Blood & Tacos #2

by Ray Banks

  JUDGE HAYMAKER – Tired of liberal do-gooder lawyers and seeing guilty men walk, former judge William Haymaker turns his back on the law and fights for justice. God help the criminal who feels the wooden sting of Judge Haymaker’s gavel. Lest Ye Be Judged; The Court of Hard Knocks; All Rise, All Die.

  KNOCKERS O’MALLEY: LADY COP (written as Lizzy C. Stanton) – Walking a beat in the toughest neighborhood of Chicago, Bernadette "Knockers" O’Malley is just as adept with her revolver as she is with her lipstick. "The hard-nosed, tough-as-nails cop who also has enormous tits!" Busted, Booby Traps, The Cantaloupe Caper.

  THE LAST OF THE MONSTERNAUTS – Damon Valescu is the last of his kind—a now-dead breed of men that ride monsters and secretly protect the Earth at the gates of the Tri-Dimensional Rift. Riding his faithful monster steed Cthloggoth, Damon will be tested by the horrors of the Plagueworld army. The Tentacled Terror of Taojoka, The Horned Horror of Heklaba, The Anal-Scent-Glanded Abomination of Aviozca.

  THE MEXICUTIONER (becomes CHINGÓN: THE WORLD’S DEADLIEST MEXICAN) – With his bullwhip Marta and a bandolier full of grenades, Chingón makes his own rules in a world where rules were meant to be exploded. Oaxacalypse, Blood and Tacos, Chihuahua Brouhaha.

  NUNCHAKU WARRIOR (written as Wang Fang) – subtitled "The Oriental Tornado," this series features the adventures of Ch’ing Ki’an and his efforts to protect his extended family from the seemingly endless gangs that riddle the streets of Hong Kong. The Two Sticks and Connecting Chain of Death, Shrimp Fried Murder, Confucius Say Die.

  OPERATION: KILLZONE – Mercenary Brand Macklin has traveled the world’s worst hotspots killing those that hate democracy. Now, tired of all the bloodshed, he has retired to the island nation of Bimbatu. Unfortunately, his past won’t let him retire, and neither will the bullets and mortar fire of his enemies. Kill Blood, Dead Kill, Blood Dead.

  PILE DRIVER – Zeke Heffernan tours the wasteland of the post-apocalyptic Desert Southwest (now known as "The Zone") in his tricked-out dump truck looking for survivors and keeping the banditos of the Raza Uprising at bay. Phoenix Descending; Highway to Purgatory; Break Her, Break Her.

  THE QUARTERBACK – On Sundays and occasional Mondays, Marl Brock stands behind center, throwing touchdowns for the Iron City Mastodons. But the rest of the time, he’s on the street fighting a one-man war against the Mob and meting out his own brand of vigilante justice. Roughing the Passer, The Hail Mary Killer, The Night of the Male Cheerleader.

  RAPIER – Killer of men and an all-around ladykiller, "The Private Privateer" pirates his way throughout the seven seas, leaving men scarred and women satisfied in his search for treasure of both the gold and sensual kind. The Tight Fit of Her Scabbard; Mansword of the Swordsman; Rapier, Rapiest.

  THE SNIPER DOSSIER – Otis Gangley spent his childhood hunting varmint in the Badlands of Oklahoma. Killing and a dead aim are in his blood. But now that he is a proud member of the US Marines, he no longer hunts game, he hunts man. Which is in its own way a game—a game of death. Death at 700 Yards, Death at 800 Yards, Death at 900 Yards.

  TANK HOWITZER – After a freak accident almost kills ex-astronaut Tank Howitzer, he is rebuilt with a mechanical body on treads and a transistor for a brain. Outfitted with an array of deadly explosive devices that shoot from his fingers and eyes, he rolls from town to town wherever he is needed. Assignment: Helsinki, Assignment: Perth, Assignment: Wisconsin.

  ULTRAGEDDON – World War V has decimated the world. A ragtag group of survivors tries to rebuild a society in the remnants of Cuyahoga Falls, forced to repel roving gangs of Mutantneers and the constant attacks of the Infected. The End Is the Beginning, The Beginning Is the Middle, Rowdy Dangle for President.

  VISIGOTH CHRONICLES – The barbarian army of the Visigoths tears a swath of violence through Europe. Punished by the gods for their deeds, the predators become the prey when the Visigoths are haunted by the ghosts of the men they killed and the women they raped, who presumably died afterward. Soon, it is an all-out war with an army of the undead. Death Spirits of the Ostrogoths, Blood Ghosts of Gaul, Corpse Centurions of Colonia.

  W.E.R.E.W.O.L.F. SQUADRON – What does W.E.R.E.W.O.L.F. stand for? Werewolf Elite Recon Extrahuman Weapons of Lycanthropic Force. Need I say more? Hell, no. Never Cry Monster, The Moon and Six Deaths, V.A.M.P.I.R.E. Strikes Back.

  X-PATRIOT – Mack Flagg isn’t going to let something as ordinary as death stop him from fighting for the United States of America. Brought back to life through a Native American ritual, Flagg gets a second chance. With his bald eagle spirit guide, he battles the decay of both his body and Western civilization. Love It or Leave It, The Eaglewind Cycle, Marine Corpse.

  YO-YO ASSASSIN – Written as promotional paperbacks for the Duncan Toys Company (although the shockingly brutal violence doomed the series). Duncan Carrington lived the life of leisure, yachts, and wealth. But when his family is murdered by an international terrorist organization, he uses his money and his only skill to exact revenge one trick at a time. Walking the Death Dog, The Big Sleeper, The Yo-Yo Assassin Meets Tommy Smothers.

  ZANE – Cast out by his brethren in The Council of Nine, rogue wizard Zane must find his way by working as a celebrity bodyguard in the hustle and bustle of Hollywood. With only his magic gun and magic bullets to protect him, can he survive not just his fans, but his clients? Which Witch?; Abra Cadaver; Presto, Slay-O.

  **Considering that Mr. Godfrey was drunk and getting drunker in the back booth of a bar called The Spittoon in Stockton, California, I am positive that he did have time to dick around with my bullshit. He was just being an asshole.

  Along with his role as editor of Blood & Tacos, Johnny Shaw is a screenwriter, playwright, and the author of the novel Dove Season: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco. For the last dozen years, Johnny has taught writing, lecturing at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.

  SUNSHINE, STRIPPER ASSASSIN: The G-String Gundown

  By Walter Himes

  (discovered by Josh Stallings)

  Walter Himes spent most of his all-too-brief life in San Quentin for shooting a white man seven times in the face. Besides the seventeen Stripper Assassin tales he put out from behind bars, he also wrote Black Is Black, a manifesto that provoked the prison riots of 1979. That same year, he was found dead in his cell. The official coroner’s report states this was death by suicide, but many still believe a guard killed him over a $30 gambling debt. JOSH STALLINGS discovered this story from 1974 while cleaning out his grandfather’s gun safe.

  "Hey boss, somebody sent you a strip-a-gram."

  "Send her in."

  Sunshine O’Shay trembled as she walked across the marble floor. She never thought she’d be in an honest-to-god mansion and yet here she was. Dressed like a sexy cop, showing as much cleavage as tape and a push-up bra could generate. Over her shoulder she carried a garment bag.

  She entered a den that was larger than her entire home. A fat man in his mid-thirties sat in a club chair in the middle of the room. He had on a shiny gold velour track suit. He looked Sunshine up and down twice, slowly examining every inch of her coffee and cream skin. "They sent me a negress. Now that’s a spicy meatball."

  "You ready for this?" She was eighteen and fighting to sound so much older. "I hear you been a very bad, bad boy."

  "Oh yeah, I been bad, officer. Ha, take me in." He put his wrists out, practically drooling at the thought of what was coming. Pauly stood at the door smirking. Jimmy didn’t need to tell him twice to get the hell out, guard the door in case Gina got home early. Now that would be a massacre. The closing door covered up the sound of the cuffs snapping home.

  "Damn girl, that pinches. What are those, real cuffs?"

  "Sorry baby." She leaned down, kissing his wrist and giving him a look down her top at her breasts.

  "Mmmm, they little, bitty things, but I still love to suck on those dark cherries. I hear the darker the berry …" That was the last thing he ever said. The blast from the twelve-gauge took his fa
ce off. He didn’t scream. His wide eyes showed life, but how does one scream when he is missing his lower jaw and most of his throat?

  Pauly burst in, gun in hand. He saw his boss fighting for life and a dead stripper at his feet. What the fuck had happened?

  Pauly ran to his boss hoping for some whispered information or instruction. As he stepped over the dead stripper, Jimmy’s eyes went huge. He was gurgling, fighting to warn Pauly of something. From the floor the shotgun fired between Pauly’s spread legs. The blow lifted him into the air and dropped him five feet back, blood pouring from his groin.

  The bloody stripper stood over Pauly. "Yo cracker, you got any idea why I’m here?"

  "No, none, I swear."

  Wrong answer. Flame and smoke engulfed Pauly’s head. When it cleared he was nothing but a stain on the carpet.

  Sunshine walked to the boss. She pushed his ruined face with the shotgun barrel. "You, I bet you know why I’m here. Huh, smart man? Too bad you can’t tell me." The shotgun rocked and Jimmy became a smear.

  Sunshine dropped her blood-splattered cop’s costume. Dropped her bra and g-string. Crossed to the bathroom, where she took a hot shower. She soaped and removed the gore. She even washed the shotgun. She had hoped she would feel better afterwards, what she felt was numb. Clean, she slipped into the starched white maid’s uniform she had carried protected in the garment bag.

  Careful to leave by the back door, Sunshine became invisible on the sidewalk. Just another brown-skinned maid heading home. Beverly Hills was full of them. Climbing onto the crosstown bus, she dropped in a dime and took her seat. She’d be back in Compton before they even found the bodies. Maybe she would feel better after the next on her list.

  Caesar Cavasos was a big, bald Mexican. He ran Pussycats striptease club in East LA. He also ran the cribs behind it where a man could get his sexual needs serviced for a small price. He was known as an evil man. Now he was a dead man. Crabs crawled in what was left of his skull.

  Detective John Stark stood on Santa Monica Beach, looking down at the corpse. "What are you doing so far from East LA, Caesar?"

  "Hope you aren’t waiting for him to answer." Leroy Jones was Stark’s partner. Salt and Pepper, the other cops called them, but only behind their backs.

  Stark tossed the waterlogged wallet to his partner. Jones let out a slow whistle. "Well, well, looks like Caesar’s having a bad day."

  "Any idea who wanted him dead?"

  "Shoot, Stark, might as well round up all of East LA. Truth, can’t think of many who wanted him alive."

  "What’s in his hand?" Stark knelt down. The dead man’s hand was frozen into a fist. A tuft of glitter shone through his fingers. With a pen he pulled the fingers open . Lifting a round half dollar–sized strip of lamé, a red tassel was attached at the center. He held it up to Jones. "Now all we need to do is find a stripper missing one pasty."

  "Case closed."

  "What’s up, little soul sister?" Ronnie leaned on his Chevy Bomb by the front door of Pussycats. James Brown’s "The Payback" thumped through the wall. Ronnie bopped his head to the beat. He was cholo cool, khakis and a wife beater, Pendleton top button closed.

  "Boss in? I needs to speak to him?" Sunshine wore Chuck Taylors, a pair of hip huggers, and a crop top that showed a healthy amount of skin.

  "Ain’t you heard? Found his dead ass in Santa Monica Bay."

  "What?"

  Ronnie tilted his head toward an unmarked police car. "The man’s inside asking questions. Better skip out if you done it." He kept a straight face for a moment then burst out laughing.

  "What? You don’t think I could’ve done it?"

  "Chica, you couldn’t kill a rat with a scattergun." He was still laughing to himself as Sunshine entered the club.

  The two detectives had taken up residence in Caesar’s office. Stark was openly enjoying the line of dancers that paraded in to speak to them.

  "Damn waste of time, for all the information we’s getting." Jones wanted to get rolling, slap around a few stoolies, get to the bottom line. It wasn’t a dancer done this; women poison or stab. They don’t shotgun off a man’s face.

  "Only one left, okay with you?"

  "Just get to it."

  Stark almost spit out his coffee when Sunshine came in. She was that good looking. He eyed his notes and motioned for her to sit, not sure he could speak without stumbling over the words. "Sunshine O’Shay, is that right?"

  "Yes sir, that is my name." She focused all her charm at Stark. He was handsome, in cop kind of way, with his long sideburns and thick mustache.

  "Call me John."

  "Okay, John. You all have any idea who done this?"

  "Not yet, but we’ll find the perp, trust me. We always get our man."

  "What are you, a couple of Mounties? You Dudley Do-Right?"

  Stark was suddenly embarrassed. He searched his notebook like some answer was deep in there. Jones asked if she knew anybody that wanted Otis dead. Her laugh told him what he already knew. The list of folks who wanted the whoremaster dead was long and wide.

  "That’ll just about do it." Stark finished writing her address in his notebook. "If you think of anything else, you give me a call." He passed her his card. She leaned over the desk and with her eyes locked on his, she took the pen from his hand and wrote on his notebook.

  "That’s my number. You bored Saturday night, say eight, call me. I might be hungry for dinner." As she walked out, she swung her hips just enough to keep his eyes on her.

  "What the hell was that?"

  "That, Detective Jones, was the famous Stark charm."

  "Don’t smell right."

  "Jealous?"

  "Not in this life, white boy."

  Driving back to the LAPD Homicide office, both detectives were thinking about Sunshine, for very different reasons.

  King Charles and Ray-Ray sat in King’s office behind the Watts Head Cutter’s barbershop. Guns, drugs, women, King ran the black side of the ghetto. No one so much as got their hair conked without his knowing about it.

  "Jimmy G’s dead. Took a gauge to the head."

  "No real loss there, King, right?"

  "Took out Caesar, same way. The Italian mother-rapers didn’t sanction any hits. I didn’t. So who the hell did it?"

  "Could be Jimmy G pissed off some husband? Caesar, that spick been just begging to die for a time now."

  "Ray-Ray?"

  "Yeah, King?"

  "Find out who the hell is killing folks without my say-so."

  "It is done."

  "Good." After Ray-Ray was gone, King sat back, put his feet up on his desk. He struck a kitchen match and fired up a robusto. Jimmy G, Caesar and he had all come up together. They were the young lions of crime. Hell, they brought about the treaty between the Mexicans, blacks and Italians. They carved up the city and got rich in the process. They all played high school football at Franklin. Senior prom, they all were there. It was when they came together. In many ways, that was the beginning of their triumphant rule.

  1955, Compton. Kendra looked in the mirror and liked what she saw. The pink taffeta prom dress was filled out in all the right places. Sure, she wished she had some more breasts, but what she had looked good. She heard the knock at the door. She knew it was Otis, but she hung back. She’d let him sit with her father for a few minutes, let the old man scare him. As long as Otis behaved and didn’t get Pop’s Irish up, he’d fare okay.

  "You look more beautiful than Dorothy Dandridge." Otis was driving his Ford.

  "I don’t, and keep your eyes on the road."

  Dressed in his father’s suit, he was so handsome, it was as if she had never seen him before. He wasn’t big, or strong, he didn’t play ball, but something about his glasses and shy smile on this night was making her feel different in a very good way.

  1973, Los Angeles, Homicide Department. Jones hefted a stack of files. "Somewhere in all this mess is an answer."

  "Why can’t it be a coincidence?" Stark pulled up
his tie.

  "I don’t believe in coincidences. Two dirtbags get their heads cleaned with a gauge, two days apart? No, they connected, just can’t see how yet."

  "You need me to stick around?"

  "Nah, you gots a date with a dancer. Go on. I’m waiting for a call from Smitty in the gang unit."

  "Alright, I’ll get with her twice, once just for you Jones."

  "Just check her ID first, hate to have to haul you in for staggi."

  "She’s over eighteen."

  "Maybe just."

  "She dances at Pussycats."

  "Oh yeah, that’s right, they never ever had an underage stripper."

  "Screw you. You’re just bustin’ balls because she went for me." Stark was sure Jones was wrong. Damn, she had to be eighteen. He took his ’67 Firebird, six years old, but still badass. If this didn’t get her panties wet, she was frigid.

  Across town Sunshine was slipping into a white go-go dress. She had showered and put on a wig, long and straight, just the way white men liked. She finished her make-up and did a twirl in front of her mother’s bed.

  "Baby girl, you look amazing. Your daddy be so proud of you."

  "You sure about that, Momma?" Sunshine held a water glass with a straw to her mother’s lips. Her mother was quadriplegic, she had been for Sunshine’s entire life.

  "Look at you, darlin’, you are amazing. Yes, he would be proud."

  "Do you think he’s watching us?"

  "Every moment."

  Sunshine kissed her mother and went to wait in the living room. She watched the phone. Begging it to ring. Finally, at a quarter to eight it rang. She had it her hands on the second ring. On a pad she wrote down an address on West Century Blvd. near Inglewood. She, hung up, and hoped her father looked away sometimes.

  Stark glided the Firebird to a stop. He splashed on liberal amounts of English Leather. Lifting his lip, he checked his teeth, smoothed his mustache, and was ready. The house was a GI home built for returning soldiers after WWII. The lawn was longer than the neighbors. For a flash Stark saw himself pushing a mower and Sunshine handing him an icy tea. Shook his head and cleared the thought. Love them, leave them, move on. Sunshine opened the door and his resolve was gone. When she took his hand, she could have led him anywhere.