The New Centurions Read online

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I hear they sometimes use the stress interview to tell a guy he’s been washed out. You know, like, ‘The background investigator discovered you were once a member of the Nazi Bund of Milwaukee. You’re washed out, kid.’ That kind of bullshit.”

  “I guess I don’t have to worry about my background,” Gus smiled feebly. “I’ve lived in Azusa my whole life.”

  “Come on, Plebesly, don’t tell me there isn’t something you’ve done. Every guy in this class has something in his background. Some little thing that he wouldn’t want the Department to find out. I saw the faces that day when the instructor said, ‘Mosley, report to the lieutenant.’ And Mosley never came back to class. And then Ratcliffe left the same way. They found out something about them and they were washed out. Just like that, they disappeared. You ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four?”

  “No, but I know about it,” said Gus.

  “It’s the same principle here. They know none of us has told them everything. We all got a secret. Maybe they can stress it out of us. But just keep cool, and don’t tell them anything. You’ll be okay.”

  Gus’s heart sank when the door to the captain’s office opened and Cadet Roy Fehler strode out, tall, straight, and as confident as always. Gus envied him his assurance and hardly heard Fehler say, “Next man.”

  Then Wilson was shoving him toward the door and he looked at his reflection in the mirror on the cigarette machine and the milky blue eyes were his, but he hardly recognized the thin white face. The sparse sandy hair seemed familiar but the narrow white lips were not his, and he was through the door and facing the three inquisitors who looked at him from behind a conference table. He recognized Lieutenant Hartley and Sergeant Jacobs. He knew the third man must be the commander, Captain Smithson, who had addressed them the first day in the academy.

  “Sit down, Plebesly,” said unsmiling Lieutenant Hartley.

  The three men whispered for a moment and reviewed a sheaf of papers before them. The lieutenant, a florid bald man with plum-colored lips, suddenly grinned broadly and said, “Well, so far you’re doing fine here at the academy, Plebesly. You might work on your shooting a bit, but in the classroom you’re excellent and on the P.T. field you’re tops.”

  Gus became aware that the captain and Sergeant Jacobs were also smiling, but he suspected trickery when the captain said, “What shall we talk about? Would you like to tell us about yourself?”

  “Yes sir,” said Gus, trying to adjust to the unexpected friendliness.

  “Well, go ahead then, Plebesly,” said Sergeant Jacobs with an amused look. “Tell us all about yourself. We’re listening.”

  “Tell us about your college training,” said Captain Smithson after several silent seconds. “Your personnel folder says you attended junior college for two years. Were you an athlete?”

  “No sir,” croaked Gus. “I mean I tried out for track. I didn’t have time, though.”

  “I’ll bet you were a sprinter,” smiled the lieutenant.

  “Yes sir, and I tried hurdles,” said Gus, trying to smile back. “I had to work and carry fifteen units, sir. I had to quit track.”

  “What was your major?” asked Captain Smithson.

  “Business administration,” said Gus, wishing he had added “sir,” and thinking that a veteran like Wilson would never fail to throw a sir into every sentence, but he was not accustomed to this quasi-military situation.

  “What kind of work did you do before coming on the Department?” asked Captain Smithson, leafing through the folder. “Post Office, wasn’t it?”

  “No sir. Bank. I worked at a bank. Four years. Ever since high school.”

  “What made you want to be a policeman?” asked the captain, touching the gaunt tanned cheek with a pencil.

  “The pay and the security,” Gus answered, and then quickly, “and it’s a good career, a profession. And I like it so far.”

  “Policemen don’t make very good pay,” said Sergeant Jacobs.

  “It’s the most I ever made, sir,” said Gus, deciding to be truthful. “I never made anywhere near four eighty-nine a month before, sir. And I have two children and one on the way.”

  “You’re only twenty-two years old,” Sergeant Jacobs whistled. “What a family you’re making.”

  “We were married right after high school.”

  “Do you intend to finish college?” asked Lieutenant Hartley.

  “Oh, yes sir,” said Gus. “I’m going to switch my major to police science, sir.”

  “Business administration is a good field of study,” said Captain Smithson. “If you like it, stay with it. The Department can find good use for business administration majors.”

  “Yes sir,” said Gus.

  “That’s all, Plebesly,” said Captain Smithson. “Keep working on your shooting. It could be better. And send in the next cadet, please.”

  3

  THE SCHOLAR

  ROY FEHLER HAD TO ADMIT it pleased him when he overheard two of his classmates mention his name in a whispered conversation during a smoking break after class. He heard the cadet mutter “intellectual,” reverently, he thought, just after he recorded the highest score in the report writing class conducted by Officer Willis. He found the academic portion of recruit training unchallenging and if it weren’t for some difficulties on the pistol range and his lack of endurance on the P.T. field, he would probably be the top cadet in his class and win the Smith & Wesson always awarded to the top cadet at graduation. It would be a tragedy, he thought, if someone like Plebesly won the revolver merely because he could run faster or shoot better than Roy.

  He was anxious for Sergeant Harris to come in the classroom for their three hours of criminal law. It was the most stimulating part of recruit training even though Harris was only an adequate teacher. Roy had bought a copy of Fricke’s California Criminal Law, and had read it twice in the past two weeks. He had challenged Harris on several points of law and believed that Harris had become more alert of late for fear of being embarrassed by a knowledgeable recruit. The classroom quieted abruptly.

  Sergeant Harris strode to the front of the class, spread his notes on the lectern and lit the first of the several cigarettes he would smoke during his lecture. He had a face like porous concrete, but Roy thought he wore his uniform well. The tailored blue wool seemed particularly attractive on tall slim men, and Roy wondered how he would look when he had the blue uniform and black Sam Browne.

  “We’re going to continue with search and seizure of evidence,” said Harris, scratching the bald spot at the crown of his rust-colored hair.

  “By the way, Fehler,” said Sergeant Harris, “you were right yesterday about the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice being sufficient to prove the corpus delicti. But it isn’t enough to convict.”

  “No, of course not,” said Roy, nodding his thanks to Harris for the acknowledgment. He wasn’t sure whether Harris appreciated the significance of a few well-placed brain-teasing questions. It was the student who brought a class to life. He had learned this from Professor Raymond who had encouraged him to specialize in criminology when he was drifting aimlessly in the social sciences unable to find a specialty which really interested him. And it was Professor Raymond who begged him not to drop out of college, because he had added so much to the three classes he had taken from the kindly round little man with the burning brown eyes. But he was tired of college; even the independent study with Professor Raymond had begun to bore him. It had come to him suddenly one sleepless night when the presence of Dorothy and her pregnancy was oppressing him that he ought to leave college and join the police department for a year, two years, until he learned something of crime and criminals that might not be available to the criminologist.

  The next day he applied at City Hall wondering if he should phone his father or wait until he was actually sworn in, as he would be in about three months, if he passed all the tests and survived the character investigation which he knew would pose no
problem. His father was terribly disappointed and his older brother Carl had reminded him that his education had already cost the family business in excess of nine thousand dollars, especially since he could not wait until he finished college to marry, and that in any event, a criminologist would be of little use to a restaurant supply business. Roy had told Carl that he would pay back every cent, and he certainly intended to, but it was difficult living on the policeman’s beginning salary which was not the advertised four hundred and eighty-nine dollars a month—not when they deducted for your pension, Police Relief, the Police Protective League, the Police Credit Union which loaned the money for the uniforms, income tax, and the medical plan. But he vowed he’d pay Carl and his father every cent. And he’d finish college and be a criminologist eventually, never making the money his brother Carl would make, but being infinitely happier.

  “Yesterday we talked about the famous cases like Cahan, Rochin, and others,” said Sergeant Harris. “And we talked about Mapp v. Ohio which any rookie would know was illegal search and seizure, and I mentioned how it sometimes seems to policemen that the court is lying in wait for bad cases like Mapp v. Ohio so they can restrict police power a little more. Now that you’re policemen, or almost policemen, you’re going to become very interested in the decisions handed down by the courts in the area of search and seizure. You’re going to be upset, confused, and generally pissed off most of the time, and you’re going to hear locker room bitching about the fact that most landmark decisions are five to four, and how can a working cop be expected to make a sudden decision in the heat of combat and then be second-guessed by the Vestal Virgins of the Potomac, and all that other crap. But in my opinion, that kind of talk is self-defeating. We’re only concerned with the U.S. and California supreme courts and a couple of appellate courts. So don’t worry about some of these freakish decisions that an individual judge hands down. Even if it’s your case and it’s one you wanted to win. Chances are the defendant will be busted again before long and we’ll get another crack at him. And the judge’s decision ends right there on the bench. It’s not going to have a goddamn thing to do with the next case you try.

  “Now I know I got you guys pretty confused yesterday with the problems of search incident to a lawful arrest. We know we can search when?” Sergeant Harris waved a burning cigarette vaguely toward the rear of the room.

  Roy didn’t bother to turn toward the voice which answered, “When you have a search warrant, or when you have consent, or incident to a lawful arrest.” The voice Roy knew belonged to Samuel Isenberg, the only other cadet whom Roy felt might challenge him scholastically.

  “Right,” said Sergeant Harris, blowing a cloud of smoke through his nose. “Half you people will never get a search warrant in your entire careers. Most of the two hundred thousand arrests we make in a year are made on the basis of reasonable cause to believe a felony has been committed, or because a crime has been committed in the officer’s presence. You’re going to stumble onto crimes and criminals and bang! You’ve got to move, not take six hours to get a search warrant. It’s for that reason that we’re not going to talk about this kind of search. I’ve saved the other kind of search until today because to me it’s the most challenging—that’s search incident to a lawful arrest. If the court ever takes this kind of search away from us we’ll be nearly out of business.”

  Isenberg raised his hand, and Sergeant Harris nodded while taking an incredible puff on the cigarette. What was a fairly good-sized butt was now scorching his fingers. He snuffed it out as Isenberg said, “Would you repeat, sir, about the search of the premises ninety-five feet from the defendant’s house?”

  “I was afraid of that.” Harris smiled, shrugged, and lit another cigarette. “I shouldn’t bring up those cases. I did what I criticize other officers for doing, bitching about controversial cases and prophesying doom. Okay, I just said that it hasn’t yet been defined what under the defendant’s control means in terms of search of the premises incident to the arrest. The court has deemed in its infinite wisdom that an arrest ninety-five feet away from the house did not give officers the right to go into the house and search under the theory of the defendant having control of the premises. Also, I mentioned that in another case a person sixty feet away was deemed to have control of a car in question. And then I mentioned a third case in which officers arrested some bookmakers in their car a half block away and the court held the search of the car and premises was reasonable.

  “But don’t worry about that kind of crap. I shouldn’t have mentioned it anyway because I’m basically an optimist. I always see the glass half full not half empty. Some policemen predict that the courts will eventually strip us of all our right to search incident to arrest, but that would cripple us. I don’t think it will happen. I feel that one of these days the Chief Sorcerer in Washington and his eight little apprentices will get themselves together and all this will be straightened out.”

  The class tittered and Roy felt himself becoming irked. Harris just couldn’t resist criticizing the Supreme Court, thought Roy. He hadn’t heard any instructor discuss the law without taking a few shots at the Court. Harris seemed reasonable but he probably felt obligated to do it too. So far, all of the cases Roy had read, that were so bitterly opposed by the instructors, seemed to him just and intelligent. They were based on libertarian principles and it seemed to him unfair to say such thoughtful decisions were unrealistic.

  “Okay you guys, quit leading me off on tangents. We’re supposed to be talking about searches incident to a lawful arrest. How about this one: Two officers observe a cab double-parked in front of a hotel. The fare, a man, gets out of the front seat. A woman comes out of the hotel and gets in the rear seat. Another man not with the woman walks up and gets in the back seat with the woman. Two policemen observe the action and decide to investigate. They approach and order the occupants out of the cab. They observe the man remove his hand from the juncture of the seat and back cushion. The officers remove the rear cushion and find three marijuana cigarettes. The man was convicted. Was the decision affirmed or denied by the appellate court? Anyone want to make a guess?”

  “Denied,” said Guminski, a thin, wiry-haired man of about thirty, whom Roy guessed to be the oldest cadet in the class.

  “See. You guys are already thinking like cops,” Harris chuckled. “You’re ready to believe the courts are screwing us every time. Well you’re wrong. The conviction was affirmed. But there was something I failed to mention that contributed to the decision. What do you think it might be?”

  Roy raised his hand and when Harris nodded, Roy asked, “What time of day was it?”

  “Good,” said Sergeant Harris. “You might’ve guessed, it was an unusual hour. About 3:00 A.M. NOW on what grounds could they search the cab?”

  “Incident to a lawful arrest,” said Roy, without raising his hand or waiting for Harris to nod.

  “Who were they arresting?” asked Harris.

  Roy was sorry he had responded so quickly. He realized he was being trapped. “Not the defendant or the woman,” he said slowly, while his mind worked furiously. “The cabdriver!”

  The class burst out laughing but was silenced by a wave of Harris’ nicotine-stained left hand. Harris bared his large brownish teeth in a grin and said, “Go ahead, Fehler, what’s your reasoning?”

  “They could arrest the cabbie for double-parking,” said Roy. “That’s a violation, and then search incident to the lawful arrest.”

  “Not bad,” said Harris. “I like to see you people thinking even when you’re wrong.”

  Hugh Franklin, the broad-shouldered recruit who sat next to Roy at the alphabetically arranged tables, chuckled louder than Roy felt was necessary. Franklin did not like him, Roy was certain. Franklin was an all-American jock strapper. A high school letterman according to the conversations they had the first few days in the academy. Then three years in the navy, where he played baseball and toured the Orient, thoroughly enjoying himself, and now to the po
lice department, when he couldn’t make it in Class D professional baseball.

  “Why is Fehler wrong?” Harris asked the class, and Roy became annoyed that the entire class should be asked to attack his answer. Why didn’t Harris just give the reason instead of asking everyone to comment? Could it be that Harris was trying to embarrass him? Perhaps he didn’t like having a recruit in the class who took the trouble to do independent study in criminal law and not just blindly accept the legal interpretations which evolve from the police point of view.

  “Yes, Isenberg,” said Harris, and this time Roy turned around so that he would not miss Isenberg’s annoying manner of answering questions.

  “I doubt that the search of the cab could be justified incident to the arrest of the driver for double-parking,” said Isenberg carefully, his dark-lidded black eyes moving from Harris to Roy and back to the instructor. “It’s true the driver committed a traffic violation and could be cited, and a traffic ticket is technically an arrest, but how could you search the cab for contraband? That has nothing to do with a traffic violation, does it?”

  “Are you asking me?” said Harris.

  “No sir, that’s my answer.” Isenberg smiled shyly, and Roy felt disgust for Isenberg’s pretense at humility. He felt the same toward Plebesly and the diffidence he showed when someone expressed admiration for his athletic prowess. He believed them both to be conceited men. Isenberg was another one, he knew, who was just discharged from the army. He wondered how many men joined the Department because they were simply looking for a job and how many like himself had more serious motives.

  “Was the search incident to the arrest of anyone?” asked Harris.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Isenberg, clearing his throat nervously. “I don’t think anyone was under arrest at the time the officer found the contraband. The officer could detain and interrogate people under unusual circumstances at night according to Giske v. Sanders, and I don’t think there was anything unreasonable in ordering them out of the cab. The officers had a justifiable suspicion that something unusual was going on. When the defendant reached behind the seat I think that might be construed as a furtive action.” Isenberg’s voice trailed off and several recruits including Roy raised their hands.