Frank Pembleton quotes from Homicide: Life on the Street

Pembleton

Damn Him!

Bayliss

The killer?

Pembleton

God.

Bayliss

Frank, I don't think you can ask God to damn Himself. And if you do, don't stand next to me because I don't want to get hit by lightning, this is a new suit.

I know that Katherine Goodrich would have, with her dying breath, forgiven her attacker.

Pembleton

What about the others? Who speaks for them? What right do any of us have to forgive in their name?

Pembleton

I don't believe you have MPD. But I don't care if you really do or don't. I also don't care how many personalities you may or may not have. Because of you there are eight personalities who will never speak again. You had no right to kill them. Especially in God's name. And I gotta believe, even if you walk outta here scot free, God is gonna make you pay one way or another.

I'm sure he will.

Bayliss

So, you're just gonna walk out on me?

Pembleton

I didn't walk out on you Tim. We're not engaged; so don't act like I left you at the altar.

Pembleton

You want me to come back? Why? Because we're friends? That's not true.

Giardello

You're right. I've never been to your house, I've never met your wife. We are not friends. It ticks me off because you say what you think and you don't give a damn what I think about what you think. But there's one thing I know for certain, you change red names to black. And for that reason, and that reason alone, I want you back.

Giardello

Pembleton, Bayliss, Lewis- get over to Madison and St. Paul.

Lewis

What's up Gee?

Giardello

We've got detectives down.

Pembleton

Which detectives?

Giardello

Bolander, Felton, and Howard.

Lewis

What?

Giardello

I'm on my way to Shock Trauma. They've been shot. Frank,you're the primary.

This ain't right.

Lewis

What?

Pembleton

Yeah it is, 201, open it up.

No, Holton's in 210.

Pembleton

2-1-0?

Yeah, 210, down there.

Lewis

They went to the wrong door.

Pembleton

Like I said, I'm fine.

Giardello

Feeling a little freaked?

Pembleton

No.

Giardello

Scared?

Pembleton

No.

Giardello

Guilty?

Pembleton

No. That's Bayliss. Not me.

Giardello

Oh, I get it. You don't feel anything at all. You're the type of guy that two weeks from now, you'll be stopped at a traffic light and all this will hit you and when it hits, it'll hit hard. It'll hit you so hard that your heart will burst into a hundred pieces.

Detective Frank Pembleton? Mike Logan, NYPD. This is your prisoner, R. Vincent Smith.

Pembleton

So, whenever you decide to show up, I'm supposed to be here?

Hey, you're on the clock same as me, what difference does it make?

Pembleton

Typical Big Apple attitude.

Anyway, Mr. Smith here has agreed to waive extradition on a felony warrant for second-degree murder. So they call this Charm City, huh? Sounds like something you get out of a box of Cracker Jacks. Who'd want to stay in this land of enchantment?

Pembleton

Plenty of New Yorkers ran down here to Baltimore. Dorothy Parker, for one.

Dorothy who?

Parker, you illiterate.

Pembleton

Dorothy Parker was the wittiest woman in America. The toast of Manhattan. She dies, she's cremated. Her ashes sit in a jar in some Wall Street lawyer's office for twenty years - twenty years - while all the New York sophisticates ham and haw, 'whatsoever shall we do with poor Dorothy's ashes?' And where does she end up? Baltimore!

I got two words for you guys. Babe Ruth. The Babe. King of Swing, Sultan of Swat, born right here in Baltimore. But where does he go to get his fame and fortune? New York City.

Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar Allen Poe hated New York so much he had to come to Baltimore to die! That's what New York does to its poets.

What did he die of, the local crab cakes? Enjoy your stay, Shakespeare.

Pembleton

You're going to jail for this murder. But thank your lucky stars it's not gonna be in New York.

Why do you think I didn't fight extradition? I may be guilty, but I'm no fool.

Giardello

Maybe you can tell me about the Battisto case.

Lewis

Well, we're moving along slowly but surely, we're trudging through it. Uncky Frank is on top of things.

Pembleton

You know, it might help if I had a partner who didn't whine so much, but hey, let's not get caught up in the details.

Bolander

Nothing is real.

Pembleton

What do you mean, nothing is real?

Bolander

There is no reality.

Pembleton

Really...

Bolander

Take the color green. You see green, I see green. We call it "green" because as a society we have agreed that this thing, this color, is green. We think we're having the shared experience of green, but how do we know? Maybe my green is actually greener than your green.

Pembleton

You mean, maybe my green is red?

Bolander

Maybe. Take colorblind people, they carry with them a stigma --

Pembleton

A stigmatism.

Bolander

Because they don't see what the rest of us see as green. But maybe, just maybe, their perception is correct. Maybe a colorblind person is actually seeing pure green, the real green.

Pembleton

Man, this is just my luck. I get a call. My partner's off tonight. So I look around the Squad Room. I see Munch. No. I see Howard. No. Felton. Lewis. No. No. I think Bolander. I'll take Bolander. He's the only one who won't drive me crazy.

Bolander

I'm driving you crazy?

Pembleton

Philosophizing. You're not known as the philosophical type, Stan.

Bolander

You get shot in the head, it makes you think.

Pembleton

Okay. Theoretically,a woman can lead a man on, go up to his room, take off her clothes, jump into bed -- it becomes rape the moment she says stop. Jim may have feared for his life at some point during the confrontation, but he wasn't afraid at the moment he fired the fatal bullet.

Bayliss

He made a bad judgment call. You're gonna crucify him for making a mistake?

Pembleton

This is more than a bad judgment call. He killed Gersel for some other reason.

Danvers

What other reason?

Pembleton

I think it's racially motivated.

Bayliss

Why does that not surprise me, Frank? Why am I not stunned that you've unearthed yet another racial injustice?

Pembleton

I guess you know me too well, Tim.

Bayliss

Danvers, will you put a stop to this nonsense?

Danvers

I could deem the incident accidental, a misunderstanding established by circumstances. I could decide that the suspect not be charged. But I'm not sure I should take on the burden of determination... I'm going to recommend we go before a Grand Jury --

Bayliss

On what charge?

Danvers

Manslaughter.

Bayliss

What? Why?

Danvers

Because you're a cop. Because your cousin's white. I don't want it to look like we're showing any favoritism.

Bayliss

Oh, I see. In an effort not to show favoritism, Jim's being overly prosecuted.

Bayliss

You're not going to say anything to me, are you?

Pembleton

What would you like me to say?

Bayliss

For a start, "I'm sorry"...

Pembleton

I'm not sorry. I did my job.

Bayliss

You still believe that my cousin killed that boy because he was an Arab?

Pembleton

Hikmet was not an Arab. Turks are not Arabs --

Bayliss

My cousin could not consciously kill someone.

I don't think it was premeditated. I think it was inherent. Jim's racism is so much a part of him, that he didn't have a chance to think about what he was doing. Jim is worse than a Klansman. 'Cause at least in their white sheets, they are recognizable. But your cousin's brand of bigotry is more frightening because, like still water, it runs deep. He doesn't even see it himself.

Bayliss

You are wrong, dead wrong.

Pembleton

The only one "dead wrong" is Hikmet Gersel. Did you see what happened when the verdict was announced? They applauded. Those law-abiding citizens, those good people applauded the death of a child. Let me ask you something, Tim -- then you tell me whether or not it was racially motivated -- if that boy had been American, if that boy had been white -- do you think would have cheered?

Bayliss

Man, I hate arson fires. There's never any evidence, no witnesses, nothing.

Pembleton

Well, look at the upside.

Bayliss

I don't see an upside.

Pembleton

I'm the primary on this case. If we don't close it, Gee will cast his long, doleful, accusing glance in my direction, not yours.

Pembleton

So, what's the cause of death?

For an absolute certainty, I can't tell you.

Pembleton

You can't tell us?

Don't look at me that way; it happens.