Violent Ward. Len Deighton

‘Are you the resident here?’ He was a thin kid – straight out of the Police Academy, unless I’m very much mistaken – growing a straggly mustache to make himself look old enough to buy a beer without flashing ID.

      ‘You got it, kid. You want to point that thing away from me?’

      ‘Mr Murphy?’ He looked up as the second car started up and pulled away.

      ‘That’s right.’ As I said it, another cop arrived panting from somewhere behind my house. He was a plump old fellow with his pistol in his hand. He was oriental-looking. You don’t get many oriental cops, do you? Hispanics, yes; black guys, even; but how many Asian cops do you see?

      ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. I went to the door and got out my keys.

      ‘There was a prowler,’ said the plump one. ‘A neighbor called it in. Saw someone in your yard. Do you want to go inside and see if he got entry?’

      ‘Confucius say, Cop with gun go first,’ I told him.

      Before anyone could go anywhere there was the sound of a nearby door catch, and the prowler light illuminated the doorstep of my next-door neighbor, Henry Klopstock. He’d come out to watch. He was some kind of English teacher at UCLA. His wife liked to call him Professor Klopstock. ‘Is everything okay, Mr Murphy?’ He was leaning across the orange trees, the flashing lights illuminating his lined face and five-o’clock shadow and his slicked-down hair. When my son was dating the Klopstock daughter he was all smiles and Hello, Mickey. Then they split up – you know the way kids are – and suddenly he’s giving me the ‘Mr Murphy’ syntax.

      ‘Sure it is. Didn’t you hear the sirens? I always have a police escort now I’m running for mayor.’

      ‘Okay, okay. Sorry I asked,’ he said. I saw him exchange rolling eye glances with the Asian cop. So why ask dumb questions, right?

      I went up the path and unlocked my front door and waited while the fat one stepped past me into the entry. Rex, my terrier, suddenly awoke and came scampering from the kitchen to growl at both of us.

      ‘It’s me, Rex,’ I said.

      Rex crouched very low, crawled around, and watched resentfully. The cop looked at me, looked at Rex, and then stepped over him to jab the kitchen door with his nightstick. It moved just a little, but his second jab made the door open all the way. ‘Mind my paintwork, buddy,’ I said. ‘Try a little tenderness, like the song says.’

      There was no one there, just the little safety lights that switch on automatically when it gets dark. He went from room to room, all through the house. I followed him. It wasn’t really a search and he didn’t do it like in the movies; he wasn’t agile enough. He knew there was no one there, and he was determined to make me feel bad about making him do it. He just plodded around, puffing, sighing, and tapping the furniture with his baton. He wound up inspecting the stuff I’ve got decorating all the walls. Broadway posters and signed eight-by-ten glossies of the stars. My dad left me his collection, and I added to it. It goes back to Show Boat. Forgive me, Dad; it goes back to Rose Marie. It’s the greatest. My dad got signed photos of everyone from Cole Porter to Ethel Merman.

      The cop inspected these pictures and posters without enthusiasm. ‘Seems like your intruder didn’t get in.’ He said it like he was consoling me.

      ‘Is that your professional opinion?’ I said.

      Having studied the titles of my books, the level of my whisky, the corn flakes supply, and the big colored photo of Danny that’s on the breakfast counter, he turned to me, gave a grin, and hitched both thumbs into his gun belt. ‘That’s right. You can rest your head on your pillow tonight and enjoy untroubled sleep.’

      ‘You must be the poet who writes for the fortune cookies,’ I said.

      He smiled. ‘Just tickets.’

      ‘For the police charity concert?’ I said. ‘Who are you having this year—’

      ‘Yah, Miss Demeanor Washington and Felonious Monk,’ he interrupted me. ‘That’s getting to be a tired old joke, Mr Murphy.’

      I knew he was just trying to make me feel bad about having him go inside first. But what is a cop paid to do anyway? Don’t get me wrong; I like cops but not at the fold of a tough day, right? And not when they are doing a Lennie Bernstein with their nightstick.

      ‘Just you living in the house, Mr Murphy?’

      ‘You got it.’

      ‘Big place for just one person.’

      ‘No, it’s just the right size. Listen, wise guy, I’ve put this mansion on the market four times in a row with three different real estate dummies in different-colored blazers. Three times it went into escrow, and three times the deal fell apart. What else would you like to know?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said the cop. ‘You explicated it just fine.’ I followed him outside. Explicated: what kind of a word is that?

      We were standing out front smelling the orange trees, and I was remembering that if I roust these guys too much they might Breathalyze me, so I was taken suddenly good-natured: smiling and saying good night and thank you, and without any kind of warning there comes a noise and a scuffle as some dumb jerk of a burglar jumps out of my best bougainvillea and runs down the side alley.

      It was damned dark. The plump cop didn’t hesitate for a second. He was off after him and moving with amazing speed for his age and weight and leg length. I couldn’t see a thing in the darkness but I followed on as best I could, clearly hearing the clattering sounds of their feet and then the loud and fierce creak of my back fence as first the perpetrator and then the cop vaulted over it into my neighbor’s yard. Behind me, I heard the scratchy sounds of voices on the police radio: the second cop was calling for backup. Then he changed his mind and said they were okay. What did he know? He was in the car with the heater on.

      The fugitive was scrambling across the backyards to the street on the other side of the block. I knew the scam. Some other perp would be arriving there in a car to pick him up. The newspapers kept saying it had become a popular modus operandi for these suburban break-in artists. The papers said the cops should be countering it with random patrols and better intelligence work. Those newspaper guys know everything, right? Sometimes I wonder why these guys and gals writing in the newspaper don’t take over the whole world and make it faultless like them.

      Bam! Now I heard the noise of someone blundering into my neighbor’s elaborate barbecue setup. Crash, crunch, and clatter; there go the grills and irons, the gas bottle thumps to the ground, and finally the tin trays are making a noise like a collapsing xylophone.

      ‘Owwwww … errrrrr!’

      I stood there hoping it marked the perpetrator’s downfall, but the cry had the tenor trill of the plump cop. ‘Watch out!’ I shouted as loud as I could shout, but I was too late. Even before I reached the fence there was an almighty splash and another cry of anguish with a lot of shouting and gurgling.

      The other cop, the young thin one, came rushing over to me with his gun drawn. He looked at the fence. ‘What happened?’

      ‘Sounds like your partner went into my neighbor’s pool.’

      ‘Holy cow,’ he said quietly and glared at me. ‘You son of a bitch, you let him do that?’

      ‘Don’t look at me,’ I said. ‘It’s a pool, not a booby trap. We didn’t dig it out in secret and cover it with leaves and twigs.’

      ‘Are you all right, Steve?’ he called into the darkness. I could hear his partner wading through the water.

      There was the sound of a man climbing onto dry land. ‘The bastard got away.’ The half-drowned voice was low and breathless as he came back along the alley and opened my neighbor’s side gate. Shoes slapped water; he was wringing it from his shirt. More water flooded off him as he squeezed his pants and continued cursing. He came very close to me, as if he was going to get violent: he smelled strongly of the pool chemicals