To Protect And Serve

To Protect and Serve

By

Anderson Dana



“Dennelli! This is the forth and last time you’ll be reprimanded on failure to perform your duties! What do you have to say for yourself?” Lieutenant Larder absentmindedly flipped through the documents on his desk.



The documents, Ben knew, were memos and various copies of his performance reviews for the past three years. He also knew it would be pointless to argue, pointless and fruitless. Ben figured he could survive a five day suspension without pay; any longer and he’d have to dip into his reserve fund and those funds were already low! Ben studied the particles floating in the sunlight filtering through the dust-covered windows that overlooked First Street; then returned his gaze to Larder, a lieutenant by means of attrition and family relations. Larder was a product of what was called the system that was not supposed to exist and a bona fide ass, but good at it.



“How’s the diet going?” Larder shrugged. Ben pulled his badge and gun out and laid them on the desk. “ How many days?”



“Days? Think weeks wiseass! Weeks. Maybe more!!” Larder smiled, a smug smile and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got you this time! You really screwed up! I told you I’d get your badge!”



“How many weeks? Ben fought hard to control the rising panic and turmoil wrestling inside him.



“Until the review board meets to consider your fitness for duty. Or should I say lack of fitness? Leave the badge and gun and get out!”



“When’s that?”



“When I tell you!! Now, get out!!!” Larder stood, placing his hands on his hips.



Ben rose and walked to the door. He stopped and turned.



“Larder! What’s wrong with just being nice to people?”



Ben stepped out of Larder’s office and immediately felt all eyes upon him. He’d been in the ringer before. A good cop living on borrowed time, Ben never broke the rules, but he bent them; bent by necessity to get the job done. Ben had made a few enemies in the department and made fewer friends. Danny Gonzales was one of those friends.



“How’d it go?” Danny offered him a cigarette and a light. Ben took it inhaling the relaxing fumes. His hands shook and he quickly dropped them to his sides.



“Indefinite suspension. Looks like Larder’s going for the gold.”



“For spending time with that old lady in the Silver Lake district? That’s way out of line. You going to the union?”



“Don’t know yet. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Ben left Danny and cleared out his desk. He wondered if he’d make it through the review board. Twenty-five years… for what? To lose it all just because he spent some duty time making a lonely old lady happy? Shit!! The toes he’d stepped on would make it almost impossible to keep his badge. He held faint hope that he’d be returning to his desk.



Ben drove down Flower Street turning on Fifth Street. By habit he stopped at Cronin’s Bakery. What the hell! Might as well pick up some of those cookies Ms. Davenport likes. The more he thought of it, the idea of spending time with the cause of his suspension and the probable loss of his badge made him feel better. After all; Ms. Davenport had been as close as a friend as he’d ever known. Almost like family.



The Silver Lake district, where Ms. Davenport lived, had been the center of the film industry back in the twenties, a small community set in the hillsides just east of the more famous Hollywood area. Early film- makers of the era had filmed most, if not all of their films on these very streets he drove. Ms. Davenport had been a minor film actress back then Her house, a small clapboard bungalow, set midway off a steep concrete stairway that led from one street down an incline and Teed below on another street. Ben imagined that back in the twenties these homes were considered quite status quo.



Taking the long walk up the stairs, Ben recalled the first time he met Ms. Davenport. It was a burglary call late one night and he was the responding officer. Entering her home was like stepping through time into the roaring twenties. Her furniture and various memorabilia were an antiques collector’s vision of heaven. He recalled that somehow, they had begun talking about antique furniture and gradually segued into talking about the movie industry.



At first it had been Ms. Davenport’s polite invitations that kept Ben coming back. Gradually, it was Ben who would drop by, sometimes unexpectedly and always with those cookies Ms. Davenport favored. Theirs developed into a close, almost loving, friendship that Ben devoured selfishly. Frail and Ben guessed, at least in her late eighties; Ben often helped clean, dust and polish her furniture, as well as wash and make her bedding. She had help; she had told him and not to bother. But Ben persisted; it was as if he was taking care of his mother, a mother he never knew and a kinship he never had with his now deceased, alcoholic father. The visits to Ms. Davenport developed into a major part of his life, feeding his hunger for a gentle, comforting closeness he never experienced before. Despite the suspensions and warnings he received, Ben continued his visits, twice a week and sometimes more. Never did they wander anywhere, but remained seated beneath the cool shade of the veranda looking at old photographs and he, the rapt listener, heard stories of the famous and sometimes infamous, characters of the era. She told him once, of the time Charlie Chaplin entered a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest and finished third. They laughed about that!



Ben noticed that Ms. Davenport was not in her usual place under the veranda seated on her wicker. He felt his heart skipped a beat as he quickened his pace up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The cold, icy chill of dread course through him as he anxiously knocked on the door.



“Ms. Davenport! Ms. Davenport!” Ben yelled as he tried the door, finding it locked. He vainly tried peeking through the windows. With panic rising within him, Ben ran around to the back of the house and tried the back door. Locked! Fear rose as he peered through the kitchen windows, face pressed tightly against the glass. Nothing! My God! What if she’s hurt!! Ben raced back to the front of the house. Ben remembered something she had told him once. Call me Lynn, not my real name of course. Hilda Bumgartner is my real name. Can you imagine? She laughed at that, a small cultured titter, her frail hand covering her mirth. It was the first time he had heard her laugh. He realized that he wanted desperately to hear her laugh again.



“Can I help you?” Ben turned. A postal carrier stood in the walkway.



“Ms. Davenport. She’s not answering her door. I’m afraid something’s happened to her.” Ben distressed.



“Are you a relative?” Ben thought a moment. It dawned on him that he felt that he was; at least in his heart he did.



“No. No. Just a friend.”



“Well” The carrier hesitated. “I’m sorry to say Ms. Davenport passed away last Saturday. Found her on that wicker chair over there. Thought she was sleeping at first. You know these old folks; kinda just doze off like that. Funny thing though, looked to me that she was waiting for someone. She looked real contented like, if you know what I mean…” He paused, not knowing what more to say. “Well, gotta go.” He turned and started walking away, then stopped and looked back at Ben. “By the way, if you’re interested, she was taken to the mortuary on Clinton Street. No family to speak of, that I know, never got any personal mail, just bills and all. Be nice if someone paid their respects.” The postman hitched his heavily laden pouch and waved goodbye. Ben muttered thanks as tears welled in his eyes.



“Lieutenant?” Larder looked up

.

“Couple of suits here looking for Dennelli. Whadda I tell ‘em?”



“Send them in.” Larder stood up. Two gentlemen, dressed immaculately in dark blue pinstriped suits, made Larder feel uncomfortable in his perpetually wrinkled suit.



“I’m Mr. Leyva, and this is my associate, Mr. Maybrie. We’re from Brown and Associates, attorneys at law.” The smaller of the two men extended a business card. “We’re trying to contact Mr. Dennelli, perhaps you could be of assistance?” Larder took the business cards and perused it. He nodded and muttered a “glad to meet you” under his breath.



“I’m his superior, Whadda ya want with ‘im?”



“Personal matter, Lieutenant Larder. Can you assist us?” Larder thought for a moment. Why not? Dennelli will be out of a job soon. Why not pile more shit on him? I hope the S.O.B. loses everything he’s got.”



“Yea. Sure I can.”



The funeral, like the wake, had been a quiet one. Just he and the postal carrier and the carrier’s family were in attendance. Ben asked Jim, the postal carrier, if he knew her well. Jim told him that occasionally he’d exchange a few words but no, he didn’t know her that well. Jim told him he just felt that no one should leave this life without someone paying respects. Ben thanked him for coming; then remained at the gravesite long after her casket had been placed.



The knock on his door brought Ben back from the gloom that shrouded him. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he answered the door.



“Mr. Dennelli?” Ben noted the expensive suits, quickly realizing they were attorneys.



“Who’s asking?” Ben dreaded what was coming.



“I’m Mr. Leyva and this is my associate, Mr. Maybrie. We’re from the firm of Brown and Associates, attorneys at law. We represent the estate of the late Ms. Lynn Davenport, formerly known as Hilda Bumgartner. To be brief Mr. Dennelli, you are named in her will. In fact, you are the only one named as benefactor of her estate. May we come in?” Ben ushered them in and offered them some coffee.



“So Ms. Davenport left me her home in Silver Lake?”



Mr. Leyva smiled. “Well, there’s a bit more than that, Mr. Dennelli.” Mr. Maybrie smiled, then chuckled. “To be honest with you, we hope that you will retain our firm to handle all your affairs just as Ms. Davenport had for the last fifty plus years, Mr. Dennilli.”



“I don’t understand. Why would I need an obviously expensive firm like yours to handle a small estate matter that couldn’t be worth more than, say a couple of hundred thousand?”



“Because.” Mr. Leyva interjected. “The late Ms. Davenport was worth much more than that, So much more.”



A few months later, Robert E. Larder opened his morning paper. The headlines read: Multi-billionaire Benjamin Dennilli donates forty million dollars to American Civil Liberties Union. The story continued to say that the heir to the late silent screen actress supports the end of the practice of nepotism and favoritism in the workplace. Accompanying Mr. Dennilli was his assistant, James Kowalski, a friend ,and former postal worker. Together they have made it their goal to fight … Larder slowly placed his paper down. Holding his head in his hands, Larder recalled Dennelli’s last words as he walked out of his office.



“What’s wrong with just being nice to people?”