by Dan Taylor
“What do you want me to do with it, then?”
“Place it down…slowly!”
Charles plays ball, holds the rifle unthreateningly, his hands nowhere near the trigger, and starts slowly bending down.
With Charles no longer a threat, Officer Peoples turns his attention to Leo and Terry, alternating training his gun on one and then the other.
Officer Dukes says, “I said slowly, ass scratch!”
“This is as slow as I can manage.”
I’m with Charles on this one. It’s real slow.
“Well you better go a hell of a lot slower or you’re going to be shitting out lead for weeks!”
Charles is now straining, moving so slowly it’s questionable whether he’s moving at all. Officer Dukes nods in approval. “That’s good, turd features. That’s good.”
With the rifle on the ground, Officer Dukes goes over to Charles, pistol whips him, slams him up against the wall, then handcuffs him.
Officer Peoples says, “You with the weapon, drop it!”
Terry and Leo look at each other, not sure which one he’s referring to.
Then Officer Peoples clarifies, “The bald one. Drop the dildo!”
Terry drops it.
“Good. Now you two boys are both going to raise your hands, stand up, and slowly! Then go face the wall and put your hands on it.”
Thinking Officer Dukes’s and Officer Peoples’s definitions of slow are the same, they do what he said, at a speed that’s painfully slow. Again, it’s not clear whether they’re moving.
Officer Peoples doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he approves. “That’s good, dirt balls. That’s real good.”
After a couple minutes, with them both standing up against the wall, Officer Peoples cuffs them, and reads them their rights.
With all three now sitting in the back of the police cruiser, I go over to Officer Dukes.
Say, “What’s going to happen to them?”
He looks up from notes he’s taken. “We’ll take them down to the station, book em, then they’ll be grilled by Detective Horse about the murder that took place earlier in the night.”
“I need to speak to these men.”
“That’s not really procedure, Mr. Hancock.”
“It’s of the utmost importance. These men have kidnapped some people who are dear to me. My sister and her son, Randy and Mary.
“Respectively?”
“No, Mary’s my sister and Randy’s her son. And there are others who are dear…well, people who I’d like to get back, at any rate. They’re tied up, being held captive, possibly by armed men, somewhere in Hollywood. One has been with them for days.”
“What are the names of these people?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me.
“A colleague of mine named Cole Baxter. Another man called Scottie McDougray. And a Nigerian man called Omar.”
“Surname?”
“He’s got one.”
“No, what’s his surname?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He thinks a second. “Jackson?”
“It’s a turn of phrase. And that doesn’t sound remotely African.”
He starts walking off, says, “I’ll see if missing person reports have been filed.”
My experience of dealing with officious police officers like Officer Dukes has told me that if you try and bulldoze through these people, they become deaf real fast. Getting what you want from them is more akin to cracking a safe with a stethoscope, listening carefully as you wait for that click!
“Wait, I missed a name off the list.”
He stops walking.
“Senator Trundle was also named by the suspects.”
“Senator Trundle?” He turns and walks back to me.
There it was. Did you hear it? Click!
“That’s what they said.”
“What does he have to do with any of this?”
“I guess they must’ve been slightly averse to some of the legislature he’s trying to introduce.”
“Like what?”
“I was just clutching at straws.”
He pauses before saying, “I don’t like the way you talk, Mr. Hancock. But if these men are associated with men holding people captive—”
“They are.”
He raises an eyebrow. “If they are, then we’ll find out where they are, and go and investigate.”
“See that you do. I’m desperate to get Mary and Randy back, and some of those guys are…all right.”
“Just doing my duty.” Duty sounded a little like doodie.
He starts walking off again.
“Can you give me a call when you’ve found them?”
“You’ll be the first person I let know.”
“Phone me at Jingle Jangles. I’ll be there most of the night.”
I watch that dumb son of a bitch walk off, looking lost in this hip part of Hollywood, his back all rigid, a goofy gait, and a loose page on his notepad flapping in the warm breeze that passed over us.
It was a long night. The driver was right about that.
I see a phone booth fifty yards away. You never notice them any longer. At least I hadn’t. Not until tonight, with my phone taken away. I run over to it, scoop out a handful of change from my pocket, and then realize I have no idea how much it costs to make a call with one of these things. I feed in a couple dollars, then dial the number.
“Jake! I thought you’d never phone!” Regan sounds pissed. The good kind.
“They’re in custody.”
“Who is?”
“The bad guys.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. At least I think she did. When she speaks, she sounds like she’s crying. “It’s such a relief.”
“It is. But why are you crying?”
“I thought maybe something had happened to you.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re crying.”
“It’s a girl thing. Okay?”
“It’s fine. I was just interested. Did you book a ticket, or did I phone in time?”
When I sent Regan off to the airport, I gave her my credit card, and told her that if I didn’t phone after two hours, she was to book a ticket to the cheapest destination she could find that’s not war-torn or colder than the freezer aisle of a store. It’s a couple minutes after the two-hour deadline.
“I didn’t. I was about to but held off, though I did use your credit card for a couple nerve-settlers at the bar.”
“That’s okay.”
“You don’t mind?”
“It’s better than the price of a return ticket to Norway.”
She laughs. At least I think she did. “When do I get to see Omar?”
“Yeah…about that.”
“Jake Hancock…?”
“We’re not really sure where Omar is at the moment, or Mary and Randy.”
Yep. Crying this time. Definitely crying. In between sobs, she says, “Who’s we?”
“The police and I.”
“So who’s in custody exactly?”
“The guys that were trying to kidnap you and Omar.”
“So how come Omar hasn’t been rescued yet?”
She’s doing this thing that she always did when we were married and she wasn’t happy with me. She’s asking for arbitrary details about the thing that happened, and ones I can’t provide and she knows I can’t, so she can fuel the fire that is her current, acute hatred for me.
“Because I think some other guys might be keeping them captive.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well think. Hard!”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, and I never knew where they were in the first place, so it won’t do any good.”
“Who are these other guys?”
“Again, I don’t know.”
“Well, Mr., seems like there’s a lot about tonight you don’t know.”<
br />
“That’s right.”
“Don’t do that thing you do—where you agree with everything I say when I’m pissed.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“What same thing?”
“Never mind. Look, Hollywood’s finest are on the case…” I look back at the cruiser, which is attempting to pull out into the road, their left indicator flashing as they look to make a right turn. “Hollywood’s finest are on it. I’m sure they’ll get the location out of them while questioning them.”
“That’s all they’re going to do, question them?”
“Grilling them. I meant to say grilling.”
“Who’s the officer in charge of the investigation? I’m going to phone.”
“Don’t make me answer that.”
“Too late.”
I sigh. “Detective Horse.”
“Did you say horse?”
“What’s in a name?”
She’s silent a second. “Fuck, Jake! Fuckety-fuck fuck fuck!”
I pull the phone away from my ear. I haven’t heard her this pissed since I booked tickets for a Van Halen concert as a belated wedding anniversary present.
When I put it back to my ear, she’s saying, “…And you had the opportunity to beat the information out of them, and you fucked it up.”
“To be fair to me, if I hadn’t have gotten them arrested, I would be walking around like John Wayne with saddle sores.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I wasn’t exactly in control of the situation. The only way to get you and me out of trouble was to get them arrested.”
She breaks down. “And to leave poor Omar in some strange country, in some strange place, abducted by mad men…?”
“Omar’s a big boy. And you’re forgetting about Mary and Randy. I made a sacrifice too, to make us safe. And I’m sure with the main guys arrested, the other guys will let them go.”
“So you do know that some other guys are keeping him captive?”
“You just said…never mind. Take a taxi back to Hollywood, on my dime. Meet me at Jingle Jangles, we can talk there.”
“Nah ah. No way.”
“Sorry I didn’t catch that. The telephone operator interrupted us; I’m running out of money.”
“Jake, this isn’t nineteen fifty-six.”
“I don’t have any more change, Regan. B—bye.”
I put down the phone, which spits my unused change out. I collect it, then flag down a cab.
One pulls up and the driver ducks down to a look at me. Once he has, he drives off, tires screeching as he speeds away.
That was weird.
I flag down another, which stops long enough for me to get in this time.
As I do, the driver says, in a former USSR accent, “Do you have money enough to pay for the journey, sir?”
“You don’t even know where I’m going yet.”
“Still…”
“Fine.” I take out my wallet, hand him a fifty-dollar bill. “That good enough for you?”
“Just a second.”
Not bashful about it, he pulls out a counterfeit detector pen, draws one line and sees there’s no color change, but draws another one for good measure.
“You must’ve come across a very generous man tonight, sir. Am I right?”
“What?”
“I think you might be the first vagrant to have ridden in my cab.”
“I’m not a…” I catch a look at myself in the rearview mirror. Humorously large lump on my forehead. Dust on my face and all over my suit from lying on the floor of the storeroom as Leo and Charles held me down. “Never mind.”
“Where to?”
“Better make it Hollywood Boulevard, Drexler apartment building.”
“From this side of town, the fastest way to get there is through, instead of around, Barnsdall Art Park, which you’d have to walk through.”
“Drive around it. I don’t want to go Barnsdall Art Park.”
“Of course you don’t, sir.”
The whole drive the guy tries to talk shop. Referring the whole time to “business,” which for him means cab driving and me, begging.
We pull up outside the apartment building and he gives me change. I try to give him a handsome tip, as he looks like he could use it for dental work or a cataracts operation, but he refuses. And keeps on refusing.
“Fine, don’t take it.”
“Enjoy your night’s work.”
I ignore him, get out of the cab, and go through the main entrance to take the elevator up to my apartment.
Once there, I shower quickly, and put on some smart but casual clothing. I take the elevator down, grab another cab, and make my way to Jingle Jangles.
When I go inside, Regan’s sitting at the back, looking like she’s talking to a bunch of out-of-state college kids. I grab a drink and go over.
“Regan!” I say. “Sorry I’m late.” I move in for a hug, but she makes her body go rigid and doesn’t reciprocate.
A guy with a flattop, crossed eyes, and bulging biceps says, “This must be Omar.”
I turn to him. “That’s right, kid.” I look at his friends, who look like members of some college football team. “You boys enjoying the show?”
They grunt.
“That’s great. Now you boys run along.”
They go off with their tails between their legs.
Regan says, “I was enjoying their company before you came.”
“What were you talking about…when to pull your Dow Jones?”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m inclined to say fuck you.”
“I don’t either, but I think that’s an appropriate response.”
We sip our drinks.
She says, “So, any news about Omar?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you think I’ll ever see him again? Be honest.”
I think about it a second. “I think you should prepare yourself for the worst.”
She looks worried. “Which is?”
“That they’ll find the dumb son of a bitch and you’ll have to go through with that marriage you promised him.”
She punches my arm. “Jake Hancock. Always making jokes.”
Truth is, I wasn’t joking.
She continues. “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll find someone someday that’ll want to marry you again.”
“I’m not worried.”
She looks momentarily excited. “Oooo, have you found someone? Do tell.”
I frown. “No, I haven’t found someone.”
“Oh.”
She goes back to sipping her drink. A dumb look on her face.
After a couple minutes of not talking, she says, “Where did it all go wrong for us, Jake?”
“I think it started the moment we sat down at that restaurant.”
“Which one? The Vine, where we had our first argument?”
“No.”
“The Bleeding Monk, where you told me you’d cheated on me with the busty slut from Wake n’ Steak?”
“No.”
She thinks a moment. “Where, then?”
“What was the name of it again, the Grape Treader?”
“The place where we had our first date! You bastard!”
She looks away from me, finds that she’s looking at the stage, where there is a platinum blonde number working the pole with the finesse of one of those doll-like Russian athletes from the 90s, then she turns back to me.
I say, “That isn’t what I meant. Not like that. Just that we weren’t right for each other.”
“Thanks…”
I let her stew a moment, then continue when I think her hormone levels have stabilized. “What I’m trying to say in an accidentally inflammatory way, is that neither of us did anything wrong during our marriage.” I’m shit at explaining stuff to women in general, but I couldn’t explain why a bear tends to shit in the woods to Regan. So I think of a simile or metaphor or whatever, to expla
in what I mean. “We were like that horse whisperer guy from the movie, working with a horse that was starved of oxygen during its birth, so it was mentally retarded all its life and untamable.”
“Right. So I guess I’m the mentally retarded horse.”
Now she’s really pissed.
Neither one of us was the horse in that metaphor, but I take one for the team. “Regan, I was the horse.”
After a second, during which she inspects her fingernails, she says, “That’s what I thought. I just wanted to hear you say it. You’ve got a good way with words, Jake. I thought that the whole of our marriage. I just wasn’t able to think of the clever words to explain it. A mentally retarded horse…I like that.”
I sip my beer, and try to let her have her victory, but Hancock’s got too much pride for that. Old Hancock, the mentally retarded horse. “You know what? I wasn’t the only one who was a mentally retarded horse during our marriage.”
“So we both were?”
“Yeah.”
“A mentally retarded horse wasn’t able to train another mentally retarded horse, that’s your metaphor for our marriage?”
“I admit it doesn’t quite work now.”
“Ya think?”
“I was just trying to explain that our marriage didn’t work because we were never right for each other. The sex was great—”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
“The sex was great, but we, our personalities, never would’ve gelled.”
She snaps her fingers. “Ooo, I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“We were trying to bake a cake but we didn’t have the right ingredients. We ended up with canned green beans and spinach, and we needed flour and…”
“Eggs and butter…milk?”
“I think you put that in a cake.”
“You’ll make a great wife. Just not mine.”
“I think that might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” She snaps her fingers again. “Ooh, sugar.”
I go to give her a hug, and she leans forward on her stool. It doesn’t quite feel right, so I turn it into a noogie. She pushes me away playfully. Then we watch the next act. A voluptuous African-American stripper with six-inch heels struts around the stage, doing strange things with a horsewhip, while wearing a top hat.
Hugh the barman comes over. I say, “The same again.”
“No, Jake, there’s someone phoning for you. A Detective Horse?”