Lines and shadows by Joseph Wambaugh

publicity and politicians. He encouraged his sergeant to grant a few requests from service clubs that wanted to hear about this band of cops called BARF. But Manny Lopez didn't need encouraging.
    Chief of Police William Kolender was a departure from prior chiefs. He was up from the ranks, a large man with wavy brown hair styled just over his ears. He owned a good speaking voice and looked like the Hart Schaffner & Marx executive models. He was known as the first police chief in San Diego history with progressive ideas. He was skillful enough to be liked by his men, by City Hall, and by the media, no mean feat for a police administrator. It was not a secret that he might aspire to political office upon the completion of his police career.
    Bill Kolender had in his office two flags, one of Ireland and one of Israel, a private joke made public at every first meeting. The chief invariably let a reporter, interviewer, community leader, know that he was at heart an Irish cop, but in reality a Jew, the first ever to attain such an office in this city. And he'd let you make of that what you would. Until of late he had been the object of just about any speaking request made of the police department. He was good. But now there was somebody better. Chief Kolender and all the file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a... 11/20/2009
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    department brass had to pay attention because Manny Lopez could wow them. A natural storyteller, Manny was in his element up there, say before a Kiwanis luncheon, pointing his finger like a gun, eyebrow crawling and squiggling like crazy whenever any female caught his evil little eye. His hands flying all over the place as he dramatized how they handled this band of cutthroats in Deadman's Canyon or that band of killers in Smuggler's Gulch. And if they had another Chivas Regal handy, yes, he'd have one. Manny knew how to live: a Chivas in one hand, a Santa Fe Corona Grande in his mouth, dressed for these occasions like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever . This police sergeant, not yet thirty years old, was a smash on the local lecture circuit. And for at least fifteen minutes after he got to the station in the afternoons he would, while sobering up, regale his scruffy, ragtag;-flea-bitten, cactus-stuck squad about the scotch they practically poured down his golden throat at the luncheon. And of how the ladies loved his performance. And the Barfers would maybe get a little envious, but they admired him. Some of the younger ones like Joe Castillo and Carlos Chacon admitted that they worshiped him. The chief of police and other department brass had to notice that this Mexican-American sergeant wasn't hurting the department image, not a bit. Maybe this experiment might turn into something halfway decent after all.
    Right around Christmas 1976 they met the border version of the Artful Dodger. One night the varsity—Manny Lopez, Tony Puente and Eddie Cervantes—were not in the canyons but walking in San Ysidro when an eight-year-old yellow Ford pulled up beside them. The car stopped and the occupants looked at the pollos, drove off, circled, parked on a side street and waited.
    The Mexican woman behind the wheel studied Manny Lopez, who wore against the cold his alien field jacket, a woolen cap pulled down over his balding head, two pairs of shiny dress pants, and plastic platforms which were breaking his freaking ankles. She said, in Spanish, "Do you know where Enero Street is?"
    "Oh, no," Manny Lopez told her. "We're not from here." She smiled and said, "Where do you come from?"
    Pointing south, he said, "We've just come north."
    "Do you have a ride?" she asked.
    "No, no ride," Manny Lopez answered.
    "My mother will take you to Los Angeles," the driver's companion offered.
    "Get in," the driver said quickly. " La migra and city police are all around." file://C:\Documents and Settings\tim\Desktop\books to read\Wambaugh, Joseph - Lines a...