Doom Fox (22 page)

A half mile away from the ghetto, it occurs to Melvin to prevent identification of the Dodge's license plates. He pulls the car into a curb. He gets out and bends the plates unreadable. He drives the long way toward the station to avoid the immediate area of his crimes.

Two grizzled Mutt and Jeff veterans of the L.A.P.D. Homicide Division, staked out in the office of Melvin's gas station destination, sit on steel chairs and sip Cokes. Unfortunately for Melvin, they have given his watch, a moment before, to the lieutenant leader of the 'Blue Pit' investigation. He had immediately phoned in to downtown Homicide Division the serial number of the expensive clue to trace ownership.

The officers watch the beanpole black attendant pump gas into a pickup truck. The detectives had arrived an hour before while combing a three mile square area for witnesses and also for the seller of the gasoline that had been quickly established as the substance used by the arsonist-murderer to torch the 'Blue Pit' death trap. The cops' unmarked blue Ford sits concealed from easy street view inside the adjacent lube-repair shop.

'Think our nut will show to take his biscuit out of hock?' Jeff asks his partner, Mutt, as he balls up his Coke paper cup and arches it into a wastebasket.

'He's compelled to show. And when he does, walking or riding, our boy out there will drop the rag and we'll get him. But he won't show, as you know, if he's a thief who doesn't have to worry that a checkout of the watch will finger him' Mutt replies as he misses the wastebasket with his crumpled Coke cup.

Jeff shrugs. 'And he could have panicked and split the state.' His forehead wrinkles in thought as he rises from his chair, paces the office concrete ... 'Yeah, odds are he stole it. I don't see a two grand watch bought by a guy who wears cruddy clothes and stinks of piss. We could be wasting ...'

Jeffs excitement cuts him off as he sees the attendant cut his eyes back toward the office when Melvin pulls the Dodge in behind the serviced pickup truck. Both detectives move to stand with guns drawn, peep through a corner of the office door glass for the attendant to drop his wipe rag as the positive identification signal. The attendant is also under instruction, in the event the suspect arrives by car, to immediately raise the hood and rip loose the distributor cap.

The truck owner pays, drives away into Central Avenue. The panic stricken attendant freezes, stares bug eyed through the windshield at Melvin's grim face. The several dollar bills from the truck owner flutter from the attendant's palsied hand. The signal wipe rag dangles forgotten from his hip pocket.

Melvin reads his responses as intended Patek Phillippe ripoff. He lifts his pistol off the seat beside him, points it at the attendant through the windshield, waggles him to the car.

Their field of vision blocked except for a view of the Dodge's rear end and the beanpole's upper torso, the detectives hesitate, thinking the attendant hasn't made a certain I.D. of their suspect.

The trembling attendant goes to the open driver's side window, leans in his head. 'Yas Suh, fill 'er up?' he blurts out in a squealy voice as Melvin jabs the pistol snout into the hollow at the base of his throat.

'I want my watch you took in pawn' Melvin says in a deadly whisper.

'Oh shucks! I thought you was the guy. Yas Suh, gimme a minute to get it from the office soon's I check under your hood.'

Melvin watches as the attendant lifts his head and cuts his electric eyes over the car top toward the office. Melvin says, 'Forget the hood, man! Get my watch!'

'Yah Suh! Yah Suh!' the attendant exclaims and dips his head so frantically that Melvin stiffens, locks his eyes on the attendant's image in the rear view mirror, sees him nervously look back over his shoulder as he trots toward the office.

The attendant belatedly jerks the signal rag from his rear pocket and flings it away. His red shirttail fans out from his rear end like a fiery mini-missile lift-off blast as he accelerates past the office to disappear down a side street.

Melvin sees the rag action and then the detectives busting from the office with guns pointed toward him. He stomps the Dodge into Central Avenue in a rain of bullets. He careens the Dodge south. Mutt and Jeff hasten across the station lot to get their car to follow.

A mile down Central Avenue near Florence Avenue, Melvin hears the old Dodge's engine miss, sputter and then stall under the punishing stress. He leaps from the rolling machine, stumbles and crashes to the pavement with pistol in hand. He lies gasping for a moment. He struggles to his feet, scuttles into an alley as a police cruiser arrives and skids to a stop. Melvin crouches behind an apartment house trash bin, fires two rounds at Mutt and Jeff as he crouches and zig-zags into the alley with drawn service pistol.

Jeff drops to the alley floor, rolls to cover beneath an abandoned car in a vacant lot twenty yards away from Melvin's trash bin cover across the alley. He fires three rapid shots at Melvin when he breaks from cover, and hears him howl with pain as he clutches his gun arm, sees Melvin's pistol fall to the alley floor.

Melvin disappears around the corner of the apartment building. Jeff sprints after him with a chilling smile on his face.

14

A nightmarish mix of hoodlum passion and puckish fate in 1963 colored the Felix-Allen triangle. Red. Joe, the gluttonous humper, forced to scrounge for the Felix staled crumbs of Reba's sex cake, is puffed with constant rage, starved on a frequent fare of sexual hard tack. Masturbation. Ironically, Joe lances the boil of his aching jealousy and long frustration in the evening of an historic November day of gore. Exactly on that day, the New Frontier dreamer disciples were betrayed when Iswald Iscariot cross haired their Christ of Camelot.

But in the early afternoon of the day, Joe and Panther Cox are portraits of unalloyed joy as they watch undefeated fifteen-year-old Junior outbox a Latin opponent in the light heavyweight competition of the Southwest Golden Gloves finals. Junior seems a cinch to become division champion. Joe remembers, with a pang of sadness, his last pro fight and Elder Joe's anguish when his dreams of fistic glory went down the drain in this very ring long ago when he lost his temper and knocked out Melvin's cousin between rounds.

But now their joy is short lived, replaced by despair. Junior's crafty, older opponent sees him telegraph a left hook with an almost imperceptible hitch of his left shoulder. He decks Junior with a crunching counter right cross to his chin at the bell. Panther and Joe leap through the ropes into the ring to assist groggy Junior to his stool. His handlers frantically sharpen his dulled mind, derubberize his legs with smelling salts and brutal massage.

'Junie, stop hunching your shoulders before the left hook. You hear!?' Joe shouts above the cheering din of Mexican partisans.

Shapely fox, Dorothy Lewis, Junior's girlfriend, screams from ringside 'Please throw the towel in, Mister Allen!' Junior shakes his shaved bullet head, leaps off his stool to his feet before the bell. He violently pounds his gloves together as he glares mayhem across the ring at his smirking opponent seated coolly on his stool.

Junior snarls, 'Lissen to the chili bellies cheer that lucky fart. But this round I'm gonna make 'em bawl when I K.O. his ass.'

Joe says harshly, 'Chili bellies!? Nigger! You sound like the damn K.K.K. Get your head together. Fool!'

Junior lunges toward his opponent at the sound of the last round bell. Joe and Panther groan.

Panther shouts to Junior's back, 'Be cool, baby boy! Don't blow the fight, you done won!'

Head hunter Junior throws a reckless right hand lead that his opponent slips, then counters with a left hook that quakes Junior's legs. As Junior back pedals, he darts fearful eyes past his opponent across the ring into Joe's eyes.

'Panther! Looks like Junie's ticker is turned chicken shit first time he's really tested' Joe whispers with hoarse anguish.

His opponent traps Junior in a corner, slams his mid-section and face with a sizzling combination. Junior slips to his back on the canvas, stares apprehensively across the ring at his grim faced opponent dancing impatiently in a neutral corner. The elderly referee tolls the count. At the seven count, Junior half-heartedly dredges himself to his knees, feebly clutches at the ropes before he collapses on his back at the T.K.O. count of ten.

Joe and Panther rush into the ring to help him to his stool. They silently ply him with smelling salts and cold wet sponges. They escort him through absolute Latin pandemonium into the dressing room to shower and dress in heavy silence.

Junior goes to open the dressing room door, pauses, 'I'm sorry I let you both down ... gotta bad break, I guess ... Dottie's got her daddy's car. See ya later, Papa' he says with downcast eyes as he steps out into the corridor.

'See ya later Junie' Joe says softly as Junior closes the door behind him.

They step out into the corridor behind Junior and Dottie, watching the couple walk out the front exit. Joe and Panther leave the building for Panther's new chippie catching red Buick hardtop parked in a lot across the street. As Panther tools the machine toward the ghetto, he cuts concerned glances at Joe slumped on the front seat with his eyes half closed in obvious deep depression.

'Joe, we both got a right to have the blues after what happened to Junior. But cheer up. There's a bright side. Every young fighter is ...'

Joe cuts him off, completes an Elder Joe old saw '... lucky, Panther, if he gets his ass kicked good up front to chastise him for thinking he's three times better than he is so he can be taught to be five times better than he is ... or to hip him he ain't got the ticker to make the big time.'

They laugh hollowly. Joe's disconsolate face still vibes the blues.

Panther says, 'Say, buddy, let's stop off at that new joint on Vernon for a taste of blues chaser before I take you home.'

Joe glumly shakes his naked head. 'Naw, Panther, a ocean of booze couldn't chase my blues.'

Panther says softly, 'Reba?'

Joe mumbles 'Yeah, and Felix.'

Panther exhales noisily. 'He's with Reba down south?'

'Naw, Panther, not that. In a way it's worse 'cause like they say, "the hand of fate has wrote" and hipped me, with no doubt 'bout that snake banging my woman. That shit colored sissy is got her hoo-doed!'

'Joe, I don't know and don't want to know who snitched to make you sure. Lemme throw this out. I lost the only broad I ever truly loved when I believed the lies about her a stinking snitch laid on me to steal her. You gotta be careful, Joe. You can't be sure unless your eyes see it' Panther says as he pulls into the Allen driveway behind Joe's La Salle.

Reba's new pink Thunderbird gleams beneath a carport at the rear of the front yard. Joe smiles bitterly. 'Panther, I been ninety percent sure 'bout 'em for years ... would've busted into the parsonage and caught 'em humping dead bang a hundred times 'cept for that goddamn ten percent I'd be wrong and cinch lose Reeb. Until a short while ago, my sucker ticker wouldn't let my head think 'bout living without Reeb. But she and her nigger done hurt me so much and so long I guess they done numbed me and made me strong 'nough now to play the hand of power Reeb dealt herself.'

Panther's face creases in puzzlement. 'Power hand, Joe?'

Joe starts to answer, but ten-year-old twins Belle and Sadie spill through the front door in starched white cotton dresses and red shortie coats, to Joe's side of the Buick and chorus, 'Hi Daddy and Uncle Panther!'

'Daddy, will ya be sweet and give us some money for popsicles?' Belle, the more aggressive twin asks as they lean in and kiss Joe's cheek.

Joe pats the pockets of his blue slax and black leather jacket. 'Ain't got no change on me, honey bunny. Wait a minute 'til I finish talking to Panther.'

They dash around the other side of the car when they see Panther quickly excavate a half dollar from a trouser pocket of his robin's egg blue plaid suit.

Panther grins, says, 'Now don't you gorgeous lil foxes blow all this bread in one place' as he drops the coin into Belle's extended palm.

They lean in and hastily smooch his cheek. They scamper away for the now black owned corner drugstore, sold several years before by newly wedded former store manager Erica and Harry Havelik after the death of the elder Havelik.

Panther lights a cigar. 'Joe, you was gonna run down the power hand you got.'

Joe lights a cigarette, leans back thoughtfully against the seat. He exhales a gust of smoke, muses in a tensioned voice, 'Miss Slick Reeb called me from New Orleans ... 'round nine this morning and told me she was flyin' in sometime tomorrow ... said she was gonna get a cab home and wasn't no sense in me picking her up at the airport 'cause tomorrow is my busiest day on the plumbing gig. Phillipa's old housekeeper called me just before you picked up me and Junie ... said Reeb had packed and left town to visit a cousin in Baton Rouge for a few hours ... before she flies back to L.A.'

Joe pauses to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray.

'Tonight! Get it, Panther!?'

Panther says, 'Yeah, looks like she's planning to spend the night in L.A. on the Q.T. Maybe you're right about her and the preacher.'

Joe exclaims, 'Ain't no maybe! They ain't fucked for three weeks 'cause she's been down there burying Phillipa and taking care of some business to cinch that coupla hundred grand soon's the probate court dishes it out. They so hot to screw tonight. I'll bet both of 'em is so slippery between the legs, they can't walk for trotting. But their thang is over 'cause I'm gonna bust in on 'em and get the power to keep the kids if I don't keep her. I'm gonna fix Bitch Face. Real good! She'll stay with me and the kids 'cause he ain't gonna be worth doodly squat to her after I catch 'em.'

Panther frowns alarm. 'Joe, the kids! They gonna hurt some bad with the notoriety and the shame. They might wind up hating you.'

Joe says in a quiet monotone, 'Panther, I been thinking 'bout that ...' He heaves a mighty sigh. 'I been worried 'bout that for a zillion years, seems like. Guess I ain't made no kinda move to shuck my pain 'cause a that. You ain't been me, Panther, playing possum boo-koo times she's come in way late ... don't take no bath 'cause she's done had one after he finished jugging in her. She hits the bed and dies just like some bitch dog that's done let a mob of mutts ram her. I done sniffed her sleeping, Panther, and done smelled that sonuvabitch stinking in her pores right past her bathing.