Hollywood Station

Getting rattled, the lieutenant said, “It’s out of my control. He’d made special arrangements, I’ve been told. He left everything he owned to the L.A. Police Memorial Foundation for scholarships. That’s all I know.”

Fausto Gamboa stood up then, the first time he’d ever done such a thing at roll call in his thirty-four-year career. He said, “The Oracle didn’t want any fuss made over him after he was gone. I know that for a fact. We talked about it one night many years ago when we were having a brew up at the Tree.”

B.M. Driscoll said, “But what’s his ex-wife say about it?”

“There is no ex-wife,” Fausto said. “That was his excuse for being crazy enough to stay on the Job all this time. And if he’d lived, someday they woulda had to tear the badge off his chest to get rid of him. He wouldn’ta liked that at all. He was nearly sixty-nine years old and enjoyed his life and did some good and now he’s gone end-of-watch.”

“Didn’t he have… anybody?” Mag asked.

“Sure he did,” Fausto said. “He had you. He was married to the Job and you were his kids. You and others before you.”

The room was still then until Hollywood Nate said, “Isn’t there… one little thing we can do for him? For his memory?”

After a pause, Fausto said with a quivering voice, “Yeah, there is. Remember how he said the Job is fun? The Oracle always said that doing good police work is more fun than anything you’ll ever do in your entire lives. Well, you just go out there tonight and have yourselves some fun.”

As soon as darkness fell on Hollywood, 6-X-76 went on a very special mission. A secret mission known to nobody else at Hollywood Station. They didn’t speak as Budgie drove up into the Hollywood Hills to Mount Lee. When they got to their destination, she pulled up to a locked gate and stopped.

Fausto unlocked the gate, saying, “I had to practically sign in blood to get this key from the park ranger.”

Budgie drove as far as they could on the fire road and then parked. There was no sound but cicadas whirring and a barely audible hum of traffic far below.

Then Budgie and Fausto got out and she opened the trunk. Fausto reached into his war bag and lifted out the urn.

Budgie led the way with her flashlight, but it was hardly needed under the light from a full moon. They walked along the path until they were at the base of the sign. It was four stories high and brilliantly lit.

Budgie looked up at the giant H looming and said, “Be careful, Fausto. Why don’t you let me do it?”

“This is my job,” Fausto said. “We were friends for more than thirty years.”

The ground by the H had fallen away, so they walked to the center, to the Y, where the ground was intact.

The ladder was in place beside scaffolding, and when he had climbed halfway up, Budgie yelled, “That’s high enough, Fausto!”

But he kept going, puffing and panting, pausing twice until he was all the way to the top. And when he was there, he carefully opened the lid from the urn and turned it upside down, saying, “Semper cop, Merv. See you soon.”

And the Oracle’s ashes blew away into the warm summer night, against the backdrop of HOLLYWOOD, four stories high, under magical white light supplied by an obliging Hollywood moon.

When they were finished with their mission and Budgie had driven them back down to the streets of Hollywood, she broke the silence by saying, “I’ve been thinking about cooking a turkey di

“I’ll check my schedule,” Fausto said. “Maybe I can make time.”

Budgie said, “My dad’s been dead for three years but Mom hasn’t started dating yet, so it probably won’t do you much good to hit on her.”

“Oh, sure,” Fausto said. “Like I’d hit on an old lady.”

Budgie looked at him and said, “The old lady is nearly ten years younger than you are, pal.”

“Yeah?” said Fausto, cocking that right eyebrow. “So what’s she look like?”

“Well, Marty,” Hollywood Nate said to his rookie partner. “We’re going to do some good police work and have some fun tonight. You ready for that?”

“Yes, sir,” the young cop said.

“Goddamnit, Marty,” Nate said, “save that ‘sir’ crap for your real training officer, who’ll probably turn out to be one of those GI junkies who grew up watching TV war movies. Me, I watched Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly musicals. My name’s Nate. Remember?”

“Okay, Nate. Sorry.”

“By the way, you like movies?”

“Yes,… Nate,” Marty said.

“Your old man wouldn’t be rich by any chance, would he?”

“Lord, no,” Marty said.

“Oh, well,” said Nate. “My last rich partner didn’t help my career anyway.”

There was a good crowd on the boulevard, and the young cop turned to Nate and said, “Sir-I mean, Nate, there’s a fifty-one-fifty raising heck over there in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.”

Without looking, Nate said, “What’s he doing?”

“Waving his arms around and yelling at people.”

“In Hollywood, that’s just called communication,” Nate said. “Nowadays it’s hard to tell ordinary boulevard lunatics from people with headsets talking on cells.” But then he glanced toward the famous theater, saw who it was, and said, “Uh-oh. That guy’s a known troublemaker. Maybe we should talk to him.”

Nate pulled the car into a red zone and said to his partner, “Marty, on this one, you be contact and I’ll be cover. I’m go

“For sure, Nate,” Marty said with enthusiasm, getting out of the car, collecting his baton, and putting on latex gloves.

The wild man waving his arms saw the young cop coming his way and stopped yelling. He planted his feet and waited.

Young Marty Shaw remembered from academy training that it’s usually better to address mental cases in personal terms, so he turned around for a moment and said to Nate, “Do you remember his name, by chance?”

“Not his full name,” said Hollywood Nate. “But they call him Al. Untouchable Al.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Wambaugh, a former LAPD detective sergeant, is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen prior works of fiction and nonfiction, many of which have been adapted for the big and small screen, including The Onion Field and The Choirboys. He is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and lives in Southern California.