What Billy Mangos Has to Say

I tell Maggot Arm Joe what’s happened. He and I load his three hard drives into the car and bring them to Sergei’s place. Sergei meets us in the parking lot wearing a silk smoking jacket with gold jewelry dangling from his neck the size of sand dollars—he looks like Hugh Hefner’s personal trainer, just off the boat from Austria and fresh from showing Hef and Jimmy Caan the latest in bodybuilding techniques. I fill him in on what I know.

“Billy Mango must have explanation,” Sergei says. “Men never interfere in business of each other.”

“Let’s get these inside,” Maggot Arm Joe says.

“Egg in one baskets,” Sergei says as we walk into his condo carrying the three computers.

Maggot Arm Joe says, “We have security here. The Lincoln’s too easy to break into if one of Billy Mangos’ clowns can do it.” He plunks a hard drive down next to Sergei’s computer. “Plus, maybe we can gather some names for Harry Fudge. You have the list?”

Sergei says, “Have list. Must get dressed.” He walks into his back bedroom.

I shout down the hallway to ask Sergei if I can use his phone.

“Only local call for Nick Ray until we get computers back.” He laughs at his joke and I hear him opening and closing his closets.

I dial Tara’s number and get her machine. I tell her that I need to talk with her, but I might be hard to track down for the next few hours. I tell her I’ll try again.

When I hang up, Maggot Arm Joe says, “Trouble?”

“Trouble,” I say.

“Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“You’ll let me know?”

I nod and rub my hand over my face and a ring catches on one of my eyebrow scars and the cut stings for a moment. My hand throbs from punching Scooter.

Sergei struts out from his back bedroom in these pink leather pants with a somewhat matching off-pink leather shirt. He sees the two of us looking at him and says, “What?” He turns and looks behind him, then back to us.

Sergei says, “Is problem?”

Maggot Arm Joe says, “Where did you get that? I mean is there a store for this shit you wear? Or do you have to order it?”

“Fuck you, Maggot Man—this thousand dollars.” Sergei spins around like a catwalk model and caresses his ass before turning the full three-sixty. “Man feel good in good clothes—you would not know.”

“I’ve had nice clothes,” he says. “They didn’t look anything like the shit you drape your crazy ass with, I’ll tell you that.”

Sergei looks at me. “How I look, Nick Ray?”

I don’t see the point in hurting Sergei’s feelings, or in upsetting him when he’s been very cool, this far, about me losing the computers. “You look fine—like one of the New York Dolls,” I say.

Maggot Arm Joe says, “He looks like a huge fucking tongue.”

Sergei pumps his pectorals back and forth, one breast bulges and then the other. He looks at himself in the hallway mirror. “Maybe I change.” He looks at Maggot Arm Joe. “Not for you—just don’t want blood on pretty clothes.” He goes to the bedroom and says, “Unless Mr. Mango has good answer, he must bleed. Cannot bleed on pretty clothes. Bleed on work clothes.”

I think about Billy Mangos bleeding and that sends me thinking about the cowboy. I wonder if I should tell them about it. Maggot Arm Joe is punching a bunch of wires—hooking one of his hard drives to Sergei’s twenty-one-inch monitor. Sergei comes back into the living room in a pair of black leather pants and a shirt that looks like vinyl.

“Those are works clothes?” I say.

Sergei runs a hand gently down the length of his arm. “Nothing stick to this shirt—much easy cleaning. Like Teflon shirt. Handi Wipe cleaning.”

“You know, before we get ahead of ourselves with Billy Mangos, you should know we made a mistake with the cowboy the other night.”

Maggot Arm Joe looks up.

Sergei says, “How mistake?”

And I tell them what I think, that we busted up some guy who helps nurse wild horses back to health out in the desert, who’s probably Jeanine’s ex-husband.

Maggot Arm Joe says, “What the hell was he doing looking up at the Lincoln all night?”

“No idea,” I say.

“I do,” Maggot Arm Joe says. “Dude was a stalker. We did Jeanine Clark a favor—I’m telling you, I saw enough of those guys in court. Restraining orders don’t do jack.” He nods toward Sergei. “Our man did a public service.”

Sergei smiles. “Happy mistake.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say. “We don’t know he was a stalker.”

“We don’t?” Maggot Arm Joe says. “The man lives out in the desert and he just comes to look at the Lincoln Hotel at two in the morning for what? Because it’s so lovely?”

He’s got a point. Maybe the cowboy was a stalker. That’s nothing but trouble, can’t get too upset over that.

Sergei says, “Plus, he cowboy. Cowboys make stupid Americans. Make worst poetry—should all be fed finger.”

Maggot Arm Joe says, “Go for it, man—bust up all the cowboys and you can wear whatever the hell you like and I’ll never say another word.”

Sergei looks happy, like busting up cowboys would be a dream gig. He slaps me on the back. “Nick Ray a worry man. Worry much. Cowboy get what cowboy deserve.” He nods with the confidence of the young Mike Tyson about to crack somebody open before the crowd’s even been shown to their seats. “Let go talk to Mango.”

Maggot Arm Joe says that he’ll stay put—that he wants to check the hard drives for any witness relocation names that might match some of the names Harry Fudge wants to put a hurting to. Sergei says that we’ll be back soon, it shouldn’t be long before we find out what Billy Mangos has to say for himself.