Lines and shadows (47 page)

Old Fred Gil, after all the hard luck, after nearly being killed by a body bag, with a bullet still in his hip, after spending a lifetime trying to prove to an absent father that he wasn't a mama's boy, found a compatible mate and a new life.

His second wife, Judith, had a good job as an office manager, was a slim, attractive blonde, didn't smoke and seldom took a drink and like Fred, might never say anything worse than

"goldang." He did ordinary sane normal police work, and in their spare time they raised show-quality Maltese dogs and entered them in competition. Old Fred Gil finally got a break.

As to the experiment he could say only: "Maybe the answer was in Washington and Mexico City? I don't know. I just don't think ten guys out there was ever an answer." Of all the Barfers, there was one who stated immediately and unequivocally that he would gladly return to the canyons and do it again. Carlos Chacon felt that they had better jobs with the police department than they would have had without BARF, and he was right. Carlos said that they all "prospered" as a result of the experiment, and he was perhaps not so right. He still had eyes which could show joy, grief, anger,
fear
in ordinary conversation. Carlos Chacon still had violent dreams.

The only other who said that he would return to the canyons was the boss Gunslinger himself, Manny Lopez. A funny thing happened to Manny when he went back to ordinary duty First, he was named a police officer of the year by
Parade
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International Association of Chiefs of Police. He was flown to New York for the award and rode in the airplane with his chief, William Kolender. "Americans are fickle about their myths and legends, and pretty soon, when there were no more stories about fabled Gunslingers, people started forgetting all about Manny's exploits. Other cops said Manny doesn't want much from life, only a ticker-tape parade every Friday." Jimmy Carter went out; Ronald Reagan came in. Mexico went
down
. People could hardly remember the
name
of The Last of The Gunslingers, and even his former Barfers started to doubt that Manny would ever become mayor or police chief. In fact, given all the enemies Manny Lopez had made among the brass when this sergeant had so much power, no one was surprised when he didn't place very high on the promotion list. Manny found his life becoming empty. He felt as disoriented as a scorpion in a jar. He thought that maybe money was the answer. Manny Lopez became the third to quit the police department. He became an entrepreneur. He started buying and selling grease. Manny started a little business collecting cooking grease from local restaurants, grease which was then refined and mixed with cattle feed. All those animal fats mixed with molasses and stirred in with feed was supposed to fatten up even the scrawny cows of Mexico. But it turned out that there were too many
other
grease hustlers lurking around McDonald's and Jack-in-the-Box, so Manny had the idea of processing the stuff south of the border in Tecate.

But there aren't any Kentucky Fried and Burger Kings down there and Manny couldn't find his grease. In fact, what excess grease they have in Mexico they recycle until there's nothing left. Or they sell it to the people. Manny was at it for two years. Manny was a failed grease hustler.

Manny Lopez discovered that his talent lay in law enforcement, but he couldn't go back. There was his pride and ego. So he opened a private investigation agency and figured to make a financial killing, what with being a fabled Gunslinger. He was shocked to discover how quickly people could forget myths and legends.

Finally, Manny Lopez secretly contacted his old friend and mentor, Chief of Police William Kolender. The chief truly liked and admired Manny but the civil service rules prohibited his return as a sergeant. He would have to come back as a patrolman. And that, of course, was unthinkable for a man who had been a legend.

Chief Kolender said of the BARF experiment: "It ruined Manny's career." file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009

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And that was that. The chief was a very smart fellow who understood, even if Manny didn't, that life is no picnic for Gunslingers Emeritus, and that Manny could never start again at the bottom.

Perhaps Manny was just a young fellow with lots of brains and style and courage who found himself thrust into an extraordinary moment in time—confronted with the potent force of the bitch Celebrity, and the power of myth, and with it the seductive ideas of destiny and invincibility. And then that incredible moment when mortality was falling away into canyon darkness like shredded alien rags, a moment he feared but never wanted to end.

In his home there is a wall
covered
with pictures and scrolls and plaques and medals. And up there somewhere is the knowledge that it will never be again.

Manny's old enemies—and he made a bunch on both sides of the border—no doubt had a chuckle at the thought of him hustling grease. Say it ain't so, Manny! The Last of The Gunslingers? A failed grease peddler? Manny's coming in for a landing. A crash landing. But Manny Lopez wasn't through being Manny Lopez.

Five years after the experiment ended, one of his former Barfers, perhaps trying to prove he wasn't so young and impressionable anymore, happened to have a few drinks with his old boss, and decided after too many tequila shooters to put the failed grease peddler in his place.

This ex-Barfer's wife, like many of the wives, used to be just as much afraid of Manny as was her husband. Well, nobody was afraid of a failed grease hustler, and his former subordinate felt like lording it a bit.

He said, "By the way, something I always wanted to find out. My wife told me that at one a the Barf parties you made a serious move on her. She never told me for a long time. Now I wanna
know
, Manny!"

And what could a failed grease peddler say to that? No, it's a lie! Or: I'm shocked! Or: let's let bygones be bygones?

Manny Lopez, who had so many times thrown punches and fired shots when he was literally falling to earth, just looked at his ex-subordinate with a tinge of melancholy and said, "I never wanted you to know this. Your wife told one a the girls that she wanted me more than the rings on her fingers. I wouldn't even
talk
to her after I heard, and I guess she couldn't deal with my rejection. I never wanted you to know this,
mi hijo
." And with that, Manny sadly put his hand on the young man's shoulder and patted him consolingly, and left quietly.

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"I shoulda blew you away in those canyons when I had the chance!" the cop yelled, after he'd recovered.

But Manny was gone. Stifling him with the bar tab. And Manny's former subordinate learned that a scorpion in a jar is still a scorpion.

If one possessed any charity at all it was best to remember Manny Lopez as he was when they were forcing him into that moment in time and trying to create a legend. When he was sitting in the blackness of a tube, in the blackness of the night, and suddenly
vanished
. When he was

jerked from the pipe by a powerful masked bandit and tumbled down into the land of Mexico and was surrounded by El Loco and three armed cutthroats—literally enveloped by murder. And then for his eyebrow to do its reptilian side-winding crawl into that perfect question mark because,
Sabes que
? Manny Lopez had
them
right where he wanted them.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

DÉJÀ VU

THE FATE OF THE OUTSIDERS WAS PERHAPS THE MOST disquieting. As time passed, certain traits, responses, emotions they acquired during the BARF experiment seemed to keep coming up. In 1982 three officers had to undergo psychological counseling in an effort to assess certain traits which might cause either embarrassment to the police department or mortal danger to the officers themselves.

Robbie Hurt had managed to crack up another car, his beloved Porsche, in the parking lot of his local saloon. He and his wife, Yolie, were long divorced, but the thing was he never really left her alone. They lived apart yet he kept calling, and sometimes the three of them—Robbie, Yolie and Robbie's lady friend—would go to dinner or to a movie. And if they were out dancing after dinner he could still display something like jealousy if Yolie was dancing with someone else. Robbie wasn't sure of very much in his personal life, not since the old days when he was seduced by the Bitch, more so than any other Barfer except Manny Lopez.

Robbie entered a program of psychological counseling, primarily to deal with premature cynicism and his drinking problem, before it could claim his life in another car crackup. He talked to his shrink about BARF and his "problem" and how it had never abated and how it seemed all mixed up with feelings from those days when he was out in the darkness listening and never knowing. And feeling this unbelievable frustration which had to be worse than the present danger the others were experiencing. And how at the end of the file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009

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shift he just had to drink hard stuff because of this frustration, especially when some of the others would let him know he was an outsider. He didn't talk much though about the thing that was infinitely more destructive than frustration: the Bitch, and how he was seduced. He vowed to cut down on the drinking and believed he would as soon as he found Real Happiness in his forthcoming second marriage.

Ken Kelly was yet
another
Barfer who quit the San Diego Police Department. Ken Kelly said, "I was angry when BARF ended. Real angry and I stayed angry. What was the point of it? Why did we do it? I felt betrayed."

The National City Police Department is said by San Diego cops to be a hard-nosed police department, a rednecked police department. It's still in the Truman administration, they say. Policemen carry Colt .45's in National City. Or .357 magnums.
Big
guns. The crime rate is the highest in the county. Ken Kelly joined the National City Police Department, where he quickly made sergeant.

In 1982, Ken Kelly underwent something so extraordinary that he wasn't ready to believe it for a while and was ordered
again
to have his head shrunk until he believed it. Sergeant Ken Kelly was on duty the night of January 23, 1982, in an unmarked police car. That car was later named The Gunship because of Ken Kelly. There was a theft of beer from a 7-Eleven Store. Not a robbery, just a theft of some beer. Three guys in a sports car merely ripped off some suds and boogied. The store manager called the cops, who spotted the car and the car took off and the chase was on. Eventually three patrol units were in the chase, as well as Ken Kelly in The Gunship. The shoplifters looked as though they were going to give it up finally. But on a street where they were pretty well blocked off by police cars, the guy behind the wheel changed his mind after slowing down. He decided to go for it and rammed a police car. Then he backed up and Ken Kelly thought he'd run over a cop because he heard a loud thump.

It turned out to be a cop bumping into his own car, but Ken pulled out his .357 magnum and cranked one off. And fortunately for him as well as for the petty thieves, he missed. He would later get a one-day suspension for firing that shot, but after what was to happen the
next
night, he would be sent to a head doctor.

On the night of January 24th, the very next night, at a time when Ken Kelly didn't even have all his paperwork completed from the shooting the night before, he was back in the field, having just gotten a fight settled, when he heard one of his men in pursuit yet again. Two security cops from "Death Valley Hospital"—so called because the cops say more people die of violence there than are born—happened to be in a market when a bunch of kids came in, snatched some beer and took off in a Dodge van. The security cops decided file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009

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to play like real cops and started chasing the kids, and some real cops eventually joined in.
Another
batch of suds stealers, and that was all.

At the time of the chase the city cops didn't know for sure
why
the kids had begun running in the first place or who they were. The pursuit rambled all through National City and into San Diego. A National City cop took over as lead chase unit out on Highway 805. Ken Kelly paralleled the chase and found himself in his old stomping grounds of San Diego, blowing by at a hundred miles per hour.

This was just like the night before. This was eerie. This was
déjà vu
. This was
impossible
. On Market Street, Ken Kelly jumped on the brakes and slammed to a near stop, cranking hard to the left. The chase was southbound on Forty-first Street. Ken Kelly parked the car diagonally, using it as a barricade, and ran around in the headlights and here it came! Just like the night before. Or
was
it the night before? Or was it a
dream
?

The van was loaded with kids. The van swerved from side to side. Ken Kelly took out the .357 magnum. Like a
dream
. They were so close he saw the little numbers on the headlights. He fired once before he knew he'd done it. The van passed him. He fired twice more and knew he'd fired, but didn't feel the big-gun kick, not a bit. The first shot hit the E in DODGE and took it out. The second was to the left and lower. The third shot entered the side of the van just as it flew past.

The van ran out of gas finally. One of the kids inside the van was a sixteen-year-old boy who had been crouched between the seats. The .357 slug crashed through his jaw, through his hand, and smashed into his femur. The boy was the cousin of a police sergeant. His hand was crippled and his face was disfigured.