The Glitter Dome (21 page)

The Weasel knocked at the door, and after a moment Tuna Can Tommy opened it with the chain lock holding.

“Pardon me,” the Weasel said. “I'm looking for Martha Beagle-lump. Does she live here?”

“Never heard of her,” Tuna Can Tommy said.

“Oh, that's odd. I was
sure
this was the right apartment.”

“No, you have the wrong apartment.”

“Do you know a lady about fifty years old in this building? Lives alone? Wears butterfly glasses? Sort of walks like a rabbit? Hippety hop?”

“No, not in this apartment,” Tuna Can Tommy insisted.

“Thanks anyway,” the Weasel said cheerfully, as the fat man closed the door.

Two minutes later he joined the Ferret on the fire escape, where the heavily draped window was now opened eight inches.

“Hello, lemme talk to Flameout,” they heard him say on the telephone. After a pause he said, “Flameout? It's me, Dudley. How's Tarnished Gem look in the fifth? Yeah? Okay, get me down for five across. Yeah, that's all. Thanks.”

Shit. He was calling his
bookie
. It was a goddamn vice case all the way. Lewd phone calls. Gambling. Next thing he'd turn into a whore or something. Heavyweight drug dealer? Bullshit!

Then Tuna Can Tommy dialed the telephone again and he said, very officiously: “Hello, is this Roberta Philbert? Yes? Mrs. Philbert, I'm calling for the Santa Monica Research Institute of Consumer Affairs. We're trying to determine what kind of laundry detergent the average housewife uses. We'll be happy to send you, with our compliments, a gift certificate for fifty dollars' worth of the detergent of your choice if you'll just answer a few simple questions.”

There was a pause, and the Ferret and Weasel began grinning like cats.
This
sounded like old Tuna Can Tommy, all right.

“Yes, that's right,” said Tuna Can Tommy. “First, I'd like to know which detergent you're using now. Yes. Uh huh, and is it strong enough to get the dirt out of your kids' playclothes? Yes? How about your husband's shirts? Does he wear white shirts? No? How does it perform on white? Say, underwear? Your husband's underwear? Yes? And the kids' underwear? Does it perform adequately? And
your
underwear? Uh huh, and can you tell me, what kind of underwear? No, not theirs. Yours. Do you wear
white
underwear? Uh huh, and do you wear other colors? How about red? Do you wear bikini underwear? Hello? Hello!”

The Weasel and Ferret held a quick conversation outside Tuna Can Tommy's door.

“We got nothing to bust him for,” said the Ferret. “Nothing that'll hold up in court.”

“This is
bull
shit anyway,” the Ferret said. “We're narcs!”

“Let's jack him up a little bit. We could spend a month sticking to his wall like freaking mosquitoes. If he confesses and throws himself on the mercy of the cop, we'll take him down and book him. Otherwise we'll terrorize him a little bit and tell him to take his Polaroids to Malibu. Virgin territory and all that.”

“Go for it,” the Ferret agreed, and this time it was he who knocked on the door, yelling, “Mr. Small! It's the mailman! I have a registered letter for you!”

And when Tuna Can Tommy unslid his chain and turned the latch, the door burst open and he was caught in a wristlock and choke hold by what
had
to be a Hell's Angels enforcement squad and he had a passing panicky wish that he'd given away
all
the Polaroids. When the mortician gave his mother his remains and personal things, he didn't want her to know about the other life.

Tuna Can Tommy could have kissed both of them after they pushed him down on the couch and told him to stop screaming or they'd cut his fucking throat and that they were Los Angeles police officers. He examined the badge closely.

“You
are
cops! You
are
cops!” Tuna Can Tommy cried. That badge is
just
like the one on
Dragnet
!”

“Jesus, you're a real screamer, ain't ya,” the Weasel said. “Can't you talk in an ordinary tone a voice?”

“I'm sorry,” Tuna Can Tommy said. “I was so frightened! I'm so
happy
you're cops!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Ferret said. “Listen, we can't dick around with ya. We got information you're the masked man leaving his nudie pictures around town. No sense lying about it. Our crime lab is the best in the world. Interpol and Scotland Yard come to us. Our scientists subjected your pictures to a spectograph, monograph, and polygraph. There's no point in lyin and denyin. They got every freckle and mole on your tubby little frame pinpointed by a fluoroscope and gyroscope.”

“All we gotta do is get a court order, make you pull your pants down, bingo, it's all over,” the Weasel said. “I don't see how you can get outa this one.”

“Ain't no way,” the Ferret said. “You might as well tell us all about it, make you feel better.”

“Can't say I blame you for what you done,” the Weasel said. “I got a thing for sucking their pants off myself. And I don't care what kind a detergent they use.”

“You know
everything
!” Tuna Can Tommy sobbed.

“A course we know everything,” the Weasel said. “Ya said ya watch
Dragnet
, for chrissake!”

“I'm sorry I did it,” Tuna Can Tommy blubbered. “Can't you give me another chance? I never been arrested.”

“Well, we
might
, but we heard some other tidbits lately. Oh, by the way, they been directing sound waves at your house for about a month now. You feel funny sometimes when you go to bed? Itchy in the crotch maybe? Funny sort a wiggly feeling in your tummy? Maybe after one a your phone calls? Maybe your dork gets hard?”

“Yes! Yes!” Tuna Can Tommy said, weeping openly.

“That's from the sound waves,” the Ferret said. “We learned it from the Russians. They do it to our embassies. Makes you goofy after a while. Half the fucking ambassadors in Europe end up making phone calls late at night asking broads about their underwear. It ain't
all
your fault, Tommy.”

“My name's Dudley,” the fat man cried. “Tommy's my alias!”

“Well, we gotta tell ya, your bad habits know
no
limits, Tommy,” the Weasel said, but Tuna Can Tommy was crying so hard he could hardly hear him. “We discovered through our latest sound waves that you're also involved with bookmakers. Christ, I like underwear too, but I try to control
some
bad habits: Polaroids, bookmakers, flogging your dummy. You gotta stop
somewhere
, Tommy.”

“I only bet on horses once in a while,” Tuna Can Tommy wailed. “I won't do it anymore!”

“And the last thing is, we know you're a doper, Tommy,” the Ferret said. “Now just turn over your stash to me and it'll go a lot easier on ya.”

“I'm
not!
” Tuna Can Tommy wailed. “I'm
not
. I work every night at the Swifty Messenger Service. I'm the best and speediest deliveryman they have. Speedy messengers
can't
be dope fiends!”

“You can't give some people a break,” the Weasel said to the Ferret. “Get your coat, Tommy, we ain't gonna stand here and watch your sinuses drain.”

“Wait, please!” Tuna Can Tommy cried, getting up and running into the bedroom toward the nightstand drawer.

Both startled narcs drew their guns, and after they got Tuna Can Tommy's renewed burst of terror under control, they sat him on the bed and removed the package from the drawer. He had exactly fifteen dexis and twelve reds, depending upon whether he wanted to go up or down. “That's all the dope I've got,” Tuna Can Tommy sobbed. “I got it at Flameout Farrell's place. You probably know he's my bookie.”

“We know everything.” The Weasel nodded.

Then the Weasel said, “Bookies don't usually offer uppers and downers to their clients.”

“Flameout didn't sell them to me. In fact, nobody
sold
them. Some guy came in Flameout's restaurant and
gave
them to me one day. Drives a Bentley. I think he's a big coke connection!”

“Another big connection,” the Ferret groaned. “What makes you think that?”

“Somebody mentioned it. He's also a big horseplayer. I heard he drops maybe a thousand a day at the track and thinks nothing about it!”

“Yeah?” the Weasel said. A grand a day. Maybe this could turn into a drug case after all. The Ferret nodded at him. They were getting sick and tired of dicking around with Tuna Can Tommy.

“Okay, Tommy, now you listen to me,” the Weasel said. “We might be able to let you slide this time
if
you're cooperative. It's called trading up. Little fish for big fish. You understand?”

“No.”

“What's this dude's name, the flash who gave you the uppers and downers?”

“Lemme think,” Tuna Can Tommy said. “You got me so scared I
can't
think!”

“Aw right, aw right,” the Ferret said, “get your act together. Mellow out. Lay down on the bed.”

“What're you gonna do?”

“Gang-bang ya, whadda ya think? L
AY DOWN ON THE FUCKIN BED
!”

Whereupon Tuna Can Tommy plopped down, belly up to prevent the gang bang as long as possible. He stared at the two ferocious narcs with terror in his eyes.

“You got any spit left, or you scared spitless?” the Ferret asked.

“I don't know!” Tuna Can Tommy wailed.

“Open your mouth,” the Ferret commanded.

Tuna Can Tommy, sweating buckets, his gelatinous body quivering from neck to knee, opened his mouth and closed his eyes, and gagged when something hit the back of his throat.

“Now swallow it, you got any spit left,” the Ferret ordered.

Tuna Can Tommy gulped once, twice, and got it down. He smiled. It was one of the reds.

“Hey, lemme try that!” the Weasel said, taking a capsule from the Ferret's hand. “Open up again.”

This time Tommy nodded eagerly and opened his rubber lips. (God, he
did
have ugly tufts of red hair hanging out his snoot. Gross!)

The Weasel stood at the foot of the bed and hit him in the eye with the first Seconal capsule. “Leave it!” he ordered, when Tuna Can Tommy tried to gobble it up. The second one was a bull's-eye landing right in that big pink mouth and the fat man swallowed it easily. Less fear, more spit.

The Ferret and the Weasel, who were now starting to enjoy themselves, each got one more in Tommy's gaping maw, missing a few, but getting better with each toss.

“Now, goddamnit, you starting to kick back?” the Weasel wanted to know.

“I feel
better
, Officer.” Tuna Can Tommy smiled.

“Okay, what's the name of the big player, might be a coke dealer?”

“Lloyd,” Tuna Can Tommy said without hesitation. “Lloyd. I wasn't told his last name. Drives a black Bentley. I've never even
seen
coke. I don't have
every
bad habit.”

“Okay, where's Flameout Farrell work out of?” the Ferret asked.

“You know that dirty-book store on Hollywood Boulevard?”

“
Which
dirty-book store, for chrissake?”

“The one with the big Greek statue? Where the statue's urinating in the pond? That one. The one near the freeway.”

“He owns the bookstore?”

“No. He owns the little restaurant three doors down. Stays open till nine. I eat my supper there sometimes. I don't think he's much of a bookmaker. The phone doesn't ring that much. You won't tell him I told on him, will ya?”

“Now if we didn't protect the confidentiality of our …
agents
, we couldn't trade little one for big ones, could we?”

“An agent!” Tuna Can Tommy beamed. This was a better fantasy than sucking underwear. He boldly opened his mouth and pointed. Now that he was an agent he could make certain demands.

The Weasel flipped one more in there and said that is fucking
it
. Any more downers and he'd be the
late
secret agent. Which reminded Tuna Can Tommy of the mortician and the personal belongings. He glanced involuntarily toward the other drawer, and the Ferret noticed.

The Ferret reached inside and found four self-photographed portraits in cowboys boots, hat and mask.

The Ferret cried, “Out of freaking
sight!
”

“Those are
real
ostrich boots,” Tuna Can Tommy said proudly.

The Weasel, who was writing in his notebook, mumbled, “You wear five-hundred-dollar ostrich, I wear thirty-dollar shit kickers. There's gotta be a moral somewheres.”

“It ain't your
boots
, masked man!” the Ferret cried to Tuna Can Tommy. “Now I know how you got your nickname!”

“What nickname? I always sign the picture Tommy.”

“The vice cops didn't show us your Polaroids. Now I know why
they
call you Tuna Can Tommy!”

“Do they call me that? Oh, that's mean!” He looked as though he might start crying again. “I can't help the way I'm
built!
”

The Weasel stopped making notes about Flameout Farrell and Lloyd the alleged coke dealer and took the pictures from the Ferret.

“My God!” the Weasel cried. “Your putz! It's nearly three inches in
diameter
!”

But, alas, it was less than two inches in length. It was shaped exactly like a tuna can.

11

The Gunfighter

Tuesday morning was a bad day in the squadroom. The United States Supreme Court had just decreed that it was no fair if the cops used a third-party conversation to “trick” a murderer into confessing. Henceforth, Schultz had to watch what he said to Simon in the presence of any more stranglers they arrested
if
what he said somehow persuaded the strangler that the jig was up and he might as well confess where he buried his corpses and piano wire. It was a very black Tuesday.