The Laughing Policeman

Yeah.

It's workin'. He's stayin' right with me.

Hey, look, maybe we should, uh...

Wait a second. Not yet. Wait!

- What do we got, Lou? - We got a goddamn massacre.

- Who's the on-call crew? - Greek and Larrimore.

The rest of the troops are comin' too, Jake.

- What happened? - I don't know...

- See anything? - He was on top of it when it happened...

but he still didn't see anything worth a damn.

See if you can fix the time exactly.

- What's your name, sir? - Jim Yee.

- Say it again, sir. - Jim Yee.

- Jim... - Yee.

- Where do you live? - 644 Pacific.

644 Pacific. Okay. Tell me. What happened?

I run from the corner.

I just see the bus crash.

All right. What corner was that?

Remember that department store thing... that guy choppin' down...

on people from the escalator?

That one was superbad.

I don't know. The is the worst one I've seen.

It keeps getting worse all the time.

There's just so many sick assholes running around.

Sometimes I think the department oughta...

issue us whips and chairs.

Call the wiring squad and have 'em rope off the area, keep the scene preserved.

Jake! Jake, one of 'em is still alive. They're takin' him in now.

All right. Come on. Back it up. Let's go. Move it back. Come on, folks.

- What's he look like? Can he talk? - Guy doesn't look good.

Mike, you got your tape recorder? Why don't you go with him?

- He may come to and say something. - What happened here?

All right. Come on, folks. Come on. Let's go. Let's go. Break it up.

- Go on. - Go on home.

Puff on that, will ya?

Jesus!

What have you got?

- Oh, no. - Christ! It's Evans.

Cold-blooded motherfuckers.

Shit.

Son of a bitch!

What kind of freak could just...

You got to be a hard-core crazy.

- What do you got, Frank? - Gunshot wound.

Looks like a bad one. Let's get his clothes off.

- Get trauma down here. - Get his arm up.

- Watch your hand. - Keep pullin' him up on the gurney.

Let's sit him up.

- Got his head? - I got it. I got it.

- Cut these off. Cut this off. - Gotta get him oxygen.

- When you get the cuff down, start writing. - Anybody writing all this down?

I can't. I can't do two things at once.

Okay. Give him a couple of big breaths here. What do you hear?

He seems to be ventilating both sides well.

- Okay. Good. I'm gonna get a tube out. - Abdomen's distended, rigid.

- I'm having trouble getting a pulse. - Large exit.

He takes an occasional breath on his own here.

- You get the cut down on the right. Sharon... - Coming right up.

...put the catheter in on the left.

Where did they find this guy? Anybody got grease for this tube?

Check his pupils. Can you get me a pair of gloves?

Anybody got any blood yet?

How you doin', Bob? Okay. Let's move.

- Pupils are down. - Frankie and Linda, that's number one.

- This is number two. - Pulse? Let's get movin'. This guy's in trouble.

What the hell was Evans doin' on that bus?

How the hell do I know? He was off duty, on vacation.

Yeah. He was your partner. Don't give me a lot of bullshit.

How's this, Ken?

Lieutenant, what the hell are we gonna do with all these press guys?

One of them's still alive, hit pretty bad. If he comes around...

he might be able to tell us something.

Mike went to the trauma room. He may be able to tape him.

I can stall for a little.

I need answers. Follow my drift?

- Here's your blood. - What do you got, Denny?

Got a bad gunshot wound here, Doug. He has two arm wounds...

entrance and exit wounds in both arms.

He's got an entrance wound here and a large excavation on his right flank.

- Chest clear, Denny? - Yeah. He ventilates both sides...

- He got anything in his back at all? - Nothing. His back is clear.

- We got three good lines. - Got three lines. That's good.

- Abdomen's distended and rigid. - Get his belly prepped and get him upstairs.

- Doctor, we need him. How bad is he? - Can't tell you. He's not good.

Look at this. Chivas Regal.

And notice the seal's not even broken.

Here we got rubbers.

Hmm. Looks like this guy's always ready for a matinee.

- John, take a look... - This was on the floor next to the briefcase.

- Will you step aside for a minute? - Sixteen and a half collar.

Look at this.

We got some money on the first male victim. Up here in the front.

- How much? - Eight and a half. Eight and a half.

850 dollars. Mark that down. The first male... first male victim...

inside the entrance/exit door on the right-hand side.

It's still sealed.

Got a man here with prophylactics who knows how to shoot.

One, two, three, four, five, six prophylactics.

Must be a hell of a man.

- Take a look at this. - This was on the floor next to the briefcase.

Will you step aside?

This one's gonna be a son of a bitch.

We'll keep this all together in the case, huh?

God. I can't shake this cold.

I'm in bed with a friend when I get the call.

Some asshole just shoots up a bus. Bunch of people on it.

- Boss wants us to work together. - Good.

- I understand that Dave Evans was... - He was a good cop.

- I'm sorry about what happened. - Good.

Let's get something straight right now, pal, all right?

- I didn't volunteer for this assignment. - Good.

I understand how you feel. Sorry. My fault. Sorry.

Would you believe I gotta be in court in about three and a half hours?

- Warm piss. - Let's go pick up the pieces, huh?

Where do we start?

Why don't we go back to the detail and kick it around?

See you guys later.

I thought you were sleeping.

You worked all night again. You're gonna get sick.

Do you want some eggs? I could fix you some eggs if you like.

No, thanks. I'm just gonna get a couple hours' sleep.

Well, at least everything around here is normal.

- What's eatin' him today? - Growing pains.

What's doin' with you today, sweetheart?

Well, big French test. Mostly busywork.

Gotta get cracking.

Dave Evans is dead.

He was 31 years old, and it's all over for him.

It's a rotten business. You never see anything good.

Work in a gutter, and you never see anything good.

I'm sorry.

We just saw him. When was it? It was only a couple of weeks ago.

It's a rotten business.

- I wish there was something I could say. - Can't say anything.

- You look like you're coming down with a cold. - I'm not, for Christ's sake.

My partner was just shot to death.

I... I just wanna be alone, I guess.

I have no other northern unit available. Can you check out...

a 917 at 1246 Bell?

Apparently, he's bothering the passersby. He's an N.M.A. about 40 years old.

He's wearing beige coveralls.

Beige coveralls at 1246...

or make that 1246 Bell.

You saw him?

Then it's him?

I mean, a mistake this...

Oh... mistake.

Um, some coffee. Would you like some coffee?

Isn't there someone who could stay with you?

Why? I don't want anyone.

Do you know what he was doing on that bus?

- How could I, Jake? - Last week, when he called in sick...

I knew he really wasn't sick.

But he deserved the time off. He'd put in so much overtime.

He wasn't off. He was working night and day.

Didn't he tell you he was off?

He wasn't off. Now, what the hell are you talking about?

Look, Kay, uh, there's gonna be a lot of questions asked.

Dave... Dave was my partner. He was tough to get close to.

I mean, they're gonna be firing questions all over the place.

If there's anything you wanna tell me that you think I should know...

He told me he was working.

He was working with you.

Maybe we should start canvassing the neighborhood, huh?

In Chinatown? Nobody saw anything.

I got all the license plates in the area. I'll make a run on it this afternoon.

Yeah, well, I'll make that about a 100-to-1 shot.

- Hi. What time is it? - I got a quarter to.

Well, let's get to it. It's not gonna go away.

This is Dr. Jendrick dictating autopsy number 3407...

tentatively identified as Avakian... A-V-A-K-l-A-N...

21373 at 11:45 a.m.

The body is that of a white man appearing approximately the stated age.

- We were able to contact relatives pretty fast. - Well nourished and developed.

Not a thing unusual about most of them. On their way home from work or someplace.

Most of them lived in the neighborhood. I had the personal effects...

arranged here in case you want to match them with a victim, if you want.

- It's the usual things, for the most part. - Had a man here...

obviously wasn't on his way to mass.

- External ears are not remarkable. - We had one John Doe.

He's kind of interesting. For instance...

all he had on him was this: $850 cash.

- No wallet. No I.D. No anything. - Upper and lower dentures, comma.

That's not all that he was carrying that's interesting. Let me show you something.

The external thorax is symmetrical, comma, and there are two wounds...

in the anterior thorax, comma, the larger measuring four by three centimeters...

and located three centimeters below the midportion of the right clavicle.

Look at those tracks, right? He used the tattoo to try and hide them.

- Get a close-up, Frank. - This is beginning to turn my stomach.

I'm gonna go to the hospital and relieve Collins.

- All right. - Looks to have been a user for some time.

He also shot up between the toes.

Their knowledge of anatomy always amazes me.

The remainder of the thorax is not remarkable, period. The external abdomen is...

- Did he have any alcohol? - We don't know yet.

Toxicology will be finished this afternoon.

I can make a guess, though, that the Chinese kid was high on reds.

All the superficial signs are there.

- Anybody relieve Collins? - Yeah. Larrimore just did.