The Choirboys (46 page)

Then Luther Quigly heard running footsteps across the grass. He jumped up and fled toward Seventh Street and ran all the way home to sit shakily in his room and wonder if it had all been a fantasy after all. He decided it had and called his psychiatrist later that morning.

The choirboys were full of apologies when they took the handcuffs off Roscoe Rules and brought him his wet underwear and pants.

"We forgot, Roscoe," said Harold Bloomguard.

"Real sorry, fella," said Spermwhale Whalen.

"Forgive us, Roscoe, forgive us," said Father Willie.

"It was that goddamn Dean," said Spencer. "We got preoccupied and forgot."

"You okay, man? How's your wrists?" said Calvin Potts.

Roscoe betrayed nothing in his manner as he put on his underwear and wrung out his pants, stepping into each soppy leg, and walked slowly and deliberately back toward his blanket.

"Roscoe, wait up a minute, will ya?" Spermwhale said, the first to get suspicious. He tried to trot past Roscoe who was heading directly toward his belongings.

But he was too late. Roscoe broke into a mad thirty yard sprint as Spermwhale screamed, "THE GUN!"

Seconds later Roscoe Rules was running back toward the ducking diving fleeing choirboys with his four inch magnum in his hand. Sphincter muscles and bladders were loosening all around and Francis Taoaguchi thought he was dead for sure as three explosions deafened the closest choirboys.

Harold Bloomguard was the first to look up and see Roscoe Rules insanely wading into the duck pond blasting away at the birds whose bills had been tucked securely under their wings but now squawked and flapped and swam for their lives from the orange fireballs and the terrifying explosions. Then when he clicked three times on empty cylinders Roscoe caught a hapless duck by the throat and tried to pistolwhip it and punch its lights out and drag it to shore where he could knee-drop it, rupturing its spleen.

"Stop him!" screaked Francis Tanaguchi.

"Get the gun!" yelled Spermwhale Whalen.

"Save the duck!" yelled Harold Bloomguard while five frightened choirboys jumped on Roscoe and took away his gun and held his head under water for twenty seconds.

Then they dragged him and the duck onto the shore as Roscoe bellowed, "Lemme go! Lemme go! I'll strangle that cocksucker! I'll make that fuckin duck do the chicken!"

And as they pried the duck's neck from Roscoe's fist he swung a left and a right, the first of which socked the hissing bird on the bill, the second of which caught Spermwhale Whalen in the eye. There was yet a third punch thrown, this by Spermwhale, and it knocked the rabies right out of Roscoe.

The choir practice ended in a hurry with everyone running to his car to get away in case someone heard the shots and was calling the police. Unfortunately Roscoe could not leave, not after he discovered it was his own set of keys he had thrown into the middle of the pond. He waded in the buttery mud and dove in the mucky water until daybreak.

The quietus was uttered by Ora Lee Tingle as she and Carolina Moon were bouncing half dressed across the grass toward Park View Street at 5:00 A. M.

She turned and yelled, "It was a swell choir practice, fellas! And don't worry, Roscoe, we ain't gonna start calling you a duck sucker!"

Chapter
THIRTEEN

Catullus
.

It was two weeks after that memorable choir practice before there was talk of going to MacArthur Park. Roscoe's shootout with the ducks had unnerved everyone and had caused ten choirboys and two cocktail waitresses to study the newspapers the next day for any mention of persons hit with stray bullets in the vicinity of the park. There was done. They were ready to try again. It was scheduled for a Thursday night near the end of August. Harold Bloomguard intended to make sure all the choirboys left their guns in their cars.

"We can't have any more shooting at ducks," Harold had informed the others.

"How about shooting at fags?" Roscoe Rules had remarked.

"Believe it or not it's kind of nice to get back in a radio car after two weeks on vice," said Sam Niles to Harold Bloomguard the Tuesday night before.

"I was getting tired of those smelly rest rooms," Harold agreed as he blew a spit bubble against the steering wheel.

Sam slouched in the black and white and glanced languidly at the traffic which was light at this time of night. He didn't mind when Harold drove toward the Miracle Mile for a change of scenery.

"Remember the whore who lived there?" asked Sam as they passed a freshly painted lemon and white townhouse apartment building.

"Yeah, sometimes vice was fun," said Harold.

Then Sam Niles said something he would profoundly regret: "Just for kicks, drive by Gina Summers' apartment, right off Wilshire."

"Who?"

"That sadist whore, the one who takes those special tricks and does a number on them in her little torture chamber."

"Oh yeah," Harold said. "I never did see her. I remember you and Baxter talking about her."

"Wanna see if she's undressing up by her window tonight?" Sam asked. "Then you can see her. Tits like avocados."

"All right!" Harold said.

When Harold pulled to the curb beside Gina Summers' apartment and turned the lights out, Sam Niles said, "Yeah, she's home. See the light up there in the sixth floor corner apartment? Just sit for a minute, see if she parades in front of the window naked."

"Got lots of time." Harold had his eyes glued to the light.

But after they sat for five minutes Harold got antsy and said, "Well?"

"No action tonight. Let's split," said Sam.

Just then Gina Summers walked in front of the window, a long piece of leather draped around her neck She unbuttoned her blouse and stood naked to the waist, the leather resting on one breast as she lowered the shade.

"Outta sight!" Harold Bloomguard exclaimed.

"Harold, that was a man's belt, wasn't ?" Sara Niles asked.

"It was a long fat leather belt. Mighta been a whip!"

"Goddamn. She's got a trick up there."

"So what?"

"So what? Do you know that Scuz had Baxter and I stake out four nights straight trying to dose the vice complaint on this bitch? We never got close. Now she's got a trick up there. And she's got her whip!"

"So? We're not working vice anymore."

"It's police work, isn't it? Besides, Scuz'd get his rocks off if a couple of bluesuits brought in Gina Summers on a vice pinch when his squad's been working on her so long."

"Come on, Sam," Harold said. "It's only a lousy misdemeanor like Scuz always said. Besides we can't sneak and peek in full uniform."

"Let's try. You might get to see her bare ass, Harold."

"That's different. Let's go," Harold Bloomguard said, and the partners gathered up their hats and flashlights and locked the radio car.

"But how the hell we gonna get a violation?" Harold asked.

They crossed the street, looking up at the lighted window, entered the unlocked apartment building, took the carpeted stairs two at a time, clear to the fourth floor.

"We have to be able to hear the offer and the action," Sam said.

"That's impossible," Harold answered, puffing up the stairs.

"I've got good ears."

"Scuz said never to perjure yourself for a chickenshit vice arrest, remember?"

"Don't worry. Did you see the fire escape by her window? Baxter and I always had it planned if we saw a trick inside we'd go out on the fire escape. It's only three feet from her bedroom. I'm positive I could hear anything that was happening from there."

"Well," Harold shrugged and then they stopped and rested on the fifth landing.

Harold longed for the elevator. But he knew why Sam disliked the confinement.

At last they reached the sixth floor, and while Harold Bloomguard had second and third thoughts about doing vice work in uniform, Sam Niles climbed out on the fire escape and was squatting in the darkness catching his breath. Then Sam heard female laughter and a muffled male voice in Gina Summers' bedroom.

He took off his hat and glasses and wiped his forehead on his blue woolen shirtsleeve and cleaned his glasses with his handkerchief, catching a breeze near the rooftops.

He listened. The voices were low but after three minutes he heard a woman's voice say, "Is this what you want?"

And then the crack of leather and a man's gasp of pain.

"I can do better, honey. This isn't much," said the woman's voice again, followed by another crack and a man's cry and then another crack and a groan.

Then the woman's voice got more husky and guttural. She said, "You feel like you belong to me now, don't you, baby? Well you do, you bastard! You worthless son of a bitch! Right now Gina owns you! You're not a man. You're an animal! Gina's animal!"

Then there were three cracks of leather and unbroken groaning. Sam Miles was chilled from the rib cage to the top of his head and furiously beckoned for Harold to climb out on the fire escape.

"But I can do better." The woman's laugh was like a bark. "I can really hurt, baby, you give me a chance. There's no extra charge. Same price."

And the man whimpered and moaned. Then there were three quick sharp cracks. And silence.

Harold Bloomguard crawled through the window and huddled next to his partner during the quiet moments.

"We've got it," Sam whispered. "Goddamnit, we've got it. I heard it. The money offer. The act."

Sam crawled back through the window into the hallway and Harold followed him down the hall where, they ducked into an alcove.

"I heard her saying something about no extra charge," Sam said. "I heard the act. It's a good legal pinch!"

"What act? Screwing?"

"No. She's whipping some guy!"

"Far out!" whistled Harold Bloomguard. "I sure never made a bust like this. Sex, money. We got her for prostitution. And him. Wait, is whipping considered a sex act?"

"I think so," Sam Niles said, putting his hat on and pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Isn't it?"

"You got me. I haven't had that fantasy yet," said Harold Bloomguard who thought he probably would by the time he got in bed tonight.

"Let's go. I say we've got her," Sam said. "Well just wait until he comes out."

"Can't we knock? I don't wanna waste the whole night here. I haven't eaten all day."

"Okay, let's go. They're probably through by now. Unless he's gonna let her beat him to death."

While Harold stood back against the wall Sam Niles knocked at the door. There was no response so he knocked again, saying, "Miss Summers!"

Then they heard frantic footsteps and a woman's voice, soft and sultry now. "Who is it?"

"Assistant manager, Miss Summers. There's a gas leak on this floor, ma'am. We're evacuating the building."

The door opened a few inches, but before she could slam it, Sam Niles shouldered it wide open and the naked girl was thrown back against the wall saying, "Hey, what's the big idea?" as both policemen rushed into the apartment past the naked brunette.

"Just go in the room there with my partner while I have a talk with your friend," Sam Niles said as he rushed down the hall to arrest the other party to the prostitution.

Then he was in the bedroom face to face with the customer who was putting on his pants. Shivering. Sweat soaked. Face like alabaster.

"Baxter!" Sam Niles gasped. Freezing in his tracks. Face to face with Baxter Slate who was naked to the waist, his body wet and gleaming.

Then Sam heard Gina Summers threatening Harold Bloomguard with false arrest while Harold nodded placatingly and leered at her naked breasts.

Sam Niles closed the bedroom door and Baxter Slate went to the window and looked out and choked off a sob. Sam Niles stared at the ugly raw welts and stripes on Baxter's body which already were swelling and said, "Why, Baxter?"

Then Sam went to a chair and sat. And disbelieved. He removed his hat and ran his hand through his hair and looked at his friend who wiped his pale sweating face with a shirt but never turned from the window.

"Why?" groaned Sam Niles who couldn't take his eyes from Baxter's welted flesh.

"What's happening, Sam?" called Harold Bloomguard from the hall outside where Gina Summers was demanding to call her lawyer.

Yet she made no move to the phone nor to the closet where her robes hung with the whips and boots and exotic underwear. Harold Bloomguard went on explaining the arrest to her while she stood nude, hands on her hips.

"I thought we didn't work vice anymore, Sam," Baxter said finally with a quivering smile which was nothing, nothing like a Baxter Slate smile. He went to the bed and sat, his wounded back still turned to his friend.

"Why?" Sam Miles asked. "Why?"

"I don't know for sure, Sam."

"Does she know you're a cop?"

"No, of course not."

Sam Niles lit a cigarette and sighed and turned from the sight of Baxter's tortured flesh and said, "I'll tell her it was a mistake. She'll be damn glad not to be hitting the slammer so she won't ask any questions of me."