Bob kowtowed and consented. I popped out to his pad in Pacific Palisades and glommed a glassine-wrapped glob of righteously resinous reefer. I stoked up a stick in my Studebaker and stood on the gas. I mainlined my way downtown.
I flew like a flipped-out flamingo. I flapped my wings and wafted back to earth on West 6th. I popped by the Pacific Dining Car parking lot.
I slipped by in slow motion. I slid my eyes into slits. I reconnoitered–reefer wracked and wrapped in a marijuana mushroom cloud.
I saw sin-sational Sinatra sipping a midmorning martini. He was lounging by a lilac Lincoln. Two lethal-looking lapdogs were perched on a Pontiac Coupe. They laughed and lapped up every line Sinatra launched their way. They were maladroit mastiffs on a mission to maul for their master. Their snouts were snagged and snared cloyingly close to his ass.
The parking lot was packed. The Pontiac was penned between a Buick and a boss Bonneville. I could undulate in and out unseen.
I bipped down the block. I stashed my Studebaker off the street and bebopped back on foot. Sinatra had his goons in stammering stitches. Stale stuff: the story of Come-San-Chin, the Chinese cocksucker.
They didn’t see me. I dipped down and duck-walked into the lot. I popped up to the Pontiac and whipped my bag of boo in a wind-wing.
I whizzed out of the lot. I winged down the street and wiggled into a phone booth. I dipped a dime in the slot and slid a call to Sergeant John O’Grady.
O’Grady:
Grandstanding and greedy. A gratuitous need to grab grasshoppers and hurl himself into the headlines. He popped Art Pepper for pot and bagged Bob Mitchum on a boo bounce back in ’48. He hauled in Hedda Hopper’s hophead son just last week.
He picked up. “Narcotics, O’Grady.”
I said, “Getchell, bearing gifts.”
“I’m listening. You’ve got three seconds to catch my attention.”
I said, “The Pacific Dining Car parking lot. Frank Sinatra’s goons and an ounce of shit on the floorboard of a green Pontiac.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Is Sinatra there?”
“You can’t miss him. He’s the skinny guy with the voice.”
I loped back to the lot and breezed up brazen. Sinatra saw me. The lapdogs licked their lips. I saw a big guy in the backseat of the lilac Lincoln.
Sinatra slid on slick black sap gloves. They were wickedly weighted with dollops of double-ought buck. They packed a wellknown wallop.
The lapdogs leered at me. A mean-looking Mexican busboy sidled out a side door. He balanced a monster martini on a monogrammed tray.
The lapdogs laughed at me. The Mex marched up and made mealy-mouthed “Si, Señor” sounds. Sinatra popped his patentleather fingers. The Mex made a suck-ass sound and sunk down submissive. Sinatra snapped his fingers and snared the martini.
He said, “You’re prompt.” He looked at his lapdogs. He said, “He’s prompt, Boys.” The lapdogs laughed. The Mex sneered and snickered. I snuck a look at the Lincoln. The big guy in the backseat kept his back to me.
I popped up to the Pontiac coupe. I said, “How’s tricks, Frank? Your mother still doing her act with the mule?”
Sinatra sizzled and simmered. Steam stormed out his ears and stung me. He made mincy fists. His martini glass shot into shrapnel shards.
The lapdogs got lanced. The Mex got minor-league mangled. They shook shards off their shirts and popped puzzled eyes at Il Padrone. The punk patriarch palpitated and pissed in his pants. Dig the dip on those gorgeous gabardines!
I said, “I talked to Ava, Frank. She said you were hung like a cashew. I’m running it on the March cover. ‘Sexy Songster Packs Pint-Sized Pecker, Gorgeous Gardner Sez.”
Sinatra fumed and fueled himself into a fugue state. He stuttered, stammered, slobbered, slathered, and came off catatonic. His heart hammered. Buttons shot off his shirt and sheared me in the shins.
The lapdogs lurched at me. The Mex made machismo-like motions. An LAPD narc ark arced into the lot.
Everybody froze–frustrated and fright-fraught.
John O’Grady jumped out. His paunchy parmer piled out and paused by the passenger door. The lapdogs listed and almost landed in my lap. Glare glowed and shimmered off their shoulder-holster straps.