Free Plainclothes Naked by Jerry Stahl Page B

screaming silent movie–style. He must have juked at the last instant because his face was still there, though something was off with the right side of his head. A patch of hair had been blasted down to scalp. The flesh at his temple was scorched, as if he’d napped on a hot radiator. A tarry blotch showed up where his ear used to be.
    The ringing in Mac’s skull blotted out whatever his partner was screaming. He watched Zank reel in a tight circle, stretching the collar of his Ban-Lon to the side of his head. Tony wore nothing but Ban
    Lon, and now McCardle knew why. In a pinch, it could stretch neatly over a head wound.
    The stench of cordite watered McCardle’s eyes, and he all but for got Carmella until he saw her plunge a nail file toward Tony’s other ear. Slightly giddy, he heard himself think: It’s Get Tony in the Ear Day! He felt sad that his good friend only had two ears. Soon the fun would have to stop. He felt worse when he realized she wasn’t going for Tony, she was going for him. He jerked, and the flimsy metal pierced the skin under his jaw.
    “Ow, shit! ” McCardle cried, barely hearing himself.
    By the time he plucked the file out—he closed his eyes and tugged —Carmella had the gun on Zank. Mac hadn’t seen how she’d gotten ahold of it, but it didn’t matter. She had the thing, and she was bug-eyed with fury. With her free hand, she rubbed her breasts where Zank had abused her. McCardle found the gesture spectacularly arous ing, despite his injury.
    “I might not shoot you,” Carmella informed them, “but I’m gonna make you wish I did.”
    Poking Tony with the gun, the exact way he’d gun-poked her, Carmella nudged him to the battered desk by the bed.
    “Hands on the chair,” she ordered. “I’ve got to think. ”
    Tony’s ear bled freely now, and Mac could see that he had not, in fact, shot the whole thing off. Just the top part, drenching the rest in blood. It looked, to McCardle, like Tony was wearing a wet red ear muff. His own wound turned out to be no more than a scratch.
    “Tony, you okay?” McCardle squeezed as much genuine concern as he could into his voice. If Tony even suspected he’d meant to shoot him, he knew it was over. On the off chance Carmella spared him, his partner would assassinate him without blinking.
    Mac McCardle died in the Pawnee Lodge, McCardle thought to him self, trying the sentence out. He imagined hearing the words in Dan Rather’s voice. When he was little, Auntie Big’n always liked to watch the CBS Evening News while he tamped her. She left the bathroom door open, so they could catch the TV in the full-length mirror. Thus reflected, Dan Rather had seen him through the most heinous moments of his tender young life. In the full flush of shame, McCardle
    used to hear Dan talking from the Motorola. “Now Little Tinky’s cleaning his auntie’s lady-place.... Now he’s patting her nice and dry... .”
    Late at night, when Auntie Big’n was sawing logs in her nightie, Dan would talk some more to Little Tinky, which was his special name for him.
    “It’s okay, Little Tinky,” the newsman would reassure him. “You’re a fine young man! George Washington Carver had to tamp down his old auntie, too. Same with Bruce Lee and Morley Safer! You’re gonna be okay, Champ!”
    Hearing Dan’s voice in his head, repeating his kindly message, the young McCardle would doze off knowing the closest thing he’d ever known, in his little lifetime, to actual peace.

    “I said BEND OVER ,” Carmella barked, bringing Mac violently back to the present. She waved the gun around, pointing first at one man, then the other, a vicious gleam in her eye.
    One side of his head sticky with blood, Zank cursed and leaned for ward to plant his hands on the back of the desk chair. The bruise on his forehead had morphed to marbly purple, and his nostrils were scabbed. Mac knew Tony sometimes kept a shiv in his sock. But if he was pack ing now, he was being cagey about