Sergeant Scuzzi paused long enough to puff on the cigar and belch once or twice before continuing. “Anyways, we got rid a him. Can’t tell you how I did it. But I’ll always be beholding to one a your nightwatch blue-suits, name a Spermwhale Whalen, for giving me the idea. How long you been at Wilshire?”
“Almost two years. You know, Sarge … Scuz, I’ve seen you around but…”
“That’s Scuz. Don’t rhyme with fuzz. Rhymes with loose. That’s Scooose. As in scuse a me.”
“Scooose.”
“That’s it! I ain’t been here at this station too long.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you around, but I always thought you were…”
“A janitor?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I don’t mind. My old man’s a janitor. Supported nine kids pushing a broom. Never talked a word a English, hardly. I don’t mind looking like a janitor. The other two loaners look good as you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You look good. I mean good. How tall’re you?”
“Five eight.”
“Weigh about a hundred fifty?”
“Just about.”
“How the hell you get on the department?”
“I stretched and ate bananas and stuff.”
“You look good. Here.” Scuz pulled open the drawer of his desk, propped his tennis shoes up in front of him, leaned back, puffed his cigar and said, “Try em on.”
Harold picked up the horn rimmed glasses, held them to his eyes and said, “They’re clear glass.”
“Sure. Makes you look even less like a cop if that’s possible. You’re gonna be a real whore operator, my boy. Glad you wore a suit tonight. You’re definitely the suit and tie type. Tell em you’re an accountant. Here.”
And Scuz reached back in the drawer, rummaged through it for a few seconds and found a packet of business cards which said, “Krump, Krump and Leekly Certified Public Accountants.”
“Any broads get cute with you trying to guess if you’re a cop, just lay a card on her. Tell her it’s your private business phone and she can call you during business hours. That’s our straight-in line here. We got a girl works here on the daywatch who’s good at conning callers. If a whore won’t go for you tonight she’ll go for you tomorrow night after she checks you out with our girl.”
“I don’t know anything about vice, Scuz,” Harold said, relaxing in the chair in front of the unshaven sergeant who reached inside his shirt and scratched his belly which was almost as big as Spermwhale’s, and puffed the cigar blissfully with his eyes closed.
“Now don’t go worrying… what’s your first name?”
“Harold.”
“Harold, don’t worry about nothing. I never let my coppers get hurt, specially not a loanee like you who I gotta return to the patrol lieutenant in a couple weeks in as good a shape as I borrowed him. There ain’t nothing to working whores. They offer you a sex act for money. Got it? Sex, money. You in the service?”
“Marines.”
“Overseas?”
“Vietnam.”
“All right,” Scuz nodded, chewing his cigar, leaning back in the chair, hands behind his head. “Overseas the broads got it made. Fucky sucky five bucks. See, they saw what every whore said in war or peace for five thousand years. Sex, money. Now, these whores today know that there’s a thing called entrapment, which means you can’t plant an evil idea in their heads, as if that was possible. So in effect they’re gonna wanna say sucky fucky and let you say the price. Or they’re gonna say the price and let you say sucky fucky. Get it?”
“I think so.”
“It’s just a game but I don’t wanna see you perjure yourself for a shitty little whore pinch so you play it straight. Figure out a way to make her say the whole thing: Sucky fucky five bucks. But of course it ain’t five bucks, it’s twenty on the street. And she ain’t gonna say sucky fucky usually. She’s gonna say French or half and half or party, and all these words been construed by the black robed pussies that sit on the bench to be words with sexual connotations. So soon as she says one a these words and she mentions money, Boom! Bring her down. Hook her up. You got a legal pinch. Got it?”
“God, I hope so,” said Harold.
“Well, just don’t entrap them. Course you’re gonna run into guys who say, bullshit, she says sucky fucky and gets cute about the price, I pull out the iron and zoom her. I say no. Nice and legal.”
“Sucky fucky, five bucks,” said Harold.
“You got it, kid, I knew you was smart!” Scuz said, moving the cigar from the right side of his mouth to the left. “Course she might throw you a curve.”
“Like how?”
“She might say, ‘I think you look like a cop. If you ain’t a cop, take out a twenty dollar bill and wrap it around your cock and wave it at me.’ One did that to me once.”
“What’d you do?”
“I only had a ten,” said Scuz, closing his eyes, enveloping himself in a shroud of cigar smoke which was starting to choke Harold Bloomguard. “But don’t worry about these brain teasers. Don’t happen too much. Most girls’re just gonna say…”
“Sucky fucky, five bucks.”
“I like you, kid,” said Scuz. “Wanna cigar?”
“No thanks, Scuz,” Harold said, thinking about inviting the vice sergeant to choir practice, just as Sam Niles and Baxter Slate came through the door.
Scuz opened his eyes, peeked through the cloud of smoke which hung over him and shook his head disapprovingly at the two strapping six footers, at their hair styled just over the ears, but not long enough to offend the station captain totally Baxter wore tie dyed jeans, a denim jacket and a red velvet shirt. Sam Niles wore a buckskin shirt over a tank top, brushed denims and Wallabees. His neat brown moustache did not drop down around the lip far enough to anger the same station captain and his sideburns did not quite flare out into mutton-chops. The steel rimmed goggles did not help mitigate the whole picture.
“Shit!” Scuz said, fanning the smoke away from his face. “You look just like two healthy, clean cut, twenty-six year old studs, which is what you are. You look like young cops. Why can’t you look sick and puny like him?” And Scuz pointed to Harold Bloomguard who decided not to invite him to choir practice.
“This is a sergeant,” said Harold Bloomguard to Sam and Baxter in case they wouldn’t believe it.
“Just call me Scuz,” said Scuz.
“Anything wrong with the way we look?” Sam Niles asked.
“No, you can’t help it,” Scuz said. “It wouldn’t even help if I made you funky. You just got copper written all over you. It’s okay you guys can work in the trap.”
“Trap?” said Baxter Slate.
“Fruits,” Scuz said, dropping his feet to the floor and remembering they had not shaken hands, offering his hairy paw to both policemen. “What’s your first names?”
“Sam, Sam Niles.”
“Baxter Slate.”
“Okay, guys, glad to have you. Hope you enjoy the two weeks here. Anyways, you can work fruits with the regular team tonight and maybe tomorrow, then you can have some fun on the weekend working a Wilshire Boulevard bar. We got a complaint there’s a big game going on in the back room a this cocktail lounge after closing time. Gotta check it out. Give you some front money maybe. See how you operate. Call it Secret Service money. The department is cheap. Cheapest fucking outfit you ever saw. The money’s just for flash. You spend as little as you have to and bring the rest back. You lose it or somebody burns you for it, I gotta shoot myself like a Jap general. You don’t wanna see old Scuz fall on his sword, do you, Sam?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“Scuz.”
“Scuz.”
“You, Baxter?”
“No, Scuz.”
“Okay, boys, then when your partners get here and start your teaching, pay attention to what they tell you. They’ll tell you better than me. Just remember a couple things. One is that we work a misdemeanor detail and I don’t want any man hurt for a shitty little misdemeanor. Don’t get hurt. Got it, boys?”
And as Harold Bloomguard gulped nervously all three young men nodded at Scuz. “And another thing, I’m sorry I gotta give you some a the shitty jobs but we get a vice complaint we gotta investigate it. I wish I could just let you work fun things like gambling and call girls and bookmaking back offices and fancy bars with good drinks, but that usually ain’t what we gotta do. So try to have fun but don’t get hurt. That’s the only rule I got. You let yourself get hurt and I’ll break your arm!”