"Our posse's got lots of pain tools and we jump ugly," Nate said. "So chill and think it over."
Rolf Thunder's massive jaw muscles flexed and he looked at Hollywood Nate and said, "Up at Corcoran the screws called me `Bio-hazard' because everyone I choked out shit his pants."
Jetsam said sotto to Flotsam, "Bro, there's some very bad juju here."
Flotsam said sotto, "This dude's more dangerous than a Toyota floor mat."
"Get your savage on, bro," Jetsam said.
Della Ravelle whispered to Britney Small, "If this turns into a melee, don't try to be a man. Stand back with your Taser and your baton and pick your shots. And don't be shy about calling for help if we need it."
Britney's blue eyes were wide when she nodded at her partner and waited, pepper spray in one hand, baton in the other.
Back in the sitting room, Snuffy Salcedo said, "How about you just get outta that chair now."
"Sure, homie," Rolf Thunder said, standing up so fast that both cops took a step backward. He was still wearing the penis pump on his drooping member.
And he was even bigger than Snuffy Salcedo had thought. He was tall enough to look down at Flotsam, and Snuffy's estimate of 280 pounds was way off. They all figured he weighed three bills if he weighed an ounce.
"Take that thing off," Snuffy Salcedo said, pointing to the penis pump.
"You take it off, sweetie," he said to Snuffy with a wolfish grin. "But then you'll have to marry me."
Hollywood Nate said, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."
The behemoth drilled Nate with death-ray eyes and said, "Why don't I put them behind your back, cupcake?" Without another word he lunged forward, roaring, and grabbed Hollywood Nate in a bear hug and began crushing him.
Flotsam, Jetsam, and Snuffy Salcedo swarmed Rolf Thunder. Jetsam tried pepper spray and got the side of Rolf Thunder's face as well as his partner's. Flotsam bellowed from the burn but the giant didn't flinch, and he released Hollywood Nate, only to start throwing wild punches that mostly missed their target. But even blows that hit them on the chest or back were stunningly painful and knocked the wind out of them. He managed to break free and run into the hallway, crashing into Britney Small and sending her sprawling. When he reached the living room, he made his stand.
Mrs. Goth let out the most chilling scream that had ever emanated from a house that featured recorded screams and other spooky special effects. She ran outside, where neighbors had begun to gather. And all the time the recorded organ played a funeral dirge.
Britney Small leaped to her feet and ran into the living room after Rolf Thunder, but Della Ravelle grabbed her by the back of her Sam Browne belt and said, "Don't jump into that. Stand back and pick your shots!"
And since female officers did not have to struggle with machismo, Della felt no compunction about putting out a code 3 call on her rover, which she knew would bring units from everywhere, and fast.
The four male cops charged into the great room in a bunch and hit Rolf Thunder high and low. Flotsam received a punch on the side of the head and it knocked him off his feet and set his ears to ringing. Jetsam dug two baton thrusts into the big man's belly, but it didn't faze him. Hollywood Nate smacked him on the elbow with his baton, but the giant only backed up a couple of steps and waited, hands hanging low at his sides and grinning.
Snuffy Salcedo drew his Taser and said, "Back away from him!"
When the other cops backed off, Snuffy Salcedo fired the Taser into the big man's chest from five feet away. The blue thread of light snapped and Rolf Thunder stood straight up and grimaced from the 50,000 volts.
But then to the horror of all present, he pulled the dart out and said, "You jist opened yourself a can of whup-ass, homie."
He charged Snuffy Salcedo and Hollywood Nate both, taking one of them in each arm and driving them into the wall, and that stopped the organ music. Flotsam jumped onto the back of the giant and tried to get a choke hold, which vocal police critics considered to be de facto excessive force in almost all cases. But Rolf Thunder was stronger than Flotsam and pried his grip loose and swung a roundhouse that caught Snuffy Salcedo between the eyes, shattering the bridge of his nose.
Rolf Thunder scrambled to keep his feet before he was driven into the nearest coffin by Jetsam, who hit him low with his shoulder. When the giant went down, Della Ravelle whacked him across the knees with her baton and Britney Small shot him with another Taser dart but with the same effect. He stiffened, grimaced, and pulled out the dart.
When Snuffy Salcedo stood up with blood pouring into his mouth, he hit the giant across the forehead with his baton, knocking him backward against the second coffin, which dumped the mannequin onto the floor, where its mechanism was triggered. It kept popping up in a sitting position over and over like a lunatic cheerleader enjoying the macabre violence.
Rolf Thunder got up and ran at Flotsam, and the two tall men crashed into the antique embalming table, spilling all of the paraphernalia onto the floor. Then Jetsam was on Rolf Thunder's back, trying for another choke hold, but he was spun around and hurled into another coffin, where a second mannequin was ejected. It fell across Flotsam and they lay together like lovers for an instant until the surfer cop pushed it off and scrambled to his feet.
At that point, Hollywood Nate kicked Rolf Thunder in the groin, and that doubled him over for a moment, giving Jetsam and Snuffy Salcedo time to begin whacking him anywhere and everywhere with their batons, including a few head strikes that sounded like rifle shots. Britney Small stepped in close and gave him a good dose of pepper spray, which missed the other cops this time and entered the mouth of the giant.
The pepper spray got him coughing but he still got to his feet somehow. That gave Jetsam the chance to drive the end of his baton into the big man's groin, the only place where he seemed vulnerable, and Rolf Thunder dropped to his knees, clutching at his throat and at his groin. And when he was in that position, Snuffy Salcedo, his face a blood mask, played catch-up and smashed Rolf Thunder across the face with his aluminum baton, doing more damage to the giant's nose than his own had suffered.
At last, Rolf Thunder tumbled to the floor on his back, concussed but still not completely unconscious. He writhed and struggled to breathe and pulled his legs up to protect his groin. Both surfer cops jumped on him and with the help of Snuffy Salcedo got his hands twisted behind him. They feared for a moment that the handcuffs would not fit around those enormous wrists, but after a struggle they managed to get the first few ratchets to grip and hold.
Breathing hard, Flotsam said to him, "They'll stretch with wear, dude."
Della Ravelle made another call on her rover to request two rescue ambulances, one for their prisoner and one for Snuffy Salcedo, who was sitting on an overturned coffin, trying to stanch the blood from his nose. The creepy mannequin kept popping up and looking at Snuffy until he hauled off and smacked it with his baton, knocking its head clear off.
Everyone else was sitting or standing, wheezing and chuffing and panting, and Rolf Thunder lay still for a moment and then croaked out some words. He said, "Wasn't that fun?"
Snuffy wiped his bloody face on his uniform sleeve and said breathlessly, "Yeah, you masochist freak, that was tons of fun. I only wish I could put a few forty-caliber rounds in your belly to show you a real good time."
"Yo, homie," Rolf Thunder said, his own face a mask of blood from shattered bone and dislodged teeth, "can't you handle a little sound and fury?"
"Go outside and wait for the RA, Snuffy," Hollywood Nate said. "We'll deal with Sasquatch. When he gets to County USC, he's gonna need a needle and lotsa thread."
His partner nodded, got up painfully, and shuffled to the open door, where he could hear the sirens on their way. Black-and-whites responding to Della's help call were screeching to a stop on the street in front, and a wall of bluesuits came running toward Goth House.
Inside the living room, Hollywood Nate pointed to the penis pump, held in place by a constri
ction band, and said, "We should get that thing off him."
"Not me, dude," Flotsam said. "That's way beyond my pay grade."
"Ditto," said Jetsam.
Flotsam said to Della Ravelle, "Would you mind taking that thing off him, Della?"
"Do it yourself," she said.
"I never touched another guy's junk before," Flotsam said. "You've touched your own often enough," she said.
"That's different," Flotsam said. "Mine belongs to me. I even got a pet name for it."
"Don't look at me," Jetsam said. "I ain't touching it. Come on, Della, you probably touched lots of them in your time."
"Go screw yourself, surf rat!" Della said.
"No, wait," Jetsam said. "I'm just saying, like, a woman of your ... maturity, like, probably in her lifetime ..."
"Aw, shit," Della said, and went over to Rolf Thunder, who was lying handcuffed in a fetal pose and going in and out of consciousness now. She knelt and loosened the constricting band and removed the penis pump and tossed it at Jetsam, saying, "Here, would you like to book this as evidence?"
The surfer cop leaped aside like the thing was radioactive as the penis pump flew past him.
Snuffy Salcedo was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where an ER doctor said that his nose would probably be "almost like new after surgery." He was told he'd be kept overnight for observation and surgery in the morning.
When 6-X-46 was alone in the women's locker room at Hollywood Station, Della Ravelle helped Britney Small apply an ice pack to her right eye where she'd been slammed by Rolf Thunder's elbow as he'd bolted into the coffin room to make his stand.
"Keep the ice on it till the second-guessers get here," Della said. "You've got a mouse growing already and it's turning purple."
"I'm in better shape than any of the guys," Britney said, touching the swelling gingerly.
"This has been a learning experience for you, girlfriend," Della said. "You see how male coppers are? They pride themselves on never putting out an officers-need-help call. Their machismo prevents even an assistance call. There's just a whole lot of cowboy in them. If I'd been running that show, I would've backed off in the beginning and at least put out the code-two call the second Mr. Frankenstein made it clear he was gonna go the hard way. But with six of us there, no guy gunslinger would ever humble himself to do that. Well, girl, now you've seen some real whup-ass. And now you see that all the grappling holds and everything else you learned at the academy are worth shit out here in the real world when you come up against a walking reign of terror. I know you're brave, but what good would bantamweight Britney Small have done in the midst of half a ton of raging beef crashing around that room? If you ever face something like that by yourself, just remember that you carry a forty-caliber Glock, and if your back's to the wall, do not hesitate to pull and kill the bastard before he kills you. Don't think about whether you're justified by policy or by law. Remember the old copper saying: It's a whole lot better to be judged by twelve than carried by six."
Because of the kind of violence inflicted, which could have included choke holds, baton strikes, and kicks, Force Investigation Division had been immediately called out to determine if all action was in policy. The five ambulatory cops spent the rest of the night being interviewed at Hollywood Station, where they tediously had to deconstruct the battle and justify each move they made.
What they all wanted to say to FID was "When it comes to subduing a monster with no pain receptors, the Marquis of Queens-berry's just some tranny on Santa Monica Boulevard. So stop fucking with me!"
Rolf Thunder, whose true name was Filmore McClain, was transported to the jail ward on the thirteenth floor at USCMC, the old county hospital, and later told investigators that it had all been worth it and he had no complaints. The institutionalized man said that he'd enjoyed his vacation in the free world for a while but that it had gotten too stressful. He said he had been trying to find a fun way to violate his parole and go back to prison, which was the only place he'd ever been really happy. It was where he could be taken care of and kick back and never hae to make decisions and experience life the way he'd always known it since he was fifteen years old. Prison was security. Prison was home.
The only positive note that the male cops took from the event at Goth House was that after the battle they all got a good look at the penis of the giant when he was strapped onto the gurney by paramedics.
Della Ravelle noticed their satisfaction and later said to Britney Small, "Did you see the smug little smiles on the surfer cops and Hollywood Nate when Jumbo was on the gurney? What they'll remember most about the war at Goth House is that their little willies are just as big as Goliath's. They might even stop using male-enhancement products."
Chapter Seventeen.
RALEIGH'S SLEEP WAS fitful and fraught with strange dreams that he could not interpret. He awakened every hour or so until he gave up and rose at 5:30 A. M. He watched TV with his breakfast but couldn't eat much. Then he took Marty Brueger's breakfast on a tray to the cottage, but he found the old man still sleeping. He left the tray and walked back to the main house and tried to read the L. A. Times, but he could not concentrate.
His thoughts kept returning to the months he'd spent in federal prison, where he'd met several inmates who had served very hard time in state penitentiaries. One of them told Raleigh that comparing Club Fed to state prison was like comparing hemorrhoids to colon cancer, and the inmate was a man who had suffered both.
There was still time, Raleigh thought. He could pick up the phone and call Nigel Wickland, using both his given name and surname just to piss him off, and cancel the whole thing. After all, his life in the Brueger house was pretty good, and he'd never been a greedy man. Why should he risk arrest and trial and a sentence at one of the nightmare factories run by the state of California, where each hour of each terrible day his life would be put at risk? This was madness, this fantasy that had been sold to him by one of those "toffee-nosed poofs," as his fellow workers in the London bistro used to call the upper-crust homos.
He went to the butler's pantry and got a notepad and pen and began making a list of all the ways in which this thing could go sideways. When he got to number six, he tore it to bits and then set fire to the paper scraps in the sink. He sat down again. Then the phone buzzed, and he picked it up, knowing it was the cottage line.
"Yes, Mr. Brueger?" he said.
Marty Brueger's morning voice said, "I'm sick of this fucking place, Raleigh. With Lorena away, I feel like a prisoner in solitary confinement."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Brueger," Raleigh said. "Maybe we can take a drive later this morning? Is there somewhere you'd like to go? We can take any one of Mrs. Brueger's cars. How about the big Mercedes? You could sit in back with a flask of whiskey and take in the sights and I'll be your chauffeur."
"I was thinking about a longer drive," Marty Brueger said. "I was thinking maybe you could take me to Palm Springs and I could look at all the old places I used to know when Sammy and me were young bucks."
And there it was! One of the ways things could go sideways, and it wasn't even on his list. Palm Springs was three hours away. He couldn't take the geezer to Palm Springs and be back by 1 P. M.
"Mr. Brueger," he said. "It's still too hot in Palm Springs. In a couple of months it'll be nice there and we can go and get a hotel for an overnighter. You could gamble in the Indian casinos. Maybe catch a show. But you don't want to go to Palm Springs now."
"I'm lonesome," Marty Brueger said. "Come on over and let's talk about it. Or I can come up to the house."
"I'll come to you, Mr. Brueger," Raleigh said.
He hung up and thought about this. Was it fate, destiny, or divine providence? Today of all days, something had made that old man decide he wanted to go to Palm Springs. Something or somebody was trying to help Raleigh out of the incredible scheme concocted by Nigel Wickland. All he had to do was call the man and tell him that Marty Brueger wanted to go to Palm Springs today, which
was the truth. After that, he could tell an untruth and say that Marty Brueger had decided to move into the main house because he was lonely. And with Marty Brueger in the main house, it would effectively end Nigel Wickland's plot to make a million dollars. Raleigh could save face with that pompous limey, as if he needed to, and the bad dreams would be over.
Suddenly he felt like a free man. He felt wonderful. He sauntered down the walk to Marty's cottage and literally stopped to smell the roses. He knocked twice, as he always did. He entered and found Marty Brueger on the floor in the bathroom, wearing only urine-soaked underpants.
"Mr. Brueger!" Raleigh ran to the old man, stripped off his underwear and carried him to his bed.
Marty Brueger looked at him and said, "Wa-wa-wa ..."
"Are you trying to say my name, Mr. Brueger?" Raleigh said in panic. Then he muttered, "My god, it's a stroke!"
Raleigh Dibble picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Megan Burke was shocked to be awakened by the smell of actual food. She opened her eyes and found Jonas sitting on the bed, fully dressed, with a glass of orange juice in a Styrofoam cup and an Egg McMuffin on a plate.
He said, "I got up early. This is the first day of our new life as successful people. I went out and had breakfast and brought yours home. We gotta be healthy and strong today. Eat, baby, eat."
Megan rolled out of bed with her feet on the floor, stood up painfully, and lurched into the bathroom. Jonas went to the kitchen, and she could hear water running. When she finished in the bathroom, she saw the plate of Egg McMuffin on the kitchen table with the orange juice. And he was actually making the coffee, another first.
"We ain't doing drugs today, Megan," he said. "We're working and we ain't coming home till we hit a target. We're aiming for nothing but bull's-eyes today. We're finding a likely crib and we're going in. Nothing can stop us."
Megan sat and sipped some orange juice and nibbled at the Egg McMuffin without interest. She thought, Right, I don't get to do any drugs today, but look at him! She figured he'd had a taste of something, the way he was amped. It made her surly and resentful. She always got the short end because he was the man, or so he thought.
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