The Delta Star Read Online Free Page B

Higgins, who had just removed his police hat and was massaging his aching bald head, to say, “Musta been a good hit on Sy’s Clothing Store over the weekend. Those three was all wearin Calvin Kleins.”
    “Oh my head!” The Bad Czech moaned. “I’m feelin main-street pain. Don’t talk too loud, Cecil.”
    As The Czech said it, he drank down the Alka-Seltzer, moaned again, and was licking the foam from his wiry black moustache when a black Puerto Rican came finger-popping through the door listening to station KROQ with two shiny new radios blaring music in his ears. He saw the two hungover blue-coats at the bar, said, “Uh oh,” and highballed it back out onto Alvarado.
    “Shee-it,” Cecil Higgins said. “That sucker’s the fifth thief I seen this mornin with brand new ghetto blasters glued to his fuckin ears. Raymond’s Stereo Center musta got raped over the weekend.”
    “I gotta get some fresh smog in my lungs or I’m gonna die, Cecil,” The Bad Czech whimpered, and lurched out of Leo’s Love Palace onto the busy sidewalk, the older cop following along behind, still rubbing his loose bald scalp.
    “Jesus Christ on Roller Skates!” The Bad Czech suddenly cried.
    “That’s who it is, aw right,” Cecil Higgins nodded as the two beat cops moved off the sidewalk to let Jesus Christ on Roller Skates boogie on by.
    He wore an ankle-length dirty gray sari and shoulder-length dirty brown hair and a full beard and dilated blue eyes. He was about as skinny as the skateboard he was riding and could not possibly have carried the seven-foot cross made of four-by-fours if he hadn’t had the ingenuity to attach a roller skate to the toe of the cross, which Cecil Higgins said proved that he might be crazy but he wasn’t stupid. His mission seemed to be to stop every twenty yards or so, put the cross down and scream, “Prepare ye for my coming!” at the top of his lungs.
    If that wasn’t bad enough he also had a ghetto blaster strapped around his neck, but at least it wasn’t tuned in to KROQ. He was playing a cassette of “The Old Rugged Cross.”
    “Wonder if Jesus Christ on Roller Skates was the chaplain for the gang that ripped off Raymond’s Stereo Center?” Cecil Higgins mused.
    “Maybe it’s the cheap booze at Leery’s,” The Bad Czech groaned. “But ya know, Cecil, sometimes I ain’t too sure no more what’s real and what ain’t.”
    “Huh!” Cecil Higgins grunted. “You on l y got thirteen years on the job, boy. Wait’ll you got twenny-eight years like me. Some days I walk this here beat and I don’t know my dick from a dumplin. Tell ya the truth, Czech, I ain’t been absolutely sure what’s real and what ain’t for maybe twenny-two years now.”
    “I know that Jesus Christ on Roller Skates was real,” The Bad Czech mumbled, more to himself than to Cecil Higgins, as the two blue-suited beat cops walked gingerly on their ripple soles to reduce the pain. “Only reason I know is, that screechy roller skate hurt my head, is how I know.” Then he added, “I’m pretty sure that Jesus Christ on Roller Skates was real.”
    ***
    And while The Bad Czech was moving tenderly about his beat, Mario Villalobos, also experiencing a world-class hangover, wiped an imaginary dust spot from the roof of his BMW and headed for the back door of Rampart Station wondering how many of the locals had survived the shootings, stabbings, rapings and stranglings that undoubtedly occurred over the weekend while folks gathered to celebrate Mother’s Day.
    “Morning, Mario,” a young voice said cheerfully. “Have a nice Mother’s Day?”
    “Morning,” the detective answered, heading for the coffeepot.
    He only glanced at Chip Muirfield and at the brand-new three-piece butter- brickle suit the young detective was wearing, and at the tanned, handsome face and sun-streaked surfer’s hair. Yet somehow he had known that the young man would say “Have a nice Mother’s Day?”
    Chip Muirfield was the nephew