Free The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh Page A

said, trying to look through the crimes to find one that might amuse the watch. “Guy tried to shove a Pepsi bottle in his wife’s giz after he caught her stepping out on him.”
    “I took that report,” said Sam Niles. “It was nothing. The bottle didn’t have the cap on it.”
    “Reminds me of the guy stuck a screwdriver up his ass to scratch his prostate. Remember that, partner?” Roscoe asked Whaddayamean Dean. “Couldn’t get it out and the wife called the police. That was funny!” Rules chuckled as he pulled at his crotch and made Harold Bloomguard sick.
    Then Roscoe blushed and got angry when Sergeant Yanov said, “By the way an unnamed officer turned in a report last night where he wrote a pursesnatcher was l-e-r-k-i-n-g and p-r-a-y-i-n-g on his victims. Check the dictionary if you’re not sure. These reports end up in courts of law. Makes us look dumb.”
    “I told you to check my spelling, goddamnit,” Roscoe whispered to Dean Pratt who smiled weakly and said, “Sorry, partner.”
    “One word of advice,” Sergeant Yanov said. “The captain is uptight about the pissy wino they found sleeping in the back of Sergeant Sneed’s car. They suspect one of you guys put him there.”
    “Me? Why me all the time?” Francis Tanaguchi cried when all eyes turned to him.
    “Gee, rollcalls are quiet without the lieutenant here,” observed Spermwhale Whalen, who then turned to Willie Wright and said, “Hey, kid, how about comin in the bathroom with me? My back’s hurt and I ain’t supposed to lift nothin heavy.”
    Spencer Van Moot was happy when rollcall ended early It gave him more time to shop. Spencer was, at forty the second oldest choirboy, next to fifty-two year old Spermwhale Whalen, the two of them the only choirboys over thirty. Spencer Van Moot had convinced Harold Bloomguard that he should be accepted as a MacArthur Park choirboy because he was only temporarily married, was hated by his wife Tootie and her three kids and would probably soon be thrice divorced like Spermwhale Whalen.
    Harold welcomed the complainer Spencer Van Moot for the same reason he welcomed Roscoe Rules. He invited Spencer Van Moot because he was the most artistic scrounger and promoter at Wilshire Station.
    Spencer knew every retail store within a mile of his beat. His “police discounts” had furnished his house princely. Hewore the finest Italian imports from the racks of the Miracle Mile clothing stores. He dined superbly in one of three expensive restaurants near Wilshire and Catalina which were actually in Rampart Division. Retailers became convinced that Spencer Van Moot could ward off burglars, shoplifters, fire and vandalism. That somehow this tall blond recruiting poster policeman with the confident jaw and the small foppish moustache could even forestall economic reversal.
    Despite his natural morose nature and his self pitying complaints about his unhappy marriage, he was accepted at once by the choirboys. He arrived with a dowry of three cases of cold beer and four bottles of Chivas Regal Scotch. And he brought his partner, Willie Wright.
    Willie was one of the smallest choirboys, along with Francis Tanaguchi and Harold Bloomguard, under five feet nine inches tall. Willie in fact had stretched to make five feet eight and was almost disqualified when he took his first police physical. He was a devoutly religious young man, raised as a Baptist, converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses when he married Geneva Smythe, his high school sweetheart. Willie was now twenty-four and Geneva twenty-five. She, like Willie, was short and chubby. She took
Watchtower
magazines door to door three times a week. Willie accompanied her on his days off.
    Spencer Van Moot loved him as a partner because Willie thought it was crooked to accept gifts or wholesale prices from retail stores, thereby leaving Spencer a double share of everything he could promote. The only concession Willie would make was a nightly free meal in one of Spencer Van