Free Hollywood Moon by Joseph Wambaugh

voice, turning those pale lasers on his fat mail thief.
    “That don’t seem right, Mr. Kessler,” Jerzy murmured, but when he glanced at the man’s strange eyes, he looked away and was
     silent.
    “You know where to take the merchandise after you shop tomorrow, don’t you, Diego?” Jakob Kessler said to the smaller Mexican,
     who looked at Tristan and Jerzy and said, “I know, boss. The new place.”
    “Good lad,” said Kessler.
    “When we suppose to meet tomorrow, boss?” the Mexican asked.
    “I can’t do it tomorrow. Just wait for my call.”
    “Okay, boss,” said the Mexican.
    And then Kessler was out the door and gone.
    “That man talks to people like we’re all niggers,” Jerzy said to the Mexicans.
    “Fuck you, peckerwood,” said Tristan.
    For the first time all day, Jerzy smiled and replied, “As a famous member of your tribe once said, ‘Can’t we all jist get
     along?’ ”
    There was a remarkable part of the story of the Rupert Moore shooting that Dana Vaughn did not share with Hollywood Nate.
     He’d learned it from Sergeant Lee Murillo at end-of-watch after Dana had gone home. The story made it that much more difficult
     for Nate to get annoyed with her for all her witty remarks at his expense. Only a few officers at Hollywood Station knew about
     it, yet it was considered a small miracle by the parents of Officer Sarah Messinger.
    For each of the ten days that the rookie was at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in a coma, Dana Vaughn had visited her, a woman
     she’d never met. Sarah Messinger was only a few years older than Dana Vaughn’s daughter, and there was something about what
     the rookie had undergone that made Dana bond with that helpless young woman who was sustained by feeding tubes and monitors.
    Dana introduced herself to the ward nurses on the first night, nurses who knew about the incident that put Officer Sarah Messinger
     in their care. And each day or evening, when she was sure that there would be no one else but nurses present, Officer Dana
     Vaughn, usually in uniform, would go to the bedside of the young woman and speak to her for ten minutes or more. Sometimes
     she told Sarah Messinger about the happenings on Watch 3. Sometimes she talked about teaming up with Sarah when she came back
     to work and was off probation. Sometimes she just did girl talk. But she never missed a day.
    On one of those visits, when Dana was in uniform, an elderly Irish priest entered while Dana was talking to the young woman.
     The shoulders of the priest’s black coat were flaked with dandruff, and Dana thought she could smell liquor on his breath.
     She stopped talking when he entered.
    “Don’t stop, Officer,” he said with a thick brogue. “Please don’t let me bother you. I only make the rounds to see if I’m
     needed by anyone.”
    Dana was embarrassed and said, “I know it’s silly of me. The nurses say she can’t hear me, but… well, I know it’s silly.”
    “It’s not silly,” the priest said, and when he walked closer to the bed, Dana could see right through his wispy white hair
     to his scaly pink scalp, and she smelled liquor on his breath for sure. “Doctors don’t know everything. I believe that people
     in comas are like dolphins that dive deep into the waters, fathoms deeper than we can imagine, but they are still capable
     of receiving signals from the surface. You keep talking to your young friend, and she will hear you in ways that we cannot
     understand.”
    “I’m not a Catholic, Father,” Dana said, “but I’d like to think you’re right.”
    “I’m not a
good
Catholic,” the old priest said, “but I know I’m right.”
    The remarkable event happened at 8 P.M . on the evening of the tenth day, when Sarah Messinger awakened from her coma. Dana Vaughn was on a night off and dressed
     in civilian clothes when she rushed from home after getting a call and hearing the wonderful news. As she entered the hospital
     room, the parents of Sarah Messinger