(MONEY Magazine) – It started out like a classic high-speed car chase: the diligent cop pursuing two men deemed armed and dangerous. Los Angeles patrolman Richard Will had noticed the men going 90 mph in a flashy new car and, suspecting it might be stolen, called for assistance on his police radio. By the time Will leaped out of his car to apprehend the suspects, other officers, helicopters and onlookers were converging on the scene. So was a baby goat. It had hopped out of Will's cruiser after him. Later, Will explained straight-faced to the other cops: ''Didn't you hear about our * new pilot program? We're using goats instead of dogs because they don't bite as much.'' The story pretty much sums up Richard Will, 45: he is a dedicated cop; he is an animal freak who had just picked up the abandoned goat as the latest addition to his multispecies menagerie; he is so fast with the flip remark that you are not sure when he is putting you on. (The gullible officers took a roasting when they asked their superiors about the goat program.) One thing Will is not kidding about right now is his future. In January 1988, he marks his 20th year with the Los Angeles Police Department, an anniversary that entitles him to retire and start drawing a pension. He would love to turn in his billy club for billy goats -- not to mention rabbits, birds, boa constrictors and iguanas. Having made pets of them all, he dreams of raising and selling animals for a living. The only question is when. Should he bag his badge next January, or should he wait until he hits his 25th year and qualifies for a much more appealing retirement package? When he first shared his quandary with Money in April, Will didn't have a clear idea of the differences between the 20-year and 25-year plans. ''I think I'd get 48% of my salary after 20 years,'' he said. Actually he'd get 40%, which would amount to about $17,500 of his $40,423 salary plus a small cost- of-living raise due in July. By waiting five more years, he could retire on 55% of his salary of perhaps $50,000 -- a lifetime pension of $27,500. Will was also confused about his health insurance. ''I think if I wait five years, I get all my medical benefits,'' he said. Not true. Whenever he retires, he can remain under the police department's medical plan, but he will have to pay for the coverage until he reaches 60. Will's uncertainty about his retirement rights is not unusual for workers his age and even people much older. ''There is a prevalent ignorance on the subject of pensions,'' says Charles Lee, an executive assistant at the U.S. Department of Labor. ''It's an area that people -- especially those in their thirties and forties -- don't want to focus on. But they need to if they expect to accrue enough for a good retirement.'' Fortunately for Will, he'll make a soft financial landing whenever he decides to retire, because he has far more than just a pension to fall back on. Like many cops, he moonlights as a security guard. This second job, at a lumberyard a few nights a week, pays him only about $8,000 a year. But Will lives in frugal bachelorhood on the security guard money and banks most of his police department paycheck. As a result, he has amassed some $360,000 in bank accounts, tax-deferred retirement savings plans, stocks and a piece of investment real estate. Moreover, he gets something else out of moonlighting that's at least as important as his savings. Police, like many other public employees, don't pay FICA tax or receive Social Security benefits when they retire. But by working for a private employer, Will has joined the Social Security system and can qualify for the benefits after working for 10 years, of which he has already put in five. Then, at age 62, he can count on perhaps $5,000 a year in additional retirement income, plus yearly adjustments for inflation. Will's investment in real estate, a two-family house in San Juan Capistrano, cost him $112,000 in 1977. The property is now valued at $200,000 and produces $1,200 a month in gross rental income. Will pays $950 in mortgage and upkeep payments on the place, netting him $250 in monthly cash flow, some of which is sheltered from taxes by depreciation write-offs. He banks this income too. His own living arrangements are exceedingly inexpensive. He rents a modest apartment in the Montrose area, just outside Los Angeles, for $475 a month. While he keeps a lot of plants there (''they make it look lived in''), as well as a collection of classic cars and eight canaries, he spends most of his off- duty hours at the home of his longtime girlfriend, Nadine Oddo, an outgoing woman who is a banker and the mother of three young children. Oddo's ranch-style house overlooking the hills of Eagle Rock, near Pasadena, is where Will keeps the rest of his animals. At last count, they numbered three cats; one African gray parrot and one macaw (''together, the birds are worth about $1,500,'' he says); two full-grown red-tail boa constrictors, each measuring about 12 feet when unconstricted; 16 baby rabbits; Daisy, the goat that survived the car chase; and a perky five-foot-long iguana. So far, Nadine has been a ferociously good sport about providing so many creature comforts. ''I admit it still startles me to wake up sometimes and find an iguana in the bathtub,'' she says. ''But my brother is a veterinarian, so I am sort of used to it.'' She is also forbearing of Will's views on marriage. He does occasionally consider it, but what he might gain in dependents at tax time, he feels he % would give up in independence. A simple man (if you can call simple someone whose favorite TV shows are Miami Vice and National Geographic specials) and something of a loner, he chooses to work his police beat without a partner. He eats on duty mostly -- breakfast at a local coffee shop, dinner at a Sizzler steakhouse (average meal: $7.95). As for his home life: ''I just like to come and go as I please,'' he explains. Nadine, on her part, says: ''Right now, this is working just fine for us.'' Will's bachelorhood does gnaw at him every April, when he pays his taxes. ''Look at this,'' he exclaims, poring over his 1986 returns. ''$1,200 in federal and $900 in state. And that's on top of what they take all year.'' It also bothers him that he lacks savvy in financial matters. ''I am so dumb about this stuff,'' he says. ''I don't know net from gross or even the exact amount of my salary. I know I'm putting too much money into savings accounts and I know I need to start repositioning money for a long retirement, but I don't know how to get it from here to there.'' He is heavy with cash, all right. About $67,000 of his assets are in a police department credit union savings account paying 5.7%, to which he adds $150 every two weeks; about $27,000 is deposited in a money-market account at Glendale Savings & Loan, recently returning about 5.2%; $12,000 is in CDs in an Individual Retirement Account at the credit union; and $4,500 is in a Hartford variable annuity, to which he contributes $288 of untaxed salary every two weeks under a deferred-compensation plan offered to all Los Angeles public employees. Will also has 500 shares of Atlantic Richfield stock, recently worth $41,625, and 100 shares of Trans Mountain Pipeline, a carrier of Canadian oil, worth $3,300. But Will's reasons for selecting these stocks were hardly sophisticated: ''My father was an attorney at Arco and said they were good deals at the time. My folks got most of them for me.'' Will realizes that his ambition of raising and selling animals when he retires may not come cheap and that it will take real business acumen. He dreams of buying 100 acres of land outside California, perhaps near Bend, Ore., where Nadine's brother, the veterinarian, lives. He and the brother have discussed the possibility of going into business together, breeding exotic birds or Angus cattle. But is Will's dream realistic? Russ Kirk, a real estate broker at the Coldwell Banker office in Bend, points out: ''To buy 100 acres for raising beef in Bend would be a poor choice. We're in the center of the state and only get 13 inches of rain a year, so water is a big factor. Exotic birds might work, however, because of the clear air, and they don't need to live on water and grass.'' Kirk estimates that Will could buy land in Bend for $1,000 an acre. Then, of course, he would have to put up a house and buildings and buy livestock (average cost of Angus: $1,400 a head). Animals may constitute the greatest joy in Will's life, but until now they have not been a great expense. ''I barter a lot,'' he explains. ''The pet shops in the area all know me, so I trade rabbits for pet food or they give me crippled animals -- rats, rabbits, chickens -- which I recycle into food for the snakes. I may spend $20 a week on the animals.'' He also sells them occasionally. Last year he got $25 each for a dozen canaries. Will says he has loved ''off-the-wall animals'' since growing up in the rural La Canada area of Los Angeles. ''My father was a Scottish gentleman- farmer at heart, and we had just about everything at one time or another: raccoons, a monkey, hawks and skunks.'' The police force now and then makes use of its Blue Knight of the Iguana's affinity for nonhumans. For example, when an opossum was hanging from a freeway overpass a few years ago, causing children to climb up to try to rescue it, Will was summoned to cajole the critter within range of a lasso and tow it to safety. When Will is not talking to his animals, his life is his work. Five days a week, he rides the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. patrol in Eagle Rock, a largely Chicano community. He may work solo but not because he doesn't get along with people. To residents and business owners on his beat, he is affectionately known as the Mayor of Eagle Rock, and when the police department at one time tried to reassign him to another neighborhood, the citizenry rose in opposition. It was through his main job that he landed his second one, at Fleming Lumber on dusty San Fernando Road in Los Angeles. ''I used to answer burglar alarms at this place,'' he says with his feet up on a table in the office, ''and one day five years ago I told the owner she should get some protection.'' She said, 'How about you?' The work is easy and no more dangerous than chasing drunks down a flight of stairs.'' Though Will is tight with a buck, he is no freeloader. Since he spends a good deal of time at Nadine's and she does, after all, house his caged and uncaged friends, he helps pay her household bills. His own $50-a-month car insurance bill testifies to his one nonzoological extravagance: seemingly out of character for a frill-less fellow, he owns a '71 Porsche, a '69 Harley- Davidson Sportster motorcycle, a '76 320i BMW and a hot red '69 Volkswagen beetle. He bought the cycle new for $1,600 and was recently offered $3,000 for it. He bought the Porsche in 1972 for $8,000 and has been offered $16,000. ''I guess I see them as investments,'' he says. He certainly doesn't see them as playthings. The VW is his everyday car, and the BMW gets an occasional run, but he hasn't uncovered the Porsche in six months. Says Nadine: ''I got one complimentary ride in it on our first date. That was seven years ago.'' Taking his pension and beginning a risky new venture won't be an easy decision for someone like Richard Will, who confesses: ''I hate change and I don't like taking chances. It's why I've never gone for a promotion at the department. I just like being out on the streets I know so well.'' Under his prankish veneer, however, is a confidence that ''whatever I put my mind to, I can do. I love animals more than anything, and I just think I can make my dream happen.''

BOX: Future fodder

Richard Will's ingrained habit of spending little and saving much have built him a solid base for retiring from the Los Angeles police force and starting an animal breeding business sometime in the next few years. Besides socking away his policeman's paycheck, Will clears and banks $3,000 a year in rental income from a two-family house. Another asset, not shown below because he cannot take it as a lump sum, is a police pension that he becomes eligible for as early as next year. The $17,500 annual benefit at that time would cost about $205,000 to buy as an annuity from an insurance company. Here is Will's income and outgo for the past 12 months and a current statement of his net worth.

Income

Police salary $40,423 Rental property 14,400 Security guard salary 8,000 Interest and dividends 6,000 Animal sales 500 Total $69,323

Outgo

Savings $27,823 Mortgage on rental property 9,600 Taxes 8,000 Contributions to deferred- | compensation annuity 6,912 Rent 5,700 Food 3,000 IRA 2,000 Rental-property maintenance, repairs 1,800 Car expenses 1,200 Animal care and food 960 Utilities 720 Car insurance 600 Clothing 600 Rental-property insurance 408 Total $69,323

Assets

Rental property $200,000 Savings 94,000 Stocks 44,925 Three cars, one motorcycle 30,000 IRA 12,000 Animals 6,400 Checking account 5,500 Annuity 4,500 Total $397,325

Liabilities

Mortgage on rental property $92,000 Total $92,000

Net Worth $305,325

BOX: THE ADVICE: Retire in five years

Richard Will, who dreams of raising animals as a second career, must decide whether to retire from the Los Angeles Police Department when his 20th year is over in January or remain for another five years and get a larger pension. He would also like to learn more about finances, invest his assets more effectively and pay lower taxes. Money brought him together with Jack Halstead, a Los Angeles retirement consultant specializing in public employees, and Philip N. Gainsborough, a financial planner and president of Associated Planners Group, also in Los Angeles. The gist of their thoughts:

Jack Halstead: You would be foolish to retire after 20 years rather than putting in 25. In addition to getting about $1,000 more a month in pension income, you would then be eligible for cost-of-living adjustments. That means your pension check would hold its purchasing power. And by the way, if you should ever consider marrying, you would have to do it at least a year before retirement to give your wife survivors rights to your pension. Also, the earlier you retire, the longer you have to pay the premium on your health insurance, which will be about $120 a month. In my opinion, planning properly for retirement takes a good five years, so this is the time to begin. It's great to have a dream like yours about raising and selling animals, but you need to talk to others who have done it to find out exactly how much capital -- and whatever else -- you need. In regard to leaving this state, keep in mind that wherever you live, you will still have to pay the high California income tax on your police pension.

Philip N.Gainsborough: As for your taxes, I'd say you get off quite easy, considering that you are single, don't own your home and can claim only about $13,500 in deductions. Since real estate is one of the last tax shelters left, I would suggest that you either buy a house to live in or get another piece of income property. Either way, all your mortgage interest is deductible. You've got a great tax shelter in that deferred-compensation plan, and you've chosen an ultrasafe portfolio, which suits your temperament; dump everything they'll let you into that fixed-income account. Obviously, you've got too much cash around. You're paying tax on all the interest on the money accumulating in your savings accounts. Just keep three to six months of income in there. Assuming you'll use money from selling your cars and rental property to start a new business, invest most of the rest of your savings in either a single-premium deferred annuity or a single-premium whole life insurance contract. You'll get a more attractive interest rate than in the credit union and taxes on your return will be deferred. Since you don't follow the stock market, I'd stay out of it. Get rid of those two stocks you have. If anything, you should be in a mutual fund. That way you're betting on a lot of different stocks, so if one gets killed, you don't. One more thought on bringing your taxes down: keep a log of your mileage and travel expenses and get receipts for everything you spend on the animals. Even though they are still a hobby, you're allowed to write off expenses up to the amount of income you make from sales. So at the end of the year, you can deduct, for example, the gas you used to get the supplies to build a cage.

The response Taking most of the advice to heart, Richard Will has all but decided to stay on the police force another five years and use the time to explore all the ramifications of raising animals for a living. He plans to sell his stocks and to have more of his police salary withheld and invested in his deferred- compensation plan. ''I've also started looking for a house to live in,'' he says, ''as a way to cut my taxes.''