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V Farewell, My Integrity

Authors' note: Thursday, December
6, 12:03 a.m.: The 5343 has a deadline,
and it’s approaching with alarming
speed. No one appreciates that tact
more than we, except maybe our
editors.

Schultz just called, remlnding us
that we promised him three pages by
tonight. But what he didn’t take into
account is that we are terrible liars,
and have been napping all evening.
He’s completelyput oil his tree: in
fact, theﬁll are— over there in the
Forum basement, soaking up gln,
waiting desperately tor two twisted
hacks to deliver t last pages of
Farewell. My lntegr , that the public
will ever be compelled ro endure.

But, beret!” we tade into a well-
deserved oblivion, we intended to
crank the Rolling Stones up to
unhealthy volumes, and get to work on
thoroughly punishing those oi you with
the unpardonably poor taste to be
clutching a copy of this
f‘Newsmagazine Literary Issue” in
your sordid little hands. It is in
teresting, to us, anyway, that this
series is drawing to its close in much
the same way as it began last sum-
rner——a binge oi loud music. cheap
booze, and |nSldi0uS late hours,
Cluminating in an outburst of frenzied
debauchery that will probably land us
in the sixth circle of Dante’s lllieriiol

We’ll pop back in periodically to let

now how things are holding up at
_ no; we figure it we do that often
e, ugh, Schultz and Flynn will have to
lea ,some of it in the version that
tina'lly finds its way into print. H.L.
Menken once observed,
“Congressmen, newspaper editors,
and other such illiterates" deserve
something horrible. we can't exactly
recall what, but we figure that with
the deadline only a tew hours away,
the poor bastards are stuck with
whatever we deign to offer them. This
is a once in a liietlme opportunity for
us, and there’s no way we’re going to
throw it away. “I‘ve got my freedom,
but I don't have much time," Jagger
is wailing at this point, so we'd better
the up the dual SmithrCoronas and
haul ass. Here goes:

Last time, Cecil recelved an
ominous warning trom Giusseppe
Kickback, gangland leather goods
kingpin, to stay away train the chase-
stereotypical Laura Haddock
Swanson, his iish~bits heiress client.
On his way to run down a lead
concerning her dead father at the
morgue, he had a taxi cab shot out
[rom under him, and began hooting it.

Cecil always looked forward to his
dealings with Rupert Blackjoy, his
connection at the city morgue Rupert
had always reminded hiln of a jolly
18th century innkeepcr out 01 a good

10

production or Tom Jones: beaming
race, rotund build, balding, with
twinkling blue eyes and a way at
handling a cranium saw that warmed
Cecil’s cockles. When he walked into
the lab, Blackjoy was examining a
severed leg and munching on a ham
sandwxch.

“Hiya, ‘Slabs,’ " Cecil began, “Was
wondering it you could give me some
inside dope on a recent floater.”

“Cecil!" the lab attendant glowed,
“I haven’t seen you since that busload
or school girls dropped into the canyon
and they accused the driver ol junking
a vehicle without a permit.

By the way, are you through with
those...”

“La er, ‘Slabs.’ What I need to know
about is a guy named Haddock-
Swanson. They lound him washed up
under the Golden Gate. What‘ve ya
got on him?"

tom iollnson & jot king

“Funny you should mention that,
Ceece, I happened to have a look at
the stiff when they dragged him in
here yesterday, and you know, he was
pretty waterlogged, but he had also
received multiple cuts. My iirst suspi-
Clon was'that'he’d been tossed into a
series of rotating razor baldes, but on
closer inspection, those shell
fragments told the story. I’ve only
seen it once before, but I'm posltlve:
he was slashed to death by at least a
barrel full of razor clams.”

“Christé Could it have been the
Kickback organization, you thlnk?"

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?"

“Thanks"a lot, ‘Slabs,’ I've got to
roll.”

“Sure you can’t stay? l've got the
Bratwurst meat grinder victims com-
ing in at 2:00, and I‘ve already sent
out [or Chinese food.”

(continued on the next pagei)

Scorlel & Block,

 

