“Police business is a hell of a problem. It’s a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of man, and there’s nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get and we get things like this.”
(The Lady In The Lake, p.151)
In his novels, Chandler features approximately thirty police characters. Most of these characters only appear in a single novel, with the exception of Bernie Ohls, a friend of Marlowe’s at the D. A.’s office, who is introduced in The Big Sleep and returns in The Long Goodbye. The police characters are strongly typecast with specific roles that recur throughout Chandler’s oeuvre. Marlowe explains these roles in Farewell My Lovely:
“I thought of cops, tough cops that could be greased and yet were not by any means all bad, like Hemingway. Fat prosperous cops with Chamber of Commerce voices, like Chief Wax. Slim, smart and deadly cops like Randall, who for all their smartness and deadliness were not free to do a clean job in a clean way. I thought of sour old goats like Nulty who had given up trying.” (p. 261)
Let me explain these four roles of policemen in Chandler’s novel and show typical police characters of Chandler’s novels. The last entry will be about Bernie Ohls.
Cops that could be greased
These characters have one thing in common: they are directly involved in illegal police actions and corruption, sometimes with a guilty conscience.
Sergeant Galbraith, jokingly referred to as “Hemingway” by Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely, subjects him to a harsh and brutal treatment. Galbraith and his Captain beat Marlowe unconscious, only to detain him at Dr. Sonderborg’s drug clinic for further “treatment”. Marlowe leaves no doubt that Galbraith is tough cookie.
“He was a windblown blossom of some hundred pounds with freckled teeth and the mellow voice of a circus barker. He was tough, fast and he ate red meat. Nobody could push him around.” (Farewell, My Lovely, p. 177)
Galbraith even treats inanimate objects brutally, holding Marlowe’s open wallet in his hand and “making scratches on the leather with his right thumbnail, as if he just liked to spoil things.” (Farewell, My Lovely, p. 177)
The kind of cop who spits on his blackjack every night instead of saying his prayers1
However, what sets characters like Galbraith apart from their “fat and prosperous” superiors is that – once in a while and only when forced to do so – they have to justify themselves. Galbraith explains:
“Cops don’t go crooked for money. Not always, not even often. They get caught in the system. They get you where they have you do what is told them or else. And the guy in the nice big corner office (…) he ain’t giving the orders either. (…) A guy can’t stay honest if he wants to,” Hemingway said. “That’s what’s the matter with this country. He gets chiseled out of his pants if he does. You gotta play the game dirty or you don’t eat. A lot of bastards think all we need is ninety thousand FBI men in clean collars and brief cases. Nuts. The percentage would get them just the way it does the rest of us.“ (Farewell, My Lovely, pp. 253f.)
Galbraith attributes the corruption to the system itself. This is most evident in the tangled grammar of the sentence “They get you where they have you do what is told them.” Jerry Speir notes that this phrase negates the idea of individual responsibility: “Responsibility recedes into the haze of confused pronouns.”2
It is ironic that Galbraith later propagates the movement of “Moral Rearmament“. This movement was a real thing, and it is one of many examples of Chandler drawing on historical facts. The “moral rearmament” movement placed a clear emphasis on the personal responsibility of the individual. Instead of taking personal responsibility, Galbraith has chosen a kind of quiet quitting for himself. He presents himself as ignorant, as if he has no understanding of what is going on around him.
“Me, I’m just a dumb cop. I take orders. I got a wife and two kids and I do what the big shots say. (…) Me, I’m ignorant.” (Farewell, My Lovely, p. 254)
His motivation is revealed here. Galbraith must keep his job for the sake of his family. He does this because he has no choice. He must adopt a defensive attitude in the police service. He either ignores the corruption or plays it down in a succinct, rather amused way – it’s almost his form of humour.
… but not by any means bad
When Galbraith recounts how Marlowe was beaten down, he initially says matter-of-factly, without comment or judgement:
“Them old cops get sap-hungry once in a while. […] They just got got to crack a head.” (FML. 237)
He then confesses to Marlowe, however, that he was afraid when Captain Blane knocked him down. Galbraith was certain Marlowe was dead because he …
Galbraith mentions “the guy in the nice big corner office”. Characters like Chief Wax of Bay City police represent another function of police characters in Chandler’s novels.
Raymond Chandler Dead men are heavier than broken hearts 
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