Hollywood Moon

SIXTEEN

OF COURSE, neither Tristan nor Jerzy needed to watch the apartment of Dewey Gleason during the night. After Jerzy had been dropped off at his car, he’d driven home to Frogtown to smoke some glass and listen to his woman bitch at her brats. There was so much yelling and turmoil in the little house that he’d grabbed a blanket and pillow and gone out to drink some gin and find some peace in his car. The crystal, along with the gin and backseat sleeping, made for a fitful night, and his back was stiff and his neck ached when he woke up at 8:15 A.M.

Jerzy thought of the instructions from Creole to find a place in Frogtown where they could safely hold Bernie Graham’s old lady for however long it might take to get the information. Jerzy didn’t like the idea of keeping the woman in his own ’hood, but Creole convinced him that it should be in an area where people minded their own business, and this was as good as any place.

Frogtown was a strange little chunk of northeast Los Angeles, south of the junction of the Golden State and Glendale Freeways. It was quiet during the day, but at night, Latino gang members often emerged onto the streets like the frogs had done decades earlier, when the amphibians were still able to thrive in the L.A. River bordering on the east. The river in the summer was sometimes little more than a dirty stream running through a monstrous graffiti-tagged concrete trough, and no one had seen a frog in years.

After Jerzy did a gum rub with a few remaining granules of crank, he fixed himself a plate of scrambled eggs while his woman was gone on one of her constant trips to the middle school vice principal’s office because of the latest fight one of her sons had started. Driving and canvassing the area, he spotted a “For Rent” sign in a window over of what had once been a panadería. On the wall of that defunct bakery was a vivid mural of barrio life depicting tattooed gang members alongside the Virgin of Guadalupe, who stood beside a canary-yellow lowrider Chevrolet with chrome spinners. It was the only wall on that part of the street that hadn’t been tagged, so apparently the mural was respected.

What Jerzy liked about the building was that other than the little upstairs apartment, there were only commercial properties for two blocks, and the former bakery was a safe distance away from lofts occupied by the painters and sculptors who nowadays encouraged art walks and daytime visits from prospective clients. Jerzy figured that at night the closest commercial buildings would be empty of people and only occasionally visited by a private security service. There’d be little chance of anyone hearing something like a scream.

And that made him think of Bernie Graham’s woman. It could come to that, a woman screaming. Creole didn’t think so and didn’t even want to plan for it, but Jerzy knew better. If the whole fucking game went sideways, it might come down to forcing the information out of her. He knew that Bernie Graham had the stomach for it even if the little nigger didn’t. He phoned the number on the “For Rent” sign and learned that the tiny upstairs apartment could be rented, first and last month and security deposit, for a total of $2,500. He figured they were in business.

As bad as Jerzy Szarpowicz felt when he awoke that morning, he was in much better shape than Dewey Gleason, who’d slept perhaps two hours all night, in twenty-minute intervals. When he tentatively raised himself on an elbow and slid his legs over the side of the bed, he felt a sharp pain but ignored it and forced himself to stand. After that, he took a few hesitant steps to the bathroom, holding on to his midsection with both hands, as though something might drop onto the floor.

It wasn’t as bad as he’d anticipated, and he even managed to take a shower and dress himself unassisted in a suitable Bernie Graham wardrobe: oxford cotton, long-sleeve shirt, tan casual pants, and Gucci knockoffs. He put the glasses and mustache in his shirt pocket and decided it was too hot and he was too sore to be bothering with a Bernie Graham blazer. When he gingerly entered the kitchen, Eunice was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the L.A. Times with an ashtray full of butts in front of her.

She glanced up and said, “Well, well, look who’s on his feet and breathing.”

“Only breathing as much as I have to,” he said. “For chrissake, why don’t you open a window and let some smoke outta here?”

“The smoke eater’s on the blink again. You gotta get it fixed.”

“Just open a window, Eunice.”

“Sure,” she said, “may as well, now that you brought Clark here. I guess security doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I’m gonna call Clark today and hook up with him,” Dewey said. “I’ll make sure everything’s cool with the kid.”

Dewey opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of tomato juice while Eunice read silently. Then he opened a box of wheat bran and poured it into a bowl with some skim milk. He took it into the computer room just to get a short distance away from her cigarette, and he sat staring at computer number one. There was a page of indecipherable numbers on the screen and a list of names that meant something only to the woman in the other room.

He ate the wheat bran and fantasized about how, with a few movements and clicks of the mouse, someone with the right information could pull up the name of her bank and maybe transfer the funds to another bank anywhere in the world. If he could do that, his entire miserable life would be changed. Just like that.

Eunice interrupted his thoughts with her chronic morning cough and said, “Where you going today, Dewey?”

“I haven’t seen the Mexicans in almost a week. They should be onto something by now. I was gonna track them down and then I thought I’d go to the second list of foreclosed homes and do the rental gag again.” Lying, he added, “I got a new guy who can change the locks and make me some keys. This one’s not a tweaker.”

When he finished his cereal, he entered the kitchen and started to put the bowl and glass in the sink but then realized it would just give her something else to bitch about, so he put them in the dishwasher, and then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. By the time he came out, Eunice was sitting in front of computer number three, tapping away with uninterrupted clicks.

“See you later,” he said and opened the door.

“Dewey,” she said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth.

He stopped in the doorway, expecting some more shit from her, and said, “Yeah?”

In an amicable voice the likes of which he hadn’t heard in months, she said, “Did you say you were gonna see that kid today?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure everything’s okay. I might give him some busywork and a couple hundred bucks to keep him happy.”

“I was thinking,” Eunice said. “Since he knows something now that nobody else does, we’re gonna have to handle Clark with extra-special care.”

“Yeah?” Dewey said. “You got a suggestion?”

“I was thinking that you better keep him close for a while.”

“I don’t think I’ll have to adopt him,” Dewey said.

“I’m just saying, maybe we should… get to know him,” Eunice said.

“Like how?”

“Oh, how about we invite him to a nice restaurant tonight or tomorrow night? You know, talk to the boy? See where his head is? I sure wouldn’t wanna pack up and move to another location real quick just because of him.”

A look, a silence, and she returned to the computer keyboard, tapping the keys as though it had been a thought in passing.

“Maybe you’re right,” Dewey finally said. “I’ll call and see if he’s good to go for something like that. Maybe we could take him to Musso’s. I can’t remember the last time we went to dinner together.”

“Okay,” she said too casually. “Gimme a call and let me know if it’s gonna happen.”

By the time Dewey got down the steps to the parking garage, he actually laughed aloud, then looked around to make sure nobody was down there who could hear him. Dewey Gleason’s pain was forgotten. This was an unbelievable stroke of good fortune. He only had to figure out how to make it work. Dewey was giddy with excitement. Eunice was falling in love!

It was payday, and Malcolm’s boss did not look particularly happy when the young man asked to leave work two hours early for a dental appointment. He asked why Malcolm hadn’t told him this before the day he was due at the dentist so that a suitable personnel adjustment could have been made. Malcolm apologized and said it would not happen again.

The moment he left work, he speed-dialed Naomi Teller and was overjoyed when she answered.

“It’s Clark,” he said. “Today’s the day!”

“The day for what?” Naomi said.

“Where you at?”

“I’m at my girlfriend’s house. We’re gonna go swimming in her pool.”

“Forget swimming,” Malcolm said. “Lemme pick you up and we’ll go to Mel’s Drive-In on the Strip.”

Naomi hesitated and then said, “Can I bring my girlfriend?”

“No way, Naomi,” Malcolm said. “This is our special time, like I been promising. You’re gonna like Mel’s. It’s not McDonald’s, that’s for sure.”

“On the Sunset Strip?” she said. “I guess not.”

“I can afford it,” Malcolm said.

Again there was silence on the line, and then the girl said, “Okay, you wanna pick me up here?”

“Where is it?”

“On Hayworth, right near Fountain. Let me run and get the exact address. I’ll have to think of some excuse.”

“Tell her your cousin arrived from Boston and your mom wants you home right away.”

“Who should I say is picking me up?”

“Your cousin from Boston.”

“I think I can come up with a better story,” she said. “Gimme a minute to get the house number for you.”

“Goody!” Clark cried.

That made her giggle. “You’re so silly,” she said.

After Naomi came back on the line with the address, Malcolm said, “I’ll see you in twenty-five minutes.”

He clicked off and drove to a check-cashing service near the home improvement center to cash his paycheck. He wasn’t worried about money anymore. He’d soon have plenty of it, now that he was in tight with Bernie Graham and his secretary, Ethel. He wouldn’t really mind if his boss at the warehouse fired him.

Thinking of his warehouse job made him think of the box cutter in the pocket of his jeans. These days he was carrying it with him at all times. He took it out, opened the glove box, and tossed it inside.

Late that afternoon, Dewey Gleason as Bernie Graham rented the tiny upstairs apartment in Frogtown after receiving the call from Jerzy Szarpowicz. Within an hour of closing the deal and signing the check-using one of the small-business accounts that was nearly depleted-Dewey met with his co-conspirators at the property.

“It’s a dump,” Tristan said when he and Jerzy walked inside.

“You need fuckin’ luxury to do a kidnap?” Jerzy said.

“It’s got two rooms and a bathroom, and that’s enough,” Dewey said. “And it’s not close to a residence. Good job, Jerzy.”

Jerzy smiled slightly, at last feeling appreciated.

“Use duct tape and tape those blinds to the wall,” Dewey said. “We don’t want her seeing daylight, and we damn sure don’t want her knowing where she is. This gag’s gotta last two days.”

Dewey assumed that after two days, when they wouldn’t be able to reach him and figured out that he was gone for good, they’d simply release Eunice and go back to being the street scum they’d always been. What could Eunice do about any of it? Complain that her criminal employees had kidnapped her? Complain that her husband had stolen the money that she’d stolen from hundreds of people, much of it even before she’d met her husband?

He wondered if it was his imagination or if there was something suspicious in the way that Creole glanced around the apartment and said casually, “Yeah, this gag’s gotta last two days. That’s how long it’ll take your banker pal to release funds, huh? That’s a long time from our end.”

“It can’t be helped,” Dewey said. “It’s gotta be that way if this is gonna work.”

“It’s gonna work, Bernie,” Jerzy said. “You got my guarantee that she’ll give it up.”

Those sinister words made Dewey Gleason feel more than a little uneasy. The big talk was over. Now it was going to happen and the Polack meant business.

“I don’t think you’ll have to get rough with her,” Dewey said.

“We’ll do what we gotta do,” Jerzy said.

This time it was Tristan feeling it. “I told you two I ain’t torturin’ no woman,” he said to Jerzy.

Jerzy pulled up the T-shirt hanging over his gut and showed them the two-inch Colt revolver. “You two are gonna do whatever has to be done to get that fuckin’ money. Once this thing starts, it goes all the way and we ain’t turnin’ back.”

Tristan glanced at Dewey, who averted his eyes. Jerzy’s own eyes were glassy and slightly dilated. Tristan figured he’d been smoking ice for courage, and he didn’t like that. The Polack was trouble enough when he wasn’t high.

“One thing sure,” Tristan said, looking at Jerzy. “We gotta stay clean and sober for this job or it ain’t gonna work. We gotta main-tain at all times. I hope we agree about that.”

Jerzy gave one of his scoffing snorts that Tristan had come to hate and said, “You two do your jobs. I’m sure as fuck gonna do mine.”

“I’d suggest you rent the van at the same place under the same name,” Dewey said to Tristan, eager to get the conversation away from Jerzy and the menace in his close-set little eyes.

“We’ll need five Franklins to hold us till this goes down,” Tristan said. “Then we might need more. Sleepin’ bags for Jerzy and me. A metal bed that we can chain her to. Food for two days, and lots of little stuff, like toilet paper, bottled water, whatever.”

“And room deodorizer,” Jerzy said. “She’s gonna smell like a cesspool when we put the fear on her.”

Dewey opened his wallet and took out $600 and handed it to Tristan, saying, “This is to get started.” Jerzy reached over and snatched three of the $100 bills from Tristan’s hand.

“We’ll need all of that and maybe more, wood,” Tristan said to his partner.

“Why should you hold it all?” Jerzy retorted.

“Okay, you wanna rent the van? Here,” Tristan said, and he handed the remaining bills to Jerzy. “You wanna buy the bed and other shit?”

“Let’s not start off squabbling!” Dewey said as Jerzy stared down at his smaller partner, whose eyes were directed at “Foo Fighters” in red across the chest of Jerzy’s black T-shirt. “How about letting Creole handle the money, Jerzy? He’s the one that’s already set up with ID to rent the van.”

Jerzy grunted and handed the money back to Tristan without further comment.

“Okay, then,” Dewey said. “Unless you got a better plan, I say this goes down at the storage locker in Reseda.”

“Like how?” Tristan said.

“You two are in there when I arrive with Ethel. You’ll ambush us.”

“How do you plan to get your old lady to the storage room?” Jerzy asked.

Dewey said, “I think I have a way. It’s possible that we could be ready as soon as tomorrow night. Are you two good to go?”

“Holy shit!” Tristan said. Then he thought about it and said, “Why not? But how do we get in the storage room to ambush you?”

“If I’m able to set it up for tomorrow night, I’ll meet you at our office in the afternoon at about two o’clock. We’ll drive to the storage facility, where you will enter behind me just like you did last time. We’ll park the van at the next row of storage buildings so there’s no vehicle parked by our storage room when I arrive with my wife. You’ll be hiding behind the merchandise boxes, and when we arrive, you’ll jump us, tape her up, blindfold her, and one of you will run and get the van from the neighboring parking area.”

Jerzy said, “How the fuck do we drag this taped-up woman from the storage room to the van without somebody seein’ us? As I remember, there were other people comin’ and goin’ around there.”

“There won’t be at eight thirty at night,” Dewey said. “There’s twenty-four-hour self-storage access for customers, but I’ve seldom seen anybody there after dark, except for the security guard in the front office. After you get us in the van, you lock up the storeroom, take my keys, and leave my car where it’s parked. I’ve seen customers’ cars left there for two or three days after they took away their stored belongings in a rental truck. Just wave to the guard when you drive out. It’ll be a minimum-wage employee who’ll probably be too busy watching TV to even wave back.”

“You’re sayin’ we gotta sit in that hot storage room for more than five hours?” Jerzy said.

“Yes,” Dewey said. “I need time to get back to Hollywood and set up the gag for her to go with me to the storage room. I’m gonna get a phone call and say that our runners Creole and Jerzy called and need four laptops and a plasma from there to deliver for a very good price, and that I gotta do the pickup ASAP. It’s not gonna be comfortable for you in that room, but you’re gonna get a hell of an hourly wage for those five hours and for the following two days after it’s all over.”

Tristan, who was listening intently, said, “Okay, as long as you seem to be writer and director of this here show, have you worked out how the woman thinks we got in that room to pull off the ambush without you bein’ involved?”

“Yes,” Dewey said. “I’ve worked out the dialogue. She’ll know that you’re Creole and Jerzy, our runners. She’s heard of you. She’ll also know that you, Creole, were the guy from Water and Power, so she’ll know you staked us out for this kidnap. When you throw us in this apartment, I’ll tell her that you musta made a duplicate key when we transferred the merchandise from Los Feliz to the storage facility, and that I also shared the gate code with you on that job. She’s never been to the facility before. She’ll buy it.”

“And did you write the dialogue for when we get your hysterical old lady up here?” Jerzy asked.

It took several seconds for Dewey to say, “That part will be mostly improv.”

“And what the fuck’s that mean?” said Jerzy.

“I want this to go down without her getting hurt,” Dewey said.

“Yeah, well, I wanna fuck every waitress at Hooters,” Jerzy said. “But I might jist end up in jail, fuckin’ a package of lunch meat if this don’t get done right.”

“She talks tough, but she’s not a brave woman,” Dewey said. “Maybe if you let her know about that very impressive knife of yours, she’ll fold. But first you’ll have to beat me up.”

“I’m gonna love that part!” Jerzy said.

“No, not really beat me up,” Dewey said quickly. “But she’s gonna have to believe that you did it. Remember, she’ll be blindfolded and think I am too. You’ll have to punch your fist into your palm several times, and I’ll have to yell out and beg you to stop. I’ll throw myself on the floor. That kind of thing.”

“I’d rather make it more real with you,” Jerzy said with that worrisome grin of his.

“Get your mind in the game, dawg,” Tristan said.

Dewey ignored Jerzy and said, “After you pretend to beat me up, you’ll take me outta the apartment for about twenty minutes. Then you’ll take me back in, and since she’ll have a blindfold on, I’ll be able to convince her that I’m hurting, and I’ll tell her that you asked for half a million to let us live. The important thing is that you never remove her blindfold. In fact, duct-tape it to her face.”

“This is all good,” Tristan said, “but I still don’t see how you get the money outta her bank account and into your hands.”

“I’ve already laid the groundwork,” Dewey said. “If you can scare her enough and then leave us alone, it’ll be a done deal.”

“Like, how do you actually do it, Bernie?” Tristan said. “Tell me the steps involved.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Dewey said. “It’s a wire transfer.”

Suddenly Jerzy stepped close to Dewey and said, “There ain’t no secrets between us here, Bernie. You ain’t Mr. Kessler no more. Now tell my little partner what he wants to know.”

Dewey looked up at Jerzy Szarpowicz, then at Tristan, and said, “She’ll give me the password and the account number and routing number if I need it. And whatever else she used to identify herself, like her mother’s maiden name of the name of her first doggy, or whatever the fuck I need to order her bank to wire the funds to my bank. Satisfied?”

“Back off, Bernie,” Tristan said. “We got a right to know all the details. Like, why is she gonna be content to be the one who stays with us, while you leave her for two days to do the deal?”

“Because you’re gonna tell her that one of us stays and the other goes and gets the money, and I’m your pick to go.”

“Don’t tell me,” Tristan said. “Lemme guess. You’re gonna offer to stay, because no manly man would leave his wife to die with a couple of insane kidnappers, but we’re gonna say, no, Momma stays. And you’re gonna go and bring the money back to save her life.”

“That’s what we have to sell,” Dewey said.

“I keep goin’ back to the possibility that she won’t buy it,” Tristan said. “What if she’s braver and smarter than you think? What if she’s layin’ there blindfolded and starts to think this might all be a gag that her rat-fucker husband arranged?”

Dewey turned then and walked to the window, looking at the blinds. Finally, he said, “Be sure to tape these to the wall.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jerzy said. “We’ll do the details. Now answer Creole’s question.”

“I’m a good actor,” Dewey said. “I’ll sell it.”

“Yeah, but what if you ain’t quite as good as you think you are, and she just smells somethin’ that ain’t right?” Tristan said, pressing the man.

Dewey paused for an even longer time. Then he said, “There’s one thing that’ll keep her from even considering the possibility that this is all a charade. It’s something that’ll keep her mind totally focused on her own survival.”

“What’s that?” Tristan asked.

“Pain,” Dewey said, turning around and looking at Jerzy. “But it’s a last resort. And I mean last.”

“Okay, Bernie,” Jerzy said with that grin again that gave Tristan chills. “I do believe we are finally arrivin’ at the same page on this here script of yours.”

“I don’t like this,” Tristan said. “I don’t fuckin’ like this. I said from the git that I don’t do violence to no woman.”

“Nobody’s askin’ you to do it,” Jerzy said.

“I don’t fuckin’ like this!” Tristan repeated.

“You’ll like the money when it comes,” Jerzy said. “And you’ll forget the rest of it.”

“It won’t have to come to violence,” Dewey said. “I’m sure of it.”

Malcolm and Naomi were seated at the counter at Mel’s Drive-In, and he was very happy with how impressed she seemed.

“It’s too cool for school!” she said. “A burger on the Sunset Strip!”

Malcolm said, “Want some ice cream for dessert?”

“I’m stuffed,” she said, pushing the plate away.

“I like chocolate,” Malcolm said.

“Me too,” she said. “Especially frozen yogurt.”

“Yeah?” Malcolm said. “I like frozen yogurt better than ice cream too. You and me, Naomi, we got lots in common.”

Naomi smiled and said, “I’m real glad you called today, Clark. I was starting to think maybe it wouldn’t happen.”

“When I make up my mind, I stick to it,” Malcolm said. “I’m gonna be getting a new job soon. Then I’ll have more time and more money to do things I wanna do.”

“What do you wanna do?” Naomi asked, and Malcolm loved the way she tossed her head to get her shoulder-length blonde hair off the side of her face.

“Oh, maybe get a newer car. I like Mustangs, but mine’s pretty old. And I wanna buy you some things. Expensive things.”

“Me?” Naomi said.

“Sure,” he said. “You’re my girl now. I feel like I know you better than anybody else in my life,” Malcolm said. Then he repeated, “You’re my girl.”

Naomi was startled and confused, and she said, “Clark, I like you. I really do. But my mother’d have a litter of kittens if she knew you called me that or if she even knew I was here with a guy your age. Especially a guy she never met.”

“I’ll go straight to your house now and meet your mother,” Malcolm said. “And I’ll tell her how I feel about you.”

He didn’t like the look on Naomi’s face then. And he didn’t like it when she lowered her gaze and said, “Clark, don’t talk crazy. I think maybe you should take me home now.”

She managed an insincere smile but remained silent for a moment when he said, “Okay, but I hope I can come in for a few minutes and see how you live.”

“See how I live?” Naomi finally said as Malcolm examined the bill and put money on the counter. “Whadda you mean?”

“I wanna see how a real American family lives. I didn’t have that kind of family. My mother was a Persian, and my father was a French chef in New York before we moved to L.A., when I was a baby.”

A moment passed and Naomi said, “How did you get the scrapes on your knuckles, Clark? And that little bruise on your face?”

“I got in a fight at work,” Malcolm said. “Two big guys in the warehouse were picking on a little guy, and I stepped in and took care of business. I can’t stand bullies, and I clocked both of them. They ended up in the ER.”

Naomi did not comment further and was more than apprehensive during their ride and only spoke when she had to direct him to her house on Ogden Drive. He, on the other hand, chattered nonstop about music, often referring to the latest songs he’d heard on KROQ. When they were a few blocks from her house, he turned up the volume and began singing along with “Love Me Dead.”

He knew the entire lyric, and he turned his brilliant smile on her when he sang about “the mark of the beast.” And again when he sang, “You’re born of a jackal.” He smiled even bigger when he said, “That song’s about me!”

Naomi Teller had begun trembling by then and felt enormous relief when he pulled up in front of her house, a well-tended home in an area where homes were upper-middle class, but to Malcolm Rojas they looked like mansions.

She got out of the Mustang quickly, closed the door, peered through the open window, and said, “Clark, I really can’t invite you in now. I need time to tell my mom and dad how nice you are, even though you’re an older guy. I just need… well, like, time.”

“That’s a beautiful house,” he said. “Which room is yours? Upstairs in front, I bet, so you can see the street.”

“Yes, you’re a good guesser, Clark,” she said. “Well, bye-bye.”

“Next time I wanna meet your family and see how you live,” Malcolm said. “Promise me, Naomi.”

Naomi said, “Okay, Clark.”

“Don’t forget me, Naomi,” Malcolm said. “Don’t ever forget me.”

“I won’t,” Naomi said. “That’s for sure.”

When she was feeling the security of her front door just a few yards away, she paused, turned again, and, looking back at the handsome young man in the Mustang, said, “Jones isn’t a French name. You said your dad was a French chef.”

Malcolm said, “You’re right, Naomi. He changed it when he came to America because his name was too hard to pronounce.”

“I took French in middle school,” Naomi said, feeling bold enough now to challenge him. “I bet I could pronounce it. What is it?”

“I don’t like to talk about my family,” he said. “They both died in a car crash.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” Naomi said. “Who raised you?”

“I was raised by jackals,” Malcolm said, and he began laughing.

The laughter grew in intensity until he had tears in his eyes. Naomi Teller imagined she could still hear that laugh when she ran inside her house and turned the dead bolt.

Night fell with a thud, thanks to the summer smog. It got very dark very fast. Sergeant Miriam Hermann in 6-L-20, the senior sergeant’s designated car, was cruising Hollywood Boulevard when she spotted the shop belonging to 6-X-32 parked on Las Palmas Avenue, just north of the boulevard. She saw that the surfer cops were talking to a white male pedestrian, so she pulled over to the red zone on the boulevard, showed herself on the radio as being code 6, and left her car to observe unseen.

Flotsam and Jetsam were both facing north and didn’t notice their supervisor standing thirty yards behind them in the darkness of a doorway. Sergeant Hermann could see that the guy facing the two cops was hammered to the point of oblivion. She doubted that they’d gotten him out of a car, because he looked too smashed to walk, let alone drive.

Flotsam looked at the fiftyish fat guy, whose souvenir Universal Studios cap, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with dark socks said “tourist.” He was doing his best to stand without staggering to one side or the other, and Sergeant Hermann heard the tall cop say, “Well, Stanley, even though you’re more bombed than Baghdad, we’d like to give you a break and let you walk home. But I don’t know if you can manage it. Where’s home?”

“The R-R-R-Roosevelt Hotel,” Stanley managed to say, with a pronounced slur and a stutter like Porky Pig’s. “I… c-c-c-can do it! Honest!”

Jetsam looked at his partner and said, “I dunno either, partner.” Turning to the drunk, he said, “Where you from, Stanley?”

The man looked at them like he couldn’t remember, but he said, “Indi… Indi… Indian… aw, fuck it… apolis.” Then he got the hiccups.

“Well, your hometown makes a difference,” Flotsam said. “Most surfers have heard about the USS Indianapolis. It got torpedoed in the Big War. A lotta brave sailors got taken by the men in gray suits.”

“What?” said Stanley, utterly perplexed.

“Sharks,” Jetsam said. “Surfers don’t like the men in gray suits. We know all the stories about them.”

“Oh,” Stanley said without the slightest idea what the hell they were talking about.

“I say we give him a chance,” Flotsam said. “In memory of the Indianapolis. You down, partner?”

“I’m on it, bro,” Jetsam said. Then he looked at the drunk and said, “It’s a balloon test. Pass it and we’ll let you go. You good with that?”

Stanley said, “L-L-L-Lemme blow in the b-b-b-balloon. I ain’t that… that…” And he lurched to starboard, but Jetsam grabbed his arm before he crashed to the pavement, and said, “I think drunk is the word you’re searching for, Stanley.”

Flotsam said, “Anyways, you ain’t the one that has to blow, Stanley.” With that, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a yellow balloon.

He put it to his lips and blew it to the size of a cantaloupe, after which he pinched off the neck, held it in front of the drunk’s face, and said, “Game on, Stanley. If you can catch it, you’re a free man.”

Then he let it go. The balloon soared and dove and smacked the pavement while Stanley pawed the air in a futile attempt to grab it, with Jetsam holding his collar so he didn’t kiss the concrete.

“Best two out of three, dude?” Flotsam said to Stanley, who nodded eagerly and said, “Let her r-r-r-rip!”

Jetsam picked up the balloon, readying for another test, when Sergeant Hermann startled both cops by walking up behind them, saying, “What in the hell are you surfer goons up to this time?”

Both cops spun around, and Flotsam said, “Oh, hi, Sarge. We’re just, uh, trying to, uh, figure out how drunk this man is.”

Stanley said, “Come on, let’s d-d-d-do it!”

“Let’s not,” Sergeant Hermann said. Then to her cops, she said, “You can’t book him now, not that you ever intended to. You might have a bit of a problem explaining your balloon test to a judge.”

“Well, Sarge…,” Jetsam said, trying to come up with something plausible.

“Where do you live?” Sergeant Hermann asked Stanley.

“The R-R-R-Roosevelt Hotel,” he said, swaying precariously, “for a f-f-f-few days. Then I’m going home to Indi… Indi… Indi… aw, fuck it.”

“Take this man to the Roosevelt Hotel,” Sergeant Hermann said. “And don’t ever let me catch you two playing with balloons again.”

Without a word, both surfer cops got Stanley by the arms and marched him to the backseat of their shop.

When they got him inside the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, Stanley said, “Don’t leave. Let’s have a n-n-n-nightcap in honor of the Indi… Indi… Indi…”

“Aw, fuck it,” Flotsam said, finishing it for him.