Bob Duhamel–BHPD. A cop co-opted to the payola probe. His BHPD buddy and some Sheriff’s shill. Three cops caught up in shady and shameful shit with shaky Frank Sinatra.
?????
I flew by Flash Flood’s flat in Flintridge. Fuck–Flood’s Fleetwood sedan and a fleet of cop cars framed out front.
Look–the lapdogs last seen popping shots at Pancho the Piñata. Beside them–Bob Duhamel, BHPD.
Call it a Cop Conspiracy. Cop to the cost of the contretemps you created. Crawl out of the crap crashing down on you and live to launch libel again.
I chanted that malevolent mantra. I charted a course to charm, cheat, chisel, and THRIVE.
Laura’s Little Log Cabin:
A Mecca for mannish muff-munchers and fawnlike femmes as fair game. A rustic rendezvous for rapacious diesel dykes.
Loin-lapping Liz Scott’s happy hunting grounds.
I walked in wary. She-wolves shot me shitty looks. My rabid rep preceded me and pried a pack of boss babes off of bar stools. I devastated and decimated the room.
I located Liz. She was waxing weepy into a whiskey sour. I nudged into her naugahyde booth and nabbed some cocktail nuts.
Liz said, “Help yourself. They’re free.”
I lit a Lucky out of Liz’s pack. Liz laughed low and languid.
“You’re scum, Danny. You’re a tidal wave of karmic filth and dissension. I wouldn’t fuck you if I was desperate and you were a beautiful woman.”
Liz looked luscious on her last cover shot: LEZBOS LOLL AT LOG CABIN, LAPD TELLS HUSH-HUSH.
I popped a pineapple piece out of her drink and poured it down my parched throat. Liz lit a Lucky and laid a lungful of smoke in my face. I coughed up cocktail nuts and pineapple pulp.
“You’re a disease that they haven’t invented a name for, Danny. You’re lower than cancer.”
I tingled. Titillation tickled me. I groaned and grew a hard-on.
I said, “I always thought we might have clicked and had a swinging thing, if you had different predilections.”
Liz laughed light and lilting. “On the planet Pluto, baby. Sometime around the twelfth of never, but only if you dressed in drag.”
Ooooh, Daddy-o! She was turning me on, tumescent!
I sucked my cigarette down to a cinder. Liz laughed licentious. A jukebox jerked on. Linda Lansing lilted out: “Baby, It’s Cold Inside.”
Liz lowered her head and laid out a lake of tears. I said, “Linda’s headed for shitsville, Sweetie. You know the drill on payola. Sinatra’s too big to prosecute, and Flash Flood will turn State’s. They’ll make it look like Linda paid him to play her song, and she’ll take the fall.”
Lonely Liz looked at me. Bar light lit up her tear tracks and tributaries. I knew she had a handle on some hot stuff to help me–very Hush-Hush.
She winced and wiped her face. She whipped down the rest of her drink and chewed the cherry. She sucked the stem and stared at me. Her orbs sent me into orgasmic orbit.
She said, “You want information on Linda. You’ll pay for it if you have to, and you’re going to try to convince me that anything I tell you won’t hurt her. You know that I’ll give it to you if you’re convincing, so be convincing and get out, or I’ll send a 300 pound butch with brass knuckles over to kick your ass out of my life.”
Astoundingly astute. Breathtaking brevity and bravado.
I said, “I’ll plant a piece that you’re straight in Hush-Hush. I’ll leave you alone forever. I’m in trouble with the payola thing myself, and I won’t write a fucking word about Linda.”
Liz looked me over looooooooong. She lit another Lucky and licked a loose leaf off her lip.
Oooooh, Daddy-o! Save me from this sapphic siren!
“All right, Danny. One time and one time only. Linda told me she’d put in some innings with Frank, going back to ’52. She said she had some dirt on him, and she used it to get him to bribe Flash Flood into playing her song.”
The ’52 bit bit a big hole in Skip Towne’s skinny. He laid Linda and Frank out as a fresh item.
I said, “Where’s Linda now?”