W. Franklin Sanders - Whip Hand

The Whip Hand

by W. Franklin Sanders (Charles Willeford)

Chapter 1

Bill Brown

MY reinitiation was off to a thundering start. It was my first day back in Traffic after three good years in the Auto Theft Bureau, and the day was not a pleasant one for me. Not pleasant in the smallest detail. My determination to make the best of my comedown and see it through was already running into serious trouble. Shame and disgust were banging brutal, body blows against my determination, and my hot temper was a rotten referee in the clinches.

I told myself I wasn't the first man on the force to be knocked down as an example. I had seen it happen before. It wasn't entirely a new idea. But this time it had happened to Bill Brown, and that made it seem all too new and personal. With a bit of 20-20 hindsight, the events leading up to my humiliation were not too hard to trace. In fact, the trail was quite clear.

The Auto Theft Bureau snarls the lines on a pair of raids which fills our nets, and the big ones get away. Then we overlook another lead passed to us from Homicide in routine paper work and it turns out that a prompt follow-up would have paid off big for us. A big stink is raised. A bigger investigation is ordered, and stuff bounces off the fan in every direction. A shake-up rattles through the Bureau and the whole Los Angeles Police Department.

When the charges and counter-accusations start flying back and forth it isn't amusing. Every instance of lax efficiency, questionable conduct, or carelessness is apt to be spread out and raked over, and usually is. It boils down to every man for himself--and anybody he thinks he can depend on to help whitewash him. My short seniority in the Bureau didn't rate me much help or sympathy.

Before one of these investigations is over, fingers get pointed at some vulnerable miscreants found in any large organization. Also at a few unlucky individuals trapped by circumstances and appearances. This time those fingers were pointed at me, among others. And they had pushed me right down to where I stand now. Demoted. Back in uniform. Turning with the signals at Eighth and Broadway, downtown L. A.

Only petty allegations against me had been substantiated by the investigation, like keeping the wrong company. But serious charges had been rumored and strongly suspected. They wondered if I had been taking payment for services rendered on both sides of the fence. My previous record and the natural absence of any tangible evidence had saved me from getting blown off the force completely. I knew I should quit, but I was sore and a little stubborn. And accustomed to eating regularly.

My one dubious consolation was that I was better off than the police commissioner had been. He had quit under the pressure, and a new commissioner, a real fire-eater, had been appointed. At least I wasn't out of work like the ex-commissioner.

I had more work than I could handle. In moving up the ladder to the Bureau it had pleased me to forget what a traffic job was like, but today was the time for remembering. The day was a scorcher; one the Chamber of Commerce would like to take back to the exchange window. People were angry. Most of the pedestrians were bent on jumping under rolling wheels, and impatient drivers apparently were anxious to accommodate them. In the middle of all this, I was uncomfortable.

I had put on a few surplus pounds in the Bureau and my uniform pants were too tight in the waist. The heavy .44 on my hip wasn't doing the kidney section any good. I longingly thought of the compact shoulder holster I'd carried until today. The kidneys were full of pain. The feet hurt. I was hot all over, and my clothes were damp and sticky in the most bothersome places. And I no longer doubted the statistics on the number of cars and trucks in L. A.

Being very conservative, you might say I wasn't too happy. But I got even less happy when a familiar blue Lincoln sedan charged into the intersection and rocked to a sudden stop beside me. I had to bend the traffic around the Lincoln.

I knew the driver, too. I wished I had never seen his pasty face. I also knew some of his hard-bitten playmates, in a casual pool-hall, card-room, off-duty-type acquaintance. I'd always figured them as comparatively harmless hoodlums. I had been disillusioned to learn during the investigation that most of them were important cogs in the organized rackets up and down the coast. They had been under tight surveillance by the Narcotics Division, which had not nailed them yet, but had certainly helped to establish my erstwhile accidental association with them.

That flimsy association had been the main reason I was slapped under a suspension during the investigation and later booted out of my Bureau assignment, back into the fever of this intersection. I didn't like them before; I intensely disliked them now.

I had learned from the interrogations that the one driving the Lincoln was supposed to be some kind of a payoff messenger working for unknown higher-ups in the rackets. Maybe even for the syndicate's top dog on the coast, a human eel no one had been able to finger. He was referred to by our side and the opposition alike as simply The Man.

I stepped up to the Lincoln and leaned down to the driver's window. "Have your wisecrack and go on through, Hubs," I ordered.

He gave me a lazy laugh. "Take it easy, Flatfoot. This will interest you. I've got orders for you from the top. You know, from The Man."

I wanted to pull the talking corner of his mouth out of his face. He was one reason I was on this particular corner of Hell.

"My orders come from a different headquarters, Hubs. Pull out of here before I run you in."

"If you want to live, you'll listen, Brown. Did you know The Man has a connection or two in your headquarters?"

An obvious fact, considering the crime boss always knew when his operations had the green light and when to apply the brakes. It meant buying inside information and protection where it counted. But no large payoffs had been traced yet; peanuts to beat cops for winking at everyday infractions, but nothing big.

"So he has connections. What's it to a working cop like me?"

"There's a lot in it for you. You're in between a rock and a hard place and just don't know it."

I had been thinking along that very line for many days; but Hubs made me wonder what could happen next.

"Pull over there in that loading zone, out of the way. You can tell me about my troubles better over there."

Hubs moved the shiny sedan smoothly into the soot I pointed out. I walked over to his window again. "Break the news, but don't waste my time. As even you can see, I've got a job to do."

"I'll give it to you straight, Brown. Your new commissioner has some pull, down south of the border. He's got his hands on those missing witnesses--you remember, the weedheads they couldn't locate during the investigation. He thinks he can tie you in tight with them, like helping them get dope through the border check point to deliver here in L. A. Or even bringing it yourself, maybe."

I had been down to Tijuana and Mexicali and deeper into Mexico several times, working with the border guards and the San Diegan and Mexican police. We were trying to root out hot car change-over plants at the time. But I couldn't remember ever talking with the pair Hubs referred to. I was pretty sure none of my reports had mentioned anyone like them. I had heard quite a bit about them during the investigation; but their names and descriptions had meant nothing to me. But, hell, neither had most of the other deals the commissioner had tried to fit me into.

I shook my head. "Those boys are your friends, Hubs. I never saw them in my life."

"Well, it ain't my say-so. But I guess The Man thinks the commissioner could be right. Nobody knows. And just a little bit of a certain kind of information can hurt business for a long time."