I pulled the gun off Dinkins’s hip. I popped the clip. I dropped four slugs in his mouth and fed three to Playboy. I chased them with two matches.
The bullets blew up. I heard dental work destroyed and saw detective work deconstructed. They shot mouth flames. They scorched the upholstery. The Olds went up like Cinder City.
Oscar shook and twitched. He lit a cigarette off the car flames and killed it in a third of a drag.
I picked him up. I threw him over my shoulder and ran.
3
I opened my eyes. I saw the mash notes and the girls taped to my ceiling.
It all came back. I almost pissed in my pajamas.
I got Oscar back to Mount Sinai. We tossed Playboy’s billfold en route. I kept Cal Dinkins’s address book. I wanted to know who he knew. Maybe I could frame some freak for my murders.
I was hung over from Maryjane and mayhem. I made up for the men I didn’t kill in Korea. They sheltered me in Seoul. They didn’t know that candid cowards could kill with correct provocation.
I was scared.
I showed my face at 83rd and Central. Oscar showed his face and shot off his dope-deprived mouth. People knew us. We were penny-ante public personas. Oscar played piano and portrayed pissants in a dozen flicks in constant rerun. A Pharaoh Club patron might see Humoresque and buzz the fuzz. My career might soar and plant my puss in a million memory banks. I might fall from cloud nine to the gas chamber.
I stared at my ceiling. I strafed words and pix. I lingered on “I want you” and a blonde with a heat rash.
Yesterday and today. The tightrope and the abyss.
I rolled off my cot. I cooked up some coffee and skimmed the radio dial. I caught the morning news on six stations. Nobody mentioned the Pharaoh Club inferno.
I went through the address book. I saw a bunch of no-names listed in alphabetical order and some names and numbers listed at the back.
Two name-names/one familiar name/one no-name.
The no-name:
Harvey Glatman (Harvey’s TV Repair, HO-492 36). $2,000.
The familiar name:
Johnny Stompanato, CR-2 8609. $4,000.
Johnny Stomp: ex-Mickey Cohen goon.
I knew Mickey at McNeil Island. He said Johnny poured the pork to Donna Reed and Rita Hayworth. Orson Welles filmed the trysts through a 2-way mirror and screened them at a stag night at the Cannes filmfest.
The name-names:
Ida Lupino/CR-622 1 1/$6,000. Steve CochranlOL-65189/ $6,000.
Ida Lupino: Mrs. Howard Duff. Film star and director. Steve Cochran: B-movie stud.
I kicked the names around. I retrieved two things that Wells and Dinkins said:
“You were supposed to recruit colored tail for the movie gig.” / “I didn’t like the way that Harvey creep was lookin’ at my bitch.”
Dinkins: rogue cop. Wells: heist man. They colluded on the drive-in job. The “movie gig” had to be something else.
I ran out to my parents’ porch and picked up the Herald. On page two: NIGHTCLUB NIGHTMARE.
They tagged the victims John Doe #1 and #2. The schvartze described his assailants: “Big guys–they’d have to be to mess with me.” Two sketches ran on page three. The sketch artist did not draw Oscar and me. He drew two bullet-headed pachucos.
I laughed. I roared. I did an impromptu shimmy. We took two Gs off the stiffs. My half would spring my ax and rent me a slick little love shack.
A big man stepped out of a shadow. He held out a badge and blocked out my brand-new sunshine. He said, “You silly cocksucker.”
The badge was real. The man was all muscle. He pulled out a claim tag and flicked it on my nose. He said, “You silly fuck.”
He wore a gold watch and a gold-plated .45. He wore a gold ID link. The “EO.” ID’d him.
Fred Otash–the big-time Big O.
I twitched. I shook. I popped a Popsicle sweat. A van pulled into the driveway. Dig the side panels: HARvEY’S TV REPAIR.
A creep stared out the windshield. He picked his nose. Otash flicked the claim tag on my nose.
“You dropped it by the car you torched, and that orderly saw you check Oscar out of Mount Sinai. He called Danny Getchell. Danny tailed you down to niggertown and lost you. He figured you went down there for some smoky meat, and he thought he might nail you coming out of some coon whorehouse.”