Chapter 9
Pulling off the ramp of the freeway onto Sunset I had to make a vital decision as to my approach should I hit Merc Fenton head on with a wingtip to the crotch and ask questions later, or should I opt for the more-orless standard wormy approach, perfected by the legion of brute authoritarians who had preceded me on the force-the ultimate choice might have great bearing on my success or failure, and the choice was entirely up to me.
I reached the corner where the station sat, pulled the Dodge over to the curb, doused the lights and contented myself with mere observation for a while. The station still had its lights on, and there was quite a crowd of passing cars, but none were at the pumps guzzling high octane Arabian juice. Merc had metal drums blocking off the pumps, a clear enough warning to the out of gas yahoo to stay clear. The service bays were empty as well, except for Merc's own lowered and primered sixty-five Riviera. Merc had the same taste in automobiles that he had in his sensual preferences the sleazier, the better.
He was nowhere in sight. It didn't surprise me in the least. To be sure, in the case of a creature like Merc Fenton, the nose, not the eyeball is the proper organ of sense to put into play for purposes of detection. Accordingly, I lowered the window on the Dodge, extended my head outside, lowered my eyelids, and sniffed-ah, misery, amidst the flow of noxious hydro-carbons, the heavy molecules of overcooked Big Mac's, and the predominant scent of vaginal mucus, there it wafted, the precision flavoring often called reptilian musk, that of aged and cultured penile drippings, the primal scent of the male lizard as it slinks about at ankle level-the odor of cock cheese, that of smegma.
He was there allright, probably out back next to the toilet glory hole, watching the hag finishing off the starlet for the evening with a toothpick, removing the wads of pubic hair from betwixt her stumpy dentures. If I knew Merc, that was exactly where he was. I made my move, opening the cardoor, locking the beast, feeling for my revolver beneath my lapel. I skipped across Sunset like a gleeful sailor on shore leave in Bombay, his wallet stuffed with green, his eyes and mind fixated on twelveyear old vegetarian butthole. The Hindu Hots. The Brahmin Buggery Urge. No one would have expected anything less from my appearance, bedecked as I was in touristic doubleknits and tie, with freshly polished, heavy brown shoes. I slinked into the station, and began to inch my way around its perimeter toward the toilets.
There were two of them in front of the toilet. Merc was easy to spot, his facial scales glimmering in cold lust-rage in the artificial light, a cloud of lizard stench surrounding his head as he leaned against the whitewashed wall, picking his teeth with the tang of a small bastard file. The other fellow was actively dryhumping against the doorknob as he watched, occasionally pausing to turn his face up to the bored and shuffling Merc's to express his heart felt thanks at being allowed the opportunity to observe such classic nastiness. I strained to listen, and was rewarded minimally.
"Take it easy now Ted," Merc whispered, "It's gonna be awhile before she sluices. They been at it all day, you understand."
The observing one glanced briefly up at Merc. "Shit on stick, Merc, you gotta let me come back and get this on tape."
Merc gave him a blunt nasal snort. "Anytime, Ted, anytime. Just like I told you, the shows's twenty bucks, and another twenty per hour if yer tapin' it. I got plenty more class acts for ya too, come out of the same toilet, I might add."
Ted? Who the fuck was Ted. Certainly not your everyday closet moron, out for some keen toilet action. No, Ted had all the marks of the big time. The Gucci workshirt, the French jeans with the elaborately done stitching on the rump that spelled out "success" in screaming tones to anyone hip to the chic levi scene in the uppercrust of our tailspinning society. They were one hundred fifty dollar numbers, imports from flit dominated Paris, purchased abroad, perhaps, purchased in Beverly Hills probably. Ted was no common turkey.
Turkey? Ted Turkey? Was that the name Rex Phlegm had mentioned. The name of the cameraman who had risked the health and safety of his reproductive apparatus for the sake of the NoseWitness News in the massage parlor? The one who had endured the "half-and-half treatment at the hands of the runaways from Acne, Kansas? Was this Ted Turk? What was he doing hanging around with the likes of Merc Fenton? What the fuck was going on, anyway? I decided to make my appearance, to show my hand. I stepped boldly out of the shadows, and tripped over a compressor line, shattering the fabric on my slacks and making one knee into strawberry jam.
"Look what just crawled out of the woodwork, Ted," Merc said as I hobbled up to the pair of perverts, clenching my teeth in agony, and holding my badge forth in one hand. "Look at that sucker. What the fuck you want Steve? You comin' round to roust me again?"
I didn't want to hear Merc's defensive whine. I cut him off.
"Who's your asshole buddy here, Merc?" I asked, finally able to stand up straight, but still wincing formidably in acute pain.
"Aw, shit, Steve. I let you look for free. This is one of my paying customers. You ain't gonna try and ruin my side business, are you?" he pleaded, shuffling like the nitwit hillbilly he was. I turned to the other man, and fired on him.
"Got ID, creep?" I squirted, turning my palm open in front of his pocked and sweating nose. He dug deep, and handed me his sealed driver's license. I pushed his hand to one side with a snort.
"Don't gimme that shit. I need some real ID. You got Mastercharge? You got BankAmericard?"
He went on the offensive, lisping like a parvenue in financial heat at the Turkish border, his trunk stuffed with White slaves.
"Will American Express do?" he lisped, putting on the style for his degenerate buddy, no doubt.
I grabbed the card and read it. Theodore Turk. Ted for short. Ted Turk, member in good standing of the NoseWitness mobile team, headed up by Rex Phlegm. My own nose was working overtime. I had a connection. I wasn't about to blow it.
"You the same Ted Turk that was up here this afternoon with the TV crew, filming the lowlife, making snotty, vicious comments about law enforcement officers?" I asked, rubbing the blunt end of my wingtip over his shin to show him that I meant business.
"Yessir, that's me," he quipped, winking broadly at Merc. I gave him a gentle kick below the knee to remind him of his manners. He snarled in pain and rage as he massaged his expensively sheathed patella with his hands.
"What the fuck you doing staring into the women's toilet at this gas station in the company of a known pervert?" I didn't mince words. I wanted him on the defensive.
"Gee whiz, officer," he whined, fiercely grimacing as the needles of pain made their way up his thigh into the pit of his puking pervert belly, "I was just doing a little freelance. Everybody's got to make a buck."
Freelance? What the fuck was he up to? I placed the snout of my good foot next to his unbruised shin and began another teasing rubdown.
"Freelance? What the fuck do you mean by that, creep?"
Ted Turk knew I meant business. He shimmied backward, against the wall, attempting to escape the potential punishment I was ready to deal out with my agile foot. "Just some side action, officer," he answered, "You know, to supplement my measly salary. I look around for some nice softcore, some raunchy hardcore, something old, something new, something different, like this act here, with the toothy starlet being chewed beyond recognition by the rag picker. That's class toilet action. I can get big bucks for a twenty minute video cassette loop of that quality action up in Be verly Hills."
His eyes went down to where my shoe rubbed fiercely and impatiently against his shin. He went into closet withdrawal, deadly afraid of the consequences of having been discovered in the act of watching hardcore, even more afraid of the possible damage public revelation of his gross habits might have on his career, on his position within the community, on his relationship with his wife. I decided to press the point.
"How'd you like to take a short ride downtown and explain your freelance career to the vicesquad?" I asked, employing less than subtle pressures with my shoe, and my knee, which I deftly brought up between his denimed thighs and upon which danced his withered reproductive seed bags.
He went infantile on me. It was tasty.
"Aw, c'mon officer, you can't do that to me. I gotta go back to the studio and report in for the eleven o'clock NoseWitness broadcast. I got a wife and kids to think about. I got my job, officer. What's wrong with watchin' a little semi-simulated softcore, amongst consenting humanoids?"
A wise ass. He had segued out of the infantile whining into snotty ACLU style rationalization. I gave him both psychic barrels.
You should have thought of your wife, your kids, your slimy job before you handed this creep," I gestured to Merc with a swift snap of the head and neck, "The ten bucks to watch his sickening peep show. You're both degenerates as far as I'm concerned, and as far as the law is concerned. I could take you in on a six nine-two, and your buddy there, the one with the dark, greasy stains on his face, he could get one to life behind pandering and running an unlicensed cabaret. You understand? Want me to read you your rights?"
Ted Turk bowed his head in stereotypical middleclass humility before the steel grip of the law. Merc was used to my act, however, and he didn't wimp out. He went on the counter attack.
"Say, Narsky," he said, turning his chin up so when I looked at him all I could see was the pitchblackness of his nostrils, "Why don't you cut the jive and just tell me what you want, eh? I know you saw the fuckin' news tonight. I know why you're so fuckin' up tight, you two bit terrorist. Your buddy, the ass-raper, he scored again, didn't he? That's it, ain't it, Narsky? You're runnin' scared."
I listened as he brayed like a donkey with a flaming corncob rammed up its asshole. He thrust his elbow into Ted Turk's ribs and beckoned for the levied technician to join in the merriment. I pulled my Magnum out of my shoulder holster and decided to go into a modified Dirty Harry style emcee act.
"What do you know about it, Fenton?" I asked, keeping my shoe frictioning against Ted's shin as I inserted the broad snout of my police special into Merc's gaping left nostril. He snickered through his single port, and replied in a sinus voice.
"Just what I saw on the news, Narsky. Got yer fuckin' bosses daughter. Don't that take the cake, Ted. The ass-rapin' son of a bitch got the bosses daughter. Narsky's been tryin' to score that broad for three years. Don't that set you free, Steve?"
Both of them went into crippling wheezing fits of nasal laughter, attempting to slap each others palms pimp style, tears of unutterable hostility and sadism pouring out of their sick red eyes like a nauseating discharge from the infected plumbing of a Soto Street whore. I gave Turk a wicked shot to the shin and cocked my revolver simultaneously it cut them off in mid snicker.
"Wise asses. Shit eaters. Dog fuckers. Both of you will be lucky if you live through the night, especially you, Fenton. One more wise ass remark, and I'll be forced to blow you away in selfdefense. Mr. Turk here will be my witness, that is, if he doesn't want to get blown away with you. Do you understand, Mr. Turk?"
The rhetorical question was quite unnecessary-Mr. Turk had an innate understanding of the situation-he was nodding like a chimp on the needle, eager to please, even more eagerly looking at his fat, gold encrusted Omega watch, to see how much time was left before he had to make a beeline back to the studio for the eleven o'clock report.
"Now Fenton, I want to know exactly how you knew that Shitty Dick was going to strike, and how you knew that he was going to make the News in style, with the in-depth report. Spill the beans, Fenton, now, or later, down at the station, in Milhaud's office. You know Lieutenant Milhaud don't you? You know how deftly he handles a wet towel and a rubber truncheon? You want that action, Fenton? You want to go through the rest of your life with water on the spinal cord? You want to be reduced to a semi-crippled vegetable who can only get off on hot Pennzoil enemas? Think hard, Fenton."
I laid it on thick. I covered him with the balm of threats as only a professional can. He didn't budge an inch.
"Aw, shit Narsky, don't hand me that jive. I just use my eyes, and my nose, Narsky. I ain't got no special connection with your ass-raping pal. All I do is keep my eyes open, and my snout clean, and that's how I keep tabs on what's goin' down. If you'd ever take that fat corpse of yours out of the massage parlours for a minute, you might not have such a hard time with your work. Get me, Narsky?"
The reptile let its tongue slither out of its black, thin lips. I wanted to shoot Fenton right then and there. I wanted to blast him in half with more intensity than I had wanted to blow hot wads over Charmane Pervis's greedily gobbling face. I had no choice but to pry on.
"What the fuck do you mean, Fenton? I'd paid to use my fuckin' eyes. I spotted you, didn't I? What did you see? What did you sniff that told you Shitty Dick was on the move? Out with it."
Fenton went into another fit of high nasal laughter, his long, scaly tale slithering about in the grease spots on the service station apron, his eyes focusing in several different directions at once.
"You'll have to ask Ted here. Ted knows what I'm talkin' about, don't you, Ted?"
Fenton gave him a folksy elbow to the ribs. I leapt upon the middle-class wimpo and began to throttle him, my gun butt slamming into his sideburn.
"Out with it, snot head!" I screamed into his face, giving him a gagging dose of bilious Budweiser breath. He choked and wimpered, and then the frijoles began to trickle out of his gorge.
"That's top security material, Mr. Fenton. I can't just tell anyone NoseWitness top priority in formation!" he squealed, looking over at Merc with pleading cow eyes.
"Mr. Fenton was on his lunch break when we were shooting up on Santa Monica Blvd. He was hanging out in front of the Institute for Anal Lust, watching the goings on. He must have surmised that the report would be broadcast that very night, and he knew that we were looking for evidence of the sodomistic sadist. He put two and two together, and came up with a lucky guess. Later on, as we were packing up, he approached me with the offer to make a tape of the toilet action in the back of his station. I couldn't resist the freelance temptation."
Ted Turk let his head hang down in humiliation. I wasn't impressed with his contrite act. It didn't explain the precision nature of Merc's guesswork.
"Yea, yea," I snarled at Turk, shaking him by the lapels. "I'm not innarested in your sad story. Tell me how the hell Fenton knew that Shitty Dick had scored again. Tell me that, willya."
They looked at each other shrugged their collective shoulders and went clam silent on me.
"You boys wanna take that ride down to the station," I bluffed, knowing that if I were to bring them in, Milhaud would have me shot on the spot for tresspassing, "Or you wanna keep talkin'? Talk is cheap, pals, compared to the wet towels, the fingernail pulling, the oil truncheons."
"What's it to you, Turk?" Fenton chimed in, "What the fuck you care if you lose your job? With my connections, and your home video equipment, we can package toilet loops and make a killing at the adult bookstores. Hell, we'd have a theatre chain in a matter of months, maybe even a few arcade franchises. We'd be rolling in bucks. Spill yer guts, Turk. Get it over with."
Slimey Merc knew all the angles. I didn't like him stealing my thunder, but I had to admit that he had the knack of picking up on the man's weak spots, his yearning for tax-free, illicit, raunchy freelance dollars. I gestured to Merc to shut up, and gave Turk the pause for thought. He came through.
"You'll have to talk it over with my boss on the NoseWitness Team. He'll fill you in."
"Vague, Turk," I said, "Too vague. I need the hard stuff, the factoids, stuff that'll stand up in court. The beans, Turk, the refried ones. Spill 'em. Spill 'em, or be prepared for the worst."
He went into a modified shuffle. I set the hook with a well timed cigarette, proffered as bait. He took the filtered tube in trembling fingers, and Merc lit it up for him, like a continental gentleman in heat. Turk dragged deeply.
"All I can do for you officer is bring you back to the station with me for the Eleven O'clock report. You'll bring up your questions to Rex, and he'll give you your answers. One more point. Don't mention my name."
That was a laugh. He knew it too. We both laughed.
"Don't worry, Turk. If you've given me a lead, you'll be rewarded properly. Say, two years probation and all the freelance you can grab on the side."
Turk perked up at this mention of freelance, and winked broadly at me. I winked back. Merc winked at both of us. Turk and I began to march out from behind the station to my car, leaving Merc in his natural ecological niche, to pass the night with his pair of catpured pretties in the cozy confines of the toilet.
"Burbank?" I asked, as we started rolling on Sunset. "Burbank it is," Turk answered, still rubbing at the wounds on his shins. My own strawberry jam knee had quickly crusted into a deep brown patch which blended well with the color and texture of my knit slacks. I didn't give a shit about the knee, or the pain. I had my lead. I was heading out to the NoseWitness Newsdesk to see Rex Phlegm, to see where he fit into the slimy pattern of brutal, abusive events that had dominated my life for the past six months.
That was especially gratifying. Every night after work, when I had returned to the plush quiet of my rented digs, I had had to face Kristine Hundt and Rex Phlegm, the sarcastic commentators on the failure of the department to bring in the Man. My failure. They were like harpies on my back, unwilling to let bygones be bygones, unwilling to let me forget the failures of the day. They kept the pressure on me, and now, they were going to have the favor returned. I was going to put the thumbscrews on them. We'd soon see whose hide was thickest, who was most immune to bitter insinuation and snide innuendo. We'd see.
"You're not gonna make me confront Rex with my story, are you, officer?" Turk asked, now smoking the filter of the gift cigarette.
"We'll see, we'll see," I mumbled, relishing his sense of fear of the unknown, relishing even more deeply his position, that of traitor to the cause of NoseWitness confidentiality. It was even more tasty than the closet toilet action. This was the end all and be all of enforcement as far as I was concerned-to play Milhaud to a quivering, sweating civilian. It was the high point of my officer's career, and it was a nigh point that had steadily eluded me for as long as I had worked on the case of Shitty Dick. I longed to bring him in, his carcass torn and bleeding from my field interrogation, his muffled cries of innocence and his protestations concerning police brutality painfully cut off my wingtips to the chin and scrotum. It would be a scene worth remembering, a scene worth of promotion, perhaps to a desk job. Perhaps.
"What do you think of my profile, Turk?" I asked, giving the technician a shot of uncleft chin and heavy, oiled right sideburn. He pinched his nose with his nicotine stained fingers before he answered.
"Aren't you putting the cart before the horse, officer," was his response. He needed more stimulation to get into the spirit of the game.
"Turk, if my hunch is right, I'll be in the fuckin' Network cart after tonight's action. You get me, Turk? You see, there's been so much goddamn publicity on this case from the beginning that I figure, when it finally cracks, why it's gonna be network quality. At least a quick forty-five seconds worth, maybe even a full film report if it's a slow day in New York. I want to be ready for that action, Turk."
I could see his jaw drop. It was either because he thought I was out of my mind, or because he was stunned at being in the presence of Network quality material. I chose to believe it was the second choice. I pressed the point.
"There's room for two at the top, Turk. Get me? You could be that vital other component, the eyewitness, the main man, the civilian who worked hand in hand with the authorities to lay the grip on Shitty Dick. Think of it, Turk. Network coverage, promotion, something to tell the grandchildren about. Will I have to put on make-up?"
The off ramp came up quickly. I gave Turk a withering look that confirmed his sense of insecurity and wheeled the hog off the chute and down into the slow midweek Valley traffic. It was five to nine. Well before showtime. I'd have plenty of time to confront Rex Phlegm with the facts. I'd dig deep into his pansy psychology, ferreting for his weak spots, pressuring him where it hurts, leaning on his rusted links. He'd squeal like a stuck pig. He'd cringe before my authoritarian presence, and bow to my abusive demands. He'd learn law enforcement etiquette at the end of a gun butt.
"Which way?" I asked. The Turk gave me directions, and soon we were in line, behind a hotpink, gold vinyl roofed Mark IV, at the check-in gate for the studio. The plates on the grotesque beast ahead of us read "HUNDT 8," little Ms. Kristine's eighth member of her stable of chariots. I gave her short, nasty clips on the horn button. I got the finger in return.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you, officer," said Turk, "She's a pink-belt in emasculation techniques. Learned them in the Far East while covering the war on Hootch Maid Liberation."
I snickered in pompous authoritarian pride. Ms. Hundt might, have the studio pansies trained to obey her on reflex, but I was immune to her act. I had handled her sort on a daily basis. A wingtip to the cervix would settle her hash.
"Don't worry yourself into a fit of impotence, Turk. I can handle that quim with my little finger. It's Rex Phlegm I'm after anyway, not that sassy bitch."
Turk shriveled down into the padding of the bench seat as I hit the horn again. Ms. Hundt squealed hot rubber all the way to her reserved parking spot as I flashed my badge to the rent-a-cop in the booth.
"Hi, soul brother," I quipped to the senile uniformed asshole.
"You're not entitled to park here, sir. You're not a company employee."
"Quit the shit, jive turkey. I'm a real newsmaker, you asshole, not some overpaid executive slime ball. You wanna eat hot lead, pops? You wanna pay your dues for the company?"
The codger could sense the danger. He wisely gave me a taste of desert-seasoned, steel-blue Glendale eyes, and let me pass. I spat a clump of flakey green mucus on his shoes as I floored the car, and brought it to a screeching halt next to Ms. Hundt's reserved spot. She was still in the car, giving herself a lip job with some cum flavored cosmetic in a dildo shaped tube. She geeked me and went into company heat.
The power window rolled down on her passenger's side. "Get the fuck out of that parking spot, shit eater. That's reserved for a real human being, Rex Phlegm."
I gave her wide open eyes, shocked at her language.
"But Milady," I quipped back, using my stage voice, "Sir Phlegm is he upon whom I wait." She clamped her make-up tube closed, snarled, and opened her door. I smiled over at Turk, who was covering his face with his hands and kneeling on the floor in front of the seat. "Take it easy, Turk," I mused, "Listen to this action."
Ms. Hundt strutted quickly over to the open window on my side, and began to tongue lash me in a no nonsense style.
"Dysfunctioning dribbler, get this piece of Pachuco shit off the lot before I call the security men in. You hear me, you sniveling shit eating hyena?" she said, with her hands on her niftily pantsuited hips. I hung my wallet over the doorsill and let the Police ID hang open, just like a limp dick requesting immediate suction.
She stared at the badge in silence, her heavily made-up eyes flicking from the gold encrusted symbol to my eyes and then back again to the badge. She couldn't figure out the scene.
"Now, milady, let us start off afresh, eh?" I chortled. "When do you expect Mr. Phlegm in for work?" I asked, retracting my badge and slipping back into my vest pocket.
"He should be here any minute. What do you want with him?" she asked, her voice now modulating at an acceptable frequency, the four-letter words and feminist assumptions repressed and boiling beneath the surface.
"That is strictly between Sir Phlegm and I, Sir Steven, of the Rape Squad. We'll wait inside." I began rolling up the window, and I gave the Turk a quick, glancing blow to the forehead with my shoe. "Let's go inside, Turk." The worm didn't want to be seen with me, it was obvious. So what, I thought, I don't need him anymore. I'm in the bigtime now, an environment perfect for throwing my weight around. I opened my door, and watched as Kristine Hundt disappeared through the doorway, her horsey butt twitching indignantly beneath her pantsuit. Turk and I followed her sensual trail with our noses.
"Turk! Turk!" I screamed, like a baboon deprived of his favorite heating pad, all to no avail. The insidious NoseWitness behind-the-scenes lackey had ditched me for good. I was on my own again. No matter, thought I, I had my lead, I knew who I was looking for, and most important of all, I had my gun and my badge, and we all know the rules of hot pursuit-shoot first, ask for credit references and charge accounts later. I drew the police issue, snub-nose loaded with carefully filed dum-dums from my vest pocket, and lurked in the cables and equipment while pre-broadcast hysteria boiled around me.
The efficient, silent crew worked hastily, moving dollies, portable lighting, swiveling massive pieces of unnameable electronic drek to and fro, preparing for the live broadcast some two hours hence. I caught fleeting glimpses of familiar faces-Dr. Fishbreath, peeking out from behind a velvet curtain, a pink-faced Cubscout nursing at his belt-Ms. Kristine Hundt, her face clamped into a fearsome grip of intolerable patience as a miniskirted hormone addict applied layer after layer of thick powder to her nasal organ, dusting the visage into a mask of flawless objectivity. I kept my eye peeled for the first sight of Rex Phlegm-I wanted to take him by surprise, confront him with the evidence, and start in with the demands for a full explanation before he had the sense to call the corporate lawyer. As usual, I was using the wrong sense organ-the ears were the ideal perceivers where Rex Phlegm was concerned.
"Some asshole's got his goddam Dodge in my parking spot!"
The voice was unmistakable, even in its shrieking variant, wound up to the ultimate pitch of supreme outrage and violated humanoid sensibility. I searched eagerly for my first sight of him in his civvies. I longed to see the kind of style Rex Phlegm luxuriated in when off-camera. All I got was more shrieking.
"Seventy-five thousand a year they pay me to do my job. I've got the respect of the entire community. I'm discrete, into mild B&D, water sports, enemas and a little cross-dressing, and I can't keep the goddamn lowlife out of my fucking reserved spot! Just what the fuck is happening around here! Where the hell is Manny? Where the fuck is the producer? Isn't anybody going to help me get that goddamned Pachuco bastard out of my parking spot? Am I gonna have to wait till the burnished Avocado vinyl roof peels off of my Mark IV?"
Rex was filling the air with tempting rhetorical questions, perfect cues for my entrance on stage. I tripped out of my hiding place, gun in right hand, badge in left, and I stumbled right into him, landing on my face, with my teeth pressed into his white Hush Puppies.
"Hold it right there, Phlegm," I said, my fingers moving quickly to the safety and switching it off as the startled NoseWitness man backpeddled like a pansy Jap before the scared image of the Duke, fifty-caliber slugs of psychic race-hatred penetrating every one of his sick, oily pores.
"Who are you, baboon, and what the fuck are you doing on studio property?" he asked, pinching his nostrils in the timeless grip of class differentiation.
"Don't recognize me?" I needled him, rising to my feet, poking the business end of my blunt weapon into the wide spaces in his woven tennis top, "Ever heard of Budgie Ruggles? Debbie Milhaud? Nick Pervis? How about Charmane Pervis? Any of those names ring a bell, Phlegm?"
His eyes crinkled down into slits of robot hate as he sized me up. The hysterical demeanor of the fruit in heat evaporated as he sensed me zoning in for the kill.
"Hmmm. You must be the important baboon, Pervis's partner. What the fuck is your name anyway? Snotsky? Shitstein?" he asked, genuinely baffled, but successfully buying time.
"Narsky. Now it's my turn to ask questions, Phlegm. Just how the fuck is it that you are Johnny on the spot every time Shitty Dick makes another score? How do you keep beating the Department to the punch, Phlegm? Who's your connection? Spill the beans, Phlegm, or do you want to go downtown and deal with Milhaud himself? Lieutenant Milhaud, that is?" I pinned him back up against a temporary wall, and began my standard act with wingtip rubbing against tender shin flesh.
Phlegm kept his head immobile and scouted the room with his eyes, looking for witnesses.
"Lower your fucking voice, Narsky, if you know what's good for you. You're way out of your league Narsky. You're strictly lightweight, minor league, the bush. Don't try and fuck with the Network, Narsky. This Shitty Dick story". It's about to go national. That's right Narsky, with the very next sodomistic assault, they're going to give me forty-five seconds of prime time. I'm going to handle it, with the mobile unit. You understand the stakes, Narsky?"
The beans were up around my knees. I was swimming in hot frijoles and lard. I pressed onward.
"All I care about is getting my man, Phlegm. You're in the way. You've got information on him, and you're withholding it, using it for your own ends it seems. I could book you on that alone."
Phlegm's expression changed completely. He burst out into a hysterical giggle of disbelief.
"Don't try and pull my pud, you slimy little jerkoff artist," he spat in my face, "I already told you, this is going national, Network. The very next time Shitty Dick impales his victim, we'll be there, the NoseWitness team, and we'll be on Network hookup. It's all arranged. It's fixed. I have that from the very highest authority. Do you follow me, putz?"
I wasn't exactly sure if I followed him or not. What was he getting at? Was it pure ego, or did it go deeper, far deeper, into the pit of every violated anus Shitty Dick had claimed as his own?
"What are you driving at Phlegm? You want to tell me, or do you want to go downtown and explain yourself to Milhaud? You know what he'd do to you if he found out you were withholding the good on the guy who punctured his daughter's pooper? Think it over, Phlegm." I nuzzled the muzzle against his belly for emphasis, breathing my vile Bud breath into his Binaca reeking face.
"Ha! Milhaud's daughter. You make me want to puke, you slimy little upstart. This is beyond any personal trip, Narsky. This is my chance. I might become an anchorperson, Narsky, do you understand? I might evolve from just another hairsprayed male speech therapist for Kristine Hundt to something big. I might get the shot at a late night talk show of my own. You know what that means, don't you? Truman Capote, Rodney Dangerfield, Ethel Merman, the big time, Narsky. No reptile with a badge is standing in my way!"
He was hysterical. I cocked my gun and gave him a knee-nudge to the groin to calm him down.
"Buddy, I'm not out for your fuckin' job, I'm just tryin' to do mine," I said. "Now I wanna know who this creep is, and I wanna know now. I don't need no more jive, understand? The beans, Phlegm, gimme the beans."
He began to laugh again, and this time there was no stopping him, not on the rational level, anyhow. He needed pain. I gave him a dose, to the left shin, wingtip denting bone in one swift, silent move. Phlegm howled like the proverbial banshee with the highway flare inserted in its fluttering pink rosette rectum. I waited till he cooled down before demanding more refried pellets.
"Cut the jive, Phlegm. Gimme the skinny. Why does a creep like Merc Fenton know before anyone else that the rapist is going to strike? He got that tip from you, didn't he? You knew all along. Who is he, Phlegm? Where is he hiding out?" I threatened him with wingtip raised to tooth level. Phlegm repressed a shriek and spoke.
"You're out of your fucking mind, Narsky. You're not playing ball. This is a business, for Chrissakes, just like your business. We have to market our product, Narsky. We've got to create new markets when we've burned out the old ones. This was all arranged a long time ago, by the Network heads, in cooperation with the fucking local police. We're a team, Narsky, and .you're upsetting the applecart. The hell if I'm going to help you push it over!"
That was it as far as I was concerned. It was as good as a confession. I let fly with alternating kicks to his head and torso, and when he was reduced to a bleeding puddle of whimpering pansy flesh, I hauled him out to the car and stuffed him in the backseat for the long ride downtown.
I should have known by his laughter after he recovered consciousness that something was wrong. I should have known from the word go. I thought I had my man. I did have my man. But my man wasn't supposed to be had....