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It was only a few minutes before the cop's voice called out, “Left turn.”

Like robots we turned sideways.

Finally the detective announced, “Show's over. Meet me in the next room please.”

Me and the other guys walked out into the other room where the detective and the lawyers watched the line-up. The frizzy-headed twat was out of sight.

Nuppi winked encouragement to me.

Dirty Harriet walked to the front of the room. “Good news for most of you who the victim cleared.”

She checked her notes. “Stafford, Watson, Castle.”

She paused as relief flooded through my body.

Watson, whose breathing sounded like he was hooked up to a faulty respirator, exhaled a loud gasp. “Thank God.”

“The rest of you have been cleared,” she added slowly, smiling a little from her sadistic presentation.

What? I couldn't believe it. “Am I cleared?” I blurted out.

“Oh no!” Watson cried out. “I'm innocent!”

Castle was silent, pale-faced with eyes big as golf balls.

“Yeah, what about Stafford?” my low-budget Perry Mason asked.

The detective smirked at Nuppi for a couple of seconds. “Counsel, you've got to be kidding.” She reached into her purse and handed me and Watson and Castle a printed form with the words at the top: CONSENT TO SEARCH.

I handed it to Nuppi. “What the hell is this?”

He scanned it quickly. “Cops want your permission to search your apartment, your car, your garage and anything else that's got your name on it.”

Then Nuppi spoke to the cop, sounding more forceful than I ever heard him before. “Stafford refuses to give you permission to search. But he volunteers to give blood, hair and saliva samples that'll clear him for sure.”

_____

An hour later I was with Nuppi at some emergency hospital in Culver City, twisting and squeezing past a bunch of slimy-looking refugees in the waiting room who were babbling in various languages that proved that nobody but us spoke English in kindergarten. The place was jammed. We decided to stand up while we waited instead of joining some of the bleeding patients sitting on the floor. Whatever the disinfectant the hospital used, it was so strong that it probably could've prevented radiation poisoning on Atom Bomb victims.

Finally we were sent to a smelly, dimly-lit room the size of three phone booths. I had my right sleeve rolled up waiting for the ancient-looking nurse, who mostly spoke Voodoo, to begin. For whatever reason, she was fiddling around with medical supplies on a shelf in the corner.

“Don't answer me,” Nuppi ordered, speaking softly through his teeth while looking over at the witch doctor's grandmother, “but would a search of your property have helped the cops?”

I looked down at my shoes, silently imagining that I saw the answer written on the dirty floor written in the dust screaming out the word YES and nodded slightly.

As if he never asked me that question, Nuppi continued using a yellow highlighter to circle some more names in the folded Obituary section he was reading.

“Why're you always doing that?”

“I'm also a Wills Buster.”

“What the hell's that?”

“I read the Obituaries. When business is slow I go down to the courthouse and check the wills of the people who died.”

“Why?”

“To see if any family members are left out of the will. You know, to see if any close relatives got disinherited.”

“So what if they are?”

“I sign them up and file a will contest to stop the heirs from getting any money.”

“Why?”

“So the heirs pay me and my client to drop the lawsuit so everybody, including my clients, get a share of the money. Otherwise the case lasts about five years before any rightful heir gets a penny.”

“What if they won't pay you to drop it?”

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “Then I lose. Luckily, only lawyers know that it's almost impossible to set aside a will.”

“Why?”

“Since the guy who wrote the will is obviously dead and can't tell anybody what he wanted to do with his money except what he wrote in the will, you need almost absolute proof that the relative who's left out of the will was entitled to the money.” He laughed. “Odds to win a will contest are like a-million-to-one. Better chance of winning the lottery.”

“Oh.”

The gray-skinned nurse, who probably got her training delivering dead babies on a dirt floor inside a Calcutta tent, suddenly rammed a needle into my arm with the accuracy of somebody playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey.

“Easy,” I yelled as she silently drew blood. I looked at Nuppi. “How long until I get cleared?”

“Usually not more than two weeks. But sometimes it takes longer.”

“Don't have that much time. If this case drags on until after Hell Week, I can't get sworn into the fraternity and I'll lose the money no matter what.” Then a sickening thought hit me. “What if this evidence doesn't show I did it—and it won't—do they have to drop the case?”

Nuppi thought about it for a moment. “No. Especially with female cops, most times the victim's word is enough.”

Monday, January 13

“
I
CAN'T GO TO COURT TOMORROW,”
I told the Public Defender on the phone. “Got a final. Need you to get me another date.”

“You're going to jail,” was the legal advice I got from this cripple who sold me out on my DUI case. He sounded thrilled to death. “You're a Probation Violator.”

“Why? How do you know?” I challenged.

“Checked the computer as we're talking. One of the conditions of your probation,” he wheezed, “was that you obey all laws.”

“So?”

“So, your new marijuana cite came up on the court computer. It's a new crime. You violated your DUI probation. The judge said if you came back with any new crimes for the next three years that you'd get ten days in jail.”

“Shit!”

“You'll be remanded immediately.”

“What's that mean?”

He either coughed or snickered. I couldn't tell which.

“Right after the judge sentences you, the sheriff handcuffs you in court, takes you right from the courtroom to the jail lockup in the courthouse. Then you get chained to the other prisoners—Mexican gang guys with a million prison tattoos and big blacks who cornhole white guys like you for laughs—and you're driven in the jail bus directly to the County Jail. You start the ten days right then. Better bring Vasoline to avoid a ripped asshole.”

I couldn't believe it! I started to panic! “For three fucking joints?”

He definitely sounded happy now. “Yeah.”

But what the hell did he know? He couldn't even walk without using metal braces to slide along the sidewalk like a cross-country skier.

“You don't have to believe me. Call another lawyer.”

“I did. But Mr. Nuppi's out of town. At a law convention until next week.”

He laughed. “Nuppi? Heard that drunk's in rehab again. Anyway, I'm warning you, better be here tomorrow.”

“I already told you. I can't. Got a final.”

“So don't appear.”

“Then what happens?”

“Warrant gets issued for your arrest,” he answered, gloating like hell.

“But I'll get thrown out of school if I miss my final.”

I must've sounded so convincing that this creep who probably parked in the handicapped zone everywhere finally gave in.

“OK. I'll tell the judge about the final and try to continue the case one week. But I can't guarantee that he'll do it.”

“Jesus, thanks,” I exhaled with relief.

“One week only. To January 20. And remember, it's not even for sure.”

“How will I know if you get it continued?”

“Ask any cop tomorrow afternoon. He'll tell you if there's a warrant for your arrest.”

Friday, January 17

I
was naked, lying on my side,
pushed up against Tiffany's bare back, with my left hand rolling her clit around like a greased ball bearing. I twisted around a little and her expert hands went to work on me too, when suddenly the ingredients for a billion babies shot out of me like a raging river ripping through a bursting dam.

“Shit,” she muttered a few seconds later, “I was nearly off.” She crawled over the wet spot between us on the sheet. “I'll get a towel.”

Still naked, and with no tan lines around her tits or shaved pussy, she staggered to the window and stopped abruptly, leaning on the wall for support. From outside, the sounds of metal clanging and the revving from a high-pitched motor filled the room.

“That's your truck!” she suddenly screamed.

I leaped out of bed, hobbled to the window and stared outside.

A blue and white cop car was there with two cops talking to some Hindu bastard wearing a magenta turban who was hooking up my 4Runner to the back of his tow truck!

“They're coming here!” Tiffany said, her bad breath almost gagging me.

“You got warrants?” I asked.

“No, I don't think so. What about you?”

“I might. You better answer the door.”

Less than a minute later there was a gentle double-knock at the door. I was hiding in the tiny hallway on my knees, peering around the corner at the front door.

Still completely naked and relaxed as hell about it, Tiffany called out in a soft voice, “Who is it?”

“Police, open the door, please,” a woman's voice answered almost conversationally.

“Nobody's here but me,” Tiffany called out.

“Please open the door,” the same voice repeated politely.

Then Tiffany, the dumb bitch, took a few steps to the door and opened it. She stood there with her hands on her hips facing the two startled cops.

“Jesus,” the little black cop whistled to his girl Chinaman partner who involuntarily licked her lips. Tiffany made no effort to either move or cover herself.

“Kurt Stafford here?” the black cop asked, his eyes aimed waist-high.

“He left about half an hour ago after we fucked all night.”

“Maybe we should wait,” the ethnic said to the gook who had three stripes on her uniform sleeves just below the shoulders.

“Like hell we will,” the Chinaman woman answered before turning to Tiffany. “We'll be back.” Then she grabbed the arm of her non-pigmentally-challenged partner, twisting him around toward the stairway, giving him a light shove.

“Bye,” Tiffany purred before closing the door.

I ran to the bedroom window again and looked outside. Both cops were laughing as they walked down the stairs and got into the patrol car. Seconds later they sped away, heading down Fourth.

I walked back into the living room where Tiffany was seated on the couch.

“Who's baby?” she asked, pointing to the coffee table where
there was an 8x10 color photo of a wrinkled, newborn baby with squinting, dark eyes wearing a blue jumpsuit. The photo, in an envelope with no letter and a Chicago postmark, came in yesterday's mail that was forwarded from San Francisco.

“My cousin's,” I lied.

Of the four girls I knocked up in the last seven years, I could only talk three into having abortions. This kid was from the last girl, some Catholic, anti-abortion bitch named Maryanne something, who moved away to be with her parents and raise the kid herself which was fine with me. In my cleverest move ever, I got her to agree that I'd give up any rights to the kid and she agreed never to ask me for child support.

The shrill of the ringing portable phone pierced the air like a rifle shot.

“Get it,” I said. “Maybe it's the cops calling to see if I'm really here.”

She answered and handed me the phone. “For you. Professor somebody.”

It was Chesterfield, my Man and Civ teacher, who uttered a single sentence before hanging up: “Be in my office at one sharp and explain why you shouldn't get an F in the class.”

_____

The weight of dog shit must've bent back a few blades of grass that crossed the Santa Monica city limits because the College at the Sea was hidden behind a large office park of four-story buildings on Ocean Park Boulevard near Bundy, next to the outermost part of the Santa Monica Airport. The only way this campus would be at the sea would be if a tidal wave a million times stronger than the one in
The Perfect Storm
crashed from the ocean's shore.

Chesterfield's office was located in the Montgomery Administration Building behind statues of Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery who competed with each other to see who'd be first to be completely covered in bird shit.

The scrawled words BACK IN 5 MINS on a yellow Post-It note stuck on Chesterfield's door didn't say don't come in and snoop
if the door is unlocked, so I went inside and checked the place out.

This windowless office was about the size of a jail cell and smelled like a gym locker. It looked like an American Indian shrine with almost every square inch of wall space covered with photographs and paintings of probably every famous Indian savage who butchered white guys. On the side wall behind the desk were a bunch of college diplomas, proving that Chesterfield had more degrees than a thermometer. But so what? Look where he wound up.

My school file was lying on top of his cluttered desk that had a silver key sticking out of the lock on the top drawer. Out of bored curiosity I rifled the drawers and almost choked when I saw what was in the bottom left drawer: kiddy porn! I couldn't believe it! Chesterfield, that prim, pompous snob whose favorite phase was “moral integrity” was into kiddy porn! But to prove his sexual tastes were varied, he even had some candid restroom shots that must've been taken by a hidden camera showing different women wiping their pussies with toilet paper! Chesterfield, full of moral integrity, was a class act all right.