THE
CIRCUIT
RIDERS
On the Board,
they were just little
lights that glowed.
But out there
in the night of the
city-jungle,
they represented
human passions—
virulent emotions—
and deadly crimes-to-be ...
by R. C. FitzPatrick
Illustrated by Schoenherr
■ He was an old man and verydrunk. Very drunk or very sick. Itwas the middle of the day and theday was hot, but the old man hadon a suit, and a sweater under thesuit. He stopped walking and stoodstill, swaying gently on widespreadlegs, and tried to focus his eyes. Helived here ... around here ...somewhere around here. He continuedon, stumbling up the street.
He finally made it home. He livedon the second floor and he draggedhimself up the narrow staircase withboth hands clutching the railing.But he was still very careful of thepaper bag under his arm. The bagwas full of beer.
Once in the room, he managed totake off his coat before he sankdown on the bed. He just sat there,vacant and lost and empty, anddrank his beer.
It was a hot, muggy, August afternoon—Wednesdayin Pittsburgh.The broad rivers put moisture in theair, and the high hills kept it there.Light breezes were broken-up anddiverted by the hills before theycould bring more than a breath ofrelief.
In the East Liberty precinct stationthe doors and windows wereopened wide to snare the vagrantbreezes. There were eight men inthe room; the desk sergeant, twobeat cops waiting to go on duty, theaudio controller, the deAngelis operator,two reporters, and a local book... businessman. From the backof the building, the jail proper, thevoice of a prisoner asking for amatch floated out to the men in theroom, and a few minutes later theyheard the slow, exasperated steps ofthe turnkey as he walked over togive his prisoner a light.
At 3:32 pm, the deAngelis boardcame alive as half-a-dozen lightsflashed red, and the needles on thedials below them trembled in theseventies and eighties. Every otherlight on the board showed varyingshades of pink, registering in thesixties. The operator glanced at theboard, started to note the times andintensities of two of the dials in hislog, scratched them out, then wenton with his conversation with theaudio controller. The younger reportergot up and came over to theboard. The controller and the operatorlooked up at him.
"Nothing," said the operator shakinghis head in a negative. "Bad callat the ball game, probably." Henodded his head towards the lightson the deAngelis, "They'll be gonein five, ten minutes."
The controller reached over andturned up the volume on his radio.The radio should not have beenthere, but as long as everyone didhis job and kept the volume low, theCaptain looked the other way. Theset belonged to the precinct.
The announcer's voice came on,"... ning up, he's fuming. Doak isholding Sterrett back. What a beef!Brutaugh's got his nose not twoinches from Frascoli's face, andBrother! is he letting him have it.Oh! Oh! Here comes Gilbert off themound; he's stalking over. When Gilputs up a holler, you know he thinksit's a good one. Brutaugh keepspointing at the foul line—you cansee from here the chalk's been wipedaway—he's insisting the runner slidout of the base path. Frascoli'swalking away, but Danny's goingright aft ..." The controller turnedthe volume down again.
The lights on the deAngelis boardkept flickering, but by 3:37 all buttwo had gone out, one by one.These