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grass. They had a prize in a carrying bag next to the wooden bench some distance away. The prize was a big silver stereo, which wasn’t switched on but was protruding tantalizingly from the bag. Elmo McVey was creeping toward that bag like a mangy cat stalking a grasshopper.
    The Bad Czech said, “I’d like to hang that wino.”
    “So would I,” said Cecil Higgins, not knowing that The Bad Czech was feeling mean enough to do just what he said.
    As they were watching Elmo McVey wriggling along the grass fifty yards away, a toothless woman with chin whiskers came wheezing along the path through the park and said, “Officers, are you watching that dirty wino?”
    “Yeah, lady,” Cecil Higgins answered. “What’d he do, steal your purse?”
    “He stole my bra!” the whiskered woman answered. “From the clothesline outside my window!”
    Cecil Higgins took off his police hat and rubbed his loose rubbery bald scalp, which was starting to lose its chocolate sheen what with all the futile experiments with hair-growing preparations. All the cops said it was beginning to look like a moldy coffee bean. He also used Lady Clairol on his moustache, which if left untouched would be dead white. “Lady, even for Elmo McVey that’s a new low,” said Cecil Higgins. “Wonder what he’d do with a size fifty, E cup? Pretty hard to peddle it, I imagine.”
    “I want you to put him in jail!” the whiskered woman demanded. “The worse kind a scum.”
    “He’s the kind a pain-in-the-ass wino that really gives me a headache,” said The Bad Czech absently. “I’d like to hang that wino.”
    “Too good for him, you ask me,” the whiskered woman said. Then she spun around huffily and went wheezing back down the path.
    He never heard them coming. Elmo McVey was suddenly lifted two feet off the ground by the back of his army field jacket, looking into the demented gray eyes of the biggest, strongest and unarguably the meanest cop in Rampart Division. The Bad Czech let him dangle for a moment and he did indeed resemble a mangy cat, wiggling and hissing.
    “I ain’t did nothin,” Elmo McVey spat. “I jist wanted to hear the score a the ball game!”
    “There ain’t no ball game, Elmo,” Cecil Higgins said, while The Bad Czech continued to suspend the wino by the scruff of the neck and glare at him.
    “Well, I thought there was a ball game, is what I thought,” Elmo McVey said. “Once a Met fan always a Met fan. I thought the Dodgers was play in in New York today. I was jist gonna tune in that radio to catch the score, is what I was gonna do.”
    “Why don’t you go back to New York, Elmo,” Cecil Higgins said as The Bad Czech lowered the wino to the ground, but continued to hold him by the nape of the neck.
    “Too cold in New York. L. A.’s my kind a place,” Elmo McVey said, getting quite uncomfortable what with The Bad Czech’s hand, the size of a catcher’s mitt, clamped around his neck.
    The Bad Czech finally spoke: “I musta asked you a thousand times to take your act downtown to Main Street, Elmo. Did I ask you a thousand times or not?”
    “Don’t like Main Street. Too many winos down there,” Elmo McVey said, looking fearfully up into The Bad Czech’s deranged gray eyes.
    “Well I ain’t gonna ask ya no more,” The Bad Czech said.
    “Whatcha gonna do?” Elmo McVey asked.
    “I’m gonna hang you,” The Bad Czech answered.
    And while The Bad Czech walked Elmo McVey south through MacArthur Park, Cecil Higgins followed along reluctantly, wondering what this latest bullshit trick was all about. He felt vaguely uncomfortable because The Bad Czech’s loony eyes looked a little loonier than usual today. Just the hangover, Cecil Higgins finally decided. Until they got into the secluded alley east of Alvarado and north of Eighth Street.
    “I noticed this when we walked through yesterday,” The Bad Czech said to Cecil Higgins when they arrived in the alley.
    “Noticed what?” Cecil Higgins looked