Billy didn’t want it this way, but Ferret Apache and Jed Harris wound up being laid side by side in identical body bags in a beat-up, bronze-colored Plymouth Estate wagon bound for D.C. Potter’s Field, home of the unloved, unwanted and un-housed. This would be their final resting place, if you wanna call it that.
The stand-in jake leg parson, Mr. Williams, presided over their simultaneous internments. Billy lay exhausted on the sloping slate parapet beside the elevator shed of the National Unions. Presently, a friendly shadow blocked his view of the whitish downtown sun orb. Skipper, wearing Billy’s battered and now floppy Bandolero hat, stood smiling coquettishly. Her paisley wrap was slightly bespattered with the commingled blood of Harris and Ferret. Standing at her left, we found the wizened, trembling, five-foot-two, 86-year-old Samuel Tuck, alias “Tucky Buzzard.” This old wraith was, believe it or not, joint custodian of the Atlantic and National Union Buildings, and what an earful he was about to lay on Billy Luck and Skipper!
“That little rat [Ferret, we assume] boo-hooed about how he’d been, ‘abused,’ you know? Well, lemme set the record straight, ma’am. He WAS the abuser. I, er–I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to make whoopee with a RABBIT–.” Skipper consoled the old watchman.
“Now see here, Mister Tuck.” She hugged his sweaty rack of ribs as if he were her own poor little Gran-Daddy, back in Memphis. “We need to bring the rotten CUR– that is, my soon-to-be EX, off his narrow perch and on to Justice!!”
They all rode the rasping, oily elevator cage down to the cool mosaic sweep of the National Unions’ main concourse, a space little changed since 1890. In 1977, however, few such lofty interiors had much of an aura of class; merely clouds of dust and patina of grime. A rare exception to this sorry yardstick of neglect was the soaring atrium of the Pension Hall, standing due east of the crime scene, directly predicated by Senator Hastings Marsh of Tennessee.
Carlille, Billy and the fuming Skipper Marsh slipped into a tiara-topped, balloon and confetti-strewn crowd that was busily milling around the faux marble columned Great Hall of one of the most massive interior spaces in all of the capital city. Peering above the heads of the giddy, laughing partygoers, Skipper and her consort in a cowboy hat spotted the craven Senator Marsh and his new ally, Mayor Berton Futch. Surrounding a sloshing champagne fountain shouldered by golden cherubs, Marsh was clapping the stocky city executive on the shoulder, and gesticulating towards a Plexiglass model of several crystal cubes of office space planned to ring the funky Franklin Square Park.
Suddenly, Sergeant Carlille and two Capitol Police stepped up to the rostrum and handcuffed the startled senator. Futch, wiping his face wildly, jumped off the stand. His slippered foot caught a corner of the skyscraper model, and sent it crashing to the carpeted floor, part of the building cubes toppling into the continuous flow of Moet and Chandon. Skipper and Billy nearly collided with Ben, the wimpish aide to her former husband. All the latter could spit out was, “I-I’m s-so damn sorry, Ms. Skipper, it’s–”
“Never you mind, Ben, this bastard has ruined enough lives. I think we’ll all breathe much easier real soon, don’t you think?”
All Billy Luck could do was nod his silent assent. For a moment, all voices were stilled, and all one heard was lots of splashing and crashing all around the Great Hall of the Pension Office.
(to be Continued)
