B.M. Driscoll probably had more sick days than the rest of the midwatch combined. If they had to arrest a junkie with hepatitis, B.M. Driscoll would go to his doctor with symptoms within forty-eight hours and would listen doubtfully when assured that his claims were medically impossible.
The ten-hour shift of Watch 5 crawled by when you had to work with him. Older cops said that if you felt that life was flying by too quickly, you could bring time almost to a standstill just by working a whole twenty-eight-day deployment period with B.M. Driscoll.
He was tall and wiry, the grandson of Wisconsin farmers who came to California during the Great Depression, which he claimed kept his parents from eating properly, so they passed unhealthy genes down to him. He kept his sparse brown hair clipped almost as close as the Oracle’s because he believed it was more hygienic. And he was twice divorced, the mystery being how he found anyone but a psychiatrist to marry him in the first place.
However, there was one event in his career that made him a bit of a police legend. Several years earlier, when he was working patrol in the barrio of Hollenbeck Division, he became involved in a standoff with a drug-crazed, facially tattooed homeboy who was threatening to cut his girlfriend’s throat with a Buck knife.
Several cops were there in the middle of the street, pointing shotguns and handguns and cajoling and threatening to no avail. Officer Driscoll was holding a Taser gun, and at one point during the standoff when the homie lowered the blade long enough to wave it during his incoherent rant, B.M. Driscoll fired. The dart struck the homeboy in the left chest area, penetrating the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket as well as his butane lighter. Which was ignited by a lit cigarette. Which caused the guy to burst into flames. Which ended the standoff.
They got the shirt off the homeboy before he was seriously burned and threw him into a rescue ambulance, and B.M. Driscoll became something of a celebrity, especially among the Latino cruisers where he was known as “the dude with the flame thrower.”
But whether he was a legend or not, Budgie Polk was very unhappy about her assignment. She said to the Oracle, “Just tell me one thing, Sarge. Tell me that you’re not keeping me and Mag apart because I’m just back from maternity leave and she’s a little munchkin. I can’t explain to you how degrading it is when that happens to us women. When male supervisors say stuff like ‘We’re splitting you up for your own safety.’ After all the shit we women have gone through to get where we are on this Job.”
The Oracle said, “Budgie, I promise you that’s not why I put you with Driscoll instead of Mag. I don’t think of you in those terms. You’re a cop. Period.”
“And that’s not why you put me with Fausto? So the old war horse could look after me?”
“Haven’t you caught on by now, Budgie?” the Oracle said. “Fausto Gamboa has been a bitter and depressed man since he lost his wife to colon cancer two years ago. And both their sons are losers, so they don’t help him any. When Ron LeCroix had to get his hemorrhoids zapped, it looked like a perfect time to team up Fausto with somebody young and alive. Preferably a woman, to soften him up a little bit. So I didn’t assign him to you for your benefit. I did it for him.”
They didn’t call him the Oracle for nothing, Budgie thought. She was painted into a corner now with nowhere to go. “Hoisted by my own ponytail” was all she could mutter.
The Oracle said, “Put some cotton in your ears for a few days. Driscoll’s actually a decent copper and he’s generous. He’ll buy your cappuccino and biscotti every chance he gets. And not because you’re a woman. That’s the way he is.”
“I hope I don’t catch bird flu or mad cow just listening to him,” Budgie said.
When they got to their patrol unit, Budgie driving, B.M. Driscoll threw his war bag into the trunk and said, “Try not to get in my breathing zone if you can help it, Budgie. I know you’ve got a baby, and I wouldn’t want to infect you. I think I could be coming down with something. I’m not sure, but I’ve got muscle pain and sort of feel chills down my back. I had the flu in October and again in January. This has been a bad year for my health.”
The rest was lost in radio chatter. Budgie tried to concentrate on the PSR’s voice and tune his out. She was reminded of an event she’d first heard about when she transferred to Hollywood Division and met Detective Andi McCrea. Other women officers particularly enjoyed the story.
It seemed that several years ago an LAPD officer from a neighboring division was shot by a motorist he’d pulled over for a ticket. Andi McCrea was a uniformed cop in Hollywood Division at that time, and several night-watch units were assigned to patrol their eastern border, where the suspect was last seen abandoning his car after a short pursuit.
It was past end of watch, and cars were working overtime, in communication with one another and checking alleys, storage yards, and vacant buildings, with no sign of the shooter. Then Andi got the word who the officer was: an academy classmate of hers, and he was badly wounded. She’d been relentless that night, shining her spotlight beam onto rooftops, even into trees, and her older male partner, like B.M. Driscoll, was a complainer. Not about imaginary illnesses, but about his need for rest and sleep. He was an unreliable shiftless cop.
Andi McCrea, according to all accounts, endured it for two hours, but after listening to him say, “We ain’t gonna find nobody, let’s get the hell outta here and go end of watch-this is bullshit,” she grimly turned north to the Hollywood Freeway, pulled onto the ramp, and stopped.
When her partner said, “What’re we stopping here for?” Andi said, “Something’s wrong. Get out and look at the right front tire.”
He griped about that too, but complied, and when he was out of the car shining his beam onto the tire, he said, “There’s nothing wrong here.”
“There sure as hell is something wrong here, you worthless asshole,” Andi said and drove off, leaving him on the freeway ramp, his rover still on the seat and his cell phone in his locker at the station.
Andi continued searching for another hour and only stopped when the search was called off, after which she drove to the station, still hacked off and ready to take her medicine.
The Oracle was waiting for her, and as she was unloading her war bag from the trunk, he said, “Your partner arrived about a half hour ago. Flagged down a car. He’s torqued. Stay away from him.”
“Sarge, we were hunting a maggot who shot a police officer!” Andi said.
“I understand that,” the Oracle said. “And knowing him, I can imagine what you had to put up with. But you don’t dump a body on the freeway unless it’s dead and you’re a serial killer.”
“Is he making his complaint official?”
“He wanted to but I talked him out of it. Told him it would be more embarrassing for him than for you. Anyway, he’s getting his long-awaited transfer to West L.A., so he’ll be gone at the end of the deployment period.”
That’s how it had ended, except that it was a favorite story of cops at Hollywood Station who knew Andi McCrea. And B.M. Driscoll’s whining about his flu symptoms reminded Budgie Polk of the story. It put a little smile on her face, and she thought, How far does he have to push me? Could I get away with it like Andi did? After all, there is precedent here.
And though Budgie was starting to enjoy certain things about working with Fausto now that he’d mellowed a little, wouldn’t it be great to be teamed with Mag Takara? Just for girl talk if nothing else. During code 7, when they were eating salads at Soup Plantation, they could kid around about eye candy on the midwatch, saying things like, “Would you consider doing Hollywood Nate if you thought he could ever keep his big mouth shut about it?” Or, “How much would it take for you to do either of those two logheads, Flotsam or Jetsam, if you could shoot him afterward?” Girl talk cop-style.