Billy Luck Episode 32: Make Your Stamp – DO IT WELL!

Photo by Chris Shaw

In a hay barn on a lush, French Chateau-style ranch estate in Potomac, Maryland, Annie and CF were planning her new “host’s” next live rock and roll bash with

Clint Holmes, Carl Anderson and Big Al Downing as the marquee talent. At least the

first of Ann’s flannel buttons on her checkered flannel shirt was undone, and

Chauncey was leaning over her in order to plant an amorous kiss. Ann feigned disinterest, and briefly drew back. CF mumbled, “Wha–?”

 

Annie started to say to herself, not audibly, “What’d Billy think?” and then she blurted out, “Aw, What the Hey!!” Soon after, she and CF went on smooching unabashedly.

 

The greasy sun climbed higher in the sky, on this Earth Day, 1977. Under a different refraction of the DC Metro-area spectrum, the clouds were whited out by unnaturally warm and humid downtown smog. Billy was evading his pursuer, Ferret Apache Skylum, definitely the hard way. As Ferret rode the open ironwork car of the elaborate and ancient Romanesque cavern of the National Unions, 918 F Street, N.W., Billy, wearing his best kid hand protectors, shimmied up the nasty oiled elevator cable to the glass-enclosed wheelhouse.

 

Simultaneously, Sergeant Phil Carlille, and three of his best DC SWAT Commandos– fresh from the gory Hanafi Muslim siege uptown–had been rather “pre-occupado,” rappelling up the craggy bays of the alley elevation of this rugged1890’s landmark. Naturally, Skipper Marsh, no shrinking violet she, stood “holding the net” so to speak, on the blue cobbles at the base of the center peaked bay.

 

Ferret made the last ascent, moments before Billy Luck bashed his way to the wavy roof top of the National Unions. He could scarcely believe the maniac elevator boy was right on his heels–bent toy Samurai sword leading the way!

 

Billy crouched at the very edge of the center bay, his left foot dangling precariously

over 8 ½ stories of sheer drop. Ferret and the blade came SWOOSH-

ing at him. Carlille, almost comically popped up; head and shoulders over the copper

cornice line. Ferret started to scream demonically, “VENGEANCE IS MINE,

CRIETH THE LORD FERRET!!!”  Billy braced himself upright with a Herculean effort, managing to seize Ferret’s front ankle. He glanced sharply to Phil Carlille, who had his service pistol out and ready. “You do it, Carlille. It’s only fair–”

 

A single shot roundly pierced the “devil’s diamond” between Ferret’s fiery black brows. He half gasped, half squealed, and plummeted directly to the stones, rocketing straight past Billy’s sprawled form. The tortured little acrobat landed with a crunch, bits of his viscera splattering Skipper’s paisley shawl. Shaken but stirred to immediate response, Skipper cupped her hands and shouted up to her lover, Billy Luck, as her onetime consort the D.C. police sergeant, lowered himself, harnessed at the waist, down to the messy scene in the alley.

 

“Billy! My rat bastard spouse is at the Museum benefit ball! Time to shut his ass down!!” I’ll help shut that effing book, thought Sergeant Phil Carlille, Billy Luck’s newest ally. But sadly, Mack Daddy Jed Harris wouldn’t be joining the party– he lay crushed beneath the fallen Ferret, for in his desire to aid Billy, Harris had definitely waited in the absolute WRONG SPOT!!

 

(to be continued)

information about New Signature, a Washington DC tech solutions and consulting firm

Advertisement

email updates

We believe ending homelessness begins with listening to the stories of those who have experienced it.

Subscribe

RELATED CONTENT