Bullets in the Rain
_____The streets were empty as I stepped out into the dank urban night. All about me, the city lay flat against the landscape, cowering from the rain that fell in great greasy droplets on its face. It was on nights like this, when the working people of this city huddled around their TV sets, that the worms would crawl out of their subterranean hideaways and go about their dirty business. It was on nights like this when the city would need me. Me? I’m a detective. My name is Drangum Bango.
_____This particular night, I was heading to Rocco’s, a dirty rat trap on the North Side. I had to see the eponymous Rocco about some answers. I hailed a cab along Rosetta driven by a dark-skinned type who looked like he didn’t have five words of English about him. I climbed in the backseat.
_____”Where to?” he asked me.
_____”Fire burning,” I said, “Cataract elbows pass me. Mercy from pancake batter… testimony!” He gave me a look that told me I wasn’t getting through. “Are we cleave?” I asked.
_____He panicked. “I don’t know what you saying, man. I don’t know!” I didn’t have time for this.
_____”Catapult ego pellets,” I explained, slowly, “Danger briefly exacerbated nomenclature enormous. Underarm enormous?” I was losing my patience. “PANTS ON FIRE!” I guess I must’ve pushed him too far, ’cause next thing I knew he was out of the cab, running down the street and shouting something in Foreigner. Never one to turn down a free ride, I got in the driver’s seat and took off uptown. I had a man to see.
_____I pulled up outside Rocco’s two hours later and parked the car in a tree. From the outside, the place was a fortress, dark and impregnable, but through the front door, it was a palace. There was more gold than a pharaoh’s tomb, the shag was so plush you couldn’t see your shoes, and even the ashtrays looked like you could eat caviar off them. This was the finest dirty money could buy.
_____The coat-check girl was a real eighteen karat number herself, much too pretty to be working in this clip joint. Smiling appreciatively, I handed her my aviator’s cap and scarf. She passed me a small ticket, and I gave her a handful of lint from my pocket. She flashed me a confused stare that was pure sex, and I walked into the bar.
_____I quickly sized up the bartender. He was a clean-cut young gun who looked like he knew everything about women and nothing about being a man. In that moment, I knew he would be a pushover. Getting his attention, I introduced myself: “Drangum Bango, PEI.” I flashed him my Robocop badge. It seemed I made him nervous. Good.
_____”Can I help you?” he ventured.
_____I told him I was looking for Rocco.
_____”Hey, I don’t know anything about any cantaloupes, man,” he insisted, backing against the bar, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
_____Deciding to play it tough, I repeated myself deliberately, while subtly flicking cigarette butts from an ashtray at him. “I-I’m getting the boss,” he stammered, running off. Finally I was getting somewhere.
_____Left alone at the bar, I attracted the attention of one of Rocco’s “quick women.” Clutching a cocktail in her delicate, angel-white claw, she slipped into the stool next to mine like a foot in a stocking. “Hey shamus,” she began, “Is that a gun in your pocket? Although I’m sure you know that old line.” This alarmed me, as I’d lately had problems telling my gun from my banana. But how could she know that? That previous day I had even thrown out my banana as a final precaution, but the next morning, there it had been on the counter again. I felt the gun in my pocket, reassured by its weight and relative hardness. I gave the hussy my Humphrey Bogart face and asked her, “Spy lantern turns over… canoodling any frock trimester?” Realizing I wasn’t one of the regular Johns, she moved off. ‘That Rocco sure knows how to pick ‘em,’ I thought to myself, lucidly.
_____Rocco was a local slime I knew well. His racket was numbers, and on the side he liked to deflower little girls. I recognized his greasy face and flashy suit across the room, following the barman back to me. We made eye contact, and his reaction was instantaneous.
_____”Oh no!” he shouted above the room, “Not him again!” He ran for the back door, but I was fast on his heels. This trail had just gotten hot. Outside, I chased him across the parking lot, shouting a warning: “Rocco! Palimpsest cage fight sumbarine! Don’t spackle!”
_____”Leave me alone, you maniac!” he yelled over his shoulder. But it was too late. I cornered him between two dumpsters and stopped to catch my breath. I was about to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
_____Just then, two of Rocco’s thugs came up behind me. Turning on them, I took out my gun and peeled it. Ten minutes and a whole lot of biting later, Rocco and I were alone again. I held him by his his collar and smushed the barrel of my gun against his temple. Oh, he would talk alright, he just didn’t know it yet. “Puddle,” I said, “Puddly ticking toe.”