Whaddayamean Dean hated being the partner of someone as mean as Roscoe Rules. He knew his own physical limitations and rarely talked tough on the street unless he was absolutely sure that the other person was terrified of police, in which case he allowed himself the luxury of tossing around a few “assholes,” or “scrotes” to please Roscoe.
“Know why niggers survive serious wounds, partner?” Roscoe Rules asked Whaddayamean Dean.
“No, why, Henry?” asked Whaddayamean Dean, using the given name abhorred by the other choirboys.
“They’re too dumb to go into shock.”
Whaddayamean Dean giggled and snuffled and looked up from his driving at the browless blue eyes of Roscoe Rules, and at his freckled hands which would nervously grab at the crotch, especially when the conversation turned to women. Roscoe was one of those policemen who would sit bored in a radio car in the dark and quiet hours and talk of his incredible sexual encounters in Vietnam or Tijuana and knead and squeeze his genitals until his partners got nauseated.
Working with Roscoe Rules was many things but it was never dull. He was what is known in LAPD jargon as a “Four-fifteen personality,” 415 being the California penal code section which defines disturbing the peace. Indeed, Roscoe Rules had turned many bloodless family fights or landlord-tenant disputes into minor riots by his presence. He had been transferred around the department more than any member of his academy class, had been the subject of many complaints of excessive force from citizens and even from a few police supervisors, who generally do not challenge the techniques of policemen like Roscoe Rules. Not if they respond promptly to radio calls, write one moving traffic violation a day and stop at least three people daily for field interrogations.
During their first week as partners, Roscoe started a small riot. It was in 7-A-77’s area, but Calvin Potts and Francis Tanaguchi were handling a call in 7-A-29’s area, while Harold Bloomguard and Sam Niles were handling a call in 7-A-1’s area, while Spermwhale Whalen and Baxter Slate were parked in an alley near Crenshaw Boulevard, Spermwhale receiving a listless headjob from an aging black prostitute whom he had known from his days at old University Station.
The call had originated as a neighbor dispute, and by the time Roscoe and Whaddayamean Dean arrived, what had been a potentially dangerous situation in an unhappily mixed apartment house on Cloverdale had pretty well petered out to the name calling, face saving phase. There were two tired men involved: a black and a Mexican who did not really want to fight for the honor of their bickering wives or anything else.
“Took a report here one time,” Roscoe observed as they climbed the stairway at nine o’clock that night. “Some abba dabba made a report that one a her cubs was missing. Had so fucking many milksuckers running around she forgot the police department summer camp was taking care a the little prick for a week. That’s what kind a people we run our kiddie camps for. Didn’t know he was gone till she had a head count!”
Whaddayamean Dean shivered as he saw a team of roaches charge on a chunk of slimy red hamburger which lay rotting on the landing.
There was a sign on the manager’s door which said: “No loiterers in this building. Due to lady tenants being kidnapped, molested and robbed the LAPD will arrest loiterers.”
On the second landing they passed a staggering wine reeking black woman who ignored them. She was barefoot, wore pinned black slacks and an extra large dirty blouse which hung outside. The blouse was hiked in the back because of the lopsided hump which bent her double and reduced a woman who was meant to be of average height to a misshapen dwarf.
Roscoe tapped the hump as he passed, winked mischievously at Whaddayamean Dean and said to the stuporous woman, “I got a hunch you’re for me, baby!”
Roscoe was still giggling when they found the remnants of the once smoldering neighbor dispute. The rival factions were almost evenly divided. Two sets of neighbors, including husbands, wives, teenage and preteen children, backed the play of each injured party. Mexicans backed Mexicans, blacks backed blacks. There had been twenty-two people screaming and threatening at the height of the dispute. Now there were just the husbands of the aggrieved women. The black man had a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth where the Mexican had accidentally bumped him when they were pushing and shoving, preparatory to doing battle.
The black man, a squatty hod carrier with enormous shoulders and a wild full natural hairdo, looked relieved by the presence of the bluesuits and shouted angrily, “You made me bleed, motherfucker! You gonna pay I’m gonna kick ass for this!”
“Anytime, man, anytime,” said the Mexican, a slightly shorter man, a member of the same hod carrier’s local, who had been on many jobs with the black man and was almost a friend.
The Mexican, like the black man, was dressed in dirty work pants and was shirtless to unnerve his opponent. He did not have such an intimidating physique in terms of musculature, but his chest, back and rib cage were crisscrossed with many scars: some like coiled rope, some like purple zippers, from old gang wars in East Los Angeles where he had fought his way through the elaborate gang hierarchy to emerge as a seasoned veterano covered with battle wounds and glory But then the Mexican had gotten married, fathered seven children, lost his taste for street war and in truth had not faced a foe for many years.
“What started the beef?” Roscoe Rules asked, deciding to talk to the Mexican.
The Mexican shrugged, touched his hand nervously to the drooping Zapata moustache, lowered his eyes and turned his scarred back to the two policemen.
The black hod carrier’s wife spoke first. “The problem is, Officer, that this broad and her daughter always has to hang clothes on the same day that I’m hangin mine. And that ain’t no big thang, cept they got no respect and just throws other folks’ clothes on the ground like pigs. And I has to put another quarter in the machine and wash my clothes all over agin.”
“That’s a lie,” said the husky Mexican woman, throwing her long sweaty brown hair back over her shoulder. “Her and her daughter are the ones that don’t have no respect. Animals, that’s what they are.”
“Go back to Mexico, bitch,” the black woman said.
“I was born here, nigger. Go back to Africa,” the Mexican woman said, and Whaddayamean Dean stepped between them as the black woman lunged forward, bumping Whaddayamean Dean into Roscoe, who fell against the black man, who accidentally stepped on Roscoe’s plain toed, ripple soled police shoes, which he had spit shined every day for the eight months he owned them.
“Goddamn it!” Roscoe yelled, holding his arms out between the two women, eyeballs white with disgust. “I heard enough!” he thundered, arms still extended, knees slightly bent, face twisted in agony like Samson straining at the pillars.
Then Roscoe dropped his hands to his hips and walked in slow circles. Finally he paused, looked at the people like a sad but patient uncle, nodded and said, “I heard enough!”
“Looky here, Officer,” said the black man, “I don’t mean no disrespect but I heard enough a you sayin you heard enough. You’re makin me nervous.”
Roscoe walked over to Whaddayamean Dean, pulled him aside and whispered, “This spade’s the troublemaker far as I can see. I think he’s got a leaky seabag. Dingaling. Psycho. You can’t even talk to him. Look what the motherfucker did to my shoe!”
“I think we can quiet them down,” Whaddayamean Dean said as Roscoe stood on one foot like a blue flamingo, rubbing his toe hopelessly on the calf of his left leg.