Crime Wave

“My name’s Friday. I carry a badge.”

Fuck–straight out of Dragnet.

The schvartze laughed. He leaned back and howled. His sheik shirt rolled above his sheik pants. He packed a beavertail sap in his waistband.

Oscar grabbed the sap and cracked him in the head. The schvartze hit the side wall and knocked a liquor license loose. I grabbed him by his conk and bent his head back. Oscar cracked him again.

He spit out some denture debris and a slice of his tongue. Oscar said, “Who’s holding? Who’s got the stuff to feed the monkey on my back?”

The schvartze quaked and quivered. I dropped his head. Oscar propped it up with the sap.

“I asked you, ‘Who’s holding?’ Who’s got the doughnuts, the strudel, the shit?”

The schvartze stammered, stuttered, and pointed upstairs. He got out a string of popped P’s and the single word “Playboy.”

Go, Oscar!

The schvartze stammered and stuttered. He got out more popped P’s and the words “Please don’t hit me!”

I looked at Oscar. Oscar looked at me. We tore through the Pharaoh Club.

People laughed. People snickered. People ducked and dove under their tables. Oscar’s robe billowed. It snagged on chair backs and chicken-and-waffle plates. We distracted the combo. They blew their beat. “Bumble Boogie” bent off-key.

We ran up the backstairs. We kicked down a door marked Private. Black faces poked out of a steam cloud. Dissipating dope drifted through it. Oscar sucked the shit into his lungs and swung his sap blind.

A black blip blipped into black-and-red. Blood spritzed through the cloud. I heard bones crack. I heard a man scream. Oscar yelled, “Where’s Playboy?”

A black face yelled, “Out back!” A black face yelled, “The parking lot!” A black face yelled, “Out back with some white guy!”

We ran downstairs. We kicked down an exit door. That voodoo moon lit up the parking lot. I saw a white man and a Negro man huddled by a ’49 Olds.

They had their backs to us. I tapped Oscar and made the sssshhh sigh. Oscar nodded and zipped his lips shut.

We tiptoed up. I heard every word they said.

The white man said, “You weren’t supposed to pull heists. That was part of our deal.”

The Negro man said, “Sheeit.”

The white man said, “You were supposed to recruit colored tail for the movie gig and chauffeur the girls out of Sybil Brand, and that’s fucking all you were supposed to do.”

The Negro man said, “I didn’t like the way that Harvey creep was lookin’ at my bitch.”

The white man said, “He’s harmless. All he wants to do is take pictures.”

Oscar held up his badge and said, “Freeze, shitbirds.”

The men turned around. I made them from the Mirror-News.

Cal Dinkins–LAPD bull. Rudy “Playboy” Wells–robber.

Dinkins laughed. Wells laughed. I dug my feet into the ground and reinforced my spastic sphincter. Dinkins said, “Holy shit! Oscar Levant and Dick Contino.”

Oscar said, “We just look like those punks. It’s part of our cover. Cough up the dope, Playboy.”

The word “Playboy” tripped Playboy’s trigger. He looked at Dinkins. The look said, “They know us.” Dinkins said, “Kill them.”

Oscar twitched and dropped his sap. Playboy pulled a shiv and flicked his tongue down the blade. Blood trickled over his lips. He licked it off and giggled.

I kicked him in the balls. He jackknifed. I pried the shiv out of his hand and jammed it in his right eye. Oscar picked up the sap and whacked Dinkins in the knees.

Dinkins yelped. Playboy screamed. I pulled the shiv out of his eye and lashed it across Dinkins’s throat. It snagged on his windpipe. I pulled it out loose and ripped Dinkins down to the breastbone.

They gurgled. They spat blood. They hit their knees in one big convulsion. I picked them up and tossed them in the ’49 Olds. Oscar picked their pockets.

They gurgled. They spat blood. They moaned. I saw a hunk of hose on the seat beside them. I got a flick-their-ID-up idea.

I popped the gas cap and stuck the hose in the tank. I siphoned six inches of ethyl and spat it in their two gasping gullets. They choked. They gasped. They opened up wiiiide.

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