The Choirboys (14 page)

"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 round 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. East 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 motherfuckin warrants are for more than that. And a bailbondsman 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 ambigupus 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.

"Veil, I dundt 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 a 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 nightwatch 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 accouterments lay 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.

"A miss!" 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.