The Choirboys

SEVEN

7-A-77: CALVIN POTTS AND

FRANCIS TANAGUCHI

A choir practice was certainly in order and was called for by Francis Tanaguchi on The Night the U-Boat Was Decommissioned. It was three months before the killing in MacArthur Park.

The night was bound to be an extraordinary one, beginning as it did with a noisy argument in which the nightwatch ganged up on Lieutenant Finque who was trying to defend the department’s disciplinary policies to the rebellious assembly of bluesuited young men who thought he was full of shit.

“Look,” the exasperated watch commander argued, “that West Los Angeles officer deserved thirty days off for what he did.”

“Deserved?” Deserved?” Spermwhale Whalen thundered. “His old man and his old man’s old man owned that fuckin bar for thirty years. He grew up behind the bar.”

“Department policy forbids policemen to engage in off-duty employment in places where alcoholic beverages…”

“What would you do if your old man was pressed for a bartender for a couple weeks?”

“He only got thirty days.”

“Only? Only! Take thirty days’ pay off me and I’d starve to death. So would my ex-wives and my ex-kids and my turtle. Where the fuck else does a guy get fined for somethin he does during nonworkin hours that don’t violate no laws?”

“Professional sports,” said Lieutenant Finque.

“They can afford it, we can’t,” Spermwhale shot back. “All I can say is I’m glad I got my twenty in next January I’m gonna start speakin my mind then.”

“The lieutenant needs that like a dose of clap,” said Sergeant Nick Yanov, who winked at Spermwhale.

“Fuckin pussies run this outfit,” Spermwhale growled, settling down a little under the placating grin of Sergeant Yanov. “I know why all the brass downtown go up to Chinatown for lunch. They operate this fuckin department from the fortune cookies.”

“Well, what say we read the crimes?” Sergeant Yanov asked, much to the relief of Lieutenant Finque who feared gross and ugly and dangerous old cops like Spermwhale Whalen. Lieutenant Finque could never seem to reason with them.

“Here’s one on Virginia Road where a housewife invented a do it yourself antiburglary kit,” Nick Yanov said, rubbing his bristling chin as he read. “She’s an invalid who stays in bed all day with a Colt.38 under her pillow. Blew up a burglar the other day when he opened the kitchen window and tippy-toed in. Her second.”

After everyone finished cheering, Sergeant Yanov looked at the clock and said, “Not much time left. Here’s a mug shot of that dude the dicks want for shanking his old lady Cut her long, deep and continuous. Hangs around the poolroom on Adams.”

“Hey, Sarge,” Spencer Van Moot said, “I’m getting tired of all these station calls to the old broad lives on West Boulevard. Doesn’t the desk officer know she’s a dingaling? She always wants to know things like where does she buy a crash helmet big enough for her thirty-five year old epileptic son who keeps falling on his head.”

“Only takes a minute,” Sergeant Yanov said. “Her boy’s been dead for five years. Makes the old woman feel good talking to a big good looking blond like you, Spencer. You probably remind her of him.”

“Well she’s not my type and I got better things to do,” Spencer answered, and then he got mad as the assembly room exploded into hoots and laughter because everyone but Lieutenant Finque knew that Spencer’s better things to do were bargain hunting on Wilshire Boulevard.

“It’s time we hit the streets,” Lieutenant Finque repeated, since he believed that a lieutenant should never let a sergeant, especially one as lenient as Nick Yanov, take over the rollcall.

Unquestionably, the biggest pain in the ass on the night-watch at Wilshire Station was Francis Tanaguchi. He was twenty-five years old, a third generation Japanese-American who grew up in the barrio of East Los Angeles and spoke good street Spanish but not a word of Japanese. He adored guacamole, chile relleno, barbacoa, menudo, albondigas soup and tequila with anything. He hated sushi, tempura, teriyaki steak, sake and could not operate a pair of chopsticks to save his life.

As a teenage member of a Chicano youth gang he had spray painted “Peewee Raiders” on more walls than any other gang member. Still, he was never totally accepted by Mexican boys who lumped all Orientals together by invariably nicknaming them “Chino” or “Chink.” Francis fought to be called “Francisco” or at least “Pancho” but settled for “Chink-ano.” It stayed with him until he joined the Los Angeles Police Department at the age of twenty-one.

Gradually he found it was advantageous to be Japanese. There were many Mexican-American policemen but there were few Japanese-American policemen, even though Los Angeles has the largest Japanese-American population in California.

Sometimes Francis and his black partner, Calvin Potts, had profound philosophical discussions about their ethnic roots.

“So now if I wanna get somewhere in the department I gotta be a Buddhahead,” Francis moaned to his partner.

“You think you got problems?” Calvin remarked. “How about me? How’d you like to be a brother in your paddy world, huh?”

“Who said I’m a paddy for chrissake?” Francis answered. “Goddamnit, I’m a Mexican.”

“You’re a Nip, Francis,” Calvin reminded him.

“So quit calling me a paddy.”

“You all look alike.”

“It’s goddamn hard becoming a Jap when you’re my age. I been at it four years now and I still can’t take a picture or mow a lawn straight.”

“You think you got it rough,” Calvin said. “How’d you like to have other policemen put you down when you date a white chick. How’d you like that, Francis?”

“I ain’t seen it stop you yet, Calvin.”

“That’s because I’m drunk when I date a white chick. I get drunk to stop the hurt.”

“You get drunk when you date any chick. In fact, everybody knows you’re an alcoholic, for chrissake.”

“I’m only an alcoholic because it dulls the hurtin,” said Calvin.

“How’d you like to get sick to your stomach every time you look a fish head in the eye?”

“I do get sick to my stomach every time I look a fish head in the eye.”

“Yeah, but that asshole Lieutenant Finque ain’t trying to duke you into the Oriental community by using you as a part time community relations officer at Japanese luncheons where you force down three raw squid and puke all the way to Daniel Freeman Hospital afterward.”

“That’s all in your head, that reaction to Nip soul food.”

“That’s the worst place to be sick-in the head. And that prick Lieutenant Finque is doing it to me.”

“We’ll talk to the guys at the next choir practice. Roscoe or one a those whackos’ll think up some way to fix his ass.”

Calvin Potts, at twenty-eight, was three years older than Francis Tanaguchi and had been a policeman two years longer. He was tall, athletic, divorced, the son of a Los Angeles bail bondsman. He had been raised in Baldwin Hills when there were only a few black families on the hill. He had dated girls and women of all colors all his life. In truth he seldom had any trouble with racial slur. It wouldn’t have bothered him much if he had. He was an alcoholic because his father was an alcoholic, as was a brother, a sister, two uncles and numerous cousins. He came from a hard drinking family. He had been a Scotch drinker at sixteen. He was also an alcoholic because he was insane about his ex-wife, Martha Twogood Potts, whose father was one of the most successful black trial lawyers in Los Angeles.

Martha Twogood Potts had decided in the second year of their marriage, after several reasonably successful sexual encounters with more marriageable men, that she had been goofy to marry a no-account cop. She scooped Calvin Jr. out of the crib and called her daddy who convinced a Superior Court judge that it would not be unreasonable for Officer Calvin Potts to pay child support and alimony equal to thirty-five percent of his net pay. This left fifteen percent for the car payment, twenty-five percent for food, twenty percent for gas and car repairs, and forty percent for an enormous personal loan he incurred getting started lavishly in married life. Since the total outlay was 135 percent, Calvin remedied the situation by letting the Mercedes be repossessed and buying a second-hand gearless Schwinn bicycle which he rode back and forth to work. He then divided the twenty-five percent food allowance into two equal parts, half for food and half for booze, and discovered that twelve and a half percent of a policeman’s net salary would not buy enough booze for even an average alcoholic. So he moved in with a girl known as Lottie LaFarb, a part time telephone operator who made certain calls on company time which earned her up to two hundred dollars a night when she got home.

Calvin Potts had been working with Francis Tanaguchi for six months and they had become inseparable. Calvin could not begin to understand this since he hated people in general and Francis Tanaguchi was by all odds the biggest pain in the ass at Wilshire Station. But there it was. They were always together. Everyone called them The Gook and The Spook.

There were several very good reasons why Francis Tanaguchi was such an enormous pain in the ass. He did annoying things, some of which were cyclical, some more or less permanent. One of the permanent annoying things he was accused of doing was arranging calls to the other choirboys’ residences at 4:00 A.M. A mysterious woman with a lasciviously voluptuous voice would begin to talk as the sleepy choirboy was coming awake in the darkness. The listener would be treated to a low crooning lush sexual litany which could transform almost any old three ounce cylinder of flesh, vein and muscle into a diamond cutter. Though it was generally suspected that Francis Tanaguchi was responsible for these bizarre calls, it was never proved and he never admitted it. Drunk and sober, Calvin Potts had begged threatened and bribed him to no avail.

No one had ever seen the Dragon Lady as they had come to call the owner of the voice. And no one had ever been able to hang up once she was into her routine. All had wet dreams about her. The wife of Spencer Van Moot had left him for the third time when she, on another phone extension, heard the erotic, blood boiling promises.

Perhaps the greatest harm was done to Father Willie Wright one night as his fat dumpling of a wife lay snoring beside him. Father Willie answered the phone and sat galvanized in the darkness while the Dragon Lady promised to use her body and Willie’s in a way that any reasonable man should have known was physically impossible. But Father Willie was not reasonable at this moment. He was gulping, dizzy, disoriented. He was speechless and frenzied. The Dragon Lady began making incredibly luxurious, unwholesome, juicy noises. Then she hung up.

Father Willie lay there for a moment then fell on the sleeping Jehovah’s Witness who only tolerated sex when she was awake and prepared for it.

The next afternoon before rollcall, Father Willie Wright, his left eye blood red from a desperate blow by a chubby little fist in the night, waited at Francis Tanaguchi’s locker and challenged him to a fight to the death in the basement of Wilshire Police Station. Calvin Potts and several other officers interceded while Francis professed total innocence. Father Willie was led into the rollcall room swallowing tears of rage, swearing for the very first time in anyone’s memory.

“Ya fuck, ya!” yelled Father Willie. “Ya dirty slant-eyed heathen godless little fuck, ya!”

Francis Tanaguchi had other annoying habits, not the least of which was biting people on the neck. It started when Francis went to a shabby Melrose Boulevard movie house where they were offering a Bela Lugosi Film Festival to a college crowd which hooted and yelled and smoked pot and ate popcorn.

Francis was with a chilly clerk typist named Daphne Simon who worked the morning watch at Wilshire Records and seldom dated policemen because she felt they were too horny. Francis had won her heart by sending a thirty dollar floral arrangement which he had gotten free by stopping at a Japanese nursery near Crenshaw Boulevard and thrilling the immigrant proprietors with his blue clad Oriental body. Francis had only planned to try to get them to bounce for a handful of violets, but when he saw how delighted they were with him, he promoted the sort to multicolored carnations.

As he sat in the smoke filled movie house, Daphne Simon roughly pulled his hand out from between her legs every time he let it accidentally fall there. It made him wish he had saved the flowers for Ora Lee Tingle at choir practice. Francis Tanaguchi came to dislike Daphne Simon who was in some exotic way giving him a blue veiner by squeezing his hand saucily before she slammed it down on the wooden armrest between the seats. But if he was starting to dislike Daphne Simon he was falling in love with Bela Lugosi.

“You wanna go where, Francis?” Calvin Potts squinted, when Francis settled into the black and white the next afternoon.

“To that big costume store on Western,” Francis repeated.

“You goin to a masquerade?”

“No.”

“I know, you’re gonna buy a polar bear suit for you and Ora Lee to wear while you flog each other with dead baby ducks at the next choir practice.”

“I’m gonna buy some fangs,” Francis said simply.

For three weeks, which was about as long as one of Francis’ whims lasted, he was called the Nisei Nipper by the policemen at Wilshire Station. He skulked around the station with two blood dripping fangs slipped over his incisors, attacking the throat of everyone below the rank of sergeant.

“It was okay for a while,” Spencer Van Moot complained to Calvin Potts one day “But those frigging teeth hurt. And it starts to get really depressing having Francis draped around your neck all the time.”

And even as he spoke Francis leaped from behind a wall and onto Spencer’s back, nipping him on the neck with the gory plastic fangs.

Sam Niles finally came to work with a bullet painted silver and let Francis see him putting it in his gun.

Harold Bloomguard hung parsley over his locker and told Francis it was wolfsbane. Then Whaddayamean Dean, and finally everyone else, started carrying crosses to ward off the Oriental vampire who would hiss and snarl when a cross was produced and slink back to his locker until he spotted someone with his back turned.

Spermwhale Whalen finally grabbed Francis by the collar and said, “There’s so fuckin many crosses around this locker room it looks like a platoon a nuns’ dresses here. Francis, I’m gonna stick those goofy teeth right up your skinny ass if you don’t knock it off!”

“Okay I’m getting sick and tired of tasting all these crummy necks anyway,” Francis said, and the vampire returned to earth permanently.

The night that Francis got bloody hands and decommissioned the U-boat was a smoggy evening in late spring. It started as usual with Calvin complaining that he always drove.

“Looky here, Francis, I been on the job longer than you, and I been on this miserable earth longer and I don’t know why the fuck I let you jive me around like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like drivin you around like a fuckin chauffeur every night.”

“I write better English than you so you should drive while I should keep books.”

“You what? You write half the time like some ignorant wetback. You didn’t learn no English in those Chicano East L.A. schools.”

“Well you drive better than me.”

“Bullshit. You ever seen a brother drivin at Indianapolis?”

“You ever seen a Buddhahead driving? Every cop knows a Buddhahead is a worse driver even than a brother.”

“Tomorrow you drive.”

“I can’t. I don’t want nobody to see me with glasses on. They make me look like an Iwo Jima sniper. It embarrasses me.”

“I never seen you with glasses.”

“I only wear them when I wanna see.”

“And we been partners all this time and you never wanted to see?”

“There’s nothing on this job I wanna see, Calvin. The only time I put em on is when other guys take em off. I put em on to get laid. That’s all I wanna see anymore.”

“Do you put em on at choir practice when you ball Ora Lee Tingle or Carolina Moon?”

“No, that’s another thing I don’t wanna see.”

Then Calvin started getting sullen. It came over him more frequently of late and he was drinking more than ever before. He had been forcing himself lately to stop thinking of that bitch, Martha Twogood Potts and her sleek caramel flesh. But he could not repress his thoughts of Calvin Jr. and how the toddler hardly knew him now and did not even want to be with his father on weekends. And how he truly didn’t want the boy with him in the apartment of Lottie LaFarb, even though she was a kind-hearted telephone operator and barely a prostitute and lavished him with pussy and what money she had and loved Calvin Jr. unequivocally.

Sometimes he wanted to beat the shit out of Lottie LaFarb and Francis Tanaguchi, the only two people in the world who, he felt, gave a damn whether or not he stuck that Smith K-38 in his mouth and blew the top of his skull all over the tobacco stained plastic headliner in that black and white Matador which at the moment smelled of urine and vomit from the drunk the daywatch had booked near end-of-watch.

Calvin Potts’ surging anger was broken when the honey voice the choirboys had come to love said, “Seven-A-Seventy-seven, Seven-A-Seventy-seven, see the woman, family dispute at the bar, Adams and Cloverdale.”

“That’s us, Calvin,” Francis said jauntily, jotting the call on the pad affixed to the hotsheet holder on the dashboard.

“Well, roger it then, goddamnit,” Calvin said viciously.

“Seven-A-Seventy-seven, roger,” Francis said, looking at his partner whose coffee face was polished by the dipping hazy sunlight as they drove west at dusk. “What’re you pissed off at, Calvin?”

“Nothin. I’m just gettin sick and tired a workin this car. Why can’t we go back up to the north end next month?”

“We can, I thought you wanted action.”

“I’m sick a action. I’m sick a these eastside trashy niggers that’ve took over this area down here. I’d rather work the Fairfax beat. I could easier put up with all the Hebes in Kosher Canyon chippin their teeth every time you give them a ticket.”

“Okay We’ll talk to the boss about working a north end car next month. I know what you need.”

“What?”

“A little trim.”

“Oh yeah, just what I need,” said Calvin looking skyward for a disgusted instant.

“I know Lottie’s taking care of your everyday needs but I got a special one just moved in my apartment building. Meant to tell you about her.”

“The Dragon Lady?” Calvin said suddenly and for a moment he felt the depression subside a bit.

“Now, Calvin, you know I don’t know any more about the Dragon Lady than you guys,” said Francis, with his attempt at an inscrutable mysterious Oriental grin.

“Well, what’s she like?”

“Better than that lanky one we met at the party in the Hollywood Hills.”

“She better be.”

“Too bad you didn’t score with that one.”

“Yeah, well she woulda came on in if it wasn’t for that lawyer throwin his wallet open every two minutes showin all that bread. People just wear me down when they start that bullshit.”

“It’s all he has going for him,” Francis observed.

“I bet she woulda got up off some pussy if I coulda showed a few fifty dollar bills.”

“If you gotta buy it it ain’t worth it.”

“I woulda bought it that night. I was hurtin for certain. She had me by the joint, you know.”

“Sure.”

“I told you that, didn’t I?”

“Another alcoholic fantasy Calvin. You better come down off that Johnnie Walker bottle you’re living in.”

“Listen, you slant eyed little fenderhead, I’m tellin you she was lopin my mule under the table.”

“Calvin, you were so bombed that night even the Dragon Lady couldn’t’ve given you a blue veiner. I mean a black veiner.”

“Now you’re wearin me down, Francis.”

“I just ain’t going for it, Calvin.”

Calvin Potts was glaring at Francis and almost failed to stand on the brakes in time to keep from broadsiding a dilapidated ten year old Pontiac which had limped onto Adams Boulevard from the driveway of Elmer’s Barbeque Kitchen which was one half block from the family dispute call.

“Gud-damn!” Calvin yelled to the driver of the Pontiac who managed a frightened smile and gripped the steering wheel nervously with big dusty work-hard hands, his knuckles like walnuts.

“Whooo-eee!” the driver said and stopped in the traffic lane to wait a command from the black and white which pulled up on his right in the number two lane.

“A gud-damn, Mississippi-transplanted, chittlin eatin nigger,” Calvin moaned as he switched on his red light and debated going to the call or writing a ticket first.

Francis settled it for him. “I’m up, Calvin.”

“Okay, write him then.”

“I don’t wanna write him, Calvin. He doesn’t look like he can afford it.”

“I’ll write him then.”

“I’m up. I’m going up my turn on him. You write the next one.”

“Sorry, Officer,” the driver said as the black policeman glared at him. “I ain’t used to Los Angeles traffic. I’m just a country boy.”

“Drive a tractor then, asshole!” Calvin yelled, switching off the red light and speeding to the call at Adams and Cloverdale where they found two bleary-eyed black women in print housedresses and shower shoes arguing in front of the bar.

“You call?” Francis asked, putting on his hat while Calvin merely shook his head and, cap in hand, followed the two women and Francis inside.

The two policemen found four other combatants all more or less allied against a thirtyish buxom mulatto woman who sat in a corner booth sipping a milkball and tearing at a fat stick of beef jerky.

“There’s the bitch that’s causin all this ruckus, Officer,” said the bigger of the two women who had led them inside.

“Yeah, you hussy,” said the other one before the beef-eater could speak. “She been livin wif my uncle. My uncle jist up and passed away and she wanna do the funeral, and she think she be gittin the house and the car because this old man wif a brain like pigfeet made some kinda raggedy ass agreement she think is a legal will!”

“She spend all my uncle’s bread on wine and beer,” said a bony customer at the bar.

“Whadda you spend your old woman’s bread on, bastard?” the buxom young woman answered. And then to Francis, “We was livin common law.”

“They ain’t no common law in this state, bitch,” said the smaller of the two women who stepped toward the booth but was stopped by Calvin who walked in front of her.

“Lemme talk to you private,” Calvin said and only then did she stop chewing beef jerky and follow the tall black policeman toward the silent jukebox in the corner of the bar.

“What’s happenin here, baby?” Calvin asked when they were alone.

“Well see, I was this funky ol man’s main momma. I give that man two a the best years he ever had. Ever time I turn aroun he was wantin some face scoldin. Baby, I got calluses on the inside of my mouth from that evil old fool. I woulda went steppin when he died but these people got on my case heavy the first day the ol man was dead. Shoot, I jist decided I was gonna stay and fight for what’s mine.”

“That all there is?”

“Nothin to it, baby,” the woman said and smiled at Calvin for the first time, stepping in close and touching his chest with her swooping breasts.

Just then the man at the bar lurched forward drunkenly saying, “Don’t you believe nothin this hussy says about my uncle. It’s all a shuck. He was senile and she was usin that old man.”

The man was holding something in his arms pressed tightly against his ribs and in the gloom of the bar room it looked like a rusty bath towel. Then Calvin noticed it was leaking down onto the man’s cracked leather wing tips and then to the grimy floor.

“Man, you’re bleedin!”

“Yeah,” the man said. “I is.” And as though embarrassed, he pulled the filthy towel away and a mucous trickle spurted out of the puncture in his chest and ran down his rib cage to the floor. The wound bubbled and gaped a bit larger with every breath he took. “That bitch done it to me.”

“Okay bastard!” said the buxom heiress. “Now I’m gonna show em what you done to me!”

As she spoke she squirmed and wriggled and hiked her tight dress over her wobbly buttocks and displayed a soppy Kotex which had been pressed inside her blue panties to stem the flow of blood from an eight inch knife wound across the hip and stomach which peeled back flesh and fat and bared a sliver of gleaming hipbone.

“What the fuck is goin on?” Calvin exploded, waving Francis over and pointing at both ugly wounds.

“You said you wasn’t gonna say nothin if I didn’t say nothin, you funky ol devil!” the heiress complained.

“Well, he ast me, bitch. What was I gonna say that I was holdin a pack a bloody meat in this here towel?”

“Did you get cut in the fracas?” Francis asked, shocked at the slash across her belly.

“No, bout five inches above it,” the woman answered.

“So, who cut who?” Calvin demanded, disgusted because now they would have to make crime reports and likely book both antagonists in a “mutual combat” situation so common to ghetto policemen.

“I fell on a ice pick,” the man said.

“Who cut you?” Francis asked the heiress.

“I fell on a butcher knife,” she answered.

“Tell me somethin,” the man said as Francis squinted in the bleak dusty light at the chest hole and finally stepped forward to watch the sinister little orifice blow and foam as the man breathed. “If somebody was to attack somebody wif a ice pick, and this here other somebody was to defend hisself wif a butcher knife, would this somebody wif a butcher knife go to jail?”

Before the policemen could answer, the heiress added, “And if this motherfuckin dawg of a lyin wino was really the one to attack a woman with a butcher knife and she had to defend herself with a ice pick, wouldn’t this woman be a righteous victim of this other evil ol motherfucker? She wouldn’t go to jail, would she?”

“Anybody else see this?” Francis asked, but everyone suddenly turned to his beer for some serious drinking.

“The detectives would book em both and let em hassle it out in court,” Calvin scowled contemptuously “And before it got to a court trial there’d be three continuances by the two defendants and in the end they’d both agree not to prosecute each other and it’d be a big motherfuckin waste of my time and the taxpayers’ money.”

“Kin you give me a ride to the hospital?” asked the heiress.

“You wanna make a crime report against him?”

“No.”

“Take the bus,” Calvin said. “The doctor’ll sew you up for free. It’s an emergency.”

“Don’t they send you a bill?” she asked, and finally tamped the Kotex compress back into place and squirmed the dress back down.

“Sure, but jist put it with the rest of your bills inside the hole in your shoe.”

“Calvin, we better take him anyway” Francis said. “That’s a chest puncture. This man’s hurt bad.”

“You wanna make a crime report against her?” asked Calvin.

“No,” the man said and the breath made a rattling bubble on his chest and a soft pop when it burst.

“Groovy,” Calvin said, heading for the door. “Jist take two aspirin and stay in bed tomorrow.”

“He’s hurt bad, Calvin.” Francis had to run to catch his long striding partner outside on the sidewalk.

“Hey, jump back, Jack! I made my decision. I ain’t fuckin with no more a these people. If they wanna rip each other from the lips to the hips, let em go head on!”

“He could die. His lung could collapse.”

“You can’t kill these niggers, Francis. I was broke in on the job by a cracker named Dixie Suggs who hated black people like you hate squid. He taught me you gotta practically cut off their heads and shrink em to kill the motherfuckers. Damn, let’s work a north end car next month. I can take those big-mouth kikes better than niggers.”

“Okay Calvin, okay.” Francis watched his partner for a moment before raising the hand mike to clear from the call.

They cruised, Calvin smoking quietly, until darkness settled. Then Calvin patted the breast pocket of his uniform and said, “Let’s stop by Easy’s and get some smokes.”

Francis, who had been drinking heavily the night before, was dozing in his seat, his head bobbing on his chest every few seconds, his long black hair hanging over his thin face as small as a boy’s.

“We get a call?” Francis asked, fumbling for the pencil in his shirt pocket.

“Go back to sleep, Francis. We didn’t get no call.”

Calvin made a lazy turn onto Venice Boulevard to the liquor store run by Easy Willis, a jolly black man who supplied two packs of cigarettes a day to each of the three cars patrolling the district around the clock. Easy felt that this would promote the reputation that cops came into Easy’s at any time, thus discouraging the robbers and potential robbers who lived in the area.

The packs of cigarettes ensured that not only would the officers walk in once on each watch, but they would make it a point to shine the spotlight in the window every time they passed. In truth, a pack of cigarettes did make them drive by a bit more than they would have normally and a policeman’s spotlight is most reassuring to liquor store and gas station proprietors in the ghettos. Many of whom have faced a gun and been slugged and attacked more than a squad of policemen and in fact have a far more physically dangerous occupation.

“Say Calvin, what’s shakin?” Easy grinned, as Calvin walked hatless into the store which was stocked wall to wall with beer, hard liquor and cheap wine. The ghetto dwellers were not dilettante drinkers.

“Aw right, aw right, Easy, my man,” Calvin said, leaning on the counter while Easy slid three fifths of Scotch into a paper bag for a boozy black woman who had a child in her arms and another hanging from her dress.

Calvin looked around the store at the sagging liquor counters and the display shelves. Like most ghetto establishments the shelves held no candy bars or cigarettes because of juvenile shoplifting. Calvin glanced at the rows of skin magazines and then at the elaborate sprinkler system which the white owner of the store had installed in case there was ever another black riot in Los Angeles.

The proprietor, Lolly Herman, had owned a store in Watts which had been looted and fire-bombed in 1965. He feared another black rebellion more than any antebellum plantation owner. The proprietor had all windows barred and a silent robbery alarm button situated in five stategic locations in the store: behind the counter, in the restroom in case a thief would force him in there, in the cold storage locker if that should be where he was forced to go, near the back door of the store which led out into the yard, that was enclosed by a ten foot chain link fence with five strands of barbed wire around the top, and finally in the money room which was just to the side of the counter and enclosed by ceiling high sheets of bullet-proof glass. The door to the money room was electrically controlled as was the swinging wrought iron gate which protected the front door when the premises were secured at 2:00 A.M.

Perhaps more formidable than the lonely vicious Doberman which prowled the service yard at the rear and lay flea bitten in the blazing sunshine was the carbine that Mr. Herman had displayed on the wall inside the bulletproof money room to dissuade any thief who thought his protection was merely preventative.

Three weeks after he had finished every elaborate antirobbery and antiburglary device, he was sapped by a ninety pound teenager on roller skates when he was getting into his car after closing. Three thousand dollars were stolen from his socks and underwear.

After that, Lolly Herman, with eighteen sutures in his skull, stopped working at the liquor store, retired to his Beverly Hills home and let Easy Willis take over management of the store.

Of course, business was not as good. Easy and the other six employees could not be made to hustle without Lolly Herman watching them. They stole about a thousand a month among them to supplement their incomes, but the liquor store was still a gold mine and Mrs. Herman secretly thanked God that the ninety pound teenager, called Chipmunk Grimes, had coldcocked the old man and driven him into retirement.

“Momma made some souse and head cheese, Calvin,” Easy said when the customer left. Then Easy flipped two packs of Camels on the counter without asking.

“Thanks but I don’t eat much soul these days.” Calvin put both packs in his pockets, glad that Francis didn’t smoke.

Of course Easy knew that Francis didn’t smoke but went along with the charade since they first came in the store together and Calvin said, “This is my new partner, Easy. His name’s Francis and he smokes Camels just like me.”

Two packs to a car is what Lolly Herman said to give, and Easy didn’t give a damn whether it was to one cop or two. In fact, now that Lolly Herman had retired, Easy often popped for two extra packs, and knowing Calvin’s drinking problem was reaching an acute stage, bounced for a fifth of Johnnie Walker Black Label once a week.

“Officer!” yelled a young black man in yellow knits as he burst into the store. “Some dude jist stole a radio out of a car there on La Brea!”

“How long ago?”

“Bout twenny minutes.”

“How bout jist skatin on out to the car and wakin up my little partner. He’ll take a report.”

“Ain’t you gonna try and catch him?”

“Man, twenty minutes? Sucker’s halfway to Compton by now.”

“He ain’t from Compton. Wasn’t no brother. He was a paddy long hair blondey like dude. I think he was one a them cats what works at that place down the street where they talks to you about a job but the oniest ones that’s makin any money is the one talkin about the jobs, and they get it from the gov’ment.”

“Yeah, well we’ll take a report,” Calvin said blandly “and since that job place is closed tonight the detectives’ll check it out tomorrow.”

“Oughtta keep the jiveass honkies outta our neighborhoods,” said Easy. “Most a these young jitterbug social workers don’t look like they got all their shit in one bag anyhow. And they be tryin to tell us how to do it. I think most a them is Comminists or some other off brand types.”

“Nother thing,” the young man said to Calvin. “The brother what owned the radio is bleedin around the eye. This paddy started talkin some crazy shit when the dude owned the car caught him stealin the radio. Then this honky jist fired on the brother and took the box.”

“What he look like when he swung?” Easy asked.

“Baaaaad motherfucker. Fast hands. Punched like Ali.”

“Wasn’t none a them do-gooders then,” said Easy. “They all sissies. Musta been a righteous paddy crook jist passin through.”

After penciling out the brief theft report, Francis was fully awake and the moment they drove away from Easy’s liquor store he said, “How about code seven?”

“Too early to eat.”

“How about just stopping for a taco at Bennie’s?”

“Aw right.” Calvin lit another cigarette, grimacing at the thought of one of Bennie’s salty guacamole filled drippy tacos which sent Francis Tanaguchi into fits of joy.

“Driver of the pimpmobile looks hinky” Francis said as they crossed Pico Boulevard on La Brea, slowly passing a red and white Cadillac convertible driven by a lanky black man in an orange wide brimmed hat with matching ascot.

“Let’s bring him down. Might have a warrant,” Calvin said. “Anything to keep from smellin those greasy tacos.”

The driver pretended not to see the red light nor hear the honking black and white which followed him for a block until Calvin angrily blasted him to the curb with the siren.

“Watch him say ‘who me?’” said Calvin as he got out of the car and approached from the driver’s side while Francis advanced on the passenger side, shining his light, distracting the driver to protect his vulnerable partner on the street.

“You got a driver’s license?” Calvin asked, right hand on his gun, three cell light in his left hand, searching for the right hand of the driver which was hidden from view.

He relaxed when the driver brought his hand up to the steering wheel and said, “Who me?”

“You know, I once shot a player like you,” Calvin lied. “Dude laid there with two Magnums in his belly and when I said, ‘Leroy you got any last words?’ he said, ‘Who me?’ and fell over dead. Now break out somethin with your name on it since I know you ain’t got a driver’s license.”

“Sure, Officer,” the man said, stepping out onto the street without being told after Calvin jerked open the door of the Cadillac.

Calvin shined his light over the alligators and crab apple green knicker suit with silky orange knee length socks while the man fumbled in the kangaroo wallet nervously.

“Here it is, Officer,” he smiled, as Calvin admired the five inch hammered medallion on the bare chest of the young man.

Calvin took the slip of paper which was a speeding ticket issued one week earlier by an LAPD motor officer.

“This all you got with your name on it?” Calvin asked.

“That was gave me by one of your PO-licemen. It’s official, ain’t it?”

“Shit,” Calvin said. “Fuckin motor cops only care about writin a ticket. Bet he took your word about who you are. Bet you keep this ticket for ID until it’s time to go to warrant and then get another ticket and use that for a while. Bet every fuckin one is in a different name. What’s your real name?”

“Jist like it say there, James Holiday.”

“Why you sweatin, James?” Calvin asked, flashlight in his sap pocket now, both fists on his hips, stretching so that he could be taller than the pimp and look down on him.

“You makin me nervous cause you don’t believe me.” The man licked his lips when they popped dryly.

“Gimme that wallet,” Calvin said suddenly.

“Ain’t that illegal search and seizure, Officer?” asked the pimp.

“Gimme that wallet, chump, or it’s gonna be a search and squeez-ure of your fuckin neck!”

“Okay, okay” the young man said, handing Calvin the wallet. “Looky here, I ain’t no crook or nothin. I owns two or three bars in San Diego.”

“Two or three,” Francis observed.

“Three, probably” said Calvin, pulling a bail receipt out of an inner compartment of the wallet.

“Uh oh,” said the man.

“Uh huh,” said Calvin.

“What’s his real name?” Francis asked, stepping to the open door of the radio car and pulling the hand mike outside to run a make.

“Omar Wellington,” Calvin said. “How about savin us a little time, Omar? You got warrants out or what?”

“Uh-huh,” said Omar Wellington. “Couple traffic warrants.”

“Well that ain’t so bad,” said Calvin.

“Oh man, I don’t wanna go to jail tonight!”

“No big thing,” Calvin said, touching his handcuffs. “We don’t have to hook you up, do we?”

“Handcuffs? Naw, I ain’t gonna give nobody no trouble. I’m nonviolent. How come you stopped me? It’s them fuckin license plates, ain’t it?”

Calvin looked at the personalized license plate and replied, “Didn’t even notice em, Omar.”

“Then how’d you tumble? They’s lots a players around here in Cadillacs. It was my orange hat, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t even a saw me if it wasn’t for that motherfuckin hat.”

“Yeah, it was the hat, Omar,” Francis said to pacify the pimp, who like most street people believed superstitiously that there was one explainable reason for being singled out.

“What do your friends call you, Omar?”

“They jist calls me Omar.”

“Okay Omar, get in the black and white. Let’s get goin so you can bail out tonight.”

“I only got a hundred bucks on me. The mother fuckin warrants are for more than that. And a bail-bondsman don’t work on traffic cases. And I ain’t got no one I can get hold of for four hours. Ain’t this some bullshit?”

“Tell me, Omar,” Francis said, sliding in beside the pimp in the back seat. “Why don’t you just pay the tickets when you get them?”

“Shee-it! You don’t give The Man your money till you has to!” Omar Wellington looked at Francis as though he were a cretin. “Y’unnerstan?”

After booking the pimp Calvin repeated that he wasn’t hungry Nothing Francis said seemed to help Calvin out of his depression this night and Francis was constrained to try his last resort.

“Calvin, is the periscope still in the trunk?” he asked innocently.

“Now jist a minute, Francis. Jist one fuckin minute!”

“Pull over, Calvin. Lemme just see it.”

“Gud-damn you, Francis, you promised.”

“Wolfgang’s working alone tonight in a report car. He’s all alone!” Francis said, trying his inscrutable smile on Calvin Potts.

Wolfgang Werner, a twenty-four year old formidable specimen in tailored blue, had been in America from Stuttgart ten years before joining the police department. Francis and Wolfgang had shared a radio car the month before Calvin Potts and Francis formed their partnership. Francis didn’t mind working with Wolfgang. At first he found Wolfgang hilarious. “If you dundt sign zat traffic ticket we must luck you in ze slummer!” He only began to hate Wolfgang when the huge German went to Lieutenant Finque and asked to be assigned to another partner because of a personality conflict.

Francis thought it reprehensible of the German. It was customary on the Los Angeles force for police supervisors to leave unquestioned the ambiguous phrase “personality conflict” which masked a plethora of problems. Often it simply meant that two cops hated each other’s guts and would be venting their feelings on the citizens if left together for a protracted period in the incredibly gritty intimate world of the radio car. Francis was furious because too many “personality conflicts” would result in a policeman’s receiving a reputation of “not being able to get along.”

The department was still controlled by men who wanted subordinates who could “get along” and who firmly believed that “a good follower makes a good leader.”

Francis Tanaguchi never believed in following since there was no one to follow when you were making life and death decisions on the street at night. So Francis said that Wolfgang Werner was a schmuck. He said he knew the real reason that Wolfgang had dumped him. It was because he couldn’t abide what Harold Bloomguard named them, which was quickly picked up by the other officers. Harold called them The Axis Partners.

One night, after Francis had stopped being an Axis Partner and had become half of the Gook and the Spook team, they were cruising Crenshaw Boulevard on a quiet Wednesday when Francis spotted Wolfgang talking with a red haired motorist whom he had stopped near Rodeo Road ostensibly to write a ticket for a burned out taillight.

“Vell, I dunt sink ve neet to write ze ticket zis time, miss,” Wolfgang lisped, standing tall in the street next to the lime Mustang, staring at the driver’s license, memorizing the address, eyes hidden under the brim of his hat which was always pulled too far forward à la Roscoe Rules.

“Thank you, Officer,” the girl giggled, measuring the massive shoulders and chest of this young Hercules who dripped with Freudian symbolism. There were the phallic objects: the gun, the badge. Not to mention the oversized sap hanging from the sap pocket. And in Wolfgang’s case (he was the only night-watch officer who never got out of his car without it) there was the nightstick. The obtuse girl had not the slightest understanding of the siege these accoutrements laid to her libido.

When Wolfgang handed her back the license with a practiced Teutonic grin, Francis knew that Wolfgang would now say, “Vut say ve meedt ufter vork for a little chin and tunick?”

“That phony krauthead,” Francis complained as he watched the pantomime from his passenger seat in the radio car.

He ordered Calvin to park near the opposite corner, saying, “I’m gonna sink that sausage eating Aryan son of a bitch.” Later that night he bought a plastic periscope at a five-and-dime. Francis knew Wolfgang Werner could not abide an assault on his dignity The U-boat attacks began.

On the evening of the first attack Wolfgang was working solo taking reports. Francis turned his police hat around backward, scooted down in his seat with Calvin Potts driving and brought his new toy slowly up over the window ledge.

“Do you have a mirror in your periscope?” Calvin asked.

“No.”

“Then you can’t see a fuckin thing?”

“No, you gotta tell me when I’m sighted in on Wolfgang.”

“Is that all you’re gonna do, sight in on Wolfgang?”

“No, that ain’t all. We’re gonna sink that pendejo,” Francis replied, lapsing into Spanish. “Bring her alongside.”

Wolfgang was stopped on Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Muirfield. This time his quarry was out of the Mercedes. She was brunette, leggy bejeweled and pissed off because she rightly suspected that Wolfgang didn’t really give a shit about the burned out light over her license plate. It was ten o’clock. A starless night. The traffic was light on Wilshire and Francis was afraid Wolfgang would see them cruising in.

“Turn out your lights,” Francis commanded.

Calvin shrugged and did so, bringing the black and white into the curb behind Wolfgang’s radio car when Francis suddenly said, “Not behind them, turkey! Pull up next to them. And slow.”

Then Francis Tanaguchi took a breath and said, “Ssssswwwwwoooooooooooosh,” causing Wolfgang to turn and stare at them quizzically.

“Amiss!” Francis said suddenly. “Dive! Dive! Dive!”

“What?”

“Get the fuck outta here!” Francis yelled and Calvin pulled away, leaving Wolfgang and the baffled brunette staring after them in wonder.

It took them more than an hour to find Wolfgang Werner the next night they attacked. They finally located him by listening for his calls given by a new radio voice which Calvin suspiciously thought almost as sexy as the Dragon Lady’s.

“Seven-X–L-Five, Seven-X–L-Five, see the woman, prowler complaint, Crescent Heights and Colgate.”

“He’ll drop everything to roll on that one,” said Francis. “I know how his mind works. He’ll figure it’s a peeping tom complaint and that she might be good enough to deserve the peeping. All ahead full!”

Francis turned his hat around backward and brought the periscope out from under the seat as they glided toward Wolfgang’s car.

The big German was getting out of the car, flashlight in one hand and report notebook in the other. He didn’t see them as they cruised closer, their engine cut by Calvin Potts.

Then Francis yelled, “Achtung! Fire one! Fire two!”

Wolfgang whirled, the flashlight clattered and broke on the asphalt and the German had his clamshell holster open and was halfway into a draw when Francis Tanaguchi said, “Ssssswwwwwooooosh.”

“Francis, did we get him?” Calvin asked as he switched on the engine and lights and dropped a yard and a half of smoking LAPD rubber on the asphalt.

“Banzai! Banzai!” Francis giggled mysteriously.

They didn’t see Wolfgang until end-of-watch in the locker room when he came to Francis’ locker before changing and said with a tight grin, “Okay, Francis, you sunk me vunce. Vut say ve meg a truce?”

Francis only smiled inscrutably and left with Calvin to choir practice to brag to Harold Bloomguard that he was driving Wolfgang crackers. He called his U-boat the S.S. Chorizo after the spicy Mexican sausage.

The very last time Francis’ boat went to sea was the night he had blood on his hands, when Wolfgang Werner was standing in front of Wilshire Police Station talking to his newest girlfriend: a big rosy lusty girl named Olga who waited tables at a La Brea drive-in which fed the car in the area for free.

“Let it go, baby,” Calvin said as they pulled out of the station parking lot onto Venice Boulevard and Francis Tanaguchi leered at Olga and turned his cap around.

“Go back,” Francis said grimly and pulled the periscope from under the seat.

“That dude is gonna kick your little ass and I ain’t woofin.”

“Go back, Calvin.”

“That cat is gonna tear your head off and piss in the hole, Francis.”

“You scared of him?”

“You gud-damn right.”

“If you take me on one more attack I promise I’ll throw away my periscope.”

“Okay, but why now?”

“I’m in love with Olga. She’s so big! Go back and I swear I’ll never fire another torpedo.”

“You swear?”

“Yes.”

“You swear to Buddha?”

“Knock off that Jap stuff, goddamnit. That fuckin Lieutenant Finque made me go to another Nip luncheon today. How’d you like a shirt full of vomity squid, asshole?”

“Okay, I’m goin back. But that storm trooper is gonna burn you down.”

“Let’s go!” Francis said as Calvin wheeled the radio car around and headed back toward Venice Boulevard.

Wolfgang was turned away from them as they drove in from the west, this time in a fast glide and with lights on because of the westbound traffic.

“This is the last fuckin time I go to sea, Francis,” Calvin warned.

“Okay okay, now you’re making me nervous,” said the commander, as he sighted in, peeking up over the window ledge because the eyehole of the periscope revealed nothing but a three inch color photograph of a hairy vagina which Calvin had cut from a Playboy magazine and glued inside the plastic tube to amuse Francis.

“Steer an evasive course afterward,” Francis ordered as Wolfgang turned from Olga who was dressed in the sheerest tightest hiphugging bellbottoms Francis Tanaguchi had ever seen. She was pantyless and her crotch was dark beneath the sheer yellow bells.

Francis leaned out the window, periscope extended, and aimed it not at Wolfgang but at Olga’s bulging fluff.

“Ssssswwwwwooooosh,” cried Francis Tanaguchi and Calvin Potts sped away, fearfully stealing a glance at the grim face of Wolfgang Werner.

That night in the locker room Wolfgang grabbed Francis by the throat without warning and said, “If you efen tink uf putting your lousy torpedo vere you pudt it tonight, I vill tvist you neg off. You vood be smart to decommission your U-boat, Francis.”

Wolfgang made Francis promise by squeezing and encouraging him to bob his head. Then he left Francis gasping in front of the locker while Calvin Potts pretended to need another trip to the urinal, away from Wolfgang Werner.

When Calvin returned he said, “I think we better put the S.S. Chorizo in dry dock for good, Francis.”

That last dangerous attack on the German came after the call which would awaken Francis sweating in the night with red in the crevices of his knuckles and under his nails.

“Seven-A-Seventy-seven, see the woman, unknown trouble, Pico and Ogden.”

“Seven-A-Seventy-seven, roger,” Francis muttered and threw the hand mike on the seat. “Damn it, I’m drooling for a guacamole taco!”

“This must be it,” Calvin said five minutes later and Francis looked up as Calvin hit the high beam, lighting a man and woman who stood in front of a seedy apartment house which was still located in a predominantly white neighborhood, but which was experiencing a high vacancy factor because blacks were getting more numerous.

“Hope this is a quickie,” Francis said as they gathered up their flashlights, hats and notebook. The smog hung over the streets and the building like airbrushed, painted smoke.

“I’m the one that called,” said a woman in a quilted bathrobe, her orange hair frizzing beneath a hairnet.

A balding man with a sloppy grin sat on the steps beside her. There were six empty beer cans between them.

“What’s the problem?” Francis asked, slightly uneasy over an “unknown trouble” call, which can mean anything but sometimes means only that the communications officer who took the call could not think of a convenient category in which to classify it.

“I’m the manager,” said the woman, bunching the robe at the bosom as though she were not twenty years past the age when most policemen would look. “I got a tenant up there in number twelve. Name’s Mrs. Stafford. She got three little kids and I shouldn’t oughtta have rented to her cause we don’t want no more than one kid per apartment.”

“So what happened?” Calvin asked impatiently, wondering if Francis would object too strongly if he were to stop by McGoon’s Saloon and have a little taste. Just maybe one little Johnnie Walker on the rocks …

“Well, see don’t you think it’s unusual? I hear this noise about two hours ago just when it was getting dark. Then I don’t hear nothing. They go to bed awful early, her and her kids. I feel so sorry for them I loaned them an old TV. She just got here from Arkansas and ain’t eligible for welfare or nothing yet so she’s trying to find work as a waitress. But it’s hard.”

“The noise,” Calvin said. “The noise.”

“Yeah, so then I thought I heard screaming. Not too loud, but a scream. But kids always holler. And then, then about twenty minutes ago I see a man go out and then nothing. There ain’t no lights on in there. Just nothing. I went up and knocked but nothing.”

“So?”

“They’re home. They didn’t go out. I woulda saw them if they went out.”

“So they’re asleep.”

“The TV’s on.”

“They just forgot…”

“Look sir,” the woman said, turning to Francis, “it’s an old TV but it works good. I can hear the station. It’s the same channel as I’m watching. And I peek in through the drapes and I can see the screen and it’s all white and sparkly You can’t hardly make out the picture.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know, sir.” The woman turned to Calvin again. “She don’t have many friends. Poor little woman stays with her kids all day and all night. Just trying to find work is only time she leaves them and then I keep an eye on them.”

“Why don’t you use your passkey and go on in?”

“That’s the problem, I ain’t got one. Last tenant didn’t turn his in and I gave her my passkey. Can you just go in and see if everything’s all right?”

“Don’t suppose you want us to break the door down?” Calvin muttered as the two policemen started up the steps.

“Can’t you just slip the lock like all the cops in the movies?”

“No, and I can’t open a safe by listenin to the tumblers either,” Calvin said as Francis reached the landing first and knocked loudly on the door of number twelve.

“I don’t want you to break the door.” The landlady stood at the foot of the stairs helplessly.

Francis began fiddling with the sliding window beside the front door and said, “Hold this,” to Calvin, giving his tall partner the notebook. Then he pushed hard on the window with the tips of the fingers of one hand while he pried at the frame with a coin from his pocket. There was a metallic snap and the window slid to the left.

“Oughtta be a burglar, Francis,” Calvin observed.

“Too respectable. I’d rather be a cop.” Francis pushed back the faded draperies and lifted himself up and into the dark room, lit only from the snow filled screen of the TV set whose volume was barely audible.

“Calvin!” Francis suddenly whispered.

“What is it?” His partner instinctively grabbed his gun and stepped to the side of the window.

“Calvin!” Francis repeated, weakly this time, and Calvin Potts dropped the notebook, convinced that his partner was in danger. Calvin crouched, looked for cover, considered the distance to the steps.

“Calvin!” Francis said again, and Calvin Potts drew his gun while the landlady below shrieked and ran to her apartment to escape a gun battle.

The door opened slowly and Calvin flattened himself against the wall, adrenaline jetting. Francis stepped woodenly across the threshold.

“Calvin!” he said as softly as a child.

“What is it? What the fuck is it?” Calvin demanded, his gun pointed directly at Francis who did not seem to notice.

“There’s some people murdered in there!”

“Gud-damn it, Francis!” Calvin pushed his partner aside and entered the apartment, gun still drawn, flashlight sweeping the room until he found the light switch.

The first one Calvin saw was the woman. She was unbelievably thin and pale with huge eye sockets. She lay on the couch on her back, the nightgown gathered around her hips. Her legs were spread, knees up, head thrown back in agony The classic pose of a victim raped and murdered.

The TV antenna wire was knotted around her neck and her eyes and mouth were open. The dead eyes, still clear and unclouded, stared at the top of the doorway which led to the two bedrooms. Hanging from the doorway was a blonde baby doll. The doll wore a red party dress trimmed in white. The dress had been washed many times and the painted face of the doll was chipped and worn. The doll was hanging by the neck, dangling from the doorjamb by a bathrobe sash which was taped to the jamb with adhesive tape. The tape roll was on the floor in the doorway to the bathroom.

As Calvin made a mental note to put the tape roll aside for prints, Francis startled him by walking up behind him and saying, “The kitchen!”

Calvin took two steps to his left into a tiny kitchen with a small yellow refrigerator and apartment stove. On the floor by the sink lay a sandy haired boy of seven. The telephone cord was spiraled around his neck and his face rested on a pillow as though the killer wanted him comfortable. The green velvet pillow was wet from the fluids which ran from the child’s mouth while he was strangling. His pajama top was pulled up and there were two cigarette burns on his back and another on his neck. His eyes were closed, more tightly than Calvin had ever before seen in death. As though he had died crying hopelessly for his mother, his face pressed into the velvet pillow.

“The bathroom!” Francis said and Calvin nodded mechanically and followed his partner across the little room, pausing to look at the baby doll hanging in the doorway. It turned gently as Francis’ hat touched the fat rubber foot when he passed.

Francis looked in the bathroom to verify what he had already seen before he opened the door for his partner. Then he looked at the pink baby doll and back to Calvin.

Calvin Potts knew for certain what he would find in the bathroom and his heart was banging in his ears when Francis switched on the light and stepped aside to let his partner see the child dangling from the bar over the shower stall.

She was the youngest, four, clad in animal cracker pajamas. She was hanging by two pair of panty hose knotted together. The coroner was to say later it probably took her longest to die. Calvin did not want to see if she had been burned. He did not want to touch her. Her eyes were open like her mother’s. Her mouth was closed because the head hung forward on her chest. She turned slowly when Francis touched her foot.

“What the fuck you doin?”

“Huh?” Francis said dumbly.

“Keep your hands off them!”

“Huh?” Francis said, not knowing he had reached out and consolingly patted the tiny feet which were strapped together at the ankles with a brown belt and were pointed toes downward like a ballerina’s.

“Let’s go outside and get the dicks down here right now!”

Calvin wiped his dripping forehead with the back of his hand. “Wait a minute! How many kids she say there was?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Three, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was three,” Francis said, sounding very sick.

“The bedrooms!” Calvin switched on the light in the main bedroom which contained a double bed where the woman slept with the youngest child. He was breathing heavily as he looked in the closet and behind a box of old toys.

“Calvin!” Francis said from the other bedroom where there were twin beds and colorful plastic gimcracks on an old dresser and a painted Formica shelf covered with pictures of daisies, apparently to make the dreary bedroom look as though a child slept there.

Francis was on his knees between the beds, his hat and flashlight on the floor beside him, the beam shining under the bed lighting the body of the five year old boy.

Calvin dropped to his knees, removed his hat and using Francis’ flashlight, looked under. The bundle was drenched in blood, the pajamas shredded around the tiny huddled body unrecognizable as a child except for some short blond hair not blood soaked.

“Musta crawled under there to get away from him,” Calvin said hoarsely. “The killer musta crawled after him and cut the kid up there under the bed. Just laid there under that bed slashin and slashin. Musta been that way It’s clean all around the outside a the bed. The little thing hidin under the bed and the killer crawlin under after him with the knife. There ain’t no God, Francis! I swear there ain’t!”

Then Francis was on his feet, throwing the bed aside and pulling at the little form, dragging it through the viscous red puddle until Calvin stopped him.

“Don’t touch that body!”

“I think I saw him move, Calvin! I think maybe he’s still alive!”

“Francis!” Calvin shouted, jerking his partner up as the little body thudded softly to the floor, splashing heavy drops onto the dirty wallpaper. “His insides are all over the fuckin floor! Look!” And he pointed at the ominous red blossoms. “Look at the blood! Look at the face! That child’s dead, Francis.”

Francis Tanaguchi looked at his partner for a moment, looked at his own bloody hands, then said, “Oh. I can’t see too good without my glasses. I guess I should wear my glasses.”

“Let’s go call the dicks,” Calvin said, gently leading his partner out of the apartment which in thirty minutes was swarming with detectives, fingerprint specialists, photographers, deputy coroners and high ranking police administrators who had nothing to do with the investigation but who were always the ones who acted as spokesmen on the television news.

Deputy Chief Lynch was there, his hairpiece a little askew because he had just been in a motel with Theda Gunther.

Commander Moss was there, waving and grinning until he finally persuaded a newsman to take his picture. He pretended that he was examining a lift of a latent fingerprint found on the side of the television set. He held the lift upside down as he scrutinized it. Then he waved with both arms at the newsmen as he was leaving, his blond wavy hair glowing under the lights. One journalist said he acted like a Rose Queen on a flower float.

There were few clues left by the killer. The latent print was found to have belonged to the victim, Mrs. Mary Stafford. An old boyfriend of hers was ultimately arrested for the murders but the evidence was not sufficient for a complaint. Commander Moss’ picture never appeared in the newspapers.

It was later that night, with a child’s blood still lodged in the creases of his fingers, that Francis Tanaguchi raised a plastic periscope and began that last obsessive U-boat attack on Wolfgang Werner and big Olga. Then he called for a choir practice and drank and worried about the nightmares sure to come.