Dead End - Ed Lacy

     “Enough for a collar.”

     “Bucky, any slob can make an arrest. It's a stand-up collar that counts, one that gets a conviction. Come on, let's go riding.”

     “Wait until I order a cup of Java.”

     Doc looked horrified. “Not here—it's dishwater.”

     We drove around for a few hours, taking it easy, like tourists. We were on the River Driveway. There was a new Olds ahead of us with a man and woman in it, the woman driving. She was driving too slow, damn near coming to a stop to make the turn to the bridge that went out on the island. Doc said, “Follow them over the bridge.”

     “Why?” I asked, making the turn.

     “I'll give three to one she's a beginner. Once she crosses the bridge, she's outside city limits. Her beginner's permit isn't any good.”

     “Neither are our badges.”

     Doc lit a cigarette, taking the matches out of my pocket. “Don't worry about it.” We stopped at the end of the bridge and he took the wheel. After a few minutes he caught up to the Olds, passed it so closely the woman lost control, drove off the road, and stopped with such a jerk I thought she'd go through the windshield.

     Doc pulled to the side of the road as I saw the man frantically trying to change places with the woman. We walked back to them. Flashing his badge (Doc called it a “potsy,” another sign of old age), Doc said, “Let me see your license, please.”

     The man started to yank out his wallet but Doc told him, “Not you. She was driving.”

     “I was at the wheel, officer, not my wife,” the man said, his face sickly. The woman's plain face was flushed a deep red, and she seemed on the verge of tears.

     “You're a liar!” Doc snapped. “Get in your car and follow us to the station house. I was going to give you a break, but not when you try pulling that crap on me.”

     “I have a beginner's permit and my husband has a license,” the wife wailed.

     “Madam, then I have to arrest you for driving without a license,” Doc said softly. “You should know your permit isn't any good outside city limits. And not on the River Driveway, either, for that matter. Means you'll lose your license too, mister, and it will cancel out your insurance. I'm sorry, but that's the law.”

     The man said, “Please, officer, I was only teaching her to drive. We didn't realize we were out of the city.”

     “And if she had plowed into a car when she lost control of the car just now, killed somebody, what then? New car—at least you ought to be able to sell it for half what you paid,” Doc said, walking around to the rear of the car to take down the license number.

     I was so dumb I wondered why he didn't get the number from the front plate, where we were standing. The husband followed Doc. The woman began to cry, and I said, “Take it easy.”

     “My husband needs the car for his business!” she sobbed.

     Doc and the man returned a few minutes later. Doc told me, “This is one of these things. I'm convinced the lady will be more careful next time. If we take this man's license away, he'll lose his job. Okay if we forget it?”

     I said sure.

     We turned around, headed back for town, and Doc took out a hundred bucks, gave me five tens and a wink.

     At four we went to this tenement. Doc pointed out another lousy house on the other side of the street, said, “Go up on the roof and wait for me.”

     I climbed up six flights to the roof, and a few minutes later Doc joined me, coming over the roof of the next house. We crossed a couple buildings until we were opposite the one we wanted. Doc made sure the roof door was open; then we took turns watching the house across the street. Doc poked around the roof, suddenly called me over. Inside an old roll of tar paper there was a paper bag full of cheap wrist watches, two boxes of cigars, unopened; another bag with candy bars, a card holding a dozen new pocket knives, and a used portable radio. Doc said, “Some kids looted a candy store. We'll come back for them.”

     “Will we have time?”

     “If we're lucky. The kids are waiting for dark, too.”

     “Should I go down and call in for help?”

     Doc looked at me like I was an idiot.

     At ten to six, burly left the house across the street with some little fat guy. Doc said, “We've got time. Let's give the kids a half-hour.”

     “But the goons might give us the slip. Hell with the kids.”

     “What slip? We know where they're going. Know what they're doing now? Stealing a car.”

     Some minutes later Doc asked what time I had on my watch. I held out my wrist and he said, “That's a kid's timepiece. Why are you wearing it?”

     “It's a watch I won in my first amateur fight,” I lied. “I like to—”

     Doc touched my arm for silence. Two big teen-agers opened the door, stepped out on the roof. They got their stuff from the tar paper—were probably going to sell it for two bucks, if they got that much. When we moved out from behind a chimney, they dropped the junk. One kid froze; the other took off. I chased him over a couple of roofs before flattening him with a judo chop on the back of his skinny neck. I dragged him back to where Doc was holding his gun on the other punk. Doc told me to go down and phone the local precinct for a radio car.

     Twenty minutes later we had deposited the kids and their junk in a station house, were on our way uptown. We cruised by the house, a boarded-up whitestone that even sported a small lawn and a fence. There were a dozen cars parked on the street. Doc told me to drive slowly, and when we passed an old car with the hood loose, he said, “That's their getaway car. They had to jack open the hood to jump the ignition. Find us a place to park.”

     I started to pull in next to a hydrant and Doc cursed, said, “We might as well pin our potsies to the windshield!”

     I finally found a parking space around the corner. We walked back and took a plant in the doorway of a closed laundry store. It was cold and we had to wait over an hour before burly and his buddy crossed the street, each carrying an expensive suitcase. We jumped them. Burly didn't drop his bag fast enough so I dropped him with a right to the jaw. Doc blew his police whistle until the post cop came running. On the way to the station house we stopped at the flea-bag, picked up Willie without any trouble.

     I was home by midnight, a little dizzy. In one day we had made five arrests and pocketed fifty bucks each.

     Of course, we didn't do that every day, but we made plenty of arrests. Doc had a whole string of stoolies and often we were at the scene of a crime before it took place. Nor did we make extra money every day, but we did okay. Once we got a tip on a floating crap game, pocketed three hundred of the nine hundred dollars on the hotel rug. I thought it was risky but Doc said, “Stop slobbering. Sure, the desk lieutenant knows we held out some money—so does downtown—but they'd be surprised if we hadn't. It's expected. If you don't take what you can, it makes a lot of people uneasy. Just be careful you don't horn in on the big graft that goes up to the top, right to City Hall. This stuff is peanuts to them. They go for the organized shake, the big money that comes in as regularly as payday.”

     Sometimes I thought Doc was being damn petty. Like once Doc spotted a parolee he remembered, coming out of a bar at night. He frisked the joker, took twenty dollars from his wallet, then let him go with a kick in the rear. I took my ten but Doc could tell I didn't like it. He told me, “Bucky, look at it this way: We're doing the guy a favor. And also doing our job. Don't forget, the biggest part of police work is preventing crime. Now, this fellow would have to finish three more years if we had turned him in.”

     “Turned him in for what—taking a drink?”

     “He was violating his parole by taking a shot at that hour of the night, not to mention the bar is a hangout for punks. But you're not following me, Bucky. The important thing is we reminded him to go straight. All parolees are tempted, so we merely acted as a brake on him. Isn't avoiding three years in the pen worth a couple of ten-dollar bills? We did him a favor.”

     “As the saying goes, with pals like us he'll never need an enemy.”

     Doc laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “Don't worry, kid, he expected it. Why do you think he was only carrying twenty dollars? That was shake money, just for cops.”

     As I said, in many ways Doc reminded me of Nate. Doc was lonely, which I suppose was one reason why he put in such long hours on the job. I didn't mind; police work wasn't work to me. But many a night after we finished he would ask me to have supper with him at some odd restaurant, listen to him philosophize and run his mouth. Sometimes we'd even take in a movie together. I took a small room in Doc's hotel. I was seeing less and less of Elma, but I was giving her thirty-five a week, plus rent, and she didn't seem to care that I was so busy.

     And some nights Doc didn't want me around, would go to his room early and spend the night reading.

     If I never quite understood Doc, I knew he liked me. Once I had a fever and chills during the night. I was shaking like a cement mixer. Elma had an HIP doc in the first thing in the morning and he said I had malaria, told her to give me quinine. Doc phoned at eight thirty to ask where I was. When Elma told him about the attack, he shouted over the phone, “Have you given him any quinine yet?”

     “No. I'm getting dressed to go out now.”

     “I'm coming right up. Don't do a thing.”

     With me still flashing hot and cold, Doc got me dressed, drove me to a V.A. hospital. I'd had sand-fly fever a couple of times in Korea, and when I was released from the hospital three days later, I was set for a small pension, less than twenty dollars a month, for the rest of my life. See, that's what I mean by Doc being smart—if I had taken the quinine first the blood test at the hospital would have showed negative and I never would have got the pension. True, it wasn't much, but it took care of my taxes. In fact, I spent my first check buying Doc a fancy lighter.

     One night as Doc and I were having supper in a French restaurant, we started talking about marriage. Doc told me he had once been married for a few years, a long time ago. For some reason I was surprised; I could never picture him as a homebody. “She was a good woman, Bucky—beautiful, talented, intelligent. She was an artist. I nearly had a breakdown when her heart gave out. She was only twenty-eight. I was fortunate in having those few years of happiness. It's very difficult, under modem tensions, for two people to live together smoothly.”

     Doc stared at me as he sipped his coffee, asked, “It's none of my business, but how did you ever get hooked by Elma?”

     “She lived next door when I was a kid. Might say it was one of these quickie war marriages.”

     “Are you happy with her?”

     “Happy? If I had the money, I'd get a divorce.”

     “No, it's cheaper and better to stay married—if you can stand it. Insurance against getting hooked again. But a strong stud like you should have something better in bed. What time is it?”

     “Almost eight.” Along with his always asking for “fire” for his cigarettes, Doc never looked at his own watch.

     “Pay the check while I make a call. I'll fix you up with a real woman.” Doc stood up.

     “Nobody has to fix me up. I can get my own women.”

     “I might even fix you up with a real watch, too.”

     “Doc, mind your own damn business!”

     He smiled down at me. “This one is a trifle slimmer than your Elma.”

     “I told you, you don't...”

     Walking away from the table, he called out softly, “At least see the merchandise.”

     A half-hour later we were in the lobby of a ritzy apartment house off the Avenue. This not only had a doorman, but even elevator operators. Her name was Judy Low, and she was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. Fairly tall; a strong, lean body; a cute face with hot, heavy lips and bright eyes; and certainly the smoothest blond hair in all the world reaching her shoulders. There was something about her that got me—perhaps the wanton look on her face. Okay, that may sound corny, but there was something about her that shouted she was made for bed.

     The apartment was lush, too; two neat, large rooms with modern furniture in a blaze of colors, lots of books, and a hi-fi that played odd but soothing music. Doc gave her a familiar squeeze as he said, “Judy, this is my partner and friend, Bucky Penn.”

     She said in a silky voice she was glad to see me and did we want a drink? Judy was wearing a heavy robe with Arab writing, or something, woven into it. When she walked across the room it was simply amazing. No big hip-sway or anything cheap—this was a very expensive watch movement.

     We had a few drinks, and the liquor was the best, too; and then, like a hammy actor, Doc said he had to be leaving. Two minutes later Judy was on my lap.

     I began dropping in to see Judy three or four times a week. Doc wisecracked how we were made for each other: Punch and Judy. Like I said, I was never the lover-boy type, but Judy drove me nuts—for a time. Perhaps it was her slim, hard body, after the years of Elma's sogginess. Or it could have been that just as I was now having my clothes made by Doc's tailor, having a high-priced call girl was a new kind of living for me. It got so I couldn't wait until I saw her early in the evening.

     Judy had a peculiar clientele. She was busy between three and seven in the late afternoons with top executives who stopped to see her before they commuted to their suburban homes. Doc said she got a hundred or more a trick and limited her business to about fifteen steady customers. Doc claimed that even with her pay-off, she was making twenty grand a year. When I asked him if the brass wouldn't be sore about us horning in on the graft, he said, “You're not horning in, merely on her free list. And they won't kick about that. Taking prostitution money would make any politician a dead duck—if it became known. Enjoy yourself and don't worry. She likes you.”