Free The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh Page B

over the moment Father Willie tooted his horn.
    "You just have to learn to budget," Spencer sighed as they gathered up hats and ticket book and flashlights now that dusk had settled. "Mail your check for the telephone bill to the gas company and theirs to the electric company. By the time they send them back and forth you can balance your checkbook."
    Father Willie nodded as they got out of the black and white Matador and walked forward, crisscrossing so that Father Willie, whose turn it was, could approach the driver's side while Spencer went to the other side and shined the light in the window to protect Father Willie's approach.
    The driver, a balding fat man about Spencer's age, smiled and said, "What's the problem, boys?" He offered Father Willie his driver's license without being asked.
    "You were a full second late on that red light, sir," Father Willie said, his light on the license, checking that it was not expired, noting the Beverly Hills address in Trousdale Estates.
    "That doesn't seem possible," the man said, getting out of the car and following the little officer to the police car where Spencer waited in the headlight beam between the two cars, "Careful, sir," Father Willie warned, as a car sped by very close to the Matador which was stopped behind the Lincoln, three feet farther into the traffic lane to protect the approaching officer from being picked off by a motorist who might be driving HUA which meant: Head Up Ass.
    "Officer!" the fat man appealed to Spencer as Father Willie began to write the ticket on the hood of the radio car. "Surely I wasn't late on the red light, and if I was I didn't mean it."
    He offered Spencer his business card which said, "Murray Fern's Stereo Emporium."
    Spencer Van Moot's eyes brightened with visions of a new stereo system in his barroom at home. At wholesale, of course.
    He was about to suggest to his partner that Mr. Fern probably deserved some professional courtesy when he saw that it was too late. The ticket was already started, and since they were numbered it was impossible to cancel one without a report and explanation. So Spencer shrugged sadly and handed the business card back to the man.
    "You gonna write me a ticket?" Murray Fern asked Father Willie.
    "Yes sir," Father Willie said; never looking up as he wrote.
    "Why me? Why me?" Murray Fern demanded, reminding Father Willie of Spencer.
    "You ran a red light, sir," Father Willie said, looking up for the first time then continuing with the citation.
    "But I can't get another ticket. One more and they'll suspend my license. Christ, gimme a break!"
    Father Willie did not answer but continued to write in embarrassed silence.
    "Just my luck to get stopped by a couple of pricks," the fat man said as he paced in a tight circle. "A couple of ticket hungry, heartless pricks."
    Now Spencer Van Moot no longer cared about a cut rate stereo set and looked around the rear of the car for a taillight violation that Willie could add to the ticket.
    "A couple of two bit, ticket happy, stupid fucking pricks!" Murray Fern said as Father Willie continued his writing without comment.
    "Sign on the line," Spencer said coldly, speaking for the first time.
    "Fuck you," said Murray Fern. "I'm innocent and I'm not signing."
    "You're not admitting guilt," Father Willie said quietly. "If you don't sign, thereby promising to appear, we'll have to take you in and book you on the violation."
    "Prick!" the fat man said, brushing Father Willie's ballpoint aside, taking a gold plated fountain pen from his inside coat pocket and leaning on the hood to study the ticket.
    "It's only a promise."
    "I know what the fuck it is!" the man interrupted. "What I'd like to know is why you tinhorns aren't out catching criminals instead of harassing honest citizens, that's what I'd like to know."
    The fat man scrawled his name across the ticket and turned his back on the two officers while Father Willie tore off the violator's copy and handed it to him along with