Jungletown Jihad

Heaven’s still forever. Time still stings you and makes you bop backward. Intervals intertwine. The hot-prowl holocaust and shattering shit six months later.

Donna. Me. A short shove to March ’05.

Another murder mandate. A cold-case contretemps. My yearning. Her reluctance. The urge to merge. Donna. Me. Toxic terror. Jungle juju. Ring my retrospection back to this:

Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2005. COLD CASE SQUAD INVESTIGATES ROBBERY MURDERS By Miles Corwin

The LAPD’s Cold Case Unit is now actively investigating three brazen homicides that occurred during the holdups of Southside liquor stores in the spring of 2001. Detective David Slatkin, the unit’s officer-in-charge, told the Times that a recent tip may prove “quite valuable.”

On the afternoon of April 29, 2001, two men entered the Liquor Heaven store at Normandie Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard in South-Central Los Angeles. They robbed the store at gunpoint and shot proprietor Dong Quan Lem to death. A stockboy crouched unseen behind the dairy case described the men as “young Arab types. You know, like those guys you see waving sticks and stuff in Iraq.” The killers escaped. The stockboy provided LAPD detectives with a description of them, and assisted the detectives in creating Identikit portraits.

The robber-killers struck again on May 16. They entered the Liquor World store on Jefferson Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, robbed the establishment and fatally shot owner Jim Wong Kim. A pedestrian eyewitness saw the killers escape. She described both assailants as “male Arabs with mustaches like that no-goodnik Saddam Hussein.” She confirmed the Identikit portraits as accurate and added, “Both men looked very mean.”

LAPD detectives expanded their investigation. They followed up on numerous leads and checked with Federal agencies for information on armed robbers with possible terrorist ties. Nothing conclusive resulted, and the robber-killers struck again on June 9.

Their target was the Liquor King store on Imperial Highway. They made the proprietor, Kwan Paul Park, unlock an office vault and hand over a week’s cash receipts. After Park complied, they shot him fourteen times and escaped out a back door. A parking-lot witness said both men yelled, “Praise to Allah!” and “Free Palestine!” He embellished the two prior suspect descriptions, stating, “Both guys looked wasted, like they was on dope or on the sauce. That, and they sure looked crazy and mean.”

The LAPD stepped up its investigation, spurred by urgings from Asian-American civil-rights groups. An attempt to locate Arab-terrorist “sleeper cells” followed. Arab-American civil-rights groups protested the LAPD’s “heavy handedness” and “fascist methods” in interrogating Arab-American citizens. Arab League spokesman Gazi Alli called the investigation a “pogrom” and a “Zionist conspiracy.”

The investigation continued, unsuccessfully. The September 11 terrorist bombings diverted the flow, as Federal agencies began a massive post-attack investigation of their own, aimed at uncovering terrorist cells in the Los Angeles area. LAPD detectives constantly monitored the FBI Task Force’s progress, but turned up no salient leads on the robbery-murder men. The investigation stagnated and assumed “open file” status.

Detective Slatkin told the Times, “Our investigators have checked out over 400 tips, and Chief Tierney has now assigned the job to the Cold Case Unit. We’re making it our number-one priority. We’re about to check out an informant who has pledged to give us some important information. He seems to be plugged in to the Arab criminal network, so we’re guardedly optimistic.”

Will the informant offer up data on terrorist activities? Detective Slatkin thinks not. “We think this is street crime, pure and simple,” he said. “The shouted slogans are most likely obfuscation. We’re treating this as a series of heinous, but nonpolitical, crimes.”

Daily Variety, March 2, 2005. COP FLOP: “HOMICIDE HEAT” FIZZLES. DONAHUE SETS ON STAGE. By Bruce Balaban

ABC has pulled the plug on the Donna Donahue starrer Homicide Heat after a scant six episodes. The L.A.-set cop-u-drama moped to miserable market shares and flat-out flopperooed. The show, which featured La Donahue as LAPD Detective Daisy Delphine, sunk despite proud production values, Ms. Donahue’s sin-tillating performance as a promiscuous diva cop and its status as LAPD Chief Joe Tierney’s favorite TV program. El Jefe’s bereft, but don’t look for Divine Donna at the unemployment office or Brentwood breadlines.

No, she’s sternly stuck on the stage. She wants to eschew indie cheapies, sexploitation yukfests like Exit to Ecstasy and overblown oaters like San Laredo. Her plan? To commission a playwright and bomb the boards as pill-popping poetess Anne Sexton.

Sexy Sexton succumbed to suicide in 1974. Deep Donna digs on her as a kool kindred soul. “I’ve had two seismic eruptions in my life,” she said. “One in ’83 and one last year. I want to transmogrify them into my role as Sexton.”

Doe-eyed Donna does Sexton—whoa! It wends as one wild one-woman show. That Shakespeare shtarker is dead—ditto torrid Tennessee Williams. Who does Dishy Donna—currently flogging Barko Bits dog food with her Rhodesian ridgeback Reggie—see as her scribe?

“There’s a young playwright I’ve got my eye on,” she said. “He’s stuck on ’70s culture, especially the SLA–Patty Hearst thing, but I think I can get him hooked on Sexton.”

That sounds like savvy and sagacious Sextonism. Meanwhile, look for Dogophile Donna at the Barko Bits booth at the Beverly Hills Kennel Club trials. She’ll also be a presenter at this month’s Oscar fest, and that’s no dog of a show.

Los Angeles Police Department/Psychological
Evaluation Report/Official Routing Only: Commander,
Robbery-Homicide Division & Personnel Division [file
inclusion]. Reporting psychologist: Alan V. Kurland,
Ph.D. Subject: Jenson, Richard W./Detective 3rd-
Grade/currently assigned to Cold Case Homicide Unit.
Date of submission: 3/6/05.

Sirs:

Between the dates 2/21 and 2/26/05 I conducted three one-hour sessions with Detective Jenson, who was referred to me (compulsory) by Captain Walter D. Tyndall, the Commander of Robbery-Homicide Division. Captain Tyndall’s reason for referral was his personal assessment of Detective Jenson: i.e., that he was suffering from nervous exhaustion and “some sort of ongoing personal crisis.”

I found Detective Jenson to be a person of acute intellect and substantial insight, marred by the presence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which by its debilitating long-term nature has led Detective Jenson into a state of excitability, pathological work habits and a disturbing need for mental stimulation. The underpinnings of Detective Jenson’s compulsiveness appear to be his romantic attachment to a 1965 murder victim (Stephanie Lynn Gorman, DOD 8/5/65, DR #65-538-991), an unsolved crime recently investigated by the Cold Case Unit, and his occasional involvement with a well-known actress (who Detective Jenson refuses to name), an intermittently intimate relationship that dates back over twenty years.

Detective Jenson stated that he has eschewed marriage and long-term relationships with other women out of a sense of devotion to this woman, because “with her, everything is possible,” “she’s constantly with me, anyway,” and “I’ll never take a soft line on love.” Detective Jenson further stated that he has written two “novella-length” memoirs about his “wild-ass love” for this woman, and that they were both stylistically influenced by the alliterative prose style of Hush-Hush magazine. When queried about the content of the memoirs, Detective Jenson said, “It’s private shit. And, no, you can’t read them.” He went on to describe his writings as both “odes” and “hymns to the few times I’ve fully loved and felt incandescently alive.” Implicit in those statements: both memoirs described Detective Jenson and the unnamed woman in moments of violent intrigue. It should be noted that Detective Jenson’s admitted grandiosity and hoarding of “my righteous secrets with this woman” are consistent with the defining psychological guidelines of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

There are other deeply compulsive aspects of Detective Jenson’s fixation. He stated that he “only digs women who look like her,” “falls into” relationships with look-alike women and “axes them when they fall short of her.” Detective Jenson also employs “snitches” who direct him to the woman’s whereabouts so that he may “show up, accidentally on purpose.” When pressed on the desperation inherent in this, Detective Jenson stated, “So fucking what? I’m a cop. I use informants, and any man who won’t make a fool of himself for a woman is a fucking fruit.”

Detective Jenson’s intransigence also extends to the Stephanie Gorman case. The victim (a 16-year-old girl from West Los Angeles) has, in Detective Jenson’s words, “constellated my need to yearn, live in the past, fuck myself up on unknowability and maybe get some righteous revenge.” With uncanny self-perception, he pointed to his use of informants and his hours parked outside Stephanie Gorman’s former house. “It’s a meditation,” he said. “It makes me feel tender. I sit still and figure things out about myself. I don’t have to fuck women to love them.”

At this time, Detective Jenson is not amenable to entering therapy or taking medication that might serve to curb his obsessive-compulsive behavior. His physical condition—based on his last LAPD examination—is excellent, and his work performance is unimpaired. Detective Jenson (who has killed five armed suspects in the line of duty) does not seem to suffer from the post-traumatic stress disorders common to policemen. When asked about the state of nervous exhaustion and “ongoing personal crisis” described by Captain Tyndall, he replied, “If you’re not on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” Detective Jenson has, despite his excitability, pathological work habits and need for stimulation, a grounding in the realities of his life. At this time, I believe there to be no cause for his suspension from duty. I would further recommend a second evaluation in six months’ time.

Respectfully,
Alan V. Kurland,
Ph.D.

1.

The informant:

Habib Rashad/male Arab/age 36/4823 S. St. Andrews.

We humped the Harbor Freeway southbound. Cops call it the “Coal Chute.” It’s a jungle-bunny juggernaut and a sleaze sluice. It coonects Darktown with White Man’s L.A.

Tim Marti drove. I daydreamed. Donna Standard Time tapped me. Homicide Heat—tanksville. No more impromptu set visits. No more Donna done up fetishistic: LAPD badge, gun, and cuffs.

The blues blasted me. Donna deprivation, Stephanie still stamped unsolved and DEAD. My torch flared and billowed bipartite. Said torch now torqued Tim’s kid Brandon. My crush created his crush. He dug Donna delirious. He prized Stephanie as his prom date pristine.

Darktown dipped by. Shit shacks, shine stands, Afriqued AMEs. The Coal Chute ran elevated. I saw liquor-store layabouts lap Olde English 800. I saw hos pander poontang and cats cliqued up outside rib cribs.

The ’01 murders. Three dead, Arab suspects, Southside locations. Habib Rashad—Southside habitué.

He called the chief’s office. He said he had major shit. Joe Tierney bought in. Terrorists tickled Tierney. He hosannaed for Homeland Security. He called the Cold Case guys in.

Three liquor-store snuffs. Brutal, brazen. Terrorist tie-ins— don’t bet on it.

We hit the 10 freeway westbound. I Donna-dreamed. We mated in Malibu. We soixante-neuf’d at Sofitels. Reggie Ridgeback romped rambunctious and furred us up.

Tim took the Normandie exit. We whipped west and south. There’s the address: a weathered wood-frame pad.

We parked curbside. Jigaboos perched on porches checked our fuzzmobile out. We bopped to the front door. Tim rang the bell. A full-drag dune coon opened up.

Designer threads. A Husseinesque house smock. A boss burnoose from Bin Laden’s Boutique.

Tim laffed. I said, “Ahab the A-rab. Where’s your camel, motherfucker?”

Daddy-o deadpanned us. We bopped in unbidden. The living room: a mad mini-mosque.

Pricey prayer rugs. Wild wall tapestries. Freaky framed photographs—Al Qaeda-ish cats with big beards. All-star ayatollahs. Sacred Saddams and holy Hassims. A camel caravan supreme.

Rashad said, “I have information. I give, and you give me good deal.”

Beanbag chairs beckoned. Tim and I plopped in. Rashad paced. His burnoose billowed. Fuck this Scimitar Sid.

The digs diverted me. Hookahs heaped on side tables. Chartreuse shawls covered with camel or cat hair. Those wall pix— beady-eyed Bedouins.

Tim said, “The liquor-store jobs. Give on that, and we’ll talk to the D.A.”

Big bugs rocked across the rugs. They lugged lamb hunks and shish-kebab shards. Southside centipedes loomed large—L.A. Laker–like.

I said, “Is this terrorist shit we’re dealing with? Did those guys have some kind of political motive?”

Rashad shook his head. “They wanted to show courage to a radical Islamic group. You know the term ‘sleeper cell’? They wanted to secure funds from the group and form a cell, but they had no intention of performing terrorist acts. They just wanted to enjoy themselves with the money. You know the term ‘party hearty’?”

I saw it. Murderous Muslims maraud the Sunset Strip. Camels corralled by the Viper Room. Lamb roasts right by the Roxy.

Rashad paced. His house smock swirled. His sandals slapped. Shit—a shot shook/a side window shattered.

It ratched Rashad. It ricocheted. It hit a hookah and hammered his head twice. It chewed his cheekbones, his brains breezed, his scalp scattered.

I dove. Tim dove. We rolled and ate prayer rug. Bugs crawled with falafel crumbs.

Rashad palsied and pulsed pole-axed. He flew. He flatlined. He dropped DOA.

I got up. Tim got up. We reached for our roscoes and ran out the door. Getaway car—a purple Pontiac peeling out.

We ran. We got our car. Tim caught the key and goosed the gas. We tore tread, reamed the rims, and ripped rubber.

We gained ground. We pounced on the Pontiac. We sheared shots off. We blasted the back window out.

Glass shrapnelized. Our towelhead target boded, backlit.

I fired. Tim fired. We tore towel fabric. His burnoose burned. His hair flared and flamed the headliner.

He screamed. I heard it. He alakazamed to Allah. We banged his bumper. We climbed close in. His beard broiled down to bristles. His face went on fire.

The Pontiac pulled right and popped over the curb. It hit a hydrant, stalled and stopped. Local losers poured off their porches. They whooped wild and cheered.

The guy jumped from the car. His face was a four-alarm fire. A porch punk pulled a hose over. He laughed loud and lobbed water up.

The guy sizzled and fizzled. The guy sputtered sparks and dipped dead.

THE SHOOTING TEAM SHOWED. Ditto the lab. Ditto the coroner’s car and six bluesuits.

They roped the street off. They perused the Pontiac. Fire Face—high up in hafiz heaven. The coroner’s cats cased his stiff.

Filed fingertips. Scar tissue over print surface. One U.S. passport. Saudi Arabia stamps/Habib Rashad’s name/Fire Face’s unfried features. Sexy secular threads: color-coonordinated Tommy Hipnigger.

Local louts loitered. Porch punks paraded. They hopped house to house and shared Schlitz malt liquor. Lab guys popped the Pontiac’s trunk. They found a Mach 10 machine gun, a copper kettle caked with couscous, four bug microphones.

Bug mikes—whoa, why dat?

The shooting team shoved shit at Tim and me. You shot that sharp sheik. Yeah, he killed Scimitar Sid—but justify it.

We laid it out. The liquor-store snuffs. Rashad—righteous informant. He’s out to name names. He’s prepping his prelude. Bam— the sheik shoots, Sid leeches lead.

The shooting guys got it. Internecine intrigue. Camelhead conspiracy. Some panicked Pan-Arab Pax.

We tossed the pad. We roamed rooms, combed cubbyholes, and found this:

Personal papers. Proud proprietor Rashad—owner of Falafel Fan, 34th and Vermont.

Mucho mattresses stuffed in storage closets.

Hate tracts. Arabic script. Gross graphics of insidious Israelis. Dig their fat fangs and big beaks. Dig their kike Cadillacs. Dig their six-point-star-meets-dollar-sign regalia.

Five .44 Magnums. Fifteen 40-caliber Brownings. Appropriate ammo.

Pandemic porno vids. Torrid and topical titles. Darsheika Does Damascus, Syrian 69, Golan Heights Gang Bang, Sexy Saddamites, and Cairo Cuties.

Four spackle-coated cameras. Surefire surveillance cams.

Link it large: the bug mikes and the cameras.

Print techs whipped through and worked walls and windows. Tim and I rocked room to room and recorded details. A coroner’s canoe rolled Rashad and Fire Face off. I contemplated my kills, line of duty.

The Garcia brothers—wicked wetbacks/choice cholos. Huey Muhammad 6X—rapacious rape-o. Shondell Dineen and Webster Washington—blasphemous black hoods. My bold body count—now six total.

My cell phone rang. The display lit up. A Donna snitch snared me.

I hit On. “It’s Jenson.”

“Hi, Rhino. It’s Tom. You know, at Raleigh Studios.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s on Stage 6. She’s doing this dog food commercial.”

DIG THE DICHOTOMY: dead dune coons to Dangerous Donna.

I drove to Raleigh Studios. I circled Stage 6 and parked. Rowf fucking rowf—there’s Reggie Ridgeback’s huckster howls.

The barks bid me inside. I cut down corridors and caught the commercial. There’s the director. There’s the crew. There’s Reggie and Donna.

A flag fluttered behind them. Reggie rowfed in red, white, and blue dog duds. A right-wing conglomerate hawked Barko Bits. Donna parsed out patriotic pap.

“Hi. This is Donna Donahue, with my dog, Reggie. Like all Americans, I’m concerned about the specter of terrorist attack. I stay healthy and vigilant by eating a well-balanced diet, and I feed Reggie Barko Bits All-American Dog Chow. I want a vigilant watchdog who’s alert 24–7. Barko Bits’ special blend of meat, vitamins, and minerals keeps Reggie up on his paws and sniffing out terrorist suspects. Speak, Reggie! Tell us how you feel about Barko Bits All-American Dog Chow!”

Reggie went “Rowf!” Reggie dipped through his dog duds and dug into his dick.

He bit, he licked, he tongued himself tumescent. Donna howled. The director yelled, “Reggie, you fucking lowlife, lay off your shvantz!”

Reggie ignored him. Reggie dick-dug deeper. The crew yukked. I noticed a cool cat standing stage right. He oozed male-model machismo. He was fagged-out in Ferragamo and artfully arrayed in Armani. Resentment ripped me. He vibed Donna boy toy.

The director yelled, “Cut! Let’s take five for now!”

Boy Toy bopped toward Donna. Reggie gggrrrowled at him. I hopped on stage. Donna hugged me. I said, “Who’s the fruit?” Donna said, “He’s a playwright, and I’m not sleeping with him.”

My resentment rippled off. I un-machismoed and magnanimized. I Donna-disengaged and braced Boy Toy.

“I’m Rick Jenson. Donna and I go back. I’m on LAPD, and I just dusted an A-rab.”

Donna laffed. “Rick’s a xenophobe, and he tends to brag to impress me. It works sometimes.”

Boy Toy bristled. “I’m Donny DeFreeze, and I’m not impressed. I support the PFL and all Middle Eastern wars of liberation. I told Donna this commercial was beneath her, but she insisted. She has a codependent relationship with her dog.”

Reggie growled. His fur furled tailbone and torso. It was deep dog dislike and instant indictment.

I said, “Donny DeFreeze? Like that SLA fool ‘Cinque’? Don’t tell me. You think he’s cool and relevant to this time of internal repression, and you regret that you were born white.”

Donna poked me. Reggie flared his flaps and flashed his fangs. DeFreeze detoured and mowed down a mike stand.

It toppled. I picked it up. Donna reached for Reggie and restrained him.

“Donny’s going to write my Anne Sexton show. He’s written some plays and spec scripts that caught my attention.”

Boy Toy/Butt Banger/Budding Bolshevik Bard—fuck him six ways from Sunday.

“Watch out for Donna. She’s more dangerous than you’ll ever know. And watch out for Reggie and me, because we’re right behind you.”

Reggie growled. His dick shot from the shaft. He vibed dog defiler and ridgeback rape-o.

Donna said, “Rick, you asshole.”

DeFreeze simpered sissified. His lips pursed perverted. Spit bubbles bipped out and spun.

“My best work hasn’t been produced yet, but I think you’ll find it shocking when you see it.”

Cryptic. Cruel. Fatalistically faggy. This hard-eyed homophile hiss.

I flipped his tie in his face. I stepped off the stage. Donna said, “Rick, you shit.”

I walked outside. I caught the crew with crullers and coffee. I saw a lipstick-red Lamborghini parked adjoining. The license plate read “DeFrzz.”

DIG THE DICHOTOMY: dog dissent to dog den delight.

I drove to Dave Slatkin’s dog shelter. I hooked up and homed in with his hounds. A canine cacophony warmed me—six brindle pit bulls full of love.

We shared oki pastrami burritos. We crafted a cross-species group grope. I pulled out a pallet. We all snuggled up.

I talked up Reggie’s resentment. I said Donna deftly demurred. This DeFreeze dipshit was writing her Sexton show. She couldn’t opt to offend him. She couldn’t call him on his Commie jive. Yeah, I was an asshole. I should have shut up.

The hounds heard me out. I told them I toasted a camel jockey. I mentioned the mattresses. Southside sleeper cell— maybe. We’d re-toss the crib tomorrow. More shit might turn up.

I dozed. Dog farts fanned. DeFreeze reprised and dug at me. He vibed parasitic pantywaist with molten mean streak. I didn’t want him working angles on Donna.

I called the DMV and plied a plate run. A clerk caught the “DeFrzz” stats and coughed up a make. The lipstick Lambo: long-term rental from Khalid’s Kustom Cars/Khalid Salaam, owner.

It fit the prick’s profile. Appropriate an appearance and hit Hollywood. Dun someone like Donna Donahue. Trap them and transfuse yourself. Latch on like a leech. Pile on like a piranha.

I dozed. I drifted. I slipped into slumber. Hound heartbeats held me. I felt this big canine caress.

I dreamed. Shondell Dineen and Webster Washington whipped through my wig. The ’92 riots. Nihilistic nostalgia. The sack of Sal’s Market, South-Central.

Dineen’s dinged with needle tracks, smug and smacked-back. He’s caught with a case of Cutty. Webster’s wearing a “Shaq Attack” sweatshirt. He’s got ten cartons of Kools and a shitload of Schlitz malt liquor.

They’ve got guns. They’re just out of the joint. They’ve got prison shoes—San Quentin sandals.

There’s Sal’s Market. They’re bopping out with booty. I’m going in.

SURPRISE!!!!!

I’ve got a Remington pump. One spread spritzes them. The Cutty cascades. The Schlitz shvitzes. Their collective last word is “motherfucker.”

I woke up. Donna Standard Time stung me. Let’s kommune with a kindred soul. Let’s kall Brandon Marti.

I dug through dogs and filched the phone. I dialed the Marti pad.

Brandon grabbed it. “Uh, yeah?”

“It’s me, kid.”

“Oh, hi, Uncle Rhino.”

Fleas flipped on the pallet. Pit bulls scrunched and scratched.

I said, “Did your dad tell you about the Arabs?”

“Uh, yeah. He said you popped Glaser slugs and fried the guy’s face. It sounded really cool.”

“The shooting board should clear us. The guy just iced our witness.”

“Uh, yeah. My dad said it was a good kill, but these stupid A-rab civil-rights groups might protest.”

“Let them. We’ve got right on our side, and—”

“You want to talk about Donna. I can always tell by your voice.”

I sighed soft. “You know me, kid.”

Brandon coughed. “My dad says you’re a loser in love. He said it’s okay for me to moon for Donna, because I’m a kid, but you should know better.”

A pit bull licked my face. Burrito breath blew.

“I’ve been places your dad’s never been. I think he’s jealous.”

“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just on to something he doesn’t understand.”

“I’ll buy that.”

“My English teacher gets it. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Donna. He’s really into her hold on men and all that. He said I could read it, because I’m a Donna guy, too.”

I yawned. “Make a copy for me, will you? You can drop it off here at the shelter.”

Brandon yawned. “Okay.”

“Goodnight, kid. Sweet Donna dreams.”

“Goodnight, Uncle Rhino. Good luck with the A-rabs.”

I hung up. I got loser-in-love lonely. I was too tired for a Stephanie stakeout. I wanted to Donna-diminuendo and sleep.

Donny DeFreeze dinged me. I decided to dig up derogatory dish. Let’s loop his life. Let’s look for larceny. No sale?—we’ll frappé and frame his ass then.

I dozed. Hurricane-hurled hazel eyes hammered me.

2.

The media mauled me. The radio rocked with it.

We caught the Coal Chute. Dave Slatkin drove. Tim ran the radio. This fucking fedayee Gazi Alli filleted me. It was civil-rights shit shorn of shape and reason. Two sharp Shiite sharifs— dead. Boo-hoo—two super Sufis. Rhino Rick rampages. He’s tripped-out and trigger-happy. He’s deep depressed. LAPD just shot him to a shrink.

I bounced in the backseat. Gazi gored my goat. Some personnel punk leaked him my package. Tim made the jackoff sign. Dave ditzed the dial. Some ballsy bitch ballyhooed the upcoming Oscars.

I groaned. Donna was set to attend. She was boyfriend-bereft now. She might take Dipshit DeFreeze.

We cut off the Coal Chute. We caught side streets to Saint Andrews. Bluesuits bloomed on our block. They cordoned back a camelhead cadre. Many Moors mingled. They shucked with shines and mouthed multicultural mayhem. They growled grievance in some spunky Spook-Arab Pact.

We parked outside the cordon and coursed through on foot. We rolled through Ramadan cut with Kwanzaa. Black Muslims materialized and mau-maued us with their eyes. Anti-Zionist zingers zipped by:

“Islam—not Israel!”/“Stop the LAPD Jew Jihad!”/“Gen-o-cide, gen-o-cide, LAPD and the Jews can’t hide!”

We walked through. We made tracks through mini-Ramadan and parted the Red Sea of Resentment. We barged biiiiiiig. We shot out sharp elbows. We ripped through reefer smoke and toppled tallboys of Olde English 800.

There’s the Rashad rancho—let’s duck inside.

We did it. We laid up with some lab guys and print techs. They told us this:

Per prints—we latched on to some latents. We got Rashad’s prints, we got glove prints boocoo. Match the mattresses to the glove prints—you craft a crash pad. Figure fingerprint-known felons. They gloved and hid their hands. Figure fuckheads with felonious intent.

Per the Pontiac—we impounded it and pounced on the panels. We found fourteen K in cash. We print-wiped inside and outside. The shooter’s filed fingertips showed up—scuffed skin marks.

We flung floor mats. We found mucho matchbooks. They came from “gentlemen’s clubs.” Dig: Sandi’s Sandbox, Lani’s Lapdance, the Chrysanthemum Club. We found soiled clothes, dishes, and detergent in the trunk. We think Fire Face slept in his car.

A patrol sergeant dipped in and debriefed us. He told us this:

Patrolmen polled the locals. Said locals laid out Rashad. Many men popped by the pad. All Arabs, all hours. Some locals vibed terrorist trouble and buzzed the Feds.

Dave called his Fed connection and tracked the tips. His connection coughed up a conclusion. Yeah, we checked it out. No, we nabbed no known suspects. Habib Rashad—forget him—he’s some falafel fuck.

Dave, Tim, and I huddled hard. We bounced the bug mikes in the Pontiac to the spackle-specked cameras in the pad. We talked. We threaded theories. We culled no conclusive shit at all.

I called the U.S. Passport Office. I fielded favors. I learned this:

The Pontiac passport had Fire Face’s features and Habib Rashad’s name. The address of record: Rashad’s falafel hut.

A lab guy laid a morgue mug shot on us. There’s Fire Face with his scorched skin scraped off. His face—now feature-firm and fit to make IDs off.

Tim called Pac Bell and racked up Rashad’s phone records. He got short-shrift shit. Rashad buzzed his Falafel Fan biz repeatedly. Rashad rang nobody else.

Suspicious. Sleeper cell slippery—yeah, probably.

Dave, Tim, and I huddled hard. Rashad had to make more calls. Conclusion: He called from pay phones.

We walked outside. We genuflected to the genocide chanters and made them mad with the sign of the cross. We borrowed a black-and-white and whipped to Western Avenue—the nearest pay-phone-filled street.

We walked phone to phone and nabbed numbers. We found fifteen phones in a four-block stretch. Tim called Pac Bell back.

He gave them our pay-phone stats. He requested a readout on phone numbers called. The clerk said she’d have readout results tomorrow. She’d call the Cold Case Squad.

My phone rang. I read the display. Rob the snitch/Starbucks/ Beverly Hills.

Call it Donna communing with coffee. Call me too work-wigged to go.

We drove back to Rashad’s rancho and dropped Dave off. Jigs chucked chicken wings and rib bones at our car. It was a barb-q bombardment. A multitude of malicious Muslims mean-mouthed us.

“Gen-o-cide! Gen-o-cide! LAPD and the Jews can’t hide!”

FALAFEL FAN: A hajj hut at 34th and Vermont. A dervish dive from the get-go. A counter and picnic tables out front.

We parked and walked up. We gaped and guffawed at the menu: the “Palestine Pita,” the “Soul Souvlaki,” the “Shiite Shish-Kebab.”

Baaaaad bow-tied Muslims at tables. Slicksters slurping up “Muhammad’s Meatball Sub.” A mean mosque mastiff behind the counter. He’s spanking a spatula, he’s grinding griddle grease, he’s stirring steak chunks in lentil sauce.

We cut around the counter and dipped in the door. Grease granules griddle-hopped and grabbed me. Daddy-o did not deign to look at us. Call him one cooool Camelite Cal.

I said, “LAPD.”

Tim pulled out pix: the Fire Face morgue shot/the ’01 killers’ Identikits.

Cal speared his spatula. He lanced lamb and stirred steak. He glared at us. He glanced at the pix. His eyes racked up recognition. He said, “No. I do not know them. I tell you truth, now you leave.”

Tim said, “Habib Rashad’s dead. Who gets this place now?”

Camel Cal shrugged. “I get place. Mine now. Rashad my cousin. He was good man. He Hafiz.”

I flashed the matchbooks: Sandi’s Sandbox/Lani’s Lapdance/ Chrysanthemum Club. Camel Cal glanced and glowered. More recognition racked up.

“You guys hang out there, don’t you? You, Rashad, the dead guy in the picture.”

Cal shook his head. “No. Such places are for infidels. Good men never go.”

Tim said, “Shit, I go. I don’t see the big deal.”

“You infidel. I see you two in newspaper. You shoot man who shoot Rashad. You ‘trigger-happy.’ Arab League say that.”

I laffed. “Come on, man. He killed your cousin.”

“All Arabs my cousins. We unite against infidels. We spit on you.”

Tim laffed. Cal spit on the griddle. The loogie landed, sputtered, hissed.

I said, “Bugging microphones and surveillance cameras. We found them at Rashad’s house and in the shooter’s car. I think the two guys knew each other, and I think you know them and the liquor-store guys, and a fuckload of other Arabs up to no fucking good.”

Cal spit on the griddle. Cal spanked his spatula in griddle grease. His face flushed. His heartbeat hammered and vibrated veins. Tim bellied up to him.

“Here’s what I think. This dump is a message drop for Arab criminals. They get their mail here. They leave messages here. Your fuckhead friends come by for the fucking cat-meat couscous, and you—”

Cal swung the spatula. It caught Tim’s coat collar. It snared. It snagged. Tim kicked Cal in the balls.

He jackknifed. Tim judo-chopped him. He aimed at his Adam’s apple, all applied force. I jumped in. I nabbed Cal’s neck. I kicked his legs loose. I bent him backwards. I scorched his scalp on the grill.

He screamed. I bent him back. Hair frizzed and frazzled. I burned his long locks down to a crewcut.

Tim tossed the place.

He spilled spice racks. He dumped dishes. He climbed through a closet. He ripped through Ramadan robes, shot through shelves and nabbed mail.

Cal’s hair sizzled. His crewcut burned down to a butch.

MAIL:

We popped to Parker Center and went through it. It indicated infidels and hajjite horndogs.

Flyers for gentlemen’s clubs/matches to our matchbooks, plus the Honey Bunny and Dawn’s Dugout. Outcall hooker ads— grabber graphics, clipped newspaper stock. Skin magazines/dog-eared pages/vivid ads for 1-800-VIAGRA. Gun shop inventories, insidious. Buy-by-mail Mac10s and Magnums.

Whoa!—Lani’s Lapdance meets Cool Coed Outcall meets Pan-Patriot Guns. Fetishistic fotos—gone girls in garters. Stacked Stewardess Outcall. Viagra vertiginous. Six down-and-dirty dick-enlargement ads.

Dave, Tim, and I huddled. Dave sicced SIS surveillance on the Falafel Fan. We left Camel Cal shorn like a sandal-clad Sam-son. He might rabbit or free-form freak out. He might lose it and lead us to the liquor-store cats.

Pac Bell—no callback yet. No make on the pay-phone calls. The shooting board—tapped for Tuesday next. Call the kill kosher—I knew we’d walk. Our prime priority: Prowl the gentlemen’s clubs.

We laid out our list. We divvied destinations. I got the Honey Bunny and Sandi’s Sandbox.

I solo-sailed to the City of Commerce. It was all industrial interspersed with stinky strip malls. Lap-dance lairs were laid out next to nail nooks and fast-food joints. It was murky multicultural. Hopped-up Hondurans, kool-kat Koreans, Sufis and sushi-heads. White Man’s L.A., where you at?

I hit Sandi’s Sandbox. Listless Latinas lap-danced and stripped to strobe lights. The audience was the Coonited Nations—immigrant duskies in deep despair, digging on 4:00 p.m. dark.

I badged the boss. He flipped me a flashlight. I roamed the runways and paraded my pix. Lap-dance Louies and Lolitas looked at them. I lashed up one long no, nix and nyet.

The Honey Bunny buttressed a Burmese burger barn and a mex mariscos dive. I badged in bold. The doorman sulked subservient and seated me ringside. The dump was dead dark. The runway bristled in bright light. A white wench wiggled to dated disco music. My eyes stung, stigmatic. I blinked and got full sight.

I saw one long lap-dance loop around the runway. Girls girded themselves over chumps in chairs and hip-humped it home. I dunned the doorman for a flashlight. I looped the loop and laid out my pictures. I lashed through a line of loser longing. The girls saw my pix, the geeks saw my pix, no one coughed confirmation up.

“I don’t know them.” “Who are they?” “We don’t get many A-rabs here.” “Who’s that guy with the burned-up face, he sure looks funny.” “Oh, ick. They look like Saddam Hussein.”

I returned to my ringside rack. I felt beat-up and bushwhacked and slapped by my slink though Saddam and Gomorrah. I dug for Donna. I shut my eyes for showtime. I shut out the Junkie Jill on the runway and dunned Donna up.

She laughed. We held hands in Holmby Hills. We tossed treats to Reggie Ridgeback. She hammed it up on Homicide Heat.

Somebody tapped me. A corpulent Korean and a nifty nude Nadine stood next to me. I coughed and called up my cop self. I said, “LAPD.”

The guy said, “A-rabs, huh? I see some in here.” The woman said, “I’m from Tel Aviv. Oy, Arabs I know from, believe me.”

I showed my pix. Identikit killers and Fire Face—now dig on it.

They stood still. They stared. They studied. They both tapped the pix.

The guy said, “I see guys like the guys in the pictures in here. Maybe two, three months ago. They spend lots of money.”

Tel Aviv Tanya said, “I danced for the man with the peeled face. It was like last week. He said he was depressed, he feared his death, tsuris like that. Oy, did he party hard, and spend money. I said, ‘Honey, for you there’s no tomorrow,’ and now you show me this.”

I gulped. “Credit cards. Did they use—”

The guy cut in. “Cash only here. Credit cads not okay.” Money—where from? Three heists in ’01, chump change takes all. The Falafel Fan—minor moneymaker. Rashad: “no intention of performing terrorist acts”/“just wanted to enjoy themselves”/ “You know the term ‘party hearty’?”

Maybe—a rift—real terrorists vs. party pigs. But—Fire Face “was depressed”/“he feared his death”/“ ‘for you there’s no tomorrow.’ ”

Say that says suicide shit?

My cell phone rang. The display dilated. Pat at Pacific Dining Car—that means Donna’s there.

Tanya said, “I did the Arab in his car. He was hung like a Hebrew National salami.”

DONNA DINED SOLO. She noshed noodles and char-broiled chicken. She saw me and flipped me off.

“Rick, you fuck. You were a shit with Donny.”

I barged into her booth. “Are you doing him?”

“No, but I may do him just to mess with you.”

I laffed. I sipped her seltzer. I shagged a shrimp in Alfredo sauce.

“What do you know about him?”

Donna sighed. “He’s rich from dot-com investments. He’s living in the old Clark Gable house in Malibu, Casa de Suenos. He’s writing spec scripts and trying to break into the business.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“At a party. I saw him talking to Lou Pellegrino—you know, the ‘Private Eye to the Stars.’ He’d heard that I wanted to do an Anne Sexton show, and so we started talking Sexton. He has a Web site, in case you’re interested.”

Pellegrino: strong-arm goon, shakedown sharpie. Slick sleazemonger. Ripe-rumored extortionist. Pint-sized pit bull/longtime lapdog for the Hollywood elite.

I said, “Reggie hates DeFreeze. What does that tell you?”

“Reggie is a dog. I don’t credit him with ESP. I’m not some addled pet owner.”

I freed French fries and wrapped them in relish. Tasty shit— yum yum.

“I hate DeFreeze. What does that tell—”

“That you’re my best friend and very occasional lover. That you hate him on GP. That the LAPD just sent you to a shrink, that you killed a man in the line of duty, and you’re running a little raw right now.”

I laffed. I held Donna’s hands under the table. My pant python perked up.

“It’s been six months. I keep waiting for something to happen that will stir us up again.”

Donna squeezed my hands. “You can’t will it. And I can’t keep shooting people and getting embroiled in your crazy life all the time.”

Sadness slid up and slammed me. My python sidled south and de-perked.

“Twice in twenty-one years? That’s not all the time.”

Donna sighed. “I’m almost fifty years old. How did my life get so wild and fucked up?”

I HIT A mocha mecca on Mariposa and Wilshire. I jacked up some java. The joint was serve-yourself-cyberspace—two terminals, pay-as-you-play, computer hookups.

I Internet-invaded. I walked Web sites. I hit Donny DeFreeze name combinations. I pulled the punk’s page up. Dig— DeFreezeworld.net.

Script scrolls. Excerpts from:

“Eldridge Cleaver, Revolutionary Rapist”: “You don’t understand, baby. Dis be de ’60s. Every time I rapes a white woman, it be a blow against The Establishment and The Man.”

“Black Panther Shootout—People’s Revolt Against LAPD”: “You gots to dig it, baby. Dis be 1969. We be waging war on de pigs.”

“SLA Insurrection—Southside Gundown with LAPD”: “Listen to me, baby. Dis be soul brother Cinque DeFreeze talkin’. It be 1974 now. We’s kidnapped Patty Hearst, now it be time to lay some race war on Mr. Charlie.”

“Palestinian Payback: The End Justifies the Means”: Listen, my Islamic brother! It is now 2003! The time has come to smite the American insect! Hear me now, my fedayee!”

“Harvey Glatman, Sex-Fiend Saint”: “You fuzz don’t get it. It’s 1958, diggit? Those three kool kittens I strangled prophesy the ’60s. I predict some king-size chaos, you sound me?”

Puerile pap. Punk pontification. Anticop communistic. Nigger dly nostalgic. Left-wing lunacy.

Glamour Girl Slayer: Harvey Glatman, posing as a fashion photographer, bound, raped, and murdered aspiring starlets. (Los Angeles Times Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)

Harvey Glatman—glaring non sequitur. Glatman glommed three women ’57–’58. He posed as a photographer. He leeched off lonely hearts listings. He photo-fucked and vilely violated his victims. He was a rope freak and a bondage buffoon. He dumped his devastated damsels in the desert. His fourth victim fought him off. He fried 9/59 at Big Q.

?????

The A-rab stuff stung me. A dune-coon coonection dug in.

DeFreeze rented a lipstick-red Lamborghini. It was one cool coontach—let’s coontemplate this.

He rented it from Khalid’s Kustom Cars/Khalid Salaam, owner.

?????

I MAINLINED MORE mocha and made tracks for Malibu. I knew Casa de Suenos. I worked off-duty security there, circa ’77. It was a spanking-white Spanish pad by the sea.

Sea breezes bristled. Night air nudged my noggin. Coffee coursed through me. I popped up Pacific Coast Highway. I saw the pad, pulled a U-turn, and parked.

There’s the casa. Let’s be casual. It’s perched on PCH, two doors down.

I walked over. I lugged my evidence kit. I popped by the porte cochere. There’s the lipstick Lamborghini. There’s a boss Bentley sedan. There’s a beaming Beemer. The plate reads “Lou P.”

Probably the property of: prick private eye Lou Pellegrino.

Be bold now—bring it on brazen.

I laid my kit on the Lambo. I prepared print powder. I tricked up transparency strips. I powdered the driver’s-side door and lifted two latents.

I stashed the strips. I closed my kit. I loped around the pad left to right. A walkway whipped back to the water. I walked it and watched window light. I kicked up mounds of mortar dust. I perv-peeped that light.

I saw cheezy furniture—rock-bottom rental stuff. I saw loads of leftist wall pix. There’s sick Cinque. There’s rape-o Cleaver. There’s blasphemous Black Panther shots.

I bopped back to the beach. I ducked by a deck. Bedroom light bounced.

There’s demented Donny DeFreeze. He’s full-out fucking on a futon. He’s making it with a mid-60s mama. She’s careful-coiffed. She’s wrinkle-ridged. She’s age-addled but fuckable-fit.

She’s got her eyes shut. Donny’s drilling her draconian. His eyes hop with hate.

3.

I shot to the shelter. Pit bulls pounced. A dog daisy chain developed. Donny DeFreeze diminuendoed and disappeared. I settled in for an eight-dog nite.

I fed the pits burrito bites. Brandon Marti made good on that manuscript. I found it on a shelf.

Her Lonely Places: Donna Donahue Deconstructed by James Ellington.

The pits piled on. A terrier territory enclosed me. I scrunched up a dog-dandered pillow. Let’s rack out and read.

Ellington wrote elegant. His Donna jones-jumped. He rocked home wild riffs.

“Per Donna Donahue’s physical force. It is manifestly powerful and stems from facial features that suggest strength of character, kindness, decency, and a concurrent playfulness and reticence. Here paradox reigns. Suggestions run bipartite. ‘I am an open book’/‘It’s an open book I’ll never let you fully understand.’ ”

Ellington elaborated. He riffed on “mid-range celebrity” synced to “television viewer demographics” synced to a “rapidly fluctuating media culture that feeds off a fickle yearning for the newness and nearness of youth.” He states: “Ms. Donahue retains an implacable hold on men as she ages and her presence more and more strongly suggests a sensuality grounded in wisdom.” Her never-married status denotes her as an “opportunist of love” who operates from a “passion for the moment” undercut by a stern desire “never to dilute her oneness through subservience to any man,” a reluctance perhaps influenced by “astute childhood readings of the Donahue family dynamic and early awareness of parental dysfunction.”

Woo hoo! Call this cat one deep Donnaphile!

“Los Angeles is a media center and rumor mill. Two oft-told bits of Donna Donahue lore pertain to her participation in chains of violent events in 1983 and last fall in 2004. The details recounted in rumor—varied and wholly disparate in nature—all relate to her sporadic involvement in covert investigations initiated by the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Ring-a-ding! Rip it to Rhino Rick! Lay it on LAPD!

Ellington riffed on that rumor. Donna had scintillating secrets. She staked a clandestine claim on her own heart and held hungers back. She pulsed for possibility. She downscaled and dimmed her romantic expectations. She lived as a lightning rod. She wished up wild and wicked webs and waltzed through them worshipful and wistful for more. She feared her spirit to spark cataclysm. She prized the prosaic in calamitous counterpoint.

Ellington nailed Donna. Ellington nailed the distance between us. Ellington nailed me.

I MARCHED THROUGH the manuscript. I dog-eared Donna-deep pages. Pit bulls slipped into slumber beside me. I slid into sleep.

A-rabs assaulted my ass. Some shit-for-brains Shiites fucked me with fatwas à la Salman Rushdie. Donny DeFreeze cornholed a camel. Saddam Hussein handed Harvey Glatman a harem and strands of stranglers’ rope. Sleazy sleeper cells. Lurid lap dances. Rhino herds gorge on Palestinian pitas and Muhammad’s Meatball Subs. That sissified psychologist says, “Rhino, you’re sick.”

Demons descend on Donna. Some asshole ayatollah damns her with a death decree. Big-toothed bats bombard her. Surreptitious serpents surf up her legs.

I stirred. I stood. The pit pile disbursed. I saw Her Lonely Places. It hit me haaaaaaard. That text tells why she’ll never love me from here to heaven’s heights.

I lost it. I lobbed dog crates at the west wall. I dumped dog dishes. I kicked kibble bags. I bombed the back wall with bags of Barko Bits All-American Dog Chow.

The pit bulls loved it. They hopped, howled, and humped me. They licked me and laid on their love.

THE TIRADE TIGHTENED my wig. I dusted off dog dander and drove downtown.

I hit Parker Center. I laid the Lambo prints on a print tech. He promised rapid results. I talked to Tim and Dave. We down-and-dirty discussed our visits to the gentlemen’s clubs.

I talked up Tanya’s tale. Tim and Dave dittoed me. They canvassed and caught the same feedback. Fuck—party-hearty Arabs/ death talk/deep depression. Slide me, Slick—is this sleeper-cell shit?

And—where did they dig up their dinero?

Dave dished out a hot lead. Danielle at Dawn’s Dugout—not at work yesterday. A boogie barkeep said she’s got some ace A-rab tips. Rhino, you roll on that—she shifts on at 6:00.

Our landline lit up. Tim took the call. Ping—Pac Bell reports. They ran the pay-phone calls. They got an instant incongruity. Four days, 49 calls to 432 East 49th Street/Hassan Sufeer, the Sufi subscriber.

DARKTOWN AGAIN— Coonecticut and Jigaboo Junction.

We caught the Coal Chute code 2. We climbed in close to the old SLA-shootout pad. Donny DeFreeze ruminations ripped me—the punk rang me wrong.

We hit the house. It was pulsating peach stucco stuck on sinking cinderblocks. We rang the doorbell. We racked up no response. We shoulder-shoved the door in.

Dig this—the dive’s deserted.

No pricey prayer rugs. No camel-furred furniture. No couscous or kebab casserole ware in the kitchen. No mattresses, no minarets, no mini-mosque accoutrements.

We tossed the pad. We closet-climbed. We rolled room to room. We crawled crevices and crannies. We found this:

Takeout-food debris. Stale stuff stuck in Styrofoam containers. Putrefied pita pockets, picked-at pizza, moth-munched meatball marinara.

Escort-service brochures. Bright fotos. Wild wenches with whips—white women all. Bleached blondes blooming in pink peignoirs. Comely Caucasoids to whore with hordes of dark-skinned scoundrels.

A strand of rolled-up rope, flaring out a floor beam. Blistered and blood-bleached.

Scary. A scalding find. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

We room-to-room rocked and re-tossed. No more shit showed up. Dave buzzed the Feds. He said we sailed through this safe house—grok this grave alert.

We bopped outside. Porch monkeys perused us. We hopped house to house. We canvassed. We blew block to block. We paraded our pix and caught this:

The house—a hajj hive and camel cave from jump street. Two Arabs in attendance—the coarse cats in the Identikits. Wild-ass white women wending by, all hours of the nite. The A-rabs—“dey moves out yesterday.”

Call it cold:

Two mosque minions morte—Rashad and Fire Face. The insidious Islamics learn this and leave for the lurch.

My cell phone rang. I caught the call. The print guy delivered on Donny DeFreeze—match-up and major rap sheet.

WE DROVE BACK to Parker Center. The print guy shot me the sheet. CII on Donny DeFreeze—real name Jomo Kenyatta Perry.

Born in Berkeley, 12/8/72. Father unknown. Mother: sulky SLA succubus Nancy Ling Perry.

Named after monstrous mau-mau Jomo Kenyatta. Hellbound-hatched before the Patty Hearst snatch. Two extortion busts, Alameda County.

Nancy Ling Perry, a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army and participant in the 1974 robbery of the Hibernia bank in San Francisco. Killed in the SLA shootout. (Photo courtesy of the LAPD)

He beats both beefs. They’re fruit shakes. He’s a shakedown shill. He keesters cats while his comrades catch it on camera.

He humps homos. They’re closet clowns in deep cover. The cops catch on. The fruitcake Freddies freak and refuse to cooperate.

The rap sheet ran rife with rumors. “Subject is said to have moved to the Los Angeles area.” “Subject is said to harbor strong left-wing, anti-American sentiments.” “Subject is said to strongly identify with radical groups of the 1970s, particularly those of the black-nationalist ilk.”

Despicable Donny. Noxious negrophile. Leftist-loser legacy. Butt banger. Pro-Sambo, anti-Uncle Sam. This jejune jungle bunny manqué, “Jomo Kenyatta.”

My thoughts jumped and jumbled. Donny. Donna. Lou Pellegrino —Hollywood shakedown man—

DAWN’S DUGOUT: A dank dump in the soiled San Gabriel Valley. A raunch ranch off Rosemead Boulevard.

I ambled in ambivalent. I was terrorist-torqued and ditzed on Devil Donny DeFreeze. I wanted to clear my multiple murder case. I wanted to rid Donna of Dirty Donny and bop back bold to her bed.

The Dugout defined the word “dive.” Down-and-dirty divas danced disco despair on a wraparound runway. Horndogs huddled at ringside tables. Said tables tilted and tipped. The horndogs pounded their puds under tabletop cover. Their hamsters hopped in their hands.

I badged a big bouncer. He bid me back to the dressing room. Danielle lounged on a lavender loveseat. She wore a white bikini. She skimmed skank in the National Tattler. She was all augmentation and titillating tattoos.

I said, “LAPD.” She said, “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

The bouncer bopped off. I straddled a stray chair and eyeballed Danielle. She was hickey-hived and herpes-sored and rug-burned from ruts on shag carpet. She was twenty-two going on dead.

She popped a pimple on one patella. Pus puffed putrescent. I noted her needle-notched arms.

“I said, ‘Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.’ I tested clean my last three times. You can ask my PO.”

I shook my head. “It’s not about you.”

“So. So, like, who is it about?”

I pulled my pix. “A barman here said you had some recent dealings with Arabs.”

Danielle tossed her Tattler. Danielle rolled her eyes righteous. Danielle rubbed her rug burns rough.

“These two guys kept coming in and throwing money around. They, like, kept spending these fortunes. I lap-danced them, like, maybe fifteen times, but I wouldn’t do them, ’cause I didn’t like their vibe.”

I flashed Fire Face. Danielle nodded no. I showed the Identikits. Danielle yipped and said, “Yes.”

“Those are the guys?”

Danielle flipped them the finger. “Like I’d do two A-rabs, after 9/11 and all.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“Yeah, about these ‘adult movies’ they were making. I said I don’t do fuck flicks, ’cause, like, my dad might see them. He rents all this, like, sex shit on the Internet. He’s sort of a perv, but he’s my dad, and I love him.”

I said, “What else did you talk to them about?”

“Nothing. They wanted me to do them, I said no. They wanted me to act in these fuck flicks, I vibed bad shit and said no. I can read vibes and auras, and, like, these guys were no good. All this was like last week, and they haven’t been back.”

An intercom popped. “Danielle, you’re on in two minutes.”

I stood up. Danielle stood up. She slithered and slipped off her bikini. She silicone-sizzled and bounced in the buff.

We floated back floorside. More horndogs hand-humped, more tables tipped. The door dipped. A man walked in. He was sweaty and swarthy and beaky Bedouinesque. Danielle said, “Fuck, that’s—”

HIM. This mosque monster, this camelhead killer, Mr. Identikit—

He saw me. His hands hopped and held heat. Ten feet between us. These two Glocks gleamed.

He fired. Muzzle smoke smacked me. Powder particles parsed out, pfffft. The shots shattered chandelier glass. Danielle ducked. The horndogs horror-howled.

I pulled my piece. I fired fast. My shots whipped wide. They striated off a straight line and struck a stereo rig. A sound system exploded. A disco dirge dimmed and died.

I fired. He fired. Muzzle light blazed and blinded us. Shots shivved and ripped runway wood and dinged off course in the dark.

Ricochets rang wrong, banged the bar and broke bottles. Lap dancers lurched off laps and laid on the floor. Nude dancers dove off the runway.

I fired. He fired. Blinding blasts, nuke noise, chandelier shrapnel. Hammer clicks, empty clip, his hammer clicks.

I ran to him. I rubbed my eyes. I tipped tables and nailed nude women in the dark.

I GOT MYsight back. The A-rab got away. A shooting team showed.

They yelled. They yodeled this “you again” number. It was Sheriff’s jurisdiction. Twelve deputies dipped by—puerile patrol pups all.

They horned out and hit on the dancers. They stood around and strung together statements. A Sheriff’s crime-lab crew crawled the floor and spun up spent shells.

I ducked out. I dunked down to Darktown. Dusk dimmed East 49th Street. The porch-monkey parade was indoors.

I slid up to Sufi Sufeer’s safe house. I picked the lock and slipped in. I re-tossed the rooms rapidamente.

I tore though the first toss and rang up no new results. I walked the walls and worked the wood for fake panels. I tapped. I honed my ears for hollowness. I roamed room to room. I hit solid wood, warped wood—whoa, what’s this?

The living room. Thorough thumps/hollow hits/one panel pulsates.

I probed and pried up a loose piece of wood. The edge caught and cut my fingers. I yanked, I pulled, the panel popped free.

Inside: a hollowed-out hidey hole. One shelf of hidden booty.

More rope. Blood-blistered again. More scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

Polaroid pix. Fucked-up fetishistic. Bound-and-gagged women. Naked and nervous-eyed. Scared and skin-scorched in rough wraps of rope.

Stringy stretch marks. Awful augmentations. Hickey hives, needle notches, rude rug burns—lap-dance-Lola types.

I POUNCED on a pay phone. I dialed Dave at home. He knew about Dawn’s Dugout. I shared Danielle’s fuck-film revelations. He said the shooting board scheduled a second session with me.

You shoot too much. You got shrink-wrapped by Doc Kurland. Your latest shootout sure says shrinkage to me.

Dave digressed. The Feds kicked back on Hassan Sufeer: no wants, no warrants, no known terrorist ties. A Fed forensic team was set to surf the safe house tomorrow. I said I re-tossed it. I found more bloody rope. I found fetish fotos. It vibed tie-ins to gentlemen’s clubs.

Dave said he’d call the clubs and try to clear clues. He’d stress fuck flicks, fetish fotos, and misogynistic mayhem. Put the pix on my desk—we’ll canvass clubs with them.

I hung up and headed to Parker Center. I felt Donna-deprived, Donna-depressed, Donna-driven. I ran the radio. I stuck to all-news stuff. Some Sheriff’s shit shouted per the “Dawn’s Dugout Disaster.”

Danielle mauled the mike. “I was, like, talking to this LAPD guy. We talked about these A-rabs, and this A-rab just walked in the door! I want to say hi to my dad, and, like, reassure him that I never did the A-rab, because I remember 9/11. Is that okay?”

I turned it off. A notion nudged me. It blistered me, blossomed, and bloomed.

The bound-and-gagged pix—fucking familiar. Let that Rhino remembrance ring.

The memory moved sideways. It dipped to Dave Slatkin. Dave—savvy pseudo-psychic/crime historian.

His photo stash. Sex-crime sensations. Sick shit shorn from old ’50s files.

I knew it now. I couldn’t quite say it.

I hit Parker Center. I dove on Dave’s desk. I drove through his drawers and found IT.

Filched file forms. Bound-and-gagged women. 8/1/57, 3/8/58, 7/20/58. Judy Ann Dull, Shirley Ann Bridgeford, Ruth Rita Mercado.

Identical poses. The ’50s meet the millennium. Harvey Glatman’s three vics.

My brain broiled. Fotos. Fuck films. Bug mikes in Fire Face’s purple Pontiac. Habib Rashad’s pad—surveillance cams, spackle-spotted—there. A spray of spackle-type mortar by the Donny DeFreeze pad.

Donny DeFreeze—shakedown man—fruit shakes in Frisco. Donny pours the pork to that mama-san in Malibu. Donny, aka Jomo Kenyatta.

He’s left-wing. He wickedly worships Arabs. He rented his lipstick Lambo from Khalid’s Kustom Cars. He spat out a Harvey Glatman spec script.

Donna—where does she—

I called her house. I buzzed her cell phone. I got two machines. I made for Malibu meeeean and maaaaaaaad.

CASA DE SUENOS— call it Hell House or Shakedown Shack now.

I parked on PCH. I saw the lipstick Lambo. I saw Lou Pellegrino’s boss Beemer. I saw a Rolls Corniche in the porte cochere.

No Donna-mobile Mercedes. Surf sounds and salty air.

I cut around the casa. I looped left and back. I dipped up to the deck. There’s the bedroom. I window-watched.

There’s Jomo-Donny. There’s a shakedown-sharp two-way mirror. There’s a movie-biz matriarch I met at Ma Maison. I was bodyguarding Bad Bill Clinton, Secret Service adjunct. This limousine liberal Lorna Lowenstein was there.

Donna dished dirt on her. She threw political parties and pined for penis in her senescent seventies. Her hubby hustled teenage talent at some agency. The marriage was meshugina. He banged bun buddies on the Boys’ Town Strip.

I watched Jomo jump her geriatric bones. I saw her lips latch his love muscle and leech. I saw them sidle sideways and suck soixante-neuf.

It was licentiously leftist and corrosively communistic. Lorna loved it. Jomo simmered in self-loathing and munched muff with homoized hate.

I bopped to the back door. I picked the lock and let myself in.

I hooked down a hallway. Let’s catch the camera cubbyhole. Let’s lay out Lou Pellegrino. Let’s—

My back. Something sharp and shivlike. Shivers and this needle-nuclear hush—

IT’S AFRICA OR ARABIA. Trans-Zulu Airlines transports me. The cargo hold’s cacophonous, carniverous, and cannibalistic. I’m this rhino reposed with four-hump camels and four-foot pygmies.

We bolt down Barko Bits Dog Chow. A mau-mau minstrel show materializes and makes us mew meek. Stephanie Gorman blanches in blackface. Donny DeFreeze scores a skin-tone transfusion and jigs out as Jomo for real.

We lurch and land. My line-of-duty dead disembark in a dirge. There’s the Garcia brothers. There’s Huey Muhammad 6X. There’s Webster Washington and Shondell Dineen.

They tug my rhino horn and torment me. I tear loose and light out for L.A. I hoof-hump hundreds of miles. A loopy landscape liberates me.

It’s some doofus dystopia. Sand dunes meet Mount Kilimanjaro. Spear-chucking spooks spill crockpots of Christian-missionary stew. I graze gratefully. The sacrilege satisfies me. I cultivate communion. I willfully whip down white wafers. The spooks spill a second helping. I grunt, growl, and gorge.

I sigh and psychedelicize. I see Russ Kuster and Osama Bin Laden. Donna peppers a Palestine pita. Mount Kilimanjaro morphs to Darktown L.A.

There’s Fire Face and Habib Rashad. There’s cross-cultural confusion. Osama opens the Muezzin Market. It caters to coons and comes up with deep discounts on welfare-check day. The store stocks malt liquor and Kool cigarettes. Osama offers offal— hair-o-wine, crack cocaine, choice chicken wings. Reggie Ridgeback rips through ribs and coughs up collard greens. Danielle dances at Dawn’s Dugout and digs on her “Dad.”

I jerked. My knees struck a steering wheel and ditzed a dashboard. My eyes popped. My periphery pulsated. I caught my car seat. I squinted and squared up a windshield. I saw a dawn beach.

The motherfuckers Mickey Finned me. It made me maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

4.

My head hurt. My bones burned. I felt sideswiped and psychedelifried. My mad mood magnified.

I couldn’t juke Jomo-Donny just yet. I B&E’d his beach pad. I left myself open to legal meshugas. I had to hand Donna hard truths on her scurrilous scribe. I had to jiggle the Jomo/Arab coonection.

Dawn bristled into bright daylight. I hit Holmby Hills and slid my sled up Donna’s driveway. Her Mercedes was missing. She probably bombed out for her morning mocha.

I waited in the backyard. I popped up to the patio and perched. Reggie ran over. I raked his ridge and ruminated romantic. Rhino Rick and Donna, let’s rock.

Mickey Finn dregs drifted through me. They made me muse poetic. I called up quotes from Her Lonely Places. Let’s send a cell-phone selection of lit-lifted love.

I punched in Donna’s number. Her voice-mail message melted me mellifluous. I parsed out paraphrases.

“You retain your implacable hold on men as you age and your presence more and more strongly suggests a sensuality grounded in wisdom.”

“You’re my ‘opportunist of love.’ You have a stern desire never to dilute your oneness through subservience to any man.”

My phone fucked up. The connection cut off. Reggie reclined by my feet.

I talked to him. I tried for James Ellington eloquence. I said, “I’m afraid we’ll never happen again. She only capitulates to me in fits and starts. Things might be getting crazy like they did those two other times, but twice in twenty-one years can never sustain me.”

Reggie nuzzled my knees. I notched it up. I said, “It kills me. I always have to rely on outside events to bring us together. If I could think of a formula, or a phrase, or any kind of strategy that would hold us through plain old everyday life, I’d be the richest, most grateful motherfucker on earth.”

A breeze sent me scents. There’s sandalwood soap. There’s almond after-bath. There’s mocha melting off morning breath.

I turned around. I saw Donna. She said, “Okay, sweetie. For a little while, at least.”

WE DID IT AGAIN. We threw ourselves into Rick-Donna 3.

We tried to tame time. We lay down and lasted long. Time tricked us and trumped us before. Every touch told time to stay away and let us make these moments meld.

Donna brought me a new body. She’d softened in the six months since our last then. This then became our new now. We kissed, caressed, tasted. Her hips flared and flattened and rolled into her ribs. I spanned the whole spread with my hands.

She tasted. I tasted. Sandalwood soap, after-bath balm, my up-all-night sweat. I swirled. Her tastes nabbed me new. Preciously private—my brave bride a third time—thrill me both then and now new.

We tricked time. We trailed our kisses and caresses and took our tastes new places and waited and went wild with the new. We fell into our meld in a soft sync. Her hurricane-hurled hazel eyes led me through.

SLEEP. SLIDING GLASS. One-way wall peeks aimed at us.

I woke up. I felt fur. Reggie Ridgeback rolled and chucked his chin on my chest.

Donna sat over me. She wore a salmon satin wrap. I looked around. I found the phone. Reggie’s head was heavy. Donna held my hands.

“Tell me. Something’s wrong, or you wouldn’t be here at seven a.m., looking like you slept in your car.”

I yawned. “It’s about DeFreeze.”

Donna said, “Of course it is. You’ve got that ‘Where’s the phone, I’ve got to call Dave Slatkin’ look, and we only get back together when there’s some dead people involved.”

I yawned. Reggie yawned. Donna said, “Tell me.”

I said it simple, sotto voce, stock-still stoic and sloooooooow.

“DeFreeze is an extortionist. He was shaking down fags in San Francisco, and he’s extorting rich old women here. He’s very probably involved in my Arab snuff case.”

Donna squirmed and squeezed my hands. Donna said, “Fuck”—sloe-eyed and sloooooooow.

“Do you believe me?”

“Of course. I was starting to think he plagiarized this Anne Sexton script proposal he showed me, and you just confirmed it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Jesus, and I was going to take him to the Academy Awards next week.”

I yawned. Reggie yawned. I raked his ridge. Donna said, “ Fuck.”

I filched the phone. Donna ducked from the room. I dialed Dave.

“Cold Case Unit. Detective Slatkin.”

“It’s me.”

“Shit. Where have you—”

“Don’t ask. Have you—”

“Yeah, I canvassed the gentlemen’s clubs and showed those fetish pix around. There were no dancers missing, but I got more IDs on our Identikit guys, and more confirmations that they tried to get the girls to appear in so-called adult films.”

Insidious. Shit circles and surfaces surefire—

“Rick, are you there?”

“I’m here. Dave, do you know Lou Pellegrino?”

“Sure. He’s this fuckhead PI.”

I yawned—fuck—that mean Mickey Finn.

“He sandbagged me. Have Tim put a stationary tail on his office.”

“All right. But will you exp—”

“Yeah, I’ll explain when I see you.”

Dave sighed. Dave read the sign—Rhino on a roll. I hung up. I rolled Reggie off me. I dipped into the den.

Donna watched TV. News footage filled the screen. I saw the smog-smacked San Gabriels. I recognized a ridge line. A crime-lab crew crawled for clues. A Sheriff’s dick talked.

“. . . we’ve got slight decomposition of the bodies, and we’ve tentatively ID’d all three women as prostitutes employed by the Cool Coed and Stacked Stewardess outcall services. Further examination of the bodies revealed that—”

The cop-ese coursed into gibberish. A cold sweat swarmed me. The fetish fotos. The safe house. Falafel Fan. The outrageous outcall brochures.

Donna tapped me telepathic. Her hard hazels hurled.

“It’s us. Isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Is this Brave New World 3?”

“Yes.”

Donna smiled. “Let’s try not to kill anyone, please.”

SMOG SMOLDERED AND hid the hills. We mowed through Monrovia and made the scene.

I badged us by the cordon. We moved by the meat wagon. I craned a look and caught the corpses within.

Three women. The ones from the bound-and-gagged pix. Nude. Neck abrasions—rope-wrap burns for real.

It was a glaring glut of Glatmanism. It was DeFreeze depravity. It socked me soul sick.

Donna looked in. Donna called up old Catholicism and signed the sign of the cross.

The safe house. The blood-blistered rope. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

I bug-eyed the bodies. I saw slight sunburns. Make it movie-camera lights. Probable overlighting. Fucked-up filmmakers. Awful A-rab amateurs. The Identikit Islamics. The gentlemen’s clubs—“Come on, baby. You make film with us.”

A thought snagged me. Snuff films. Some terrorist tie-in. Camel jockey conundrum. Party-hearty Palestinians vs. real Jihadites.

Donna tipped some tears out. I stared at the corpses and called up Stephanie G. Deputies dipped by. Detectives dug in the dirt by the dump site. A coroner cornered a ranking cop. He caught Donna sidelong. He righteously recognized her. His eyes said, “Say what?”

Vivid voices overlapped. Cop talk cascaded: “time of death,” “rectal temperature,” “last seen alive,” “dumped after dark.”

Two detectives saw us and sidled over. I didn’t want to share my shit. I steered Donna off.

She said, “How much of this is Donny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s take him down.”

I said, “Not yet.”

SHE HAD TO hear the horror. I dished the dirt on Donny and tattled the tie-ins. Donna delivered her dirt. She figured the fuck for a fag. She slowly slipped to the fact that he didn’t dig sexy Anne Sexton. She told him to scoot her some script pages. He deftly demurred. She grokked something grave. He might be wickedly working her. He’s ugly, he’s usurious. His motives run ulterior.

We winged west. I cell-phoned Dave Slatkin and shorthand shored up my case. Dave said he’d set SIS out to tail Jomo-Donny. I said whip a wiretap, too. Hotwire his house and seize his cell-phone calls. Dave said he’d dun Deputy D.A. Daisy Delgado. She’d write warrants quicksville.

I hung up. Donna said Lou P.’s the linchpin. I said yeah, he’s the shakedown shit supreme. I buzzed Tim. I caught his cell service. He’d left me a voice message.

“I’m in the garage at Pellegrino’s building. It’s 9166 Sunset.”

We nudged north. We sailed out Sunset. We bopped to the building and sunk into a subterranean garage.

There’s parking slots and deep Dempsey Dumpsters. There’s Tim by a telephone bank.

He caught our car and came over. He saw Donna and curtsied—cute.

He leaned in her window. “Jesus. Are you two doing it again?”

Donna laffed. “For a little while, at least.”

I said, “We’re getting married.”

Donna said, “Fuck you.”

Tim laffed. “Pellegrino’s been coming down and tossing shredded paper in the Dumpsters. He’s made three trips so far.”

Donna said, “He’s creepazoid. He whipped it out on a friend of mine. She said he was hung like a cashew.”

Laff time—Tim and I howled hard. I heard foot scuffs. I scanned the garage. There’s loutlike Lou P. by the Dumpsters.

I got molto maaaaad. I careened from the car and ran toward him. He shoved shreds in a Dumpster. He saw me. He did a deep double-take and spun into a sprint.

The elevator enclosure—he’s getting near.

I ran. Tim tore tracks. Donna flew on flat heels. Lou lurched and lost ground. I bolted onto his back belt loops and brought him down.

He blitzed the blacktop. He graced the ground and groveled. Genuflections, gesticulations—please don’t hit me.

I didn’t hit him. I whipped my wide-welt wingtips in. I rammed his ribs. I laced his legs. I banged his back. He wiggled and whimpered and plied me with please-don’t-hit-me pleas.

Tim tore up and torqued me off him. Donna dug in and shoe-shot him a boss bang to the balls. It was fetchingly feministic. She hated wienie waggers and Mickey Mouse misogynists.

Lou P. pulsed punklike. I dragged him behind a maroon Mercedes and two whitewashed walls. The space was contained and cubbyholed. Let’s lay down the law.

Lou looked up and pissed his pants. We stood over him and straddled him stern. Donna kicked him in the cojones. He wiggled, whimpered, and whizzed anew.

Donna said, “You whipped it out on a friend of mine. That was for her.”

I said, “Donny DeFreeze. Roll on the motherfucker, before I get really mad.”

Lou looked up. He saw vicious vigilantes and the loose-cannon law. No rapid right of writs and redress here. No mitigation mercy pleas, no O.J. jive justice, no sissy civil rights.

He looked at us. He quelled his quakes. He rubbed his bruised balls.

He said, “Donny’s fucking psycho. He’s batshit on certain shit, like he’s non-compos-fucking-mental. I set him up with these old babes. They were heavily biz-connected, you know, industry-type wives with gelt. The plan was photo shakes. You know, I shoot the old girls and Donny in the saddle, and we threaten to show the pix to the husbands if the old girls don’t pay out.”

Tim said, “Keep going. Why’s this clown ‘psycho’?”

Lou rubbed his ribs and nursed his gnashed nuts. He sniveled and snitched snakelike.

“It was the crazy shit he talked. He said he needed money for this ‘holy war.’ I saw him talking to these Arab guys at his crib, and that scared me. I don’t know, I just felt heat coming down. Then you snuck into the house while I was filming Donny dicking this old dame, and I sandbagged you. I figured you was a PI, then I saw your badge. I talked Donny out of icing you.”

Donna said, “He was writing a script for me. Did he ever mention my name?”

Lou leered. “He dropped these hints. He said he had this ‘plan’ for you, but he didn’t give out no details.”

Tim said, “Kick loose some names. The women, who you collected from, and how much.”

Lou licked his lips loathsome. “This Jane Pearlstein cooze. Her old man’s a macher at Paramount, and we took her for forty K. The second mark was Sharon Michaelman. Her husband’s a big biz lawyer, and she coughed out sixty K total. Lorna Lowenstein was the last. I ain’t put the bite on her yet. This has been a good fucking gig. I like old snatch. I get off on the wrinkles. I might let Lorna pay me off in trade. Fuck, I thought this might happen. I was tossing all my paper on Donny.”

I bent down. I bored in and beady-eyed him. I sunk into my psycho cop persona. I’ll state it straight: It wasn’t much of a stretch.

“You’ll be talking to DeFreeze. You don’t let on that we braced you. We’ve got his phones tapped, so we’ve got your talks with him nailed. If he brings me up, you tell him I’m compromised. I’m considered a wack within LAPD, and I’ll lose Donna if I follow up on him.”

Lou nodded numb. Lou sniveled snitchlike. Donna kicked him in the balls.

“In the name of all oppressed women, fuckhead.”

LORNA LOWENSTEIN let us in. The pad was a palazzo. Her husband was out. The maid was off. The setup served us superb.

Donna knew her. They surfed the same social circuit. We came sans Tim. That served to simplify. She vibed out our vile visit. Her eyes racked up something’s wrong. Donna dipped by uninvited. I was unshaven, unkempt, and a cop.

We sat down. The living room loomed large. Fucking Beverly Hills—high-ticket hebe haciendas.

La Lowenstein looked at us. I reran the shakedown show at Casa de Suenos. Lewd Lorna leeches that love tool. Lurid Lorna flares her fly trap. She leaps lizardlike and licks.

Donna said, “It’s about Donny DeFreeze.”

Laydown Lorna lowered her eyes. “Yes?”

I said, “He’s an extortionist, Mrs. Lowenstein. His partner made films of the two of you. He planned to threaten to expose you to your husband.”

Lachrymose Lorna—her tear ducts dipped on and dripped.

“I would have paid.”

Donna said, “You won’t have to now.”

I said, “He’s a major suspect in some other crimes. I’m sure we’ll get him for them before he has the chance to extort you.”

Loser-in-love Lorna—lured into the lurch. Wet-eyed with tear-torn mascara.

“The age difference. I should have known, but I was having too much fun.”

Donna handed her a hankie. Donna shot me a shush now, you heathen look.

“Did he ever discuss someone who had a so-called plan for me?”

Lorna held her hankie. Lorna hid her eyes. Tears channeled down to her chin.

“He said he had a powerful friend with a big thing for you, and that you were taking him to the Oscars. I’m on the awards committee, and he asked me lots of questions about the show.”

My cell phone vibrated and popped in my pants. I took it out. A text message ditzed display diodes and mapped.

“D.S. to R.J.: Go to Falafel Fan now.”

Libidinous Lorna said, “My husband has fun with his boys. Why can’t I have fun with a sexy young man?”

WE FREEWAY FLEW. We took the 10 and soared surface streets south. We came in code 3. I ran my red light and sounded my siren.

We threaded up 34th Street. We veered on Vermont. We pounced on pandemonium. We saw this:

A blitz blaze of black-and-whites. A cordoned-off corner. Coroner’s canoes. A flat-out felony-car flotilla. Falafel Fan—crossed by crime-scene ropes. Cops—a sizable sidewalk contingent. Witness types winding around them. Dig—the cops are culling them and showing them pictures.

I stopped the car. I got out. I smelled soul souvlakis and Palestine pitas. I threaded the throng. I tore around the tables and caught the counter.

There’s Camelhead Cal. Tim and I griddle-groomed him two days ago. We sizzleized and Samsonized him. We burned his hair down to a butch.

He’s dead now. He’s flat on the floor. He’s alight with Allah or crackling crisp in Christianized hell. His face is shotgun shorn and shaved. It’s a blood bloom. It’s pellet-pitted double-aught deep.

I turned around. I saw Dave. He said, “We’ve got four eyewit IDs. It’s the guys from the Identikit pix.”

I GOT it. I got it again. I got it goooood. It’s a hellbound holy war. It’s sex-crazed secularists vs. jacked-up jihadites. It’s some dune coon D-day. It’s a ghetto Gettysburg in Jigtown L.A.

I saw Donna. She sat on a black-and-white. She signed autographs for cops and cruel cats in Crips colors. I walked over. A fat fuck in a “Tupac Lives” sweatshirt swatted his legs and laffed.

Donna signed his county jail release slip. She wrote, “Brave New World 3. Love, Donna D.”

5.

The wire room—a boss bunker beside Parker Center.

Wall-to-wall widgets. Tall tap devices. Switchboards and colored cords plied and plugged in. Confiscated couches covered in cat hair. Four headsets—for Donna, Dave, Tim, and me.

We listened. We caught calls lewd and listless. Daisy Delgado delivered that warrant. We juked Jomo-Donny. We full-on phone-tapped him.

SIS fucked up the Falafel Fan surveillance. Camel Cal got shotgun shaved in spite of it. The media materialized and maimed us. Falafel Fan, Habib Rashad, Fire Face, Dawn’s Dugout—what’s this A-rab aggravation and Shiite shit? Dead dames dumped in the San Gabriels—collateral carnage or corrosive coincidence?

Chief Tierney tallied our dervish dead and dithered disingenuous. Ha, ha—holy war—not in my city. Terrorist tie-ins—no way. Those baaaad body dumps—undeniably unrelated.

Dave phoned the Feds. They jumped on our Jigtown Jihad theory. They said they’d cull camelheads in custody. Said camelites might cough up intelligence. They’d hold them for LAPD.

We sat four across. We caught calls. Our headsets hopped heat. I held hands with Donna. Sandalwood soap and almond after-bath assailed me.

Calls. Switchboard lights lay out numbers and cull up caller ID.

Jomo-Donny to Lorna Lowenstein. Message-machine mush. “Darling, I miss you so much. I ache for our next rendezvous.”

Jomo-Donny to Donna. Message-machine machinations. “Donna, hi. It’s Donny. I’m thinking about the Oscars. I’m honored that we’re going together, and I’m making progress on the Sexton script. Call me. ’Bye.”

Jomo-Donny and Sandra Saperstein, horny Hollywood wife— dig this ditzy extract:

“I can’t tell you how I miss you, Donny.”

“I miss you, too, doll.”

“I’m going to get a peel at the Georgette Klinger Salon. They say it takes years off a person.”

“What’s forty-nine years between lovers, doll? You’ve got pizzazz, and that’s what counts. I see you as ageless.”

Jomo-Donny and Claire Samovitz, another Shakedown Sheba—hold for this rapture riff:

“It was good last night, doll. You were the best.”

“Oh, Donny. It was like my prom date, back in . . . oh, well . . . some time ago.”

“Time’s for the bourgeoisie, baby. Brother Cinque said that. We’ve got the moment, and that’s where it’s at.”

“Oh, Donny. You give the best head.”

Jomo-Donny to pay phone/some A-rab-voiced asshole/sick seditiousness:

“The target, Assan. If we concentrate on the target now, all will be well.”

“I understand, Jomo. We must assume that the police know we killed the infidel at the Falafel Fan. We must hide until the moment. The target is everything.”

Jomo-Donny to pay phone/another A-rab asshole/sexed-out sin shit:

“I cannot go to the clubs, Jomo. There is too much heat. I have become addicted to lap dances, my brother. I know that my end and my final reward are near, but I crave the bounty of the flesh until that moment I greet Allah and his virgins. I need white pussy and chilled cocktails to sustain me.”

“You will meet Allah soon, my brother. You must curb your urges and think of the target. Eternal poontang will be yours in paradise.”

Jomo-Donny to Lou Pellegrino/rancid riffs on me:

“We should have whacked that Jenson fuck.”

“You don’t whack cops, Donny. It just ain’t done.”

“He’s a fuck. He humiliated me in front of Donna.”

“He’s a weirdo. He’s considered a freak around LAPD, and I’ve heard he’s got two shooting boards coming up. He’s got these shootouts hanging over him, and he can’t move on you, because he’s got this sick thing for Donna Donahue, and he’ll fuck it up if he fucks you over.”

Jomo-Donny made more calls. Jomo-Donny buzzed Bigtown Pizza. Jomo-Donny called Khalid’s Kustom Cars and Larry’s Lamborghini Service. Jomo-Donny called two more horny Hollywood Hannahs. They talked Oscar shit. They replayed recent ruts. Both babes boded borderline senile. They grooved and grokked Jomo-Donny on their greased slide to the grave.

Shakedown shit. “Target” talk—totally terrorist. Lou Pellegrino—coerced and compromised—our punk puppet now.

Jomo-Donny—mosque mastiff manqué. He’s one insidious Islamic. He’s indictable now. But—we need to shore more shit on the “target.”

I held Donna’s hand. I heard her heartbeat. I hammered out a plan and unhooked our headsets. Tim and Dave dumped theirs.

Tim said, “I know that look. You’ve got a brainstorm.”

I said, “We send Donna in wired. She meets the fuck for dinner and pumps him on the ‘target.’ He’s a risk freak, so he might divulge.”

Dave said, “I’m in.”

Donna pored through her purse and pulled out a pearl-gripped Python. The big barrel glistened and gleamed.

“I’m in. Pacific Dining Car, tonight. I’ve been jonesing for a good steak.”

Tim filched a field phone. We hooked on our headsets. Donna dialed Dipshit Donny.

Three rings, one pickup pop. Demon Donny’s “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Donna.”

“Hi, yourself. I was just going to call you.”

“How about dinner tonight? The Dining Car, on me.”

“No, on me. I want to talk some serious Sexton.”

“Eight, then? Some good wine, some good talk.”

“Film talk, doll. I’ve got some ideas for an erotic thriller you’d be great in.”

Thriller? Threat. Donna’s .357 Purse Python. Rope. Horror hebe Harvey Glatman. The body-dump babes. Snuff films. Blood-blistered rope. Scorched skin that tore off at a touch.

Donna hung up. Mark it mission accomplished. Dave and Tim applauded. Hurricane-hurled hazel eyes hammered me.

Donna said, “Brave New World 3. If it goes bad, I’ll kill him.”

THE FEDS CULLED camel fuckers in custody. Said camelheads confirmed the contretemps. There’s a holy war inside a holy war—hear me, hafiz!

Donna dipped off to a dog-food commercial. Dave, Tim, and I huddled at the Fed facility. We hogged a whole office. A fat Fed named Fields debriefed us. He said he’d interviewed eight inbred Islamics. They issued identical shit. He held one hajjite back to talk to us. In the meantime, dig this:

We’ve got wild-ass A-rabs up the wazoo. We’ve detained these dune dusters on full felonies and Minnie Mouse misdemeanors. There’s an ugly underground undulating all over L.A. These louts are looking for laundered loot, courtesy of Al Qaeda. It’s fucked-up funding for sleeper cells—real and fake. Some camel cads want to blow up buildings and mow down monuments. Some jihadite jackoffs want to couch the cash and party dawn to dusk.

The latter losers live for lurid liaisons with white wenches. They blitz Blonde Bombshell and Blue-Eyed Babes outcall. They live in lap-dance lairs. They pounce on porno bookstores and buy beaver boox. They rampage through rock clubs. They slip Round-reeled Ritas Rohypnol and rape them. They quiver on Quaaludes, they creep out on crack cocaine, they vibrate on Viagra. Their full-on fundamentalism has flared and flip-flopped. Islam— ick—we’re Americans now. Fuck the corny Koran. We’re swarthy swingers. We’re sold-out Secular Sids.

We dug it. We chortled in our chairs. Fields ducked out and bopped back with a beaky Bedouin. The cat was cuffed. He wore a white jumpsuit. He looked wicked and wary and witheringly smart. He knew Ramadan from ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong.

Fields said, “This is Gamal Abboud, aka Abe Goldberg. He was trying to pass as a yid to score Jewish chicks. He’s a panty sniffer. Hollywood Vice caught him slamming the ham in a back aisle at Victoria’s Secret.”

Abboud said, “I’m an American. I support George W. Bush and John F. Kerry. I support a woman’s right to choose and school vouchers. I’m an apostate. Fuck that Islam shit.”

Tim tittered. “You picked up some American vices.”

“I’m an American. I respect diversity. You’ve got your bag, I’ve got mine. We’re free to be you and me. I love white women and dry martinis. Your scene is your scene.”

Whoa—he’s one wild Wahhabi turned loose libertine! He’s culture-corrupted. He’s a vice vandal. He’s Americoonized!

I said, “Americans are good snitches. They curry favor with authority and rat their friends off to save their own skin. You dig my drift, sahib?”

He dug it. He salaamed and saluted. Critters crawled through his beard.

“I’m an American. I understand my civic duty as a stool pigeon. We’re free to be all we can be. I’m free to suck up to authority in exchange for political asylum.”

Dave dug out the Identikits. Fields chose a chair for Abboud. We served up a circle. Our knees nudged. Abboud picked his nose and nailed a nice nugget. A big beetle bipped through his beard.

He squinted. He squared up the pix. He said, “I know them.”

I said, “Names?”

“I don’t know.”

Dave said, “Who are they?”

Abboud said, “Terrorists. They stay mobile and sleep in their cars. There is supposed to be a big attack soon, but I don’t know the target. It’s a suicide mission. Those Shiite pigs have been living it up, because they know they will die soon. I’ve seen them at gentlemen’s clubs.”

Tim tore in. “How do you know this?”

Abboud licked his lips. A bug bopped off his beard and tangoed on his tongue. He bit him and ate him. Bug juice bipped.

“The Internet. Lap-dance Lou’s Chatroom. All the expatriate Arab swingers log on. Lap-dance Lou is really Ephraim Ben-Gazi. He’s also known as ‘Date-Rape Dani Dayan.’ He deals Rohypnol and Viagra. The swingers post notes to each other and reveal things they should keep secret. They’re good Americans impaired by alcohol and drugs.”

I said, “ ‘The target’ implies a big operation. Where’s the money coming from?”

“Two sources. The manager at Falafel Fan was laundering cash from Al Qaeda, but he kept blowing it at the clubs, which is why the zealot faction killed him. His cousin Habib Rashad laundered cash and blew it, which is why he was killed. They became good horny Americans, and—”

I cut it. “The second source. Give on that.”

Abboud leered licentious. “It’s a white American with Arab sentiments. He’s extorting rich women and making ‘sin films’ for distribution to Muslim biggies in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve heard they are quite misogynistic.”

Jomo-Donny. Dead outcall hos. Snuff films. Harvey Glatman glowers. Scorched skin that tore off at a—

Dave dug in. “Where were the films shot?”

Abboud said, “I heard it was a loft. The warehouse district, maybe North Alameda.”

Tim stood up. His chair tilted and toppled.

“I’ll call the squad and have them check building ownerships. There’s just a few loft blocks over there.”

Dave nodded. Tim rolled from the room. Fields fidgeted, Fed-like—LAPD lifts his Sufi suspect for our collateral case. Donna dreams drilled me. I become her hellacious hero. I take on terrorists and trounce them. Rhino Rick reigns as the new Rudy G. Righteous Republicans raise my banner. I run for governor. I smugly smear Schwarzenegger as the sex-soiled and steroid-stung stinker he is. I marry Donna. We bloom in bliss and raise rambunctious rhinoettes. I’m Ronald Reagan redux. Fat cats find me and finance me. I prowl primary states and nab the nomination. I proudly pry up the Presidency.

Dig Donna as First Lady! Dig our looooooooooooooooooooong lovemaking in the Lincoln Bedroom! Dig our ruuuuuuuuuuuude Rose Garden ruts!

I fantasized. Abboud apostatized, motor-mouthed and meandered. It’s priapic prophecy. A-rabs assail L.A. It’s cocktail-lounge carnage. It’s the date-rape diaspora. Dani Dayan dumps Rohypnol and wacks out the water supply. Rape-os come up comatose and rack out too ratched to rape. Falafel Fans fan out—freaky franchises all. They mulch McDonald’s and burn down Burger King. Chief Tierney lays lap-dance lessons on LAPD. Lady cops cough up cooze to A-rabs citywide.

Tim ran into the room. Tim rocked it out.

“The building at 412 North Alameda—it’s registered to a Harvey Glatman.”

WE LAID TRACKS. We ribbed rubber to the address. It’s a four-floor loft space just north of Japtown.

We filed into the foyer. We found mailbox slots. “Glatman” glared out. The fuck’s on floor four.

The lift crawled, creaked, and left my lunch lurching. A hallway hooked to the door. I buzzed the bell. No answer. Tim laid lock picks into the latch. The jamb jumped, the door popped.

We walked in. We hit a snug snuff-film set. We crept the Weegeeish walls and crawled this cruel creepspace.

White wallpaper. Filthy fetish pix. Babes bound-and-gagged. Insidiously intercut with vicious victim shots.

Judy Ann Dull, Shirley Ann Bridgeford, Ruth Rita Mercado— Harvey G.’s desecrated dolls. They’re hogtied. They’re horror-struck. They’re hoarse from screaming. It’s death divvied up from detective-mag decks. It’s nihilistic pop art.

More pix—all rancidly recent—strict stretched-neck strangulation shots. Familiar faces—the body-dump vics—devastated dears three across. Rope-burned and ravaged. Burned from arson-hot arc lights right on this spot.

Still more pix—’70s sensations—Donald DeFreeze and Dark Donny’s mad mom, Nancy Ling Perry. There’s his negrophile namesake—Mr. Mau-Mau himself—Jomo Kenyatta.

We fanned out. We flew across floor space. We found:

Mattresses—shorn of sheets and shoved in a corner. Movie cameras, big boom mikes, lenses, lens caps. Rolls of rope on a table. Gristle gracing the strands. Blood blisters with neck hair notched in. A heaping hamper close by. White sheets popping out. Rope imprints rendered red and dried-blood maroon.

Donald DeFreeze was a leader in the Symbionese Liberation Army and was thought to have masterminded the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst. (Photo courtesy of the LAPD)

Tim said, “That ‘erotic thriller’—he’ll bring Donna back here after dinner and make his move.”

Dave said, “We’ll close-tail her and keep her safe, but she’s got to get a make on the target.”

I said, “She’ll get him to talk. Then we’ll let her kill him.”

6.

Donna went in wired. We perched in the Pacific Dining Car parking lot.

She went in at 8:02. Jomo-Donny joined her at 8:06. He left his lipstick Lambo with Luis the car-park cat. Donna ditched her Daimler-Benz streetside.

We lay low. We waited in Dave’s Dodge Dart. We wore free-frequency headsets. Dave pulled Donna’s Purse Python. He figured she might wax wistful and whack the freaky fruit on GP. We gave her a scurvy script to work off. Donna, do this:

Stress stressed-out Rhino Rick Jenson. He’s on a right-wing rampage. He’s a zorched-out Zionist xenophobe hopped up on home security. He sheared shots at two innocent Arabs. It’s his Palestine pogrom. He went to work stagger-stoned. He said Muslim motherfuckers Mickey Finned him. Nobody bought it. The shooting board shot him a reprimand. He got relieved of duty.

My headset itched. Wire warp whipped down my ears and wiggled loose wax. Static stammered, crystals cricked, voices vizzed.

Donna: “. . . and he’s been under a great deal of stress. The chief made him take a month off.”

Jomo-Donny: “He’s the kind of fascist who gives fascists a bad name.”

Donna: “He’s not a fascist.”

Jomo-Donny: “Don’t be naïve. He’s the kind of fascist who hounded the SLA and Harvey Glatman to their graves.”

Donna: “Who’s Harvey Glatman?”

Jomo-Donny: “I call him the ‘Sex-Fiend Saint.’ He offed three chicks and presaged the ’60s. He was hip beyond hip.”

Donna: “Let’s talk about the Sexton script.”

Jomo-Donny: “At my loft, okay? I want to take some pictures of you. It’ll juice my creative process on the Sexton thing.”

Donna: “What about this ‘erotic thriller’ you mentioned?”

Jomo-Donny: “It ties in. You’ll dig it. It’s a real sainthood scene.”

Static stung me. Crystal cricks went crrrrrrrrr. I hooked off my headset. Tim and Dave did the same. Crrrrricks headset-hopped and caromed the car.

We waited ten seconds. We hooked on our headsets. Fuck—no voices, no crystal crack, no static sticks. Just dead decibel air.

I looked at Dave. Dave looked at Tim. Tim looked at me. Telepathy tapped three ways. We dumped our headsets and hauled.

We ran into the restaurant. We whipped past waiters. Diverted diners looked up—say what? We barged to Donna’s booth. We saw half-chomped appetizers—cold crab and calamari.

There’s the wire. There’s the body mike. They’re flat on the floor. The casing’s cracked and smashed to smithereens. There’s the back door.

We ran outside. We dipped past Dumpsters and winged past winos on gourmet garbage hunts. We hit 6th Street. There’s the curb. Donna’s Daimler-Benz—gone.

We reconnoitered. We reconsidered. We reconstructed the scene. Jomo-Donny wised up to the wire. He won’t lead us to the loft. He laid out loft talk. He knows we heard it. He won’t whip Donna there.

He’s malevolent. He’s mobile. He’s got Donna roped or restrained, Mickey Finned and made meek, sedated, or subdued.

Tim said, “She’ll fight. He’s got no idea how resourceful she is.”

I said, “Where the fuck will he take her?”

Dave said, “He’ll pull a Glatman. I know it. Glatman failed with his last victim. He drove her through Orange County. She got the drop on him there. He’ll try to duplicate it and succeed.”

I saw Donna devastated. I saw Donna dehumanized. I saw Donna decimated and dead.

It made me maaaaaaaad . . .

THE COAL CHUTE— code 3. Dave drives. I panic-pulse. Tim cell-phone sizzles.

He calls SIS. He issues interdictment orders. Stake out that loony loft. Make Malibu and catch Casa de Suenos. Don’t be timid. Don’t time it too tough. We’re talking TERRORIST. Try not to trip up. We don’t want to waste him. He knows the TARGET. He’s got Rhino’s dear Donna D.

We sailed southbound. Tim called Communications and came on curt. He described Donna’s Daimler-Benz. He ran through the route most likely: the 405 Freeway down to desert cutoffs east. Alert all agencies, all units. Approach. Don’t apprehend. We’re talking TERRORIST. He knows the TARGET. Don’t dive in except to save Dear Donna D.

We soared southbound. The Coal Chute coonected with the 405. I dipped into Donna delirium. I delved decades back. It’s ’83 again. There’s the Donna dead. There’s the Hollywood Fuck Pad. There’s the late great Russ Kuster.

It’s ’04 again. Hail the Hot-Prowl Rape-O. There’s Rick and Donna deep in love. There’s homicidal hound Reggie. Fangs for the memories—he’s ripping rapist genitalia.

Southbound: Surf City exits, the lights of Long Beach, that muggy mock-Vietnam, Westminster. I eyeball-scanned. Tim eyeball-scanned. We caught cars winging every which way. Westminster whips into Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach becomes Fountain Valley.

Cars—one mad maze. Headlights hit. Rays reflect. Tailpipes cough carcinogenic. Old fogeys in Fords. Choice cholos in Chevys. A pint-sized Pearl Harbor of Jap makes and models—one big banzai.

Headlights hit. Rays reflect. License plates light. Big Beemers, mauve Miatas—whoa now, what’s—

THIS:

Donna’s Daimler. Backlit bold. I see it. Tim sees it. Dave sees it. We’re almost bumper-to-bumper. The Benz is backlit biiiiiiiiig.

Jomo-Donny’s driving. Call Donna comatose. See the center console. Her head’s lolling on the leather. She’s sprawled off her seat.

We climbed close. Our lights lit the Benz biiiiiig. Donna didn’t move. Don’t let her be dead—please, God, please.

We climbed closer. We clung. We tailgated tough. Jomo-Donny reacted and reached for his rearview mirror. Donna’s head slid slightly. Donna came off the console and caught him up.

She pulled his hair. She raked his eyes. She bit bold and latched long and leeched his left earlobe off. She maimed the malignant mama’s boy Mike Tyson-like. His hands fanned faggottish. Donna ripped the rearview mirror off its mounting. Donna hit his head with it. Donna chopped his face. Donna chewed his cheeks up.

The Benz buckled and bent right. A Jap jalopy braked brisk and dipped damage-free. A Chevy chugged off and out of the way. Donna yanked the wheel hard right.

The car lurched and leaped lanes. The car gored a guard rail. The car hurtled and hit a huge inflated safety bag.

HOMELAND SECURITY.

It justified jerry-rigged justice. It mandated mucho mayhem. It took us to torture techniques.

We deflated the bag. We dug Donna’s Benz out. We cuffed the Donna-decimated Dipshit DeFreeze and dumped him in Dave’s Dodge Dart. Donna said her wire worked loose at the restaurant. Jomo-Donny jumped her and juked her with a sedative shot.

Traffic tripped around us. We caravanned off the freeway, huddled and hubbubbed. We wrapped ourselves in a rationale of rogue justice. Let’s fuck the Feds and move past mainstream LAPD. Let’s make like the Mossad and get down like the Gestapo. Let’s jingoize joyfully.

I called Phone Book Tom Ludlow. I briefed him. Tom tore in torrid. His tour in Nam napalm-nudged him nostalgic. The My Lai massacre made him misty. He said he took torture toys home with him. Yeah, Rhino—I’ll roll. We’ll rendezvous. We’ll run a confession session. We’ll jack this Jomo up with some jolts.

We rolled to the Wrangler’s Ranch Motel. We rented a room. We racked Jomo-Donny to a radiator pipe. His face bloomed blood. He sputtered, he spit, he spun in his chair. He launched leftist lunacy. He popped PC pap.

He called us Fatuous Fascists, Cruel Crypto-Nazis, Insects for Israel. We were Prick Pro-Lifers. We were Horrid Homophobes. We were Hideous Hillary Haters, Consorts of Condoleezza Rice, and Bullies for Bush.

We laffed. He lunged in his chair. He rolled his wrists. His cuffs cut and bore down to the bone.

Knock, knock—there’s Phone Book Tom.

Dave got the door. Tom wore too-tight field fatigues. He was gussied up gorgeous. His costume called out Khe Sahn, ’68. He carried a cord-covered box. Wires wiggled off of it. Dig those tight testicle clamps.

I said, “Hi, Tom.”

Donna said, “I like the outfit. It reminds me of a Vietnam flick I did.”

Dave said, “Hook the cocksucker up.”

Tim said, “We need results. Remember, this is Homeland Security.”

Jomo-Donny sputtered and spit. Jomo-Donny kvelled and kvetched.

“Dittoheads for Dick Cheney!”

“Rush Limbaugh Rustics!”

“Impede the Imperialists!”

It tickled Tom. He giggled. He guffawed. He uncoiled cords and plugged his box in.

“You’re starting to look like Victor Charles. You comprende, muchacho? That means the fucking VC.”

Sparks spun off the clamps. Current coursed kerrrrack. I said, “Give up the target.” Jomo-Donny said, “Viva PLF! Viva gay marriage! Viva Robert Mapplethorpe and freedom of expression! Viva National Public TV!”

I nodded. Tom nudged Jomo’s knees. Tim claimed the clamps and crotch-crimped him crisp.

Voltage voomed. Jomo jumped behind a jillion jolts. Jomo jittered and hopped in his hot seat.

Dave de-clamped him. Donna said, “That’s for Lorna Lowenstein, shitbird.”

Jomo jittered. Jomo jiggled. Jomo jolt-jumped. The volts voodooized him. He pissed his pants. His hair hiked à la Don King.

I said, “Give on the target. The place, the details, the date.”

Jomo jiggled. Jomo jerked. His pissed pants roiled with residual voltage and stormed up some steam.

“Viva Yassir Arafat! Viva Harvey Glatman! Viva misunderstood serial killers worldwide!”

Tim claimed the clamps. Tim crotch-crimped him. Jomo juice-jumped and screamed.

I said, “Give on the target.”

Donna said, “That’s for stringing me out on my Sexton play, you shit.”

Dave popped a Pepsi Lite. The can coughed up carbonation. Dave shook it and spritzed Jomo’s balls. The Commie cord-conduit screeeeamed.

Tom tittered. Jomo jiggled. He did the Wired-Up Watusi, the Castrato Cakewalk, the Twittering Twist.

I said, “The target. Give it up, quick.”

Jomo jolt-jumped. Jomo japped Donna with evil eyes. Jomo made misogynistic.

“Osama Bin Laden’s got a thing for you, baby. That’s right, the big guy himself. He’s holed up in Afghanistan watching Hospital Hearts reruns. He paid me two hundred K to make a snuff film with you.”

Donna flared florid. Donna popped pale and grew green at the gills. She pawed the Pepsi can. She claimed the clamps. She spritzed and crimped. She made a mini-mushroom cloud climb off the clown’s clawed balls.

He screams. His hands hike. He pounces on his pockets. He pulls a pill. His hands hitch. He pops the pill in his mouth.

Cyanide or strychnine/a diagnosed death dose/the fanatic’s fall-back, oh fuck—

Jomo jumped. Jomo ratched the radiator loose. Jomo coursed with current, palsied with poison, coonvulsed and kicked off.

I looked at Dave.

Dave looked at Donna.

I looked at Tom.

Tom looked at Donna.

I looked at Tim.

Tim looked at Donna.

Telepathic telegrams Teletyped and fanned out five ways. Donna said it first.

“The target. It has to be the Academy Awards.”

7.

Yeah, the fucking Oscars. It had to be JEW.

The Oscars. Hollyweird’s nite of nites. Major media meshugas. The Sheeny Shangri-la, the Mockie Matterhorn, the Kike Kilimanjaro. More Jews than the Old Testament.

We phoned the Feds. We shared out shit. We refused to reveal our source. The Feds fielded full-on security. They cordoned off the Kodak Theater. They bombarded it with bomb dogs. They perused for purloined passes. They freely frisked celebs running up the red carpet. They moved in metal detectors. They marched among movieland machers. They bopped around backstage. Choppers churned above the building. Their belly lights burned down. Glare blazed Hollywood Boulevard.

I went as Donna’s date. LAPD laid out loads of cops inside. We wore moth-munched, fucked-fitting tuxedos. Walkie-talkies went at our waists. We settled in for the sicko ceremony.

I yawned. We’d bombed through big busy days. We faked a fag snuff on Deadly Donny. We dumped him in a dive motel room by the Boys’ Town Strip. We created a cruel crime scene. It consisted of coarse queer regalia. We laid in loads of Judy Garland LPs. We came up with cocaine and K-Y jelly. We trashed the room. It reeked of rump-ranger rampage. We pulled this shit in Sheriff’s jurisdiction. We figured they’d snag the snuff as fruitus interruptus and short-shrift the case.

We liaisoned—LAPD to the Feds. We cooncocted coon tingency plans to detain dissident A-rabs. The Feds coonducted massive coontainment sweeps. The sweeps swept L.A. A-rab civil-rights groups bombed out big boo-hoo. They coonsidered the sweeps racist and reactionary. The average Angeleno reacted with coontempt. They loved the law-and-order lashing of loose liberties.

We settled in our seats. My tux pants bound my balls too tight. My cummerbund cut me. Donna wore daffodils on her delphine-blue gown. We held hands. My eyes clung to her cleavage. She promised me primo love later. My trouser trout trilled over it.

The show started. It smacked me smarmy and smug. It snared me up snoresville. It pulverized me into pulp. It was humanistic hoo-haw served up coongratulatory.

Best DocuDrama—a draw—the Holocaust ties with AIDS. Natterings of “Never Again!” and hosannahs for homo marriage. It gored my goat and pricked my Protestant pride. If God wanted men to mate with men, he’d have created Adam and Steve.

Donna delivered the Best Sound Award. Two tall techies swooned swishy and sailed sound bytes to their “partners.” Donna decked me, devastating. Her slit-leg gown sliced my soul. Stage lights stung her hazel eyes and hurled heat at my heart.

The show shoved on. Donna dipped back to her seat. I laid low and leered at her legs. Awards, applause, speeches—specious and sparkless—sententious sentiment that sent me away. It withered me and whipped me and went on and on. Limo liberals mocked my man George W. Bush. Antigun gonifs chewed that champ Charlton Heston. I started to righteously root for a terrorist attack. Dig—Donna and I die and hit heaven on high. We clamor to our cloud. We evict evil A-rabs who flew heavenward on a fluke. We make love and romp with Reggie Ridgebacks 1, 2, and 3. We lunch at Lou’s Cloud Room with Stephanie Gorman. We stone Stephanie’s killer down deep in hell.

The show shoved on. Losers lurked and simmered insincere, noxious with noblesse oblige. Winners winged wondrous words of thanks, hot-aired and wholesale. Best Song nominees soared soporific. It was one long course of canned corn.

It went on forever. It twirled past the twelfth of never. It was faigelah fanfare and hard hucksterism supreme.

Then it stopped. Donna woke me up. I was listing into her lap. I was dreambound and slapped with sleep. We were high up in heaven. We held Oscars for Best Killer-Lovers. Reggie Ridgeback writhed at our feet.

SECURITY DE - SECURED. The cop contingent called off code 3. The Fed force disarmed and dispersed. The choppers churned away. The bomb dogs got carted back to their kennels.

Limousines looped the Kodak. Losers and winners and proud presenters preened and prepared for parties. Donna loaded us into a limo. We spun out for Spago. She wanted one hour there. Some laughs, some lox pizza, lots of love later—okay?

The restaurant rocked. A sound system socked songs—nudnik nominee encores. Movie machers moved and made mockie-evellian. It was Dealmakers’ Dystopia. It was stark star-fucking. The Jewnited Nations coonvenes.

Table talk tattled all around me. Terrorism titters. Tough tales of studly studio heads. Loose-lipped liberal libels. The latest line on losers nominated and nudged out.

I watched Donna work the room. She shot table to table. She trudged trouper-like. Tonight’s talk was tomorrow’s paycheck. She pranced and preened like a pro.

Waiters whizzed by. I glutton-glommed glorious grub off their trays. Piquant pizza bites, gourmet goat-cheese puffs, cholesterol-clumped strands of steak. Conversations came and went. Words wafted. Percentage points, back-end bids, two busboys who never showed up.

I yawned. This last wild week whipped my ass and drugged me out to dry. Shiite shootouts, torture tiffs, Donna jihad-jeopardized. Hajjite hegemony, dune-coon demimondes, my L.A. lap-dance loop. I was hungover on homicidal heroics. I wanted to dun Donna for long-term love and salve my soul in the sack.

The restaurant rocked. I felt stuck and stifled. The concept of cool air called to me. I walked out to Canon Drive and dropped around to the alley.

A breeze bristled. It felt gossamer good. I stood between Dempsey Dumpsters and deep-breathed. Aaaaaaah, life! Movie madness and Muslim mayhem! Ooooooooonly in America, laaaarge in L.A.!

I stood there. Cool air cocooned me. My starched shirt wilted in the wind.

I smeeeeellleddd something. It noodled my nostrils. Some scent sent sanguinary . . .

I pivoted left. I peered in the Dumpster. I saw two wire-worn wetbacks. They’re dead. They’re garroted garish. Piano cord cut them—wire whips windpipe-deep.

White coats. Flecked food flaring. Neat nametags. St. Peter, meet Juan and Jose.

Muchachos muertos. Missing busboys. Oscar-nite obfuscation. Our movie macher mini-target right here.

I ran into the restaurant. Table talk tattled. The joint jumped like Jerusalem and tittered like Tel Aviv. I eyeball-orbed. I surfed celebrities. I took in tuxedos and scanned skin. I saw Donna dunned for autographs back by the kitchen. Two Bedouinesque busboys besieged her. They’re wearing white coats. They’ve got neat nametags. They’re the camel cads from the Identikits.

I ran over. I tipped tables and tore through tuxedos. I saw big bulges on the busboys. Their posteriors popped out. Call them body bombs on Suicide Sids.

I ran. I knocked over nudged-out nominees and homo hunks holding Oscars. Donna saw me. The bomb boys saw me. Telepathy tapped out four ways.

The Shiites pulled shivs. Donna pored through her purse and pulled her Python. The shivs shot out. Donna pirouetted and popped the punks point-blank.

Magnum loads mangled their faces. Hollow-points hacked up their heads. Big bullets bid the Bedouin beasts back to hell.

The restaurant reverberated. Table talk scrolled into screams. I looked at Donna. Donna looked at me. The dune devils deaththroed and toppled a table. Their body bombs tick-tick-ticked.

I jumped. Donna jumped. We whipped off their white coats and wigged wires loose. The bombs did not detonate. The bombs tick-tick-ticked and sent seconds sounding off a built-in clock.

The red line rested at midnight. My Timex tallied 11:59. Telepathy tapped us. We ignored ignominious screeches and screams.

We smiled at each other. We struck a style statement. It was ostentatious and Oscar-worthy. We bopped the bombs to the kitchen. We defused and dunked them in a barrel of bouillabaisse.

That’s how Donna Donahue and I saved Hollywood—and the world.

Tim and I tossed Casa de Suenos. We found plans to destroy major monuments and media magnets throughout Christendom and beyond. Disneyland, the Vatican, Grauman’s Chinese. The Taj Mahal, Dodger Stadium, the Eiffel Tower. The Dome of the Rock, the Flagship Sizzler Steak-house, the Dalai Lama’s pad. The world would have been full-on fucked without us.

We turned Devil Donny’s notebooks and computer disks over to the Feds. It resulted in boocoo busts. Homeland Security rounded up 16,492 murderous Muslims. They got trial-trounced in numerous kangaroo kourts.

L.A. owed Donna and me. L.A. dug deep and delivered. We spared lives at Spago. A horde of Hollywood Hebes helped us out.

The L.A. County Grand Jury called our killings justified. The shooting board cleared me on my shootouts. The media hailed Jenson and Donahue as “Sexy Secular Saviors.” Hollywood heaped us with a corporate carte blanche and a freewheeling free lunch.

We developed Homeland Heroes. Donna’s starred for sixteen seasons. I part-time produced and moonlighted on my moments off LAPD. Donna and I got righteously rich. Republicans ran me for governor. A demon Democrat defeated me in 2012. He was a half-A-rab/half-black fag fanatic. He delved into my dubious ties to the Enron Corporation. He ballyhooed me as a bagman for President Jeb Bush.

Donna and I pulsed as part-time lovers. We reconnected for rigorous rug rolls on Christmas and our birthdays. I stayed on LAPD until age 75. I never found Stephanie Gorman’s killer.

I described my death in Hollywood Fuck Pad. I detailed the second Rick-and-Donna cataclysm in Hot-Prowl Rape-O.

This true story concludes my memoirs of our messed-up and magnificent love.

I’m dead. Donna’s still alive. I telepathically tap her via Reggie Ridgeback 12. I often serve up summaries of my life on earth. I always tell her my last living thought was You Were The One.