Chapter 1
"Opinions? I don't want to hear yer stinkin' opinions. Opinions are like assholes. Everybody's got one. Give me the facts!"
That's the way Lieutenant Milhaud spoke to us. Not an ounce of respect. Not a grain of sympathy. Nada. Nothing but demands, and then more demands, always followed up with the snide insinuations and the insults.
"You. Pervis. How much money are you making?"
My partner Nick Pervis squirmed in his hard wooden seat. Milhaud had him pinned to his chair and was now crawling over the web of hostility he had spun around the helpless prey, zeroing in for the kill. Pervis went into an infantile crouch and whined his response.
"Aw, come on, Lieutenant, yer the one who hands out the paychecks every Friday."
Feeble. Useless. The red faced Milhaud began to slowly walk toward the cringing detective, his beefy palms knotted behind his back.
"Pervis," he drawled in a menacing tone, speaking directly at his own wing-tipped feet," I asked you a fucking question, and you failed to answer it. I don't want to hear your opinions, your excuses, your pathetic autobiography. All I want to know is how much money the taxpayers are wasting every week supporting the sickening habits of a useless, incompetent asshole like you. Answer me, and give me an exact figure."
Mihaud approached Pervis's desk, and at precisely the instant his voice ceased its gruff booming, he lashed out with one hand and grabbed Purvis's ear and began to twist.
Pervis made with a donkey like squeal of agony. I laughed out loud, overjoyed that it was Nick who was being treated to the familiar torture routine this evening, and not me. We had both experienced the degrading wrath of lieutenant Milhaud before and there was no shame in laughing at the misfortune of the other-both Pervis and I realized that the laughter was an involuntary response, similar to that which overcomes eyewitnesses at accident sites, the old "if not but for fortune, there lies me" response which characterizes one's level of awareness of the essentially frail nature of life.
"Three thirteen a week gross!" Pervis yelled, both of his hands clawing fiercly at the red and hairy fist that twisted his ear.
Milhaud snickered, and turned to me, smiling. He was going to prolong the agony.
"How much is that after taxes, Nickypooh?"
Pervis howled and began to pound the linoleum with his heavily shod feet, screeching out the answer as a kind of curse.
"Two forty nine!"
Milhaud continued to smile at me as he twisted Nick's ear. The Lieutenant began to slowly shake his head from side to side.
"Two hundred and forty-nine bucks a week. That's good money, Nick. That's real good money, considering the kind of service you boys provide. You'd think the taxpayers might get a little pissed off that their boys in the unmarked cars and the doubleknits were spending that money in sleazy bars and massage parlors instead of doing the job their paid to do. Wouldn't you, Nicky boy?"
He gave a subtle twist of the wrist, and Pervis answered instantly.
"Lemme go ya fuckin' baboon!"
Milhaud grinned at me. I grinned back, wincing through my teeth. The show was almost over. Nick was nearly in tears, Milhaud had made his point, and if the action continued any longer, the lieutenant would have made his victim into a martyr of the calibre of Van Gogh. The last thing Milhaud wanted on his hands was a righteous martyr. He let go of Nick's ear, and began to speak, intermittently licking at the waxy ends of his pincer.
"You boys are overpaid, underworked and incompetent. Now ordinarily, in any other sort of job, that would put you at the head of the list for a fat raise in pay, and even maybe the foreman's job. Not here, assholes. I'm the foreman, and I consider job security to be my highest priority, especially when I look at the type of scumbag whose bucking for my gig."
He paused here, and looked both of us over carefully. I went into the "hear no evil" stance, while partner Nick covered his mouth in the "speak no evil" posture. Milhaud pinched his nostrils together and droned on.
"That's right, you monkeys, seal off your organs of perception. Hell, what does it matter, you've been working on the Shitty Dick case for six months now and haven't even come up with a dingleberry's worth of hard evidence. No suspect. No leads. Nothing. Just two dozen of our fairest maidens violated brutally by a psychopathic rapist, left to die with torn and bleeding rectums, shattered dignity, permanent psychological damage, and what do you boys come up with? Opinions. 'Gee Lieutenant, maybe its the girls fault, maybe they were leading old Shitty Dick on.' Maybe. Maybe not. It's up to you boys to find out, not to ask me a bunch of fucking questions. If you want to ask question, trundle your sick asses downstairs to 302. There's another innocent victim down there, just came in from the hospital. She's ready to talk now."
Milhaud had timing. He certainly had perfected his sense of the dramatic, building us up with abuse, going through the whole torture and insult routine, and then laying a fresh hulk of pink, recently violated evidence right in our laps, adding a dose of insult to the injuries already so skillfully bruised upon our consciousnesses. We sulked out the door with our poodle collars frayed and our tails limp between our legs.
Milhaud made a parting shot. It rang in our ears as we headed down the hallway.
"You boys don't come up with something by Friday, you'll be directing traffic come Monday morning."
Nick looked at me with cocker spaniel eyes as we listened to the dying echoes of Milhaud's maniac laughter.
"Why me, Narsky, why me?" he asked, pathetic doggy tears of frustration accumulating in his sharp detective's eyes. I slung my doubleknitted arm over his paisley doubleknitted shoulder and shook my head in shared pain and understanding.
"Better than nine to five on the production line, Nick," I said, trying to see the brighter side of the situation. He stared at his shoes just as Milhaud always did, and grunted in agreement.
"The humiliations we have to put up with, Narsky, the nagging, the demands, sometimes I wonder."
I was about to agree with him on that point, that perhaps the nine to five doldrums had their innate appeal, and perhaps that appeal far out-weighed the "romantic lure" of the detective's role, but just as the thoughts were forming into coherent, snivelling words, we reached room 302, and went into our professional act.
"Whose gonna be the good cop this time, Nick?" I asked.
Pervis snarled at me, and pointed his long index finger in a jabbing motion at my sternum.
"You be the good guy. I feel like stuffing hot coals up this cunt's asshole."
Nick leered at me, and instinctively, I understood. After a session of abuse under the skillful stare of Lieutenant Milhaud, one feels like kicking the victim while she's down. I twisted the doorknob, and presto, we went to work.
Pervis took the lead with flair, immediately seizing control of his dramatic persona and lashing out with full brutality at the matron who was busy hand feeding glazed doughnuts to the rape victim.
"Mrs. Olsen, who the hell told you to stuff doughnuts down her throat? We may be obligated to serve and protect, but it don't say nothing in the rulebook about having to provide room and board. Get your fat ass out of here." He glowered at the uniformed matron, hands on his hips, staring straight into the seated "victim's" wet eyes.
Mrs. Olsen gnashed her gums and dropped her doughnut box on the floor, scurrying out just fast enough to avoid the point of Nick's wingtip as he kicked wildly at her broad butt. Nick started in on the chick the second the door slammed shut.
"Well, whorebreath," he began, walking in circles around her chair, adjusting the two-hundred fifty watt desk lamp so that it got her full in the face," Tell us your sick story. Tell us how you were minding your own business when this guy jumped out of the bushes and sprayed in your face. Come on, bitch, out with it. We've got all the time in the world to listen to your sick story, and when we're done listening, we've got a few questions for you."
The "bitch" in question, seated in the wooden, unpadded chair with the heat lamp raising beads of sweat on her face, was a quivering blonde, petite, sweet, with bare feet and scared shitless. She burst out into tears of hysteria and began to pitifully call for her Momma the second Nick stopped sneering at her. Little flecks of sugar glaze were stuck in the corners of her pink mouth and crumbs and dots of dough speckled the moist pinkness of her modest cleavage. I went into my good guy bit. The time was prime.
"Alright Pervis, let me handle this," I said calmly, making as if to restrain my partner from leaping on her form and impaling her soft head with his enraged organ of reproduction. "There, there, my sweet," I said, patting the shivering, quaking blond head, "Don't listen to my associate, Detective Pervis. He's had a very bad day and I think the sight of another rape victim has frustrated him beyond his ability to maintain the professional stance."
The pink nubbin turned her face up to me, smiled through her tears, and did a number with her tongue on the flakes of glazed doughnut. It had me erect and leaking within seconds. Goddamn it to hell if I've ever seen such a large, pink tongue on the flakes of glazed doughnut. It had me erect and leaking within seconds. Goddamn it to hell if I've ever seen such a large, pink tongue in such a tiny teen head before in my life. I maintained the professional stance, erection or no erection.
"I'm Detective Steve Narsky. My partner and I are here to help you in your hour of need. We need your help as well, my dear. We need to hear your story. We need clues if we're ever going to find the vile bastard who abused your body."
Nick felt that this was a proper time to enhance the old good-guy, bad-guy dialectic. Accordingly, he interrupted, screaming in a hyena tone.
"Ah, horseshit, Narsky," he said, walking up to the pink nubbin and planting his crotch about three millimeters from her rabbit nose. He grabbed her chin in two of his fingers and began to force her head into an involuntary up and down motion as he spoke. "Look at the bitch. Look at what she did with that tongue of hers already. You tellin' me this bitch wasn't giving out with the dripping beaver shots when the guy nailed her? You telling me that Narsky? Christalmighty, look at her, nodding like a babboon on the needle."
He pulled with his finger grip and had her nose doing its thing directly in contact with his zipper. He snorted at her.
"When did you shoot up baby? Whose your connection?"
Pervis was deep into a French Connection scenario. He was doing Academy Award quality macho brutality, and to tell the absolute truth, the as yet unnamed nubbin was getting over her stage fright. Her tongue was now busy licking his zipper as a red sore spot appeared on the end of her nose.
I put my arm over Pervis's shoulder and watched for a minute or two as he sandblasted the freckles off her snout, and then I tapped him on the back, giving him my entrance cue.
"Honey," I said, "Let's start off on the right foot. It'll make this easier for all of us. You won't get anywhere trying to blow my partner, honest you won't. Now, what's your name?"
The peachy perfect teener beamed at me as I hunkered down to her level and watched Pervis's zipper tearing the tan off the tip of her nose.
"Budgie," she whispered.
"Budgie what?" I asked.
"Budgie Ruggles."
"Where'd you get a name like that. Budgie? Out of the telephone directory?" Nick snickered, now actively humping against her face with his gaily bedecked doubleknit crotch.
Budgie began to cry again, at last hip to the abusive nature of my partner. If she wanted mercy, if she wanted a shred of dignity left in her body after the rape and after we were through questioning her, she would have but one choice-to spill her guts to me, Steve Narsky, nice guy.
"Take it easy Nick," I said, implying that my partner should ease off and leave the questioning to me. Nick winked at me, made a rapid, obscene gesture with his fingers clamped into the classic whackoff grip, and beckoned me with a final flourish to get on with the interrogation. I bowed, and pulled up a folding chair and began.
"How'd it happen Budgie?" I started in, pausing at the critical moment to yawn, "tell us. We're here to help. Did you flip him a hot beaver? Tell us the whole truth, Budgie, we've got all night." I yawned again, lit a smoke, and watched as little Miss Ruggles went into a stammering fit of confused frustration.
"Bbbbbutt I'm the one who got raped! Why are you accusing me of all these things, this...."
"What are we accusing you of, Budgie?" I asked, setting the hook in her hot, luscious jaws.
"You know. Beaver shots. My connection."
"Tell us about your beaver, Budgie. Tell us about your connection. We want the big fish, Budgie, not the worms. Spill your guts, Budgie, it'll feel great afterwards."
She made cow eyes at me, and then flipped me the middle finger.
"How'd you like it if I left you alone here with my partner, Budgie? You'd find out what goes on behind closed doors, wouldn't you? Think you'd like that action?"
She dropped her middle finger, looked up at Nick, who was stroking his crotch with his hand and dryhumping, and began a stream of consciousness cassette replay of her afternoon.
"I was down at the beach. There was hardly anyone else there, seeing as how the kids aren't out of school yet and it was kind of cool. But I went down anyway, I guess just because I was bored, having been laid off my job last week and all. Well, I was laying on my blanket, face down, getting a little tan on the backside, when I felt this weird sensation, like two eyes boring into the back of my skull, except these weren't going for the skull."
"Where were they going, Budgie, if they weren't going into the back of your skull?" I asked, bored to tears.
"Do I have to say?" Budgie asked. I nodded. She looked up at Nick.
Nick nodded. Budgie nodded. She looked down into her lap.
"They were staring into my pooper."
I watched as she turned crimson. Nick watched her constantly, reaching into his vest pocket for some clove gum, removing the wrapper and popping the slab into his jaws without taking his eyes off of her bristling face. I decided to force my options.
"What was that you say?"
"My pooper."
"She said her pooper, Steve," Nick barked.
"We better get this on tape, Nick," I said. Nick nodded and went to the desk and got out his cassette player-recorder. We made Budgie repeat herself into the microphone, and then continued on.
"So what happened after you felt a pair of eyes burning into your pooper?" I asked, desperately trying to repress my eagerness for detail-it sounded all too familiar-it sounded like Shitty Dick had scored again.
"I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was the sun coming through the clouds or something. As a matter-of-fact, that's exactly what I thought it was, and so T popped the knot holding my bikini top up, and kind of scrunched my bottoms down a little to get part of my butt tan."
"Good thinking, Budgie," I quipped. "A rapist is staring up your asshole, and you pop your top and scrunch down your panties."
"Well piss shit fuck, I didn't know it was a rapist! I told you. I thought it was the sun. Anyway, before I could do anything, he was on me. He pinned my neck to the blanket with one hand, tore off my bottoms, and did it to me, right there. Yeeeccchhhh."
"No preparations?" I asked.
"What do you mean, preparations?" she asked.
"What do you think, Budgie? Ever had it up the asshole before?"
"What do you take me for anyway, you creep!" she said.
"Come on, Budgie, just tell us whether he was lubed or not, you know, vaseline, margarine, Mazola, what the hell, STP or Penzoil will do in a jam.
"Oh," she said, finally getting the point. "No, it was a little different than that. Ahh, well, before he 'did it', he, ahh, made me turn over, and ahhh, well, he kinda forced me to you know, ahhhh, well, I had to suck on it."
Budgie turned another, far deeper shade of pink. Nick and I looked at one another and nodded in silence. It had to be. It was Standard Operating Procedure. It was another case of Shitty Dick scoring in his famous style.
"Then you got a look at him, Budgie, didn't you?" I asked, leaning forward and grabbing her chin to lift her face up so I could stare her down.
"I, ahhh, all I saw was this, this giant, dripping dickhead, and, a big pair of balls, all hairy and sweaty. Oh Christ, it was awful. They blotted out the sun, and then he pressed forward, and he just kept pressing that smelly hose into my face. I almost gagged, but I had to do it. I thought that I could get it over quick and he'd just leave me alone, but instead, when I had slobbered all over it, he just laughed, and spun me over, and then, and then, he did it in my pooper."
It was a classic Shitty Dick performance. We'd get the details from Budgie later on. In the meantime, Nick and I had a little investigating to do down at the beach....