My Dark Places - James Ellroy [76]
The cops lost their collective cherry.
Some denied it. They attributed the riot to a specific series of criminally spawned events. Their logic of cause-and-effect went no deeper.
A lot of cops went into default mode. Unruly niggers were unruly niggers. Their inbred criminal tendencies should now be suppressed even more rigorously.
He knew better. The riot taught him that suppression was futile. You don’t burn down your own world for no good reason. You couldn’t shut people down or keep people out. The more you tried, the more chaos would supersede order. The revelation thrilled him and scared him.
The twins were born a month after the riot. His marriage ran smooth for a while. He studied for the sergeant’s exam and worked Norwalk Patrol. He pondered the lessons of Watts.
He lived in two worlds. His family world was uncontrollable. The lessons of Watts failed him at home. He knew how to handle criminals. He couldn’t handle the volatile woman he loved.
The novelty of kids wore off. They started fighting again. They fought in front of the boys and felt bad about it.
He made sergeant in December ’68 and transferred to Firestone Station. Firestone was high-density, high-crime, all black. The pace was frantic. He learned to work at triple his Norwalk rate.
He worked as a patrol supervisor. He ran from Code 3 call to Code 3 call every shift. Firestone was dope and armed robbery and brutal domestic calls. Firestone was a riot zone back in ’65. The folks there had their own post-riot revelations going. Firestone was sidewalk crap games and guns. Firestone was the child who climbed into the dryer and got burned and spun to death. Firestone was decelerated chaos. Firestone could blow fast.
He spent four years there. He finished his patrol tour and went on the station detective squad. He did some community relations work. Anything that bridged the cop-civilian gap was good for business. The LAPD had fucked cop-civilian relations to an all-time fare-thee-well. He didn’t want the Sheriff’s to follow their lead.
He transferred to the auto-theft detail. He developed sound detective skills and reveled in the specific nature of the work. Theft crimes were cut-and-dried. They boiled down to violated ownership. They were isolated problems that ended with the apprehension of specifically guilty parties. He didn’t have to pop harmless kids for marijuana. He didn’t have to referee domestic disputes and dispense marital advice like he knew what he was talking about.
Detective work was his calling. He had the social skills and the temperament for it. Patrol work was a breathless sprint with no fixed finish line. Detective work was sedately paced by comparison. He plugged into suspects one-on-one and co-opted their knowledge. He moved deeper into the cop-criminal matrix.
He came to Firestone as a policeman. He left as a detective. He went to Internal Affairs Division and hounded other cops.
Cops who stole money. Cops who leaned too hard on their nightsticks. Cops who used dope. Cops who jacked off at porno movies. Cops who gave blow jobs to inmates in county holding tanks. Cops who were ratted off for imagined offenses out of pure spite.
IA was brutal. The moral turf was hazily defined. He did not enjoy hassling fellow cops. He sought out the literal truth pertaining to their situations and stressed mitigating factors. He felt empathy for some very twisted men. He knew how the job undermined family contracts. A fair portion of the cops he knew were functioning alcoholics. They were no better or worse than cops accused of smoking dope.
He had a handle on his own shortcomings. He used them to illustrate the big bottom line. You don’t steal or use dope or engage in perverted activities. You don’t exploit your cop status for illegal gain. You have to impose those restrictions on the cops you investigate.
It was a morally valid line. It was an