Norman clocked them doing 85 going north on the 405, a late model ivory Caddy, he switched on the red, they saw him and slowed. He waved them to the turn-off. They took it and he followed them down. It was 11:55 p.m. on a Wednesday night. But instead of stopping on the main boulevard the Caddy took a quick left and stopped at a residential street, flicked the lights off and sat there. Norman parked behind them, called in a check on the license. Then he got off the cycle and walked toward the driver's side with his ticket book.

The driver was a woman, about 32
with dyed red hair. She was smoking a
cigarillo. Her only attire were a pair of
brown, scratched boots and dirty pink
panties. Her breasts were immense. On
one of them were tattooed the words
LOVE IS SHIT. That must have hurt.
Two fat men in their mid-forties
were in the back seat. The back seat
also contained a bar, a TV and a
telephone. The fat men looked very
prosperous and relaxed.
"Your license, please, mam..."
"My license is up my ass," said the
woman.
"That's Blanche, officer," said one of
the men. "Now, Blanche, show the
officer your license."
"It's up my ass," said Blanche.
"I'm going to have to cite you, mam,
for indecent exposure, speeding and, if
you persist in your actions, resisting
arrest...'
Blanche turned her face full toward
Norman. She spit out the cigarrillo.
Her large lipstick mouth snarled,
showing broken yellow teeth.
"Shit, man, whatya mean? Under
arrest? For fuckin' WHAT?"
"Your license, please."
"My license? Here's my fuckin'
license! Take a good look at it!"
Blanche took two hands and lifted
her huge left breast which she plopped
out over the edge of the window.
"Blanche," said the same fat man
who had spoken before, "show the
officer your license.'
"Officer," said the other fat man,
"we're sorry for all this. Blanche is
very upset. Her sister died in Cleveland
last night."
"Your licence, please, mam..."
"Ah, kiss my pussy!"
Norman stepped back.
"All right, everybody out of the car!"
"Ah shit," said one of the fat men.
The other was on the telephone:
"Hey, Bernie, we're being busted. Any
instructions? Yeah? Really? O.K."
"Everybody out," Norman repeated,
"NOW!"
He walked back to his cycle to radio
in for a squad car.
"HEY!"
It was one of the fat men, the
heaviest one. He ran up as well as he
could. He was dressed in an expensive
green suit. The suit was neatly fitted to
mold about each of his curves of fat.
"Officer! Look! You dropped some-
thing! Lucky I saw it! Here!"
He placed six crisp new one hundred
dollar bills into Norman's hand.
Norman looked at the bills, hesitated a
moment, then handed them back.
"For your sake, I'll pretend you never
attempted to bribe me."
The fat man rolled up the bills,
jammed them into his pocket. He took
out a cigar, lit it with a diamond-
studded lighter. His eyes-what there
were of them-narrowed.
"You know, you guys who always
follow the book, you never get any-
where, it's all dead-end. And I mean,
dead-end."
Meanwhile, back at the ivory Caddy,
Blanche sat on the hood. She had lit a
new cigarillo and was looking into the
sky trying to locate the Milky Way.
The other fat man left the car and
walked back toward the cycle. He was
wearing an orange jumpsuit with
kangaroo skin shoes. Around his neck
was a huge silver cross, it was hollow
inside but full, full of cocaine. An ugly
film almost covered his entire left eye.
But the right eye peered out, a specious
but doom-filled green.
...