes these hotels at any goddamn hour of the day or night. He just might go to Raymond’s for a drink sometime. He just might use the restroom while you’re cleaning up and maybe he’ll be tempted to look at some of the stuff in his pockets to see what he stole. Or maybe he’ll be sitting at the bar and he’ll pull a pretty out of his pocket that he just snatched at the hotel, or maybe one of these sharp hotel burglars that hangs out at Raymond’s will know something, or say something, and you’re always around there. Maybe anything.”

“Sure, Bumper, I’ll call you right away I hear anything at all. Right away, Bumper. And you get any more clues you let me know, hey, Bumper?”

“Sure, Oliver, I’ll get you a good one from my clues closet.”

“Hey, that’s aw right,” Oliver hooted. He had no teeth in front, upper or lower. For a long time he had one upper tooth in front.

“Be seeing you, Oliver.”

“Hey, Bumper, wait a minute. You ain’t told me no funny cop stories in a long time. How ’bout a story?”

“I think you heard them all.”

“Come on, Bumper.”

“Well, let’s see. I told you about the seventy-five-year-old nympho I busted over on Main that night?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he hooted, “tell me that one again. That’s a good one.”

“I gotta go, Oliver, honest. But say, did I ever tell you about the time I caught the couple in the back seat up there in Elysian Park in one of those maker’s acres?”

“No, tell me, Bumper.”

“Well, I shined my light in there and here’s these two down on the seat, the old boy throwing the knockwurst to his girlfriend, and this young partner I’m with says, ‘What’re you doing there?’ And the guy gives the answer ninety percent of the guys do when you catch them in that position: ‘Nothing, Officer.’”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Oliver, his shaggy head bobbing.

“So I say to the guy, ‘Well, if you ain’t doing anything, move over there and hold my flashlight and lemme see what I can do.’”

“Whoooo, that’s funny,” said Oliver. “Whoooo, Bumper.”

He was laughing so hard he hardly saw me go, and I left him there holding his big hard belly and laughing in the sunshine.

I thought about telling Oliver to call Central Detectives instead of me, because I wouldn’t be here after today, but what the hell, then I’d have to tell him why I wouldn’t be here, and I couldn’t take another person telling me why I should or should not retire. If Oliver ever called, somebody’d tell him I was gone, and the information would eventually get to the dicks. So what the hell, I thought, pulling back into the traffic and breathing exhaust fumes. It would’ve been really something though, to get that burglar on this last day. Really something.

I looked at my watch and thought Cassie should be at school now, so I drove to City College and parked out front. I wondered why I didn’t feel guilty about Laila. I guess I figured it wasn’t really my fault.

Cassie was alone in the office when I got there. I closed the door, flipped my hat on a chair, walked over, and felt that same old amazement I’ve felt a thousand times over how well a woman fits in your arms, and how soft they feel.

“Thought about you all night,” she said after I kissed her a dozen times or so. “Had a miserable evening. Couple of bores.”

“You thought about me all night, huh?”

“Honestly, I did.” She kissed me again. “I still have this awful feeling something’s going to happen.”

“Every guy that ever went into battle has that feeling.”

“Is that what our marriage is going to be, a battle?”

“If it is, you’ll win, baby. I’ll surrender.”

“Wait’ll I get you tonight,” she whispered. “You’ll surrender all right.”

“That green dress is gorgeous.”

“But you still like hot colors better?”

“Of course.”

“After we get married I’ll wear nothing but reds and oranges and yellows…”

“You ready to talk?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Cruz gave me a talking-to-about you.”

“Oh?”

“He thinks you’re the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

“Go on,” she smiled.

“Well…”

“Yes?”

“Damn it, I can’t go on. Not in broad daylight with no drink in me…”

“What did you talk about, silly?”

“About you. No, it was more about me. About things I need and things I’m afraid of. Twenty years he’s my friend and suddenly I find out he’s a damned intellectual.”

“What do you need? What’re you afraid of? I can’t believe you’ve ever been afraid of anything.”

“He knows me better than you know me.”

“That makes me sad. I don’t want anyone knowing you better than I do. Tell me what you talked about.”

“I don’t have time right now,” I said, feeling a gas bubble forming. Then I lied and said, “I’m on the way to a call. I just had to stop for a minute. I’ll tell you all about it tonight. I’ll be at your pad at seven-thirty. We’re going out to dinner, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Then we’ll curl up on your couch with a good bottle of wine.”

“Sounds wonderful,” she smiled, that clean, hot, female smile that made me kiss her.

“See you tonight,” I whispered.

“Tonight,” she gasped, and I realized I was crushing her. She stood in the doorway and watched me all the way down the stairs.

I got back in the car and dropped two of each kind of pill and grabbed a handful from the glove compartment and shoved them in my pants pockets for later.

As I drove back on the familiar streets of the beat I wondered why I couldn’t talk to Cassie like I wanted. If you’re going to marry someone you should be able to tell her almost anything about yourself that she has a right to know.

I pulled over at a phone booth then and called Cruz at the station. Lieutenant Hilliard answered and in a couple seconds I heard Cruz’s soft voice, “Sergeant Segovia?” He said it like a question,

“Hello, Sergeant Segovia, this is future former Officer Morgan, what the hell you doing besides pushing a pencil and shuffling paper?”

“What’re you doing besides ignoring your radio calls?”

“I’m just cruising around this miserable beat thinking how great it’ll be not to have to do it anymore. You decided where you want me to take you for lunch?”

“You don’t have to take me anywhere.”

“Look, goddamnit, we’re going to some nice place, so if you won’t pick it, I will.”

“Okay, take me to Seymours.”

“On my beat? Oh, for chrissake. Look, you just meet me at Seymour’s at eleven-thirty. Have a cup of coffee but don’t eat a damn thing because we’re going to a place I know in Beverly Hills.”

“That’s a long way from your beat, all right.”

“I’ll pick you up at Seymour’s.”

“Okay, ’mano, ahí te huacho.”

I chuckled after I hung up at that Mexican slang because watching for me is exactly what Cruz always did when you stop and think about it. Most people say, “I’ll be seeing you,” because that’s what they do, but Cruz, he always watched for me. It felt good to have old sad-eye watching for me.

SIXTEEN

I GOT BACK IN MY CAR and cruised down Main Street, by the parking lot at the rear of the Pink Dragon. I was so sick of pushing this pile of iron around that I stopped to watch some guys in the parking lot.

There were three of them and they were up to something. I parked the car and backed up until the building hid me. I got out and walked to the corner of the building, took my hat off, and peeked around the corner and across the lot.

A skinny hype in a long-sleeved blue shirt was talking to another brown-shirted one. There was a third one with them, a little T-shirt who stood a few steps away. Suddenly Blue-shirt nodded to Brown-shirt, who walked up and gave something to little T-shirt, who gave Brown-shirt something back, and they all hustled off in different directions. Little T-shirt was walking toward me. He was looking back over his shoulder for cops, and walking right into one. I didn’t feel like messing around with a narco bust but this was too easy. I stepped in the hotel doorway and when T-shirt walked past, squinting into the sun, I reached out, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him inside. He was just a boy, scared as hell. I shoved him face forward into the wall, and grabbed the hip pocket of his denims.

“What’ve you got, boy? Bennies or reds? Or maybe you’re an acid freak?”

“Hey, lemme go!” he yelled.

I took the bennies out of his pocket. There were six rolls, five in a roll, held together by a rubber band. The day of ten-benny rolls was killed by inflation.

“How much did they make you pay, kid?” I asked, keeping a good grip on his arm. He didn’t look so short up close, but he was skinny, with lots of brown hair, and young, too young to be downtown scoring pills in the middle of the morning.

“I paid seven dollars. But I won’t ever do it again if you’ll lemme go. Please lemme go.”

“Put your hands behind you, kid,” I said, unsnapping my handcuff case.

“What’re you doing? Please don’t put those on me. I won’t hurt you or anything.”

“I’m not afraid of you hurting me,” I laughed, chewing on a wet cigar stump that I finally threw away. “It’s just that my wheels are gone and my ass is too big to be chasing you all over these streets.” I snapped on one cuff and brought his palms together behind his back and clicked on the other, taking them up snug.

“How much you say you paid for the pills?”

“Seven dollars. I won’t never do it again if you’ll lemme go, I swear.” He was dancing around, nervous and scared, and he stepped on my right toe, scuffing up the shine.

“Careful, damn it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Please lemme go. I didn’t mean to step on you.”

“Those cats charged you way too much for the pills,” I said, as I led him to the radio car.

“I know you won’t believe me but it’s the first time I ever bought them. I don’t know what the hell they cost.”

“Sure it is.”

“See, I knew you wouldn’t believe me. You cops don’t believe nobody.”

“You know all about cops, do you?”

“I been arrested before. I know you cops. You all act the same.”

“You must be a hell of a heavyweight desperado. Got a ten-page rap sheet, I bet. What’ve you been busted for?”

“Running away. Twice. And you don’t have to put me down.”

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“In the car,” I said, opening the front door. ““And don’t lean back on the cuffs or they’ll tighten.”

“You don’t have to worry, I won’t jump out,” he said as I fastened the seat belt over his lap.

“I ain’t worrying, kid.”

“I got a name. It’s Tilden,” he said, his square chin jutting way out.

“Mine’s Morgan.”

“My first name’s Tom.”

“Mine’s Bumper.”

“Where’re you taking me?”

“To Juvenile Narcotics.”

“You gonna book me?”

“Of course.”

“What could I expect,” he said, nodding his head disgustedly. “How could I ever expect a cop to act like a human being.”

“You shouldn’t even expect a human being to act like a human being. You’ll just get disappointed.”

I turned the key and heard the click-click of a dead battery. Stone-cold dead without warning.

“Hang loose, kid,” I said, getting out of the car.

“Where could I go?” he yelled, as I lifted the hood to see if someone had torn the wires out. That happens once in a while when you leave your black-and-white somewhere that you can’t keep an eye on it. It looked okay though. I wondered if something was wrong with the alternator. A call box was less than fifty feet down the sidewalk so I moseyed to it, turning around several times to keep an eye on my little prisoner. I called in and asked for a garage man with a set of booster cables and was told to stand by for about twenty minutes and somebody’d get out to me. I thought about calling a sergeant since they carry booster cables in their cars, but I decided not to. What the hell, why be in a rush today? What was there to prove now? To anyone? To myself?

Then I started getting a little hungry because there was a small diner across the street and I could smell bacon and ham. The odor was blowing through the duct in the front of the place over the cooking stoves. The more I sniffed the hungrier I got, and I looked at my watch and thought, what the hell. I went back and unstrapped the kid.

“What’s up? Where we going?”

“Across the street.”

“What for? We taking a bus to your station or something?”

“No, we gotta wait for the garage man. We’re going across the street so I can eat.”

“You can’t take me in there looking like this,” said the kid, as I led him across the street. His naturally rosy cheeks were lobster-red now. “Take the handcuffs off.”

“Not a chance. I could never catch a young antelope like you.

“I swear I won’t run.”

“I know you won’t, with your hands cuffed behind you and me holding the chain.”

“I’ll die if you take me in there like a dog on a leash in front of all those people.”

“Ain’t nobody in there you know, kid. And anybody that might be in there’s been in chains himself, probably. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I could sue you for this.”

“Oh could you?” I said, holding the door and shoving him inside.

There were only three counter customers, two con guys, and a wino drinking coffee. They glanced up for a second and nobody even noticed the kid was cuffed. I pointed toward a table at the rear.

“Got no waitress this early, Bumper,” said T-Bone, the proprietor, a huge Frenchman who wore a white chef’s hat and a T-shirt, and white pants. I’d never seen him in anything else.

“We need a table, T-Bone,” I said, pointing to the kid’s handcuffs.

“Okay,” said T-Bone. “What’ll you have?”

“I’m not too hungry. Maybe a couple over-easy eggs and some bacon, and a few pieces of toast. And oh, maybe some hash browns. Glass of tomato juice. Some coffee. And whatever the kid wants.”

“What’ll you have, boy?” asked T-Bone, resting his huge hairy hands on the counter and grinning at the boy, with one gold and one silver front tooth. I wondered for the first time where in the hell he got a silver crown like that. Funny I never thought of that before. T-Bone wasn’t a man you talked to. He only used his voice when it was necessary. He just fed people with as few words as possible.

“How can I eat anything?” said the kid. “All chained up like a convict or something.” His eyes were filling up and he looked awful young just then.

“I’m gonna unlock them,” I said. “Now what the hell you want? T-Bone ain’t got all day.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Give him a couple fried eggs straight up, some bacon, and a glass of milk. You want hash browns, kid?”

“I guess so.”

“Give him some orange juice too, and an order of toast. Make it a double order of toast. And some jam.”

T-Bone nodded and scooped a handful of eggs from a bowl by the stove. He held four eggs in that big hand and cracked all four eggs one at a time without using the other hand. The kid was watching it.

“He’s got some talent, hey, kid?”

“Yeah. You said you were taking these off.”

“Get up and turn around,” I said, and when he did I unlocked the right cuff and fastened it around the chrome leg of the table so he could sit there with one hand free.

“Is this what you call taking them off?” he said. “Now I’m like an organ grinder’s monkey on a chain!”

“Where’d you ever see an organ grinder? There ain’t been any grinders around here for years.”

“I saw them on old TV movies. And that’s what I look like.”

“Okay, okay, quit chipping your teeth. You complain more than any kid I ever saw. You oughtta be glad to be getting some breakfast. I bet you didn’t eat a thing at home this morning.”

“I wasn’t even at home this morning.”

“Where’d you spend the night?”

He brushed back several locks of hair from his eyes with a dirty right hand, “I spent part of the night sleeping in one of those all-night movies till some creepy guy woke me up with his cruddy hand on my knee. Then I got the hell outta there. I slept for a little while in a chair in some hotel that was open just down the street.”

“You run away from home?”

“No, I just didn’t feel like sleeping at the pad last night. My sis wasn’t home and I just didn’t feel like sitting around by myself.”

“You live with your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s your parents?”

“Ain’t got none.”

“How old’s your sister?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Just you and her, huh?”

“Naw, there’s always somebody around. Right now it’s a stud named Slim. Big Blue always got somebody around.”

“That’s what you call your sister? Big Blue?”

“She used to be a dancer, kind of. In a bar. Topless. She went by that name. Now she’s getting too fat in the ass so she’s hustling drinks at the Chinese Garden over on Western. You know the joint?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“Anyway, she always says soon as she loses thirty pounds she’s going back to dancing which is a laugh because her ass is getting wider by the day. She likes to be called Big Blue so even I started calling her that. She got this phony dyed-black hair, see. It’s almost blue.”

“She oughtta wash your clothes for you once in a while. That shirt looks like a grease rag.”

“That’s ’cause I was working on a car with my next door neighbor yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to change it.” He looked offended by that crack. “I wear clothes clean as anybody. And I even wash them and iron them myself.”

“That’s the best way to be,” I said, reaching over and unlocking the left cuff.

“You’re taking them off?”

“Yeah. Go in the bathroom and wash your face and hands and arms. And your neck.”

“You sure I won’t go out the window?”

“Ain’t no window in that john,” I said. “And comb that mop outta your face so somebody can see what the hell you look like.”

“Ain’t got a comb.”

“Here’s mine,” I said, giving him the pocket comb.

T-Bone handed me the glasses of juice, the coffee, and the milk while the kid was gone, and the bacon smell was all over the place now. I was wishing I’d asked for a double order of bacon even though I knew T-Bone would give me an extra big helping.

I was sipping the coffee when the kid came back in. He was looking a hundred percent better even though his neck was still dirty. At least his hair was slicked back and his face and arms up to the elbow were nice and clean. He wasn’t a handsome kid, his face was too tough and craggy, but he had fine eyes, full of life, and he looked you right in your eye when he talked to you. That’s what I liked best about him.

“There’s your orange juice,” I said.

“Here’s your comb.”

“Keep it. I don’t even know why I carry it. I can’t do anything with this patch of wires I got. I’ll be glad when I get bald.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t look no worse if you was bald,” he said, examining my hair.

“Drink your orange juice, kid.”

We both drank our juice and T-Bone said, “Here, Bumper,” and handed a tray across the counter, but before I could get up the kid was on his feet and grabbed the tray and laid everything out on the table like he knew what he was doing.

“Hey, you even know what side to put the knife and fork on,” I said.

“Sure. I been a busboy. I done all kinds of work in my time.”

“How old you say you are?”

“Fourteen. Well, almost fourteen. I’ll be fourteen next October.”

When he’d finished he sat down and started putting away the chow like he was as hungry as I thought he was. I threw one of my eggs on his plate when I saw two weren’t going to do him, and I gave him a slice of my toast. He was a first-class eater. That was something else I liked about him.

While he was finishing the last of the toast and jam, I went to the door and looked across the street. A garage attendant was replacing my battery. He saw me and waved that it was okay. I waved back and went back inside to finish my coffee.

“You get enough to eat?” I asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You sure you don’t want another side of bacon and a loaf or two of bread?”

“I don’t get breakfasts like that too often,” he grinned.

When we were getting ready to leave I tried to pay T-Bone.

“From you? No, Bumper.”

“Well, for the kid’s chow, then.” I tried to make him take a few bucks.

“No, Bumper. You don’t pay nothin’.”

“Thanks, T-Bone. Be seeing you,” I said, and he raised a huge hand covered with black hair, and smiled gold and silver. And I almost wanted to ask him about the silver crown because it was the last time I’d have a chance.

“You gonna put the bracelets back on?” asked the boy, as I lit a cigar and patted my stomach and took a deep sniff of morning smog.

“You promise you won’t run?”

“I swear. I hate those damn things on my wrists. You feel so helpless, like a little baby.”

“Okay, let’s get in the car,” I said, trotting across the street with him to get out of the way of the traffic.

“How many times you come downtown to score?” I asked before starting the car.

“I never been downtown alone before. I swear. And I didn’t even hitchhike. I took a bus. I was even gonna take a bus back to Echo Park. I didn’t wanna run into cops with the pills in my pocket.”

“How long you been dropping bennies?”

“About three months. And I only tried them a couple times. A kid I know told me I could come down here and almost any guy hanging around could get them for me. I don’t know why I did it.”

“How many tubes you sniff a day?”

“I ain’t a gluehead. It makes guys crazy. And I never sniffed paint, neither.”

Then I started looking at this kid, really looking at him. Usually my brain records only necessary things about arrestees, but now I found myself looking really close and listening for lies. That’s something else you can’t tell the judge, that you’d bet your instinct against a polygraph. I knew this boy wasn’t lying. But then, I seemed to be wrong about everything lately.

“I’m gonna book you and release you to your sister. That okay with you?”

“You ain’t gonna send me to Juvenile Hall?”

“No. You wanna go there?”

“Christ, no. I gotta be free. I was scared you was gonna lock me up. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I just gotta be free. I couldn’t stand being inside a place like that with everybody telling you what to do.”

“If I ever see you downtown scoring pills again, I’ll make sure you go to the Hall.”

The kid took a deep breath. “You’ll never see me again, I swear. Unless you come out around Echo Park.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t live too far from there.”

“Yeah? I got customers in Silverlake and all around Echo Park. Where do you live?”

“Not far from Bobby’s drive-in. You know where that is? All the kids hang around there.”

“Sure I do. I work with this old guy who’s got this pickup truck and equipment. Why don’t you let us do your yard? We do front and back, rake, trim, weed and everything for eight bucks.”

“That’s not too bad. How much you get yourself?”

“Four bucks. I do all the work. The old guy just flops in the shade somewhere till I’m through. But I need him because of the truck and stuff.”

This kid had me so interested I suddenly realized we were just sitting there. I put the cigar in my teeth and turned the key. She fired right up and I pulled out in the traffic. But I couldn’t get my mind off this boy.

“Whadda you do for fun? You play ball or anything?”

“No, I like swimming. I’m the best swimmer in my class, but I don’t go out for the team.”

“Why not?”

“I’m too busy with girls. Look.” The boy took out his wallet and showed me his pictures. I glanced at them while turning on Pico, three shiny little faces that all looked the same to me.

“Pretty nice,” I said, handing the pictures back.

“Real nice,” said the kid with a wink.

“You look pretty athletic. Why don’t you play baseball? That used to be my game.”

“I like sports I can do by myself.”

“Don’t you have any buddies?”

“No, I’m more of a ladies’ man.”

“I know what you mean, but you can’t go through this world by yourself. You should have some friends.”

“I don’t need nobody.”

“What grade you in?”

“Eighth. I’ll sure be glad to get the hell out of junior high. It’s a ghoul school.”

“How you gonna pass if you cut classes like this?”

“I don’t ditch too often, and I’m pretty smart in school, believe it or not. I just felt rotten last night. Sometimes when you’re alone a lot you get feeling rotten and you just wanna go out where there’s some people. I figured, where am I gonna find lots of people? Downtown, right? So I came downtown. Then this morning I felt more rotten from sleeping in the creepy movie so I looked around and saw these two guys and asked them where I could get some bennies and they sold them to me. I really wanted to get high, but swear to God, I only dropped bennies a couple times before. And one lousy time I dropped a red devil and a rainbow with some guys at school, and that’s all the dope I ever took. I don’t really dig it, Officer. Sometimes I drink a little beer.”

“I’m a beer man myself, and you can call me Bumper.”

“Listen, Bumper, I meant it about doing your yard work. I’m a hell of a good worker. The old man ain’t no good, but I just stick him away in a corner somewheres and you should see me go. You won’t be sorry if you hire us.”

“Well, I don’t really have a yard myself. I live in this apartment building, but I kind of assist the manager and he’s always letting the damn place go to hell. It’s mostly planted in ivy and ice plant and junipers that he lets get pretty seedy-looking. Not too much lawn except little squares of grass in front of the downstairs apartments.”

“You should see me pull weeds, Bumper. I’d have that ice plant looking alive and green in no time. And I know how to take care of junipers. You gotta trim them a little, kind of shape them. I can make a juniper look soft and trim as a virgin’s puss. How about getting us the account? I could maybe give you a couple bucks kickback.”

“Maybe I’ll do that.”

“Sure. When we get to the police station, I’ll write out the old man’s name and phone number for you. You just call him when you want us to come. One of these days I’m getting some business cards printed up. It impresses hell out of people when you drop a business card on them. I figure we’ll double our business with a little advertising and some business cards.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“This the place?” The kid looked up at the old brown brick station. I parked in the back.

“This is the place,” I said. “Pretty damned dreary, huh?”

“It gives me the creepies.”

“The office is upstairs,” I said, leading him up and inside, where I found one of the Juvenile Narcotics officers eating lunch.

“Hi, Bumper,” he said.

“What’s happening, man,” I answered, not able to think of his name. “Got a kid with some bennies. No big thing. I’ll book him and pencil out a quick arrest report.”

“Worthwhile for me talking to him?”

“Naw, just a little score. First time, he claims. I’ll take care of it. When should I cite him back in?”

“Make it Tuesday. We’re pretty well up to the ass in cite-ins.”

“Okay,” I said, and nodded to another plainclothes officer who came in and started talking to the first one.

“Stay put, kid,” I said to the boy and went to the head. After I came out, I went to the soft drink machine and got myself a Coke and one for the boy. When I came back in he was looking at me kind of funny.

“Here’s a Coke,” I said, and we went in another office which was empty. I got a booking form and an arrest report and got ready to start writing.

He was still looking at me with a little smile on his face.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“What’re you grinning at?”

“Oh, was I grinning? I was just thinking about what those two cops out there said when you went to the john.”

“What’d they say?”

“Oh, how you was some kind of cop.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled as I put my initial on a couple of the bennies so I could recognize them if the case went to court. I knew it wouldn’t though. I was going to request that the investigator just counsel and release him.

“You and your sister’re gonna have to come in Tuesday morning and talk to an investigator.”

“What for?”

“So he can decide if he ought to C-and-R you, or send you to court.”

“What’s C and R? Crush and rupture?”

“Hey, that’s pretty good,” I chuckled. He was a spunky little bastard. I was starting to feel kind of proud of him. “C and R means counsel and release. They almost always counsel and release a kid the first time he’s busted instead of sending him to juvenile court.”

“I told you I been busted twice for running away. This ain’t my first fall.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re not gonna send you to court.”

“How do you know?”

“They’ll do what I ask.”

“Those juvies said you was really some kind of cop. No wonder I got nailed so fast.”

“You were no challenge,” I said, putting the bennies in an evidence envelope and sealing it.

“I guess not. Don’t forget to lemme give you the old guy’s name and phone number for the yard work. Who you live with? Wife and kids?”

“I live alone.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I might be able to give you a special price on the yard-work. You know, you being a cop and all.”

“Thanks, but you should charge your full price, son.”

“You said baseball was your game, Bumper?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” I stopped writing for a minute because the boy seemed excited and was talking so much.

“You like the Dodgers?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I always wanted to learn about baseball. Maury Wills is a Dodger, ain’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d like to go to a Dodger game sometime and see Maury Wills.”

“You never been to a big league game?”

“Never been. Know what? There’s this guy down the street. Old fat fart, maybe even older than you, and fatter even. He takes his kid to the school yard across the street all day Saturday and Sunday and hits fly balls to him. They go to a game practically every week during baseball season.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and know what the best part of it is?”

“What?”

“All that exercise is really good for the old man. That kid’s doing him a favor by playing ball with him.”

“I better call your sister,” I said, suddenly getting a gas bubble and a burning pain at the same time. I was also getting a little light-headed from the heat and because there were ideas trying to break through the front of my skull, but I thought it was better to leave them lay right now. The boy gave me the number and I dialed it.

“No answer, kid,” I said, hanging up the phone.

“Christ, you gotta put me in Juvenile Hall if you don’t find her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“You can’t just drop me at the pad?”

“I can’t.”

“Damn. Call Ruby’s Playhouse on Normandie. That joint opens early and Slim likes to hang out there sometimes. Damn, not the Hall!”

I got Ruby’s Playhouse on the phone and asked for Sarah Tilden, which he said was her name.

“Big Blue,” said the boy. “Ask for Big Blue.”

“I wanna talk to Big Blue,” I said, and then the bartender knew who I was talking about.

A slurred young voice said, “Yeah, who’s this?”

“This is Officer Morgan, Los Angeles Police, Miss Tilden. I’ve arrested your brother downtown for possession of dangerous drugs. He had some pills on him. I’d like you to drive down to thirteen-thirty Georgia Street and pick him up. That’s just south of Pico Boulevard and west of Figueroa.” After I finished there was a silence on the line for a minute and then she said, “Well, that does it. Tell the little son of a bitch to get himself a lawyer. I’m through.”

I let her go on with the griping a little longer and then I said, “Look, Miss Tilden, you’ll have to come pick him up and then you’ll have to come back here Tuesday morning and talk to an investigator. Maybe they can give you some advice.”

“What happens if I don’t come pick him up?” she said.

“I’d have to put him in Juvenile Hall and I don’t think you’d want that. I don’t think it would be good for him.”

“Look, Officer,” she said. “I wanna do what’s right. But maybe you people could help me somehow. I’m a young woman, too goddamn young to be saddled with a kid his age. I can’t raise a kid. It’s too hard for me. I got a lousy job. Nobody should expect me to raise a kid brother. I been turned down for welfare even, how do you like that? If I was some nigger they’d gimme all the goddamn welfare I wanted. Look, maybe it would be best if you did put him in Juvenile Hall. Maybe it would be best for him. It’s him I’m thinking of, you see. Or maybe you could put him in one of those foster homes. Not like a criminal, but someplace where somebody with lots of time can watch over him and see that he goes to school.”

“Lady, I’m just the arresting officer and my job is to get him home right now. You can talk about all this crap to the juvenile investigator Tuesday morning, but I want you down here in fifteen minutes to take him home. You understand me?”

“Okay, okay, I understand you,” she said. “Is it all right if I send a family friend?”

“Who is it?”

“It’s Tommy’s uncle. His name’s Jake Pauley. He’ll bring Tommy home.”

“I guess it’ll be okay.”

After I hung up, the kid was looking at me with a lopsided smile. “How’d you like Big Blue?”

“Fine,” I said, filling in the boxes on the arrest report. I was sorry I had called her in front of the kid, but I wasn’t expecting all that bitching about coming to get him.

“She don’t want me, does she?”

“She’s sending your uncle to pick you up.”

“I ain’t got no uncle.”

“Somebody named Jake Pauley.”

“Hah! Old Jake baby? Hah! He’s some uncle.”

“Who’s he? One of her friends?”

“They’re friendly all right. She was shacked up with him before we moved in with Slim. I guess she’s going back to Jake. Jesus, Slim’ll cut Jake wide, deep, and often.”

“You move around a lot, do you?”

“Do we? I been in seven different schools. Seven! But, I guess it’s the same old story. You probably hear it all the time.”

“Yeah, I hear it all the time.”

I tried to get going on the report again and he let me write for a while but before I could finish he said, “Yeah, I been meaning to go to a Dodger game. I’d be willing to pay the way if I could get somebody with a little baseball savvy to go with me.”

Now in addition to the gas and the indigestion, I had a headache, and I sat back with the booking slip finished and looked at him and let the thoughts come to the front of my skull, and of course it was clear as water that the gods conspire against me, because here was this boy. On my last day. Two days after Cassie first brought up the thing that’s caused me a dozen indigestion attacks. And for a minute I was excited as hell and had to stand up and pace across the room and look out the window.

Here it is, I thought. Here’s the thing that puts it all away for good. I fought an impulse to call Cassie and tell her about him, and another impulse to call his sister back and tell her not to bother sending Jake baby, and then I felt dizzy on top of the headache. I looked down at my shield and without willing it I reached down and touched it and my sweaty finger left a mark on the brass part which this morning had been polished to the luster of gold. The finger mark turned a tarnished orange before my eyes, and I thought about trading my gold and silver shield for a little tinny retirement badge that you can show to old men in bars to prove what you used to be, and which could never be polished to a luster that would reflect sunlight like a mirror.

Then the excitement I’d felt for a moment began to fade and was replaced with a kind of fear that grew and almost smothered me until I got hold of myself. This was too much. This was all much too much. Cassie was one terrible responsibility, but I needed her. Cruz told me. Socorro told me. The elevator boy in the death room of the hotel told me. The old blubbering drunks in Harry’s bar told me. I needed her. Yes, maybe, but I didn’t need this other kind of responsibility. I didn’t need this kind of cross. Not me. I walked into the other room where the juvenile officer was sitting.

“Listen, pal,” I said. “This kid in here is waiting for his uncle. I explained the arrest to his sister and cited her back. I gotta meet a guy downtown and I’m late. How about taking care of him for me and I’ll finish my reports later.”

“Sure, Bumper. I’ll take care of it,” he said, and I wondered how calm I looked.

“Okay, kid, be seeing you,” I said, passing through the room where the boy sat. “Hang in there, now.”

“Where you going, Bumper?”

“Gotta hit the streets, kid,” I said, trying to grin. “There’s crime to crush.”

“Yeah? Here’s the phone number. I wrote it down on a piece of paper for you. Don’t forget to call us.”

“Yeah, well, I was thinking, my landlord is a cheap bastard. I don’t think he’d ever go for eight bucks. I think you’d be better off not doing his place anyway. He probably wouldn’t pay you on time or anything.”

“That’s okay. Give me your address, we’ll come by and give you a special price. Remember, I can kick back a couple bucks.”

“No, it wouldn’t work out. See you around, huh?”

“How ’bout us getting together for a ball game, Bumper? I’ll buy us a couple of box seats.”

“I don’t think so. I’m kind of giving up the Dodgers.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We’ll do your gardening for four dollars, Bumper. Imagine that! Four dollars! We’ll work maybe three hours. You can’t beat that.”

“Sorry, kid,” I said, scuttling for the door like a fat crab.

“Why did you ever mention it then? Why did you ever say ‘maybe’?”

I can’t help you, boy, I thought. I don’t have what you need.

“Goddamn you!” he yelled after me, and his voice broke. “You’re just a cop! Nothing but a goddamn cop!”

I got back in the car feeling like someone kicked me in the belly and I headed back downtown. I looked at my watch and groaned, wondering when this day would end.

At the corner of Pico and Figueroa I saw a blind man with a red-tipped cane getting ready to board a bus. Some do-gooder in a mod suit was grabbing the blind man’s elbow and aiming him, and finally the blind man said something to the meddler and made his own way.

“That’s telling him, Blinky,” I said under my breath. “You got to do for yourself in this world or they’ll beat you down. The gods are strong, lonesome bastards and you got to be too.”

SEVENTEEN

AT ELEVEN-FIFTEEN I was parking in front of Seymour’s to meet Cruz. His car was there but I looked in the window and he wasn’t at the counter. I wondered where he could be. Then I looked down the block and saw three black-and-whites, two detective cars, and an ambulance.

Being off the air with the kid I hadn’t heard a call come out, and I walked down there and made my way through a crowd of people that was forming on the sidewalk around the drugstore. Just like everybody else, I was curious.

“What’s happening, Clarence?” I said to Evans, who was standing in front of the door.

“Didn’t you hear, Bumper?” said Evans, and he was sweating and looked sick, his coffee-brown face working nervously every-which way, and he kept looking around everywhere but at me.

“Hear what?”

“There was a holdup. A cop walked in and got shot,” said a humpbacked shine man in a sailor’s hat, looking up at me with an idiotic smile.

My heart dropped and I felt the sick feeling all policemen get when you hear that another policeman was shot.

“Who?” I asked, worrying that it might’ve been that young bookworm, Wilson.

“It was a sergeant,” said the hunchback.

I looked toward Seymour’s then and I felt the blood rush to my head.

“Let me in there, Clarence,” I said.

“Now, Bumper, No one’s allowed in there and you can’t do anything…”

I shoved Evans aside and pushed on the swinging aluminum doors, which were bolted.

“Bumper, please,” said Evans, but I pulled away from him and slammed my foot against the center of the two doors, driving the bolt out of the aluminum casing.

The doors flew open with a crash and I was inside and running through a checkstand toward the rear of the big drugstore. It seemed like the store was a mile long and I ran blind and light-headed, knocking a dozen hair spray cans off a shelf when I barreled around a row of display counters toward the popping flashbulbs and the dozen plainclothesmen who were huddled in groups at the back of the store.

The only uniformed officer was Lieutenant Hilliard and it seemed like I ran for fifteen minutes to cover the eighty feet to the pharmacy counter where Cruz Segovia lay dead.

“What the hell…” said a red-faced detective I could barely see through a watery mist as I knelt beside Cruz, who looked like a very young boy sprawled there on his back, his hat and gun on the floor beside him and a frothy blood puddle like a scarlet halo fanning out around him from a through-and-through head shot. There was one red glistening bullet hole to the left of his nose and one in his chest which was surrounded by wine-purple bloodstains on the blue uniform. His eyes were open and he was looking right at me. The corneas were not yet dull or cloudy and the eyes were turned down at the corners, those large eyes more serious and sad than ever I’d seen them, and I knelt beside him in his blood and whispered, “’Mano! ’Mano! ’Mano! Oh, Cruz!”

“Bumper, get the hell out of there,” said the bald detective, grabbing my arm, and I looked up at him, seeing a very familiar face, but still I couldn’t recognize him.

“Let him go, Leecher. We got enough pictures,” said another plainclothesman, older, who was talking to Lieutenant Hilliard. He was one I should know too, I thought. It was so strange. I couldn’t remember any of their names, except my lieutenant, who was in uniform.

Cruz looked at me so serious I couldn’t bear it. And I reached in his pocket for the little leather pouch with the beads.

“You mustn’t take anything from him,” Lieutenant Hilliard said in my ear with his hand on my shoulder. “Only the coroner can do that, Bumper.”

“His beads,” I muttered. “He won them because he was the only one who could spell English words. I don’t want them to know he carries beads like a nun.”

“Okay, Bumper, okay,” said Lieutenant Hilliard, patting my shoulder, and I took the pouch. Then I saw the box of cheap cigars spilled on the floor by his hand. And there was a ten-dollar bill there on the floor.

“Give me that blanket,” I said to a young ambulance attendant who was standing there beside his stretcher, white in the face, smoking a cigarette.

He looked at me and then at the detectives.

“Give me that goddamn blanket,” I said, and he handed the folded-up blanket to me, which I covered Cruz with after I closed his eyes so he couldn’t look at me like that. “Ahí te huacho,” I whispered. “I’ll be watching for you, ’mano.” Then I was on my feet and heading toward the door, gulping for breath.

“Bumper,” Lieutenant Hilliard called, running painfully on his bad right leg and holding his hip.

I stopped before I got to the door.

“Will you go tell his wife?”

“He came in here to buy me a going-away present,” I said, feeling a suffocating pressure in my chest.

“You were his best friend. You should tell her.”

“He wanted to buy me a box of cigars,” I said, grabbing him by the bony shoulder. “Damn him, I’d never smoke those cheap cigars. Damn him!”

“All right, Bumper. Go to the station. Don’t try to work anymore today. You go on home. We’ll take care of the notification. You take care of yourself.”

I nodded and hurried out the door, looking at Clarence Evans but not understanding what he said to me. I got in the car and drove up Main Street, tearing my collar open to breathe, and thought about Cruz lying frail and naked and unprotected there in the morgue and thinking how they’d desecrate him, how they’d stick that turkey skewer in him for the liver temperature, and how they’d put a metal rod in the hole in his face for the bullet angle, and I was so damned glad I’d closed his eyes so he wouldn’t be watching all that.

“You see, Cruz,” I said, driving over Fourth Street with no idea where I was going. “You see? You almost had me convinced, but you were all wrong. I was right.”

“You shouldn’t be afraid to love, ’mano,” Cruz answered, and I slammed on my brakes when I heard him and I almost slid through the red light. Someone leaned on his horn and yelled at me.

“You’re safe, Bumper, in one way,” said Cruz in his gentle voice, “but in the way that counts, you’re in danger. Your soul is in danger if you don’t love.”

I started when the light was green but I could hardly see.

“Did you believe that when Esteban was killed? Did you?”

“Yes, I knew it was the God’s truth,” he said, and his sad eyes turned down at the corners and this time I did blow a red light and I heard tires squeal and I turned right going the wrong way on Main Street and everyone was honking horns at me but I kept going to the next block and then turned left with the flow of traffic.

“Don’t look at me with those goddamn turned-down eyes!” I yelled, my heart thudding like the pigeon’s wing. “You’re wrong, you foolish little man. Look at Socorro. Look at your children. Don’t you see now, you’re wrong? Damn those eyes!”

Then I pulled into an alley west of Broadway and got out of the car because I suddenly couldn’t see at all now and I began to vomit. I threw it all up, all of it. Someone in a delivery truck stopped and said something but I waved him off and heaved and heaved it all away.

Then I got back in the car and the shock was wearing off. I drove to a pay phone and called Cassie before she left her office. I crowded in that phone booth doubled over by stomach cramps and I don’t really know everything I said to her except that Cruz was dead and I wouldn’t be going with her. Not now, not ever. And then there was lots of crying on the other end of the line and talking back and forth that didn’t make any sense, and finally I heard myself say, “Yes, yes, Cassie. You go on. Yes, maybe I’ll feel different later. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You go on. Maybe I’ll see you there in San Francisco. Maybe someday I’ll feel different. Yes.”

I was back in my car driving, and I knew I’d have to go to Socorro tonight and help her. I wanted to bury Cruz as soon as possible and I hoped she would want to. And now, gradually at first, and then more quickly, I felt as though a tremendous weight was lifted from my shoulders and there was no sense analyzing it, but there it was. I felt somehow light and free like when I first started on my beat. “There’s nothing left now but the puta. But she’s not a puta, ’mano, she’s not!” I said, lying to both of us for the last time, “You couldn’t tell a whore from a bewitching lady. I’ll keep her as long as I can, Cruz, and when I can’t keep her anymore she’ll go to somebody that can. You can’t blame her for that. That’s the way the world is made.” And Cruz didn’t answer my lie and I didn’t see his eyes. He was gone. He was like Herky now, nothing more.

I began thinking of all the wandering people: Indians, Gypsies, Armenians, the Bedouin on that cliff where I’d never go, and now I knew the Bedouin saw nothing more than sand out there in that valley.

And as I thought these things I turned to my left and I was staring into the mouth of the Pink Dragon. I passed the Dragon by and drove on toward the station, but the further I drove, the more the anger welled up in me, and the anger mixed with the freedom I felt, so that for a while I felt like the most vigorous and powerful man on earth, a real macho, Cruz would’ve said. I turned around and headed back to the Dragon. This was the day for the Dragon to die, I thought. I could make Marvin fight me, and the others would help him. But no one could stand up to me and at last I’d destroy the Dragon.

Then I glanced down at my shield and saw that the smog had made the badge hideous. It was tarnished, and smeared with a drop of Cruz’s blood. I stopped in front of Rollo’s and went inside.

“Give it a fast buff, Rollo. I’m in a hurry.”

“You know there ain’t a single blemish on this badge,” Rollo sighed.

“Just shine the goddamn badge.”

He glanced up with his faded eyes, then at my trousers, at my wet bloody knees, and he bent silently over the wheel.

“There you are, Bumper,” he said when he finished it.

I held the badge by the pin and hurried outside.

“Be careful, Bumper,” he called. “Please be careful.”

Passing by Rollo’s store front I saw the distorted reflection in the folds of the plastic sun covering. I watched the reflection and had to laugh at the grotesque fat policeman who held the four-inch glittering shield in front of him as he lumbered to his car. The dark blue uniform was dripping sweat and the fat policeman opened the burning white door and squeezed his big stomach behind the wheel.

He settled in his saddle seat and jammed the nightstick under the seat cushion next to him, pointed forward.

Then he fastened his shield to his chest and urged the machine westward. The sun reflecting off the hood blinded him for a moment, but he flipped down the visor and drove west to the Pink Dragon.

“Now I’ll kill the Dragon and drink its blood,” said the comic blue policeman. “In the front door, down the Dragon’s throat.”

I laughed out loud at him because he was good for no more than this. He was disgusting and pathetic and he couldn’t help himself. He needed no one. He sickened me. He only needed glory.