A box of rubbers and a six-pack of Brew 102.

The back door opened. Danny Getch.e.l.l walked in.

The Hush-Hush guy.

Who: Called me a "pretty-boy pantywaist" and a "pusillanimous punk."

Who: Called my mom a "maladroit madonna" and my pop the "punk's paterfamilias."

I saw Danny. Danny saw me. He grabbed the rubbers and ran. He cut through the parking lot and jumped into a blue Merc coupe. I chased him. He gunned the engine. He yelled, "Commie castrato Contino can't run for s.h.i.t!"

I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny put the car in gear and goosed it out of reach.

He yelled, "Lefty loser less than lethal at Legion loyaltyfest!"

I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny goosed the car out of reach.

He yelled, "b.a.l.l.sy bandit burgles boffo batch of brand-name booze! Less-than-lethal loser left in lurch!"

I ran harder. I gained ground. I hooked around to the front of the hall and hauled a.s.s.

Danny goosed the car out of reach. I slipped on a pile of my dad's cold cuts. I hit the street a.s.s-over-elbows and ate hot exhaust fumes.

2.

Howard refused to front me the coin for a room. I moved into my dad's bomb shelter.

I treated my elbows and knees. I climbed into a bongo shirt and peggers. I called Linda Sidwell's house and left a message with her mom.

Tell Linda to pack for ground zero. Make an atom-bomb sound. Tell her we'll head for Hiroshima and level the town with our love.

I was desperate. I was walking the lonely streets of s.h.i.t City. The bad guys dug me. The good guys feared me. The lung gig was my welcome-home highlight. Howard said we could sell the lung-ward kids accordion lessons and spring my ax from the hock shop. My comeback would boom from there.

I didn't buy it. I felt one of my Patented Post-Pa.s.sive Rages poised to pop. I lashed out once in a billion blue moons. I imploded all my impacted s.h.i.t inward and outward and took it out on inanimate objects.

The bomb shelter smelled like a catbox. I taped some nudie pix to the ceiling above my cot and stretched out to slam the ham.

I noticed two envelopes on the nightstand. My mom must have brought them in. They were perfume dipped and pale blue linen.

I picked them up. I sniffed them. I saw my name and address. The back flaps were stained at the edge. Prison mail was steamed open, read, and resealed. This looked like the same thing.

The postmarks read 2/18 and 2/20/54. The return-address stickers read: Vivian Woodard, 348 South Muirfield Road, Los Angeles, 4, California.

"Woodard"--as in "L. Trent." Sw.a.n.k Hanc.o.c.k Park.

I opened the envelopes. I read the letters inside. Pa.s.sionate pa.s.sages pounced on me.

"Your art is dubious and derivative, but you play with an astounding sensual conviction." "My husband admires your struggle and your blunt and wrenching admissions of your fear, and is concurrently vexed by your power over me." "You cannot be socially enlightened without acknowledging d.i.c.k Contino as a symbol of candor and transcendent vulnerability." "I want you inside me. I want to swing off the axis where our loins meet in wetness and tumescence." "Your music is my anthem. Your seed is the hot ink that courses through my veins and my pen as I write these words."

Oooooooooh, Daddy-o!!!!!

I read the letters four times. I circled the s.e.x stuff. I taped the letters to the ceiling above my cot and formed an erotic collage.

Somebody banged on my door. My mom yelled, "d.i.c.k! Oscar's on the phone!"

Oscar Levant said, "You're a schmuck. You're also a schmendrick, a schlemiel, and a schlemazel."

Oscar was p.i.s.sed. Freddy Otash cut down his dope dose. Oscar said Freddy extorted the s.h.i.t out of schvartze jazz musicians. Freddy didn't want Oscar to overdose and die. Hush-Hush couldn't fly without his sinful and sincere sinuendo.

I tilted my chair back. I scoped out the nut ward. Oscar tilted his chair back and tracked my eyes.

The rec room was chock-full of nuts. An orderly was marching an old man around. The old man was talking non-stop and drooling into a cup.

Oscar said, "Pops is a Wall Street trader. He recites nursery rhymes, with some insider stock tips laced into the flow. The orderly is Freddy O's watchdog. He keeps an eye on me, pumps the old guy for stock tips, and feeds them to Freddy."

Gail Russell and Barbara Payton were playing dominoes. Barbara ran her right foot up Gail's leg sapphically slooooow. Gail swatted it away.

Oscar said, "They're both dipsos. The boss at Paramount told them to dry out or else. Babs always goes lez in stir. Gail's pining for Rock Hudson. Rock's playing skin-flute on a bartender at Don the Beachcomber's. The bartender snorts Big 'H' and moonlights at an all-male cathouse."

A geek was twisting his hair in knots and doodling on a scratch pad. A dozen nuts stood around and watched him draw.

Oscar said, "He's an animator for The Webster Webfoot Show. He makes animated s.m.u.t flicks on the side and sells them down in Tj. He thinks he's Webster Webfoot. His wife shows up once a week and throws popcorn at him."

I laughed. The orderly noticed me and sized me up. Oscar lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my face.

I said, "You want something. You're playing some kind of angle here."

Oscar blew concentric smoke rings. "I want to contemporize you. I want to revitalize your career and end your days as a schmuck, a schmendrick, a schlemiel, and a schiemazel."

"What's in it for you?"

"You check me out on a pa.s.s, right this G.o.dd.a.m.n instant. You take me down to Darktown and get me what I need to survive."

He was headed for Shake City. He sucked that cigarette down to a stub in sixteen seconds.

He started twitching. He started shaking. His eyes started begging me.

I said, "Let's go."

We drove south and smoked Linda's reefer. Life lapsed into slow motion. We were bebop bwanas on the Dark Continent. My dad's '50 Ford was a barge on the River Styx.

Dig the jazz clubs! Dig that drive-in mosque! Dig the unkinkyour-hair parlors and the chopped-and-channeled chariots in cool c.o.o.n maroon!

We cruised Central Avenue. A voodoo moon beamed down and lit the way. Oscar found Rachmaninoff on the radio. We rolled our windows down and shared him with our wild-a.s.s world.

The weed unkinked Oscar. He stopped twitching and abusing me. I steered the barge with one finger. Water lapped under my feet.

Oscar said, "The Pharaoh Club. They've got a steam room, and all the hip junkies sweat themselves out there before their Nalline tests. Freddy 0 jacks them up and steals their stuff."

My life lapsed out of slow motion. Oscar wrecked my reverie. He sounded like a 45 single spun at 78.

I spoke slooow and easy. "Freddy O is a cop. He can flash his badge and pull that kind of thing off."

Oscar lit a cigarette and sucked it down to a cinder in one drag. He flicked the b.u.t.t out the window and flashed two little gold stars.

Toy badges.

"Junior Deputy" at the bottom. "SheriffJohn's Lunch Brigade" at the top.

I blinked. The Belgian Congo disappeared and cohered as Darktown L.A. A bazaboo bipped in front of the car. I missed him by a s.n.a.t.c.h-hair margin.

Oscar said, "You can't pa.s.s this up. It's too sweet. You'll do anything to prove you're not a c.r.a.p-your-pants crybaby."

I gulped. I popped a sweat. I saw the Pharaoh Club three doors down and pulled to the curb.

I wore a babaloo bongo shirt and peg pants. Oscar wore a nutward robe and pj's. Hepcats, hipsters, and hopheads knew our faces.

Oscar said, "Fearful faigeleh fiddle-faddles while--"

I jumped out of the car. Oscar jumped out. We squared off on the sidewalk. Oscar pa.s.sed me my badge. I concocted an intro line and pushed the door open.

We entered Pharaoh's Tomb. A big schvartze in Egyptian threads materialized. I caught the layout behind him.

Black crepe walls. Tables shaped like scarabs going sixty-nine. A bandstand inlaid with a gold-embossed Ramses II holding crossed scepters. A jazz combo decked out in fezzes--blasting to an allsepia crowd.

Steam seeped through some ceiling cracks. The spa was upstairs.

The schvartze eyeballed Oscar's pajamas. "You lookin' for a bed, or you come for some milk and cookies?"

Oscar flashed his badge and said, "f.u.c.k you, King Tut."

The schvartze laughed.

I reached for my intro line. I lost it in the flight path of Marijuana Airways. I said the first thing that hit my head: "My name's Friday. I carry a badge."

f.u.c.k--straight out of Dragnet.

The schvartze laughed. He leaned back and howled. His sheik shirt rolled above his sheik pants. He packed a beavertail sap in his waistband.

Oscar grabbed the sap and cracked him in the head. The schvartze hit the side wall and knocked a liquor license loose. I grabbed him by his conk and bent his head back. Oscar cracked him again.

He spit out some denture debris and a slice of his tongue. Oscar said, "Who's holding? Who's got the stuff to feed the monkey on my back?"

The schvartze quaked and quivered. I dropped his head. Oscar propped it up with the sap.

"I asked you, 'Who's holding?' Who's got the doughnuts, the strudel, the s.h.i.t?"

The schvartze stammered, stuttered, and pointed upstairs. He got out a string of popped P's and the single word "Playboy."

Go, Oscar!

The schvartze stammered and stuttered. He got out more popped P's and the words "Please don't hit me!"

I looked at Oscar. Oscar looked at me. We tore through the Pharaoh Club.

People laughed. People snickered. People ducked and dove under their tables. Oscar's robe billowed. It snagged on chair backs and chicken-and-waffle plates. We distracted the combo. They blew their beat. "b.u.mble Boogie" bent off-key.

We ran up the backstairs. We kicked down a door marked Private. Black faces poked out of a steam cloud. Dissipating dope drifted through it. Oscar sucked the s.h.i.t into his lungs and swung his sap blind.

A black blip blipped into black-and-red. Blood spritzed through the cloud. I heard bones crack. I heard a man scream. Oscar yelled, "Where's Playboy?"

A black face yelled, "Out back!" A black face yelled, "The parking lot!" A black face yelled, "Out back with some white guy!"

We ran downstairs. We kicked down an exit door. That voodoo moon lit up the parking lot. I saw a white man and a Negro man huddled by a '49 Olds.

They had their backs to us. I tapped Oscar and made the sssshhh sigh. Oscar nodded and zipped his lips shut.

We tiptoed up. I heard every word they said.

The white man said, "You weren't supposed to pull heists. That was part of our deal."

The Negro man said, "Sheeit."

The white man said, "You were supposed to recruit colored tail for the movie gig and chauffeur the girls out of Sybil Brand, and that's f.u.c.king all you were supposed to do."

The Negro man said, "I didn't like the way that Harvey creep was lookin' at my b.i.t.c.h."

The white man said, "He's harmless. All he wants to do is take pictures."

Oscar held up his badge and said, "Freeze, s.h.i.tbirds."

The men turned around. I made them from the Mirror-News.

Cal d.i.n.kins--LAPD bull. Rudy "Playboy" Wells--robber.

d.i.n.kins laughed. Wells laughed. I dug my feet into the ground and reinforced my spastic sphincter. d.i.n.kins said, "Holy s.h.i.t! Oscar Levant and d.i.c.k Contino."

Oscar said, "We just look like those punks. It's part of our cover. Cough up the dope, Playboy."

The word "Playboy" tripped Playboy's trigger. He looked at d.i.n.kins. The look said, "They know us." d.i.n.kins said, "Kill them."

Oscar twitched and dropped his sap. Playboy pulled a shiv and flicked his tongue down the blade. Blood trickled over his lips. He licked it off and giggled.

I kicked him in the b.a.l.l.s. He jackknifed. I pried the shiv out of his hand and jammed it in his right eye. Oscar picked up the sap and whacked d.i.n.kins in the knees.

d.i.n.kins yelped. Playboy screamed. I pulled the shiv out of his eye and lashed it across d.i.n.kins's throat. It snagged on his windpipe. I pulled it out loose and ripped d.i.n.kins down to the breastbone.

They gurgled. They spat blood. They hit their knees in one big convulsion. I picked them up and tossed them in the '49 Olds. Oscar picked their pockets.