Once he saw tears in her eyes, which nauseated him; hearing about her personal shit made him sick. But he didn't stop her from spilling it out, sat back and pretended he was listening, sympathetic. Meanwhile he was filling his mind with pictures: real science experiments on whimpering mutts, touching the stiffs in the path lab, memory slides of what he'd done to Fields, how the slimeball's head had looked all bashed to trash. Thinking: It's easy to be a shrink.
One night they were driving on Nasty, headed for a parking spot, and she said, "That's him-that's BoJo!"
He slowed the car to get a good look at the pimp, saw a short, skinny nigger in a purple suit with red fake-fur lapels and a red hat with fake leopardskin band and peacock feathers. Little slime was standing on a corner talking to two fat blond whores, his arms around them, showing lots of gold tooth.
Nightwing slumped low on the seat and prodded his arm. "Speed up. I don't want him to see me!"
He slowed the Plymouth, smiled. "What, you're scared of a little shit like that?"
"He may be little, but he's bad."
"Yeah, right."
"Believe it, Doctor T. C'mon, let's get out of here!"
"Yeah, right."
After that, he started watching the nigger.
BoJo was a creature of habit, showed up on the boulevard Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, always around eleven P.M. Always driving from the south side of town in a five-year-old lacquer-flake purple Pontiac Grand Prix with gangster whitewall tires wrapped around chrome reversed mag wheels, silver sparkle vinyl top, etched opera windows, fake ermine tuck-and-roll interior with purple piping, "BJ" mono-grammed in gold on the doors, and blackened windows with stickers on them warning that the entire shitty mess was protected by a supersensitive motion-detector alarm system.
The pimpmobile was always left in the same no-parking zone on the south side of Nasty. Cops never checked; Grand Prix never got ticketed. When BoJo got out of the car, he always stretched, then lit an extra-large gold-tipped purple Sherman's with a gold lighter shaped like a Playboy rabbit, before setting the alarm with a little handpiece. Repeated the same song-and-dance on his way back to the car.
The little shit's evenings were just as predictable: a westward stroll on Nasty, collecting from his whores until midnight, then the rest of the night spent drinking at a puke-stinking pimp bar called Ivan's Pistol Dawn on Wednesdays and Fridays. Ogling the dancers at a strip joint called the Lube Job on Sundays.
Dr. Terrific followed him. No one noticed the clean-cut guy in the windbreaker, T-shirt, freshly laundered jeans, and blue tennies. Just another soldier on leave, looking for action.
Soldier of destiny.
Once in a while BoJo left with one of the Lube Job strippers or a whore. Once in a while another nigger, a big, light-skinned, muscle-bound type, hung around him playing bodyguard. But usually he did his thing alone, swaggering along the boulevard as if he owned it. Probably feeling confident because of the nickel-plated pistol he carried-big.45-caliber cowboy job with a white fake-pearl handle. Sometimes he took it out of the glove compartment and waved it around like some kind of toy before sticking it back in his waistband.
Fucker certainly seemed confident, dancing and prancing, laughing all the time, his mouth a fucking gold mine. He wore tight, satin-seamed pants that made his legs look even skinnier than they were, custom-made ticky-tacky wide-shouldered jackets, and patent-leather shoes with high stacked heels. Even with the heels he was short. Black dwarfshit.
Easy to spot.
He watched the scuzz for weeks, was there one warm Friday night, waiting, when BoJo returned from his prowl/party at three-thirteen A.M. Had been waiting in the shit-stinking alley for four hours, standing next to a shit-stinking dumpster, but not the least bit tired. Letting the garbage smells pass right through him, floating above it like some angel, his mind pure and free of thoughts.
Seeing only Fields's face, then BoJo's, then the two of them merging into a white/nigger slime mask.
Pow. His hands itched.
BoJo turned off Nasty and onto the side street, snapping his fingers and staggering-probably stoned out of his gourd from too much juice or weed or whatever. He paused a block away from the Pontiac, the way he always did, hitched up his pants, and lit his Sherman's. The flame from the rabbit lighter illuminated his monkey face for one brief, ugly moment.
Soon as the flame died, Dr. Terrific came running silently out of the alley, all superhero clean-cut and full of destiny.
Sliding a crowbar out from under the windbreaker, he jogged over to the Grand Prix on bouncy tennie feet, raised the crowbar over his head, and brought it down as hard as he could, pulverizing the windshield. The sound of shattering glass still sweet in his ears, he zipped around to the passenger side, squatted low on the sidewalk.
The supersensitive motion-detector alarm started screaming.
BoJo had been dragging on his cigarette. It took a second for the pimp to realize what was happening. Another second before he started screaming too. In harmony with the alarm.
Soul music.
Fucker pulled out his gun, ran/staggered to the Grand Prix as fast as those faggy high heels could take him. Tripping and cursing, finally getting there and staring open-mouthed at the rape of the windshield. Meanwhile, the alarm was still screaming out its mechanical painsong.
BoJo jumped up and down, swung the.45 in a arc, and looked from side to side, spitting and cursing, saying "Come here, mothahfuckahs, goddam fuckin' mothahfuckahs!"
The alarm continued pouring its little electronic heart out.
Meanwhile, he was staying still as a dead man, crouching with the crowbar in his hand. Ready. Stupid nigger never saw him, never thought of checking the passenger side of the car. Just kept jumping and spitting and cursing, leaning over to finger what was left of the windshield, staring at whole chunks of safety glass that had come loose, hundreds of bubbles of glass all over the fake-ermine tuck-and-roll dashboard, stuck in the high-pile fake-ermine bucket seats.
Repeating "Mothahfuckah, fuckin' mothahfuckah" like some spear-chucker chant, stomping his little high-heeled foot, waving the gun around, then finally putting it away, taking the handset out of his pocket and turning off the alarm.
The screaming died; the silence seemed even louder.
Dr. T. held his breath.
"Shit," said BoJo, removing his hat and rubbing a balding head. "Oh, fuck, mothahfuckin' shee-it."
Nigger opened the driver's door with a gold-plated key, brushed glass from the seat and the dashboard, listened to the sad-song tinkle as it fell to the curb, said "Shee-it" again, then got out to reexamine the windshield, as if it had all been a bad dream, next time he looked everything would be okay.
It wasn't.
"Mercy fuck. Shee-it"
Famous last words, because when the fucker straightened up, he was staring into a clean-cut superhero face, hearing:
"Hi, I'm Doctor Terrific. What seems to be the problem?"
"Say wha-" Feeling without really comprehending, the stunning pain as the crowbar smashed him square across his nose, pulverizing his face, driving bone slivers into whatever poor excuse for cerebral tissue he carried in that ugly black' monkey skull.