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Authors: Joseph Wambaugh
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step. He looked down and tried to kick the chopstick out of his ripple sole. The stubborn chopstick became lodged more securely.
“I got a chopstick in my shoe,” The Bad Czech complained to Cecil Higgins, who was belching lava.
“Oooohhhh, I know e d we shoulda had gumbo,” Cecil Higgins moaned. “This Ko- rean soul food gives me heartburn.”
But The Bad Czech wasn’t commiserating with Cecil Higgins. He was dancing around in the darkened cocktail lounge on one foot, bitching and groaning and trying to extract the stubborn chopstick.
“I can’t get it out!” The Bad Czech cried.
Cecil Higgins belched fearfully loud, moaned, and said, “Gud-damn, Czech. I know it ain’t your day but I can’t help ya with this one. Ya gotta take chopsticks out t a your own shoes. My stomach hurts too much to be takin chopsticks outa anybody’s fuckin shoes.”
The Bad Czech sat down crankily and took off his size 15 EEE shoe, and broke off the chopstick trying to dislodge it from the rippled rubber, and finally grabbed a soup spoon and dislodged the broken shaft of the stubborn chopstick.
And after he did, he got up grumpily and picked up an American Express card which he had apparently dropped on the floor while he was dancing around on one foot. He had an American Express card because Karl Maiden played a cop in their commercials.
Except that he hadn’t dropped his credit card. It was still on the table where he had put it when he started fretting about the chopstick. The Bad Czech’s credit card was later thrown into the lost-and-found drawer by the busboy who eventually cleaned and reset the table.
Mario Villalobos would come to understand and explain to The Bad Czech how it really worked, the thing called destiny. How an insignificant event could connect with something so great, something that signified for some men the ultimate honor that one human being can bestow upon another. And for some men even more than that.
The Bad Czech, despite the fact that he wondered if it was really real, would become linked with a double murder and a Nobel Prize for science.
And it happened because he mistakenly picked up a credit card from the floor. It happened, in the final analysis, because he had a stubborn chopstick in his shoe.
Chapter F our
THE SPIKE
Dilford and dolly, The Personality Team, constantly sulked while on patrol, turning one persecuted face to the other persecuted face only when it was absolutely necessary.
It hadn’t been easy for Dolly, to adjust to an out-and-out chauvinist like Dilford. It was bad enough with the run-of-the-mill chauvinists who couldn’t adapt to the idea of females on patrol even though women were now undergoing academy training identical to the men’s.
Dilford was one of those who never tired of short-people jokes when he had a male audience.
“Hey, Rumford,” Dilford might yell to one of his pals from the morning watch, “bet you thought I was working alone. I got a partner: Too-tall Dolly. Stick up your shotgun, Dolly, so Rumford can see you.”
Then while all the other jackasses hee-hawed, Dilford might yell, “Hey, Dolly, put a bicycle flag on your Sam Browne. Let the sergeant know you’re here.”
Things had gotten off on the wrong foot the very first day that Dolly was assigned to work with Dilford, after completing her one-year probationary period as a police officer. First thing he did was say to her the same old things she’d heard since academy graduation: “I have to work with you. It’s not my idea. So let’s just pretend it’s a date, shall we? Except I don’t open the door for you and I don’t light your cigarettes.”
And so forth.
“Does that mean we don’t do any police work, Dilford?” the sorrel-haired, hazel-eyed mini-cop said to her tall, lean, sarcastic partner, himself only a three-year policeman.
“That’s what it means, Shorty,” said Dilford. “We put our blinders on so I don’t get tempted to do police
“I got a chopstick in my shoe,” The Bad Czech complained to Cecil Higgins, who was belching lava.
“Oooohhhh, I know e d we shoulda had gumbo,” Cecil Higgins moaned. “This Ko- rean soul food gives me heartburn.”
But The Bad Czech wasn’t commiserating with Cecil Higgins. He was dancing around in the darkened cocktail lounge on one foot, bitching and groaning and trying to extract the stubborn chopstick.
“I can’t get it out!” The Bad Czech cried.
Cecil Higgins belched fearfully loud, moaned, and said, “Gud-damn, Czech. I know it ain’t your day but I can’t help ya with this one. Ya gotta take chopsticks out t a your own shoes. My stomach hurts too much to be takin chopsticks outa anybody’s fuckin shoes.”
The Bad Czech sat down crankily and took off his size 15 EEE shoe, and broke off the chopstick trying to dislodge it from the rippled rubber, and finally grabbed a soup spoon and dislodged the broken shaft of the stubborn chopstick.
And after he did, he got up grumpily and picked up an American Express card which he had apparently dropped on the floor while he was dancing around on one foot. He had an American Express card because Karl Maiden played a cop in their commercials.
Except that he hadn’t dropped his credit card. It was still on the table where he had put it when he started fretting about the chopstick. The Bad Czech’s credit card was later thrown into the lost-and-found drawer by the busboy who eventually cleaned and reset the table.
Mario Villalobos would come to understand and explain to The Bad Czech how it really worked, the thing called destiny. How an insignificant event could connect with something so great, something that signified for some men the ultimate honor that one human being can bestow upon another. And for some men even more than that.
The Bad Czech, despite the fact that he wondered if it was really real, would become linked with a double murder and a Nobel Prize for science.
And it happened because he mistakenly picked up a credit card from the floor. It happened, in the final analysis, because he had a stubborn chopstick in his shoe.
Chapter F our
THE SPIKE
Dilford and dolly, The Personality Team, constantly sulked while on patrol, turning one persecuted face to the other persecuted face only when it was absolutely necessary.
It hadn’t been easy for Dolly, to adjust to an out-and-out chauvinist like Dilford. It was bad enough with the run-of-the-mill chauvinists who couldn’t adapt to the idea of females on patrol even though women were now undergoing academy training identical to the men’s.
Dilford was one of those who never tired of short-people jokes when he had a male audience.
“Hey, Rumford,” Dilford might yell to one of his pals from the morning watch, “bet you thought I was working alone. I got a partner: Too-tall Dolly. Stick up your shotgun, Dolly, so Rumford can see you.”
Then while all the other jackasses hee-hawed, Dilford might yell, “Hey, Dolly, put a bicycle flag on your Sam Browne. Let the sergeant know you’re here.”
Things had gotten off on the wrong foot the very first day that Dolly was assigned to work with Dilford, after completing her one-year probationary period as a police officer. First thing he did was say to her the same old things she’d heard since academy graduation: “I have to work with you. It’s not my idea. So let’s just pretend it’s a date, shall we? Except I don’t open the door for you and I don’t light your cigarettes.”
And so forth.
“Does that mean we don’t do any police work, Dilford?” the sorrel-haired, hazel-eyed mini-cop said to her tall, lean, sarcastic partner, himself only a three-year policeman.
“That’s what it means, Shorty,” said Dilford. “We put our blinders on so I don’t get tempted to do police
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