On the evening of the first attack Wolfgang was working solo taking reports. Francis turned his police hat around backward, scooted down in his seat with Calvin Potts driving and brought his new toy slowly up over the window ledge.
“Do you have a mirror in your periscope?” Calvin asked.
“No.”
“Then you can’t see a fuckin thing?”
“No, you gotta tell me when I’m sighted in on Wolfgang.”
“Is that all you’re gonna do, sight in on Wolfgang?”
“No, that ain’t all. We’re gonna sink that pendejo,” Francis replied, lapsing into Spanish. “Bring her alongside.”
Wolfgang was stopped on Wilshire Boulevard between Western and Muirfield. This time his quarry was out of the Mercedes. She was brunette, leggy bejeweled and pissed off because she rightly suspected that Wolfgang didn’t really give a shit about the burned out light over her license plate. It was ten o’clock. A starless night. The traffic was light on Wilshire and Francis was afraid Wolfgang would see them cruising in.
“Turn out your lights,” Francis commanded.
Calvin shrugged and did so, bringing the black and white into the curb behind Wolfgang’s radio car when Francis suddenly said, “Not behind them, turkey! Pull up next to them. And slow.”
Then Francis Tanaguchi took a breath and said, “Ssssswwwwwoooooooooooosh,” causing Wolfgang to turn and stare at them quizzically.
“Amiss!” Francis said suddenly. “Dive! Dive! Dive!”
“What?”
“Get the fuck outta here!” Francis yelled and Calvin pulled away, leaving Wolfgang and the baffled brunette staring after them in wonder.
It took them more than an hour to find Wolfgang Werner the next night they attacked. They finally located him by listening for his calls given by a new radio voice which Calvin suspiciously thought almost as sexy as the Dragon Lady’s.
“Seven-X–L-Five, Seven-X–L-Five, see the woman, prowler complaint, Crescent Heights and Colgate.”
“He’ll drop everything to roll on that one,” said Francis. “I know how his mind works. He’ll figure it’s a peeping tom complaint and that she might be good enough to deserve the peeping. All ahead full!”
Francis turned his hat around backward and brought the periscope out from under the seat as they glided toward Wolfgang’s car.
The big German was getting out of the car, flashlight in one hand and report notebook in the other. He didn’t see them as they cruised closer, their engine cut by Calvin Potts.
Then Francis yelled, “Achtung! Fire one! Fire two!”
Wolfgang whirled, the flashlight clattered and broke on the asphalt and the German had his clamshell holster open and was halfway into a draw when Francis Tanaguchi said, “Ssssswwwwwooooosh.”
“Francis, did we get him?” Calvin asked as he switched on the engine and lights and dropped a yard and a half of smoking LAPD rubber on the asphalt.
“Banzai! Banzai!” Francis giggled mysteriously.
They didn’t see Wolfgang until end-of-watch in the locker room when he came to Francis’ locker before changing and said with a tight grin, “Okay, Francis, you sunk me vunce. Vut say ve meg a truce?”
Francis only smiled inscrutably and left with Calvin to choir practice to brag to Harold Bloomguard that he was driving Wolfgang crackers. He called his U-boat the S.S. Chorizo after the spicy Mexican sausage.
The very last time Francis’ boat went to sea was the night he had blood on his hands, when Wolfgang Werner was standing in front of Wilshire Police Station talking to his newest girlfriend: a big rosy lusty girl named Olga who waited tables at a La Brea drive-in which fed the car in the area for free.
“Let it go, baby,” Calvin said as they pulled out of the station parking lot onto Venice Boulevard and Francis Tanaguchi leered at Olga and turned his cap around.
“Go back,” Francis said grimly and pulled the periscope from under the seat.
“That dude is gonna kick your little ass and I ain’t woofin.”
“Go back, Calvin.”
“That cat is gonna tear your head off and piss in the hole, Francis.”
“You scared of him?”
“You gud-damn right.”
“If you take me on one more attack I promise I’ll throw away my periscope.”
“Okay, but why now?”
“I’m in love with Olga. She’s so big! Go back and I swear I’ll never fire another torpedo.”
“You swear?”
“Yes.”
“You swear to Buddha?”
“Knock off that Jap stuff, goddamnit. That fuckin Lieutenant Finque made me go to another Nip luncheon today. How’d you like a shirt full of vomity squid, asshole?”
“Okay, I’m goin back. But that storm trooper is gonna burn you down.”
“Let’s go!” Francis said as Calvin wheeled the radio car around and headed back toward Venice Boulevard.
Wolfgang was turned away from them as they drove in from the west, this time in a fast glide and with lights on because of the westbound traffic.
“This is the last fuckin time I go to sea, Francis,” Calvin warned.
“Okay okay, now you’re making me nervous,” said the commander, as he sighted in, peeking up over the window ledge because the eyehole of the periscope revealed nothing but a three inch color photograph of a hairy vagina which Calvin had cut from a Playboy magazine and glued inside the plastic tube to amuse Francis.
“Steer an evasive course afterward,” Francis ordered as Wolfgang turned from Olga who was dressed in the sheerest tightest hiphugging bellbottoms Francis Tanaguchi had ever seen. She was pantyless and her crotch was dark beneath the sheer yellow bells.
Francis leaned out the window, periscope extended, and aimed it not at Wolfgang but at Olga’s bulging fluff.
“Ssssswwwwwooooosh,” cried Francis Tanaguchi and Calvin Potts sped away, fearfully stealing a glance at the grim face of Wolfgang Werner.
That night in the locker room Wolfgang grabbed Francis by the throat without warning and said, “If you efen tink uf putting your lousy torpedo vere you pudt it tonight, I vill tvist you neg off. You vood be smart to decommission your U-boat, Francis.”
Wolfgang made Francis promise by squeezing and encouraging him to bob his head. Then he left Francis gasping in front of the locker while Calvin Potts pretended to need another trip to the urinal, away from Wolfgang Werner.
When Calvin returned he said, “I think we better put the S.S. Chorizo in dry dock for good, Francis.”
That last dangerous attack on the German came after the call which would awaken Francis sweating in the night with red in the crevices of his knuckles and under his nails.
“Seven-A-Seventy-seven, see the woman, unknown trouble, Pico and Ogden.”
“Seven-A-Seventy-seven, roger,” Francis muttered and threw the hand mike on the seat. “Damn it, I’m drooling for a guacamole taco!”
“This must be it,” Calvin said five minutes later and Francis looked up as Calvin hit the high beam, lighting a man and woman who stood in front of a seedy apartment house which was still located in a predominantly white neighborhood, but which was experiencing a high vacancy factor because blacks were getting more numerous.
“Hope this is a quickie,” Francis said as they gathered up their flashlights, hats and notebook. The smog hung over the streets and the building like airbrushed, painted smoke.
“I’m the one that called,” said a woman in a quilted bathrobe, her orange hair frizzing beneath a hairnet.
A balding man with a sloppy grin sat on the steps beside her. There were six empty beer cans between them.
“What’s the problem?” Francis asked, slightly uneasy over an “unknown trouble” call, which can mean anything but sometimes means only that the communications officer who took the call could not think of a convenient category in which to classify it.