The New Centurions Read online

  Serge watched the garish lighted madness on the San Bernardino Freeway as Galloway drove south on Soto back to Boyle Heights. There was a minor accident on the freeway below and a flare pattern had traffic backed up as far as he could see. A man held what looked like a bloody handkerchief to his face and talked to a traffic officer in a white hat who held a flashlight under his arm as he wrote in his notebook. No one really wants to grow up and go out in all this, he thought, looking down at the thousands of crawling headlights and the squatty white tow truck which was removing the debris. That must be what you long for—childhood—not for the people or the place. Those poor stupid Chicanos, he thought. Pitiful bastards.

  “Getting hungry, partner?” asked Galloway.

  “Anytime,” said Serge, deciding to leave Chino five years in the past where it belonged.

  “We don’t have many eating spots in Hollenbeck,” said Galloway. “And the few we do have aren’t fit to eat in.”

  Serge had already been a policeman long enough to learn that “eating spot” meant more than restaurant, it meant restaurant that served free food to policemen. He still felt uncomfortable about accepting the free meals especially since they had been warned about gratuities in the police academy. It seemed however that the sergeants looked the other way when it came to free cigarettes, food, newspapers and coffee.

  “I don’t mind paying for dinner,” said Serge.

  “You don’t have anything against paying half price, do you? We have a place in our area that pops for half.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Serge smiled.

  “We actually do have a place that bounces for everything. It’s called El Soberano, that means the sovereign. We call it El Sobaco. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “No,” Serge lied.

  “That means the armpit. It’s a real scuzzy joint. A beer joint that serves food. Real ptomaine tavern.”

  “Serves greasy tacos, I bet.” Serge smiled wryly, knowing what the place would look like. “Everybody drinking and dancing I bet, and every night some guy gets jealous of his girlfriend and you get a call there to break up a fight.”

  “You described it perfect,” said Galloway. “I don’t know about the food though. For all I know, they might drive a sick bull out on the floor at dinner time and everybody slices a steak with their blades.”

  “Let’s hit the half-price joint,” said Serge.

  “Tell her to repeat!” Galloway commanded.

  “What?”

  “The radio. We just got another call.”

  “Son of a bitch. Sorry, partner, I’ve got to start listening to that jumble of noise.” He pressed the red mike button. “Four-A-Forty-three, repeat.”

  “Four-A-Forty-three, Four-A-Forty-three,” said the shrill voice, who had replaced the schoolmarm, “Three-three-seven South Mott, see the woman, four-five-nine suspect there now. Code two.”

  “Four-A-Forty-three, roger,” said Serge.

  Galloway stepped down unexpectedly on the accelerator and Serge bounced off the back cushion. “Sorry,” Galloway grinned. “Sometimes I’m a leadfoot. I can’t help stomping down on a four-five-nine call. Love to catch those burglars.”

  Serge was glad to see his partner’s blue eyes shining happily. He hoped the thrills of the job would not wear off too soon on himself. They obviously hadn’t on Galloway. It was reassuring. Everything in the world seemed to grow so dull so quickly.

  Galloway slowed at a red light, looked both ways carelessly and roared across First Street as a westbound station wagon squealed and blasted its horn.

  “Jesus,” Serge whispered aloud.

  “Sorry,” said Galloway sheepishly, slowing down but only a little. Two blocks farther, he streaked through a partially blind intersection with a posted stop sign and Serge closed his eyes but heard no squealing tires.

  “I don’t have to tell you you shouldn’t drive like this, do I?” said Galloway. “At least not while you’re on probation. You can’t afford to catch any heat from the sergeants while you’re on probation.” Galloway made a grinding right turn and another left at the next block.

  “If I obeyed all the goddamn rules of the road like they tell us to, we’d never get there quick enough to catch anyone. And I figure it’s my ass if we get in an accident, so what the hell.”

  How about my ass, you dumb ass, Serge thought, one hand braced on the dashboard, the other gripping the top of the back cushion. He had never envisioned hurtling down busy streets at these speeds. Galloway was a fearless and stupidly lucky driver.

  Serge realized that he could not afford to get a quick reputation of troublemaker. New rookies should be all ears and short on mouth, but this was too much. He was going to demand that Galloway slow down. He made the decision just as his sweaty left hand lost its grip on the cushion.

  “This is the street,” said Galloway. “It’s about mid-block.” He turned off his headlights and glided noiselessly to the curb, several houses from where the address should have been. “Don’t close your door,” said Galloway, slipping out of the car and padding along the curb while Serge was still unfastening his seat belt.

  Serge got out and followed Galloway, who wore ripple-soled shoes and his key ring tucked in his back pocket. Serge now saw the reason as his own new leather-soled shoes skidded and crunched noisily on the pavement. He tucked the jingling key ring in the back pocket and walked as softly as he could.

  It was a dark residential street and he lost Galloway in the gloom, cursing as he forgot the address they were sent to. He broke into a slow run when Galloway, standing in the darkness of a driveway, startled him.

  “It’s okay, he’s long gone,” said Galloway.

  “Got a description?” asked Serge, noticing the side door of the leaning stucco house was standing open and seeing the tiny dark woman in a straight cotton dress standing near Galloway.

  “He’s been gone ten minutes,” said Galloway. “She doesn’t have a phone and couldn’t find a neighbor at home. She made the call at the drugstore.”

  “She saw him?”

  “Came home and found the pad ransacked. She must’ve surprised the burglar, because she heard someone run through the back bedroom and go out the window. A car took off down the alley a second later. She didn’t see the suspect, the car or anything.”

  Two more radio cars suddenly glided down the street, one from each direction.

  “Go broadcast a code four,” said Galloway. “Just say the four-five-nine occurred ten minutes ago and the suspect left in a vehicle and was not seen. When you’re finished come in the house and we’ll take a report.”

  Serge held up four fingers to the policemen in the other cars indicating a code four, that no assistance was needed. As he returned to the house from making the broadcast, he decided that this payday he would invest in a pair of ripple soles or get these leather soles replaced with rubber.

  He heard the sobbing as he approached the open side door and Galloway’s voice coming from the front of the small house.

  Serge did not go into the living room for a moment. He stood and looked around the kitchen, smelling the cilantro and onion, and seeing jalapeño chili peppers on the tile drainboard. He remembered as he saw the package of corn tortillas that his mother would never have any but homemade tortillas in her house. There was an eight-inch-high madonna on the refrigerator and school pictures of five smiling children, and he knew without examining her closely that the madonna would be Our Lady of Guadalupe in pink gown and blue veil. He wondered where the other favorite saint of the Mexicans was hiding. But Martin de Porres was not in the kitchen, and Serge entered the living room, which was small and scantily furnished with outdated blond furniture.

  “We bought that TV set so recently,” said the woman, who had stopped weeping and was staring at the dazzling white wall where the freshly cut two-foot antenna wire lay coiled on the floor.

  “Anything else missing?” asked Galloway.

  “I’ll look,” she sighed. �
�We only made six payments on it. I guess we got to pay for it even though it’s gone.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Galloway. “Call the store. Tell them it’s stolen.”

  “We bought it at Frank’s Appliance Store. He’s not a rich man. He can’t afford to take our loss.”

  “Do you have theft insurance?” asked Galloway.

  “Just fire. We was going to get theft. We was just talking about it because of so many burglaries around here.”

  They followed her into the bedroom and Serge saw him—Blessed Martin de Porres, the black holy man in his white robe and black cloak and black hands which said to the Chicano, “Look at my face, not brown but black and yet even for me Nuestro Señor delivers miracles.” Serge wondered if they still made Mexican movies about Martin de Porres and Pancho Villa and other folk heroes. Mexicans are great believers he thought. Lousy Catholics, really. Not devout churchgoers like Italians and Irish. The Aztec blood diluted the orthodox Spanish Catholicism. He thought of the various signals he had seen Mexicans make to their particular version of the Christian deity as they genuflected on both knees in the crumbling stucco church in Chino. Some made the sign of the Cross in the conventional Mexican fashion, completing the sign with a kiss on the thumbnail. Others made the sign three times with three kisses, others six times or more. Some made a small cross with the thumb on the forehead, then touched the breast and both shoulders, then returned to the lips for another cross, breast and shoulders again, and another small cross on the lips followed by ten signs on the head, breast and shoulders. He loved to watch them then, particularly during the Forty Hours when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and he being an altar boy was obliged to sit or kneel at the foot of the altar for four hours until relieved by Mando Rentería, an emaciated altar boy two years younger than he who was never on time for Mass or anything else. Serge used to watch them and he recalled that no matter what sign they made to whatever strange idol they worshiped who was certainly not the traditional Christ, they touched their knees to the floor when they genuflected and did not fake a genuflection as he had seen so many Anglos do in much finer churches in the short time he still bothered to attend Mass after his mother died. And they had looked at the mute stone figures on the altar with consummate veneration. And whether or not they attended Mass every Sunday, you knew that they were communicating with a spirit when they prayed.

  He remembered Father McCarthy, the pastor of the parish, when he had overheard him say to Sister Mary Immaculate, the principal of the school, “They are not good Catholics, but they are so respectful and they believe so well.” Serge, then a novice altar boy, was in the sacristy to get his white surplice which he had forgotten to bring home. His mother had sent him back to get it because she insisted on washing and starching the surplice every time he served a Mass even though it was completely unnecessary and this would wear it out much too soon and then she would have to make him another one. Serge knew who Father McCarthy meant when he said “they” to the tall craggy-faced Irish nun who cracked Serge’s hands unmercifully with a ruler during the first five years of grammar school when he would talk in class or daydream. Then she had changed abruptly the last three years when he was a gangling altar boy tripping over his cassock that was one of Father McCarthy’s cut-down cassocks because he was so tall for a Mexican boy, and she doted over him because he learned his Latin so quickly and pronounced it “so wondrously well.” But it was easy, because in those days he still spoke a little Spanish and the Latin did not seem really so strange, not nearly so strange as English seemed those first years of grammar school. And now that he had all but forgotten Spanish it was hard to believe that he once spoke no English.

  “Ayeeee,” she wailed suddenly, opening the closet in the ransacked bedroom. “The money, it’s gone.”

  “You had money?” said Galloway to the angular, dark little woman, who stared in disbelief at Galloway and then at the closet.

  “It was more than sixty dollars,” she cried. “Dios mío! I put it in there. It was sitting right there.” Suddenly she began rummaging through the already ransacked bedroom. “Maybe the thief dropped it,” she said, and Serge knew that she might destroy any fingerprints on the chest of drawers and the other smooth-surfaced objects in the bedroom, but he had also learned enough by now to know there were probably no prints anyway as most competent burglars used socks on their hands, or gloves, or wiped their prints. He knew that Galloway knew she might destroy evidence, but Galloway motioned him into the living room.

  “Let her blow off steam,” Galloway whispered. “The only good place for prints is the window ledge anyway. She’s not going to touch that.”

  Serge nodded, took off his hat and sat down. After a few moments, the furious rustling sounds in the bedroom subsided and the utter silence that followed made Serge wish very much that she would hurry and tell them what was missing so they could make their report and leave.

  “You’re going to find out before too long that we’re the only ones that see the victims,” said Galloway. “The judges and probation officers and social workers and everybody else think mainly about the suspect and how they can help him stop whatever he specializes in doing to his victims, but you and me are the only ones who see what he does to his victims—right after it’s done. And this is only a little burglary.”

  She should pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe or Blessed Martin, thought Serge. Or maybe to Pancho Villa. That would be just as useful. Oh, they’re great believers, these Chicanos, he thought.

  5

  THE CENTURIONS

  “HERE COMES LAFITTE,” said the tall policeman. “Three minutes till roll call but he’ll be on time. Watch him.”

  Gus watched Lafitte grin at the tall policeman, and open his locker with one hand, while the other unbuttoned the yellow sport shirt. When Gus looked up again after giving his shoes a last touch with the shine rag, Lafitte was fully dressed in his uniform and was fastening the Sam Browne.

  “I’ll bet it takes you longer to get into your jammies at night than it does to throw on that blue suit, eh Lafitte?” said the tall policeman.

  “Your pay doesn’t start till 3:00 P.M.,” Lafitte answered. “No sense giving the Department any extra minutes. It all adds up in a year.”

  Gus stole a glance at Lafitte’s brass buttons on his shirt pocket flaps and epaulets and saw the tiny holes in the center of the star on the buttons. This proved the buttons had seen a good deal of polishing, he thought. A hole was worn in the middle. He looked at his own brass buttons and saw they were not a lustrous gold like Lafitte’s. If he had been in the service he would have learned a good deal about such things, he thought. On the opposite side of the metal lockers was the roll call room, lockers, rows of benches, tables, and the watch commander’s desk at the front, all crammed into one thirty by fifty foot room. Gus was told that the old station would be replaced in a few years by a new station, but it thrilled him just as it was. This was his first night in University Division. He was not a cadet now; the academy was finished and he could not believe it was Gus Plebesly inside this tailored blue woolen shirt which bore the glistening oval shield. He took a place at the second row of tables from the rear of the room. This seemed safe enough. The rear table was almost filled with older officers, and no one sat at the front one. The second row from the rear should be safe enough, he thought.

  There were twenty-two policemen at this early night watch roll call and he felt reassured when he saw Griggs and Patzloff, two of his academy classmates, who had also been sent to University Division from the academy.

  Griggs and Patzloff were talking quietly and Gus debated about moving across the room to their table but he decided it might attract too much attention, and anyway, it was one minute to roll call. The doors at the rear of the room swung open and a man in civilian clothes entered, and a burly, bald policeman at the rear table shouted, “Salone, why ain’t you suited up?”

  “Light duty,” said Salone. “I’m working the desk tonight. No rol
l call.”

  “Son of a bitch,” said the burly policeman, “too sick to ride around with me in a radio car? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Gum infection.”

  “You don’t sit on your gums, Salone,” said the burly policeman. “Son of a bitch. Now I guess I’ll get stuck with one of these slick-sleeved little RE-cruits.”

  Everyone laughed and Gus’s face turned hot and he pretended he didn’t hear the remark. Then he realized why the burly policeman had said “slick-sleeved.” He glanced over his shoulder and saw the rows of white service stripes on the lower sleeves of the policemen at the rear table, one stripe for each five years’ service, and he understood the epithet. The doors swung open and two sergeants entered carrying manila folders and a large square board from which the car plan would be read.

  “Three-A-Five, Hill and Matthews,” said the pipe-smoking sergeant with the receding hairline.

  “Here.”

  “Here.”

  “Three-A-Nine, Carson and Lafitte.”

  “Here.”

  “Here,” said Lafitte, and Gus recognized the voice.

  “Three-A-Eleven, Ball and Gladstone.”

  “Here,” said one of the two Negro policemen in the room.

  “Here,” said the other Negro.

  Gus was afraid he would be put with the burly policeman and was glad to hear him answer “Here” when he was assigned with someone else.

  Finally the sergeant said, “Three-A-Ninety-nine, Kilvinsky and Plebesly.”

  “Here,” said Kilvinsky and Gus turned, smiling nervously at the tall silver-haired policeman in the back row who smiled back at him.