child.
When Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt arrived, red lights flashing and siren screaming, there was already a small group of morbid onlookers who had come across from the Ambassador Hotel. Homer Tilden led the two policemen to the elevator and up to the twenty-first floor where the young woman sat on the window ledge of her own office, feet dangling, looking down curiously at the crowd gathering. In the distance the wail of a fire department emergency vehicle trapped by Wilshire Boulevard night traffic three blocks west.
“Don’t come near me,” the girl said calmly her hair blowing wispily around her tiny ears as the two policemen ran from the elevator and burst into the office.
“Go downstairs,” Roscoe said to Homer Tilden who was holding his chest and panting as though he had run the twenty-one stories instead of taking the elevator.
“Maybe I…”
“Go downstairs!” Roscoe repeated. “There’s gonna be other people coming.”
And as the janitor obeyed, Roscoe Rules began to imagine a picture and write-up in tomorrow’s
Los Angeles Times
if he could save the beautiful jumper. She was a fox and would surely rate an inside front page photo, along with her savior.
“Look, miss,” Roscoe said and stepped forward. But thegirl moved inches closer to her destiny, and Roscoe froze in his tracks.
“Maybe we better back off, partner,” Dean whispered, looking for the moment far younger than his twenty-five years, his freckles swimming in streams of sweat.
“We don’t back off nothing,” Roscoe whispered back. “She’s a dingaling, and there’s ways to handle them.” Then to the girl Roscoe said, “Nothing’s as bad as that. Come on in. Let’s jaw about it.”
He said it fliply with a grin and stepped forward, stopping when the girl moved forward another two inches and now teetered on the very edge, framed against the faded smoggy night sky of the Miracle Mile.
“Oh no!” Dean said. “No, miss! Don’t go any closer! Come on, partner, let’s go downstairs and give this lady a chance to think!”
But as Roscoe Rules saw a
Times
write-up and perhaps a police department medal of valor slipping through his fingers, he decided to try a different approach. He had seen Charles Laughton or someone do it successfully on an old TV movie. You could shame a jumper into surrendering.
“All right then, goddamnit!” Roscoe shouted to the girl. “You got your audience. It’s your life. If it ain’t worth a shit to you, it ain’t worth a shit to us. Go ahead, girl. We can’t stay here all night babying you. We got other things to do. Go ahead, girl! Jump!”
And she did. Without a word or a tear she looked at Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt and in fact never took her large violet eyes off them as she let herself slip from the ledge and fell at thirty-two feet per second squared, legs first, with a scream that was lost in a woosh of air and rustling skirt which had blown up over her face.
What was left of Melissa Monroe was being covered by a sheet when Dean Pratt stumbled by on his way to the radio car.
“Let me make the reports, partner,” Roscoe Rules said, and for the very first time Dean heard Roscoe’s voice quiver with uncertainty.
Then Whaddayamean Dean looked at Melissa Monroe and said later it was as though God in Heaven was displeased with dessert and had hauled off and threw it at the Ambassador Hotel but missed and splattered the sidewalk on Wilshire Boulevard. Skull and body had exploded. Organs and brain littered the pavement. She was white and yellow and pink, covered with lumpy red sauce and syrup. Melissa Monroe had been turned into a raspberry sundae.
Dean Pratt was very quiet for the rest of this bloodiest of all nights of his life. He thought they were finished when at the station Roscoe Rules finished writing his 15.7 report: that indispensable police document which handily covers all those police situations which do not conveniently fit into a category such as robbery
When Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt arrived, red lights flashing and siren screaming, there was already a small group of morbid onlookers who had come across from the Ambassador Hotel. Homer Tilden led the two policemen to the elevator and up to the twenty-first floor where the young woman sat on the window ledge of her own office, feet dangling, looking down curiously at the crowd gathering. In the distance the wail of a fire department emergency vehicle trapped by Wilshire Boulevard night traffic three blocks west.
“Don’t come near me,” the girl said calmly her hair blowing wispily around her tiny ears as the two policemen ran from the elevator and burst into the office.
“Go downstairs,” Roscoe said to Homer Tilden who was holding his chest and panting as though he had run the twenty-one stories instead of taking the elevator.
“Maybe I…”
“Go downstairs!” Roscoe repeated. “There’s gonna be other people coming.”
And as the janitor obeyed, Roscoe Rules began to imagine a picture and write-up in tomorrow’s
Los Angeles Times
if he could save the beautiful jumper. She was a fox and would surely rate an inside front page photo, along with her savior.
“Look, miss,” Roscoe said and stepped forward. But thegirl moved inches closer to her destiny, and Roscoe froze in his tracks.
“Maybe we better back off, partner,” Dean whispered, looking for the moment far younger than his twenty-five years, his freckles swimming in streams of sweat.
“We don’t back off nothing,” Roscoe whispered back. “She’s a dingaling, and there’s ways to handle them.” Then to the girl Roscoe said, “Nothing’s as bad as that. Come on in. Let’s jaw about it.”
He said it fliply with a grin and stepped forward, stopping when the girl moved forward another two inches and now teetered on the very edge, framed against the faded smoggy night sky of the Miracle Mile.
“Oh no!” Dean said. “No, miss! Don’t go any closer! Come on, partner, let’s go downstairs and give this lady a chance to think!”
But as Roscoe Rules saw a
Times
write-up and perhaps a police department medal of valor slipping through his fingers, he decided to try a different approach. He had seen Charles Laughton or someone do it successfully on an old TV movie. You could shame a jumper into surrendering.
“All right then, goddamnit!” Roscoe shouted to the girl. “You got your audience. It’s your life. If it ain’t worth a shit to you, it ain’t worth a shit to us. Go ahead, girl. We can’t stay here all night babying you. We got other things to do. Go ahead, girl! Jump!”
And she did. Without a word or a tear she looked at Roscoe Rules and Dean Pratt and in fact never took her large violet eyes off them as she let herself slip from the ledge and fell at thirty-two feet per second squared, legs first, with a scream that was lost in a woosh of air and rustling skirt which had blown up over her face.
What was left of Melissa Monroe was being covered by a sheet when Dean Pratt stumbled by on his way to the radio car.
“Let me make the reports, partner,” Roscoe Rules said, and for the very first time Dean heard Roscoe’s voice quiver with uncertainty.
Then Whaddayamean Dean looked at Melissa Monroe and said later it was as though God in Heaven was displeased with dessert and had hauled off and threw it at the Ambassador Hotel but missed and splattered the sidewalk on Wilshire Boulevard. Skull and body had exploded. Organs and brain littered the pavement. She was white and yellow and pink, covered with lumpy red sauce and syrup. Melissa Monroe had been turned into a raspberry sundae.
Dean Pratt was very quiet for the rest of this bloodiest of all nights of his life. He thought they were finished when at the station Roscoe Rules finished writing his 15.7 report: that indispensable police document which handily covers all those police situations which do not conveniently fit into a category such as robbery
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