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.