The Book

A Short Extract

after a while we had the town tickin' over so to speak. just like a crook, the town has to know who is the boss. the "bad civilians" had to understand that there was a them and us attitude which had to be revered. just like darryl and I had previously sorted out down in the city.

so the environment that developed was one of mutual respect, the bad civilians knew that if they did something wrong, like commit a crime, fart in public, not keep quiet if they were drunk on a friday night, create a disturbance in front of the "good civilians," or anything like that-they would be arrested.

. . . and convicted.

it was perfect in fact, because we got to know everyone in town and where every bad civilian lived and hung out. if there was a crime committed like an armed robbery, we knew exactly where to go to get information on who had done the job . . . and they would tell us, sometimes reluctantly, but they knew Kit Palmer was a comin' for sure, so they had to get their story straight.

that is the way you solve crime. you have to know your area, your "bad civilians" and where they are and what they are doing.

you have to have one foot in their camp and the secret is to know when to drag that foot back over into the cop camp.

we knew how to do it and we were successful. the "bad civilians" knew it and the "good civilians" knew it and the cops upstairs with braid knew it.

. . . and the newspapers knew it.

it is important that the chain of events is just right. this is how the chain worked in dodge city.

the crime is done.

Kit and the cops get the bad citizen.

he confesses and gets charged.

he gets convicted . . . normally.

the local newspaper prints a favorable story saying the dodge city cops are "good citizens."

then it starts again. if the chain is broken, the bad citizens don't get charged or convicted and the local newspaper doesn't print a good story about the cops.

then the good citizens don't talk to the cops.

then the cops have no good citizens as good witnesses.

then you are fucked.

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frisbee

the traffic accident investigation squad had not been formed in dodge city at this time; which meant that the cib had to attend to all fatal traffic accidents and conduct a full-blown inquiry with drawings, morgue attendances, photos, and all the other time-consuming inquiries that had to be done, to take the case before a coroner.

I didn't do them but my partner len did those jobs. I was Kit Palmer you see, I didn't do traffic-type jobs.

. . . but it was great for overtime. so if you were on a two-to-ten shift, for instance, and an accident happened on one of the many highways around dodge at two in the morning, you would get called out. then len would do the job and I would hold the measuring tape and tell jokes and get overtime.

normally about six or eight hours at a time.

so len and I attended one of these terrible tragedies west of dodge city one night about two-thirty in the morning.

the accident had occurred about two hours previously when a lone driver had come over the hill on a four-lane highway and misjudged a slight curve in the roadway and veered off the highway into a ditch.

now the crime scene man had also arrived and was taking photographs of the tragic scene. so we have me and len and the scenes of crime bloke two thirty in the morning and bored. now the soc man was a real prankster.

we were sitting, standing, and lying on the cop car on the left-hand side of the highway facing west, waiting for the undertaker to arrive. the accident vehicle was on the other side of the road with the dead driver still in the car.

all over the highway was debri from the accident, including near our cop car. there was one beautiful shiny hubcap; it glowed in the moonlight.

the crime scene man thought this hubcap looked like a bloody frisbee. so he picked it up and he said to me, "Kit, look at this."

he then threw the frisbee into the sky at an angle of about 30 degrees, I reckoned, toward the accident car. he was hoping that it would curve wondrously in the night sky and return back to him. just like a bought one.

now at the same time as he threw the bloody frisbee a car comes over the top of the hill heading east. against the moonlight I could see the driver and his arm out of the window.

he was relaxed.

now instead of this bloody frisbee heading in a lunar type arc and returning slowly back to the crime scene bloke, it headed straight toward this car coming down the hill. it seemed to me like it was slowing down a bit, but that was my imagination, I think.

the bloody frisbee went straight through the driver's side window, hit him on the tip of his nose, and slammed into the passenger's side window. the car swerved off the road and ran straight into our accident scene.

"fuck me, len, this is a good one," I said.

"oh shit," said the soc man.

len and I went over to the driver of the car, who was shaking like a leaf. the window of his car was miraculously undamaged.

I said to him, "goodday, mate, any chance of getting that hubcap back? it is part of the evidence here."

he was in shock and said, "yes sure," and handed me the bloody frisbee.

he got out of his car and we brushed him down as best we could and I said to him, "yeah we were doing a scientific examination on the possible flight that the hub cap would have taken after that car crashed," pointing to the victim and his vehicle.

"looks like it goes straight," I said ". . . and not like a frisbee projectile, know what I mean?"

I grinned.

"yes looks like it," said the motorist still shaking.

"ok thanks for your assistance with this, sir, see you later." I really had to say sir this time because I was in the process of actually brushing him down good and proper. so that was ok.

"fuck me, that was close, you idiot," I said to the soc man. he went home after that. we stayed, len did the job, and we both got more overtime.

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a phone call

I remember it well. we finished the fatal traffic accident at about seven o'clock on a friday morning, and len and I were on an eight-to-four shift, so no use in going home, hey. we just stopped in at mcdonalds for a half-priced egg and bacon burger and a cup of tea and a chat.

as you do.

"poor bastard, hey len," I said to len thinking sorrowfully about the victim of the accident.

"no good, Kit, just no good," said len.

"speed kills," I quipped raising my eyebrows.

"I am a bit tired len. what have we got on today, much work?"

"think i will just do a few files and have a quiet one."

"good idea, len, bloody good idea."

so that was the plan.

we finished our meal-well not really a meal, but a thing to eat in a paper wrapper. we then went into the dodge city cib cop shop . . . getting there right at 8:00 a.m. you can't be late you see.

I filled in my cop diary and then placed in red at the bottom of the entry six hours overtime. fudging a little bit because the job made me tired.

then the phone rang.

"hello Kit Palmer here."

"hi Kit, how are you?" said this voice with a woman attached to it.

"you never phoned me, Kit. i was really looking forward to you ringing" said this woman who was obviously a horn bucket by the sound of her voice.

I was really cocky because this woman was on the other end of the phone you see, so I said, "listen lady, I am bloody tired. I don't need any shit crank calls. what do you want?"

"oh Kit, i am so sorry, i didn't mean to worry you. i will leave you alone," she said with a real sadness and apologetic tone to her voice.

"ok ok, that is fine." then I thought to myself, fuck me, Kit, this is that painting from george street.

"oh oh, listen. hello. ahhh . . . ahhh, it is ok. I can talk for a little while." I then stood up, almost to attention.

"are you at work?" I said.

"yes i am Kit," she replied.

"what are you wearing?"

"just a frock and casual shoes, because i am at work, Kit, why?"

"are you wearing a brooch?"

"why yes i am. why do you ask?"

I was now sure that this was the same painting as I spoke to before and who actually gave me her phone number and address on alice street and I forgot about it.

you silly prick, Kit, I thought.

I wondered where the piece of paper was now. maybe in the washing, shit, I hope it is. hummm Kit, that was a slipup.

"let's start again. hi, I could not call you because I didn't know your name," I said stupidly.

"my name is pamela, Kit, but please call me pam."

"ok pam how about I call you and we have a cup of tea and a lamington one day real soon?" I said.

"ok Kit, that would be lovely."

"ok pam, I will call you. bye."

I got off the phone feeling like one of those perverts who rings up the sex line phone numbers and gets their rocks off over the phone. her tone of voice and womanly attitude made me feel really hot to trot.

then I remembered.

"fuck me, now I don't have her phone number."

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the flag

now I love australia, don't get me wrong, but I am not one of those fanatics who is one-eyed about their land and its people.

I believe in "truth, justice, and the australian way" but I was always inclined to look at the world as one country with borders and countries just a way of separating peoples from each other, due to someone's personal ego and because of wars run by power-struck individuals or religion.

or both.

just to fuck up the normal people.

. . . but when a "bad citizen" comes into the cop shop he has to respect the piece of land that Kit Palmer owns. that is his desk, his chair, the floor around the desk and chair, and the walls surrounding.

so I pinned to the wall behind my desk the australian flag. not a small waving-type flag people use in marches but the full-sized one that should have been flown every day on the cop flag pole outside.

every bad citizen who came in for interrogation had to salute the flag before they sat down. if they did not, they had to be escorted out the door again and then reenter properly with due reverence to this country's symbol.

. . . and they had to remove their hats.

as well as this ritual, I had gained the use of another exhibit from the exhibit room at dodge city. however, I bought myself a brand-new microphone.

so the preinterrogation procedure of entering the land of our people, australia was saluting the flag, removing one's hat (normally baseball in type), and sitting before a rather large microphone and testing the decibel reading before commencing the "interview with a purpose." it was all part of the ritual to get the bad citizen tickin' over the Kit Palmer way.

know what I mean.

so after a while, frequent visitors to the "land of Kit" were used to it and would be brought into the cib office, see the flag, immediately take their hat off and salute. they would then test the mic and off we would go.

confessions from the heart, I called them.

the japanese say that you can only be right 51 percent of the time; well, I reckon we can better that by using some little psychological maneuvering.

. . . and we did and it worked. no need for barry and kel . . . normally.