NIGHT WATCH; POLICE SEE LIFE AFTER DARK AS THEY PATROL CITY STREETS

The man, groggy from intoxication, plodded through his story of how he had gotten the deep, narrow cut at the base of his head. A man had hit him with an unknown weapon for an unknown reason. Now, were they going to let him catch his bus out of town?

Again and again the man named "Floyd" asks the question, and again and again Cape Girardeau police Lt. Dennis Dolan answers it: Yes, he'll be allowed to get on the bus but first his wound must be tended to.

So goes a typical night for a Cape Girardeau Police Department supervisor.

The man is 49 years of age and, according to his passport and bus ticket, he is traveling from New Orleans, La., to Butler, Mo., about 40 miles south of Kansas City. Police picked him up at the Greyhound bus station, Sprigg and Themis, in response to an assault call.

They don't search for Floyd's assailant because they discount his story; the way they figure it, he had fallen down and hit his head. The breathalyzer did measure his blood-alcohol content at .31 percent, more than three times the .10 percent level the state considers to be too drunk to drive.

Dolan has an officer transport the man to Southeast Missouri Hospital, where the wound is sewn up and his head bandaged. Later, back at the station, Floyd is placed in custody to await the bus, an 11:55-p.m. ride to St. Louis.

"You see how he focused on one thing," Dolan, a 21-year department veteran, said later on patrol. "Can I catch the bus? Can I catch the bus? I mean, they'll ask you that question 30 times."

It's a Wednesday night and Dolan is one of two supervisors overseeing seven other police officers. The arrangement will change a couple of hours later, at 11 p.m., when the second supervisor, a sergeant, gets off duty and Dolan takes over completely. Dolan's own eight-hour shift runs until 2 a.m.

Five of the officers Dolan is supervising exclusively patrol the city's four zones with one officer working as a "rover" between the areas.

About 8:35 p.m. Dolan responds with one of the patrolman to a burglar alarm at CPU Inc. Computer Services in the 300 block of S. Plaza Way. The call turns out to be a false alarm. Minutes later Dolan is dispatched to the Wal-Mart store to escort a store employee to Boatmen's Bank in the 2000 block of William for a cash dropoff.

Then it starts raining. Though the rain will get people off the street and cause some calls to drop, vehicle accidents will increase, says Dolan. So will the burglar alarms when thunder and lightning starts causing electrical problems or rattling the doors on buildings. "One of the indications of that is you'll have two or three (burglar alarms) in the same block or area," Dolan said.

With the rain coming down, Dolan also drives over to Walker and Cape La Croix creeks to check their levels. Focusing his patrol car's spotlight on each, Dolan finds the water isn't rising.

"If it starts rising at an alarming rate, it's up to us to sound the alarm for the Terry-Laura Lane area, and, of course, Town Plaza and the other merchants along this area," Dolan says, driving south on Broadview Street between a row of businesses.

Dolan says one of the worst type of police calls to handle is a domestic disturbance "because you never know what to expect." Another call he hates to hear, he said, is one dealing with apparent gunshots fired. Each time, he said, the officer always wonders if he or she overlooked something, or if someone got shot. "Those to me are always troublesome."

Some time later Dolan arrives back at police headquarters, 40 South Sprigg. There he calls the Greyhound bus station to double-check the time of "Floyd's" bus departure.

An officer also gives him an estimate of how many people are attending the Battle of the Bad boxing event at the Show Me Center. The estimate is between 600 and 700. Dolan assesses the information to decide whether to alter traffic signals at certain locations to speed the flow of traffic from the center. Eventually, after officers keep tabs on the traffic, Dolan decides against it.

Another half-hour on patrol and Dolan heads back to headquarters, again to brief the department's next shift of officers, who start at 11 p.m.

In the briefing room, Dolan brings five officers up to speed on several police-related matters. They're a myriad of concerns that cover vehicle thefts from the city and elsewhere in Southeast Missouri, "Floyd," and a runaway juvenile, among others.

One matter deals with a 66-year-old, mentally-disabled man who walked off from his caretakers. "He's a habitual runaway," Dolan tells the group. "If you find him out wandering around, he's wanted."

The next 1 hours go by uneventfully until a call comes in about a burglar alarm sounding at Stereo One, 250 Silver Springs Road. When Dolan gets the call he's on patrol in an alley behind Town Plaza, between Independence and William streets.

"At this time of night that could be the real thing," he says, cutting through a parking lot and steering his car onto William. "And that alarm hasn't been sounding."

On the dashboard, a radar gun records the car's speed in red, lighted numerals as Dolan takes off west on William. The numbers flicker through the low 50s.

Dolan gets to the store only to find another false alarm. But he discovers that a set of doors on the back of the building haven't been locked all the way and notifies the store owner about the problem.

Only about 45 minutes go by before Dolan responds to a call at approximately 1:20 a.m. about a disturbance at Taco Bell, 1740 Broadway. When everything settles down, three police vehicles are taking six people, including two witnesses, to headquarters.

Two males, ages 21 and 22, eventually wind up being charged with assaulting two male college students.

Asked at the end of his shift whether he would characterize the night as slow or average, Dolan said: "I'd say it's a little less than average. Last night at this time we had every car busy, and it was like that for quite a while."