“Yeah,” Spermwhale said, “most a the people we bust have public defenders who don’t have to get out quick to make a few more bucks from some other client, so us cops and our civilian witnesses and victims have to cool our heels while these black-robed pussies take care a their fuckin fraternity brothers. If they ain’t got a monopoly I don’t know who does. Who worries about cops?”
“Who worries about victims?” Baxter Slate observed.
“Them too,” Spermwhale nodded.
“Well, it’s good to get these things off our chests at roll-call,” Lieutenant Finque said jauntily now that he had turned twenty-eight cheerful men into seething blue avengers. Then Lieutenant Finque said, “Sergeant Yanov’s going to hold a gun inspection while I keep an appointment with the captain. There’ve been some dirty guns in recent inspections and the captain says he’s going to start coming down hard on you men. You may not appreciate it but you work a damned good division. Even the people we serve are the best. Our citizens show a great interest in the Basic Car Plan meetings and they purchase lots of whistles.”
“Hey, Lieutenant,” Spermwhale said. “Is it true the station buys those whistles for seven cents?”
“I don’t know the details,” said Lieutenant Finque.
“That’s a forty-three cent profit on each whistle,” said Spermwhale.
“I don’t know the details.”
“Jesus, we musta made thousands a bucks with this caper,” Spermwhale observed.
“I don’t know, but it’s for our Youth Services Fund so it’s a worthy cause.”
“Is is true there’s some civilian whistle maker flyin all over the goddamn country tryin to sell the idea to other departments?”
“I’m not familiar.”
“What a scam. You gotta hand it to some a the eunuchs in this department. Once in a while they come up with an idea. Why didn’t I think a that? I coulda made enough in one year to pay off all my ex-wives!”
“Enough on whistles,” Lieutenant Finque smiled nervously since he was the eunuch who thought of it or at least who stole the idea from the senile old lady who thought crime could be stamped out if there were thousands of other old ladies running around blowing whistles at bad guys.
“Maybe I could get in on the action, Lieutenant,” Spermwhale persisted. “I got this idea for sellin one to every broad in the city. See, we design a whistle shaped like a cock and the part you hold is shaped like a pair a balls with two LAPD badges pinned to them. Our sales motto could be ‘Blow for your local policeman.’”
“It might work, Lieutenant!” cried Francis Tanaguchi.
“That’s a swell idea, Spermwhale!” cried Spencer Van Moot.
“I know a guy could design the whistles!” cried Harold Bloomguard.
Lieutenant Finque felt like crying. It always happened like this. He’d discuss a serious subject with the men and they’d end up making fun of him. Supervisor or not, he would have given anything to punch Spermwhale Whalen right in his big, red, scarred up nose. And he’d have done it too if he weren’t petrified of the fat policeman and if he weren’t absolutely sure Spermwhale would break his back.
“I think you better hurry if you’re going to make your appointment,” Sergeant Yanov suggested, to save his superior officer from further trauma.
But before Lieutenant Finque walked out the door he said, “I’ll tell you men one thing. Because of our whistles we’ve developed excellent rapport with the people we serve. If you should get in a fight with a suspect out there on these streets you don’t have to worry. Our good people won’t stand by and let you get kicked in the head!”
“No, they’ll cut it off and shrink it,” Roscoe Rules said dryly as Lieutenant Finque exited trembling.
Sergeant Yanov tried to make the gun inspection palatable by taking Harold Bloomguard’s gun, looking down the barrel and saying, “Kee-rist, Harold, when was the last time you cleaned this thing? There’s a spider been down there so long he has three hash marks on his sleeve.”
Baxter Slate was one of three college graduates among the choirboys, the others being Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard, both of whom obtained degrees while police officers. Two of the others were upperclassmen in part time studies, and all but Spermwhale Whalen had some college units. Baxter Slate not only had his baccalaureate in the classics, but had been a graduate student and honors candidate when he dropped out of college in disgust and impulsively joined the Los Angeles Police Department five years earlier. He was an unusually handsome young man, almost twenty-seven years old. He lived alone in a one bedroom apartment. He had no plans for marrying and no ambition to advance in rank. He said he liked working uniform patrol, that it gave him a chance to live more intensely, that sometimes he seemed to live a week or a month in a single night.
Whereas Calvin Potts read every new book in the police library which he thought might help him pass the coming sergeant’s examination, Baxter Slate read no books in the police library since they invariably dealt with law, crime and police. Though Baxter Slate enjoyed doing police work he hated reading about it. And though Baxter Slate firmly believed that his extensive education in the classics had been the most colossal waste of money his mother had ever squandered and that his degree would never at any time in his life be worth more than the surprisingly cheap paper it was printed on, he nevertheless could not break old habits. He would occasionally for the fun of it, struggle with Virgil and Pliny the Elder to see if he could apply their admonitions to the sensual, self-contained, alcoholic microcosm of choir practice which to Baxter Slate made more sense than the larger world outside.
Most of the choirboys had worked with Baxter as a partner at one time or another. He had been in the division three years and had worked Juvenile for nine months until he discovered he was a lousy Juvenile officer. Baxter thought he was also a lousy patrol officer. No one else said that Baxter was a lousy anything, except Roscoe Rules, who disliked Baxter for having ideas which confused Roscoe. At choir practice Roscoe often drunkenly accused Baxter of using ten dollar words just to show off in front of Ora Lee Tingle who was so bombed out on gin and vodka she wouldn’t have known the difference if Baxter had spoken Latin. And as a matter of fact, Baxter could tell dirty jokes in Latin which amused the choirboys except for Roscoe.
“You and your faggy big words,” Roscoe shouted one night as he soaked his feet in the MacArthur Park duck pond, watching warily that the ducks did not swim by and attack his toes.
“Baxter don’t use big words,” Spermwhale Whalen said, looking as though he would like to pulverize Roscoe Rules, who feared and hated Spermwhale even more than he feared and hated the little ducks.
“Well I think he does, goddamnit,” Roscoe said but was careful to smile at Spermwhale when he said it.
Baxter was some forty feet away in the darkness, lying on a blanket and shaking his head in wonder that even here in the idyllic tranquilized and totally artificial world of choir practice, it was not entirely possible to escape hostility and violence.
“I think it’s faggy and uppity to talk like that,” Roscoe Rules said, while the other choirboys drank and teased Ora Lee Tingle or played mumbletypeg in the grass with confiscated and illegal ten inch stilettos or, like Spermwhale Whalen, tossed little stones on the water to watch the ripples, and to neck with Carolina Moon.
Finally Baxter uncoiled his lean body, brushed back his heavy umber hair, longer than anyone’s but Spencer Van Moot’s, who was constantly under fire from the watch commander to get a haircut, and said, “Roscoe, I sincerely try not to use any big words.”
“There! See, you did it again!” Roscoe pointed, banging on the arm of his partner Whaddayamean Dean Pratt who was dozing on his blanket. “See, you said ‘sincerely’ Shit. Faggy word. Faggy is what it is.”