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.

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #33

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #33

BATFISH

ST. PETER SECURITY HOSPITAL

“All right, dude. Let’s lock and load.” Cedar had such a smile on his face that I could see the white of his teeth. Which is strange since most mental patients have zero dental hygiene concerns.

“What in the double fuck is going on?” In a panic I turned to see that smelly ass Bob had stepped into the cell. He had practically screamed that out and I was positive that a counselor must have heard him. He had plugged his catheter into his night bag and was holding it like he was on his way to the gym.

“I smelled smoke and thought you guys had some cigarettes in here.”

“Bob” I said. “We’ve decided to take a little vacation. I see you already have your bag packed. Would you like to join....”

While Bob’s attention had been drawn to me, Cedar had stepped up and thrown a roundhouse right which caught Bob right in the middle of the forehead.

Bastard really packed a wallop for such a skinny little guy. Bob stood there for a split second and then went down to the floor in sort of slow motion while making this noise like “uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

I quickly stepped up to my cell window and looked out. The unit seemed quiet and the two security counselors were still dozing in the bubble. I could see that the movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High was playing on the VCR.

“Let’s go.” I said to Cedar as I stepped over Bob’s prone and pungent body. Cedar slipped out the window like his body was lubricated. I had to get one shoulder and my head through then the other, and even then Cedar had to pull me by both my arms to get me all the way through.

I was down in the snow and then up and running for the side of the building. We had just reached the corner and I heard Bob.

“You motherfuckers. Wait for me, goddamn it.”

Crazy scumbag must have really been able to take a punch because he had gotten up and crawled out the hole in the window. He had run into a small problem though. His night bag had gotten caught on a rough edge of the hole and had not only ripped but pulled his catheter out. Piss was running down the side of the building.

The light was on in the last cell on the corner of the building. That was Wes's cell. Wes had been brought to the hospital after his family had gone bankrupt and lost the family farm. Literally. Wes had drilled holes in the road leading to the farmhouse and filled them with dynamite. The idea was to try to blow the bankers and auctioneers to hell when they drove over the TNT.

Something had gone wrong with the blasting caps and he had missed his intended victims. The charge didn’t go off until an old lady and her schnauzer drove over it in her vintage Rambler. The only body part they found was the old girl’s stainless steel hip replacement, laying a hundred feet out in a plowed field.

Now Wes was standing straight up with both of his feet in his toilet. He was completely naked and was reading a Playboy. He looked over at me, smiled, and waved. I waved back.

That was the last sight I saw at the Minnesota Security Hospital. We dropped down the side of the hill into the woods that surrounds the lower campus and came out through the cemetery where they bury all the unclaimed bodies of the assorted wing nuts that have died there.

Made me think about a conversation I had overheard between two staff members. Years ago, a young man had be brought to the hospital by his father. The old man, a religious fanatic, had caught him masturbating in the barn and wanted him to stop this evil behavior. The kid was terrified, of course, and became very aggressive to the other patients. He wound up having huge doses of shock therapy, Thorazine, and then a lobotomy.

In the end he would be spending his entire life in the hospital. Somewhere in this graveyard he was buried. Thinking about it made me pick up the pace, until Cedar complained. He wasn’t big on aerobic conditioning.

We picked our way around the back of the campus and crossed the main road leading to the facility, winding up in a residential neighborhood. Coming out on to a sidewalk, we began to walk in a seemingly normal fashion, only diving behind snow banks when a car would approach.

It was a gorgeous moonlit night with the temperatures probably only in the 30’s.

I knew where the meeting place was. I had seen it when Ray and I were first brought here. Within minutes we were there. The sign was lit up in orange and yellow and had a jaunty Mexican fellow with a sombrero on

it. He was holding a taco in his hand. Like he was beckoning to me to come enjoy a taco after my stay and then escape from a mental hospital. It was the second most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

The most beautiful was the old rag top Cadillac sitting idling in the parking lot. Cedar’s buddy’s word was good as gold. The only downfall was that the top wouldn’t go up and we drove all the way to Minneapolis that way. Those two were wearing snowmobile suits and face masks and drank schnapps the whole way to Minneapolis. Cedar and I had to lay on the floorboards and cover ourselves up with a couple of old army blankets that

smelled like old dogs and beer farts.

Two hours later I was dropped off in front of a music store in Minneapolis called “The Electric Fetus” with five bucks, a can of Pig’s Eye beer, and a quarter to call my sister.

Cedar got out of the car and gave me a big hug. “Take care, dude. Has this been a fucking adventure or what? He jumped back in the Caddy, gave me a wave, and raced off into the night.

“Hey man, keep the lipstick off the dipstick.”

I was back in Minneapolis. I could have danced around and thrown my fucking hat in the air like Mary Tyler Moore, but it was to damn cold and I did want to avoid being noticed.

The next day in the Minneapolis Star Tribune I read an article about a daring escape at the Minnesota Security Hospital. Three patients had escaped and two of them, who were still at large, were considered dangerous. The third patient had been captured several hours later just outside of Mankato. He had attempted to flee when authorities approached and was shot right in the ass by a Minnesota highway patrol officer.

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #32

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #32

JUICE

ALL OVER HELL AND BACK

In the wind. The son of a bitch lands in Minneapolis. He gets met at the airport by the contact. The contact and Morrow walk through the parking garage and some fucking renegade cowboy comes up with his six shooter like he’s John fucking Wayne and frees Morrow. Then they duct tape up the contact up to the point so that he’ll never have to worry about hair or eye brows again, and lock the asshole up in his trunk. That sounds just like Morrow. Smart ass son of a bitch.

Airport security gets the dipshit contact out of the trunk four hours later when an elderly couple from Des Moines hear him kicking the inside of the trunk.

And then Morrow is gone. Just disappears. Almost five months. Gone. In the wind. The motherfucking wind.

And now this shit. He looked in disbelief at the newspaper in front of him.

Headlines of the most recent Navy Times:

DEPENDENT CLAIMS NAVY RAILROADED ENLISTED MAN IN

DEATH OF NAVAL OFFICER NEW ORLEANS, La. - Mary Teresa

Givens, 19, the daughter of Navy Captain Monte L. Givens, has approached agents from the Naval Investigative Service in New Orleans to file a report

claiming that almost three years ago she was the victim of an attempted sexual assault by Naval Ensign Raymond Leonard Dunn III, now deceased. According to Givens, the assault was forcibly stopped by a naval enlisted man, SN Jacob Morrow, who was jogging through the naval housing area just outside of Pearl Harbor, in the driveway of the deceased ensign. Givens claimed that she had been smoking marijuana with a friend who also lived in the dependent housing area, and had been walking home when Ensign Dunn stopped and asked her if she wanted a ride. The Ensign reportedly then took the young woman back to his home and attempted to sexually assault her in his vehicle. The struggle with Morrow resulted in the death of the Ensign. SN Morrow was subsequently found guilty at a court martial and sentenced to a life sentence in the military correctional barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas. Miss Givens stated in her report that she had been advised by her father, Pearl Harbor NIS agents, and base police that it would be in everyone’s best interests at the time not file a report on the incident and she was sent back to the continental United States. Court martial records of Morrow show that there is no record of any statements or testimony from Miss Givens. Navy Times attempts to interview Morrow have been denied at the present time by Commander Max Morgan, the ranking naval official

at Leavenworth, who states that Morrow is currently in solitary confinement for unrelated behavioral problems. There have been no comments on this incident by either Pearl Harbor NIS officials or Captain Givens. Captain Givens is currently the executive officer of the Naval Reserve Training Center in New Orleans.

Banks crumpled the paper up and threw it into the trash can. Shit!

The little bitch had come out of the woodwork at the very worst possible time. It would be just his luck if Morrow stumbled onto a copy of the paper and discovered the truth. That his witness had not been an enlisted man's daughter killed in a car crash but was in fact, the daughter of a high ranking

naval official. And to top it off, she wasn’t dead at all, her sweet little pot smoking ass was currently in New Orleans stirring up a shit storm.

What could Morrow do with the information even if he did find out? He had killed six people since Banks had sprung him. Granted it was under government orders and under a different identity, but that could be taken care of. He sure as hell couldn’t sashay himself into the local police office and turn himself in. Especially, if the events Banks had been investigating in the last five months were true.

After Morrow took off in Minneapolis, Banks had caught the first flight burning to Minneapolis, an Air Force fighter, and had puked almost the entire flight to Minnesota. The pilot had been a true fighter jockey and had tortured Banks with a series of rolls and the buzzing of cattle across Iowa.

Morrow had been his usual smart ass self. He had taken the Ely’s drivers license and prison I. D. and had anonymously mailed it to Bryant at Oak Park prison with a description of what had been planned for him.

Of course, it had been intercepted by the prison mail officials, but they weren’t involved in the mission. Oak Park officials had gone ape shit and Ely was suspended while an investigation commenced. Ely would have to be dealt with before he panicked and started bumping his gums.

Banks had jumped into his rental car and driven straight to New Richland, Minnesota, Morrow’s hometown, to pay a visit to Morrow’s crippled aunt, Dawn Morrow. Good God, what a rural piece of shit. The golf course looked liked a cow pasture with putting greens on it.

But Morrow’s aunt was gone. The house had been sold and the new tenants were a welfare widow and her three screaming yard apes. She had no idea where Morrow’s aunt was or who she even was for that matter. The house had been sold at about half the price of its current market value and the government had picked up the tab for the current owners.

After questioning a few of the local yokels, Banks discovered that Dawn Morrow had taken off in her Winnebago for somewhere in Baja, Mexico. Since she was wheelchair bound, she had paid a local woman to drive her there and had paid for her return flight. The woman was easily found. She spent her afternoons and early evenings at the local municipal watering hole.

Banks found her hunched over her draft Buckhorn beer, smoking a generic cigarette, and cursing the Twins as they stumbled around the diamond up on the big screen.

She looked unusually tan for a woman from these parts and was wearing a Tecate beer T-shirt. After Banks had approached the woman and she realized what he was there for, she had squinted through the smoke of her coffin nail and had told Banks to “go piss up a rope,” and had then returned to watching Kirby Puckett take his turn at bat.

There was absolutely no sign that Morrow had been here. Then town only had a thousand or so people, if he had been, or was here now, someone would know or no one was talking.

Banks had a good idea who Morrows partner was, the maverick first lieutenant from the hit in Missouri. A quick phone call to Fort Leonard Wood gave him the information that James Pitre had unexpectedly resigned his commission in the army and had disappeared.

Then nothing. Banks returned to Nevada and waited.

Two months later, the USS Dixie, a destroyer tender home ported out of San Diego, had been robbed one day before payday. Two white males had walked up the brow of the ship at approximately 0020 hours on a Monday morning, flashed their military ID’s and had been allowed onto the ship. Neither the officer of the day, the petty officer of the watch, or the messenger of the watch had immediately recognized the two.

That was no big deal. The Dixie was a huge ship with a crew of over six hundred sailors and had constant turnover. Except these two men had the keys to the

finance office. Keys that should have been held by only the financial officer and the captain of the ship. The finances officer had been on duty that evening and had been awaked by a knock on his stateroom door at 0120.

When he answered the knock he was greeted by the sight of a large man with a rubber Richard Nixon mask on. Tricky Dick was holding a .45 Colt in his hand.

He was ushered up to the finance office, which was already opened and the financial officer, Lt. Perry Palmer, was forced at gunpoint to open the ship’s safe which contained the payroll for the entire crew. A tidy sum of over two hundred thousand dollars. The two thieves had packed the cash up in plastic garbage bags, wrapped them up with duct tape, and had placed the bags inside of two large scuba diving bags. Duct tape was wrapped completely around the whimpering body of Lt. Palmer, and he was locked up in the office and wasn’t discovered missing until the following morning when he didn’t report for morning muster.

Two lines were found leading from the main deck of the ship down to the water line and the dive shop had been broken into and two sets of gear were missing.

There were no suspects at the time. Without a doubt they were either current or ex-military men. They knew that late at night onboard a destroyer tender in port there was little or no activity. The ship rarely left the port so many of the crew lived off the ship. And they obviously were experience divers.

Banks had three suspects in mind, which he was not presently sharing with authorities involved in the active investigation. The case had Morrow and his redneck buddy written all over it. The duct tape and heavy duty firepower seemed to be their style.

And Tony Hendrichs, Jake’s old marijuana dealing buddy from Hawaii, had recently been stationed onboard the Dixie prior to his medical retirement for diabetes. Hendrichs had been a Gunner’s Mate and one of his duties on the Dixie had been the cutting and issuing of keys on the ship. It all fit.

A trip to Mobile, Alabama, found Hendrichs tending bar at a bay side dump called Liz’s Haven. A rough joint right down on the waterfront.

Hendrichs didn’t seem to be taking very good care of himself for being stricken with diabetes. It was eleven in the morning and he was smoking a huge Cuban cigar and sipping from a glass of cognac. He had patiently

listened to Banks run through his line of questioning, all the while with a grin on his face, but never answering with more than an occasional chuckle or an amused grunt.

The “interrogation” ended when Banks noticed that a large presence behind him was blocking out what little sun could make it through the filthy windows. He swiveled around on his bar stool to see a monstrous black man with a shaved head wearing a Tampa Bay Buccaneers jersey with Doug Williams' number on it. He informed Banks that it might

be best for him to leave or possibly face having his “honky fucking ass fed to the gators.”

The agent had taken the advice.

Once again for another couple of months, there had been nothing.

Then came a report out of Minnesota that Jake's Uncle Billy had been broken out of prison in a spectacular military like operation. Billy Morrow’s lifestyle had finally caught up to him. While serving his sentence in Stillwater prison for the murder of the man whose wife had crippled Dawn, Billy had begun to while away the boring hours by shooting up speedballs with his fellow biker inmates. Drugs were easy to obtain for his crew in the joint but syringes were not, so like good biker brothers, they shared. Billy came down with AIDS.

In typical prison medical fashion, the institution first assumed that he was faking an illness to shirk his prison

duties. He remained in general population for several more months before the official diagnosis came through. By then a combination of poor living habits and a case of pneumonia had weakened him to the point where he had to be admitted to the St. Paul Medical Center.

He began to deteriorate to where nothing could be done except to keep him comfortable in his final days. Plans were made to transfer him to the old timers convict unit at the state hospital in Walker, Minnesota. The state hospital was located in a beautiful section of northern Minnesota, an area covered in gorgeous trees and deep blue lakes.

The two transport officers couldn’t have pulled easier duty. Taking an old dirt bag to finish out his string so that they could stop on their way back to enjoy a delicious northern pike dinner and do some gambling at one of the Indian casinos.

Fifteen miles out of Walker, without warning, an old Cadillac had shot out of a side road and had t-boned the corrections van with such force that the van had flipped over onto it’s side that it slid in a shower of sparks down the road.

A person dressed in solid black coveralls, gloves, military style boots, and a rubber Alice Cooper mask, had come around the front of the van and kept the two stunned transport officers under his control by firing two warning shots from what appeared to be a M16 into the grill of the van. Another person outfitted the same as the first, only the second person was wearing a Herman Munster Halloween mask, had climbed onto the side of the tipped van and had blown the side doors open with an explosive charge that was later determined to be C4, a plastics explosive.

Billy Morrow had been pulled out of the van and the trio had taken off in an old VW bus covered in flower power stickers. The van would be found several day later, wiped clean of fingerprints and submerged in a lake. Both officers recovered from their injuries. The driver had only a minor concussion and some facial cuts while his partner had suffered some burns from the coffee that he had been drinking at the point of impact.

Routine medical tests had both officers pissing positive for marijuana use.

The Cadillac used in the escape was discovered to have been stolen in Brainerd off the Indian reservation and had been fortified with a cast iron bumper and added weight in the trunk. The front seat had been replaced with a stock car style seat and web harness. The windshield had been removed.

The trio disappeared into thin air. There had been no witnesses other than the two reporting officers. The beautiful trees and iron ore hills of northern Minnesota had prevented the two officers from broadcasting a decent emergency call.

The only person who had picked the call up clearly was an eighty five year old communist, who had received the mayday on his ham radio. The old fart had cackled with glee and had headed down to the end of his dock to fish.

Banks was quickly becoming sick of the sight of Minnesota. And when he returned to Nevada, the Navy Times was waiting for him.

His bosses were infuriated to say the least. They had insinuated in very clear terms that this could be a career ending fuckup on his part. This matter had to be taken care of FUCKING IMMEDIATELY!

If matters could be any worse, a number of national newspapers had picked the story up off of the wire and had rerun segments of the article.

It had tweaked the attention of one Reverend Joshua Carter. Reverend Carter was the minister of a small non denominational church located in Story, Wyoming, in the lower foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Carter was particularly incensed over this story due to the fact that his daughter had at one time been engaged to Jake Morrow and the good reverend had been very instrumental in making sure that Morrow could not communicate with his daughter after he had been sentenced.

Reverend Carter now felt that he had been made a fool of. He and his daughter had still not recovered from the emotional rift that had separated them since he had intercepted letters addressed to his daughter from Morrow, and the letters that he had written to the authorities at Leavenworth demanding that Morrow be stopped from corresponding his daughter again .

She had recently given up her studies in divinity and was living in a small cabin farther up in the mountains while supporting herself by working at a small combination gas station and grocery store. She hadn’t spoken to her father for close to a year. He prayed that for now she wouldn’t notice any articles about Jake in the local newspapers.

But for now, the reverend was driving Banks absolutely fucking nuts. Carter had written letters to Commander Morgan, the warden of Leavenworth, the Chief of Naval Operations, and Billy Fucking Graham.

Banks had only a matter of days before this all exploded in his face. He poured another generous amount of scotch over the ice in his glass and fired up another Marlboro while he dialed the number.

Commander Morgan answered on the second ring.

“I’ve got an idea where Morrow is. What I what to know is if you can handle your end of the bargain if he’s where I think he is?”

Morgan sat up in the chair behind his desk. He felt like he could shit in his dress whites. “What do you have in mind?”

“From what I can gather, he may be holed up in San Pedro, California. I’m planning on flying out there in about six hours, and if I find him, I’m going to try to bring him down with either a tranquilizer or stun gun. I’m going to have a flight crew ready to fly us straight back to Leavenworth.”

“I can lock him back up, that’s not a problem. But with the press rolling on this, sooner or later I’m going to have to produce him. That fucker’s going to sing like a bird. What does he care? He’s already doing a life bit. Even if they don’t let him out, when he spills his guts and they start to check his story, I’m fucked big time. And so are you, my friend.”

Banks took a hard hit of his booze.

“Now you listen to me you gutless little prick. We can make this all go away if you don’t run around like a schoolboy pissing in his pants. As soon as my crew gets Morrow back to your prison, you get him back to the hole and make it look like a suicide. Slash his wrists or string him up so it looks like he hung himself.

But for fuck’s sake don’t beat the son of a bitch to death and then say that it happened during a cell extraction like they did to that convict in Oklahoma. That’ll bring to much heat. You got me?”

Morgan was silent for several moments.

“Jerry, what happens if you can’t drug him? What if he doesn’t come easy?”

“Then we’re double fucked. I’ll put him down and as soon as I contact you, report him missing on the next count. Report him as escaped. That’s all we can do. The investigation will be worse that Watergate, but it’s our only option.”

“Make goddamn sure you get him, Banks,” Morgan hissed in the phone.

“You just do your job, I’ll do mine.” Banks slammed the phone down and grabbed his intelligence report.

Reports on Tony Hendrichs showed that he had purchased two homes in the San Pedro area while he was stationed at the Long Beach Naval station, and was now a long distance landlord since he lived in Mobile. A records check also had shown that he owned a deep sea fishing rig that was kept in a slip in Long Beach harbor and was regularly

hired out for charters. Pretty impressive for a retired E-6 in the military, obviously he had had extra income coming in, drugs most likely.

Banks, on a whim, had placed a call to a NIS agent in Long Beach who had done a quick stake out at both addresses. Banks had given him a bullshit song and dance story about how he had information that drugs were possibly being dealt to sailors on the ships in the local shipyards by shipyard employees living in one of these houses.

One of the houses was being leased out by a three hundred pound (a piece) black couple who spent their evenings barbecuing and drinking gigantic amounts of Pabst Blue Ribbon. So that one was a no go.

The other was a possible hit. Although there was not a lot of activity around the house, the one occupant the NIS agent had seen was definitely yard bird material. Big pickup truck covered in NASCAR stickers and the perp himself was all redneck. Right down to the cowboy hat and boots. Fucking bingo!

Could the cowboy who snatched up Morrow in Minneapolis be the same army officer who resigned his commission after doing the hit with Morrow in Missouri? Very well could be. Most of the contacts that Banks recruited for his missions were military drones that would follow any order, no matter how stupid, just to help out Uncle Sam or God and country.

But every once in a while a wild man who enjoyed the job a little too much would pop up. Jim Pitre may have fit that mold.

Banks had found no trace of him after discovering he had left the army.

Well, thought Banks, if he is with Morrow, it’s going to be the end of the line for him. Like they say, dead men tell no tales.

Banks poured another shot. Jasmine was going to have to be taken care of too. She must have talked. Banks was convinced that he had had Morrow brainwashed that he had to do only one more job and he was home free. But he jumps and runs instead. Had to have been Jasmine. Send her ass out to work at the Chicken Ranch for a month or so and have her blow a bunch of fat greasy businessmen, that would probably get her back in line.

That along with threatening to have family services snatch up her kid. Worse comes to worst, just might have to find her a hole to sleep in out in the desert.

Banks glanced at his watch. Might as well call flight ops now and get that flight going to Long Beach. No need to put off the inevitable. He slammed down another shot. The stress must be getting to him, his bottle of

liquor was getting dangerously low and he felt kind of loaded.

He had never been a huge drinker but a couple of toots of nose candy would help take the edge off that. He pulled out a replacement bottle of scotch and threw it in his briefcase with the file, his service revolver, stun gun,and tranquilizer pistol.

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #31

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #31

BATFISH

LOS ANGELES

Jon’s battered Mustang was chugging up Wonderland Avenue. Fucking thing must not have had a tune up since it had rolled out of the factory and it was belching out oily, blue smoke.

“We’re sure as shit not going to sneak up on them in this piece of crap, Jon.” He didn’t say a word. Just sat there licking his lips nervously.

The night hadn’t ended well for him. Couple of the broads at the party had wanted to screw him. I imagine so that down the road they could tell their grandkids about how they had once had been drilled by a famous “movie” star. But his pecker once more had let him down.

Lost out on a couple of hundred bucks. But I suspect he had gotten used to that. I also suspected that he had been smoking or snorting something. That pissed me off. I didn’t like to do a job while anyone was high or had been drinking.

He parked his wreck at the curb in front of a small apartment building. We just sat there.

“Well what’s up Jon?” Are we going to do this thing or what?”

He turned to look at me. “I think it’s already done.” In his eyes I could see pure fear and he was putting off this nervous smell that reminded me of the locker room in gym class.

“What in the fuck are you talking about? If it’s done what am I doing here?”

“I just had to make sure that I was in the clear. He said that if I didn’t tell them who did it that he was going to kill me. And after that he was going to find my family and have their eyes ripped out.”

My skin was crawling. “Shit! What you have you gotten me into?”

He was out the door and walking up to the sidewalk to one of the apartments. I got out and followed him like a stupid shit. The door was closed but when Jon grabbed the knob, the door swung open.

There were four bodies in the living room and they were beat to a pulp. Worse than what Rose had looked like. Way beyond that. There was blood everywhere and pieces of what I guess were bones or skull was spattered across the tile floor. I could actually see the brains of one of the bodies. The stereo was on. Warren Zevon was singing about Werewolves in London. I now knew for a fact that there was a fucking soundtrack to my life.

“Oh my God, Jon.” I gasped. “Who did this?”

His voice was monotone.

“Dewald.”

“Dewald?” Oh, Jesus Christ! Not that Dewald! “How in the hell did you get involved with him?”

Dewald was one of the biggest cocaine dealers in the whole fucking country. He had reached untouchable status. Los Angeles cops wouldn’t even think of pulling him over for traffic violations. He came to “The Slippery Tit” every once in a while when he felt like slumming.

Big tipper. You felt like you needed a shower after just talking to him.

“About a month ago I set him up. I had been up there to do a private show for his old lady so I knew the lay of the place. You wouldn’t believe the amount of drugs he keeps up there. These guys went up to his mansion in Beverly Hills and robbed his ass. I really needed the fucking cash. Somehow he suspected me and I had to roll over on them.”

“Somehow? How goddamn stupid do you think the guy is? You go up there and do your routine and a couple of days later he gets robbed? And now you’ve dragged me into this shit. Why?”

He had tears in his eyes but was laughing at the same time. “I was scared to come alone.”

I took my shirt off and rubbed the door knob clean. “Come on, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.” I think I screamed that.

Jon dropped me off in front in the club. I didn’t hear a thing from him for about a month. But I heard about it on the news and in the papers.

Jon was famous again. Just in the wrong way. I kept waiting for the news channels to run some old clips of his movies. The dead dudes were known associates of his and it didn’t take the cops long to figure out who the missing link was in this sordid mess.

The police kicked in the door at a cheap motel outside of Jacksonville, Florida and found Jon sleeping off a heroin high with a fourteen year old girl. Turns out that the girl was actually a porn star who went by the stage name of Anal Annesha, who had been working in the industry for over a year. Porn industry is slipshod on background and reference checks.

Annesha thought Jon could steer her towards the big show. The two had been wanted on an unrelated felony charge of grand theft. Annesha had a wealthy, elderly aunt who lived in Palm Beach and who loved her prize bitch Pekinese with all of her heart. The two desperadoes had stolen the pooch while she was out taking her morning crap and her mommy was in the house making her dog food omelet.

Jon was being brought back to Los Angeles for questioning on the Wonderland Murders, as the newspapers had dubbed the crime.

I knew as sure as there is shit in a goose that Jon was going to spill his guts out and my name was going to be brought up. I didn’t know which would be worse. Having the police after me and then the shit in Hawaii would be discovered. Or have one of the biggest cocaine kingpins in the country wanting to rub me out as a material witness to a crime.

Either way I was busting ass out of there.