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Though Sgt. Wampler was impressed with my work, the lieutenant pointed out how I’d failed to follow procedure. I’d called dispatch to tell them I was in foot pursuit, but I hadn’t told them where I was, so they couldn’t send backup. The truth was that I didn’t know the Hollywood streets well enough yet to report my position.

The bigger problem to them, though, was that I’d separated from my partner. I hadn’t even realized Jimmy left me until I was running up the alleyway and heard on my belt radio about his vehicle pursuit.

The lieutenant had to settle for giving Jimmy and me a stern talking to, though, because the department couldn’t ignore what we’d hauled in.

Jimmy joked with me after that first day together. “I can’t take too many more days like this.”

I laughed, feeling a little more secure about the people I’d taken up company with, and I drove home that night smiling.

This is what happens when your partner is a part-time photographer.

Three generations of McCarthy men

I asked for the double lucky number seventy-seven; Ron liked putting on my uniform.

VICES

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.

—Albert Einstein

When people tell me they want to become police officers to help people, I recommend firefighting instead. People like firefighters because they come to their aid when they’re sick and can’t get out of bed or when they’re stuck inside a burning building or a mangled car that’s just hit a telephone pole.

But police officers usually come on the worst days of people’s lives, when something bad has happened to them or someone they love. Sure, police officers are protecting and helping them, but that’s usually hard for people to put into perspective when the most traumatic event of their lives is flashing before their eyes. Sometimes they want you to deliver instant justice, which is almost always impossible to do.

Being a police officer can be a thankless job. I once broke a guy’s car window and pulled him out of his burning vehicle. He sued me for tearing his Ralph Lauren shirt. The city had to pay him $75 to make him happy.

Something I gradually learned as I moved through different units during my twenty-two years on the force was that you will do positive things in life that no one will ever see or recognize. And then you will perform seemingly small acts that mean the world to others. Accolades may be few and far between. You don’t get to choose the value of what you do in others’ eyes, so you have to take stock in knowing that doing the right thing is enough, no matter who notices.

After I worked for Southwest and Hollywood patrols for about the first year and a half, Captain Taylor transferred me in September of 1987 to the Prostitution Enforcement Detail (PED) in the Vice Unit of Hollywood Division. Captain Taylor thought it would be fun for me, and at first I thought so too. Instead of handling general radio calls, we’d be out observing illegal activities and making arrests, which was called “snooping and pooping.” After sixteen months of being chained to the calls screen, that sounded refreshingly liberating to me.

A vice is defined as a practice or habit that is considered immoral, depraved, or degrading in normal society. That includes what we consider the public order crimes, such as prostitution, pornography, gambling, and a little drug trafficking sprinkled in for good measure, though Narcotics is really a separate unit unto itself. When I thought of Vice, I thought of Las Vegas. Later, I referred to it as the “crap crimes” because in my mind it never really amounted to much in the way of getting the true bad guys off the street.

My main job in Vice was to find ways to pull prostitutes off the streets for whatever amount of time I could. We had to catch them accepting money for their services, but they were usually smart enough to wait until they were out of sight to do that. Without the transaction, it was just consensual sex.

So we had to get creative. We busted them