When the woman Bobbie answered the door, he made sure he had the right party by simply asking her, 'Mrs. Freund?'
Spain's state of mind was such that she could have said, I'm Samantha the baby-sitter, and he would probably have been right upside her head anyway, just on general principles, but the woman said,
'Yes?'
'National Express package. I need you to sign please, ma'am,' and he's thrusting that official-looking clipboard in front of her, holding something under her face to sign with the pen right there for her.
'Sign here?'
'Right there where the checkmark is,' pointing vaguely. But that's enough to keep her looking down and she is midway through the phrase 'I don't' when she feels something take out her coordination. What it is — she has the door braced with one arm, and she's trying to see where to sign her name — where is the damn checkmark? When he lets her have a nice hard one from the spring-loaded sap and pushes right in with her, talking to her as she falls, timing a very ordinary-sounding fake conversation to muffle her impact as she crumples to the floor, and doing all of this in a split second. Doing this with professionalism and care, now, on dangerous footing at this stage, moving back through the house hoping he'll find Charlie alone. Hoping he won't have to kill anybody else. No next- door neighbors or passing strangers. Because anyone he sees now will go down. People. Children. Dogs. Cats. Parakeets. Gerbils. Cockroaches. Any fucking thing that moves or breathes dies.
He was still running his mouth about where he was supposed to go with the package and he was glad to bring it in for them it was so heavy and he was glad to do it or some such jive nonsense as he rushed through the rooms when he spotted a long, lanky dude getting off a sofa where a television set was blasting, and Spain didn't even bother to use a real weapon on him, he just threw the sap at him when he raised his arms going, 'Heeeyyyyyy,' and that's when Spain kicked him real viciously in the nuts and put Charles Freund in a world of sudden hurt.
'AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,' the man moaned. 'Huh?' Spain said, taking hold of him. 'Awwwwwwwwwww,' Charlie repeated on cue.
'You like pain so fucking well,' Spain muttered as he dragged Charlie across the rug, 'what's the big deal?'
'Ohhhhhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh,' and Spain tore his hands away and kicked him again. A real bruising sixty-yard drop kick in the balls, and Freund screamed at the top of his lungs, 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!' and it was music to Spain's ears as he thought about Tiff.
He wondered how long Bobbie would stay under, and he wondered if anybody else was in the house, thinking these things automatically as he sized up Charles Freund moaning as Spain pulled him across the rug. Moaning and groaning like he really meant it.
'How's that feel, pops? You like that shit?'
'UUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,awwwwwwwwwwwwww-wwwww!'
'No shit? I'm surprised to hear that,' he said conversationally, 'the way you love that pain and all. I mean,' he said, dragging Charlie Freund over to a straight-back chair, 'let's see if we can get you into some. How's that sound, fuck-face?'
You can forget all that karate shit. Some guy rushes into your living room when you're kicked back watching the tube and he throws a lead-weighted blackjack at your head, and as you raise your arms to ward off the thrown object coming at your head, he kicks you expertly in the testicles, you can kiss all that kung fu bullshit
Freund was crying and pissing and moaning, his balls swelling up like grapefruit, and Spain got him nice and snug, then went and wired Bobbie, who he figured would be the tougher of the two by far, came back, and went at Charlie for serious.
Charlie Freund gave up the Morales punk, Jon Belmonte, and nine more names while he was waiting to die. Some of them were new names and Spain's list was growing. Charlie and Bobbie were glad to have the other names for him.
He got elaborate, voluminous descriptions screamed, slobbered, begged at him in the closing minutes of their lives. They were imploring, wheedling, whining, praying him to stop please stop anything we'll tell you everything do anything you want just don't hurt us don'tpleasedon'tdoooooooooon't.
For people who liked pain as well as they did, they sure couldn't get behind any of it. At the last there they would like to have had forty or fifty more names for him. Good stories to tell him. Anything to prolong the time they had, anything to postpone the agony and hurting they knew was in their immediate future.
They were giving him bankbooks, dope caches, coke stashes, secret money boxes, hollow books, closet safes, account numbers, cookie jars, film masters, mailing lists, and when they ran out, they started making things up the way people always do. They would have given him Lucky Luciano, Willie Sutton, and the Vienna Boys Choir if Spain would have just kept listening.
Big, flowery descriptions. Addresses. Hangouts, hobbies, habits. Moles and scars. Christ ohnooooooooo dontpleasedon't ANYTHING. We'll tell you what you want to hear.
He had all the real stuff down cold two different ways when Bobbie went under for the last time. Charlie had been more resilient than he looked. He looked like a fag, Spain thought. But of course a person's pain threshold is just a fact of life, like their blood type. You can't do a whole lot about it when trauma paints it all black for you.
Charlie hung in there pretty good, all in all. Spain had his chest almost half-skinned when he finally went out for good and wouldn't come around again. Spain was really sorry to see them go. He had lots of time but they just couldn't keep up with it all. And he hadn't even branded Bobbie on the inside yet.
He took no real pleasure from torturing them. It made him sort of tired. But then, when he walked around their place later, looking at the spots where Tiff had suffered at their hands, his rage returned, and he found a very sharp kitchen knife and really did a jay-oh-bee on the Fruends. It was good to get rid of some of me hostile energies, he thought to himself.
He looked down at what was left of the Freund cadavers finally and said, 'Are we having fun yet?' and laughed at the sound of the words.
His long-time colleague in Homicide, Detective Sergeant James Lee, the 'Chink' of the legendary cop duo Chink and Chunk, was trying to explain the finer points of tile Oriental Basket Boff when tile loud voice of his partner, fat Dana Tony, came bellowing down the stairs as 'Chunk' descended into the bowels of the squad room at Buckhead Station. He was singing a well-known song to which filthy lyrics had been appended. ' 'Neath a twilight canopy, you're so mellow —' was being loudly sung as ' 'Neath a toilet can of pee, urine so yellow.'
'Jeezus,' Lee said to Eichord, 'it stinks like a taco fart but it looks like a blimp. What the hell izzit?'
'Good morning, ladies,' Chunk said,
'Good morning, Mr. Goodyear,' his long-suffering partner said.
'Morning,' Eichord greeted him. 'Honcho in yet?'
'Fucked if I know. What do I look like, my fucking brother's keeper?'
'You look like a sperm whale with a double hernia, but I still need to know if the honcho's in yet.'
'You look like five guys wearing the same clothes,' Lee suggested.
'I didn't see his smiling face, dear,' Tuny told Eichord, turning to his skinny partner saying, 'and you look like the dildo float in a fucking Chinatown parade, you little moo-shoo porkpecker.'
The phone on Lee's desk rang and he snarled, 'Hill Street Eaters, Lieutenant Hunter,' before snatching the receiver up and saying, 'Homicide. . . . Okay.' He signaled for Eichord to pick it up as he hit the hold button.
Today they would be Hill St. Blues television cops. Eichord was partially to blame for their style. Ever since he'd told them about the guys in Chicago who were Cisco and Pancho one day, Hawaii 5-0 the next, they'd started doing their own version of wacko cop theater. Every day Chink and Chunk 'played' somebody. Like little boys. If you didn't like them it could drive you bats. Fat Dana the Kingfish one day, with his partner Andy of Amos 'n' Andy.
'Well, er, uh, abba dabba, looky heeyuh, now, Brother Andy, those are serious allegations,' and the other one saying on cue, 'Well, I is de alligatee. And you is de alligator, dere.' Just a way to make the time pass between them. TV shows, radio shows, movie scenes — they were a team and they'd been together so long that they literally knew what the other one was thinking. It made for so-so comedy relief, and on occasion some fair-to-
