Part 16: Episode Eight: Sunday in the Park with Sonny


Did I see what?

You mean an eclipse? So you guys actually have a moon now?


...

Sonny, you need to take a break.

Maybe after we get back to the station you can...

Oh, hey, what's all this?


Ah, she's going to finally confess her love for you.



A-ha! Finally, some action!

Well... all of that doesn't seem as exciting from out here.



You are the best cop, Laura.









Hey!


Alright, guys, here's the park. It's show time.



Right behind you, Sonny.

I like her. You should go after her instead pining over Marie.


You are! I can tell from your complete lack of facial expression.


It's not just a job. It's an adventure!

Look, just b-


(Hell, arrest him now. You can charge him with wearing a muscle shirt in broad daylight.)




(Why in the hell else would anyone under seventy be in the park?)

(Of course you do, Sonny. Of course you do.)


(These guys are the best at secrecy. Asking if you were followed isn't the LEAST bit suspicious.)




(It APPEARS to be an envelope? You're not sure it's one?)




(OK, you have to move in now. I'm not sure my tender ears can take any more strong language.)


(Gun out, Sonny.)




Get him! Get him!

Better a dealer in the hand than two in the bush, eh?


Carefully, you admonish your suspect of his "Miranda" rights.
"You have the right to remain silent."
"What you say may be used against you in a court of law."
"You have the right to an attorney."
"If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you before questioning, if you wish."
Searching the suspect posted:
The search reveals nothing except his school identification card, and the small bag containing a white powdery substance that you watched him get from the pusher.
The Jefferson High School Student Identification Card (in the name of Victor Simms) matches the general description of your suspect.

Questioning the suspect posted:
Simms is reluctant but cooperative. You learn he has been selling to kids at Jefferson High School, including Officer Cobb's daughter, Kathy.
"I used to buy from a guy named Jose Martinez, but then Martinez introduced me to that guy, Colby," Simms says, "I haven't seen Martinez since."



Yeah, what DID take you so long?

Hah, just like your m-


Investigating the other suspect posted:
Laura searches her suspect. She finds his gun, an envelope of money and little else.
Laura says, "I'll book this stuff into evidence."
Colby refuses to answer any questions.

Sonny, don't take that from him. Try again.
Interrogating the other suspect again posted:
After persistant questioning of Colby, you discover he buys his drugs from Leroy Pierson. He says Leroy's telephone number is 555-6537. He also asks that his cooperation be noted for consideration by the court.



Dispatch responds, possible hit, Paul D. Colby, DOB 12/8/61, 5'8", 155 pounds. Served 18 months State Penitentiary '85-'87 for assault on a police officer and possession and sale of a controlled substance. Three year probation, still active.

So his first move after he gets out is to start dealing again.


And I bet he just had a ton of other job opportunities waiting for him after he got out that he could have investigated instead.




You'll just take any excuse to watch boys, Laura.




And I'm just glad I won't have to look at this guy with the muscle shirt any more.




Don't like paperwork?

Booking Time posted:
The jailer says, "This is certainly a fine-looking group ya got this time, Sonny!"


You remove, inventory, and deliver the prisoner's personal property to the jailer along with the booking slip.
The jailer says, "Ok, Sonny, remove their 'cuffs and put the little pushers into cell number one."
"I think you boys know where to go!" you tell them.
"Up your's, Dick Tracy! You'll never make this stick!"
"My Mommy's gonna be bummin' when she finds out where I am!" whines Victor Simms.


Does this cell just have a trap door in it or something? Does it eat the people you put in it?





I just imagine you saluting a flag every time you say something like that.


Don't ask me. I don't even know what "today" means anymore.




You think this'll cheer Jack up?


Bet she had to use a lot of blue paint.


And maybe after this you can take a break.



He doesn't look good.

Trying to cheer Jack, you tell him about the Victor Simms arrest and how he was responsible for selling dope at the high school.







I don't think he hears you, Sonny. He's somewhere else right now.

That's the best thing for him.

There isn't anything you can do, Sonny. Let them get him home so he can sleep it off. He needs to be with his family.


The cabby says, "Right this way, Buddy Boy, and don't fall down! Whew, man! Is this boy in bad shape!"



Me neither, Sonny. Look, I think that's Keith, right? Let's see what he has to say.








Sonny?

Sonny?


It matters, Sonny.

That wasn't exactly wh-

That's enough, Sonny.

I said that's enough. It's time for me to lecture you for a change.

Shut up, Sonny.

Good. I never said Kathy was a bad kid. I said she made a dumb mistake. And she did. But that doesn't mean... look. Have you ever heard of Philip K. Dick?

Yeah, didn't think so. He was a writer. He wrote a book about his experiences in the 60s drug culture wrapped in a bunch of science fiction hooey, and in the afterword he talked about this.

Yes. Now listen. This is what he said. The important parts, anyway:
This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed - run over, maimed, destroyed - but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it...
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.
There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because any one of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing... It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.
If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect.

Kathy isn't a bad kid. She made one mistake and she paid more for it than she should have had to. The universe isn't forgiving. But Sonny, do you know why she took so many drugs that she ended up in a coma in the first place? Does anyone know? Putting the pushers in jail helps, but it can't be all you do. It's not all about punishment. You have to help make peoples' lives better so that they don't even want to abuse drugs, and it's all of us that have to do that. You do your part and you just have to hope everyone else does theirs, too.

So we're going to go back out there. We're going to get Taselli back and lock him up. We're going to take apart this whole network, because people that give drugs to kids that can't make rational decisions about the risks involved deserve any ass-kicking you care to deal out. You're going to do your job so that the other people that ought to be helping these kids can do theirs.



Don't mention it.

No, seriously, don't bring it up again. I'm just supposed to be along for the bad jokes.

Next time on Police Quest: The Return of Sweet Cheeks!

Wait and see!