PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…
I turned around to find two latinos, gangsters presumably.
I’d like to note I didn’t assume they were gangsters just because they were latino, but rather because of the heaters they were carrying.
Sorry, but Ms. Donnelly has advised me I have to be specific about these things so as to not upset today’s modern reader 
(even though I only have 3.5 of them).
The one in the middle, the leader I presumed, was carrying a .45 Magnum. That caliber of gun didn’t exist back in my day, but I’d seen them in a few movies over the past year and had been dying to get my hands on one of them.
(Not that it could ever replace Betsy, of course.)
The man in charge wore a long checkered shirt and he pulled a pair of sunglasses to the top of his head so he could stare the wannabe Rastafarian in the eye.
“Fernando! So good to see you. I was just about to call you.”
“Myron, you dumbass. I can’t believe you’re still here.”
To Fernando’s right was a giant ox of a man, more like Mount Everest with eyes than anything.
“Told you, boss.”
“You did,” Fernando said as he pulled out a big bulging billfold. He pulled off a twenty-spot and handed it to his associate.
“Brujo and I had a bet,” Fernando explained. “I said there was no way you’d be stupid enough to still be here after that shit you and your boy pulled on Diego and Brujo said you were, in fact, that stupid.”
“Guys,” Myron said. “Can we all just take a deep breathe, have a seat, and talk about this? I’ll put on a pot of coffee and we’ll really hash this thing out. Whaddya say?”
“I say you start telling me why you were dumb enough to sell Diego a bag of baby powder for ten grand and think there wouldn’t be any consequences.”
Fernando looked at me.
“Who’re you?”
“Looks like a cop,” Brujo said.
The situation called for some fast thinking. Luckily, there wasn’t a private dick in LA with a speedier brain than mine.
“Nah,” I said. “Nah, I ‘aint no cop, see?”
I relinquished my grip on Myron’s neck, allowing him to stand freely. I gripped Wanda’s handle and propped her barrels up against my shoulder.
Gangsters. Sixty years since I’d been in the game and their modus operandi hadn’t changed a bit. One bad guy hoodwinks another bad guy. One bad guy says another bad guy owes him money and threatens to outfit him for a pair of cement shoes. It’s the same old song and dance number.
“This numbskull flim flammed my boss too, see?”
“What?” Myron protested. “That’s a lie!”
I backhanded Myron across the mouth. “Shut your piehole ya’ mook ya or there’s another one where that came from!”
“Shit Myron,” Fernando said with a grin. “You and Craig are the two dumbest white boys in town. Who’d you piss off now?”
Crickets. Myron kept his mouth shut.
“Whose your boss?” Fernando asked.
“What’re you writing a book or something?”
Fernando looked at Brujo.
“One-eyed Frank.”
“That’s it,” Fernando said as he gestured toward me with his piece. “One-eyed Frank is so paranoid he always tells his people to keep their mouths shut.”
Sometimes being a private dick means making a split-second decision and running with it, letting the chips fall where they may.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I work for One-eyed Frank. Franky the Cyclops we call him. What’s it to you?”
Fernando grabbed me by the neck and Brujo pressed the cold steel of his .45 up against my jaw.
“I hate One-eyed Frank. Him and all you racist Aryan Brotherhood expletive deleted…”
BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: I try to keep this blog PG-13, but if you must know, Jake’s original unedited case file stated that Fernando accused the Aryan Brotherhood of fornicating with their mothers.
“I ought to blow your head off right now, chop you up and send you back to that eyepatch wearing expletive deleted…
BQB EDITORIAL NOTE: More alleged mother fornication.
“…in pieces.”
I’d made a mistake by saying I worked for One-eyed Frank without knowing who he was, but it was too late to back peddle.
Aryans. Modern day Nazis. As the 3.5 readers of this series are aware, there’s no one who hates Nazis more than yours truly.
Come to think of it, punching Adolf Hitler in the face had been the greatest accomplishment of my life so far, even though my own government had sworn me to secrecy on the details of Operation Fuhrerpunschen.
So I didn’t like being accused of being one of those sickos, but I wasn’t in a position to argue.
Fernando let me go and backed off.
“Ahh, but the last thing Diego wants is a war. I kill one of Frank’s guys, he kills one of ours, it all turns into a whole thing. Who has time for it?”
“I’ve never met this man in my life and I don’t know anyone named Frank, one eye or two eyes or whatever,” Myron added.
I slapped Myron again. I was starting to enjoy it.
“What did I tell you jerk-o? Keep yer yapper shut or I’ll shut it for you, see?”
“Is that true?” Fernando asked. “Are you bullshitting me now?”
“Nah,” I said. “This guy’s a degenerate liar, see? Sold One-eyed Frank a bag of baby butt powder and told him it was one hundred percent pure snow. Frank’s madder than a mental patient and out for blood. Of course this turkey won’t admit it.”
Fernando tucked his hand cannon into his waistband, then grabbed Myron’s hand and slammed it down on the nightstand.
Brujo flipped open a butterfly knife.
In Myron’s eyes, I could see an ungodly fear.
“All right, check it out,” Fernando said to me. “Diego wants his head but it’s cool if you want to take a few fingers back to Frank as proof that Myron’s dead. How many you want?”
“Guys, I just want to make it clear that Craig and I realize the error of our ways and if you give us some more time, I’m sure we could come up with a payment plan that would satisfy…”
“Shut up,” Fernando said. “Start choppin’ Brujo.”
“Eh,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t need this galoot’s digits, boys. Frank trusts me. You two have fun. I’ll get out of your hair.”
I whistled a jaunty tune as I walked out of Myron’s bedroom and made my way to the door.
It felt like justice to me. Myron was obviously an imbecile who’d nosedived into the criminal underworld without a true understanding of its rules, or rather, lack thereof. He was about to learn the hard way that the only rule is that if you piss of the wrong guy, you’re going to end up fish food. (Or worm food, depending if you’re buried at sea or in the ground.)
But then, as I put my hand on the knob, I heard Myron scream not like the man he was physically, but the little boy he was inside.
Sometimes it’s not easy being the good guy. Being on the right side of the law means never leaving a man behind, even if he’s a poor excuse for one.
I walked back into the bedroom just as Brujo was about to slice off Myron’s thumb.
“Say fellas…”
The gangsters turned to me.
“I was just thinking, old Myron here is the only one who knows where Craig is and if we hack him to ribbons before he spills the beans then Craig might walk scott free and I don’t know about Diego but Frank sure won’t be happy.”
“He’s got a point,” Brujo advised Fernando.
“Talk,” Fernando said. “Where’s Craig?”
“OK! OK!” Myron said as his eyes streamed tears. “He’s at…”
Sweet Mitzi Gaynor’s garter belt, this kid held less water than thimble.
I wanted to catch Craig myself, not invite Mr. Medium and Mr. Extra-Large to carve him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Here, let me at him!”
I walked over to the window, opened it up, then grabbed Myron by his dreadlocks and dragged him over.
“Tell us where Henneman is or out you go!”
“Oh shit,” Fernando said. “Frank’s boy is hardcore!”
“I’m trying to tell you!” Myron squealed. “He’s hiding out at…”
Like I said, sometimes being a private dick means making a split-second decision, running with it and letting the chips fall where they may.
The human mind had an uncanny ability to explain away the unexplainable. All day long, I’d been telling myself that my throat hadn’t really been cut the night before, that I’d dreamt the whole thing.
But I knew pain and I knew it really happened.
If I could live through having my neck opened up like a Pez dispenser, then that was certainly an advantage, to say the least.
It was time to stop denying my immortality and start embracing it.
To this day, I don’t know why I did it, but I scooped Myron up in a bear hug, turned around, and hurled us both out of a twelve story window.
The things I do just to keep myself from becoming a bad guy.
Copyright (2015) Bookshelf Q. Battler.
All Rights Reserved.
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