Youngman & Blind

YOUNGMAN&BLIND

Mungo McClure

Published by Mungo McClure at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Mungo McClure

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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POST-EVERYTHING

It was just about fall when the bad times began.

LAPD! Open up, you fuck! The butt of the cop’s Glock 17 slammed on the armoured limo-glass, causing Flee Randal - already hungover from a 56-hour brandy, cocaine and Merits jag - much pain to the dome. Man, he just wanted to stay curled in here; a $350,000 ride in copper-bronze tones with window tint, TV, drink-bar, internet and freakin’ emergency scuba-gear?

Bullet-proof should be cop-proof, right?

WRONG.

Flee raised his head and glanced out - saw the cop had a buddy now, they were taking it in turns to whack the triple-plate glass with their sticks. You’d think all that armour would keep their dumb cop voices out...

THINK AGAIN.

Now they’re yelling into a radio, calling a rescue truck to unzip the limo and decant Flee’s skinny, billionaire ass. But it seemed there was auto-Armageddon elsewhere in the Valley this AM - all local rescue services tied- up prying the citizenry from their motor-dreams in a seven-car wreck. Goddamit! The cops were onto the Highway Patrol next - it was two pit-bulls and a meat-pail. Dogs were getting INSANE for their breakfast bite.

The bleep/shriek-ricochet of the car’s alarm was making Flee’s new day short-circuit, but there wasn’t any way he could remember how to switch it off. The cops’d kerb-boxed the limo with their prowler, and Flee was just too goddamn fucked-up to do anything but watch the cop-shapes lit tobacco-tint through the side windows, whacking the glass so the image juddered like the whole world wanting to burst. Then whacking it again. Thus Flee looked away from the cops - and near shit his pants. Standing on the over side of the limo, his head held low to peer in the car through cupped hands was Detective Captain Rice, the death’s head of downtown, here in close-up - the worst fucking cop in the city, and a man for whom flailing the Flee was a singular cause.

Cap’n Rice was so close Flee could window-kiss the bastard - but Flee didn’t even want to LOOK. Could Rice see him? Unlikely - the tint was dark. But Rice could sense him, Flee knew it. Then Flee heard a tap on the glass, and it wasn’t a gun or a stick this time. Cap’n Rice held a yellow canister up so he knew Flee could see it - the fucker was about to ace the car’s AC with tear-gas.

Reaching under the driver’s seat, Flee had just enough time to pop the emergency scuba-gear as the chemical-warfare hit. The mask and mini-tank were for the kind of emergency that didn’t include this. Flee guessed he had maybe fifteen minutes’ supply.

Far too fast, a Highway Patrol rescue truck pulled up, guys got out with a cutter-rig, and pretty soon heavy grinding began at the door. The limo screamed as the outer-shell got torn away to reveal the bullet-proof cage. Despite the mask, the sound made Flee’s head want to burst. Flee Randal was at the dentist, Flee Randal was about to get drilled, filled and fucked.

Pow! One of the cops, impatient with the cutting-rig, ran out of nowhere to swing a fire-axe to the side-window - the blade socking the prime piece of LA sky Flee’d been staring at.

Man, man, man... this was deep. Deep like a submarine movie with a gazillion tonnes of iced Atlantic crushing in; deep like a wounded space-station with nothing but vacuum and darting particles putting a hole in its skin; deep like the chopper pilot in the Black Hawk movie with the Huey crashed and the fuckin skinnies running in to tear on his ass. Only this was worse than depth charges, micro-meteorites or skinnies. LAPD out there. Our host for tonight’s crucifixion - Cap’n Rice in the house, y’all! This was MAXIMUM BadCopCity; MAXIMUM panic o’clock - and Flee shouldn’t never’ve come out here... even in a battle-tank limo, there hadn’t been any way he shoulda come out here.

Flee Randal, 44, and the best paid dirty-laundry man on Wall Street, had one-fifty million dollars-US in a Swiss bank, double that in Grand Cayman, and a pistol he knew he wasn’t about to use.

He sat back in the scuba mask and tried to relax. More cops and patrolmen crowded around the windows; the big dogs need their breakfast bite, the big dogs all INSANE for their breakfast bite now. The rescue-crew were using equipment never designed to cut armour like this. It could take all day. Motherfuckin’ lock system got jammed - he’d tell them that. He’s feign a stroke, heart-attack, bi-polar asthma, spew ‘em WHATEVER. Maybe, maybe then it would be okay. Maybe they’d catch a scare from the circling superlawyers. Maybe they’d get so goddamed scared from the superlawyers descending from the dark towers of NYC, the cops here would just forget to look in the trunk.

Yeah, maybe it’d all be okay.

If they just didn’t look in the back, in the trunk...

THE TRUE NAMES OF HOME

Teaneck NJ’s Youngman and Blind - Blindstone Avenue, that is - was the corner where Flee Randal first picked up on his devious ways as a cancer-deep career asset.

Back in the early eighties, Flee, a drop-out dopesmoker Dungeons warrior KING who dealt grass around the local highschools because he was too in debt to his fantasies not to, was already marked for death by lead-pipe, crack-pipe or - if he lucked out - a more slo-mo decline/fall via the same turnpike commute had his pops a nightly waxen figure in front of the TV and his moms run off to sell Mexican jewellery with some long side-burned fortune-telling Texan pedophile - and Flee knew Mitch Lowells was twisted that way because, every now and then, the sonofabitch’d phone the house in New Jersey and tell Flee that so. Anyway you looked at it, back in the day, the gods were not smiling on young Fleetwood.

Anyway you look at it, Fleetwood. The gods ain’t smiling for ya, Mitch would tell him. Then Flee wouldn’t say anything but he wouldn’t put the phone down either. Dad was zoned on tranks and ABC’s Friday Night slime-up; Mitch was beaming in live from a trailer-park outside an oil-field; Mitch was conversation. And Mom was somewhere too, never speaking but somewhere in the background with the cricket sound and yawning drill-mules.

"Y’know I like the pretty kitties, Flee. You know that, dontcha? Quit yer grinnin’ and drop yer linen! Don’t need to be old enuff to bleed to be old enuff to butcher! Heheheheh! I can tell you’re stunned. But I can’t help it, Flee, it’s just the work I was made for. See, the Good Lord made us all for a job. My work is takin’ it to the pretty kitties, and out here the pretty kitties don’t squeal if you treats ‘em right. Of course they don’t cook or sew worth a damn neither - which is where y’pretty mama comes in... but what, I speculate, is the kinda work you made for? What’s the kinda job you were made for so right that when you does it and does it right you see stars? Huh?"

Youngman and Blind, Flee told Mitch that night all those years ago.

Youngman and... Hell’s that?

It’s a corner in town. It’s the place I’ll have you killed, you Texan baby-raper pedo imbecile.

Oh, man! Peckerwood’s making threats again! Flo - come on over here - you gotta hear this! Your boys dang grown a pair and he’s naming spots and he’s citing locations!

Flee’s mom came on the phone. Like Mitch when he called, she was stoned out her mind, but she knew what this was about, and her voice was desperate, ridiculous, Don’t kill him, Flee! Please don’t kill him!

"It’s the only way I get to talk to you. I tell Mitch I’m gonna kill him and he passes the phone to you."

I know, I know, I know... it’s just so complicated.

Bitch talked soft, like this was a singer-songwriter kinda situation. Flee slammed down the phone. It was 10pm. Dad was snoring into his chin and some cops were killing other cops on the show.

There and then, Flee couldn’t think of anything to do but take a walk down to Youngman and Blind, go check it out.

... whatever it may be.

The night was warm, he didn’t need the ski-coat. Flee Randal just made sure he’d left his stash at home - nobody walked Teaneck after dark and the chance of a Five-o stop/search came strong.

Still, he knew he had to do this. Unbelievable scenes in the telephone and the TV made him do this. Was there enough outside space to ice the psychological discomfort of a bad family’s vividity?

Flee just had to know.

A couple of minutes walking, and there he was - staring at a background without a subject. Just this corner. A scene a camera would only seize to use the film; the corner of Youngman and Blind; an intersection of tall hedge lines and the backs of yards - no people, no stores and damn few cars going past. A bench to plant your ass, the bus-timetable for kicks and a stop- sign as your witness. Kill a man here? Where’d Flee got the notion for that? Any fucker stared at this spot too long was dead already.

The last city-bus was an hour ago. Flee sat down on the bench and lit up a smoke. Damn, there was nothing here.

Held the thought. Finished the smoke, started another - although figuring to quit.

Then he heard a bicycle bell tinkle and looked over and saw Maryjane Manzola was looking at him, standing up in her bike by the kerb, her waitress uniform pale under her coat. Long-boned blonde Maryjane was pretty as Hell, but looked nervous tonight. They’d known each other by sight at school, but never been in the same crowd long enough for more than a few words. Now Maryjane seemed to be making a decision before she spoke. Finally, and a little too bright:

Hey, Flee!

Flee was surprised she even remembered his name - told Maryjane, Hey... wassup?

What’re you doin’ out here?

Guess I’m just lookin at a promise I cannot keep-

Maryjane cut in, You wanna do something for me, Flee? Come over, walk with me.

What’s the problem?

There’s some kids back there... Just walk me home. Is that okay?

Sure.

Flee didn’t know what Maryjane was talking about. He looked back and couldn’t see any kids for her to be afraid of. Were they on bikes, in a car? Maryjane looked scared anyhow, and so he walked with her, pushing the bike along the cracked sidewalk while Maryjane held the front of her coat together although it was not cold.

Sorry, she said.

No, it’s okay.

And I was a little... abrupt, Flee. My big mouth; I just skipped over what you were saying - what did you mean about the promise you cannot keep?

I don’t know if I know myself, Maryjane. It’s been a weird kinda night.

Uh-huh...

"Maryjane, to tell you the truth they’re all weird, locked in with my pops."

They walked a while and still there were no kids -