The Sticking Place Read online

  29

  LUKE SPED OFF TO INVESTIGATE A BURGLAR alarm at a school, with the Professor in tow. Easing the patrol car to a stop a block from his destination, he told the Professor to stay behind and in the shadows as they walked.

  The otherwise dark campus had a light shining in the cafeteria and Luke told dispatch to send a backup unit.

  A side door opened and a shabbily dressed man stepped into the schoolyard. “Wait here,” Luke whispered to the Professor. He turned down the receiving volume on his handie-talkie and tip-toed forward for a better look, telling the dispatcher to expedite his cover unit as the burglary suspect started jogging toward the fence in the darkest part of the campus.

  Luke didn’t know the location of his cover unit, but he wasn’t about to let the suspect disappear into the night. He climbed the chain-link fence that surrounded the school stockade, leaving the Professor behind.

  Thick metal links rattled and shook from the pulling and pushing efforts of his two hundred thirty pound frame as Luke scaled the eight-foot fence. He could hear footsteps digging into the distant gravel as he lifted himself over the top of the fence and jumped to the ground. He sprinted out of his crouch and snatched his portable radio from its holder, his breath quickening as he spoke into the radio, “Unit 5-John, I’m in foot pursuit of a 459 suspect, eastbound toward the baseball diamond.”

  Luke’s arms pumped in unison with his legs. His biceps pounded and he gained ground with every step. He never thought in pictures. His thoughts came in insistent mental soundtracks and he could hear the voice of Lowell Perkins describing a lion pursuing a zebra as he pounced and knocked the suspect to the ground with a forearm shiver that sent him flopping to his belly, the momentum of the slide forcing his face into a skid against the gravel.

  Luke snatched the skidding burglar off the ground by the scruff of his neck and the collar of his T-shirt. The twisting and struggling torso in his grasp ceased flopping as they went nose-to-nose and he ordered the dangling prisoner to stop struggling.

  After Luke put the burglar behind the cage in the car, he led the Professor into the school and called off his cover unit. He lifted fingerprints from the three louvered window panes that rested against the exterior wall. He snapped photos of the point of entry; of a hamburger wrapper, of two empty chocolate milk cartons, and of a wadded up ice cream wrapper that all rested at the bottom of a clean cafeteria trash can.

  The school janitor who showed up with the fancy title of Building Services Supervisor told Luke the food from the empty wrappers was all that was missing. Luke left his business card along with the phone number to call in case the janitor discovered any additional loss.

  He pulled into a lighted spot in the faculty parking lot to fill out the jail booking slip and read the man behind the cage his “certain constitutional rights” from the back of his P.D. # 145 notebook. The suspect agreed to answer Luke’s questions.

  “Did anyone else come with you tonight?” Luke asked.

  “No.”

  “Why’d you break into the school?”

  “I needed something to eat.”

  “Why’d you choose the school?”

  “I know there’s food here.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve done this before.”

  “When?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Same school?” Luke asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t you been back since?”

  “I was in prison.”

  “For the previous burglary at this school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a Fourth waiver?”

  The question took the form of a code that cops and crooks shared, referring to the right against unreasonable search and seizure parolees voluntarily relinquished in exchange for an early release from prison.

  “Yes.”

  Luke marveled at this straightforward conversation with an unsophisticated crook that made no effort to justify his crime to the cops. There was a miniscule population of smart criminals who worked the system to their advantage, but most of the ones patrol cops arrested were ill-educated, unsophisticated and downright stupid. “How’d you get in?” Luke asked.

  “Same as last time,” the admitted burglar told him. “I wiggled some of the louvered window panes until they loosened. Then I hoisted myself up and went through the opening.”

  Luke grabbed the steering wheel, a fulcrum to turn his body around in his seat and survey his prisoner. The space created by the missing louvers was mighty thin, but the prisoner was skinny enough to squeeze through. “That window’s up pretty high,” he said. “How’d you get down on the floor without getting hurt?”

  “There’s a ledge along the inside wall. I lowered myself onto that and jumped down,” the burglar told him.

  “What exactly did you do inside?” Luke asked.

  “I had dinner.”

  “Did you take anything else?”

  “Didn’t want anything else.”

  “For what exactly is he being arrested?” the Professor asked as they sped toward the freeway. He obviously couldn’t bring himself to finish a sentence with a preposition.

  “Burglary,” Luke said. “It’s a burglary whenever somebody enters a locked building intending to steal something or commit any felony.”

  The Professor turned to face the man squirming behind the cage and the two men talked all the way to the watch commander’s office. The Professor learned that the cuffed man amounted to a career criminal who’d spent more time behind bars than walking the streets a free man.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” the Professor asked Luke.

  “He’ll go back to prison,” Luke said.

  “For eating a hamburger and drinking some chocolate milk?” The tone in the Professor’s voice ascended to accusation.

  “He’s going to prison for burglary,” Luke said. “What he stole is irrelevant. Besides, even if he isn’t convicted for this, they’ll revoke his parole on the last burglary and send him back to finish his sentence.”

  Luke was sure he could feel a wall of resistance rising inside the Professor’s stony silence as he drove the prisoner to jail.

  30

  “LOOK,” LUKE SAID AFTER HE PUT THE burglar behind bars. “I don’t write the laws. I just enforce them.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” the Professor told him.

  “You didn’t have to. I could just tell.”

  The Professor chuckled. “You not only think you’re Superman, now you’re a mind reader too. Somebody should create a comic book character to depict your secret powers.”

  “Get off my case,” Luke said. He gripped the wheel tight and the two rode in silence for a while.

  In the alley behind one of the Plaza’s adult movie theaters, a man stood on his tip-toes, his face submerged in a dumpster as he rummaged through the City trash. His actions comprised a blatant violation of a section of the San Diego Municipal Code.

  “Hey, cut that out,” Luke shouted. “That’s disgusting.”

  The rummaging man heard the command. Luke knew he heard it and he wasn’t about to let him get away with ignoring him. “I said stop that,” Luke shouted again.

  Luke sprang from his car as the trash picker snatched a half-eaten hot dog, bit into it, grimaced and flicked ants to the ground. He scarfed another bite and reached into his pocket.

  “Get your hands out of your pocket,” Luke was done being ignored. “Come on, enough already.” The guy either had his ears stopped up or was as arrogant as hell. Besides that, he could be pulling a weapon. Luke clasped the trash picker’s wrist, pulled his hand from the pocket and turned the palm toward him, exerting enough pressure with his fingers to force the palm open, making it display its contents. It contained a packet of ketchup.

  “I could’ve shot you,” Luke insisted. “Why didn’t you stop when I told you to?”

  The trash picker pushed a shank of greasy hair off of his forehead, took a step back and s
ized Luke up. “I’m hungry and needed that hot dog,” he said.

  The confident answer rang out in a straightforward fashion, but it didn’t make any sense to the young police officer. “You stop what you’re doing when an officer tells you to. Do you understand me?” Luke said.

  “I hear what you’re saying.”

  Luke understood the line of communication. There was a world of difference between hearing Luke’s command and a willingness to comply. “Why do you carry ketchup around?” Luke asked.

  “I put it on stuff. Sometimes I make ketchup soup.”

  “Are you telling me...” Luke started to say.

  The trash picker interrupted. “If I’m really hungry, I’ll eat it on a leaf.

  “You’re under arrest for rummaging through city refuse,” Luke said. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” The Professor squirmed in his seat as Luke wrote a Misdemeanor Release Citation. “He’s not going to jail?” he asked as Luke snatched the cuffs off so his prisoner could sign the bottom of the ticket.

  Luke chuckled. “The jails are too crowded to book somebody for anything like this. It’s sort of a game we play. These people sign their citations, but they don’t go to court. The judge issues a bench warrant and, after they get several, we put them in jail where the intake deputy writes them another ticket with another court date. Eventually, the judge gets pissed off enough to sentence them to a work detail.”

  “These people?” the Professor said.

  Uh-oh. Luke knew he’d stepped in it this time. “Yeah, you know, people who don’t show up in court.”

  “That’s pure crap,” the Professor said. “You don’t have any compassion for a guy who eats sandwiches made of ketchup and leaves?”

  “I can’t get bogged down with compassion for everybody I arrest,” Luke said. “It’s all I can do to enforce the law. You can’t expect me to be anybody’s savior.”

  The Professor was done holding his tongue. “I may be a worthless gutter drunk, but I can see more clearly than you think I can,” he said. “You might as well be a trash collector if you can’t care about starving people.”

  Luke’s response blasted up from his gut and out his mouth like a shot from a cannon. “Give me a break. You can’t just say you’re a worthless drunk and then challenge me about how I live my life. What happened to you?”

  The Professor looked out the window.

  “Answer my question,” Luke insisted.

  “There’s no easy answer to a question like that.”

  “I’ll take a straight answer then.”

  “Don’t go expecting some great revelation,” the Professor said.

  Luke refused to open his mouth. He’d learned silence was sometimes the best interrogation technique.

  “I’m an inner tube with a slow leak ever since Nam,” the Professor said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Luke could accept not getting an earth-shattering revelation, but not this nonsense.

  “I can’t stay full of anything. I can quote every philosopher you can think of,” the Professor said. “I know the world’s great literature and have studied every text somebody claims is holy. It’s all just stale air that leaves me flat. Drinking myself out of my mind is better than that.”

  Luke stared defiantly, waiting for something better.

  “Are you up on your Lear?” the Professor asked.

  “King Lear, sure. I know Lear.”

  “I don’t think you do,” the Professor insisted. “Or we wouldn’t be having this conversation about the way you treat other people.

  “Lear’s about a king who doesn’t learn to be a human being until he’s more than eighty years old and stupid enough to give his power away. Read it again, for real this time, and incorporate its wisdom into your life.”

  “Come on,” Luke said. “It’s all I can manage to try and sleep at night after doing this job. Don’t go expecting me to be some kind of hero.”

  “I know I’m just a drunk, but look at you,” the Professor said. “You’re a great big tower of a man who thinks sweeping hungry people off the streets and into jail is a service to humanity. Do you know the Greek root word for hero?” the Professor asked, the crackling passion in his voice getting stronger.

  “No,” Luke said, “but...”

  “But nothing.” The Professor reached out the window, slapping his palm on the word “protect” in the slogan printed on its side. “It’s even stenciled on your car. Protecting is only half of your responsibility; the other half is to serve ‘these people’ as you call them. Protecting and serving doesn’t only mean supporting the power structures of society; it means using individual might to help people in need.”

  The acid pain of anger churned in Luke’s gut. What about what he’d done for the Professor? He got him sober, took him home to clean him up and bought him a new set of clothes.

  “Look at you,” the Professor went on. “Sitting there with your muscles bulging and your head so full of penal codes you can’t understand the simplest concepts. Like the good guys and the bad guys. You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, Luke. That means not only protecting lives and property, but people’s dignity too. This man you’ve got in your back seat here,” the Professor said as he turned to look directly at the prisoner. “You not only think of him as homeless, you treat him like he’s worthless and less than you.”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Luke shouted. Who did this ingrate of a drunken bum think he was talking to? “It’s against the law to rummage through City refuse. It’s also against the law to burglarize a school, even if it is to get food. It’s my job to enforce those laws. I can’t do it like you want without getting killed or fired.”

  “Do you remember when Lear tore his clothes off and crawled into the hovel with Tom O’ Bedlam after he went crazy?” the Professor said.

  Luke rolled his eyes.

  “Lear was the most powerful man on the earth until he gave everything away. It took his seeing other hungry and naked people to realize they were like that because of him. Do you know what he said then?” the Professor asked.

  “Yes,” Luke answered, the anger in his voice giving way to exasperation. “He said, ‘O, I have ta’en too little care of this.’”

  “No!” the Professor shouted. “He didn’t say it like that. You know the words, but he didn’t just speak them. He bellowed them out from somewhere in the deepest part of his gut. The revelation shook his soul.”

  The Professor paused, giving Luke a chance to speak.

  Luke stayed silent.

  “Every classical tragic figure has one flaw that destroys them,” the Professor went on. “Do you know Lear’s flaw, Luke?”

  Any first year literature student knew that answer.

  “Pride,” Luke said.

  “That’s the simple response. You can do better than that,” the Professor said. “He was a putz. It’s that simple. He should’ve been a great king, or at least a decent human being, but he only knew how to demand obsequiousness. Is that what you aspire to?”

  Luke heaved a sigh. “Right now, I’m aspiring to finish my shift and take you home,” he said.

  “Give some thought to what I’m saying about Lear,” the Professor exhorted.

  “I don’t have time for Lear right now,” Luke said. The Professor had given him a headache.

  “I’ve got one more quotation from Lear to throw at you,” the Professor said, his voice filling the car like it undoubtedly had one of the lecture halls at UCLA years ago. “‘Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?... And the creature run from the cur? There thou might’st behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.”’

  Luke felt a familiar fist of pain at the back of his head as he struggled for a response. The perfect quips would show up too late.

  “You think your uniform gives you the right to be obeyed. It shouldn’t be the uniform that carries that authority,” the Professor said. “It should be you as a human being
and how you treat others that matters.”

  31

  Spring 1979

  “TONIGHT, WE’RE DOING THINGS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT,” Sergeant Biletnikoff said as he carried a boxed videotape into lineup and set it on the podium. “The Chief has a few words to say about that fiasco in the park a while ago, but he can’t make it to everybody’s lineup, so Videographics made this tape.” He lifted the box and shook it, the video rattling against the plastic insides.

  “I want you all to listen up. This is important.” Biletnikoff slipped the video into the slot. Chief Coleman appeared on the TV screen with his hands folded on top of his desk, in front of a paisley power tie.

  “The investigation of the Mayor’s complaint about the incident at the America’s Finest City Rally is completed,” he began. “As Chief of Police, I don’t have the luxury the Police Officers’ Association does of representing only you officers. I’m also responsible to the community and to the government. In my judgment, whenever there’s an allegation that concerns the integrity of one of my officers, whether it’s made by a private citizen or by the Mayor, I have a responsibility to investigate the complaint.”

  “Yeah, right,” Francie blurted out. “What about those lying assholes over at the Mayor’s Office? Who’s investigating their integrity?”

  “All right, that’s enough,” Biletnikoff said as he pushed the rewind button. “Keep quiet so we can get through this thing.”

  The Chief continued. “It was initially determined no wrong doing occurred on the officer’s part and that technically, there was sufficient evidence to forward the battery charge for prosecution. So I signed the package over to the City Attorney’s Office. In spite of what you may have heard, it’s not true the Mayor ordered me to do anything.”

  The room exploded with laughter.

  “He did request that the complaint be forwarded to the City Attorney’s Office to be adjudicated there, which I already intended to do. He does not run the police department. I do.”