Thanks, Joe! "Primate Eye" is a great pun, I think, and it's a Little Hawk original (as far as I know). I oughta copyright it! :-)
Now who the heck is "Gary"? Oh...Gary, Indiana, right? Okay.
So:
Chongo knew that voice. It was Kerchak. Kerchak was the chief enforcer and hatchet ape of the East Side Gorillas, meanest mob in the lower East side. Those bums had been greasing grapevines and beating the Dum-Dum since longer than anyone could remember, and they were capable of anything...except giving a sucker an even break. They would happily break his legs for him, though.
Despite the throbbing in his little pre-Cambrian monkey skull, Chongo was now fully alert. He didn't show it, though, but acted like he was still half-stunned and in shock.
"Naw...let the little snoop come around," sneered an even deeper voice than Kerchak's. "We gotta pump this bird till he sings."
Chongo looked up through half-closed eyes that felt as dry and tired as yesterday's old castoff bacon rind. He was looking straight at the ugliest, fattest, scaliest, most disgusting bull orangutan he had ever seen, dressed in a pinstripe suit and a gold vest, with a pocket watch dangling from a diamond chain. He bore an astonishing resemblance to Burl Ives in "The Big Country". Who was this ape? And what was he doing with the East Side Gorillas, who never worked with anyone but gorillas?
"You don't know me, do ya...shrimp?" said the Orang, as a gorilla flunkie lit a fresh cigar for his fat lips to suck on. "Well, you're gonna know me."
Chongo wasn't about to dispute that. He gingerly got to his feet, and looked around. The room was lousy with gorillas. Seven of them. All big, black, hairy, and well-combed. The East Side boys all wore pompadours for some reason, and only used Wildroot Cream Oil.
"So...shrimp...this can be easy or it can be hard. Whaddya want," asked the Orang in an oily voice.
"Depends," said Chongo. "It would be easier if I knew what you guys wanted first."
Kerchak whacked Chongo hard across the muzzle, but the chimp barely flinched. "Don't get lippy with the boss!" snarled Kerchak. "I'm just gettin' started, banana-boy."
"I'll tell you just what I want, Mr Chongo-the-shrimp Limp-Chimp..." (Oh, this big, orange bastard was a real wit, all right...)
"I wanta know why you're workin' for Betty Frizzell, and when you're gonna stop. I wanta know whether you want a pint size pine box or just a set of concrete shoes. I wanta know where your mother lives, so we can send her your lips...after we send her your ears. I wanta know how many different ways a chimp can scream "uncle" while we pull off his toenails and make him eat them."
This guy wanted a lot. That was clear.
"There's just one reason I'm working for Betty Frizzel," replied Chongo evenly, clenching his lower abdominal muscles as he got ready. Just one quick squeeze now...
"She hired me, asshole."
As his words hung in the silent room for the briefest moment, Chongo's sphincter clenched and released a black, spherical object that had been cleverly concealed up his rectum...it was a stun grenade! He pitched it straight into the gaping, fat face of the big boss organgutan and simultaneously delivered a backwards kick into Kerchak's groin that drove the gorilla's family jewels about a foot in the general direction of his lower occipital lobe.
Kerchak's inchoate shriek of agony was accompanied by a blinding flash and concussion which knocked out every light bulb in the place and filled the air with acrid smoke that stung the eyes like a thousand fire ants. Chongo was low to the floor, moving fast in the sudden darkness, and he purloined Kerchak's .38 revolver from the thrashing ape's belt as the dirty mango-picker hit the floorboards like a ruptured gasbag tied to a lead balloon. The room was suddenly full of yelling, screeching, and a hail of gunfire that was directed who the hell knew where. Chongo saved his ammo. Let the silly bastards shoot at each other's gunflashes, and with a little luck they might all kill each other. "Or they might get lucky and kill me," thought Chongo. "Time to blow this joint."
It was the work of only a moment to find the door, which had not been locked. The hallway was empty, and smelled like burnt iron. Chongo made a quick dash down a short flight of stairs and out into a street he recognized. It was Anvil Street. Not a nice place. Just then a car pulled up with five gorillas crammed inside. They were goggling at the warehouse Chongo had just vacated, from which could be heard bellowing and random gunfire.
"It's the Westside Baboons!" yelled Chongo. "They're here to kill the boss! I seen 'em go in! Shoot to kill!"
"The five gorillas piled out of the car, magically producing a shitload of firepower from their jackets and the backseat, and stormed into the building...all except for the last one, the driver. He stopped and looked at Chongo suspiciously. The car was still idling behind him.
"And who the hell are you, the milkman?" he growled, moving forward menacingly.
"Read the card," deadpanned Chongo, drawing it from his pocket easily, with his right hand. His left was in his pocket, holding the .38 he'd taken off Kerchak.
The gorilla took the card, and squinted hard at the tiny lettering in the vagrant moonlight. It was engraved in old English letters that he could barely read. He squinted harder. It said: "if you can read this...you're way too f**king close!"
He swore and dropped the card and found himself looking straight down the barrel of Chongo's .38. It was trained exactly between his nasty little eyes.
"That's right, creep," said Chongo. "Drop the gat." The gorilla obeyed silently, breathing heavily. "Now back up and turn around, and start counting to nine hundred and ninety nine. Slowly, and out loud!"
"One...two...three..." Chongo picked up the gun. A .44 special. Not bad. All hell was busting loose inside that warehouse. Sounded like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Smoke was drifting out the windows on the second floor.
"Four...five...six..." Chongo got in the car, and put her in gear. Nice car. It was an older Lincoln, black. Lots of room and snazzy running boards too. There was a tommy gun under the dash. Perfect.
"Seven...eight...nine..." A sudden slackening of gunfire in the warehouse, and a voice bellowing orders. It was that damned Orangutan. Too bad. He'd survived, apparently. Time to hit the road.
"Ten...eleven...twelve..." Chongo did a quick U-ie with the Lincoln and pointed her nose obliquely at the warehouse, with the tommy gun pointing out past the driver's side mirror.
"Thir..." The gorilla who was counting half-turned his head as he heard the car move, and at the same moment about six gun-toting apes appeared at the Anvil Street door, jostling against each other.
Perfect.
Chongo drove the pedal to the floor, swung the Lincoln's nose hard to the right, and poured a full clip from the tommy gun which atomized that driver's fedora and peppered the little knot of East Side boys that was clogging up the abandoned warehouse doorway from ass to teakettle. Hard to say who got hit and who didn't, but they all went down like a dog on a dead flounder as Chongo peeled out of Anvil Street in a cloud of powder smoke and burnt rubber.
"Nice car," he observed as he took a right on Maple Street and headed uptown. "Pity I can't keep her."