It stunned him. He dropped the squirt gun. I grabbed it and squirted him. Oscar lobbed two darts at his face.
They stunned him. He dropped his cables. I grabbed them and clamped them down on his balls.
He screamed. I slipped Oscar the squirt gun. He shot him in the balls and electrocuted him.
6
Joi Lansing hid us out. We turned her house into a kick pad.
I kicked Big H. Joi knew a dope doc and a Chinese herbalist. They collaborated and cooked up compounds to cleanse me. I popped their portions and felt all the poison pour out of my pores.
Oscar kicked cold turkey. He played Joi’s piano twenty hours a day. He played himself into and way past exhaustion. He played blistering Bartok and soft Brahms ballades. He perched on Joi’s balcony and played for the Hollywood Hills. People stood on their rooftops and listened.
Busy hands can’t shake. Busy brains don’t dwell on dope deprivation.
I kicked Horse. I didn’t know if I could kick my homicide habit.
Murder was a monkey on my back now. I found a context to make mayhem mine. Most men found it in war. I attracted it with my fear and put myself in peril to perpetrate it. I was a murder magnet. I’d continue to kill as long as it felt justifiable and erotic.
I wanted to juke Jack Webb and Johnny Stomp and hang their hides out to dry. I wanted to fry Freddy Otash in hot oil and pulverize William H. Parker. I didn’t know if I wanted to avenge Trent Woodard or go on another kill spree. My murder motives were convoluted and ego-polluted. I didn’t know if I wanted to save L.A. or annihilate it and go down behind a big ovation.
I ran it byJoi. She told me to relax and let things play out hushhush. Dinkins and Wells were still John Doe’d in the papers and on TV. The Mount Sinai massacre never made print. The LAPD plot was huge and unverifiable. Oscar was a hophead. I was a draft dodger. Jack Webb was Joe Friday. Let it go. It was all too big to flick with.
I couldn’t let it go. My murder-mangled memory said no. Joi took me to bed and tried to induce amnesia.
We made love to Bartok and Brahms. We slept to soft Schubert and Schumann. Oscar played to our passion. His music molded my memories of murder and sparked my lust for more of the same.
We made love and slept for a week. A Rachmaninoff opus 32 prelude pushed me over the edge.
I called my parents and told them to hide in their bomb shelter. I told Joi to call Harvey Glatman and suggest some publicity pix.
7
Voices or ventriloquistic voodoo:
“We’ve got to move the master file tonight. Stash it someplace safe at your studio.”
“Yeah, boss.”
I heard those words in a hop haze. I was half-ass sure that Freddy 0 and Harvey Glatman said them. I had a hunch that Harvey took his pervert pix in some sick sanctum sanctorum.
Joi walked into his repair shop. Oscar and I watched. We were staked out in Joi’s Jag coupe.
We watched the door. We waited. Joi went in wired.
Oscar hooked her up. We bought a “Sergeant Joe Friday Surveillance Kit” at a toy store and went wild. Joi packed a “Jill Friday Purse Pistol” and a signal device. Oscar held the “Trap-Your-Man Transmitter.” We parked two doors down from the shop. Joi was set to signal us to the sanctum sanctorum.
We watched the door. Oscar sucked cigarettes. I fought the homicide heebie-jeebies.
I wanted to hurl some hurt on Harvey. I wanted to kick my homicide habit and reembrace my accordion.
Seconds slogged by. Minutes meandered. We watched the door.
Our beep device beeped.
We jumped out of the car. We ran into the shop. We shut the door and threw up the Closed sign. We followed the beeps. We beeped through the back room. We beeped up to a big green door.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP–
Oscar kicked the door. It stayed upright. Oscar grabbed his foot and yelled, “Shit!” I kicked the door. It stayed upright. Oscar picked up a TV set and threw it at the door. The door blew off the doorway.