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was you,” said Cecil Higgins, “I’d forgit all about this here … fantasy about some cop tryin to hang ya. I mean, I was you I’d take one more hard look at my partner and take your act on the road, right down to Main Street.”
    “I want a lawyer!” Elmo McVey screamed.
    “Elmo,” Cecil Higgins said shakily, “if ya was to make some kind a crazy complaint about bein lynched and all, would anybody believe ya? And even if they did, whaddaya think The Czech would do when he hunted ya down in a alley sometime? I bet he wouldn’t hang ya by the neck next time, is what I bet.”
    Then Cecil Higgins reached in his pocket and took out two dollars. “Go git yourself a bottle a Sneaky Pete and forgit this fantasy. And git your shit together and take your act on the road.”
    Elmo McVey’s eyes were still the size of poker chips but his face was only slightly lavender when he left that alley holding his neck. “Well,” he said, “Main Street’s got its good points. There’s a mission down there where the food ain’t bad and nobody’s gotta hear too much Jesus crap. And down there stealin bras and panties ain’t a hangin offense.”
    Actually, after the rope burn healed, Elmo McVey could not be sure that the hanging wasn’t some terrible alcoholic dream. Even he wasn’t sure that it was real.
    Five minutes later, after having disposed of the gallows and rope while The Bad Czech ate a beef-and-bean burrito from a taco truck, the old beat cop cadged a free cup of coffee from the Mexican vendor and decided it was time for some heavy conversation.
    “Shouldn’t oughtta eat from these roach wagons,” Cecil Higgins advised The Bad Czech, who was drinking grape soda pop and devouring a burrito like any whiskey-ravaged hangover victim.
    “Nother one,” The Bad Czech said with his cheeks full of tortilla. The Mexican, having served burritos to freeloading cops from Tijuana to L. A., just chalked the freebies up to public relations.
    After The Bad Czech was belching hot sauce and feeling less cranky, the old beat cop took his giant partner by the arm and walked him over to a bench by the water in MacArthur Park. When The Bad Czech finished his soda pop, Cecil Higgins said, “Know somethin, kid? I been noticin that ya ain’t so happy lately.”
    “I ain’t?” The Bad Czech said, belching up a green chile seed which stuck to his wiry black moustache.
    “No, you ain’t. Is it maybe your divorce?”
    “I’m used to them. After three I oughtta be. I ain’t got no money for the lawyers to take no more.”
    “Maybe it’s the booze,” Cecil Higgins offered. “Maybe nobody oughtta go to Leery’s ever single night.”
    “I think I’d really get grouchy if I didn’t go to Leery’s ever single night,” The Bad Czech said.
    Cecil Higgins, still boozy from last night, was being hypnotized by the green pepper seed on The Bad Czech’s moustache. He pulled himself together, plucked off the fiery seed and threw it in the water, where a white duck bit into it and got totally pissed off, quacking furiously.
    “I know what it is!” Cecil Higgins suddenly cried. “It’s the fuckin newspaper. You’re gettin goofy from readin the L. A. Times ! ”
    “Ya think so?” said The Bad Czech. “Ya think I’m gettin goofy?”
    “Kid, the Times ain’t good for your head,” the old cop said. “Ya take it too serious.”
    “Maybe you’re right.” The Bad Czech nodded. “But, Cecil, am I really gettin goofy?”
    “Czech, I think you’re aware that hangin went out in this state, oh, maybe eighty years ago. Like, they ain’t even gassed nobody in years. I mean, the chief, the mayor, the public defender, the A. C. L. U., even Alcoholics Anonymous, almost everybody I can think of would not like it one fuckin bit, they was to catch ya hangin winos.”
    Then The Bad Czech turned his demented gray eyes toward Cecil Higgins and said, “But Cecil, how do ya know for sure that wino was real?”
    “Gud-damnit!” Cecil