The Sticking Place Read online

  “Officer,” Councilman Dallas Cleveland interrupted, “I want that man in the restroom arrested, right now.”

  “I’ll be right with you,” Luke told him. “I can only do one thing at a time.”

  “But, he might get away!” Cleveland said.

  “That’s right Councilman, he might,” Hartson interjected. “Officer Jones will do his best to help you in a few minutes. Right now he’s got this other situation.”

  “Go ahead, Denny,” Shimmer insisted. “Tell Goddson he’s under arrest for battery and let’s get on with it.”

  “Don’t do it, Denny,” Luke insisted. “Remember that quotation I mentioned a minute ago? In the same play, one character says to the other, ‘Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea’ and the guy answers back, ‘Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.’”

  Luke stood looking at Denny, waiting for his words to sink in.

  “What’s your fucking point?” Shimmer insisted.

  “Yeah, what are you trying to say?” Francie said.

  “Come on, Luke, what are you talking about?” Denny’s desperation showed.

  “For cripes sake, put it in plain words so all this whining stops,” Hartson said.

  “What language am I speaking?” Luke asked incredulously. “Let me say it in plainer English. I mean Denny’s a minnow and you other guys—with your tenure and your civil service protection—you’re the big fish. Mr. Goddson and the Mayor’s office, they’re even bigger fish than you guys. Denny can’t win, no matter who he messes with. You guys need to give him a break and fight your own battles.”

  “It makes sense what he’s saying,” Devree said.

  “Shut up your face,” Shimmer shouted to Luke, ignoring Devree. “You obviously don’t understand how things work around here. You’re just a rookie who does what he’s told, and I’m telling you to keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  “See that man over there?” Luke lifted his chin toward T.D. Hartson. “He was my training officer, and if he tells me to keep my mouth shut, I might think about it. You’re nobody to me but some jerk screwing my friend.”

  Shimmer tried butting in.

  Luke cut him off. “Let me tell you the way things work with me. I say what I think is right and you find a way to live with it.”

  “Ah, geez,” Shimmer said, total exasperation registering through the sweat that rolled along cheeks taking on the hue of dirty beets. “Tell this punk to shut up,” he told Hartson. “Tell him to mind his own goddamn business and do what he’s told.”

  “What do you think I should do?” Denny asked Luke.

  Luke could see it was a rhetorical question—that Denny knew what he should do and knew what he was going to do and that the two were not the same. He could see the fear and anger in Denny’s eyes. Denny just wanted to do his job and prove he could be a good cop and he was being railroaded by cowards.

  This all appeared too much for the city councilman to endure. “Officer, I want that man in the bathroom arrested,” he interrupted again. City Councilman Dallas Cleveland had obviously never been treated with such cavalier disdain in his entire life.

  “Shut up and do what you’re told, that’s what you should do,” Shimmer said to Denny, ignoring the councilman.

  “Don’t do it,” Luke told Denny. “You’re the only one who can lose in this situation. These guys want to hold a political fish fry to burn the Mayor, but you’re the one getting cooked.”

  “Goddamn it, Luke, talk to me in plain English,” Denny said.

  This pile had risen to the level of all the rookie generated bullshit Shimmer could stand. “Arrest his ass,” he insisted. He sidled behind Denny with absolute finality, pinched his back and breathed hot air onto his neck. “That’s an order, and if you don’t follow it, you’ll be one sorry piece of shit rookie. You got me?” Shimmer obviously considered it irrelevant that he possessed exactly zero institutional authority to issue an order to anybody.

  “Mr. Goddson, you’re under citizen’s arrest for battery” Denny said, the desperation obvious in his voice.

  Francie jumped in and took the lead. “That’s it,” he said, stepping into the middle of the group. “You’re under arrest, you sorry sonofabitch and Officer Jones here’s going to write you a ticket for committing a battery. Isn’t that right, Officer Jones?”

  “It’s a lawful arrest,” Luke said. “You know I can’t refuse.”

  “Officer,” Councilman Dallas Cleveland blurted out as he stood on his toes, trying to see over the shoulders of the huddled officers. “I was accosted not fifteen minutes ago,” he jiggled an extended finger up and down, pointing at the bathroom, “and I want you to go arrest that pervert.”

  “I’ll be with you just as soon as I write this citation,” Luke said. Then he started to write.

  “Mr. Goddson, would you sign right here, please,” Luke placed the pen to the line with an X for the suspect’s signature and tapped it against the paper. “I’m issuing you a citation to appear in court at the time and place indicated at the bottom. When you sign, you’re not admitting guilt, simply promising to appear in front of the judge.”

  “There are no bruises on his arms,” Goddson insisted. “Neither one of us fell to the ground. I didn’t punch him or anything. Battery sure sounds more serious than what happened.”

  “It’s a battery anytime you touch somebody without their consent,” Shimmer shouted. “How many times you got to hear that?”

  “Damn straight,” Francie joined in.

  “That’s something to save for the judge,” Luke told Goddson as he tore the citation on the perforated lines. He pulled the pink defendant’s copy off and handed it to Goddson.

  Luke overheard a muffled conversation between Shimmer and Hartson as Goddson snatched the paper from his hand.

  “What’s up with your trainee?” Shimmer demanded. “First, he talks about some pair of cleats in a tire or some damn thing, like that makes some fucking sense to a normal person. Then the SOB tells me to shut up and you stand there and let him get away with it.”

  “Let me tell you something,” Hartson countered. “When Luke was my trainee, we stopped this monster to write him a ticket. The guy bails out of his truck like a linebacker on steroids and I’m the quarterback. He tells me he’s not signing shit and he’ll kick my ass if I try taking him to jail. He’s big enough to drive a Mack truck through and he’s rocking back and forth, balling his hands into fists and sweat’s streaming down his forehead.”

  “What’s that got to do...?”

  “I’m about to grab the radio and call for cover. The guy turns to Luke and says, ‘What are you going to do while I’m kicking this pussy’s ass?’ Luke looks him in the eyeballs and tells him, ‘I’ll kick your ass if my training officer tells me to. That’s what I’m going to do.’ The guy looks Luke up and down. Luke’s standing there like he’s ready to fight and don’t expect to lose. All of a sudden the guy decides, ‘Hey, maybe signing this ticket ain’t such a bad idea after all.’ As far as I’m concerned, Luke Jones can speak his mind whether you like it or not.”

  Councilman Dallas Cleveland’s exasperation started boiling over. “Officer,” he said, pushing his way toward Luke again. “I’m a city councilman in this town and I insist that you go over and arrest that pervert.”

  Luke had never heard of City Councilman Dallas Cleveland, but he did know a radio call when he heard one. “Five-John,” the dispatcher said, “A 211 just occurred near the El Cid statue on the Prado. Can you break and respond?”

  “10-4,” Luke said.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Hartson told Dallas Cleveland as he guided Luke away. “A robbery just occurred on the other side of the park and Officer Jones has to go handle that right now.”

  Luke drove across the Cabrillo Bridge now spanning State Highway 163 to reach the eastern portion of Balboa Park that once hosted the Isthmus. It presently housed the Old Globe Theatre, Aerospace Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, the Nat
ural History Museum and several other cultural complexes.

  Luke pulled to a stop near the entrance of the Alcazar Garden. A woman sat against the base of an enormous black statue of the legendary Spanish champion who’d fought against the Moors. El Cid sat astride a rearing stallion and Luke knew statues had an abbreviated language of their own. Any statue of a person astride a rearing stallion had died in battle.

  Pain registered in the woman’s eyes and her trembling shoulders tilted forward. Her scraped hands massaged a swollen knee. “I’m glad to see you, officer,” she said.

  “What happened?” Luke asked. He squatted beside her.

  “I was just walking to the El Prado when this goon came up behind me,” she said. “He grabbed my purse and started running. I didn’t know what was happening at first and I just held on until I fell down.”

  “What’s your name?” Luke asked, trying to establish a little rapport.

  “Emma.”

  “I’m Luke,” he said. “Okay, Emma, go ahead.”

  “He just kept dragging me along the ground until the strap broke,” she said. “He never got a thing.” She lifted the strapless purse and held it in her lap like a prize. “Then he ran that way.” She pointed toward the sidewalk that led along Park Boulevard toward the eastern edge of downtown.

  “What did the guy look like, Emma?”

  “Like a filthy bum, and he stunk something awful.”

  “Why don’t we start at the top and work our way down? How tall?” Luke pulled his notebook to jot down the weight, hairstyle and color and type of clothing. He pulled his handie-talkie from its leather case next to his handcuffs to broadcast a description. “Unit 5-John, are you clear to copy an all-units?” he asked the dispatcher.

  “Go ahead, 5-John.”

  “This is a 664-211 strong arm. Suspect is a white male about thirty-five to forty, with a scruffy beard. His hair’s dark brown and extremely dirty. He’s about five-foot-six, wearing sandals with no socks, dirty Levis and a blue and white Polo shirt with a hole in the back near the shoulder.”

  A few minutes later, a two-officer unit advised dispatch they had a suspect detained in front of a liquor store at the corner of 12th and Broadway just a few blocks to the south.

  Luke asked Emma to take a ride with him to check out a possible suspect. “Let me explain a few things to you,” Luke said as he drove. “The guy the other officers have detained may or may not be the man who tried to rob you. All I want is for you to take a good look at him and tell me directly if he’s the right guy. I don’t want you saying anything to him. Can you do that for me?”

  “I can do that all right,” Emma said as they turned south onto Park Boulevard from President’s Way and headed toward the liquor store. “I sure would like to give him a swift kick, though.”

  Two officers stood on either side of the man who matched the broadcasted description. The neck of a Thunderbird wine bottle peeked over the top of a crumpled paper bag at his feet.

  “Hey, that’s the old biddy I mugged,” the obvious drunk said as the police car lurched to a stop in front of him. “What’s she doing here?” One of the officers stepped behind the prisoner to apply the cuffs.

  “Well, geez,” Luke said, overhearing the impromptu confession through the open window. “I guess that wraps this caper up.”

  As they pulled into the parking lot behind Balboa Park’s Organ Pavilion, home of free musical concerts, the annual nativity scene and the place where Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink had sung “Auld Lang Syne” for the closing ceremonies of the Panama-California Exposition, Emma leaned toward the dash and clucked her tongue. “Officer, that’s my Civic over there,” she said. “See it, the one with the drunk leaning against it?”

  “I see it.” Luke stepped onto the pavement. “Come on now. Get up,” he said, kicking the sole of the drunk’s dirty Converse tennis shoe. “Get up and move along.”

  The drunk grunted, pulled his legs toward his abdomen and curled up beneath the front wheel-well. He never loosened his grip on a bagged can of Olde English 800 malt liquor.

  Luke tapped the soles of the drunk’s shoes with his wooden baton. There was no response. “Okay, that’s enough,” Luke said. He squatted, placed his left knee on the pavement, grabbed the drunk’s hand and lifted at the wrist. He pulled the unconscious man from the pavement and twisted his wrist, pointing the fingers downward in an Aikido pain compliance maneuver. With a firm hold, Luke applied downward pressure, folding the drunk’s elbow against his own abdomen directly above the gun belt as he stood and pulled the drunk along with him.

  “Owowowowowow. Owowowowow. Owow. Ow,” the man bellowed. He awoke to find himself standing tall on his toes next to a fortress of a man in a police uniform.

  With his free hand, Luke searched the drunk’s pockets for weapons or contraband. Finding neither, he rolled his prisoner’s wrist behind his back. He reached to the left side of his gun belt and pulled out his cuffs before rolling one onto the trapped wrist. “Put your other hand behind you,” he ordered. The drunk complied between cries of pain as Luke cuffed the loose wrist to the shackled one before kicking the can of malt liquor over.

  “Ah Jesus,” the man cried. “What did you have to go and do that for? Ah Jesus. Ah Jesus.”

  Luke swung the front of the car onto Park Boulevard for the second time and headed south toward the Detox Center at the end of the long downward slope leading from Pill Hill north of the park to the portion of San Diego’s Harbor spanning the gulf between downtown San Diego and the Isthmus of Coronado.

  A plane zoomed overhead and a school bus full of screaming children pulled beside the car at a red light. As the light turned green and the cacophonous noises settled into a bearable roar, Luke heard muttering sounds coming from the back seat. The words were only slightly louder than the rattling of the radio traffic suddenly emerging in the background after being drowned out by the roar.

  The “Ah Jesus” chorus had evolved into the lyrics of one of Luke’s favorite poems:

  Where Alph, the sacred river ran. Through caverns measureless to man...

  Luke turned the radio down and looked in the rear view mirror. What he heard was a baritone voice delivering the lilting lyrics of exquisite poetry. What he saw was a drunk with a wad of drool hanging from his upper lip. He joined in unison—“...down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground, with walls and towers were girdled round…”

  “Hey,” the drunk interrupted. “I didn’t know cops knew anything about Coleridge.”

  “That’s funny,” Luke said. “I didn’t know skuzzy old downtown drunks knew anything about Coleridge either.”

  “I know, huh.” The two men laughed together.

  Luke pulled into the lot. The front desk clerk, one of a group of recovering alcoholics who ran the center, flung the entrance door outward to wade into the parking lot. He clutched a clipboard. “Sorry, Professor, you know you can’t stay. It’s already been five times this month. Sorry, Officer, he’s reached our quota for the month. He’ll have to go to jail this time.” The clerk hurriedly signed the bottom of a form, tore it from the clipboard and handed it to Luke. “Here’s your rejection slip.”

  Luke put the man back into the car. “What did he mean calling you Professor?” Luke asked.

  “I used to be a literature professor up at UCLA, but the bottle sort of got the best of me,” the man said.

  “No kidding,” Luke said. “I got my master’s in Renaissance Literature before I started the academy.”

  During the short pause that followed, Luke marveled at how a shared love had bridged the obvious chasm between him and the intoxicated and handcuffed man behind the cage. He briefly wondered what the Professor was thinking. Then the two men simultaneously started the poem over and went through to the end.

  “Hey, Luke,” the Professor said as the car headed into the jail’s sally port. He leaned forward, pressing his face against the cold metal. “I’m thinking of the perfect Shakespearean quota
tion for this occasion. Any idea what it is?”

  “No,” Luke said.

  “It’s from Richard II.”

  “I’m still not with you,” Luke answered.

  “Here goes,” the Professor said, “I have been studying...”

  “Hang on,” Luke interrupted. “Now I think I’m with you. Start it over.”

  The Professor began again.

  Luke joined in to quote part of Richard the Second’s lament before his death. “I have been studying how I may compare the prison where I live unto the world”

  “You’re right. That’s just about perfect,” Luke said. Then he walked the Professor in to the jail.

  21

  POLICE CHIEF BOB COLEMAN’S SECRETARY opened his door, poked her streaked bangs through the widening opening and interrupted the meeting. “Chief,” she said, “Mayor Pillson’s on line one, and he doesn’t sound happy.”

  Coleman took a long puff from his cigarette and smashed the tip into the ashtray. A swirl of smoke rimmed the indented edges as ashes smeared into the gold badge embossed at the bottom of the thick glass. His team of assistants took their cue, stood away from the mahogany conference table and filed toward the door as he reached for the phone. “Hi, Pete,” Coleman said. He reached for the lighter and stuck a white filter between his lips. “What’s up?”

  “What’s up, is one of your officers just arrested my chief assistant for battery and I want it taken care of,” the Mayor said.

  Coleman was incredulous. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about your officers coming to my America’s Finest City Rally and arresting Aaron Goddson for a little push. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. That’s my point. Some of your officers showed up to picket my rally and Goddson simply asked if they wouldn’t mind moving on so everybody could have a good time and one of your guys arrested him. Your people had no business being there to begin with. It was a false arrest and an abuse of police power and I want it taken care of.”