Blood & Tacos #2 (14 page)

**Considering that Mr. Godfrey was drunk and getting drunker in the back booth
of a bar called The Spittoon in Stockton, California, I am positive that he
did
have time to dick around with my bullshit. He was just being an
asshole.

Along with his role as editor of Blood & Tacos,
Johnny Shaw
is a screenwriter, playwright, and the author of the novel
Dove Season:
A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco
. For the last dozen years, Johnny has taught writing,
lecturing at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.

 
By Walter Himes

(discovered by Josh Stallings)

Walter Himes spent most of his all-too-brief life in San Quentin for shooting
a white man seven times in the face. Besides the seventeen Stripper Assassin
tales he put out from behind bars, he also wrote
Black Is Black
, a
manifesto that provoked the prison riots of 1979. That same year, he was found
dead in his cell. The official coroner’s report states this was death
by suicide, but many still believe a guard killed him over a $30 gambling debt.
JOSH STALLINGS discovered this story from 1974 while cleaning out his grandfather’s
gun safe.

"Hey boss, somebody sent you a strip-a-gram."

"Send her in."

Sunshine O’Shay trembled as she walked across the marble floor. She never
thought she’d be in an honest-to-god mansion and yet here she was. Dressed
like a sexy cop, showing as much cleavage as tape and a push-up bra could generate.
Over her shoulder she carried a garment bag.

She entered a den that was larger than her entire home. A fat man in his mid-thirties
sat in a club chair in the middle of the room. He had on a shiny gold velour
track suit. He looked Sunshine up and down twice, slowly examining every inch
of her coffee and cream skin. "They sent me a negress. Now that’s
a spicy meatball."

"You ready for this?" She was eighteen and fighting to sound so
much older. "I hear you been a very bad, bad boy."

"Oh yeah, I been bad, officer. Ha, take me in." He put his wrists
out, practically drooling at the thought of what was coming. Pauly stood at
the door smirking. Jimmy didn’t need to tell him twice to get the hell
out, guard the door in case Gina got home early. Now that would be a massacre.
The closing door covered up the sound of the cuffs snapping home.

"Damn girl, that pinches. What are those, real cuffs?"

"Sorry baby." She leaned down, kissing his wrist and giving him
a look down her top at her breasts.

"Mmmm, they little, bitty things, but I still love to suck on those dark
cherries. I hear the darker the berry …" That was the last thing
he ever said. The blast from the twelve-gauge took his face off. He didn’t
scream. His wide eyes showed life, but how does one scream when he is missing
his lower jaw and most of his throat?

Pauly burst in, gun in hand. He saw his boss fighting for life and a dead stripper
at his feet. What the fuck had happened?

Pauly ran to his boss hoping for some whispered information or instruction.
As he stepped over the dead stripper, Jimmy’s eyes went huge. He was gurgling,
fighting to warn Pauly of something. From the floor the shotgun fired between
Pauly’s spread legs. The blow lifted him into the air and dropped him
five feet back, blood pouring from his groin.

The bloody stripper stood over Pauly. "Yo cracker, you got any idea why
I’m here?"

"No, none, I swear."

Wrong answer. Flame and smoke engulfed Pauly’s head. When it cleared
he was nothing but a stain on the carpet.

Sunshine walked to the boss. She pushed his ruined face with the shotgun barrel.
"You, I bet you know why I’m here. Huh, smart man? Too bad you can’t
tell me." The shotgun rocked and Jimmy became a smear.

Sunshine dropped her blood-splattered cop’s costume. Dropped her bra
and g-string. Crossed to the bathroom, where she took a hot shower. She soaped
and removed the gore. She even washed the shotgun. She had hoped she would feel
better afterwards, what she felt was numb. Clean, she slipped into the starched
white maid’s uniform she had carried protected in the garment bag.

Careful to leave by the back door, Sunshine became invisible on the sidewalk.
Just another brown-skinned maid heading home. Beverly Hills was full of them.
Climbing onto the crosstown bus, she dropped in a dime and took her seat. She’d
be back in Compton before they even found the bodies. Maybe she would feel better
after the next on her list.

Caesar Cavasos was a big, bald Mexican. He ran Pussycats striptease club in
East LA. He also ran the cribs behind it where a man could get his sexual needs
serviced for a small price. He was known as an evil man. Now he was a dead man.
Crabs crawled in what was left of his skull.

Detective John Stark stood on Santa Monica Beach, looking down at the corpse.
"What are you doing so far from East LA, Caesar?"

"Hope you aren’t waiting for him to answer." Leroy Jones
was Stark’s partner. Salt and Pepper, the other cops called them, but
only behind their backs.

Stark tossed the waterlogged wallet to his partner. Jones let out a slow whistle.
"Well, well, looks like Caesar’s having a bad day."

"Any idea who wanted him dead?"

"Shoot, Stark, might as well round up all of East LA. Truth, can’t
think of many who wanted him alive."

"What’s in his hand?" Stark knelt down. The dead man’s
hand was frozen into a fist. A tuft of glitter shone through his fingers. With
a pen he pulled the fingers open . Lifting a round half dollar–sized strip
of lamé, a red tassel was attached at the center. He held it up to Jones.
"Now all we need to do is find a stripper missing one pasty."

"Case closed."

"What’s up, little soul sister?" Ronnie leaned on his Chevy
Bomb by the front door of Pussycats. James Brown’s "The Payback"
thumped through the wall. Ronnie bopped his head to the beat. He was cholo cool,
khakis and a wife beater, Pendleton top button closed.

"Boss in? I needs to speak to him?" Sunshine wore Chuck Taylors,
a pair of hip huggers, and a crop top that showed a healthy amount of skin.

"Ain’t you heard? Found his dead ass in Santa Monica Bay."

"What?"

Ronnie tilted his head toward an unmarked police car. "The man’s
inside asking questions. Better skip out if you done it." He kept a straight
face for a moment then burst out laughing.

"What? You don’t think I could’ve done it?"

"Chica, you couldn’t kill a rat with a scattergun." He was
still laughing to himself as Sunshine entered the club.

The two detectives had taken up residence in Caesar’s office. Stark was
openly enjoying the line of dancers that paraded in to speak to them.

"Damn waste of time, for all the information we’s getting."
Jones wanted to get rolling, slap around a few stoolies, get to the bottom line.
It wasn’t a dancer done this; women poison or stab. They don’t shotgun
off a man’s face.

"Only one left, okay with you?"

"Just get to it."

Stark almost spit out his coffee when Sunshine came in. She was that good looking.
He eyed his notes and motioned for her to sit, not sure he could speak without
stumbling over the words. "Sunshine O’Shay, is that right?"

"Yes sir, that is my name." She focused all her charm at Stark.
He was handsome, in cop kind of way, with his long sideburns and thick mustache.

"Call me John."

"Okay, John. You all have any idea who done this?"

"Not yet, but we’ll find the perp, trust me. We always get our
man."

"What are you, a couple of Mounties? You Dudley Do-Right?"

Stark was suddenly embarrassed. He searched his notebook like some answer was
deep in there. Jones asked if she knew anybody that wanted Otis dead. Her laugh
told him what he already knew. The list of folks who wanted the whoremaster
dead was long and wide.

"That’ll just about do it." Stark finished writing her address
in his notebook. "If you think of anything else, you give me a call."
He passed her his card. She leaned over the desk and with her eyes locked on
his, she took the pen from his hand and wrote on his notebook.

"That’s my number. You bored Saturday night, say eight, call me.
I might be hungry for dinner." As she walked out, she swung her hips just
enough to keep his eyes on her.

"What the hell was that?"

"That, Detective Jones, was the famous Stark charm."

"Don’t smell right."

"Jealous?"

"Not in this life, white boy."

Driving back to the LAPD Homicide office, both detectives were thinking about
Sunshine, for very different reasons.

King Charles and Ray-Ray sat in King’s office behind the Watts Head Cutter’s
barbershop. Guns, drugs, women, King ran the black side of the ghetto. No one
so much as got their hair conked without his knowing about it.

"Jimmy G’s dead. Took a gauge to the head."

"No real loss there, King, right?"

"Took out Caesar, same way. The Italian mother-rapers didn’t sanction
any hits. I didn’t. So who the hell did it?"

"Could be Jimmy G pissed off some husband? Caesar, that spick been just
begging to die for a time now."

"Ray-Ray?"

"Yeah, King?"

"Find out who the hell is killing folks without my say-so."

"It is done."

"Good." After Ray-Ray was gone, King sat back, put his feet up
on his desk. He struck a kitchen match and fired up a robusto. Jimmy G, Caesar
and he had all come up together. They were the young lions of crime. Hell, they
brought about the treaty between the Mexicans, blacks and Italians. They carved
up the city and got rich in the process. They all played high school football
at Franklin. Senior prom, they all were there. It was when they came together.
In many ways, that was the beginning of their triumphant rule.

1955, Compton. Kendra looked in the mirror and liked what she saw. The pink
taffeta prom dress was filled out in all the right places. Sure, she wished
she had some more breasts, but what she had looked good. She heard the knock
at the door. She knew it was Otis, but she hung back. She’d let him sit
with her father for a few minutes, let the old man scare him. As long as Otis
behaved and didn’t get Pop’s Irish up, he’d fare okay.