So I was freed, somewhat, to let my mind drift and wander with fragments of the dusky neon night music. I grieved less and less for Wacky, and my once-rampant curiosity about Lorna Weinberg abated.
When I became more comfortable with solitary patrol, I would ditch out on Norsworthy completely and hit the numbered side streets off Central–tawdry rows of small, white-framed houses, tarpaper shacks, and overcrowded tenement buildings. I bought three pairs of expensive binoculars and secreted them on the rooftops of buildings on my beat. Late at night, I would scan lighted windows with them, looking for crime and wonder. I found it. The whole gamut, from homosexuality–which I didn’t bother with–to wild jazz sessions, to heated lovemaking, to tears. I also found dope addiction–which I did act on, always relaying my information on reefer smoking and worse to the clicks, never trying to grandstand and make the collar myself. I wanted to prove I was a team player, something I never was at Wilshire, and I wanted class-A fitness reports to go with the sergeancy that would be mine shortly after my twenty-eighth birthday.
And I made collars, good ones. I found myself a cracker-jack snitch, a crazy-acting old shoeshine man who hated hopheads and pushers. Willy saw and retained everything, and he had the perfect cover. The neighborhood pimps, lowlifes, and pushers came to him to “glaze their alligators,” and they talked freely in front of him– he was considered to be a blubbering idiot, rendered that way by thirty years of sniffing shoe polish.
He went along with the act, working for peanuts at his shine stand and selling information to me for a sizable chunk of my pay. Through Willy I was able to effect the arrest of a whole slew of grasshoppers and heroin pushers, including a guy wanted on a murder warrant back east.
Norsworthy resented my successes, feeling that I had usurped his power, making his fitness reports look bad by comparison. I felt his resentment and his frustration building. I knew what he was going to do, and took immediate steps to circumvent it.
I went to the commander of the detective squad and leveled. I told him of the collars I had given his men, and how I obtained the information that led to them–I had been walking my beat, at night, alone, free of my intrusive patrol partner.
The grizzled, skinny old lieutenant liked this. He thought I was a tough guy. I told him old big-dick Bob Norsworthy was about to blow all this to hell, that he was pissed off and wanted to horn in on my action, and was about to rat on me to Captain Jurgensen for ditching out on the beat.
The old lieutenant shook his head. “We can’t let that happen, can we, son?” he said. “As of now, Underhill, you are the only solitary foot patrolman in this station. God have mercy on your soul if you ever run into trouble, or if Norsworthy ever quits the department.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” I said, “you won’t regret it.”
“That remains to be seen. One word of advice, son. Watch out for ambition. Sometimes it hurts more than it helps. Now close the door behind you, I want to turn on my fan.”
7
I was at home the following Wednesday frying Night Train his morning hamburger when he brought me the news that was to change my life forever.
My landlady, Mrs. Gates, had been complaining about Train chewing up her plants, shrubs, garden chairs, newspapers, and magazines. She was a dog lover, but frequently told me that Night Train was more “voodoo beast” than dog, and that I should have him “fixed” to curb his rambunctiousness. So when I heard a shrill, “Mr. Underhill!” coming from the front lawn, I put on my widest smile and walked outside ready to do some placating.
Mrs. Gates was standing above Night Train, swatting him with a broom. He seemed to be enjoying it, rolling in the grass on his back with the morning paper wedged firmly between his salivating jaws.
“You give me my paper, voodoo dog!” the woman was shouting. “You can chew it up when I’m finished reading it. Give it to me!”