“I
do
hate it, Mister Bronski. I
do
hate it. He’s so goddamn cheap. He just won’t give me money for anything. He makes me always work for it. I have to do those things with them two or three nights a week. And I have to sit here in this goddamn room and answer those goddamn phones and every minute I know some cop might be ready to break down the door and take me to jail. Oh, please help me, Mister Bronski.”
“Stop protecting him then,” said Charlie.
“He’ll kill me, Mister Bronski,” said Reba, and her pretty violet eyes were wide and round and her nostrils were flared, and you could smell the fear on her.
“He won’t kill you, Reba,” said Charlie soothingly. “You won’t get a jacket. He’ll never know you told me. We’ll make it look like someone else told.”
“No one else
knows
,” she whispered, and her face was dead white.
“We’ll work it out, Reba. Stop worrying, we know how to protect people that help us. We’ll make it look like someone else set it up. I promise you, he’ll never know you told.”
“Tell me you swear to God you’ll protect me.”
“I swear to God I’ll protect you.”
“Tell me you swear to God I won’t go to jail.”
“We’ve got to book you, Reba. But you know Red’ll bail you out in an hour. When your case comes up I’ll personally go to Judge Bowers and you won’t go to jail behind that probation violation.”
“Are you a hundred percent sure?”
“I’m almost a hundred percent sure, Reba. Look, I’ll talk for you myself. Judges are always ready to give people another chance, you know that.”
“But that Judge Bowers is a bastard!”
“I’m a hundred percent sure, Reba. We can fix it.”
“You got another cigarette?”
“Let’s talk first. I can’t waste any more time.”
“If he finds out, I’m dead. My blood’ll be on you.”
“Where’s the back?”
“I only know because I heard Red one night. It was after he’d had his dirty fun with me and a girl named Josie that he brought with him. She was as sick and filthy as Red. And he brought another guy with him, a Jew named Aaron something.”
“Bald-headed guy, small, glasses and a gray moustache?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” said Reba.
“I know of him,” said Charlie, and now he was squirming around on the velvet chair, because he had the scent, and I was starting to get it too, even though I didn’t know who in the hell Aaron was.
“Anyway, this guy Aaron just watched Josie and me for a while and when Red got in bed with us, he told Aaron to go out in the living room and have a drink. Red was high as a kite that night, but at least he wasn’t mean. He didn’t hurt me. Can I please have that cigarette, Mister Bronski?”
“Here,” said Charlie, and his hand wasn’t quite as steady, which is okay, because that showed that good information could still excite him.
“Tastes good,” said Reba, dragging hard on the cigarette. “Afterwards, Red called a cab for Josie and sent her home, and him and Aaron started talking and I stayed in the bedroom. I was supposed to be asleep, but like I say, I’m not dumb, Mister Bronski, and I always listen and try to learn things.
“Aaron kept talking about the ‘laundry,’ and at first I didn’t get it even though I knew that Red was getting ready to move one of his back offices. And even though I never saw it, or any other back office, I knew about them from talking to bookie agents and people in the business. Aaron was worrying about the door to the laundry and I figured there was something about the office door being too close to the laundry door, and Aaron tried to argue Red into putting another door in the back near an alley, but Red thought it would be too suspicious.
“That was all I heard, and then one day, when Red was taking me to his club for dinner, he said he had to stop by to pick up some cleaning and he parks by this place near Sixth and Kenmore, and he goes in a side door and comes out after a few minutes and says his suits weren’t ready. Then I noticed the sign on the window. It was a Chinese laundry.” Reba took two huge drags, blowing one through her nose as she drew on the second one.
“You’re a smart girl, Reba,” said Charlie.
“I ain’t guaranteeing this is the right laundry, Mister Bronski. In fact, I ain’t even sure the laundry they were talking about had anything to do with the back office. I just
think
it did.”
“I think you’re right,” said Charlie.
“You got to protect me, Mister Bronski. I got to live with him, and if he knows, I’ll die. I’ll die in a bad way, a
real
bad way, Mister Bronski. He told me once what he did to a girl that finked on him. It was thirty years ago, and he talked about it like it was yesterday, how she screamed and screamed. It was so awful it made me cry. You got to protect me!”
“I will, Reba. I promise. Do you know the address of the laundry?”
“I know,” she nodded. “There were some offices or something on the second floor, maybe like some business offices, and there was a third floor but nothing on the windows in the third floor.”
“Good girl, Reba,” Charlie said, taking out his pad and pencil for the first time, now that he didn’t have to worry about his writing breaking the flow of the interrogation.
“Charlie, give me your keys,” I said. “I better get back on patrol.”
“Okay, Bumper, glad you could come.” Charlie nipped me the keys. “Leave them under the visor. You know where we park?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll let you know what happens, Bumper.”
“See you, Charlie. So long, kid,” I said to Reba.
“Bye,” she said, wiggling her fingers at me like a little girl.
I
T WAS OKAY
driving back to the Glass House in the vice car because of the air conditioning. Some of the new black-and-whites had it, but I hadn’t seen any yet. I turned on the radio and switched to a quiet music station and lit a cigar. I saw the temperature on the sign at a bank and it said eighty-two degrees. It felt hotter than that. It seemed awfully muggy.
After I crossed the Harbor Freeway I passed a large real estate office and smiled as I remembered how I cleaned them out of business machines one time. I had a snitch tell me that someone in the office bought several office machines from some burglar, but the snitch didn’t know who bought them or even who the burglar was. I strolled in the office one day during their lunch hour when almost everyone was out and told them I was making security checks for a burglary prevention program the police department was sponsoring. A cute little office girl with a snappy fanny took me all around the place and I checked their doors and windows and she helped me write down the serial number of every machine in the place so that the police department would have a record if they were ever stolen. Then as soon as I got back to the station, I phoned Sacramento and gave them the numbers and found that thirteen of the nineteen machines had been stolen in various burglaries around the greater Los Angeles area. I went back with the burglary dicks and impounded them along with the office manager. IBM electric typewriters are just about the hottest thing going right now. Most of the machines are sold by the thieves to “legitimate” businessmen who, like everyone else, can’t pass up a good buy.
It was getting close to lunch time and I parked the vice car at the police building and picked up my black-and-white, trying to decide where to have lunch. Olvera Street was out, because I’d had Mexican food with Cruz and Socorro last night. I thought about Chinatown, but I’d been there Tuesday, and I was just about ready to go to a good hamburger joint I know of when I thought about Odell Bacon. I hadn’t had any bar-b-que for a while, so I headed south on Central Avenue to the Newton Street area and the more I thought about some bar-b-que the better it sounded and I started salivating.
I saw a Negro woman get off a bus and walk down a residential block from Central Avenue and I turned on that street for no reason, to get over to Avalon. Then I saw a black guy on the porch of a whitewashed frame house. He was watching the woman and almost got up from where he was sitting until he saw the black-and-white. Then he pretended to be looking at the sky and sat back, a little too cool, and I passed by and made a casual turn at the next block and then stomped down and gave her hell until I got to the first street north. Then I turned east again, south on Central, and finally made the whole block, deciding to come up the same street again. It was an old scam around here for purse snatchers to find a house where no one was home and sit on the stoop of the house near a bus stop, like they lived at the pad, and when a broad walked by, to run out, grab the purse, and then cut through the yard to the next street where a car would be stashed. Most black women around here don’t carry purses. They carry their money in their bras out of necessity, so you don’t see that scam used too much anymore, but I would’ve bet this guy was using it now. And this woman had a big brown leather purse. You just don’t get suspicious of a guy when he approaches you from the porch of a house in your own neighborhood.
I saw the woman in mid-block and I saw the guy walking behind her pretty fast, I got overanxious and pushed a little too hard on the accelerator, instead of gliding along the curb, and the guy turned around, saw me, and cut to his right through some houses. I knew there’d be no sense going after him. He hadn’t done anything yet, and besides, he’d lay up in some backyard like these guys always do and I’d never find him. I just went on to Odell Bacon’s Bar-b-que, and when I passed the woman I glanced over and smiled, and she smiled back at me, a pleasant-looking old ewe. There were white sheep and black sheep and there were wild dogs and a few Pretty Good Shepherds. There’d be one sheep herder less after tomorrow, I thought.
I could smell the smoky meat a hundred yards away. They cooked it in three huge old-fashioned brick ovens. Odell and his brother Nate were both behind the counter when I walked in. They wore sparkling white cook’s uniforms and hats and aprons even though they served the counter and watched the register and didn’t have to do the cooking anymore. The place hadn’t started to fill up for lunch yet. Only a few white people ate there, because they’re afraid to come down here into what is considered the ghetto, and right now there were only a couple customers in the place and I was the only paddy. Everyone in South L.A. knew about Bacon’s bar-b-que though. It was the best soul food and bar-b-que restaurant in town.
“Hey, Bumper,” said Nate, spotting me first. “What’s happening man?” He was the youngest, about forty, coffee brown. He had well-muscled arms from working construction for years before he came in as Odell’s partner.
“Nothin to it, Nate,” I grinned. “Hi, Odell.”
“Aw right, Bumper,” said Odell, and smiled big. He was a round-faced fat man. “I’m aw right. Where you been? Ain’t seen you lately.”
“Slowing down,” I said. “Don’t get around much these days.”
“That’ll be the day,” Nate laughed. “When ol’ Bumper can’t git it on, it ain’t worth gittin.”
“Some gumbo today, Bumper?” asked Odell.
“No, think I’ll have me some ribs,” I said, thinking the gumbo did sound good, but the generous way these guys made it, stuffed full of chicken and crab, it might spoil me for the bar-b-que and my system was braced for the tangy down-home sauce that was their specialty, the like of which I’d never had anywhere else.
“Guess who I saw yestiday, Bumper?” said Odell, as he boxed up some chicken and a hot plate of beef, french fries, and okra for a takeout customer.
“Who’s that?”
“That ponk you tossed in jail that time, ’member? That guy that went upside ol’ Nate’s head over a argument about paying his bill, and you was just comin’ through the door and you rattled his bones but good. ’Member?”
“Oh yeah, I remember. Sneed was his name. Smelled like dogshit.”
“That’s the one,” Nate nodded. “Didn’t want him as a customer no how. Dirty clothes, dirty body, dirty mouf.”
“Lucky you didn’t get gangrene when that prick hit you, Nate,” I said.
“Ponk-ass bastard,” said Nate, remembering the punch that put him out for almost five minutes. “He come in the other day. I recognized him right off, and I tol’ him to git his ass out or I’d call Bumper. He musta ’membered the name, ’cause he got his ass out wif oney a few cuss words.”
“He remembered me, huh?” I grinned as Odell set down a cold glass of water, and poured me a cup of coffee without asking. They knew of course that I didn’t work Newton Street Station and they only bounced for the Newton Street patrol car in the area, but after that Sneed fight, they always fed
me
free too, and in fact, always tried to get me to come more often. But I didn’t like to take advantage. Before that, I used to come and pay half price like any uniformed cop could do.
“Here come the noonday rush,” said Nate, and I heard car doors slam and a dozen black people talking and laughing came in and took the large booths in the front. I figured them for teachers. There was a high school and two grade schools close by and the place was pretty full by the time Nate put my plate in front of me. Only it wasn’t a plate, it was a platter. It was always the same. I’d ask for ribs, and I’d get ribs, a double portion, and a heap of beef, oozing with bar-b-que sauce, and some delicious fresh bread that was made next door, and an ice-cream scoop of whipped butter. I’d sop the bread in the bar-b-que and either Nate or Odell would ladle fresh hot bar-b-que on the platter all during the meal. With it I had a huge cold mound of delicious slaw, and only a few fries because there wasn’t much room for anything else. There just was no fat on Odell’s beef. He was too proud to permit it, because he was almost sixty years old and hadn’t learned the new ways of cutting corners and chiseling.
After I got over the first joy of remembering exactly how delicious the beef was, one of the waitresses started helping at the counter because Odell and Nate were swamped. She was a buxom girl, maybe thirty-five, a little bronzer than Nate, with a modest natural hairdo, which I like, not a way-out phony Afro. Her waist was very small for her size and the boobs soared out over a flat stomach. She knew I was admiring her and didn’t seem to mind, and as always, a good-looking woman close by made the meal perfect.
“Her name’s Trudy,” said Odell, winking at me, when the waitress went to the far end of the counter. His wink and grin meant she was fair game and not married or anything. I used to date another of his waitresses once in a while, a plump, dusky girl named Wilma who was a thirty-two year old grandmother. She finally left Odell’s and got married for the fourth time. I really enjoyed being with her. I taught her the swim and the jerk and the boogaloo when they first came out. I learned them from my Madeleine Carroll girlfriend.
“Thanks, Odell,” I said. “Maybe next time I come in I’ll take a table in her section.”
“Anythin’ funny happen lately, Bumper?” asked Nate after he passed some orders through to the kitchen.
“Not lately. . . . Let’s see, did I ever tell you about the big dude I stopped for busting a stop sign out front of your place?”
“Naw, tell us,” said Odell, stopping with a plate in his hand.
“Well, like I say, this guy blew the stop sign and I chased him and brought him down at Forty-first. He’s a giant, six-feet-seven maybe, heavier than me. All muscle. I ran a make on him over the radio while I’m writing a ticket. Turns out there’s a traffic warrant for his arrest.”
“Damn,” said Nate, all ears now. “You had to fight him?”
“When I tell him there’s this warrant he says, ‘Too bad, man, I just ain’t going to jail.’ Just that cool he said it. Then he steps back like he’s ready.”
“Guddamn,” said Odell.
“So then it just comes to me, this idea. I walk over to the police car and pick up the radio and say in a loud voice, ‘One-X-L-Forty-five requesting an ambulance at Forty-first and Avalon.’ The big dude, he looks around and says, ‘What’s the ambulance for?’ I say, ‘That’s for you, asshole, if you don’t get in that car.’
“So he gets in the car and halfway to jail he starts chuckling, then pretty soon he really busts up. ‘Man,’ he says, ‘You really flimflammed my ass. This is the first time I ever laughed my way to jail.’”
“Gud-damn, Bumper,” said Odell. “You’re somethin’ else. Guddamn.” Then they both went off laughing to wait on customers.
I finished the rest of the meat, picked the bones, and sopped up the last of the bread, but I wasn’t happy now. In fact, it was depressing there with a crowd of people and the waitresses rushing around and dishes clattering, so I said good-bye to Nate and Odell. Naturally, I couldn’t tip them even though they personally served me, so I gave two bucks to Nate and said, “Give it to Trudy. Tell her it’s an advance tip for the good service she’s gonna give me next time when I take a table in her section.”
“I’ll tell her, Bumper,” Nate grinned as I waved and burped and walked out the door.
As I was trying to read the temperature again over a savings and loan office, the time flashed on the marquee. It was one-thirty, which is the time afternoon court always convenes. It dawned on me that I’d forgotten I had to be at a preliminary hearing this afternoon!
I cursed and stomped on it, heading for the new municipal court annex on Sunset, near the Old Mission Plaza, and then I slowed down and thought, what the hell, this is the last time I’ll ever go to court on duty. I may get called back to testify after I’m retired, but this’ll be the last time
on duty
as a working cop, and I’d never been late to court in twenty years. So what the hell, I slowed down and cruised leisurely to the court building.
I passed one of the Indian bars on Main Street, and saw two drunken braves about to duke it out as they headed for the alley in back, pushing and yelling at each other. I knew lots of Payutes and Apaches and others from a dozen Southwest tribes, because so many of them ended up downtown here on my beat. But it was depressing being with them. They were so defeated, those that ended up on Main Street, and I was glad to see them in a fistfight once in a while. At least that proved they could strike back a little bit, at something, even if it was at another drunken tribal brother. Once they hit my beat they were usually finished, or maybe long before they arrived here. They’d become winos, and many of the women, fat five-dollar whores. You wanted to pick them up, shake them out, send them somewhere, in some direction, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere an Indian wanted to go. They were hopeless, forlorn people. One old beat cop told me they could break your heart if you let them.
I saw a Gypsy family walking to a rusty old Pontiac in a parking lot near Third and Main. The mother was a stooped-over hag, filthy, with dangling earrings, a peasant blouse, and a full red skirt hanging lopsided below her knees. The man walked in front of her. He was four inches shorter and skinny, about my age. A very dark unshaven face turned my way, and I recognized him. He used to hang around downtown and work with a Gypsy dame on pigeon drops and once in a while a Jamaican switch. The broad was probably his old lady, but I couldn’t remember the face just now. There were three kids following: a dirty, beautiful teenage girl dressed like her mother, a ragtag little boy of ten or so, and a curly-haired little doll of four who was dressed like mama also.
I wondered what kind of scam they were working on now, and I tried to think of his name and couldn’t, and I wondered if he’d remember me. As late as I was for court, I pulled to the curb.
“Hey, just a minute,” I called.
“What, what, what?” said the man. “Officer, what’s the problem? What’s the problem? Gypsy boy. I’m just a Gypsy boy. You know me don’t you, Officer? I talked with you before, ain’t I? We was just shopping, Officer. Me and my babies and my babies’ mother.”