Los Angeles, California 90057
Telephone: (323) 555-1287
(CAR ALARM BEEPS. DOORS OPEN, SLAM SHUT.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: (plastic bag rustling) Better be some Devil’s Lettuce in this motherfucker. I wanna be higher than giraffe balls within the hour.
PRETTY RUDY: I threw a Snickers and Dr. Pepper in there with your phone. Gordo gots the other shit.
JETHRO JOHNNY: We ain’t gonna eat here at Denny’s, right?
PRETTY RUDY: Fuck Denny’s. Gordo says he’s bringing his jefita’s tamales for us.
(CAR STARTS.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Can’t we swing by my chante first? I gotta wash this holding-cell funk off my body. San Leandro Sheriff Substation can suck a dick.
PRETTY RUDY: Gordo says we got to meet him first. Don’t get your thong in a bunch.
(MUSIC ON RADIO.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: I saw you limping. You got some leg disease?
PRETTY RUDY: Nah. Slipped and shattered my (unintelligible) kneecap.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Wrong, homeboy. You got a bad case of dick-do.
PRETTY RUDY: What the fuck is dick-do?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Medical condition. Where your belly sticks out farther than your dick do. (chuckles) You know it wouldn’t hurt to miss a meal, Sancho Panza. Guarantee your knee will thank you.
PRETTY RUDY: I can’t hear you, homeboy, you’re mumbling. Pull your pants down.
(LAUGHTER.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: What the fuck is this contraption?
PRETTY RUDY: I put my iPhone on there like this. Then I can listen to my music.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Oh, check you out. All modern an’ shit.
PRETTY RUDY: Gotta keep up with innovations to survive, qué no?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Right, right. The world is changing fast. No bullshit there.
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah, but the new world don’t always know ’bout the old tricks.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Can’t always see who’s hiding in the cuts.
PRETTY RUDY: Pleased to meet you. Hope you (unintelligible) my name.
(LAUGHTER.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Devil’s one ambushing motherfucker. Gets my sympathy.
PRETTY RUDY: We ain’t puzzled by the nature of his game.
JETHRO JOHNNY: What puzzles me is what the fuck’s up with the world? I get locked up three months and terrorists hit Paris, San Bernardino, and them clown white boys’re holding fed property hostage in Oregon.
PRETTY RUDY: They’re on Facebook asking people to send them care packages of zoo-zoos and wham-whams.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Remember when we would send out SOS’s like that from prison?
PRETTY RUDY: Fuckin’ Donner Party 2.0. Them stupid motherfuckers. People calling them Vanilla ISIS.
JETHRO JOHNNY: (laughs hard)
PRETTY RUDY: No bullshit. Joking that these hillbillies gonna implement Shania law.
JETHRO JOHNNY: (coughing, laughter) Fuck! Funny motherfuckers out here.
PRETTY RUDY: Working with good material.
JETHRO JOHNNY: So why didn’t you get off at Golf Links Road? We’re going to the airport Marriott, right?
PRETTY RUDY: Nah, I said by the airport Marriott. Francesco’s parking lot across from the warehousemen’s hall. And I’m getting off at Keller, gonna get a Quality Doughnut.
(SOUND OF HORNS HONKING.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: That’ll work. This Snickers is good, but it ain’t no chocolate sprinkle doughnut.
(MORE HORNS HONKING.)
PRETTY RUDY: GET THE FUCK OUT THE WAY, STUPID MOTHERFUCKER! Look at this sleazy slope trying to turn left from the right lane.
JETHRO JOHNNY: These Panda NON-Express drivers turning the East Bay into chink-chink Beijing. Makes me miss my cuete.
PRETTY RUDY: YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT, BITCH! BACK THE FUCK UP!
JETHRO JOHNNY: I’d blast some Kung Pow BLAM BLAM right in her mascara. Put her out of YOUR misery.
PRETTY RUDY: Hold on—back to Y’all-Qaeda. Obama says that bullshit is a local law enforcement issue, not FBI?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Clever fucker wants to avoid another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Those white boy cops ain’t gonna do nothing but turn off the water and power, then sit and wait out the winter.
PRETTY RUDY: If I were Obama I’d drop in a planeload of life-sized cutouts of a twelve-year-old black boy with a BB gun—do it so they all land standing up, staring at all them white cops surrounding the joint.
JETHRO JOHNNY: You got a morbid mind.
PRETTY RUDY: Think about it. Get them lazy-ass cops all twitchy-fingered. Think of like a thousand of these motherfucking cutouts of a menacing little armed nigger staring at them.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, the militia would see them too, know they were ’bout to be blasted or even droned! They’d rush out that building hands in the air, be all like, Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Like them Black Lives Matter kids last year. Ironic like shit.
PRETTY RUDY: Think if 150 armed Black Panthers took over an office building in Yosemite the feds would call it a local issue?
JETHRO JOHNNY: I ain’t no friend of the nigger, but them motherfuckers ain’t got no play in this country. Not one fuckin’ drop of play.
(MUSIC . . .)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Remember how we used to go get that seafood pasta at Francesco’s after every hit?
PRETTY RUDY: Thought we were all fancy and shit.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Tradition stuck. When we start that anyway?
PRETTY RUDY: Sailor Boy, I think.
JETHRO JOHNNY: That was when?
PRETTY RUDY: I’d just got out of Folsom the third time. Beetle Bailey OD’d two days later. I needed (unintelligible), so Lil’ Samson recommended you.
JETHRO JOHNNY: ’96?
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah. Day before Christmas.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Fuckin’ Sailor Boy.
PRETTY RUDY: You mean fuck Sailor Boy!
JETHRO JOHNNY: You mean fuck his firme wife.
PRETTY RUDY: Hey, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Virgie Ledesma. Smokin’-fine rack. And you got to rub your shitty little dick between ’em.
PRETTY RUDY: He who smokes a worthless piece of shit gets to dick down his smokin’-hot wife.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Lucky dog.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Sailor Boy didn’t go easy.
PRETTY RUDY: They rarely do. Body wants every last breath.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Dude fought till the end.
PRETTY RUDY: (unintelligible) Gotta respect the life force.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, Burckhalter Elementary. Got my edumacation there. First tongue kiss too.
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah? What was his name? Hey, here’s Quality Doughnuts.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Her name was Marta Muñoz, and you’re buying me a glazed. I’ll stay in the car.
(CAR DOOR SLAMS. CELL PHONE BEEPS.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, so you got that for me? . . . Good. Wait till we’ve been there a minute, then bring the bag. Hide the gun in the bottom. Stay on point. This is the big leagues, youngster . . . Okay, listen, I gotta go. You do this, you earn your bones. (unintelligible) Just make sure you’re there!
(MUSIC . . .)
(CAR DOOR OPENS. BEEPING. DOOR SLAMS.)
PRETTY RUDY: Here’s your doughnut.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, you remember that time you were in Corcoran and I got the green light to take out Boxer?
PRETTY RUDY: Boxer from Varrio Nuevo? Or Boxer from Logan Heights?
JETHRO JOHNNY: You Alzheimer’s motherfucker: Boxer from White Fence!
PRETTY RUDY: Oh yeah. And?
JETHRO JOHNNY: I made that move with my homeboy Silent from Stockton.
PRETTY RUDY: What a fucked-up placaso! Who lets themselves be nicknamed Silent?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Um . . . ya know . . . men with fragile-ass names like Pretty Rudy shouldn’t trip down nickname lane with attitude.
PRETTY RUDY: Pretty Rudy works cuz I’ve got twelve bodies buried around the state, most of ’em in prison cemeteries. But
Silent, c’mon, even you gots to know that’s a jacked name.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Dude was a killer too. The name works for that, right?
PRETTY RUDY: The name don’t inspire fear. (Assumes announcer voice) Hi, my name is Silent and I kill silently . . . like mold.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Why you bustin’ my balls? I didn’t give him that name. His older homegirls probably nicknamed him when he was a chavalo. Couldn’t say no.
PRETTY RUDY: Fucked-up Snow White dwarf nicknames: Dinky, Blinky, Smiley, (unintelligible) Dopey. What next? Nice Eyes? Sensitivo? (Laughs into coughing fit)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Awright, I get it. You didn’t like Silent.
PRETTY RUDY: Hey, is it true his crew didn’t know whether to nickname him Silent or Baby Powder Scent? (Laughing, more coughing)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Can a motherfucker finish a story?
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah, go for it. Dispensa. (Still chuckling)
JETHRO JOHNNY: You got it out of your system, Giggles Gomez?
PRETTY RUDY: Yeah, yeah. Done.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Okay. So like I was saying, after we waste Boxer, you know, I’d already done Francesco’s with you after every hit like four or five times by that point.
PRETTY RUDY: Making someone dead makes me (unintelligible) hungry.
JETHRO JOHNNY: So I want to go to Francesco’s, you know, per usual.
PRETTY RUDY: Right.
JETHRO JOHNNY: So I tell Silent, you know, Francesco’s or bust.
(MUSIC . . .)
PRETTY RUDY: Fuck this song. Don’t even know why it’s on my playlist.
JETHRO JOHNNY: What the fuck? Bowie’s a legend.
PRETTY RUDY: What are you talking about? (Assumes falsetto voice) This is not America. Sha-la-la-la-la. Bowie and Metheny make this song like two clicks away from a Boy George/Kenny G duet.
JETHRO JOHNNY: All your taste is in your mouth. You don’t know nothin’ ’bout classic rock.
PRETTY RUDY: Whatever. Finish the story. After Boxer, you need to go get your grub on. And?
JETHRO JOHNNY: That mutherfucker says, nah, he ain’t interested in seafood pasta. Has his own ritual.
PRETTY RUDY: Wait. It was your hit, right? The Council gave you the order?
JETHRO JOHNNY: That’s what I’m saying. Gordo made that my fucking hit. So Silent’s post-hit ritual can suck a sweaty nut sack as far as I’m concerned.
PRETTY RUDY: That what his ritual was? He wanted to lick your lozenge?
JETHRO JOHNNY: I told you, homeboy, I ain’t gay. And my boyfriend can verify that shit.
(LAUGHTER.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: En serio. Dude tells me he wants to go get a massage, then go dancing.
PRETTY RUDY: A massage massage?
JETHRO JOHNNY: That’s what I ask. You mean like a rub-and-tug massage? No, he says, a legit massage.
PRETTY RUDY: Whaaat?
JETHRO JOHNNY: That chapete had just helped me stab Boxer like forty-five times, and now he’s proposing we go get our Saturday Night Fever on.
PRETTY RUDY: You sure pick ’em, homes. So what’d you do with his sugar-in-the-tank mutherfuckin’ ass?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Dropped dickhead off at his car. But I was (unintelligible). Like I wanted to kill again. I didn’t even want to go to Francesco’s, like he’d fucked up seafood pasta for me.
PRETTY RUDY: I get it. So what’d you do?
JETHRO JOHNNY: I got some In-N-Out. One by Panda Express, other side of the 880.
PRETTY RUDY: Next best thing.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Animal style, like a stylin’ motherfuckin’ animal.
PRETTY RUDY: I fuckin’ love In-N-Out.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I was so fucked up inside. I ate so fast I barely tasted that burger on the way down.
PRETTY RUDY: Almost never the wrong time to throw down a Double-Double.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Thing is, I tasted all of it when I threw it up on some poor slob’s Camaro in the parking lot. Felt like that motherfucker’s softness jinxed the pleasure of murder for me.
PRETTY RUDY: Wait . . . So you . . . ? Nah . . . you didn’t . . . ?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, I did.
PRETTY RUDY: En serio?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Gospel truth!
PRETTY RUDY: Same night?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Right there in San Leandro, not far from the sheriff’s substation where you just picked me up. In an alley behind where he got his massage. Waited by his car.
PRETTY RUDY: Did what you had to do.
JETHRO JOHNNY: He kept asking me, Why, why, why? I didn’t say nothing. He didn’t have that coming.
PRETTY RUDY: Sometimes you never see it coming. Never get to know why your ticket got punched.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Tell you what—Silent didn’t go silent into that night. That motherfucker shitted himself, ass loud like a cracked diesel engine.
PRETTY RUDY: (laughing, then choking) You’re a sick fuck, homeboy. Practically choked on my gum.
(MUSIC . . .)
PRETTY RUDY: Hold on, I gotta stop here and buy some shit. You need anything?
(ENGINE STOPS. MUSIC STOPS.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: You going to the CVS? Couldn’t wait to go to Trader Joe’s in your hood?
PRETTY RUDY: What? You writing a book? Leave my chapter out. Better yet, let me fuck you in the ass and make it a love story.
JETHRO JOHNNY: (chuckles) I mean, you can’t wait? You gotta stop off right here, at the shitty Eastmont Mall CVS, right next to the police station, to buy your tampons and some almond milk?
PRETTY RUDY: So what if I’m lactose intolerant and I wear a tampon to staunch the occasional flow? That don’t make me a bad guy, right?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Staunch the flow. You motherfucker. (chuckles) Nah, it don’t make you a bad guy. In fact, it don’t make you a guy at all.
(BOTH LAUGH. CAR DOOR OPENS. BEEPING.)
PRETTY RUDY: So nothin’?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, get me a toothbrush, medium. And some condoms, jumbo girth. Battleship-gray if they got color options.
PRETTY RUDY: No fuckin’ hope for humanity.
(CAR DOOR SLAMS. CELL PHONE BEEPS.)
JETHRO JOHNNY: Hey, babydoll, it’s me. Ready to ride the high hard one? . . . I’ma tear that pussy up . . . Gotta take care of some bullshit first, but I’ll bring dinner, okay? . . . Yeah, I’ll see you soon . . . Go play with that pussy, get it ready for Big-Dick Daddy from Cincinnati, okay, sweetheart? . . . Okay, see you soon.
(CAR DOOR OPENS. BEEPING.)
PRETTY RUDY: Here, I got you baby powder–scented rubbers.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, so, uh, go ahead and rub ’em in your chest.
(BOTH LAUGH. CAR ENGINE STARTS.)
PRETTY RUDY: So Gordo called and said his meeting’s going late. Says just wait for him in the Francesco’s parking lot.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Still don’t know why it’s so urgent.
PRETTY RUDY: Just to debrief, you know. That was a big move you made in there. Big shit could go down if that ain’t handled right.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I’ve been locked up for three months. Fighting my case while living with a bunch of hygiene-hating motherfuckers. I just wanna be knee deep in my girl’s pussy for like three minutes, bust a heavy nut.
PRETTY RUDY: Whoa! You got a broad?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, I got someone to sometimes knock the dust off. But you got me fuckin’ bumpin’ gums with you and Gordo instead.
PRETTY RUDY: Hey, if it’ll make you feel any better, I promise I’ll take you for a massage and dancing afterward.
(BOTH LAUGH HARD.)
PRETTY RUDY: For fuck’s sake, chill out. Everything’s cool.
(MUSIC . . .)
JETHRO JOHNNY: I met this crazy white boy inside, from Emeryville. Richie Rich strung out on dope. This fish was a trip. Smart youngster. ’Cept he thought he could beat me at chess.
PRETTY RUDY: So wasn’t too smart already.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah, blanquitos from Emeryville come into County with all their Ruy Lopez and King’s Ind
ian openings, acting like they the only ones ever memorized Bobby Fischer–Boris Spassky matches.
PRETTY RUDY: Underestimating your opponent’s intelligence in battle’s the fastest way to end up with a dry fist in your ass.
JETHRO JOHNNY: I did what I do. Lay in the cut. Play possum. Act more interested in the titty mag on the bunk. Then I dropped the hammer. Took his milk money.
PRETTY RUDY: Best moment! See the face when they’re like, Oh fuck, there’s more treacherous animals in the jungle.
JETHRO JOHNNY: They wanna sup with the Devil, but they never bring a long enough spoon.
PRETTY RUDY: So that’s it? You sharked a youngster at chess? That ain’t impressive.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Nah, after I showed him how his chess skills sucked, I listened to him talk about crime and shit and realized this kid was like some evil genius. Just budding, barely beginning his career. Coming at it all sideways, but clever.
PRETTY RUDY: Huh, now you got me all up in suspense an’ shit.
JETHRO JOHNNY: (unintelligible)
PRETTY RUDY: What’s up?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Man, all of a sudden I got this itch in my boot.
PRETTY RUDY: Scratch that motherfucker!
JETHRO JOHNNY: What do you think I’m trying to do, homes?
PRETTY RUDY: It’s Silent, homeboy. In heaven. Holding a voodoo doll of your likeness in one hand and a needle in the other. Stabbing the fuck outta your ankle.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Ahhh! Better. (unintelligible) OH! And that fucker ain’t in heaven. Best believe that!
(MUSIC . . .)
PRETTY RUDY: So, you were saying about this evil genius?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Yeah. Kid asked weird questions, like if I started all over again in crime, what would I do different?
PRETTY RUDY: Easy call for me: no heroin. Probably no tattoos either, gives too much away.
JETHRO JOHNNY: Kid had this game he called Ten Bullets. You get ten bullets to start. One bullet to assassinate a national figure. So you got to figure out, what ten murdered Americans would fuck up the country the most?
PRETTY RUDY: You mean how Martin Luther King’s assassination torched the country, all them riots? Fucked it up that way?
JETHRO JOHNNY: Exactly. What ten people wasted by a bullet would kick off big-time damage to society? Like that.
PRETTY RUDY: Does it have to be racial shit? Or any kind of retaliation shit? Like that NRA dude, LaPierre. Shoot him and plentya people gonna get shot.
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