Joseph Wambaugh - The Delta Star

PROLOGUE

In October 1981 A Soviet Submarine Ran Aground In restricted Swedish waters near the naval base at Karlskrona. The Swedish foreign minister made to Moscow what were described as unprecedented protests in the strongest language possible. The Swedish outrage cut across party lines, with the leader of the opposition calling the intrusion inconceivable.

In that the twin-engine vessel was a Whisky-class submarine, there were lots of jokes about Whisky on the rocks. But some Swedes werent laughing. Especially when radiation detectors outside the sub revealed the presence of uranium 238, material that is used to shield nuclear-tipped torpedoes.

In November several hundred demonstrators marched in front of the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm carrying messages such as Keep on sleeping, Europe. Soviet missiles will wake you up.

Despite the indignant outburst, the Swedes did not call the Soviets hand by forcibly boarding that submarine. Some pointed to Finland, the last of their neighbors to challenge the Soviets at arms, now virtually a Russian satellite.

Many Swedes understandably felt their anger being tempered by more sobering emotions. Within a short time some in government were looking warily across the Baltic at the Russian colossus, expressing a willingness to be better neighbors. This anxiety was not lost on many foreigners who arrived in Stockholm for the Nobel Prize ceremonies in December. It became a topic of conversation.

Chapter One
The House of Misery

It was mothers day and they were all watching The Bad Czech. Ordinarily, after three hours of well drinks and draft beer, the blinking and bruxing, staring and sighing, twitching and palpitations gave way to verbal ventilation. But this was Mothers Day, and since most of them disliked at least one mother (The Bad Czech had three ex-wives and didnt even like his own mother very much) the symptoms had persisted well into evening hence, more frantic boozing.

Which pleased Leery no end. He just sucked his teeth and leered, and wiped the bar with a filthy rag and congratulated himself on being smarter than every other saloonkeeper around these parts. Leery wouldnt dream of closing on Mothers Day. He knew from years of experience that this was one of those special days when the walking wounded of the day watch really put it away. The seventy-year-old saloonkeeper leered as he broke open another case of Coors. A generation ago a motor cop had correctly noted that the dour tavern owner could not smile, nor even grin, smirk or simper. He could only leer. Ergo, the sobriquet.

Leerys Saloon, aptly dubbed The House of Misery by the angst-ridden who gathered there, was mostly taken up by a very long bar which could accommodate perhaps sixty souls if they stood or sat hip to hip, as they did every other Wednesday (payday for the troops) and on the Friday after that Wednesday. All the rest of the time they were broke, or nearly so, but there were always a dozen or so hard-core habitus from the day watch to carry Leery profitably into the later hours, when groupies and other civilians arrived.

Leerys Saloon was very dark, as every cops bar must be (they dont want to see too much when theyre off duty), and had a jukebox so that they could bump and shake and grind and wiggle on the minuscule dance floor in the next room. Leerys dance floor was exactly the size of three coffins, they said. In addition to the three-coffin dance floor there was a pool table in the adjoining room where the cops often got fleeced by mediocre pool hustlers passing through.

There were inevitable markers in the tavern to let civilian tourists know it was a cops hangout. Such as a bumper sticker over the pub mirror that said OUR COPS EAT THEIR DEAD . Or CONAN THE BARBARIAN FOR POLICE CHIEF . Or SAVE OUR COUNTRY, BOOK A DEMOCRAT . And other such messages which tended to keep out the riffraff.

But the final tip-off was the sign on the door to the womens rest room, placed there as an admonition to cops who inevitably pursued groupies with altogether too much fervor in the shank of the night. The sign on the womens room said Women ONLY!

Leerys was one of those places where the boys and girls would try to name potential customers who might enjoy the sounds emanating from within when The Bad Czech read anti-cop editorials: people like Dr. Mengele, Idi Amin and the whole Spanish Inquisition.

On Mothers Day, with the off-duty cops downing them as fast as he could pour, Leery could afford to be magnanimous and play the jukebox for the boys and girls. Of course he chose a few punk and new-wave earsplitters which tended to make emotional casualties drink more.

By now The Bad Czech was really getting into it. His fists were glowing white through the smoke in the saloon. He ground his teeth and gurgled, and unconsciously shredded the Los Angeles Times editorial page in his huge paws. The tendons rippled across his glowering jaw as he bruxed those donkey molars. Then the Bad Czech slapped himself across his broad Slavic forehead with enough force to knock an average man right off the barstool.

As though on cue, The Bad Czechs slap coincided with the sounds of The Sex Pistols crashing out of the jukebox.

That does it! The Bad Czech roared, loud enough to drown out a whole platoon of punkers. She did it again! The cunt! She did it again!

They all knew who the cunt was: it was one of the people The Bad Czech hated most in all the world. Still, playing out the familiar ritual, a rumpled cop named Ronald-who was two days from retirement and thus feared everything from traffic stops to earthquakes-said the obvious: What did Rose Bird and The Supremes do this time?

There was only one person The Bad Czech hated more than he hated the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, Rose Bird. That was Jerry Brown, the governor who had appointed her. Because of his early education in a Jesuit seminary, Governor Jerry Brown was said by the cops to be the maddest monk since Rasputin, without the sex drive.

That scummy, filthy, rotten, puke of a Suddenly The Bad Czech started strangling on bile and spittle. Rumpled Ronald-who, with retirement so close, also feared falling bricks, toxic insect stings, and old ladies with scissors-banged The Bad Czech on the back to get him breathing again.

Youre hyperventilating, Czech, Rumpled Ronald offered. Settle! Settle!

Then the ten cops and three groupies who were making Leery rich on Mothers Day began composing possible bumper stickers to cheer up The Bad Czech. Such as: Send John Hinckley a Rose Bird pinup.

The Bad Czech snatched a bottle of beer from Leerys hand, sucked it down and began taking rattling gulps of air.

Rumpled Ronald-who, these last days, feared runaway trucks and botulized burritos-had a bizarre vision of the ascetic supreme court jurist and the equally ascetic monk who was campaigning for the United States Senate. Know, what would be the worlds weirdest no-action movie? he said. A porn flick starring Jerry Brown and Rose Bird.

She get this she The Bad Czech grabbed another beer from the bar, gulped half of it, settled, and said, The rest of The Supremes voted for Corky. For once they got their shit together. But not Rose. No way. She writes a twenty-two page dissent!

Everyone was of course used to the town crier reading the Los Angeles Times aloud and strangling on bile, and knew that Corky was the airport police dog who had sniffed out some dope in a suitcase and was getting his balls rapped for illegal search and seizure, just like the cops with two legs.

Listen to this, The Bad Czech read: A traveler to protect his privacy should not have to resort to an airtight suitcase or other extraordinary measures to prevent the escape of even one marijuana molecule! Then the monster cop tore the paper to shreds and cried, The fuckin dog is forcin smugglers to trash their Gucci luggage. And Rose Bird says it aint fair