The Choirboys Read Free Page A

well. Lynch hated those phony golden locks which Moss probably tinted. The asshole was at least forty-five years old and still looked like a Boy Scout. Not a wrinkle on that smirking kisser.
    Lynch punched the phone button viciously and chirped, “Good morning, Deputy Chief Lynch speaking. May I help you?”
    “It’s I, Chief. Hec Moss,” said the commander, and Chief Lynch grimaced and thought, It’s I. Oh shit!
    “Yeah Hec.”
    “Chief, it’s about the MacArthur Park orgy.”
    “Goddamnit, don’t call it that!”
    “Sorry sir. I meant the choir practice.”
    “Don’t call it that either. That’s all we need for the papers to pick it up.”
    “Yes sir,” Moss said. And then more slyly, “I’m very cognizant of bad press, sir. After all, I squelched the thing and assuaged the victim’s family.”
    Oh shit! thought Lynch.
Assuaged
. “Yes, Hec,” said the chief wearily.
    “Well sir, I was wondering, just to lock the thing up so to speak, I was wondering if we shouldn’t have the chief order quick trial boards for every officer who was at the orgy. Fire them all.”
    “Don’t… say…
orgy
. And don’t… say…
choir practice!”
    “Sorry sir.”
    “That’s not very good thinking, Hec.” The chief tilted back in his chair, lifted his wing tips to the desk top, raised up his rust colored hairpiece and scratched his freckled rubbery scalp. “I don’t think we should consider firing them.”
    “They deserve it, sir.”
    “They deserve more than that, Hec. The bastards deserve to be in jail as accessories to a killing. I’d personally like to see every one of them in Folsom Prison.
But
they might make a fuss. They might bring in some lawyers to the trial board. They might notify the press if we have a mass dismissal. In short, they might hurl a pail of defecation into the air conditioning.”
    Chief Lynch waited for a chuckle from Moss, got none and thought again about Moss’ low IQ. “Anyway Hec,” he continued,“we have a real good case only against the one who did the shooting and I think we’re stuck with that. We’ll give the others a trial board and a six month suspension, but we’ll take care of it quietly. Maybe we can scare some of them into resigning.”
    “Some goddamn shrink at General Hospital’s saying that killer’s nuts.”
    “What do you expect from General Hospital? What’re they good for anyway but treating the lame and lazy on the welfare rolls? What do you plan to do about that dumbass detective who examined the officer the night of the shooting and ordered him taken to the psychiatric ward?”
    “Ten days off?”
    “Should get twenty.”
    “Afraid he might complain to the press.”
    “Guess you’re right,” Chief Lynch conceded grudgingly.
    “Well, hope you’re happy with our office, Chief!”
    “You did a fine job, Hec,” Deputy Chief Lynch said. “But I wish you’d talk to your secretary. I’ve had reports she didn’t say ‘good morning’ twice last week when my adjutant called.”
    “Won’t happen again, Chief.”
    “Bye bye, Hec.”
    Deputy Chief Lynch wouldn’t stand for a violation of the Los Angeles Police Department order concerning phone answering. After all, he had written the order. Officers had to answer thus:
    “Good morning [afternoon or evening], Wilshire Watch Commander’s Office, Officer Fernwood speaking. May I help you?”
    If any word was left out of this standard greeting, the officer could be subject to disciplinary action.
    It was said that once when a desk officer at Newton Street Station had uttered the entire phrase before giving the caller a chance to speak, the caller, a cardiac victim, fell unconsciousbefore completing the address where the ambulance should be sent and died twenty minutes later.
    Deputy Chief Lynch was a man to reckon with because he had thought of the most printable slogan in the history of the department. It was the slogan for a simple plan to spread out the staff officers geographically giving