The Blue Knight by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

parole, even if he
was
paroled on a non-narcotics beef.
    “Hasn’t yet, Bumper. I ain’t worried if he does. I always been lucky with P.O.’s. When they put me on the urine program I came up with the squeeze-bottle trick. I just got this square friend of mine, old Homer Allen, to keep me supplied with a fresh bottle of piss, and I kept that little plastic squeeze bottle full and hanging from a string inside my belt. My dumb little P.O. used to think he was sneaky and he’d catch me at my job or at home at night sometimes and ask for a urine sample and I’d just go to the john with him right behind me watching, and I’d reach in my fly and fill his little glass bottle full of Homer’s piss. He thought he was real slick, but he never could catch me. He was such a square. I really liked him. I felt like a father to that kid.”
    The girl came to the phone and read me Wimpy’s record, telling me there were no wants.
    “Well, you’re not running,” I said, hanging up the phone, closing the metal call box door, and hanging the brass key back on my belt.
    “Told you, Bumper. I just saw my P.O. last week. I been reporting regular.”
    “Okay, Wimpy, let’s talk business,” I said.
    “I been thinking, Bumper, there’s this dog motherfucker that did me bad one time. I wouldn’t mind you popping him.”
    “Okay,” I said, giving him a chance to rationalize his snitching, which all informants have to do when they start out, or like Wimpy, when they haven’t snitched for a long time.
    “He deserves to march,” said Wimpy. “Everybody knows he’s no good. He burned me on a buy one time. I bring him a guy to score some pot. It’s not on consignment or nothing, and he sells the guy catnip and I told him I knew the guy good. The guy kicked my ass when he found out it was catnip.”
    “Okay, let’s do him,” I said. “But I ain’t interested in some two- or three-lid punk.”
    “I know, Bumper. He’s a pretty big dealer. We’ll set him up good. I’ll tell him I got a guy with real bread and he should bring three kilos and meet me in a certain place and then maybe you just happen by or something when we’re getting it out of the car and we both start to run but you go after him, naturally, and you get a three-key bust.”
    “No good. I can’t run anymore. We’ll work out something else.”
    “Any way you want, Bumper. I’ll turn anybody for you. I’ll roll over on anybody if you give me a break.”
    “Except your best connection.”
    “That’s God you’re talking about. But I think right this minute I’d even turn my connection for a fix.”
    “Where’s this pot dealer live? Near my beat?”
    “Yeah, not far. East Sixth. We can take him at his hotel. That might be the best way. You can kick down the pad and let me get out the window. At heart he’s just a punk. They call him Little Rudy. He makes roach holders out of chicken bones and folded-up matchbooks and all that punk-ass bullshit. Only thing is, don’t let me get a jacket. See, he knows this boss dyke, a real mean bull dagger. Her pad’s a shooting gallery for some of us. If she knows you finked, she’ll sneak battery acid in your spoon and laugh while you mainline it home. She’s a
dog
motherfucker.”
    “Okay, Wimpy, when can you set it up?”
    “Saturday, Bumper, we can do it Saturday.”
    “No good,” I said quickly, a gas pain slicing across my stomach. “Friday’s the latest for anything.”
    “Christ, Bumper. He’s out of town. I know for sure. I think he’s gone to the border to score.”
    “I can’t wait past Friday. Think of somebody else then.”
    “Shit, lemme think,” he said, rapping his skinny fingers against his temple. “Oh yeah, I got something. A guy in the Rainbow Hotel. A tall dude, maybe forty, forty-five, blondish hair. He’s in the first apartment to the left on the second floor. I just heard last night he’s a half-ass fence. Buys most anything you steal. Cheap, I hear. Pays less than a dime on