by Ron Carpol
“Easy,” I yelled as she silently drew blood. I looked at Nuppi. “How long until I get cleared?”
“Usually not more than two weeks. But sometimes it takes longer.”
“Don’t have that much time. If this case drags on until after Hell Week, I can’t get sworn into the fraternity and I’ll lose the money no matter what.” Then a sickening thought hit me. “What if this evidence doesn’t show I did it—and it won’t—do they have to drop the case?”
Nuppi thought about it for a moment. “No. Especially with female cops, most times the victim’s word is enough.”
11
THE SNICKERING CRIPPLE
Monday, January 13
“I CAN’T GO TO COURT TOMORROW,” I told the Public Defender on the phone. “Got a final. Need you to get me another date.”
“You’re going to jail,” was the legal advice I got from this cripple who sold me out on my DUI case. He sounded thrilled to death. “You’re a Probation Violator.”
“Why? How do you know?” I challenged.
“Checked the computer as we’re talking. One of the conditions of your probation,” he wheezed, “was that you obey all laws.”
“So?”
“So, your new marijuana cite came up on the court computer. It’s a new crime. You violated your DUI probation. The judge said if you came back with any new crimes for the next three years that you’d get ten days in jail.”
“Shit!”
“You’ll be remanded immediately.”
“What’s that mean?”
He either coughed or snickered. I couldn’t tell which.
“Right after the judge sentences you, the sheriff handcuffs you in court, takes you right from the courtroom to the jail lockup in the courthouse. Then you get chained to the other prisoners—Mexican gang guys with a million prison tattoos and big blacks who cornhole white guys like you for laughs—and you’re driven in the jail bus directly to the County Jail. You start the ten days right then. Better bring Vasoline to avoid a ripped asshole.”
I couldn’t believe it! I started to panic! “For three fucking joints?”
He definitely sounded happy now. “Yeah.”
But what the hell did he know? He couldn’t even walk without using metal braces to slide along the sidewalk like a cross-country skier.
“You don’t have to believe me. Call another lawyer.”
“I did. But Mr. Nuppi’s out of town. At a law convention until next week.”
He laughed. “Nuppi? Heard that drunk’s in rehab again. Anyway, I’m warning you, better be here tomorrow.”
“I already told you. I can’t. Got a final.”
“So don’t appear.”
“Then what happens?”
“Warrant gets issued for your arrest,” he answered, gloating like hell.
“But I’ll get thrown out of school if I miss my final.”
I must’ve sounded so convincing that this creep who probably parked in the handicapped zone everywhere finally gave in.
“OK. I’ll tell the judge about the final and try to continue the case one week. But I can’t guarantee that he’ll do it.”
“Jesus, thanks,” I exhaled with relief.
“One week only. To January 20. And remember, it’s not even for sure.”
“How will I know if you get it continued?”
“Ask any cop tomorrow afternoon. He’ll tell you if there’s a warrant for your arrest.”
PART 3
EVERYBODY’S
GOT A PRICE
12
THE THIEF
Friday, January 17
I was naked, lying on my side, pushed up against Tiffany’s bare back, with my left hand rolling her clit around like a greased ball bearing. I twisted around a little and her expert hands went to work on me too, when suddenly the ingredients for a billion babies shot out of me like a raging river ripping through a bursting dam.
“Shit,” she muttered a few seconds later, “I was nearly off.” She crawled over the wet spot between us on the sheet. “I’ll get a towel.”
Still naked, and with no tan lines around her tits or shaved pussy, she staggered to the window and stopped abruptly, leaning on the wall for support. From outside, the sounds of metal clanging and the revving from a high-pitched motor filled the room.
“That’s your truck!” she suddenly screamed.
I leaped out of bed, hobbled to the window and stared outside.
A blue and white cop car was there with two cops talking to some Hindu bastard wearing a magenta turban who was hooking up my 4Runner to the back of his tow truck!
“They’re coming here!” Tiffany said, her bad breath almost gagging me.
“You got warrants?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so. What about you?”
“I might. You better answer the door.”
Less than a minute later there was a gentle double-knock at the door. I was hiding in the tiny hallway on my knees, peering around the corner at the front door.
Still completely naked and relaxed as hell about it, Tiffany called out in a soft voice, “Who is it?”
“Police, open the door, please,” a woman’s voice answered almost conversationally.
“Nobody’s here but me,” Tiffany called out.
“Please open the door,” the same voice repeated politely.
Then Tiffany, the dumb bitch, took a few steps to the door and opened it. She stood there with her hands on her hips facing the two startled cops.
“Jesus,” the little black cop whistled to his girl Chinaman partner who involuntarily licked her lips. Tiffany made no effort to either move or cover herself.
“Kurt Stafford here?” the black cop asked, his eyes aimed waist-high.
“He left about half an hour ago after we fucked all night.”
“Maybe we should wait,” the ethnic said to the gook who had three stripes on her uniform sleeves just below the shoulders.
“Like hell we will,” the Chinaman woman answered before turning to Tiffany. “We’ll be back.” Then she grabbed the arm of her non-pigmentally-challenged partner, twisting him around toward the stairway, giving him a light shove.
“Bye,” Tiffany purred before closing the door.
I ran to the bedroom window again and looked outside. Both cops were laughing as they walked down the stairs and got into the patrol car. Seconds later they sped away, heading down Fourth.
I walked back into the living room where Tiffany was seated on the couch.
“Who’s baby?” she asked, pointing to the coffee table where there was an 8x10 color photo of a wrinkled, newborn baby with squinting, dark eyes wearing a blue jumpsuit. The photo, in an envelope with no letter and a Chicago postmark, came in yesterday’s mail that was forwarded from San Francisco.
“My cousin’s,” I lied.
Of the four girls I knocked up in the last seven years, I could only talk three into having abortions. This kid was from the last girl, some Catholic, anti-abortion bitch named Maryanne something, who moved away to be with her parents and raise the kid herself which was fine with me. In my cleverest move ever, I got her to agree that I’d give up any rights to the kid and she agreed never to ask me for child support.
The shrill of the ringing portable phone pierced the air like a rifle shot.
“Get it,” I said. “Maybe it’s the cops calling to see if I’m really here.”
She answered and handed me the phone. “For you. Professor somebody.”
It was Chesterfield, my Man and Civ teacher, who uttered a single sentence before hanging up: “Be in my office at one sharp and explain why you shouldn’t get an F in the class.”
_____
The weight of dog shit must’ve bent back a few blades of grass that crossed the Santa Monica city limits because the College at the Sea was hidden behind a large office park of four-story buildings on Ocean Park Boulevard near Bundy, next to the outermost part of the Santa Monica Airport. The only way this campus would be
at the sea would be if a tidal wave a million times stronger than the one in The Perfect Storm crashed from the ocean’s shore.
Chesterfield’s office was located in the Montgomery Administration Building behind statues of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery who competed with each other to see who’d be first to be completely covered in bird shit.
The scrawled words BACK IN 5 MINS on a yellow Post-It note stuck on Chesterfield’s door didn’t say don’t come in and snoop if the door is unlocked, so I went inside and checked the place out.
This windowless office was about the size of a jail cell and smelled like a gym locker. It looked like an American Indian shrine with almost every square inch of wall space covered with photographs and paintings of probably every famous Indian savage who butchered white guys. On the side wall behind the desk were a bunch of college diplomas, proving that Chesterfield had more degrees than a thermometer. But so what? Look where he wound up.
My school file was lying on top of his cluttered desk that had a silver key sticking out of the lock on the top drawer. Out of bored curiosity I rifled the drawers and almost choked when I saw what was in the bottom left drawer: kiddy porn! I couldn’t believe it! Chesterfield, that prim, pompous snob whose favorite phase was “moral integrity” was into kiddy porn! But to prove his sexual tastes were varied, he even had some candid restroom shots that must’ve been taken by a hidden camera showing different women wiping their pussies with toilet paper! Chesterfield, full of moral integrity, was a class act all right.
There were six cellophane-wrapped packets in all; each containing the same seven photos.
I swiped one packet, pushing it down the front of my white T-shirt that had a huge pot leaf on the back. Then I closed the drawer and got the hell out of there just as his fax machine started clicking away.
Nearly an hour later, Chesterfield’s three hundred pound form draped in a red velour sweat suit waddled towards me in a six-foot frame that carried about two hundred pounds of fat.
“You’re late,” he said dryly, reeking of Old Spice. “I waited for you for fifteen minutes before I left.”
“Sorry. Traffic problems.”
“Know why you’re here?” he asked, smiling sadistically with little pig eyes and thin lips as soon as we were seated, facing each other across his desk.
“No,” I mumbled.
“Everything confirms that you plagiarized your term paper.”
The lethal chop from the guillotine blade whizzed through my neck instantly.
“School rules call for automatic expulsion,” he continued. “Unless you can prove you wrote it, I’m going to notify the Assistant Dean as soon as you leave.”
My heart was pumping so hard that I didn’t dare speak. All I could do was shake my head slightly.
“Untrue,” I squeaked, praying my voice wouldn’t crack.
A sick smile, like a horizontal line, was still painted on his sweaty face. His eyes bored into mine before resting his tire-tread soled sandals on the edge of the desk. He checked my file again.
“Your high school grades were the second lowest in a class of 331.”
I stared back at him without speaking, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“Yet your entrance examination score here was in the top two percent of the nearly forty thousand people who took it since this college was founded almost thirty years ago.” He paused before the kill. “It’s obvious that somebody else took it for you.”
I couldn’t speak. The thought of losing the inheritance over a little plagiarism paralyzed my vocal cords like they were strangled with piano wire.
Chesterfield sweated onward. “I checked with each of your other three professors to see how you’re doing in their classes. Two said you’re wavering between a C- and a D.”
Shit! Even if this nightmare ended and I survived the fraternity’s Rule of Eleven and Hell Week, unless I had a 2.0 average for all four classes I couldn’t be sworn in as an active member and I’d still lose the inheritance!
He stared at my forehead, probably happy to see the dripping sweat, and continued. “The other one, the Economics professor, she said if you didn’t turn in some missing assignments by five this afternoon you’d get an F in her class.”
Goddamn it! Last night Ali Reza e-mailed me the work and I printed it and put in my book bag and stuck it on the front seat of my truck so I wouldn’t forget it. Now the truck’s locked in the tow yard! I checked my watch. It was nearly 2:30. If I didn’t get the car back and get the assignment to the Econ teacher by 5:00 I’d lose the five million today!
“What’s the matter?” the fat bastard asked, probably happy to finally get a nervous reaction out of me. “You look scared to death.”
I didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you admit that you copied the term paper off the Internet?” he challenged.
“I didn’t.” But I fucking-A well knew the name of the sand nigger who did!
His lips opened a little, showing a few small tan teeth.
“I know you tried to disguise the plagiarism by misconjugating a few verbs here and there. And mixing up the grammatical syntax in some places. But I know it wasn’t your work. Cleaning up the intentional errors, it reads like Ivy League work. Way above your ability.”
I shook my head, muttering, “You’re wrong.”
His eyes looked downward onto my Rolex Submariner with the silver band, big black face, and luminous numbers.
“Nice watch.”
Half-kiddingly I asked, “Can I trade it for a C?”
He froze! The kiddy-porn lover with all his moral integrity didn’t flinch an inch; he kept staring at the watch!
My father’s words rang true again: Everybody’s got a price.
“Each student must submit an original term paper,” Chesterfield said conversationally, as if he forgot I just offered him a bribe.
I had to think fast. “You can have the watch if you’ll give me ten days to write another paper. If it’s no good, then fail me. And keep the watch.”
In the few awkward seconds of silence, I quickly took off the watch and handed it to him. “The back’s engraved but you can get it buffed off. Or get another back for it.”
Thank God he was still admiring the watch when he turned it over and silently read the inscription with moving lips: EVERYBODY’S GOT A PRICE.
“It’ll buff out,” I said quickly.
He twisted the big winding stem. “Why’s it bent?”
“Accidentally hit it against a wall. It was fixed once before already. Then I bumped into something else.”
He tried putting the watch on but his thick right wrist was too big for the metal bracelet. “Got any extra links for the band?”
“No,” I said quickly. “But the Rolex repair place is in Hollywood. Take it there and tell them to fix the winding stem again too. And I’ll pay for it.”
“Absolutely not,” he said firmly.
I nodded, with obvious relief in my voice. “Anything else?”
His right hand reached for the dirty handkerchief next to him on the desk. He blotted his forehead with it again. “Your new term paper’s topic is: PEDOPHILIA IN AMERICA.”
“What’s pedo-whatever mean? I can’t even pronounce it.”
“Look it up.”
He scribbled something on a pastel rainbow note pad and handed it to me. It was the term paper’s title with a phone number written under it.
“Fax me the paper when you’ve finished it. I don’t want to see you here again.” Then, evidently forgetting that he just took a bribe, he said sternly, “This paper better be original. And no extensions. Fax it to me by next Friday or forget it.”
I stood up and looked at Chesterfield. He was still admiring his new treasure that cost my dad about three grand when he bought it for me duty-free in St. Thomas while we stopped there on a Caribbean cruise a few years ago.
“Any other reason you knew I copied that paper?”
He stood up and smiled. “Yeah,” he answered, n
odding as all three chins bounced up and down. Then his eyes sparkled for an instant. “Telephone call. Someone told me.”
“Who?”
He shrugged his shoulders and kept smiling. “Didn’t leave his name. It was a short conversation. Anyway I had a hard time hearing him since he must’ve been calling from an airport runway.”
_____
“Marx or Lenin or somebody else stole my watch,” I told the Cossack who answered the phone at the Rolex place.
“Huh?”
I gave the refugee the necessary personal information and offered a five hundred dollar reward for keeping the watch if somebody brought it in.
_____
“I was on the second floor stairway of the CAS parking building when somebody jammed a gun in my back,” I told the Santa Monica Police Detective who had bloodshot eyes and the red, blotchy nose of a boozer.
“When did it happen?”
“Ten minutes ago. I came straight over here.”
“What’d the robber say?”
“To give him my watch and wallet or he’d kill me.”
“Give them to him?”
“Fucking-A.”
“What’d he look like?”
“I don’t know, my back was to him.”
“How’d you know he had a gun?”
“Saw the silhouette on the wall.”
“Can you describe him at all?”
“Only that he seemed big and heavy from his shadow. Like three hundred pounds.”
“Anything else you can tell us?”
“No.”
“Any unusual speech pattern?”
“No.”
“Any unusual smells?”
“Oh yeah. He wore Old Spice. I recognized it since I use it sometimes.”
“Good.” He finally smiled, revealing a large gap between his two front teeth like David Letterman. “Remember anything else?”
“Only one other thing. The stairs were wet and when the robber ran off, I noticed shoeprints that looked like tire treads.”
“On the stairs?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s what it looked like to me.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve got the serial number of the watch?”