Crime Wave

I shook. I shivered. I shrugged like I didn’t give a shit. A gyroscope popped out of the van and spun on the roof. The next-doorneighbor lady walked out on her porch and picked up her morning paper. The creep ogled her.

I looked at Otash. Otash looked at me. It hit me hard:

A fix was in. The cops John Doe’d Wells and Dinkins deliberately. Otash did not know that I knew that. Otash did not know that I knew my victims’ names. I did not tell Oscar their names. I had to hold it all back from Oscar and Otash.

Otash yawned. “Let’s wrap this up before your folks get back. First, quit shaking and lay out last night for me.”

I laid out a condensed version. “Oscar Levant and I got in some trouble at the Pharaoh Club. We tried to cop some dope, and a white guy and a colored guy attacked us. I killed them in selfdefense.”

Otash smiled. The creep smiled back. Otash nodded. The creep hit a switch on his dashboard. My voice boomed off the gyroscope and covered the whole block:

“Oscar Levant and I got in some trouble at the Pharaoh Club. We tried to cop some dope, and–”

Otash nodded. The creep hit a switch. My voice died out.

I shook. I weaved. My legs went. I fell back and hit a porch post. Otash pulled his gun and pinned me toit.

“Did you take anything off the bodies?”

I lied big. “We took the money out of their wallets and tossed the wallets down a sewer grate.”

“Did you find an address book on the white guy?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Do you think I’d–”

Otash slapped me. A big gold ring raked my nose.

“Here’s thequestion, paisan. Do you want to burn for this? Do you want me to sweat Oscar cold turkey until he gives you up to corroborate your confession, or do you want to get some middleaged pussy and make friends in the LAPD?”

My head spun six ways. My tongue tripped over six ways to express acquiescence. I stammered. I stuttered. Otash slapped me. Blood burst out of my nose.

“I’ll take that response as a yes and lay it out for you. One, the Feds intercepted some letters that a certain pink lady wrote to you and shared them with us. Two, the pink lady’s husband has said some entirely unacceptable things about the LAPD and has to be punished. Your job is to meet the pink lady at a bash at the Wilshire-Ebell tonight, fuck her silly, and get her to admit that her pinko husband is a member of the various Commie-front organizations that we suspect he is. Do you understand your job, paisan?”

I said, “Yes.” My voice sounded too deep and overamplifled. It wah-wahhed off the van.

Otash glared at the creep. The creep hit a switch. My voice wah-wahhed and died.

Otash tapped his gun on my chest. “That’s Harvey Glatman. He’s a genius, but he likes to play with his toys too much. You meet him at his shop at 5:3 0. He’ll wire you up for the job.”

The neighbor woman walked out again. Glatman ogled her. He panted and fogged up his windshield.

Otash slapped me. I tasted his ring.

“Stay scared, Dick.”

I had to act like I still had a future. I had to tap the shallow showmust-go-on part of my soul and dig up some desperate ego to pass off for courage. I had to sort out the shit I stepped into and get up the guts to shaft L. Trent Woodard for the shit he slung my way.

I repo’d my accordion. I called Linda and outlined her birthcontrol options.

I called Howard. He said I was poison. No booking agent or casting boss would touch me. I was poison. I was contagious. I was the syph and the clap. L. Trent Woodard lavishly lauded me in the morning Mirror. He smeared me and slathered me pink.

I called Oscar at Mount Sinai. He sounded bombed. He didn’t remember the Pharaoh Club and our double homicide. He thought we drove to Tj. We caught the mule act and played Gershwin for the mule and a queer matador. We drove back to L.A. at dawn.

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