Golden Orange by Joseph Wambaugh Page B

lighter.
    â€œBe cool, will ya!” Winnie whispered. “She’s a lady. ”
    â€œSure. They all are.” Buster finished his drink, turned to Winnie and said, “My life’s takin a turn. I’m on the verge of … a big career change. Meantime, I ain’t gonna let some faggot dust me with an Uzi! I’m gonna ask for an inside job, startin right away.”
    â€œWhen we did police work together you wanted to do real police work,” Winnie said.
    â€œTrouble with you, Win, the job was a way of life. That’s why you’re so lost now, flounderin around and beatin the livin shit outta your own liver. With me it was never more than a job. Best I could get with no skills other than ridin a board.”
    â€œYou’re not really thinkin about leaving the department?”
    â€œThinkin hard, pardner. I got an offer to consider, a real offer. This thing today, it helped me make up my mind.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œCan’t talk about it yet.”
    â€œEven to me ?”
    â€œMaybe I’m scared if I talk about it, it’ll burn off like cloud cover in the morning. You know how superstitious I am.”
    â€œJist do yourself a favor, Buster. Think before you pull the pin. It’s cold out here in the civilian world. You’ll never find the same kind a friends you have on the job.”
    â€œMaybe I don’t need em like you do. Things work out for me, I promise you’ll be the first to know about it. You’re one a my only friends, right? Meantime I’m askin the boss to give me a different job. I’ve had it with street work.”
    â€œThe heavyweight iron-pumping finalist of the 1979 Police Olympics?” Winnie said. “Pushing a pencil ?”
    â€œI’m almost forty-five years old,” Buster said. “When was the last time a middle-aged guy got shot by a pencil? Ya know what that guy sounded like breathin his last? Like the static on your stereo speakers. Like maybe he had a bad tweeter or woofer. Yeah, I don’t mind pushin a pencil. Thirty-six grand a year ain’t enough no more. Not for me. Man, I’m gettin old. ”
    Buster finished the Scotch and squeezed Winnie’s shoulder, a bonding gesture of his that Winnie always hated. Buster had a grip like a five-pound pipe wrench.
    The big cop crossed the saloon in half a dozen long strides without so much as a glance at Tess Binder. And that was definitely not like Buster Wiles, whose bedroom exploits, they said, kept the Orange County abortion clinics in business. He was a different man now than the guy Winnie had partnered with off and on for six years. Winnie felt very sad for his old pal.
    â€œYour chum has a few problems, doesn’t he?” Tess said, blowing a cloud of smoke that Winnie, a nonsmoker, would have resented from any but her vermilion lips.
    â€œBurnout. Stress. Same old story,” Winnie said. “Used to be a good detective. He’s not all brawn, there’s some brains up there.”
    â€œMost unusual eyes,” Tess Binder said.
    â€œPansy purple, I used to say. Guy could haul out the old Catalina steamship with his bare hands and he’s got eyes like Liz Taylor.”
    â€œLavender, I’d say,” Tess said. “Maybe lilac. Hard to say in this light.”
    Not another one lost to Buster Wiles! To test her he said, “Guy’s a hunk, huh?”
    â€œIf you care for the type,” Tess shrugged, lifting Winnie’s spirits. “Probably wears a pinkie ring when he gets dressed up.”
    Winnie laughed at that, but reached below the bar to remove the opal pinkie with “Win” in zircons that Tammy had given him for a birthday three weeks before she served him up a dose of bankruptcy.
    â€œHow about you?” Tess Binder asked. “Were you a good detective?”
    â€œHow’d you know I was a detective?”
    â€œThe newspaper said you were a detective prior to your