“For God’s sake, Morgan,” he begged. “I don’t know anything. Please let my arm out.”
“I’ll tell you what, Zoot. I’ll settle for your phone spot. Who do you phone your action in to?”
“They phone
me
,” he gasped, as I took a little weight off the door.
“You’re a liar,” I said, leaning again.
“Okay, okay, I’ll give you the number,” he said, and now he was blubbering outright and I got disgusted and then mad at him and at me and especially at the bookmaker I’d never have a chance to get, because he was too well protected and my weapons were too puny.
“I’ll break your goddamn arm if you lie,” I said, with my face right up to his. A young, pretty woman walked by just then, looked at Zoot’s sweaty face and then at mine, and damn near ran across the street to get away from us.
“It’s six-six-eight-two-seven-three-three,” he sobbed.
“Repeat it.”
“Six-six-eight-two-seven-three-three.”
“One more time, and it better come out the same.”
“Six-six-eight-two-seven-three-three. Oh, Christ!”
“How do you say it when you phone in the action?”
“Dandelion. I just say the word Dandelion and then I give the bets. I swear, Morgan.”
“Wonder what Red Scalotta would say if he knew you gave me that information?” I smiled, and then I let him go when I saw by his eyes that I’d guessed right and he was involved with that particular bookmaker.
He pulled his arm out and sat down on the curb, holding it like it was broken and cursing under his breath as he wiped the tears away.
“How about talking with a vice cop about this?” I said, lighting a fresh cigar while he began rubbing his arm which was probably going numb.
“You’re a psycho, Morgan!” he said, looking up. “You’re a real psycho if you think I’d fink on anybody.”
“Look, Zoot, you talk to a vice cop like I say, and we’ll protect you. You won’t get a jacket. But if you don’t, I’ll personally see that Scalotta gets the word that you gave me the phone number and the code so we could stiff in a bet on the phone clerk. I’ll let it be known that you’re a paid snitch and when he finds out what you told me you know what? I bet he’ll believe it. You ever see what some gunsel like Betnie Zolitch can do to a fink?”
“You’re the most rottenest bastard I ever seen,” said Zoot, standing up, very shaky, and white as paste.
“Look at it this way, Zoot, you cooperate just this once, we’ll take one little pukepot sitting in some phone spot and that’ll be all there is to it. We’ll make sure we come up with a phony story about how we got the information like we always do to protect an informant, and nobody’ll be the wiser. You can go back to your slimy little business and I give you my word I’ll never roust you again. Not personally, that is. And you probably know I always keep my word. Course I can’t guarantee you some
other
cop won’t shag you sometime.”
He hesitated for a second and then said, “I’ll settle for
you
not rousting me no more, Morgan. Those vice cops I can live with.”
“Let’s take a ride. How’s your arm feeling?”
“Fuck you, Morgan,” he said, and I chuckled to myself and felt a little better about everything. We drove to Central Vice and I found the guy I wanted sitting in the office.
“Why aren’t you out taking down some handbook, Charlie?” I said to the young vice cop who was leaning dangerously back in a swivel chair with his crepe-soled sneak shoes up on a desk doping the horses on a scratch sheet.
“Hi, Bumper,” he grinned, and then recognized Zoot who he himself probably busted a time or two.
“Mr. Lafferty decide to give himself up?” said Charlie Bronski, a husky, square-faced guy with about five years on the Department. I broke him in when he was just out of the academy. I remembered him as a smart aggressive kid, but with humility. Just the kind I liked. You could teach that kind a little something. I wasn’t ashamed to say he was Bumperized.
Charlie got up and put on a green striped, short-sleeved ivy-league shirt over the shoulder holster which he wore over a white T-shirt.
“Old Zoot here just decided to repent his evil ways, Charlie,” I said, glancing at Zoot who looked as sad as anyone I’d ever seen.
“Let’s get it over with, Morgan, for chrissake,” said Zoot. “And you got to swear you’ll keep it confidential.”
“Swear, Charlie,” I said.
“I swear,” said Charlie. “What’s this all about?”
“Zoot wants to trade a phone spot to us.”
“For what?” asked Charlie.
“For nothing,” said Zoot, very impatient. “Just because I’m a good fucking citizen. Now you want the information or not?”
“Okay,” Charlie said, and I could tell he was trying to guess how I squeezed Zoot. Having worked with me for a few months, Charlie was familiar with my M.O. I’d always tried to teach him and other young cops that you can’t be a varsity letterman when you deal with these barf-bags. Or rather, you
could
be, and you’d probably be the one who became a captain, or Chief of Police or something, but you can bet there’d always have to be the guys like me out on the street to make you look good up there in that ivory tower by keeping the assholes from taking over the city.
“You wanna give us the relay, is that it?” said Charlie, and Zoot nodded, looking a little bit sick.
“
Is
it a relay spot? Are you sure?” asked Charlie.
“I’m not sure of a goddamn thing,” Zoot blubbered, rubbing his arm again. “I only came ’cause I can’t take this kind of heat. I can’t take being rousted and hurt.”
Charlie looked at me, and I thought that if this lifelong handbook, this ex-con and slimeball started crying, I’d flip. I was filled with loathing for a pukepot like Zoot, not because he snitched, hell, everybody snitches when the twist is good enough. It was this crybaby sniveling stuff that I couldn’t take.
“Damn, Zoot!” I finally exploded. “You been a friggin’ scammer all your life, fracturing every friggin’ law you had nuts enough to crack, and you sit here now acting like a pious nun. If you wanna play your own tune you better damn well learn to dance to it, and right now you’re gonna do the friggin’ boogaloo, you goddamn hemorrhoid!”
I took a step toward Zoot’s chair and he snapped up straight in his seat saying, “Okay, Morgan, okay. Whadda you want? For God’s sake I’ll tell you what you wanna know! You don’t have to get tough!”
“Is the number you phone a relay?” repeated Charlie calmly.
“I think so,” Zoot nodded. “Sounds like some goofy broad don’t know nothing about the business. I been calling this same broad for six months now. She’s probably just some stupid fucking housewife, sitting on a hot seat and taking them bets for somebody she don’t even know.”
“Usually record them on Formica,” Charlie explained to me, “then somebody phones her several times a day and takes the action she wrote down. She can wipe the Formica in case the vice cops come busting down her door. She probably won’t even know who pays her or where the phone calls come from.”
“Fuck no, she ain’t gonna know,” said Zoot, looking at me. “This shit’s too big, Morgan. It’s too goddamn big. You ain’t gonna bother nobody by rousting me. You don’t understand, Morgan. People
want
us in business. What’s a guy get for bookmaking? Even a big guy? A fucking fine. Who does time? You ever see a book get joint time?” said Zoot to Charlie, who shook his head. “Fuck no, you ain’t and you ain’t going to. Everybody bets with bookies for chrissake and those that don’t, they like some other kind of vice. Give up, Morgan. You been a cop all these years and you don’t know enough to give up fighting it. You can’t save this rotten world.”
“I ain’t trying to, Zoot,” I said. “I just love the friggin’ battle!”
I went down the hall to the coffee room, figuring that Charlie should be alone with Zoot. Now that I had played the bad guy, he could play the good guy. An interrogation never works if it’s not private, and Charlie was a good bullshitter. I had hopes he could get more out of Zoot because I had him loosened up. Anytime you get someone making speeches at you, you have a chance. If he’s shaky about one thing, he might be about something else. I didn’t think you could buy Zoot with money, he was too scared of everything. But being scared of us as well as the mob, he could be gotten to. Charlie could handle him.
Cruz Segovia was in the coffee room working on his log. I came in behind him. There was no one else in the room and Cruz was bent over the table writing in his log. He was so slim that even in his uniform he looked like a little boy bent over doing his homework. His face was still almost the same as when we were in the academy and except for his gray hair he hadn’t changed much. He was barely five feet eight and sitting there he looked really small.
“Qué pasó, compadre,”
I said, because he always said he wished I was Catholic and could have been the godfather for his last seven kids. His kids considered me their godfather anyway, and he called me
compadre
.
“Órale, panzón,”
he said, like a pachuco, which he put on for me. He spoke beautiful Spanish and could also read and write Spanish, which is rare for a Mexican. He was good with English too, but the barrios of El Paso Texas died hard, and Cruz had an accent when he spoke English.
“Where you been hiding out all day?” I said, putting a dime in the machine and getting Cruz a fresh cup, no cream and double sugar.
“You bastard,” he said. “Where’ve I been hiding. Communication’s been trying to get
you
all day! Don’t you know that funny little box in your car is called a radio and you’re supposed to listen for your calls and you’re even supposed to handle them once in a while?”
“Chale, chale.
Quit being a sergeant,” I said. “Gimme some slack. I been bouncing in and out of that black-and-white machine so much I haven’t heard anything.”
“You’ll be a beat cop all your life,” he said, shaking his head. “You have no use at all for your radio, and if you didn’t have your best friend for a sergeant, your big ass’d be fired.”
“Yeah, but I got him,” I grinned, poking him in the shoulder and making him swear.
“Seriously, Bumper,” he said, and he didn’t have to say “seriously” because his large black eyes always turned down when he was serious. “Seriously, the skipper asked me to ask you to pay a little more attention to the radio. He heard some of the younger officers complaining about always handling the calls in your district because you’re off the radio walking around so much.”
“Goddamn slick-sleeved rookies,” I said, hot as hell, “they wouldn’t know a snake in the grass if one jumped up and bit them on the dick. You seen these goddamn rookies nowadays, riding down the friggin’ streets, ogling all the cunt, afraid to put on their hats because it might ruin their hair styles. Shit, I actually saw one of these pretty young fuzz sitting in his black-and-white spraying his hair! I swear, Cruz, most of these young cats wouldn’t know their ass from a burnt biscuit.”
“I know, Bumper,” Cruz nodded with sympathy. “And the skipper knows a whole squad of these youngsters couldn’t do half the police work you old-timers do. That’s why nobody says anything to you. But
hombre
, you have to handle some calls once in a while instead of walking that beat.”
“I know,” I said, looking at my coffee.
“Just stay on the air a little more.”
“Okay, okay, you’re the
macho
. You got the
huevos de oro.
”
Cruz smiled now that he was through stepping on my meat. He was the only one that ever nagged me or told me what to do. When someone else had ideas along those lines, they’d hit Cruz with them, and if he thought I needed talking to, he’d do it. They figured I’d listen to Cruz.
“Don’t forget,
loco
, you’re coming to dinner tonight.”
“Can you see me forgetting dinner at your pad?”
“You sure Cassie can’t come with you?”
“She sure wishes she could. You know Friday’s the last day for her at school and they’re throwing a little party for her. She
has
to be there.”
“I understand,” said Cruz. “What day is she actually going up north? She decided yet?”
“Next week she’ll be packed and gone.”
“I don’t know why you don’t just take your vacation now and cut out with her. What’s the sense of waiting till the end of the month? That vacation pay isn’t worth being away from her for a few weeks, is it? She might come to her senses and ask herself why the hell she’s marrying a mean old bastard like Bumper Morgan.”
I wondered why I didn’t tell Cruz that I’d decided to do just that. What the hell was the secret? Friday was going to be my last day, I never cared anything about the vacation pay. Was I really afraid to say it?
“Gonna be strange leaving everything,” I muttered to my coffee cup.
“I’m glad for you, Bumper,” said Cruz, running his slim fingers through his heavy gray hair, “If I didn’t have all the kids I’d get the hell out too, I swear. I’m glad you’re going.”
Cruz and me had talked about it lots of times the last few years, ever since Cassie came along and it became inevitable that I’d marry her and probably pull the pin at twenty years instead of staying thirty like Cruz had to do. Now that it was here though, it seemed like we’d never discussed it at all. It was so damn strange.
“Cruz, I’m leaving Friday,” I blurted. “I’m going to see Cassie and tell her I’ll leave Friday. Why wait till the end of the month?”
“That’s fine,
’mano!
” Cruz beamed, looking like he’d like to cut loose with a yelp, like he always did when he was drunk.
“I’ll tell her today.” Now I felt relieved, and drained the last of the coffee as I got up to leave. “And I don’t give a damn if I loaf for a month. I’ll just take it easy till I feel like starting my new job.”
“That’s right!” said Cruz, his eyes happy now. “Sit on that big fat
nalgas
for a year if you want to. They want
you
as security chief. They’ll wait for you. And you have forty percent coming every month, and Cassie’s got a good job, and you still have a good bank account don’t you?”
“Hell yes,” I answered, walking toward the door. “I never had to spend much money, with my beat and all.”