SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #34

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #34

JUICE

SAN PEDRO

A Lear jet that had been confiscated by the government from a high rolling coke dealer was Banks mode of transportation to Long Beach. No more of those Top Gun, sky cowboys in their fighter jets for him, that was for damn sure. Banks had taken a seat facing the rear of the aircraft so that he could not be observed cutting his lines on the side of his briefcase, and while taking shots of Chivas straight out of the bottle.

As the jet taxied toward the hanger in Long Beach, the agent checked the clip in his .45 caliber service weapon and placed it in the holster on the back of his belt next to his handcuffs. Just last night he had used those on Jasmine to keep her in place while he showed her who was boss. Her ass was raw when he got done with her that was for fucking sure.

He put a spare clip in his jacket pocket along with a blackjack and the new stun gun that he had just purchased called the “Laxativer.” Cute play on words but really didn’t really want to get that close to Morrow.

Better to bring the big moose down with the tranq gun. A stun gun that makes him shit his pants would just make him mad.

The jet stopped with a sudden lunge as it entered the hanger and Banks toppled over into the aisle. “What the fuck?” he hollered.

The pilot looked out through the cockpit door. “Sorry, sir, I’m not used to the brakes in this rig. They seem to real touchy,” said the young pilot.

“I’ll show you touchy, asshole,” muttered the agent.

Banks gathered up his jacket and briefcase and headed towards the open hatch. The pilot stood there like he was a stewardess at the end of a commercial flight wishing everybody a nice day.

“Uh, excuse me, sir.”

Banks glared at the officer.

“What now?”

“Your nose, sir. You have something right here.” The pilot made a wiping motion under his own nose.

Banks wiped his nose with the back of his hand and saw a dusting of the coke he had been snorting on the flight.

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

The generic government four door sedan sat outside the hangar with the keys in the ignition. Banks fired it up and turned the dome light on to check his map for the directions to the suspected house. Had to cross the Vincent Thomas toll bridge over to San Pedro, follow the road into town, stay on the main drag for about seven blocks, take a right and head up the hill. Not too bad. If things went smooth, he could pop Morrow, cuff him and load him in the trunk, and be back here to load him up on the jet within a half an hour.

If Pitre was the one with him, it was going to be tough shit for the cowboy, he wasn’t part of the plan. He should have thought about that before he got involved with a street thug like Morrow.

Banks reached over and took a pull off of his bottle. Shit! He quickly pulled the jug down as he met an oncoming San Pedro police car.

Better cool it here. Wouldn’t be a good time to get a driving while shitfaced charge. Banks took a right and started up the hill as he squinted at the houses and mailboxes for street numbers. There it is! He maintained his speed and went down another block before he turned around and parked about a quarter block away.

There was a pickup in the driveway but it didn’t have Tennessee plates, they were Californian. Pitre was from Tennessee, but could have changed them. No lights on in the house, but he could see the blue flickering light of a television set through the closed curtains. He got out of the car, put the tranq gun down the front of his pants, and crossed the street and began to walk down the dark sidewalk.

The house was just your basic rental shack. Square little dump with a living room in the front, kitchen in the back, and two small side bedrooms off to the side. Banks walked down a little further and crossed back over.

Walking up to the side of the pickup, he took a quick glance in, nothing besides empty Budweiser cans. He reached in and opened the glove box. Nothing but maps. He ducked down and crept into the back yard.

With his flashlight he looked into the two garbage cans. Same thing in there. Lots of beer cans, pizza boxes and buckets from the Colonel. Nothing to show who might be inside.

The drapes were pulled tight on both bedrooms and the bathroom. The back door appeared to have had the window knocked out of it and had been replaced with a piece of plywood. He tried the door, it was locked tight. Banks crept back up the driveway to the side of the living room. The curtain to the room had about an inch to spare at the bottom of the window, just enough for the agent to attempt a look inside.

Sitting on a ratty sofa, while she drank a Mountain Dew and munched on some pretzels out of a bag, was a woman wearing nothing it appeared other than a T-shirt and a pair of panties.

She seemed to be alone and it didn’t look by the decor of the place that the house was occupied by too many people. The living room had a couch and old recliner and the TV, that was it.

Fuck! The agent’s instincts told him that this might have very well been a wild goose chase. Better check it out though.

Banks pulled out his badge and walked up the front steps. He gave the door an official rap. Through the door’s window he saw the woman stand up and walk to the door. She looked out quizzically and Banks flashed his badge. She opened the inner door but kept the screen door latched. The TV was blaring. Some made for television movie that was made for idiots just like her.

“Can I help you?” She was bleach blond, white trash, wearing a Raiders shirt that was cut down to show some ample cleavage and which barely covered the worn white panties she had on. Banks glanced down and he swore he saw a glimpse of her bush.

“Uh, good evening, Miss. Sorry about the late hour. I’m Special Agent Jerry Banks. We had an attempted burglary at the Bank of San Pedro and one of the suspects has been reported in this area. I’m conducting a door to door check to see if anyone in the neighborhood has seen anything out of the ordinary.”

She glanced back into the living room and turned back and smiled at Banks. “Hang on a sec, I need to turn that damn thing down.”

As she walked back into the living room, Banks noticed what a fine ass she had. She could make a fine replacement for Jasmine.

The television shut off, bathing the room in darkness. Sudden movement. The coke and booze had delayed and clouded the agent’s response time.

Holy shit! Someone was charging the door.

Banks fumbled for the tranq gun as a fist exploded through the mesh of the screen door and drilled the agent directly in the nose.

Banks felt the cartilage snap as he staggered back and fell down the short set of steps. Jake Morrow charged out the door, down the steps, and kicked Banks savagely in the stomach as the agent tried to regain his feet.

Banks blindly tried to grope through the grass to find the tranquilizer pistol, but Morrow punched him twice in the

kidney, and then reached down and grabbed Banks by the throat and front of his belt and proceeded to actually military press the agent over his head with a maniacal scream and then slam him down across the metal handrail of the steps.

Banks came down across the handrail on his sternum and felt something crack. A cloud of red was crossing his vision and he felt himself beginning to black out. Morrow now had him by the front of his shirt and was raining one handed punches to the agents head. Banks’ survival instincts were trying to kick in but all he could do was feebly try to cover his arms around his head in an attempt to ward off the blows.

“Get some, get some, get some, get some, motherfucker!” Morrow was screaming.

He let go of Banks, a bloody mess, who slumped to the ground and beginning kicking him savagely in the ribs.“Get up and fight me you fucking pussy,” screamed the frustrated Morrow.

“The police are on their way so you better just stop that right now.” A woman was screaming.

Pitre ran up behind Jake, wrapped his arms around him and twisted him away from Banks.

“Goddamn it, Jake. We gotta get the fuck out of here!”

Jake broke free of Pitre’s grasp and took a wild roundhouse swing at his friend. Jim quickly ducked and moved out of Jake’s range punching range.

“Jake, stop! It’s me, goddamn it.”

Jake stopped in his tracks and stared at his buddy. He had lost total control of himself, it was like he had gone into some kind of trance. Just like the night of the football game in New Richland. He stared down at the battered and bloodied agent, who was now face down in the grass and not moving, and then back at Pitre. If Jim hadn’t stopped him, Banks would surely have been beaten to death.

“I’ve already called them, they’re on their way.”

The two men turned to see a large Hispanic woman, her rotund body illuminated by her porch light, standing in the front yard of the house next door. “I’ve already called,” she repeated.

Pitre jammed some car keys in Jake’s hand. “You go. Take the truck. Me and Angel will get our gear and take his car.” Jim pointed down at Banks. He turned Jake towards the truck and gave him a light shove.

“Go! We’ll meet you at the boat.”

Jake gave Banks one more solid kick to the ribcage of Banks for good measure, “You were lucky this time, fucker,” and ran to the truck.

“Angel, grab the bags and let’s haul ass.” Pitre rolled the agent over to search for his car keys. Banks had his Colt .45 in his hand and reached up and jammed it into the cowboy’s chest.

Time seemed to slip into slow motion for Jim Pitre for the last few seconds of his life. Everything was so clear. Nothing had ever been clearer in his life. The word “shit” popped into his head, he saw the hammer on the pistol drop, but when the bullet tore through his heart and out his back, he felt nothing no pain, only a warm calm that washed over his body like a soothing ocean wave.

The force of the slug blew Pitre up and off of Banks and deposited him on his back. A large red blossom stained the front of his embroidered cowboy shirt. He never heard the screams of Angel and the woman next door.

“Jiiiimmmmyyyyyyy!” Angel ran down the front of the steps and threw herself onto his prone body. She never noticed Banks as he rolled back onto his stomach, pushed himself up onto one knee, and began firing wildly in rapid succession at Morrow as he was backing down the driveway. The sound of the firearm and the slugs hitting sheet metal and glass was deafening. The Mexican woman put her hands to the side of her head and ran in circles around her yard, screaming religious babble at the top of her lungs. A round caught her in the head and she dropped in her tracks.

Jake dropped down sideways on bench seat of the truck and stomped on the gas, as the truck shot out of the driveway, across the road, and into a neighbor’s brand new Camaro, setting off its car alarm. Jake sat up and threw the gear shift into forward and tore out of the driveway and down the street, taking out the side of an El Camino as he raced by it.

Banks staggered to his feet, popped out his empty clip, and slammed its replacement home. Looking down at his feet, he saw the lost tranquilizer pistol, but as he reached down to retrieve it, he was suddenly driven back down to the ground by a rapid series of punches from Angel.

“You killed him you son of a bitch. I'll fucking kill you!” Bank was down on his back as the punches rained down on his face from the ring covered fists of the enraged woman. Reaching up, he jammed the tranq pistol under Angel’s jaw line and fired the dart. She screamed as she grabbed at her throat and rolled over onto the grass. Banks had put enough dope into that dart to bring down Morrow. Shot into a woman Angel’s size would probably fry her brain and put her into a nuthouse and eating Cream of Wheat as she watched her cartoons.

Banks once more staggered to his feet. Neighbors were pouring out the front doors of their houses and the agent had to fire two rounds over the heads of two men who were thinking about being heroes, to back them away from his car. They turned and hightailed it down the street.

Banks jumped in his car and glanced up at the rear-view mirror. There was so much blood across his head and face that he couldn’t even see where it was coming from. He looked like he had been in fire fight, as did the neighborhood. Bodies were sprawled across lawns, cars were destroyed, their alarms screaming as loud as the neighbors. The agent looked backed down and saw a large black man coming down the street carrying what looked like a deer rifle. Banks threw the car in gear and floored it. The black man tried to get out of the way but was knocked airborne by the force of the hit and crashed into the windshield, shattering it, before he rolled off the side onto the street.

Jerry kept his foot right down to the metal. He had heard Pitre tell Morrow to meet him at the boat. He had to have meant Hendrichs boat that was moored over in Long Beach. The fastest way to get there was the route that Banks had just used. Over the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

The truck was dying fast. By the time Jake blew through the tollbooth for the bridge, which he did not bother to stop and pay at, steam was pouring up from the shot out radiator and the engine was screaming like it was running out of oil. A slug must have pierced the engine somewhere and all the idiot lights on the dashboard were lit up. He was a quarter of the way up the incline of the suspension bridge when the engine gave up the ghost. Jake wrestled it over to the side and jumped out. He started running up the bridge.

Cars were flying by him as he ran. A guy stuck his head out the passenger side, screaming “asshole.” You could hear the sounds of the police sirens all the way onto the bridge. Sounded like they had called out for reinforcements. Jake was almost to the top of the bridge when he looked back over his shoulder and saw Banks in his sedan breeze through the same tollbooth that he had just ran.

Jake stopped running. He had no gun, his weapon was back at the house with Jim and Angel. He was defenseless out here all alone.

Banks was going to win.

The sedan screeched to a halt. A beyond bloodied and battered Special Agent Banks jumped out of the car and aimed his pistol at Jake. He was holding his side and gasping like a big fish that had just been pulled up onto a dock after a hard fight.

“Put your hands where I can see ‘em, motherfucker!”

“You look like shit, Jerry. Better get to a hospital.” Jake put his hands on the top rail of the bridge and hoisted himself up, balancing himself by holding onto the one of the huge cable supports.

“I said freeze, asshole,” screamed Banks.

“What are you going to do now, Jerry? If you shoot me and I fall in the bay, how are you and Morgan going to explain how I wound up dead in Long Beach harbor when I’m supposed to be sitting in Leavenworth?”

Jake could see from his vantage point the blue lights of the police cars as they came racing down the turnpike towards the bridge tollbooths.

Cops. Prison.

“Morrow, if you turn yourself in, I promise, I can make this all go away. But we don’t have much time. It has to been now.”

Government agents. Prison. Death.

“Go fuck yourself, special agent.” Jake stepped off the bridge and disappeared into the night.

“Goddamn you, Morrow!” Banks ran as well as he could in his condition to the side of the bridge and looked over. It was total darkness.

He could barely see the water. It must be damn near a two hundred foot jump to the waterline from there. Banks could hear the screaming of the brakes and tires coming from the police cars, but he didn’t turn around.

He kept staring down at the water, looking for any sign of Morrow.

“Let me see some hands! Right now!”

Banks didn’t turn around or raise his hands. “I’m a government agent,’ he said wearily.

“I said show me your hands, goddamn it.”

All these years. All these years and it comes to this, thought Jerry Banks. Jumping like Morrow just did flashed through the agent’s mind. Fuck that! He was afraid of water.

Special Agent Jerry Banks spun and raised his pistol.The buckshot from the rookie’s Remington 12 gauge shotgun hit Jerry directly in the center of his upper body mass. Just like they teach the recruits at the police academy. The instructors had always stressed that point during range practice. It’s hard to explain to a criminal’s mommy and her attorney why her poor baby was shot in the head when he was committing his crime. You have to kill them neatly.