The New Centurions Part 32

"I'm not an easily offended Anglo," said Serge. "You can talk to me like I was a Mexican."

"Some police officers who work in the barrios barrios seem seem muy Mexicano muy Mexicano to me," smiled the night man. "You, senor, even look a little to me," smiled the night man. "You, senor, even look a little Mexicano, Mexicano, mostly around the eyes, I think." mostly around the eyes, I think."

"You think so?"

"I meant that as a compliment."

"I know."

"When I came to this country twelve years ago, I thought it was bad that the Mexicans lived mostly in the east side here where the old ways were kept. I even thought we should not teach our children la lengua la lengua because they should completely learn to be Americans. I've looked closely and I believe that the Anglos in this place accept us almost like other Anglos. I used to feel very proud to be accepted like an Anglo because I know of the bad treatment of Mexicans not too long ago. But as I watched you grow weak and fearful that you wouldn't have the love of the world, then I thought: look, Armando- because they should completely learn to be Americans. I've looked closely and I believe that the Anglos in this place accept us almost like other Anglos. I used to feel very proud to be accepted like an Anglo because I know of the bad treatment of Mexicans not too long ago. But as I watched you grow weak and fearful that you wouldn't have the love of the world, then I thought: look, Armando-Mira, hombre, los gabachos are nothing to envy. You wouldn't be one of them if you could. If a man tried to burn your house or hold a knife at your belly you kill him and no matter his color. If he broke your laws you would prove to him that it's painful to do such a thing. Even a child learns that the burning coal hurts if you get close. Don't the gringos teach this to their children?" are nothing to envy. You wouldn't be one of them if you could. If a man tried to burn your house or hold a knife at your belly you kill him and no matter his color. If he broke your laws you would prove to him that it's painful to do such a thing. Even a child learns that the burning coal hurts if you get close. Don't the gringos teach this to their children?"

"Not all of us."

"I agree. You seem to say, touch it six or five times and maybe it burns and maybe not. Then he grows to be a man and runs through your streets and it's not all his fault because he never learned the hot coal burns. I think I'm glad to live in your country, but only as a Mexican. Forgive me, senor, but I wouldn't be a gringo. And if your people continue to grow weak and corrupt I'll leave your comforts and return to Mexico because I don't wish to see your great nation fall."

"Maybe I'll go with you," said Serge. "Got any room down there?"

"In Mexico there's room for all," smiled the night man, carrying a fresh coffeepot to the counter. "Would you like me to tell you of Mexico? It always makes me glad to talk of Yucatan."

"I'd like that," said Serge. "Are you from Yucatan?"

"Yes. It's far, far. You know of the place?"

"Tell me about it. But first, can I use your bathroom? I've got to wash. And can you fix me something to eat?"

"Certainly, senor. Go through that door. What would you like to eat. Ham? Eggs? Bacon?"

"We're going to talk about Mexico. I should eat Mexican food. How about menudo menudo? You'd be surprised how long it's been since I ate menudo menudo."

"I have menudo menudo," laughed the night man. "It's not excellent, but it pa.s.ses."

"Do you have corn tortillas?"

"Of course."

"How about lemon? And oregano?"

"I have them, senor. You know about menudo. menudo. Now I'm ashamed to give you my poor Now I'm ashamed to give you my poor menudo." menudo."

Serge saw that it was after four but he wasn't the least bit sleepy and he felt suddenly exhilarated yet relaxed. But mostly he was hungry. He laughed in the mirror at the grimy sweat-stained face and thought, G.o.d, how I'm hungry for menudo. menudo.

Suddenly Serge popped his head out the door, his hands still covered with suds. "Tell me, senor, have you traveled a lot in Mexico?"

"I know the country. De veras. De veras. I know my Mexico." I know my Mexico."

"Have you been to Guadalajara?"

"It's a beautiful city. I know it well. The people are wonderful, but all the people of Mexico are wonderful and will treat you very good."

"Will you tell me about Guadalajara too? I want to know about that city."

"A pleasure, senor," chuckled the night man. "To have someone to talk to at this lonely hour is a pleasure, especially someone who wants to hear about my country. I'd give you free menudo menudo even if you were not a policeman." even if you were not a policeman."

It was seven o'clock when Serge was driving home, so full of menudo menudo and tortillas he hoped he wouldn't get a stomachache. He wished he had some and tortillas he hoped he wouldn't get a stomachache. He wished he had some yerba buena yerba buena like his mother used to fix. It never failed to help a stomachache and he couldn't afford to be ill because in exactly six hours he would have to get up and be ready for another night. The news on the car radio indicated that looting and burning was expected to resume heavily today. like his mother used to fix. It never failed to help a stomachache and he couldn't afford to be ill because in exactly six hours he would have to get up and be ready for another night. The news on the car radio indicated that looting and burning was expected to resume heavily today.

Serge took Mission Road instead of the freeway and there on North Mission Road he saw something that made him brake sharply and slow to fifteen miles per hour and stare. Eight or ten men, one woman, and two small boys, were lined up at the door of a restaurant which was not yet open. They carried pots and pans of all shapes, but each pot was ample in size and Serge realized they were waiting for the restaurant to open so they could buy a pot of menudo menudo and take it home because they were sick or someone in the house was sick from drinking too much on Friday night. There was not a Mexican who did not believe with all his soul that and take it home because they were sick or someone in the house was sick from drinking too much on Friday night. There was not a Mexican who did not believe with all his soul that menudo menudo cured hangovers and because they believed, it did in fact cure the hangover, and even though his stomach felt like a goatskin bag pumped full of the stuff, he would have stopped and bought some more to keep for later if he had a pot. Then he looked at his helmet, but the liner was too grimy from oil and soot to carry cured hangovers and because they believed, it did in fact cure the hangover, and even though his stomach felt like a goatskin bag pumped full of the stuff, he would have stopped and bought some more to keep for later if he had a pot. Then he looked at his helmet, but the liner was too grimy from oil and soot to carry menudo menudo in, and he accelerated the Corvette and headed for his bed. in, and he accelerated the Corvette and headed for his bed.

He felt he would sleep better than he had in weeks even though he had seen the beginning of the end of things, because now that they had a taste of anarchy, and saw how easy it is to defeat the civil authority, there would be more and it would be the white revolutionary who would do it. This was the beginning, and the Anglos were neither strong enough nor realistic enough to stop it. They doubted everything, especially themselves. Perhaps they had lost the capacity to believe. They could never believe in the miracle in a pot of menudo. menudo.

As he looked in the rearview mirror, the queue of forlorn Mexicans with their menudo menudo pots had disappeared, but in a few moments their spirits would be soaring he thought, because the pots had disappeared, but in a few moments their spirits would be soaring he thought, because the menudo menudo would make them well. would make them well.

"They are not good Catholics," Father McCarthy had said, "but they are so respectful and they believe so well." andale pues, andale pues, Serge thought. To bed. Serge thought. To bed.

20.

THE CHASE.

"GOOD THING THEY'RE too f.u.c.king dumb to make fire bombs out of wine bottles," said Silverson and Gus cringed as a rock skidded over the already dented deck lid and slammed against the already cracked rear window. A gla.s.s fragment struck the Negro policeman whose name Gus had already forgotten, or perhaps it was buried there among the ruins of his rational mind which had been annihilated by terror. too f.u.c.king dumb to make fire bombs out of wine bottles," said Silverson and Gus cringed as a rock skidded over the already dented deck lid and slammed against the already cracked rear window. A gla.s.s fragment struck the Negro policeman whose name Gus had already forgotten, or perhaps it was buried there among the ruins of his rational mind which had been annihilated by terror.

"Shoot that motherf.u.c.ker that . . ." screamed Silverson to Gus, but then sped away from the mob before finis.h.i.+ng the sentence.

"Yeah, those c.o.ke bottles aren't breaking," said the Negro policeman. "If that last one would've broke, we'd have a lap full of flaming gasoline right now."

They had been out only thirty minutes, Gus thought. He knew it was only thirty because it was now five till eight and still it wasn't dark and it had been seven-twenty-five when they drove from the parking lot at Seventy-seventh Station because it was written here on his log. He could see it. It had only been thirty minutes ago. So how could they survive twelve hours of this? They had been told they would be relieved in twelve hours, but of course they would all be dead.

"Friday the thirteenth," muttered Silverson, slowing down now that they had run the gauntlet on Eighty-sixth Street where a mob of fifty young Negroes appeared from nowhere and a c.o.c.ktail had bounced off the door but failed to burst. This happened after someone had cracked the side window with a rock. Now Gus stared at another rock which was lying on the floor at his feet and he thought, we've only been out thirty minutes. Isn't that incredible.

"Some organization we got," said Silverson, turning back east toward Watts where most of the radio calls seemed to be emanating at the moment. "I never worked this crummy division in my life. I don't know my a.s.s from pork sausage."

"I never worked down here either," said the Negro policeman. "How about you, Plebesly? It is Plebesly, isn't it?"

"No, I don't know the streets," said Gus, holding the shotgun tightly against his belly and wondering if the paralysis would fade because he was sure he could not get out of the car, but then he supposed that if they succeeded in breaking a fire bomb inside, his instinct would get him out. Then he thought of himself on fire.

"They just tell you here's a box of thirty-eights and a shotgun and point out two other guys and say take a car and go out there. It's ridiculous," said Silverson. "None of us ever worked down here before. h.e.l.l, man, I worked Highland Park for twelve years. I don't know my a.s.s from sliced salami down here."

"Some guys got called down here last night," said the soft-spoken Negro policeman. " "I work Wils.h.i.+re, but I didn't get called down here last night."

"The whole G.o.dd.a.m.n Department's here tonight," said Silverson. "Where in the h.e.l.l's Central Avenue? There was an a.s.sistance call on Central Avenue."

"Don't worry about it," said the Negro policeman. "There'll be another one any minute."

"Look at that!" said Silverson, and aimed the radio car down the wrong side of San Pedro Street as he accelerated toward a market where a band of eight or ten men were systematically carrying out boxes of groceries.

"Those brazen a.s.sholes," said the Negro policeman and he was out and running toward the storefront after the already fleeing looters as soon as Silverson parked. To his surprise, Gus's body functioned and his arm opened the door and his legs carried him, unsteadily, but still carried him, at a straight-legged lope toward the storefront. The Negro policeman had a tall very black man by the s.h.i.+rt front and palmed him across the face with his gloved hands which were probably sap gloves because the man spun backward and fell through the yawning hole in the plate gla.s.s, screaming as his arm was raked and bloodied by the jagged edge.

The others scattered through back and side doors and in a few seconds only the three policemen and the bleeding looter stood in the gutted store.

"Lemme go," pleaded the looter to the Negro policeman. "We're both black. You're just like me."

"I'm not nothin' like you, b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said the Negro policeman, showing great strength by lifting the looter one-handed. "I am nothing whatever like you."

A peaceful hour pa.s.sed while they took their looter to the station and engaged in what had to pa.s.s for booking, but which required only a skeleton of an arrest report and no booking slip at all. This hour pa.s.sed much too quickly for Gus who found that hot coffee knotted his stomach even more. Before he could believe it they were back on the streets, only now, night had come. The small arms fire was crackling through the darkness. He had fooled them for five years, thought Gus. He had almost fooled himself, but tonight they would know, and he would know. He wondered if it would be as he always feared, himself trembling like a rabbit before the deadly eye at the last moment. This is how he always thought it would be at the instant when the great fear came, whatever that fear was, which irrevocably paralyzed his disciplined body and brought the final mutiny of body against mind.

"Listen to that gunfire," said Silverson as they were back on Broadway and the sky glowed from a dozen fires. He had to take several detours on their patrol to nowhere in particular, because of the fire engines blocking streets.

"This is crazy," said the Negro policeman, who Gus knew by now was named Clancy.

It is the natural tendency of things toward chaos, Gus thought. It's a very basic natural law Kilvinsky always said, and only the order makers could temporarily halt its march, but eventually there will certainly be darkness and chaos, Kilvinsky had said.

"Look at that a.s.shole," said Clancy, and s.h.i.+ned his spotlight on a lone looter who was reaching through a window of a liquor store feeling for a quart of clear liquid that rested there, miraculously whole among the broken gla.s.s. "We ought to give that b.a.s.t.a.r.d some sidewalk surgery. Wonder how he'd like a lobotomy by Dr. Smith and Dr. Wesson?"

Clancy was carrying the shotgun now and as Silverson stopped the car Clancy fired a blast into the air behind the man who did not turn but continued his probing, and when he reached the bottle he turned a scowling brown face to the naked light, and walked slowly away from the store with his prize.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h, we're whipped," said Silverson and drove away from the lonely snarling figure who continued his inexorable pace in the darkness.

For another hour it was the same: speeding to calls only to arrive in time to chase fleeting shapes in the darkness as the Communications operators continued a barrage of help and a.s.sistance and looting calls until all calls were routine and they wisely decided that the main order of business would be protecting each other and surviving the night uninjured.

But at 11:00 P.M. P.M. as they were scattering a group intent on burning a large food market on Santa Barbara Avenue, Silverson said, "Let's catch a couple of these a.s.sholes. Can you run, Plebesly?" as they were scattering a group intent on burning a large food market on Santa Barbara Avenue, Silverson said, "Let's catch a couple of these a.s.sholes. Can you run, Plebesly?"

"I can run," said Gus grimly, and he knew, somehow knew he could run. In fact, he had to run, and this time when Silverson squealed into the curb and fleeting shadows faded into darker shadow there was another shadow pursuing fleeter than the rest. The last looter hadn't gotten a hundred feet from the store when Gus overtook him and slammed the heel of his hand in the back of the looter's head. He heard him fall and grind along the sidewalk, and from the shouts he knew that Clancy and Silverson had grabbed him. Gus pursued the next shadow and within a minute he was streaking down Forty-seventh Street through the residential darkness after the second shadow and another shadow a half block ahead. Despite the Sam Browne and the strangeness of a helmet, and the baton clacking against the metal of his belt, he felt unenc.u.mbered, and swift, and free. He ran like he ran in the academy, like he still ran at least twice a week during his workouts, and he was doing the thing he did best in all the world. Suddenly he knew that none of them could stand up to him. And though he was afraid, he knew he would endure and his spirit ignited as the sweat boiled him and the warm wind fed the fire as he ran and ran.

He caught the second shadow near Avalon and saw that the man was huge with a triangular neck that sloped from ear to shoulder but he was easy to sidestep when he made two or three halfhearted lunges toward Gus and then collapsed in a gasping heap without being struck by the baton that Gus held ready. He handcuffed the looter to the b.u.mper bracket of a recently wrecked car that was squatting at the curb where the man fell.

Gus looked up and the third shadow hadn't made another three hundred feet but jogged painfully toward Avalon Boulevard, looking often over his shoulder and Gus was running again, easy striding, loose, letting his body run as the mind rested, which is the only way to run successfully. The shadow was getting larger and larger and was in the blue glow of the street lamp when Gus was on him. The looter's eyes blinked back in disbelief at the oncoming policeman. Gus was panting but bounded forward still strong when the exhausted man turned and stumbled toward a pile of litter beside a smoldering building and came up with a piece of two by four. He held it in both hands like a ball bat.

He was perhaps twenty, six feet two, and fierce. Gus was afraid, and though his mind told him to use his gun because that was the only sensible thing to do, he reached instead for his baton and circled the man who sucked and rattled at the air and Gus was sure he would cave in. But still the man held the two by four as Gus circled him. Drops of sweat plinked on the concrete sidewalk at his feet and his white s.h.i.+rt was completely transparent now and clung to him.

"Drop that," said Gus. "I don't want to hit you."

The looter continued to back away and the heavy wood wavered as more eye white showed than a moment before.

"Drop that or I'll smash you," said Gus. "I'm stronger than you."

The board slid from the looter's hands and clunked to the pavement and he caved and lay there gasping while Gus wondered what to do with him. He wished he had taken Silverson's handcuffs, but it had happened so fast. His body had just started the chase and left his mind behind, but now his mind had caught up with the body and was all together.

Then he saw a black and white roaring down Avalon. He stepped into the street and waved it down and in a few minutes he was back on Santa Barbara and reunited with Silverson and Clancy who were astonished by his feat. They took all three looters to the station where Silverson told the jailer how his "little partner" had caught the three looters, but Gus still found that his stomach rebelled at coffee and would accept only water, and forty-five minutes later when they went back on the streets he was still trembling and perspiring badly and told himself, what did you expect? That it would now all vanish like in a war movie? That you who feared everything for a lifetime now would dramatically know no fear? He completed the night as he had begun it, quivering, at moments near panic, but there was a difference: he knew the body would not fail him even if the mind would bolt and run with graceful antelope leaps until it vanished. The body would remain and function. It was his destiny to endure, and knowing it he would never truly panic. And this, he thought, would be a splendid discovery in any coward's life.

21.

THE GOLDEN KNIGHT.

WHAT THE h.e.l.l'S GOING ON? Roy thought, standing in the middle of the intersection of Manchester and Broadway gaping at the crowd of two hundred on the northeast corner and wondering if they would break in the bank. The sun was still bright and hot. Then he heard a crash and saw that the group of one hundred on the northwest corner had broken in the windows of the storefronts and were beginning to loot. What the h.e.l.l's happening, thought Roy, and gained little solace from the faces of the policemen near him who seemed as bewildered as he. Then they smashed the windows at the southwest corner and Roy thought, my G.o.d, a hundred more gathered and I didn't even see them! Suddenly only the southeastern side of the intersection was clear and most of the policemen were retreating to this side of the street except one stocky policeman who charged a pocket of six or eight Negroes with their arms full of men's clothing who were strolling to a double-parked Buick. The policeman struck the first man in the back with the point of the baton and brought the second one to his knees with a skillful slas.h.i.+ng blow across the leg, and then the policeman was. .h.i.t full in the face with a milk crate thrown from the crowd and he was being kicked by eighteen or twenty men and women. Roy joined a squad of six rescuers who ran across Manchester. They dragged him away and were pelted by a hail of stones and bottles one of which struck Roy on the elbow and caused him to cry out. Roy thought, standing in the middle of the intersection of Manchester and Broadway gaping at the crowd of two hundred on the northeast corner and wondering if they would break in the bank. The sun was still bright and hot. Then he heard a crash and saw that the group of one hundred on the northwest corner had broken in the windows of the storefronts and were beginning to loot. What the h.e.l.l's happening, thought Roy, and gained little solace from the faces of the policemen near him who seemed as bewildered as he. Then they smashed the windows at the southwest corner and Roy thought, my G.o.d, a hundred more gathered and I didn't even see them! Suddenly only the southeastern side of the intersection was clear and most of the policemen were retreating to this side of the street except one stocky policeman who charged a pocket of six or eight Negroes with their arms full of men's clothing who were strolling to a double-parked Buick. The policeman struck the first man in the back with the point of the baton and brought the second one to his knees with a skillful slas.h.i.+ng blow across the leg, and then the policeman was. .h.i.t full in the face with a milk crate thrown from the crowd and he was being kicked by eighteen or twenty men and women. Roy joined a squad of six rescuers who ran across Manchester. They dragged him away and were pelted by a hail of stones and bottles one of which struck Roy on the elbow and caused him to cry out.

"Where do the rocks come from?" asked a gray-haired, beefy policeman with a torn uniform s.h.i.+rt. "How in the h.e.l.l do they find so many rocks lying around in a city street?"

After they got the injured man to a radio car, the dozen officers returned to the intersection through which all vehicle traffic had been diverted. Officers and mob watched each other amid the screams and taunts and laughter and blaring radios. Roy never knew who fired the first shot, but the gunfire erupted. He fell to his stomach and began to tremble and crawled into the doorway of a p.a.w.nshop holding both arms over his stomach. Then he thought of removing the white helmet and holding it over his stomach, but he realized how futile it would be. He saw three or four more radio cars roaring into the chaotic intersection as the crowds panicked and broke into and away from the confused policemen who were shouting conflicting orders to each other. No one knew where the gunfire was coming from.

Roy stayed in the doorway and protected his stomach as the rumors came of snipers on every roof and that they were firing from the crowd and then several policemen began firing at a house on the residential street just south of Manchester. Soon the house was riddled with shotgun and revolver fire, but Roy never saw the outcome because a frantic policeman waved them north again and when he ran a hundred yards he saw a dead Negro blocking the sidewalk, shot through the neck, and another dead in the middle of the street. This can't be true, Roy thought. It's broad daylight. This is America. Los Angeles. And then he fell to his stomach again because he saw the brick hurtling end over end toward him and it shattered the plate gla.s.s window behind him. A cheer went up from thirty Negroes who had appeared in the alley to the left and a young policeman ran up to Roy as he was getting up. The young policeman said, "The one in the red s.h.i.+rt threw the brick," and he aimed coolly at the running Negroes and fired the riot gun. The blast took two of the men down. The man in red held his leg screaming and another in a brown s.h.i.+rt limped to his feet and was pulled into a mob of cursing looters where he disappeared as the looters scurried away from the young policeman with the riot gun. Then Roy heard two small pops and saw a tiny flash in the midst of the retreating crowd and the car window next to Roy shattered.

"Show yourself, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," the young policeman shouted to the invisible sniper and then turned his back on them and walked slowly away. "This isn't real," he muttered to Roy. "Is it?"

Then Roy saw something extraordinary: a young black with a full beard and a black beret and silk unders.h.i.+rt and huge natural under the beret, a fiercely militant-looking young man, stepped in front of a mob of fifty and told them to go home and that the police were not their enemies, and other things equally provocative. He had to be removed from the area in a car under guard when the mob turned on him and kicked him unconscious in less than a minute, before the policemen could drive them off.

The sirens shrieked and two ambulances and a police car containing six policemen drove up. Roy saw there was a sergeant with them. He was young and almost everyone ignored him as he tried in vain to create order at least among the squad of policemen, but it took almost an hour to get the dead and wounded to the hospital and the temporary morgue. The Watts riot had begun in earnest this Friday afternoon.

Roy was ordered by the sergeant to arrest a wounded man in a red s.h.i.+rt, and he was teamed with two other policemen. They took the man to the prison ward of the County Hospital in a radio car with a winds.h.i.+eld and rear window completely destroyed by rocks. The paint on the white door was scorched from a fire bomb and Roy was glad to be taking the long drive to the hospital. He hoped his new partners would not be too anxious to return to the streets.

It was after dark when they were driving again toward Seventy-seventh Street Station and by now Roy and his partners knew each other. Each had started the afternoon with different partners until the chaos at Manchester and Broadway, but what the h.e.l.l did it matter, they decided, who was working with whom. They made a pact to stay one with the other and to provide mutual protection, not to stray far from each other, because they had only one shotgun, Roy's, and it was not rea.s.suring at all, not on this night, but at least it was something.

"It's not nine o'clock yet," said Barkley, a ten-year policeman from Harbor Division with a face like a bruised tomato who had, for their first two hours together, mumbled over and over that "it was unbelievable, all so unbelievable," until he was asked to please shut up by Winslow, a fifteen-year policeman from West Los Angeles Division who was the driver and a slow careful driver he was, Roy thought. Roy was thankful he had a veteran driving.

Roy sat alone in the back seat cradling the shotgun, a box of shotgun sh.e.l.ls on the seat next to him. He had not fired the gun yet, but he had made the decision to fire at anyone who threw a rock or fire bomb at them, and at anyone who shot or aimed a gun at them or looked like he was aiming a gun at them. They were shooting looters. Everyone knew it. He decided he would not shoot looters, but he was glad some of the others were doing it. They had seen a semblance of order begin in the bursts of initial gunfire. Only deadly force could destroy this thing and he was glad they were shooting looters, but he decided he would not shoot looters. And he would try not to shoot anyone. And he would shoot no one in the stomach.

In one of my rare displays of humanity I will blow their heads off, he thought. Under no circ.u.mstance will I shoot a man in the stomach.

"Where you want to go, Fehler?" asked Winslow, rolling a cigar from side to side in his wide mouth. "You know the area best."

"Sounds like Central Avenue and Broadway and a Hundred and Third are getting hit the hardest," said Barkley.

"Let's try Central Avenue," said Roy, and at 9:10 P.M. P.M. when they were only two blocks from Central Avenue the fire department requested a.s.sistance because they were being fired on in a six-block stretch of Central Avenue. when they were only two blocks from Central Avenue the fire department requested a.s.sistance because they were being fired on in a six-block stretch of Central Avenue.

Roy felt the heat when they were still a half block from Central and Winslow parked as close to the inferno as he could get. Roy was perspiring freely and by the time they jogged the five hundred feet to the first besieged fire truck they were all sweating and the night air was scorching Roy's lungs and the pop pop pop of gunfire was coming from several directions. Roy began to develop a fierce stomachache, one which could not be relieved by a bowel movement, and a ricochet pinged off the concrete sidewalk. The three policemen dived for the fire truck and huddled next to a filthy, yellow-helmeted, wide-eyed fireman.

It was not Central Avenue, Roy thought. It was not even possible that the signpost which pointed Forty-sixth Street east and west and Central Avenue north and south could be right. He had worked Newton Street. He had patrolled these streets with dozens of other partners, with partners now dead even, like Whitey Duncan. This street was a vivid part of his learning. He had been educated in southeast Los Angeles and Central Avenue had been a valuable schoolroom, but this hissing inferno was not Central Avenue. Then Roy for the first time noticed the two cars overturned and burning. He suddenly could not remember what kind of buildings had been there on Forty-seventh and Forty-sixth that were now sheets of flame two hundred feet high. If this had happened a year ago I would certainly not believe it, he thought. I would simply believe that it was a fantastic seizure of d.t.'s and I would take another drink. Then he thought of Laura, and he was astonished that now, even now, as he lay by the big wheel of the fire engine and the sounds of gunfire and sirens and growling flames were all around him, even now, he could get the empty ache within him that would be filled warmly when he thought of holding her, and how she stroked his hair as no one, not Dorothy, not his mother, no woman, had done. He had guessed he loved her when the yearning for drink began to wane, and he knew it when, three months after their affair began, he realized that she aroused the same feeling within him that Becky did, who was now talking clearly and was a.s.suredly a brilliant child-not simply beautiful, but stunning. Roy ached again as he thought of Becky, ethereal, bright, and golden-and Laura, dusky and real, altogether real, who had begun to put him together, Laura, who was five months younger than he, but who seemed years older, who used pity and compa.s.sion and love and anger until he stopped drinking after he was suspended sixty days for being found drunk on duty, and who lived with him and kept him for those sixty days in her apartment, and who said nothing, but only watched him with those tawny tragic eyes when he began to resemble a man again and decided to return to his own apartment. She said nothing about that since, and he still came to her three or four nights a week because he still needed her badly. She watched him, always watched him with those liquid eyes. With Laura the s.e.x made it perfect but was far, far from all of it, and that was another reason he knew he loved her. He had been on the verge of a decision about her for weeks and even months and he began to tremble as he thought that if it weren't for the ache and the warmth which always came when he thought of Becky or Laura, if it weren't for this feeling he could evoke in himself, then now, now in the blood and hate and fire and chaos, he would turn the riot gun around and look in the great black eye of the twelve gauge and jerk the trigger. Then he guessed he was far from healthy yet, despite Laura's rea.s.surance, or he wouldn't think such thoughts. Suicide was madness, he had always been taught to believe, but what was this around him, if not madness? He began to get light-headed and decided to stop thinking so hard. His palms were dripping wet and leaving tiny drops of moisture on the receiver of the shotgun. Then he worried about the moisture rusting the piece. He wiped the receiver with his sleeve until he realized what he was doing and laughed aloud.

"You guys come with me!" shouted a sergeant, crouching as he ran past the fire engine. "We got to clean these snipers out and get the firemen working before the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n city burns down."

But though they walked along Central Avenue in groups of three for over an hour they never saw a sniper but only heard, and they chased and occasionally shot at shadowy figures who scurried in and out of gutted storefronts that were not in flames. Roy did not shoot because the conditions had not been met. Still, he was glad the others were shooting. When Central Avenue reached the point that it was burning more or less quietly and there was little left to steal, Winslow suggested they go elsewhere, but first they should stop at a restaurant and eat. When they asked which restaurant he had in mind, he waved an arm and they followed him to the car and found that the two remaining unbroken windows had been smashed out in their absence and the upholstery had been cut, but not the tires strangely enough, so Winslow drove to a restaurant on Florence Avenue that he said he had noticed earlier. They walked through a gigantic hole in the wall of the cafe where a car must have smashed through. Roy guessed the car had probably been driven by some terrified white man pa.s.sing through the riot area who had been attacked by the mobs that were stopping traffic and beating whites earlier in the day when they owned the streets before the shooting started. Then again it could have been a looter's car which the police had chased until he crashed through the restaurant in spectacular fas.h.i.+on. What difference did it make? Roy thought.

"s.h.i.+ne your flashlight over here," said Winslow, removing six hamburger patties from the refrigerator which was not running. "They're still cold. It's okay," said Winslow. "See if you can find the buns in that drawer, Fehler. I think the mustard and stuff is behind you there on the little table."

"The gas still works," said Barkley, propping his flashlight on the counter with the beam directed on the griddle. "I'm a pretty good cook. Want me to get them started?"

"Go head on, brother," said Winslow in an affected Negro accent, as he squeezed a head of lettuce he found on the floor, peeling away the outer leaves and dropping them in a cardboard box. They ate and drank several bottles of soda pop which were not cold enough, but it wasn't at all bad there in the darkness and it was after midnight when they finished and sat smoking, looking at each other as the ceaseless crackling small arms fire and ubiquitous smell of smoke reminded them that they had to go back. Finally it was Barkley who said, "Might as well get back out there. But I wish they hadn't broke our windows out. You know, the one thing that scares me most is that a c.o.c.ktail will come flying in the car and bust, and fry us. If we only had windows we could roll them up."

Roy was more impressed with Winslow as the night wore on. He drove through Watts and west and north through the rest of the gutted city as though he were on routine patrol. He seemed to be listening carefully to the garbled endless, breathless calls that were blaring out at them over the radio. Finally one of the operators with a girlish voice began sobbing hysterically as she was jabbering a string of twelve emergency calls to "any unit in the vicinity," and she and all of them must realize by now that there were no units in certain vicinities, and if there were they were hard pressed to save their own a.s.ses and to h.e.l.l with anything else. But at 2:00 A.M. A.M. Winslow stopped the car on Normandie Avenue which was exceptionally dark except for a building burning in the distance and they watched a gang of perhaps thirty looters ransacking a clothing store and Winslow said, "There's too many of them for us to handle, wouldn't you say?" Winslow stopped the car on Normandie Avenue which was exceptionally dark except for a building burning in the distance and they watched a gang of perhaps thirty looters ransacking a clothing store and Winslow said, "There's too many of them for us to handle, wouldn't you say?"