When Fausto and Budgie were back in their car, she said to Fausto, “I’m tempted to drive by the address on that FI a little later.”

“What for?”

“That guy’s gotta score some crystal. They’ll be smoking ice and getting all spun out tonight or he’ll be in a straitjacket. He’s that close to losing it completely.”

Ilya was on her feet, pacing and smoking. Cosmo was the one on the couch now, exhausted from arguing with her.

“How long we sit at this place?” he asked lethargically.

“Almost six hours,” she said. “We can’t wait no more. We got to go.”

“Without our money, Ilya?”

“Did you wipe all evidence from the car, Cosmo?”

“I tell you yes, okay? Now please shut up.”

“Did you empty the cigarette tray in the car? That is evidence.”

“Yes.”

“Get can of money out from the car.”

“You got idea, Ilya? Wonderful. You don’t like my ideas. Like we must kill the addicts.”

“Shut up, Cosmo. You will put can of money under this house. Find a little door that go under this house. Put can in there.”

She began emptying ashtrays into a paper bag from the kitchen, and he said, “Ilya, the car? It cannot travel! What are you thinking about?”

“We are leaving it.”

“Here? Ilya, you are crazy person! Farley and Olive -”

In charge now, she interrupted, “Did you take things out from garage?”

“Yes, a bike and few boxes. Goddamn garage, full of junk. Almost no room for a goddamn car.”

“As I thought,” she said. “Put all junk back in.”

“What are you thinking about, Ilya?”

“They are addicts, Cosmo. Look at this house. Trash all around. Junk all around. They do not park car in garage. They do not go in garage almost never. The car must stay for few days. They shall not even know it.”

“And us?”

“Take a shirt from Farley. Look inside bedroom. I am going to remove my wig and we shall walk few blocks from here to phone taxi. It is a little bit safe now. Then we go home.”

“All right, Ilya,” he said. “But you sleep on top of this idea tonight: The addicts must die. We got no other road to travel. You must soon see that.”

“I must think,” she said. “Now we go. Hurry.”

When Cosmo came back into the living room from the bedroom, he was wearing a dirty long-sleeved patterned shirt over his T-shirt. “Hope you happy now, Ilya,” he said. “Before we get home I shall be bit a hundred times by tiny creatures that crawl inside Farley’s clothes.”

After the cops left them in the Pablo’s Tacos parking lot, Farley said, “Olive, I think we gotta go home and white-knuckle it. We ain’t gonna score tonight.”

“There’s almost a quart of vodka there,” Olive said. “I’ll mix it with some packets of punch and you can just drink as much as you can.”

“Okay,” he said. “That’ll get me through the night. It’ll have to.”

“I just hope it won’t make you throw up,” Olive said. “You’re so thin and tired-looking.”

“It won’t,” he said.

“And I’ll make you something delicious to eat.”

“That’ll make me throw up,” he said.

When they arrived at Farley’s house, he was almost too tired to climb the porch steps, and when he did and they were inside, Olive said, “Farley, it smells like smoke in here.”

He threw himself on the couch and grabbed the TV remote, saying, “Olive, it should. We smoke crystal in here in case you forgot. Every chance we get, which ain’t often enough these days.”

“Yes, but it smells like old cigarette smoke. Don’t you notice it?”

“I’m so fucking tired, Olive,” he said, “I wouldn’t smell smoke if you set fire to yourself. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“You’ll feel better after a meal,” said Olive. “How does a toasted cheese sandwich sound?”

The PSR putting out the broadcast decided to have a bit of fun with 6-X-32’s call to Grauman’s Chinese Theater. She put it out as a hotshot.

Flotsam and Jetsam listened incredulously when, after the electronic beep, she said, “All units in the vicinity and Six-X-ray-Thirty-two, see the woman on Hollywood Boulevard west of Highland. A battery in progress. Batman versus Spiderman. Batman last seen running into Kodak Center. Person reporting is Marilyn Monroe. Six-X-Thirty-two, handle code three.”

When they got to the scene, Marilyn Monroe was waving at them from the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and tourists were snapping photos like crazy. B.M. Driscoll and Benny Brewster rolled in right behind them.

Jetsam, who was driving, said, “Which Marilyn is it, do you think? One of them is hot, bro. Know which one I mean?”

“It ain’t the hot one,” Flotsam said.

Their Marilyn was striking the famous over-the-air-vent pose, but there was no air blowing up her dress. She had the Monroe dress and her pricey wig was excellent. Even her coy but sensuous Monroe smile was right on the money. The problem was, she was six feet three inches tall and wasn’t a woman.

Flotsam got out first and saw Spiderman sitting on the curb holding his head and rubbing his jaw. Jetsam went over to him and got the details, which of course involved a turf fight between two tourist hustlers.

While Flotsam was talking to Marilyn Monroe, a tourist begged them to move stage left so he could get Grauman’s in the background. Marilyn did it gladly. After a moment’s hesitation during which several tourists needled him for being a poor sport, Flotsam moved with her and put up with about a hundred photo flashes from every direction.

Finally Marilyn said, “It was terrible, Officer! Batman struck Spiderman with a flashlight for no reason at all. He’s a pig, Batman is. I have always found Spiderman to be a love. I hope you find that cape-wearing rat and toss his fat ass in jail!”

There was quite a bit of applause then, and Marilyn Monroe flashed a smile that could only be called blinding in its whiteness.

As Flotsam was trying to get information from Marilyn Monroe, he was surrounded by all three Elvises. They worked in tandem only on big Friday nights like this one, and seeing the commotion went for the chance at real publicity. And they weren’t disappointed. The first TV news van to have heard the police broadcast was dropping a cameraman and reporter at the corner of Hollywood and Highland just as the Elvises gathered.

The Presleys were all talking at once to Flotsam: Skinny Elvis, Fat Elvis, and even Smellvis, he of the yellow sweat stains under the arms of his ice-cream suit, which made tourists hold their breath during his cuddly photo shoots.

“Batman will never eat lunch in this town again!” Skinny Elvis cried.

“Spiderman rules!” Fat Elvis cried.

“I am an eyewitness to the caped crusader’s vicious attack!” Smellvis announced to the crowd, and he was so rank that Flotsam had to backpedal a few steps.

Flotsam asked B.M. Driscoll to check out the Kodak Center, and when he asked, “What’s the guy look like?” Flotsam said, “Just hook up any guy you see wearing a cape and hanging upside down somewheres. If it turns out to be Count Dracula, just apologize.”

The midwatch cops didn’t know that there was an undercover team at work in the midst of the crowd, posing as tourists with backpacks and cameras. The UC team had Tickle Me Elmo under arrest for manhandling a female tourist after she’d snapped his picture and refused to pay his three-dollar tariff.

Elmo had grabbed her by the arm and said, “Well you can kiss my ass, bitch!” and next thing he knew, the UC cops had him up against the wall of the Kodak Center and removed his head, inside of which they found more than two hundred dollar bills and a gram of cocaine.

Now the tourists turned on Elmo for photos, but the TV camera crew was still concentrating on Marilyn Monroe, until Benny Brewster said to Flotsam, “Hey man, Elmo had dope in his head!”

Upon hearing this, the news team swung their cameras toward Elmo, who was yelling that his head was dope-free when he’d put the costume on, implying a police frame-up.