A Twist Of Noir 063 - Johnny Strike

BOILED IN MIAMI - JOHNNY STRIKE

Originally published in A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above (Rudos And Rubes Publishing, 2008)

All of my adult life, I’ve been getting the same line: “Dan Roscoe? Why, that sounds like a private eye.” Well, guess what, pal? I am a private eye.

I’m located in Miami, near the famous Coconut Grove, where I almost never venture, except for a stroll to the docks some nights when it’s too damn hot to sleep. Early one morning, I received a breathy call that made my mind wander. Topaz Tanning said she needed my help and wanted to come over right away.

“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” she said. I told her to stop by in an hour. As I was finishing a scotch neat, I heard a car pulling into the gravel driveway. I peeked out the blind to see a shapely blonde stepping out of a red Jaguar. She looked around. I was at the screen door when she arrived on my porch.

“Dan Roscoe?” she asked, behind red-tinted star-shaped sunglasses.

“That would be me. Please come in, Miss Tanning.”

She extended a perfectly manicured hand with a topaz ring I could’ve choked on.

“Have a seat,” I said, removing a newspaper and a plastic bag from the best chair in the room. She sat and crossed her legs––tan, shapely legs. She removed her sunglasses, revealing Barbie Doll eyes as blue as a Caribbean lagoon. I sat behind my old, steel desk and fiddled with a sharpened pencil.

“Alrighty, Ms. Tanning. What can I do for you?” I asked, poised to make some notes.

“Call me Topaz. And the first thing you can do is give me a good fuck.”

I snapped my pencil point and my jaw dropped. She laughed.

“That was just to break the ice,” she said. “I know the effect I have on men.” I nodded and picked up another pencil. She smiled. “I will have one of those,” she motioned toward the friendly, green bottle of J&B. I poured her one and another for myself.

After a sip, Topaz turned serious: “Mr. Roscoe, I think I’m in danger of being murdered. I broke off an affair a few months back with someone I believe is connected with organized crime. I think I’m being followed.” She tossed down her drink and I refilled her glass. “He said if I ever left him, he’d have me killed.” There was an audible choke in her voice at the end of that declarative sentence. She dug into her pocketbook and came up with a pack of Eve Lights. She lit one with a jeweled lighter and inhaled.

“Do you think you were followed here?”

“I don’t know.” She exhaled smoke out her pretty nose. “I don’t think so.”

“Have you been to the police?”

“Yes. They filed a report and stopped by a couple nights, but I got the feeling they were...well, just humoring me.”

“Have you considered moving?”

“Yes, but I figure he’d track me down.” She sipped scotch and crossed her legs again.

“Well, what makes you think he’s followed you? And that he’d actually go through with something a lot of unhinged, obsessed men might say after a steamy affair with the likes of you?”

I tried to pour her another drink but she covered the glass with her hand.

“Well, first, there’s the phone calls,” she said, “even though I’ve had my number changed. It’s always the same voice––a man with a lisp who says, ‘I’m still wathing you.’ Sometimes he laughs, and it’s a frightening laugh. I used to curse him, but now I hang up, pour a drink, and pop a couple pills. And then there’s the feeling.” Topaz gave me a funny look. “I can feel someone looking, maybe even filming or photographing me. And I’ve had awful dreams about someone with a huge knife.”

“Are you still in touch with Mister...?”

“Hoffman, Marty Hoffman. No, not at all. After I broke it off, he called and left a ton of messages––begging, pathetic messages and arrogant, hostile ones. Then he’d call and hang up. Finally, he left one last message with a lot of fuck yous. He’s too smart to say he’d kill me on a phone machine.” Topaz scrunched out her cigarette in my Little Havana ashtray. “Besides your usual fees, I’ll give you a bonus to stop him.”

I got out my standard contract. She fished around in her bag for her checkbook. I told her to go back to her place in South Beach and stay put, and that I’d see her again that afternoon.

As she left, I eyed her again through the blinds. This time, she didn’t look around: she just climbed into her car, and started the engine. As Topaz pulled away, I spotted the neighborhood brat crossing the lot with a small bow and a quiver of arrows on his back. The other day, I’d seen him throwing rocks at a couple of the feral cats until his father dragged him away. As the red Jaguar disappeared, I watched the kid walk back behind a vacant building. I finished my drink, locked the door, and headed out.

At the vacant building, I peered around the corner. The kid was eyeing a cat asleep in the sun, and reaching back for an arrow. I picked up a nice throwing rock, did my old college wind-up, and aimed at the kid’s side as if it were a strike zone.

“Oof, owwww!” he yelled when the rock struck. The cat shot out of sight. The kid doubled over and dropped his bow. He sat on the ground holding his side, looking like he was going to cry or scream. He did a little of both.

I stepped back out of sight and yelled, “Leave the fucking cats alone!” Then I walked off down the street with the morning crowd, heading for my car, which was getting an oil change nearby.

Marty Hoffman owned and managed La Felecia, an old-style Italian restaurant on Collins Avenue. It wasn’t open yet, so I bought a Miami Herald and stopped at a bar across the street. I ordered a beer. I browsed a piece about a young mother who had drowned her kids and then had gone dancing at a disco. I had finished my second beer when I saw the doors of the restaurant swing open. A huge man wearing a black suit and a white apron stepped out, blinking in the sunlight. He lit a cigarette. The guy looked like an ex-boxer with a face even a mother might be reluctant to love. I crossed the street and approached the lug, who gave me a glare, then a half smile when I asked him what the specials were for the day.

“Everything is special,” he said, flicking a half-smoked butt into the street, just missing a skinny guy with blue hair and a silver helmet, who zipped by on roller blades.

“Do you like fish?” he asked.

“Well, sure, as long as it’s not gagging on mercury.”

He didn’t like my answer and gave me a dark look. “We only serve fresh fish,” he stated. “We have a very nice sea bass today, sautéed in oil and garlic, and it’s served with polenta or pasta and fresh asparagus.”

“Well, that does sound good,” I said. “But it’s still a little early for me. Listen, Marty wouldn’t be around, would he?” Something funny happened with the guy’s eyes: they went all steely, and then he looked at me closer.

“Who you with?” he asked in an intimidating manner.

“I’m with nobody. I’m a private investigator and would like to talk with Marty about a personal matter.” The giant thought about that for a moment and then invited me in. The interior was like a Godfather set and empty except for an old-timer behind the bar slicing limes. The waiter motioned toward a chair and I took it. He was back in few minutes with a lopsided smile I didn’t particularly care for.

“Follow me,” he said. We went into a back area past coat racks, some public phones, restrooms, and finally to a black metal door. The giant nodded toward the door and headed off in the direction of the john. I knocked and a voice said to come in. Behind a desk similar to my own sat a handsome, middle-aged man who stood and offered a hand and a smile.

“Marty Hoffman. What can I do for you?” He gestured toward a chair. We sat and I told him who I was and who my client was.

“Alright,” he said. “What’s the problem?”

I laid out the scenario. Marty listened and his expression went from curiosity to concern. When I was finished, he lit a cigarette. The barkeep came in and served us each a mug of beer.

“First, I have no mob connections,” Marty said after drinking off half of his brew. “Oh, I casually know a couple of wiseguys who dine here on occasion, but they don’t even give me tips on the dog races. I probably bragged to Topaz about knowing those guys. Yeah, I was upset when she broke it off. But, once I had some time on my own, I decided it was for the best. She’s a knockout, as you know. But there’s other baggage, that, uh, I won’t go into ’cos it’s personal. But, anyway, I decided that it’d been fun but definitely wasn’t meant for the long term.”

“The caller says ‘I’m wathing you,’” I repeated.

“I don’t know anyone with a speech impediment. Don’t have a clue who that could be.”

I finished my beer, wound up my talk with Marty, and gave him my card. On the way out, Vic Damone was singing “You Were Only Fooling.” The waiter was nowhere in sight––probably still on the crapper. The bartender was having a little nip.

Earlier I’d called a friend with the South Beach Police: Robert O’Connell in Criminal Investigations. I drove over to the main station on Washington Avenue and found a parking space after driving around for ten minutes. At the front entrance, a gang of motorcycle cops wearing short sleeves and shades sat on their bikes, talking.

Inside, the desk sergeant, a sullen, square-jawed guy with a band-aid on his neck, told me to have a seat while he called Detective O’Connell. A few moments later, O’Connell came out and gestured for me to follow him to his office. O’Connell was near my age, around thirty, with red hair, green eyes, and wearing a tie covered with happy faces that probably had been a gift. I told him about the case and my visit with Marty Hoffman, while he felt a spot on his chin that he’d missed shaving. He did some keyboarding on a laptop, stopped, opened a drawer, and produced a bottle of Early Times. O’Connell poured us each a belt into a couple of cloudy glasses.

“No mob. No nothing,” he said. “Hoffman is clean.” He punched some more keys, then studied the screen some more. “No record of domestic violence. Not even a friggin’ parking ticket. No, wait––there is something...minor altercation in front of a queer bar. Guy whistled at Hoffman. He gave the guy a black eye. No charges. Settled out of court. But, yeah, I do remember Topaz Tanning. Who wouldn’t? We watched her place for a while but there was no activity. Whattya think, Dan?”

“Oh, maybe she’s got some sorry stalker who harasses her and then backs off. She’s a woman to try even a sane man’s disposition.”

“Yeah, one of those honeys who just oozes the stuff, eh?” O’Connell winked, looked at his bourbon, and finished it. I finished mine, too.

“Well, thanks for checking. And for the drink.”

“No problemo, Dan. Anytime. And if you nail this nut, call us quick.”

Now I was hungry, but not in the mood for oily sea bass with a giant leering at me. There was a Cuban restaurant I liked, not far from the beach. I headed in that direction.

After lunch, I tried to finish up the paper but it was a hard read: “Grisly find in suburban Florida home...mummified bodies of a woman, son, dog...” I tossed it aside, punched in Topaz’s number on my cell, and she picked up right away. I told her I’d be over within a half-hour.

Topaz Tanning’s house wasn’t far––a left turn on 20th, inland almost to Dade Boulevard. I pulled into the driveway and looked down a declining, grassy hillside that ended at a pool glistening in the midday heat. The house was French Colonial style. I could see part of a garage in the back.

An S-shaped walkway of rose-colored flagstone led to the front door. I pressed the doorbell button; I didn’t hear it ring, but a few moments later, the door swung open to a tall, bald guy with beady eyes and a thin mouth. He was wearing a butler’s uniform, of sorts: a dark jacket––too small––and a yellow tie. His slacks were black-and-white checked chef pants––also a bad fit. In his mismatched outfit, he reminded me of a vaudeville comedian, but with an aura of brutishness. I introduced myself.

“Madame will see you in the sun room, Mr. Roscoe,” he said in a surprisingly pleasant voice, making a sweep with his arm. “Straight ahead, sir.”

I found “Madame” lounging with her shoes off on a velvet couch having a cocktail. On a tray before her were glasses, olives, toothpicks, and a tall shaker of martinis. She said hello and motioned for me to help myself. I did and took in the opulent room that looked out onto a patio filled with flowers.

“Who’s your butler?” I asked, and tried to pour her another.

“Ivan is more than my butler,” she said, covering her glass. “He does...well, a lot.”

“He looks like he could offer protection as well.”

“Yes, but he’s not that bright, and I have him busy all the time, anyway. But, yes, his presence gives me some comfort.”

I told Topaz about my conversations with Marty and Detective O’Connell, and my conclusion that she was probably dealing with a stalker who might be dangerous––not just annoying. Topaz chewed on a gin-soaked olive and thought about it. She asked if I would stay in the guesthouse above the garage for a few nights. I said sure, but that I’d have to go back to Coco for a few things.

At my apartment, I threw a bag together and loaded a few other items into the car. As I was finishing up, Ralph, a nosy old geezer from next door, came over with something on his mind.
“Hey, did ya hear about the kid?”

“What kid?”

“Ya know, the little shit that runs around here throwing rocks? Dicky Coleman? Dirty Dicky?”

“What about him?”

“Oh, he got some of his own medicine, I reckon. Somebody hit him with a rock and it caused some internal bleeding or something and they rushed him over to Mercy.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” I said, wanting to get on my way.

“Going on a little trip?” Ralph asked.

“A very little trip. Just a few days in SoBe on a case. Well, gotta go, Ralph.”

I punched in the number for Mercy Hospital on my cell. I gave the switchboard operator the brat’s name and, after a couple of clicks and beeps, I got a ring and a little boy’s voice answered: “Hello?"

“Leave the fucking cats alone.” I said.

There was dead silence, then he screamed, “Mommy!” I guess she was there in the room. I hung up. Back on the causeway, the lights of Miami’s skyline twinkled in the sultry evening. I sipped from my flask and laughed.

The guesthouse above the garage was splendid. I stretched out on the king-size bed and flipped channels on the large-screen TV. Topaz would phone if anything unusual happened or if she got another call from the creep. I had a nightcap, turned in early, and left my cellphone on a stand next to the bed.

In the morning, there were a couple knocks at the door. I looked out to see Ivan bearing a breakfast tray and a single white rose in a little cut-glass vase. I let him in and he set the table, handed me a linen napkin, and let himself out. I covered the waffles and fruit medley with the napkin. I dumped the glass of water into the sink but saved the ice cubes and poured some scotch over them. I called Topaz and told her I was going to take a look around the neighborhood. She wanted to know if I’d be back by ten, since she planned to sunbathe and swim. I said I’d be back by ten; I knew I didn’t want to miss that.

On my walk around the neighborhood, I found the usual: art galleries, boutiques, a vintage clothing store, a bakery, a gas station. I also spotted a spooky Haitian restaurant.

Coming down the street toward me were three adult men with Down syndrome being minded by a middle-aged Hispanic woman and a flashy, young Hispanic man with a camera around his neck. The male caretaker looked out of place with his headband, baggy rapper clothing, gold chains and mustache. The Down syndrome trio was led by a Caucasian male with gray hair who kept closing his eyes and rubbing them. Behind him was a Negro who stared gloomily at the ground. The third was another male Cauc, short, with an expression as though he were witnessing a mind-boggling scene wherever he looked. He’d occasionally wander off from the pack and the male caretaker would steer him back and say something to him. As they passed near me, heading toward the bakery, the little guy wandered off again. The minder herded him back and warned: “Stay put, Billy. I’m wathing you.”

Bingo.

The caretakers and their three charges finally came out of the bakery and walked back in the direction they’d come from. I followed them and, after a few blocks, they headed into a white stucco house surrounded by a yard that needed mowing a month ago. A plaque on the front door read: ASA, Advocates of Special Adults; it listed a phone number and the director’s name. I wrote it all down.

At 9:30 A.M., I called Topaz and told her I was onto something and would be back as soon as I could. In the meantime, I asked her to write down the names of all the organizations that she’d made donations to in the last two years. She started to complain, but finally agreed. I heard her calling for Ivan as she hung up the phone. When I got back to her place, I took the list Topaz handed me and checked it, sitting at her small writing desk. Sure enough, there was ASA, twice.

“Well?” she asked, standing above me in a red bikini.

“I’m still working on it,” I said. “Go back to the pool and enjoy yourself. I’ll be close by.”

I set up a chair in the shade alongside the guesthouse and opened a long leather case I’d brought with me. I was hidden from sight yet still had a good view of her stretched out on a lounger. I was just about to put a call in to the director of ASA when I saw the Hispanic minder coming down the hillside. He was bare-chested, and snapping pictures of Topaz as he approached. I stood and took aim with my tranquilizer rifle—waiting as he drew closer. But he stopped and, from a hidden sheath in back of him, produced a machete. I fired and hit him smack in the chest. He yelled, fell to his knees, and collapsed. Topaz sat up and screamed. I made my way to her, still with my rifle, like some suburban Great White Hunter. After calming her down, and calling O’Connell, I told her the story.

A police van soon arrived and they hauled off the assailant, who was just then coming around, mumbling in Spanish. O’Connell checked off a few items on a clipboard, wrote down my PI number, then winked and nudged me before he left. Topaz was feeling better after finishing off my flask. She sent a nervous-looking Ivan off to buy a case of Bombay Sapphire gin.

Now we’ll do some serious drinking, I was thinking. And...

“Now, Danny boy,” Topaz purred, placing a hand on my arm. “About that bonus.”

That night was an orgy of drinking and delightful perversion. When I woke up in the wee hours, I found Topaz in a deep sleep. I heard something outside and went to the window. There below, in a semi-secluded area, was a sight that I couldn’t believe: on the exercise mat was Ivan the butler riding Marty Hoffman. Marty’s teeth were bared and Ivan’s expression shifted between maniacal and moronic. They moved off behind some bushes and I went back to bed.

BIO: Johnny Strike is the author of Ports of Hell, and A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above and the founding member of the legendary San Francisco punk band, Crime.

A Twist Of Noir 035 - Johnny Strike

LADY KILLER - JOHNNY STRIKE

Originally published in the short story collection: A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above, by publisher Rudos & Rubes

There was a mix-up with the paperwork. Even the furlough captain had missed it when he’d stamped all the forms. A light-blue laminated “Inmate Activity Card” with the warden’s childlike signature was paper-clipped to the top of the file.

Later that morning, an older trustee handed the card and a pink slip of paper through the bars to Brendan Cattrell, a.k.a. “Baby Face Cattrell,” before winking lewdly and trotting away. Cattrell laughed. Yes, he still had the charm.

Dumbfounded, Baby Face sat on his bunk and looked it over. “Brendan Cattrell is authorized to participate in scullery work at an undisclosed outside location.”

Cattrell had just been transferred from maximum security Pelican Bay prison, and he was thrilled to his core with this colossal mistake.

The next morning, dressed in his prison-issued striped jacket and gray cap, he waited until two bulls showed up with five other prisoners in tow. A guard unlocked the cell and placed him in cuffs. The group was led down one prison hallway after another, picking up more prisoners, solid metal gates slamming shut and locking behind them. Baby Face told himself that if he could just relax, this would be his greatest escape––one for which the prison system itself would be responsible. He wanted to laugh out loud but, instead, stared at the floor in front of him.

Baby Face Cattrell boarded an old bus with twenty-two other prisoners. Ten minutes later, the bus was rolling down a country road, away from the prison, across a sea of open fields. The fog made the landscape look like Sleepy Hollow. Before long, the bus turned onto a wider highway and then onto a freeway. The handcuffs would have to come off at some point, Cattrell mused.

He gazed at the morning traffic, trying to imagine where people were going and what they were doing in their lives. He would soon be with them. Baby Face concentrated on keeping his heartbeat steady and his mind in a quiet space. He looked at the activity card again. He was number 1640. Added together, that made eleven. That was his lucky number. Added again made two. He was born in February, the second month. The numbers were lining up nicely.

The bus took a turnoff and began to rumble down an industrial road that was also thick with fog. He could make out white buildings, some kind of a metal tower, tractors, cement mixers, a row of pale green portatoilets. The bus kept rolling, the fog dissipated, and eventually the beginnings of the city outskirts were evident: a grocery store, dilapidated housing, weedy fenced-in lots, graffiti-covered walls, a gloomy gas station. The bus pulled into a parking lot behind a three-story warehouse the color of red clay, and parked near an open loading dock.

“Stay in your seats!” the bull barked from the front of the bus. “I’ll tell ya when you can move. And keep your cards in front of you at all times!” He shot a menacing glance at the prisoners before getting off the bus. The driver rustled the morning paper and began to read it. Somebody farted loudly and a general complaint rose up from the men that caused the bull to climb back onboard and command, “Silence, you fucks!” Then he said something to the driver before turning back to the prisoners. “When I call your name, get your sorry ass up and off the bus. You’ll be escorted to the workplace where you’ll work till chow. Understood?” The prisoners grumbled a “yes sir” in unison and the bull called out the first name: “Sanders, front and center!”

Cattrell craned his neck to see the prisoner being escorted by another bull into the entrance. His cuffs were still on. The escape would have to be from the inside. He waited for his name, still worried that someone would discover the mistake that had gotten him this far.

“Okay Cattrell. Let’s go.”

Two bulls glared up at him as he stepped out of the bus, and one pointed him toward the short climb to the loading zone where a city cop stood sucking his lips.

Down a couple of hallways––not so different from the prison, sans clanking metal doors––as the cop and a bull traded comments about a baseball game. Suddenly, he was looking into a deep room with a ceiling nearly as high as a cathedral, crowded with prisoners busy scrubbing pots and pans, loading and unloading dishwashers, filling plastic trays with clean dishes, glasses and little metal dessert cups, and stacking the trays on dollies. The enormous room was filled of steam and noise and sweat and a sense of hellish boredom. A man with crazy, blue eyes, wearing a camouflage bill cap, left the working horde to snatch Cattrell’s Activity Card and look into his eyes with sullen hate. He nodded to the bull, who was removing Cattrell’s cuffs.

“How’s it goin’, Stu?” he asked the guard.

“It’s alright. Here’s another slave.”

Crazy Eyes laughed and studied Cattrell like an insane drill sergeant.

“I want grease, chump. Elbow grease. Time’s a wasting, lady.” He led Cattrell over to some sinks filled with what looked like near-boiling water. An ugly pan coated with dark slime floated on top. Baby Face removed his cap and jacket. Next to the sink, a stack of cruddy pans of various shapes and sizes rose to the height of a short man––no, make that a short woman, Cattrell thought. Crazy Eyes handed him a pair of blue rubber gloves and winked, “To keep yer hands nice and soft.” Then, “Do it! Now!”

Cattrell dug in, scrubbing at the pan with a bristled brush, but it was so thick with gluey gravy that Cattrell felt there was no possibility of the pan ever being clean again. He gave up, filled it with some of the boiling water, and placed it on the floor. The next one he tried seemed more promising and, after a few minutes of scrubbing, showed signs that it might actually be cleaned in his lifetime. Cattrell worked away but kept scanning the room, observing and noting the general set-up. Behind him was a new guard, and on the other side of the room stood two more watching the deep cavern like a pair of vultures.

Baby Face Cattrell turned around and looked at the guard behind him sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup. The bull stepped closer and said, “What’s the problem? Get back to work.” Baby Face pleaded that he had to use the bathroom. He held his legs together and made the most pathetic expression he could muster.

The guard laughed at his discomfort and took another sip. He narrowed his eyes and sipped again. “There’s a piss break coming up soon,” he said, but then saw that Cattrell was in a bad way. “Okay, son, come with me,” the guard said, and Baby Face peeled off the gloves. In the hallway, they stopped in front of the men’s room. The guard said, “I’ve gotta put the cuffs back on.” Cattrell went back into his leg-squeezing pose and pained expression. The guard still had his coffee. He thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, go ahead. I’ll come with you.”

The bathroom was empty. There were no windows. Cattrell turned to the urinal and unzipped. He slipped out a brush handle with a jagged piece of metal from a dessert dish imbedded into it and wrapped tight with a shoestring. He had contrived the weapon under the hot dishwater, which ended up making it weld together nicely. The guard lit a cigarette and the smell was almost intoxicating to Baby Face as he went ahead and urinated.

As soon as he finished, Cattrell turned and leapt like a wild animal at the guard, savagely plunging the shiv into his throat and twisting it around. As he fell, the guard made gasping sounds, and tried to kick Cattrell off while he groped for his gun, but in a matter of seconds Baby Face had finished him off with a vicious kick to the head. He bolted the door, washed up, and got the guard’s dark trousers off. He pulled them over his own jail stripes. He took his bloody prison-issued shirt off, settling for only a white t-shirt. He took stock of his newly acquired items: a loaded revolver, fat wallet, pack of Camel filters, Zippo lighter, set of cuffs, and keys. He picked up the lit cigarette and took a drag. He dropped it on the floor and stepped on it. He stood on the sink and knocked out the air vent cover above. After he had raised himself inside and closed up the vent, he crawled along a narrow air shaft like a human worm, trying not to breathe too deeply; there was a vague smell of burning plastic.

At the next opening, he removed the vent cover and peered down into an empty room of lockers and benches. Once inside the room, he found a smelly, red sweatshirt, which he put on, and even a pair of sunglasses, which he propped on his head. He let himself out and walked the hallway looking for an exit. He passed a man in a suit and another in a chef’s outfit deep in a heated discussion; neither seemed even cognizant of him. Still, he kept a firm grip on the gun in the pouch of the sweatshirt. Outside, he found himself in a parking lot with a city street just beyond it. He crossed the lot and became a “free man,” walking along a block of East Oakland. He turned a corner, then another, and boarded a bus.

Baby Face Cattrell came from Chicago and didn’t know Oakland or San Francisco. He had been to California only twice: once as a boy, on vacation with his foster family in San Diego, where he’d almost drowned. Still, he remembered the pretty boats, and now arriving at Jack London Square he found boats there, too. Some looked like yachts. His second time in California was when he had traveled to Sacramento for the “job.”

Once off he bus, he bought a gray sweater, and ditched the red sweatshirt in a men’s room trashcan. He walked until he came to a BART station and bought a ticket to San Francisco. He enjoyed the smooth ride and got out at Embarcadero, the first Frisco stop. He walked along Market Street, relishing the reality of his third escape. He needed some ID and then to head south of the border, but first he deserved some fun.

Looking at the San Francisco Chronicle in the vending machines he passed, he was reminded: it was New Year’s Eve. How appropriate, he thought, and pondered if perhaps there was some even deeper meaning. Baby Face sat in a restaurant and ate a “breakfast burrito.” He had never heard of it but had watched the counterman make one: scrambled eggs, potatoes, cheese, salsa, bacon and refried beans. He was nearly salivating as it was handed to a friendly girl standing next to him. “I’ll have the same,” he told the arrogant appearing counterman. He overheard the girl order a “Mango Monkey” at the next counter, but he decided he would just have a cup of coffee.

Now satisfied, he sat at the counter and wondered what the night––New Year’s Eve, no less––might hold in store for him. Outside, he lit a cigarette and took a deep hit, then dropped it to the ground and stepped on it, which was his custom. A homeless man, who looked like an extra from a Dickens epic, dropped to his knees, retrieved the fag, straightened it out, and exposed a horrible, toothless grin.

At a bar, Baby Face found an envelope on the floor that contained a ticket to the Golden Gate Yacht Club’s New Year’s Eve party. He had a few drinks and decided to go. Once at the yacht club, he had a few more. He met a flirty and tipsy “Miss Royale” by the punch bowl. She wore a pink-and-black striped satin corset; black elbow-length gloves, a silver bracelet above one elbow; and a purple flower in her dark hair. Her painted face was as fetching as any harlot dreamed up by any newly escaped, baby-faced, lady killer. He smiled his special smile, the one that always worked. He watched with pleasure as her pupils enlarged.

“You’re the most beautiful doll in all the world,” he whispered with a sweet, deathly sincerity. Miss Royale nearly swooned. He offered his arm; she eagerly grasped it, and they left the yacht club together.

***

The sky threatened rain and Cattrell felt a cold wind kicking up. A clump of white balloons was caught on the electric cables of the bus line. The sidewalk before him was sprinkled with glitter, confetti, a smashed noisemaker.

He watched the attendants wheel the stretcher out of the apartment building. The corpse was covered in a white sheet. He fished out a cigarette, lit it, took one drag, and dropped it to the ground. He looked down and stepped on it.

Baby Face Cattrell thought about his next move. He needed proper ID to get him to Mexico. He knew somebody in San Diego who could supply it. He headed to the bus station and bought a ticket. He found a darkened area in a empty waiting room. He slunk into one corner and, on a hard wooden bench, dozed off behind a San Francisco Examiner.

When Baby Face awoke, he found that the terminal was deserted. There was not a soul in sight. He didn’t feel well, either. He walked around looking for someone but he was completely alone. Spooked now, he desperately wanted to get out, but all the doors were locked. He smashed a glass door with a trashcan; the foul-smelling air rushed in and Baby Face gasped and clutched at his throat. He fell to the floor, his chest contracting with a nightmare force. He struggled to crawl across the grimy floor but he didn’t know where he was crawling to. He felt the blood rushing up his throat and he thought his heart was exploding, silently, profoundly; and then he died. Two men in biohazard suits and gas masks hurried by, barely glancing at Baby Face Cattrell’s lifeless body.

BIO: Johnny Strike is the author of Ports of Hell, and A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above and the founding member of the legendary San Francisco punk band, Crime.