The Glitter Dome Read Online Free PDF

had been arrested in a foreign country, charged with smuggling cocaine. Another had been shot, but not by a bad guy. The wounded cop was the bad guy and had been shot down trying to escape capture. Then there was a new scandal involving vice cops accused of providing protection for bookmakers. And last, but by no means least, there was an extraordinary number of controversial cases involving the shooting of unarmed suspects by police, along with mistaken-identity shootings.
    This was reputed to be the most professional police force in America. The media demanded explanations. Deputy Chief Julian Francis decided he had the explanation, at least for police corruption. He had decided to visit every Los Angeles police station personally and try it out on both uniformed and plainclothes personnel before asking the Super Chief’s permission to call a press conference.
    Deputy Chief Francis was already getting up a head of steam when Al Mackey and Martin Welborn tiptoed into the squadroom of Hollywood Detectives, five minutes late.
    â€œThe cause of our misfortune is apparent,” Deputy Chief Francis was saying. “The breakdown of family, church, and patriotism is at the root of all these misfortunes.”
    So, while thirty detectives let their chins drop on their collarbones, or failed to control the eyeballs sliding back into pain-ravaged skulls (thirteen detectives had hangovers, last night being payday), Al Mackey and Martin Welborn crept to the table belonging to the homicide teams and braced for the family-church-country speech.
    Deputy Chief Francis was not about to alter that one. He’d been making the same speech for twenty-nine years. It had impressed the selection board when he applied to become a policeman, just as it had every promotion board since he’d made sergeant twenty-one years ago without having worked more than two months on the street. It hadn’t been easy convincing a triumvirate of cigar-mangling, potbellied inspectors in those early days that he should be promoted over the street cops, even though as the speech writer for the chief of police he had composed some of the finest hell-and-sulphur ditties this side of J. Edgar Hoover. But even with those hard-drinking promotion boards of bygone days, the family-church-country oratory had never failed. It put a lump in the throat and tears in men’s eyes, or so Deputy Chief Francis was convinced.
    It made poor old Cal Greenberg want to puke. His hangover was worse than Al Mackey’s. The old burglary detective had his head in both hands and stared past Deputy Chief Francis. The curse of The Glitter Dome. He looked like he couldn’t frost a mirror. Al Mackey reached over and sympathetically patted poor old Cal Greenberg’s shoulder. There, there.
    The seemingly comatose detective never felt it. He was listening to his own private Glenn Miller concert. He had but to blink his eyes to switch from String of Pearls to Little Brown Jug .
    The only variation in the theme of Deputy Chief Francis this year was that he had fallen in love with the buzzword “impacted.” Everything was either “impacted on” or “impacted by.” The immorality of the outlaw cops, exploited by the media, came as the direct result of the cops being impacted by the deterioration of family, church, country. And so forth.
    Also, the deputy chief’s wardrobe had changed this year. Usually he preferred banker’s attire, much like that always worn by Martin Welborn. But he’d consciously decided to dress like a working detective until the series of morale-building speeches was finished. Deputy Chief Francis’ choice of clothing was perfect: double-knit plaid pants—flared of course, now that flares were out and straight legs in, a detective always being three years outdated. A pale blue polyester sportcoat with extra-wide lapels, a dark brown dress shirt with a stitched collar, topped off by a fat yellow-print