"Beckworth can kiss my ass. You take care of Beckworth."
The dog came awake as we pulled into the parking lot of the station. He started barking furiously. I turned around in my seat to slug him again, but Wacky deflected my arm. "Awww," he said to the beast, "awww, awww!" And the dog shut up.
I led the dog around to the locker room from the back entrance. Wacky made the run to the hot dog stand next to Sears, and came back with six cheeseburgers. I was petting the hound in front of my locker when Wacky came back and dumped the greasy mess on the floor in front of me. The dog tore into it, and Wacky and I shot out the door and resumed patrol. So began the odyssey of Night Train, as the dog came to be known.
When we returned from our tour of duty that night we heard Reuben Ramos's saxophone honking from the locker room. Reuben is a motorcycle officer who picked up a love of jazz from working Seventy-seventh Street Vice, where he raided the bop joints of Central Avenue regularly, looking for hookers, bookies, and hopheads. He had taught himself to play the sax by ear—mostly honks and flub notes, but sometimes he gets going on some simple tune like "Green Dolphin Street." Tonight he was really cooking—the main theme from "Night Train" over and over.
When Wacky and I entered the locker room we couldn't believe our eyes. Reuben, in his Jockey shorts, was twisting all around, blasting out the wild first notes of "Night Train" while the fat black Lab writhed on his back on the concrete floor, yipping, yowling, and shooting a tremendous stream of urine straight up into the air. Groups of off-duty patrolmen walked in and walked out, disgusted. Reuben got tired of the action and went home to his wife and kids, leaving Wacky to yell and scream of the dog's "genius potential."
Wacky named the dog "Night Train" and took him home with him. He serenaded the dog for weeks with saxophone music on his phonograph and fed him steak, all in the fruitless hope of turning him into a caddy. Finally Wacky gave up, decided that Night Train was a free spirit, and cut him loose. We thought we had seen the last of the beast—but we hadn't. He was to go on to assume legendary status in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Two days after his release, Night Train showed up at Wilshire Station with a dead cat in his jaws. He was chased out by the desk sergeant, who threw the cat in a trash can. Night Train showed up the following day with another dead cat. This time he was chased out with the cat still in his mouth. He came back later that day with the same cat, somewhat the worse for wear. He came back at the right time, for Wacky and I were just getting off duty. When Night Train saw Wacky he swooned with joy, dropped the battered feline gift of love, ran to Wacky's outstretched arms, and urinated all over his uniform. Wacky carried Night Train to my car and locked him in. But Wacky was pissed at Lieutenant Beckworth. Beckworth was supposed to have come across with two cases of Cutty Sark at 75 percent off from a fence he knew, but he had reneged.
Wacky wanted revenge, so he retrieved the mangled dead cat and attached a note with a straight pin to the cat's hide. The note read: "This is all the pussy you're ever going to get, you cheap cocksucker." He then placed the cat on the lieutenant's desk.
Beckworth found it the next morning and went insane. He ordered an all-points bulletin for the dog. He didn't have to look far. Night Train was discovered where he had been placed the previous night—in the backseat of my car. Beckworth couldn't mess with me because he knew I could stop his golf lessons, but he could fuck over Night Train for dead sure. He had the dog arrested and placed in the drunk tank. It was the wrong thing to do. Night Train attacked and almost killed three winos. When the jailer was aroused by their screams and rushed to open the tank door, Night Train ran straight past him, out the door of Wilshire Station, across Pico Boulevard and all the way home to Wacky's apartment, where the two of them lived happily—listening to saxophone music—until the end of the last season of my youth.
A week after the dead cat episode, Beckworth was still pissed.
We were at the driving range at Rancho Park, where I was trying, unsuccessfully, to correct his chronic slice. It was hopeless. The price of working day watch was high.
"Fuck. Shit, fuck. Oh, God," Beckworth was muttering. "Show me again, Freddy."
I grabbed his 3 iron and sailed off a smooth one. Two-twenty. Straight. "Shoulders back, Loot. Feet closer together. Don't reach for the ball, meet it."
He had it perfect until he swung his club. Then he did everything I had told him not to and shank-dribbled the ball about ten yards.
"Easy, Loot. Try it again."
"Goddamnit, Freddy, I can't think today. Golf is ninety percent concentration. I've got the coordination of a superb athlete, but I can't keep my mind on the game."
I played into it. "What's on your mind, Loot?"
"Little things. Minor things. That shithead partner of yours—I've got a feeling about him. Medal of Honor winner, okay. High scores at the academy, okay. But he doesn't look, or act, like a cop. He spouts poetry at roll call. I think he's a homo."
"Not Wacky, Loot. He loves dames."
"I don't believe it."
I played into the lieutenant's sub rosa but well-known love of Negro tail. All the Seventy-seventh Street harness bulls knew him to be a frequent visitor at Minnie Roberts's Casbah—the swankiest colored whorehouse on the South Side.
"Well, Loot," I said, keeping my voice at a whisper, "he loves dames, but he's gotta have a certain kind of dame, if you follow my drift."
Beckworth was getting titillated. He smiled, something he rarely did, and exposed the two snaggleteeth at the corners of his mouth. "Drift it my way, Freddy boy."
I looked in all directions, broadly searching out eavesdroppers. "Korean women, Loot. He can't get enough of them. Only he doesn't like to talk about it, because we're at war over there. Wacky goes goo-goo for gooks. There's a cathouse on Slauson and Hoover that specializes in them. It's right next to that dump with all the colored girls—what's the name of the place?—Minnie's Casbah. Wacky goes to this chink place. Sometimes he sits in his car and has a few belts before he goes in. He told me he's seen a shitload of department brass go into the Casbah looking for poontang, but he won't tell me who. Wacky's a stand-up guy. He doesn't hate the brass hats the way a lot of street cops do."
Beckworth had gone pale, but came out of it fast. "Well, he may not be a queer, but he's still a shithead. The bastard. I had to get my office fumigated. I'm a sensitive man, Freddy, and I had nightmares about that dead cat. And don't tell me Walker didn't do it—because I know."
"I don't deny it, Lieutenant. He did it. But you got to look at his motives."
"What motives? He hates me. That's his motive."
"You're wrong, Loot. Wacky respects you. He even envies you."
"Respect! Envy! What the hell are you talking about?"
"It's a fact. Wacky envies your golfing potential. He told me so."
"Are you crazy? I'm a hacker. He's a low handicapper."
"You wanna know what he said, Loot? He said, 'Beckworth has all the moves. It's just his concentration that's fucking up his game and keeping him from putting it all together. He's got a lot on his mind. He's a good cop. I'm glad I'm just a dumb harness bull on the street. At least I can break eighty. The lieutenant is too conscientious and it fucks up his game. If he weren't such a good cop, he'd be a scratch player.' That's what he said."
I gave it a minute to sink in. Beckworth was aglow. He put down the 4 iron he was mauling and smiled at me beatifically. "You tell Walker to come and see me, Freddy. Tell him I've got some good Scotch for him. Korean pussy, Jesus! You don't think he's a red, do you, Freddy?"
"Wacky Walker? Staff sergeant, U.S. Marines? Bite your tongue, Lieutenant!"