Free The Bialy Pimps by Johnny B. Truant Page B

Dicky Kulane to hate the place, and for 3B’s total and complete failure. And for the ache in his testicles that had yet to go away.  
    Around eleven, Captain Dipshit had seen him – the short, wiry, red-bearded Mr. Bingham. He gone in on the heels of a group of young women, but then must have finished transacting his business early. He’d re-emerged only ten minutes later and had taken up station near the front door, following pedestrians back and forth and trying to shake their hands. Eventually, after drinking something for a while out of a brown paper bag, Mr. Bingham had passed out in the side alley with one hand and one leg sticking straight up against the wall, as if pointing to something up on the roof. Around an hour later, the roof had complied and, in a brisk wind, an avalanche of wet leaves had come tumbling off the roof and had buried all but the arm and leg. Several pedestrians walking by on High had noticed the upraised arm and leg, had done double-takes, and had walked on. One group carrying promotional OSU pennants from one of the bookstores had been more proactive. One boy stuck his pennant in Bingham’s hand and had posed between the spirited pennant-hand and the leg for a photo.  
    Devious, this Bingham, thought Captain Dipshit. What was he up to?
    An hour or so later, Bingham had emerged from the leaves, dusted himself off, and taken off screaming. There was no apparent reason for this. One moment there was an arm and a leg in a pile of leaves in an alley, and the next there was a small man blazing north on High, running after something or someone, or running from something or someone. Or perhaps on a bank run. The manager, Philip, usually did the bank runs, but it made sense for the owner to do it if he damn well pleased, and this was how Captain Dipshit imagined said owner would do it. And woe to the bank teller who had to wait on him.  
    Once the dwarf was gone, Captain Dipshit decided it was safe to cross the street and go inside, as long as he did it quietly and without attracting attention. He’d need to be quick, though. Bingham could return at any time.  
    Once inside, a quick scan of the lobby revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The afternoon rush was over, and only a few tables were occupied. There was no red-bearded man, no Private Dancer, no obvious nutcases of any kind. The employees were, blessedly, working. It looked like a deli, in other words. No evil here. So he exhaled and stood up.  
    Rich, who was operating the register and saw Captain Dipshit appear as if from nowhere, shrieked. His hat flew off and he bent to recover it.  
    Captain Dipshit approached the counter, unsure how to proceed. He knew in general what he wanted, but had no idea how he’d get it. He needed something damning. If he brought something damning to Dicky Kulane, he felt sure Dicky would know what to do with it. In fact, he was beginning to think that Dicky’s intellect rivaled his own, hard as that was to believe. All he needed to do was to get something for Dicky to work with. The rest would follow from there.
    What, though?
    Maybe he’d discover something disgusting that he could take video of and send to Nightline . Really, Nightline would be the best solution. Anything worthy of Nightline , in fact, would flat-out get Bingham’s closed down, because Nightline was always exposing things that were illegal and/or gross and generally fucking shit up. If he could provide Nightline with something sufficiently disgusting, it would be a slam dunk. Possibly an employee would lose a finger and serve it to a customer in a sandwich. Or maybe there’d turn out to be a child’s potty in use by employees behind the counter. Pooping behind the counter of a restaurant would definitely be good Nightline fodder. It seemed like even odds that this would be the case, so Captain Dipshit had his fingers crossed.  
    As he inched toward the counter, he suddenly heard a loud, high-pitched voice come from behind him,