After a long pause, he said, “Anything else, Sergeant Hermann?”
“Yeah,” she said, tossing her cup in a receptacle. “Why’re old farts like me such creatures of habit? Why the hell didn’t I take you to Starbucks? I won fifty bucks in a scratch-off yesterday. I could afford that freaking designer coffee.”
When they were back at Hollywood Station and Nate had returned to the front desk, Sergeant Hermann entered the sergeants’ room, where Sergeant Murillo was writing a report.
She said to him, “Lee, how about we let Nate work third man in a car for the rest of the night rather than vegetating at the desk? Maybe with Flotsam and Jetsam?”
Sergeant Murillo considered it and said, “Very good idea.”
After placing a call for 6-X-32 to come to the station, Sergeant Murillo called Hollywood Nate to the sergeants’ room and conjured a quick story, saying, “Nate, I just got another call from a citizen that the Street Characters are doing some real aggressive panhandling in front of Grauman’s. One of them grabbed a woman by the arm to complain about his tip, and another got in somebody’s face and intimidated them. How about you go up there with Flotsam and Jetsam and walk the boulevard for a few hours? Maybe a show of force will convince Batman, Darth Vader, and the rest to curtail their dark and evil ways.”
The only thing that Sergeant Lee Murillo said to Flotsam and Jetsam privately was “Take Nate with you for a few hours. Help him get his mojo back.”
“How do we do that, boss?” Flotsam asked.
“Be your usual zany selves,” said Sergeant Murillo.
Twenty minutes later, Nate was sitting in the backseat of 6-X-32 when it parked on Orange Drive. The panhandlers, hustlers, and purse picks didn’t like the sight of three cops getting out to stroll among the tourist throngs, so a few of the curb creatures decided to call it a night, pronto.
One of these was Two-Dollar Bill, so named because you know he exists but you seldom run into him. He was a bug-eyed scarecrow Nate’s age who looked older than Sergeant Hermann. His grille was gapped and yellow, his eyes were rheumy, and the rusty tumbleweed frizz growing from his head was sprinkled with psoriasis. Two-Dollar Bill was the kind of tweaker who was better off in jail, and a part of him knew that, because in recent months he was always unconsciously running to, instead of away from, the law. And nowadays he was always ready to allow searches and ready to make admissions from the git-go.
“Oh, shit!” Flotsam said when Two-Dollar Bill practically ran into them.
Since the physical condition of this tweaker made cops automatically glove-up, Flotsam reached into his pocket and drew on a latex glove in case touching was necessary. “Bill,” he said, “somehow I think you ain’t never gonna earn a blood bank T-shirt.”
“Just going home,” Two-Dollar Bill said. “Don’t wanna miss American Idol.”
“It ain’t on, Bill,” Flotsam said. Then to Nate, “Last year we popped Two-Dollar Bill when he had a pay-and-owe sheet stuffed in one sock and thirty-three grams of flake in the other. They kicked Bill outta jail too soon.”
Two-Dollar Bill said, “It wasn’t my flake or my owe sheet. I was holding it for some guy. I don’t know his real name but everybody calls him Planters.”
“Why do they call him Planters?” Flotsam asked.
“Because his body’s shaped like a peanut,” said Two-Dollar Bill.
“I don’t suppose your socks are dope-free tonight, are they, Bill?” Jetsam said, but Flotsam quickly clamped his gloved hand over the tweaker’s mouth to keep him from answering.
“Didn’t you learn anything in court last time, Bill?’ Flotsam said sotto. “Cop a ’tude or something. We got other business tonight.”
Flotsam shot Jetsam a look that said wasting their time by popping Bill again was not gonna help Hollywood Nate.
Jetsam nodded subtly, and when Flotsam took his hand away, Two-Dollar Bill said, “You won’t find nothing in my socks but a few tits-up bedbugs. I can’t keep them outta my socks and underwear. When I got underwear.”
“Home is where the heart is, dude,” Flotsam said, giving Two-Dollar Bill a little shove, sending him scurrying off into the night.
While they continued along the boulevard, Flotsam and Jetsam were as garrulous as usual, talking about getting Nate out to Malibu for evening surfing, but Nate was generally unresponsive, still mulling over the import of what Sergeant Hermann had said to him.
As they approached the Kodak Centre, Flotsam said to him, “Dude, when was the last time you rented a midget to bowl with?”
“I only did it once,” Nate said.
“We been thinking,” Jetsam said. “If we gave you the rental fee, could you get your midget and bring him back to the bowling alley in the Kodak Centre on Wednesday night? We figure he’d attract enough bowling alley Sallys for all of us.”
Nate said, “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“Well, do you have, like, anyone else you could invite?” Jetsam asked.
“Yeah, dude,” said Flotsam. “A man with your hormonal ingenuity oughtta be able to come up with another idea to get them Sallys mega-stoked.”
“Downright stokaboka is how we want them,” Jetsam said to Nate. “Invite anyone but a clown.”
“Dude!” Flotsam yelled it so loud at Jetsam that he startled Nate.
To change the subject, Jetsam quickly said, “Hey, this juicehead is faced.”
A balding tourist with a double chin and cheeks flushed to bubblegum pink was staggering along the Walk of Fame, definitely tanked. The front of his “Hollywoodland” souvenir T-shirt looked like it had been washed in mai tais, and his fly was unzipped, the tail of his tee protruding.
“Whoa there, pard,” Jetsam said, grabbing his elbow as the man tried to lurch past. “How many drinks you had tonight?”
“I’m perf… perf… fectly sober!” the tourist said, reeling.
“Don’t try to okeydoke us, dude,” Flotsam said. “Answer the question.”
“What was the question again?” said the tourist, wattles twitching.
“How many drinks you had tonight?” Jetsam repeated. “The truth bus or the bullshit bus. Which one you taking?”
The tourist hiccupped twice and said, “About fifteen or twenty drinks, maybe. Beers mostly. I been pissing barley and hops all night.”
Flotsam said, “Dude, that answer makes you just about the most honest man in all of L.A., so we’re gonna give you a chance to prove your sobriety. Now pay attention.”
A few minutes later they were in the privacy of the parking lot west of the tourist masses in Grauman’s forecourt, and Hollywood Nate was mystified when Flotsam pulled a balloon from his pocket and blew it up. On his second try, the tourist actually slapped the balloon as it dove past his nose, prompting Flotsam to say, “You got game, dude.”
Ten minutes after that, the tourist was boarding a bus to his hotel in Universal City, having put forth satisfactory effort in a two-out-of-three balloon test to satisfy the forces of law and order that he was a real trouper.
Nate was still chortling when Jetsam said to him, “Hey, bro, let’s see if any of them Main Street Crips or Rolling Sixties are up from south L.A. They’ll be hanging around the subway station dealing crack.”
“We might find a gun,” Flotsam said to Nate. “You down?”