Ultra-paydirt: Richie “Sicko” Sicora and another familiar-looking dude. I’d seen pics of Sicora before — but in this photo he looked like someone else familiar. The resemblance seemed very vague — but niggling. The other man was easy — he’d tried to broadside me in darktown last night.
The old girl said, “My son Richard is a fugitive. He doesn’t look like that now. He had his face changed when he went on the run. Sol was going to leave Richie money when he turned twenty-five, but Richie and Chuck got in trouble and Sol gave it out in bail money instead. I’ve got no complaint against Sol and I repent my unmarried fornication.”
I superimposed the other man’s bone structure against photos I’d seen of Chick Ottens and got a close match. I tried, tried, tried to place Sicora’s pre-surgery resemblance, but failed. Sicora pre-plastic, Ottens already sliced — a wicked brew that validated non-dyke Linda’s theory straight down the line...
I gave the old woman a buck, grabbed a Watchtower and boogied southside. The radio blared hype on the Watts homicides: the monster dog and his human accomplice. Fortunately for Basko and myself, eyewitnesses’ accounts were dismissed and the deaths were attributed to dope intrigue. I cruised the bad boogaloo streets until I spotted the car that tried to ram me — parked behind a cinderblock dump circled by barbed wire.
I pulled up and jacked a shell into my piece. I heard yips emanating from the back yard, tiptoed around and scoped out the scene.
Pit Bull City: scores of them in pens. A picnic table and Chick Ottens noshing bar-b-q’d chicken with his snazzy new face. I came up behind him; the dogs noticed me and sent out a cacophony of barks. Ottens stood up and wheeled around going for his waistband. I shot off his kneecaps — canine howls covered my gun blasts. Ottens flew backwards and hit the dirt screaming; I poured bar-b-q sauce on his kneeholes and dragged him over to the cage of the baddest looking pit hound of the bunch. The dog snapped at the blood and soul sauce; his teeth tore the pen. I spoke slowly, like I had all the time in the world. “I know you and Sicora got plastic jobs, I know Sol Bendish was Sicora’s daddy and bailed you and Sicko out on the 7-11 job. You had your goons break into Gail Curtiz’s place and the Bendish pad and all this shit relates to you trying to mess with my dog and screw me out of my gravy train. Now I’m beginning to think Wax Waxman set me up. I think you and Sicora have some plan going to get at Bendish’s money, and Wax ties in. You got word that Curtiz was snouting around, so you checked out her crib. I’m a dupe, rights Wax’s patsy? Wrap this up for me or I feed your kneecaps to Godzilla.”
Pit Godzilla snarled an incisor out of the mesh and nipped Ottens where it counts. Ottens screeched; going blue, he got out, “Wax wanted... you... to... look after... dog while him and... Phil... scammed a way to... discredit paternity... claims... I... I...”
Phil.
My old partner — I didn’t know a thing about his life before our partnership.
Phil Turkel was Sicko Sicora, his weird facial scars derived from the plastic surgery that hid his real identity from the world.
“Freeze, suckah.”
I looked up. Three big shines were standing a few yards away, holding Uzis. I opened Godzilla’s cage; Godzilla burst out and went for Chick’s face. Ottens screamed; I tossed the bucket of chicken at the gunmen; shots sprayed the dirt. I ate crabgrass and rolled, rolled, rolled, tripping cage levers, ducking, ducking, ducking. Pit bulls ran helter skelter, then zeroed in: three soul brothers dripping with soul sauce.
The feast wasn’t pretty. I grabbed an Uzi and got out quicksville.
Dusk.
I leadfooted it to Wax’s office, the radio tuned to a classical station — I was hopped up on blood, but found some soothing Mozart to calm me down, and highballed it to Beverly and Alvarado.
Waxman’s office was stone silent; I picked the back door lock, walked in and made straight for the safe behind his playmate calendar — the place where I knew he kept his dope and bribery stash. Left — right-left: an hour of diddling the tumblers and the door creaked open. Four hours of studying memo slips, ledgers and little black book notations and I trusted myself on a reconstruction.
Labyrinthine, but workable:
Private eye reports on Gail Curtiz and Linda Claire Woodruff — the two paternity suit kids Wax considered most likely to contest the Bendish estate. Lists of stooges supplied by Wax contacts in the LAPD: criminal types to be used to file phony claims against the estate, whatever money gleaned to be kicked back to Wax himself. Address book names circled: snuff artists I knew from jail, including the fearsome Angel “Fritz” Trejo. A note from Phil Turkel to Waxman: “Throw Stan a bone — he can babysit the dog until we get the money.” A diagram of the Betty Ford Clinic, followed by an ominous epiphany: Wax was going to have Phil and the real paternity kids clipped. Pages and pages of notes in legalese — levers to get at the extra fifteen million Sol Bendish had stuffed in Swiss bank accounts.
I turned off the lights and raged in the dark; I thought of escaping to a nice deserted island with Basko and some nice girl who wouldn’t judge me for loving a bull terrier more than her. The phone rang — and I nearly jumped out of my hide.
I picked up and faked Wax’s voice. “Waxman here.”
“Ees Angel Fritz. You know your man Phil?”
“Yeah.”
“Ees history. You pay balance now?”
“My office in two hours, homeboy.”
“Ees bonaroo, homes.”
I hung up and called Waxman’s pad; Miller answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Wax, it’s Klein.”
“Oh.”
His voice spelled it out plain: he’d heard about the southside holocaust. “Yeah, ‘Oh.’ Listen, shitbird, here’s the drift. Turkel’s dead, and I took out Angel Trejo. I’m at your office and I’ve been doing some reading. Be here in one hour with a cash settlement.”
Waxman’s teeth chattered; I hung up and did some typing: Stan Klein’s account of the whole Bendish/Waxman/Turkel/Ottens/Trejo scam — a massive criminal conspiracy to bilk the dog I loved. I included everything but mention of myself and left a nice blank space for Wax to sign his name. Then I waited.
Fifty minutes later — a knock. I opened the door and let Wax in. His right hand was twitching and there was a bulge under his jacket. He said, “Hello, Klein,” and twitched harder; I heard a truck rumble by and shot him point blank in the face.
Wax keeled over dead, his right eyeball stuck to his law school diploma. I frisked him, relieved him of his piece and twenty large in cash. I found some papers in his desk, studied his signature and forged his name to his confession. I left him on the floor, walked outside and pulled over to the pay phone across the street.
A taco wagon pulled to the curb; I dropped my quarter, dialed 911 and called in a gunshot tip — anonymous citizen, a quick hangup. Angel Fritz Trejo rang Wax’s doorbell, waited, then let himself in. Seconds dragged; lights went on; two black & whites pulled up and four cops ran inside brandishing hardware. Multiple shots — and four cops walked out unharmed.
So in the end I made twenty grand and got the dog. The L.A. County Grand Jury bought the deposition, attributed my various dead to Ottens/Turkel/Trejo/Waxman et al. — all dead themselves, thus unindictable. A superior court judge invalidated Basko’s twenty-five mill and divided the swag between Gail Curtiz and Linda Claire Woodruff. Gail got the Bendish mansion — rumor has it that she’s turning it into a crashpad for radical lesbian feminists down on their luck. Linda Claire is going out with a famous rock star — androgynous, but more male than female. She admitted, elliptically, that she tried to “hustle” Gail Curtiz — validating her dyke submissiveness as good old American fortune hunting. Lizzie Trent got her teeth fixed, kicked me off probation and into her bed. I got a job selling cars in Glendale — and Basko comes to work with me every day. His steak and caviar diet has been replaced by Gravy Train — and he looks even groovier and healthier. Lizzie digs Basko and lets him sleep with us. We’re talking about combining my twenty grand with her life savings and buying a house, which bodes marriage: my first, her fourth. Lizzie’s a blast: she’s smart, tender, funny and gives great skull. I love her almost as much as I love Basko.