Repair Man Jack Forms His Cabal…

I walked into the interrogation room with as little emotion as I could manage. It was old technique I’d picked up from years of practice. You just drained it all out a little at a time. Like when you have to deflate a waterbed before you move.

There were always two cops in the room. Good Cop offered you coffee and a cigarette. Bad Cop lit up one of those coffin nails and blew the cancer gas right in your face. It was bad movie cliché’. That’s what I get for living in Hollywood.

The Good Cop was named Ceballos. He was reasonably pleasant and fancied himself a master of false affability. I thought he was so full of sh-t he should have been stuck out in a wheat field to fertilize the crops.

The Bad Cop was Officer Richter. He looked like he’d lived hard, drank harder and rode his women and his liver like a Harley. He registered about a 6.5 on the Bad-Ass Scale. A little broader in the shoulders, and he could play Bad Cop in a movie and make much more money than he did right now.

Ceballos started with the small stuff. “Let’s see…Name: James Thomas Roland. Age: 42, Occupation: Casual Laborer.”

“Yep, that’s me.” I replied. He and I weren’t just going to get along. I wish he’d shove the preliminaries and let me tell them to bugger off and call my sleazebag attorney.

“They call you ‘Repair-Man Jack’. Why?” Ceballos asked.

“Oh, I’m fair to middling with a crescent wrench.” I replied in an off-handed manner designed to get under there skin.

Officer Richter smiled with a malice that even somewhat impressed me. “I hear it has more to do with you being fair to lethal with a Remington.” He remarked.

“I like the Remington stock.” I answered. “They make a beautiful shotgun.”

“So tell me Repair-Man Jack.” Richter grinned. “When’s Stool-Pigeon Season?”

I smiled right back at the old Son of a Biscuit Eater. I leaned back in my chair and made myself comfortable. Just like my old pop used to; when he watched a Pittsburgh Steelers game. “Having never been a little birdie that sang.” I replied. “I would never know.”

Richter nodded amiably. He acted, at least, like he was going to enjoy this. This led to a bit of an awkward silence. Ceballos broke it and resumed compurgation.

Officer Ceballos looked me right in the eye when he restarted his questions. “You came to us two weeks ago. Didn’t you Jack?”

“I kind of hate bees.” I said with no emotion.

“And you weren’t Pete Simpson’s drinking buddy either, I take it?” He continued.

“I’m all in favor of maintaining my amateur status.” I answered. “Besides, he didn’t keep his apartment very clean. I hate that.”

“Did you know he was fished out of the LA River yesterday?” He demanded.

“Why, no!” I lied with little emotion. “I guess he forgot his rubber ducky.”

Richter leaned forward looking every bit the creepy human being he was. “That’s a profoundly distasteful way to approach the death of another person.”

“He always was a bottom feeder.” I mused. “Where else would expect to find him?”

Richter nodded and smiled. “Reading you your rights would waste my time and the tax-payer’s money.” He remarked in a bored voice. He scratched his head and thought for a second.

“I kind of make you for this one, but I don’t have the glue to make it stick. Here’s my card, if your conscience ever keeps you awake at night.”

“Why thank you, Officer Richter.” I replied. “I’ll call if I need you read me a bedtime story.”

“We’ll be in touch.” He said with a sardonic grin. “We’ll come and see you again when the time is right.”

So I walked out of the Cop Shop without having been collared or even having told them squat about my dealings with Pete Simpson. I felt like I did The City of The Angels a favor with Pete Simpson. The only reason they had to send the cops after me was for polluting the river.

I wished I hated being that callous, but I don’t. Being callous helps in my line of work is a job skill. It helps you keep the priorities straight. When a person is righteous trash, you take out the garbage. In my view of the world, you sometimes have to feed the catfish a dinner or two of long pig.

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Simpson died the pathetic death I figured he would. After I got him evicted from the fire trap on Catalina and 3rd, he was a scared and lost puppy. I found it easy to lie to him a bit. I told him I had a job offer for him if he was a bit down on his luck.

He was dumb, and more than a bit strung out. I offered him some Captain Morgan, and he got in my car to set sail.

I took him to an old junkyard near San Pedro and beat him they I’d wanted to since I’d seen him robbing the donut shop. I kicked his sorry butt eight ways to Sunday. I stopped because I needed some info out of him. It was sure a dig buzz-kill to let him continue breathing as long as he did.

To make a long story short, I didn’t even need the whammy. I milked him the old fashioned way. After slamming three of his toes with a meat tenderizing hammer, he dropped the dime on his scumbag buddies in the homeless people’s lair. He dimmed-out their pathetic cardboard house. I learned how he stole jelly to feed a Queen Bee.

I laughed at first. Man, I thought I was going to sh-t my drawers. Then he told me about the little girl. I forget the name, but I remember seeing Mom and Dad on the idiot box and even bought one of those milk cartons. I went cold inside. Simpson might have lived about 15 more minutes.

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Simpson’s old boy was named Haggy Bear. He had three other adepts and a hive of angry, large, magical bees to back him up. Haggy had enough to be difficult. To make matters worse, he also wasn’t the brains of the operation.

He actually had a purpose in life and lived to serve the same hive queen who had been hard up enough for good help to take on Pete Simpson. My 15 cans of bug spray were not good enough for this particular battle. I had an old friend who owed me one. It was time to collect with interest.

****************************** **************************************

Lawrence Volker failed miserably as a Private Dick. He was a walking picture of how black comedians portrayed the white race. He stayed alive by staying away from his rich and well-connected family back in Hartford, Connecticut. They paid him a monthly stipend to indulge his porno collection and his general uselessness over on that other coast.

Volker didn’t let that stop him from having one or two redeeming traits. He had good taste in alcohol and hired beautiful, young receptionists. He also specialized in LA’s weirdo scene. Not the jerk-offs who pierce their tongue, lips and ands to irritate Mom, but the real McCoy.

He knew a whole bunch about which living; breathing freak-shows could really show you a thing or two. Volker knew a whole bunch about who was dropping what whammy on whom. He spent his remittance investigated the occult, and had ducked it out more than once with scum from The Other Side. There was more to Volker than beneath the eye; and not just because there had to be.

His office was on Change and Yucca. Right across the street from the record company execs. The bee-hive was only a scant three or four miles from his run down office. I came to call on Volker because he was the only whammy-slinger I knew in that neck of the woods.

I came by on a Wednesday morning. He was wearing his Matt Drudge look-alike hat and smoking a cigar that could have pleasured Catherine the Great. He coughed up mucous has he waved me into his office.

“My Good Buddy, Repair-Man Jack. Can I get you a jump-start this morning?”

“Vodka martini, Stoli.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll try that poison myself.” He wheedled. “So how’s bidness over by Wilshire?”

“It got sticky. Had to do society a couple of days ago. Hardcore.”

“Perhaps I should close the door.” He said calmly. He looked almost viable as an adult when he cut the crap and wanted to talk turkey. After closing the door and returning to his side of the desk, he looked me in the eye and asked. “What gives?”

I briefed him in on Kwang’s free coffee and doughnut offer. I told him about the bees, the recuperation time in Compton, and me shaking down Pete Simpson. I told him about the milk carton girl and watched him suck breath through his teeth.

I told him everything except that Ceballos and Richter had drawn a bead on my ass and were waiting for the right sight picture before they pulled the trigger. Volker was almost a big boy. He could piece that together on his own.

“So what about this Huggy-Bear dude your Witch-Docter in Compton fingered?”

“He’s in your backyard, Volker.” I replied. “He’s not just an MP, he’s a YP.”

“So what are you asking me to do, Jack?”

“I’m not sure. I need something to make sure this one goes down right. The whammy-slingers don’t sound like much. They’re heroin-bitches like Simpson sucked the booze-bottle.” I mused. “It’s the firkin bees that make this one trickier. Simpson told me they have over 20,000 now and half the homeless people on that hill are zombies to the hive.”

“I know you saved my ass once, Repair Man. I assume you’re here to tap that line of Karma credit?” He asked rhetorically.
“Well, since you put it that way, Volker.” I replied. “I’m here to collect.”

“We need to form a strike team.” Volker replied. “We need to take this hive queen out and rescue the milk carton girl, if it can be done.”

“When we get the girl,” I replied. “I still get along well with my contact in Compton. That still leaves the take down. We’re short on fire power.”

“I’ve got Hawk Chapman on payroll, and can call in a chit with two of his boys.” He replied. “That’s straight muscle, but they came up on Lower Vermont, nearby USC. They shot Boys in the Hood in that environment for its realism.”

“Not bad…” I pondered. It would help having soldiers to whack crazed homeless people, but we still lacked something. “We’re still short on the fire-power, though. We need another ace in the bullpen to save this one.” I pointed out.

“Funny you mention fire-power, Repair Man.” Volker replied with a big, wide grin. For some reason I imagined a light bulb had just gone on in Volker’s scheming little brain. “

“Have you ever met a cat they call Ground Zero?” Volker asked. “He takes out the garbage, just like you do. He just has different technique.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Oh yeah …..” Volker grinned.

TO BE CONTINUED…