“POLICE STORY”
The currently popular TV drama Police Story is a mosaic which presents a generally realistic picture of America’s big city cops and, by extension, of the society which gives them sanction. Since “Violation” speaks in the future tense, we cannot judge its realism; but it has an inexorable logic about it which suggests it is an only too accurate reflection of both future police work and the society which gives it legitimacy. William F. Nolan is a novelist, short-story writer, dramatist, biographer, and literary critic who first won notice in the science-fiction field. Currently he is in great demand as a movie and TV scenarist. His Dashiell Hammett, A Casebook (McNally & Loftin, 1969), was awarded a special Edgar by MWA and provides seminal scholarship to any student of the author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. - J.G.
It is 2 A.M. and he waits. In the cool morning stillness of a side street, under the screen of trees, the rider waits quietly. At ease upon the wide leather seat of his cycle, gloved fingers resting idly on the bars, goggles up, eyes palely reflecting the leaf-filtered glow of the moon.
Helmeted. Uniformed. Waiting.
In the breathing dark the cycle metal cools; the motor is silent, power contained.
The faint stirrings of a still-sleeping city reach him at his vigil. But he is not concerned with these; he mentally dismisses them. He is only concerned with the broad river of smooth concrete facing him through the trees-and the great winking red eye suspended icicle-like above it.
He waits.
And tenses to a sound upon the river. An engine sound, mosquito-dim with distance, rising to a hum. A rushing sound under the stars. The rider’s hands contract like the claws of a bird. He rises slowly on the bucket seat, right foot poised near the starter. A coiled spring.
Waiting.
Twin pencil beams of light move toward him, toward the street on which he waits hidden. Closer.
The hum builds in volume; the lights are very close now, flaring chalk-whiteness along the concrete boulevard.
The rider’s goggles are down and he is ready to move out, move onto the river. Another second, perhaps two...
But no. The vehicle slows, makes a full stop. A service vehicle with two men inside, laughing, joking. The rider listens to them, mouth set, eyes hard. The vehicle begins to move once more. The sound is eaten by the night.
There is no violation.
Now…the relaxing, the easing back. The ebb tide of tension receding. Gone. The rider quiet again under the moon.
Waiting.
The red eye winking at the empty boulevard.
“How much farther, Dave?” asks the girl.
‘‘Ten miles maybe. Once we hit Westwood it’s a quick run to my place. Relax. You’re nervous.”
“We should have stayed on the mainway. Used the grid. I don’t like surface streets. A grid would have taken us in.”
The man smiles, looping an arm around her.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of so long as you’re careful,” he said. “I used to drive surface streets all the time when I was a boy. Lots of people did.”
The girl swallows, touches at her hair nervously. “But they don’t anymore. People use the grids. I didn’t even know cars still came equipped for manual driving.”
“They don’t. I had this set up by a mechanic I know. He does jobs like this for road buffs. It’s still legal, driving your own car—it’s just that most people have lost the habit.”
The girl peers out the window into the silent street, shakes her head. “It’s not…natural. Look out there. Nobody! Not another car for miles. I feel as if we’re…trespassing.”
The man is annoyed. “That’s damn nonsense. I have friends who do this all the time. Just relax and enjoy it. And don’t talk like an idiot.”
“I want out,” says the girl. “I’ll take a walkway back to the grid.”
“The hell you will,” flares the man. “You’re with me tonight. We’re going to my place.”
She resists, strikes at his face. The man grapples to subdue her and does not see the blinking light. The car passes under it swiftly.
“No!” says the man. “I went through that light! You made me miss the stop. I’ve broken one of the surface laws.” He says this numbly.
“So what does that mean?” the girl asks. “What could happen?”
“Never mind. Nothing will happen. Never mind about what could happen.”
The girl peers out into the darkness. “I still want to leave this car.”
“Just shut up,” says the man.
And keeps driving.
Something in the sound tells the rider that this one will not stop, that it will continue to move along the river of concrete despite the blinking eye.
He smiles in the darkness, lips stretched back, silently. Poised there on the cycle, with the hum steady and rising on the river, he feels the power within him about to be released.
The car is almost upon the light, moving swiftly; there is·no hint of slackened speed.
The rider watches intently. Man and a girl inside. Struggling.
Fighting with one another.
The car passes under the light.
Violation.
Now!
He spurs the cycle to metal life; the motor crackles, roars, explodes the black machine into motion, and the rider is away, rolling in muted thunder along the street. Around the corner, swaying, onto the long, moon-painted river of the boulevard.
The rider feels the wind in his face, feels the throb and power-pulse of the metal thing he rides, feels the smooth concrete rushing backward under his wheels.
Ahead: the firefly glow of tail beams.
And now his cycle voice cries out after them, a siren moan through the still spaces of the hive-city. A voice that rises and falls in spirals of sound. And his cycle eyes, mounted left and right, blink crimson, red as blood in their wake.
The car will stop. The man will see him, hear him. The eyes and the voice will reach the violator.
And he will stop.
“Good Lord!” the man says coldly. “We picked up a rider at that light.”
“You picked him up, I didn’t,” says the girl. “It’s your problem.”
“But I’ve never been stopped on a surface street,” the man says, a note of desperation in his voice. “In all these years, never once!”
The girl glares at him. “Dave, you make me sick. Look at you, shaking like a pup. You’re a damned poor excuse for a man.”
He does not react to these words. He speaks in a numbed monotone. “I can talk my way out. I know I can. He’ll listen to me. I have my rights as a citizen of the city—”
“He’s catching up fast. You’d better pull over.”
“I’ll do the talking. You just keep quiet. I’ll handle this.”
The rider sees that the car is slowing, braking, pulling to the curb.
Stopping.
He cuts the siren voice, lets it die, glides the cycle in behind the car. Cuts the engine. Sits there for a long moment on the leather seat, pulling off his gloves. Slowly.
He sees the car door slide open. A man steps out, comes toward him. The rider swings a booted leg over the cycle, steps free, advancing to meet this lawbreaker, fitting the gloves carefully into his black leather belt.
They face each other, the man smaller, paunching, balding, face flushed. The rider’s polite smile eases the man’s tenseness.
“You in a hurry, sir?”
“Me? No, I’m not in a hurry. Not at all. It was just…I didn’t see the light up there until…I was past it. The high trees and all. I swear to you I didn’t see it. I’d never knowingly break a surface law, officer. You have my sworn word.”
Nervous. Shaken and nervous, this man. The rider can feel the man’s guilt, a physical force. He extends a hand.
“May I see your operator’s license, please?”
The man fumbles in his coat. “I have it right here. It’s all in order, up to date and all.”
“Just let me see it, please.”
The man continues to talk. “Been driving for years, officer, and this is my first violation. Perfect record up to now. I’m a responsible citizen. I obey the laws. After all, I’m not a fool.”
The rider says nothing; he examines the man’s license, taps it thoughtfully against his wrist. The rider’s goggles are opaque and the man cannot see his eyes as he studies the face of the violator.
“The woman in the car...is she your wife?”
“No. No, sir. She’s...a friend. Just a friend.”
“Then why were you fighting? I saw the two of you fighting inside the car when it passed the light. That isn’t friendly, is it?”
The man attempts to smile. “Personal. We had a small personal disagreement. It’s all over now, believe me.”
The rider walks to the car, leans to peer in at the woman. She is pale, as nervous as the man.
“You having trouble?” the rider asks.
She hesitates, shakes her head mutely. The rider leaves her, returns to the man, who is leaning against the cycle.
“Don’t touch that,” says the rider coldly, and the man draws back his hand, mumbling an apology.
“I have no further use for this,” says the rider, handing back the man’s license. “You are guilty of a surface-street violation.”
The man quakes; his hands tremble. “But…it was not deliberate. I know the law. You’re empowered to make exceptions if a violation is not deliberate. The full penalty is not invoked in such cases. Instead, you are allowed to—”
The rider cuts the. flow of desperate words. “You forfeited your Citizen’s Right of Exception when you allowed a primary emotion—anger, in this instance—to affect your control of a surface vehicle. Thus, my duty is clear.”
The man’s eyes widen in shock as the rider brings up a belt weapon. “You can’t possibly—”
“I’m hereby authorized to perform this action per the 1990 Overpopulation Statute with regard to surface violators. Your case is closed.”
And he presses the trigger.
Again and again and again. Three long, probing blue jets of star-hot flame leap from the weapon in the rider’s hand.
The man is gone. The woman is gone. The car is gone.
The street is empty and silent. A charred smell of distant suns lingers in the morning air.
The rider stands by his cycle, unmoving for a long moment. Then he carefully holsters the weapon and pulls on his leather gloves. He mounts the cycle as it comes to life under his foot.
He is again upon the moon-flowing boulevard, gliding back toward the blinking red eye.
The rider returns to his vigil on the small, tree-shadowed side street, thinking How stupid they are! To be subject to indecision, to quarrels and erratic behavior. Weak, all of them, soft and weak.
He smiles into the darkness.
The eye blinks over the river.
And now it is 4 A.M. and now 6 and 8 and 10 and 1 P.M. and now it is 3, 4, 5, the hours turning like spoked wheels, the days spinning away.
And he waits. Through nights without sleep, days without food, a flawless metal enforcer at his vigil, watching, sure of himself and of his duty.
Waiting.