“Look out! Look out!”
“Watch joo feets! Joo feets!”
The piranhas were all over the floor and all over the huge Indian cop who was skating all over the floor, and the little Peruvian had himself a big.45 caliber automatic, which had been hanging on the back of the credenza, and he started for the back door.
Maynard Rivas grabbed the other Peruvian in a choke hold and put his own gun to the guy’s head, saying, “Drop your gun or I’ll shoot!”
Maynard realized how stupid that was when the little Peruvian shrugged as if to say, “Then I get to keep both shares.”
Greed got the doper. He stopped long enough to pick up the plastic bag when he should have run straight outside. He was coldcocked from behind by a sneaky narc, and he flopped on the floor beside the killer fish.
An official protest was made from the Bulgarian ambassador to the United States Secretary of State, deploring the fascist behavior of Officer Maynard Rivas who got reprimanded for improper police tactics. Maynard decided that if a Native American could be attacked and nearly killed by Peruvian dopers and nearly eaten by Brazilian fish and called a fascist by a Commie Pope-shooter, he was going back to the Coachella Valley where life was a whole lot less complicated.
But he knew he had a choice of pulling numbered balls from a wire cage or finding a local police force that wanted a good old home-boy redskin. He ended up in the office of Chief Paco Pedroza who along with Sergeant Harry Bright listened to Maynard’s life story. Paco finally said, “Can you track people in the desert and stuff like that? Real Indian stuff?”
“Chief Pedroza,” Maynard said patiently, “I can do street police work good as anybody, but if you need an injun in braids and moccasins, you better call Marlon Brando for a referral.”
“Well, you seem like a fine strong lad. I imagine you’d be a good worker,” Sergeant Harry Bright said.
“I’ll give you a go, Maynard,” Paco said. “But I wonder, could you sometimes help my wife on Thursday nights? See, she runs the bingo game at Saint Martha’s Church.”
Maynard Rivas and Nathan Hale Wilson were doing some plain old ordinary Mineral Springs police work on the morning that Sidney Blackpool and Otto Stringer visited the Palm Springs residence of Victor Watson.
Maynard took a radio call and asked for a backup when he realized the address of a disturbance was the home of Clyde and Bernice Suggs who, whenever they got drunk for breakfast, slugged it out by lunchtime for sure.
This particular fight was pretty much like the last except for the weapons involved. As usual, Clyde got sick and tired of Bernice’s rolling her mean little woodpecker eyes just because he put a little too much into a turkey trot he did with a seventy-five-year-old pepperpot at the Moose Lodge seniors’ dance. He told her that if she didn’t quit clicking her dentures he was going to dump his bowl of All-Bran right on her head. One thing led to another and she took the old James Cagney role and shoved a grapefruit in his face. He threw the All-Bran. At first, both were careful not to spill the jug of Sweet Lucy on the kitchen table, but things got totally out of hand when he claimed that she was a lousy lay and had been for the forty-eight years they’d been together. That really started the yelling and screaming, and pretty quick they were both tossing everything that wasn’t too heavy, and the neighbors put in the call that had become a weekly experience for the Mineral Springs P.D.
When Maynard Rivas and Nathan Hale Wilson arrived, the domestic violence was still in a semi-explosive state though both combatants were now wheezing and blowing and too exhausted to do more than slap at each other with wimpy blows. She was bigger and he was two years older so it wasn’t a mismatch, In fact, Clyde was in pretty bad shape because his tracheostomy tube nearly jumped out of his throat every time she popped him a good one.
The little guy was still trying gamely to give as good as he got, and his dirty white undershirt was dripping sweat when Maynard Rivas slipped into the living room and lifted him off his feet, while Nathan Hale Wilson carried Bernice over by her rocker where their tomcat, Jasper, sat inspecting his ass, not even remotely concerned by all this human drama.
“Break it up, Clyde!” Maynard Rivas commanded.
“Lemme go, you big asshole!” Clyde said. “This is my house!” Because of the tracheostomy he sounded like a cross between Wolfman Jack and the demon from The Exorcist.
“Not till you stop fighting,” Maynard said.
“I’ll sue you!” Clyde croaked.
“Injuns got immunity,” Maynard lied.
“The only good Indian is a …”
“Yeah, yeah, I saw all the cowboy movies,” Maynard said. “Now relax and quit squirming!”
“Make her promise first! She’ll blind-side me, the sneaky bitch!”
“Promise you won’t hit him, Bernice,” Nathan Hale Wilson ordered the old woman.
“I ain’t promising nothing!” Bernice Suggs said, still kicking. “Let him fight like a man!”
It was no use telling them they were going to jail. They knew very well that the cops wouldn’t risk the bad press Mineral Springs would get if they booked these miserable old geezers. Even though every cop in town would dearly love to toss them in the slam. They’d all been spit at, cursed, and reviled by Clyde and Bernice Suggs.
“Okay, you’ll go to the station and sit in the holding tank till you promise to behave!” Maynard said, heading for the door with Clyde tucked under his arm.
“Wait a minute, you big prick!” Clyde croaked. “Lemme go! I won’t fight no more!”
Maynard reluctantly released Clyde who hobbled stoop-shouldered over to the rocker where he punched at the tomcat who hissed but gave up the chair. Clyde sat for a spell, fussing with his trachea tube, trying to get sufficient air to make one of his long croaky speeches about the mentality of cops, especially big Indian cops and scrawny paleface cops that’re probably dumber than big Indians.
Nathan Hale Wilson made the mistake of letting Bernice go just because she stopped fighting. The old woman mumbled a few cuss words and looked as though she was going to surrender, but while the two cops were giving the tipplers their standard warning about not tolerating this disgusting behavior anymore, Bernice grabbed something from the sideboard where it rested next to the Mineral Springs penny saver.
Just as Clyde was getting ready to deliver his monologue about police mentality, Bernice swung. Clyde caught the leading edge smack behind the skull and his upper plate shot through the air, bouncing off the ample belly of Maynard Rivas. Then the fight was really on. Bernice jumped on Clyde and jerked the trachea tube out of his throat and wouldn’t let go even when the big Indian pounced on her and Nathan Hale Wilson grabbed at her crooked fingers.
“Uuuuuuuhhhhh!” Clyde croaked, while Bernice clamped onto that tube and with her one remaining eye-tooth glinting wolfishly said, “Now let’s you and me do the turkey trot, you old son of a bitch!”
Since Bernice was a touch arthritic and not as tough as she used to be, Nathan Hale Wilson got the tube out of her claws while all four wrestled on the floor.
“Let go the tube!” Maynard yelled. “He can’t breathe!”
“I’ll stuff it with cat shit!” Bernice screamed back at him until Maynard gave her such a shove she did a backward whoop-de-doo and bumped her head on the coffee table, out of action temporarily.
Twenty minutes later the two cops, uniforms dusty and torn, were at the police station with Clyde and Bernice Suggs and the weapon.
“I can’t book these people!” Paco Pedroza whispered after Clyde and Bernice were cooling their heels in the holding tank. “They’re nearly eighty years old!”
“That’s an ADW,” Nathan Hale Wilson said. “A felony. I’m sick a these old fuckers, Chief.”