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After they understood each other, the snitch talked Otto into going in with him on the coke buy so Otto could bear the brunt of the later court testimony. The snitch convinced Otto’s lieutenant that none of the other narcs in the squad looked less like a cop in that Otto was built like something you slam-dunk at the sports arena.

Problems popped up the second they walked into the motel room where the buy was to go down with “a very nice Hawaiian dude.” The biggest problem was that there was no snort. Nor any other drugs. Nor any Hawaiian dude, nice or otherwise. It was a straight rip-off. They were met by three Samoans, the smallest of whom couldn’t have squeezed into a phone booth and who had a one-track mind.

The Samoans patted them down for weapons but missed the body wire buried under Otto’s tummy fat. But the transmitter had gone bad. The wire was not sending the action to the narc who sat on the bug in the panel truck just beyond the motel parking lot. The questions were very simple and to the point.

“Where’s da money, bro?” a Samoan asked.

“I wanna talk to Sammy,” the snitch said. “Where’s Sammy?”

SMACK. “Where’s da money, bro?”

“So this ain’t no business deal!” the snitch bellowed for the benefit of the bug monitor. “This is a straight rip, huh?”

SMACK. “Where’s da money, bro?”

“I shoulda knew this was a rip,” the terrified junkie screamed for the wire. “A fuckin rip!”

SMACK. “Where’s da money, bro?”

“Look, I can git the bread for ya!” the snitch shrieked. “Jist lemme take ya to it! Jist open the door and let’s …”

SMACK. “You tell me,” said the Samoan with the one-track mind. “I go get it.”

By now, Otto Stringer, unarmed and helpless, was holding paws with the second Samoan. The third had him by the back of the neck with a longshoreman’s hook that turned out to be his hand.

The blood from the snitch’s mouth and nose was spattering the wall and Otto figured that the action was not being transmitted by the wire so he decided to take matters in hand and make an announcement. He said: “This’s gone far enough! I’m a police officer! I order you to get away from that man and open the door!”

SMACK. Otto’s skull bounced off the wall, leaving a crack in the plasterboard.

“Okay, then, I ain’t a cop,” said Otto.

SMACK. It didn’t seem to matter either way to the Samoans.

“No more bullshit, bro. Where’s da money?” the first Samoan said to Otto Stringer.

Just then the wire inside Otto’s pants started to function. The cop monitoring the bug gave an emergency signal, but by the time six narcs smashed down the motel door, Otto had been spreadeagled across the kitchen table by all three Samoans who were only hitting him with open hands. Which had only dislodged one tooth and loosened two others and given him eyes by Picasso. They were taking turns. Before Otto passed out he thought of the ice-cream store. Pick a number! Next? Who’s next?

Of course the rescuers played catch-up for Otto, in that all the Samoans “resisted handcuffing” and had to have buckets of water poured on them so they could wake up and resist some more. But it was small consolation to Otto Stringer. The thumping he got from the Samoans put him off duty for five days. And it wasn’t even the last straw.

That occurred on “federal Friday,” which was what the cops call Friday afternoon when the federal building looks like it received a bomb scare. All the civil servants and bureaucrats get an early start on the weekend rush-hour traffic, especially after getting their paychecks.

That afternoon the narcs were waiting at L. A. International Airport for a Colombian coke connection, and because of a sudden starburst of romantic passion, Otto Stringer and several other cops almost lost their lives.

Officer Heidi was a narc. She was a sleek beautiful leggy athletic ninety-pounder, and, bitch or not, she was the most aggressive that Otto had ever seen. No one had ever known a Doberman as strong as Heidi. In fact, on one narcotics raid she had grabbed the handle of a locked dresser drawer and pulled the entire piece of furniture across the room. Heidi was very good at her job and she knew it. She would never miss an ounce of flake or crystal or pot when she was sniffing luggage, and she was in fine fettle that day at the airport. Heidi went at the Colombian’s luggage with a will. Her handler was so proud. The other narcs were so proud. Officer Desmond was so aroused.

Desmond was a bomb dog. He had never seen Heidi before. He had never seen any narcotics dog. Desmond wasn’t sleek or beautiful or athletic. Desmond was a seedy half-bloodhound with a bad case of dandruff, halitosis, and eyes like Walter Mondale. Desmond, like Otto Stringer, was a law-enforcement burnout.

The L.A. cops were working a routine bomb check that afternoon. Some overzealous security cop had a hunch about a goofy-looking student who’d just asked the employee at the ticket counter some odd questions about luggage. Desmond was called in to do a little sniffing to satisfy the airport people who were still overwrought from a recent bomb scare involving a terrorist. Desmond was sitting there in the customs office doing his thing, which was dozing by the air conditioning, when Heidi came prancing in looking good. Looking for action.

Heidi was so stoked by her job that she cried in anticipation, she whimpered with impatience, she uttered little growls of ecstasy when she made a hit on a bag of dope. Desmond watched Heidi’s heaving chest, her swelling hocks, the rippling of her neck as her black coat glistened in the light, and his bloodshot Mondale eyes popped round as Orphan Annie’s.

His handler said later that he never guessed old Desmond was getting funny feelings in his tummy. His handler too was busy admiring Heidi, the way she’d rip into each piece of luggage and try to tear it to pieces before they could pull her away and seize the dope. But for certain, saliva was seeping over Desmond’s floppy lips onto the floor. And the handler got the picture after he noticed what was hanging down all pink and shiny below Desmond’s belly. Old Desmond had sprouted a woody!

Of course, bomb dogs are supposed to be the opposite of dope dogs. Bomb dogs are supposed to be docile, very docile. They’re supposed to sniff the explosives and then calmly saunter away and sit right down, content to let the bomb experts do their thing.

It was on Heidi’s fourth hit that it happened. Maybe Desmond just heard one too many of those incredibly sexy little growls, nobody knew for sure. Desmond went madly shockingly passionately bonkers. While the loony student was repeating his “who me that’s not my suitcase why are you treating me like this?” routine, Desmond let out a terrible howl.

They later realized it was his statement to Heidi: “You like real clangers? I’ll show you a pair that gong like Big Ben!”

Desmond hit that suspicious suitcase like the Raiders blitz a quarterback.

The student didn’t have to confess. They never had to advise him of his constitutional rights. The student shrieked, “NOOOOOOOOO!” and dropped like he was head-shot. So did Otto Stringer. So did all the narcs. So did the airport security cops, U.S. Customs officers, Desmond’s handler, and everybody else with an I.Q. higher than Desmond’s. Everybody except Heidi who stopped her work and started admiring old Desmond, thinking he was looking pretty damn hot tossing that suitcase all over the room like that.

The contents as it turned out could have leveled that corner of the building. It didn’t. And Desmond the hound was through checking luggage at the airport. And so was Otto Stringer, who said, “Thank you, but I already know about the power of pussy so I didn’t have to see Desmond go ga-ga over Heidi. And I don’t think I need any more scenes with jungle guys that oughtta be back home in coconut-shell jockstraps knocking down palm trees instead of cops. So I think I’ll just go ahead and accept that transfer to Hollywood dicks. Scratch one dope cop.”