Editor's note: Aw, fer flip's sake! Can't I invent or name any minor character without some cowriter offing him within a page or so? How'm I supposed ta build character here, bo? Answer me that? Geez. I was figurin' on Chongo spendin' at least a couple of days workin' out of Nymbel's place, see? I figgered Chachi was gonna be around for awhile too, but noooo...you guys gotta blow everybody away. I go to all the trouble of comin' up with really unique and memorable names for characters and POW! They get put on ice. Whattya think this is, some stupid 1990's action film here with 55 bangs a minute? This is the '40's, see? We gotta build a little atmosphere before we start throwin' lead around like Dutch Shulz on a hot Sunday afternoon.
Aw hell, we can edit this stuff later I guess. Rewind back a ways, Mabel, and we'll plug that part in later where it fits...and gimme a coffee. With a slug of whisky in it.
* * * * *
Nymbel and Fat Freddy had gone down to Chongo's office, but found no one there, so they came back to Nymbel's dump instead. The first thing they saw when Nymbel unlocked the door was Chongo, sitting calmly in the armchair, cutting a fresh cigar, and working on a stiff drink. "Hi, Nymbel," said Chongo. "You left your window open again. I told ya never to do that. It's wet as a fisherman's boots out there, so I let myself in and poured a quick one to warm up. Okay? Who's the fat guy?"
"Chongo..." said Fat Freddy. His eyes stared vacantly at the wallpaper, which had little sleds and horses all over it and was peeling off in places. Nymbel just stood there with his little mouth hanging open. He was quite surprised to see Chongo.
"Wrong, Roscoe. I'm Chongo. Who the hell are you?"
"He's confused," chattered Nymbel, "I thought he was looking for you, but now I'm not so sure. All he does is keep saying "Chongo" now and then. Maybe he needs a drink too. I know I do. We been all over town lookin' for you. I heard there was a car torched over on 28th Street. It was a Ford. There wasn't no one in it though. The coppers are goin' bananas with all the rumpus all over town, and the buzz is that the Miami mob has sent some bruno up here to shake down the Southside Baboons for some hot mangos or somepn'. Meanwhile, Big Daddy Malone has taken over control of the North Side Gorillas. There may be a fullscale turf war about ta bust us all in the chops. You ask me, there is somepn' big goin' on. No small peaches here...Big Bananas! I figger that____"
Once you get a capuchin started you can just stand back and listen forever like you were listening to a waterfall. Chongo sipped his drink thoughtfully, and let the little monkey jabber all he wanted. What the hell, it was his place, right? He didn't find out much he didn't already know.
The fat chimp just stood there, looking shellshocked. After awhile, Chongo fixed him a drink and took it over. He took him by the right shoulder and steered him into a chair, like moving a big package on one of those wooden dollies, and put the drink in his hand. Fat Freddy stared at it glassily, and said "Chongo...".
"No, dummy. I'm Chongo. Drink that."
Fat Freddy obeyed, and a little warmth crept into his eyes as the booze took effect.
"You said somepn' about the Miami mob, didn'tcha, Nymbel?"
"Yeah. Talk on the street is that they sent a chief enforcer up here and he shook down Elmo over at the Southside. For what, I don't know. Then he dusted."
"The Southside drills blew up Joey's the other day when I was sittin' there tryin' to have my breakfast, and they killed Chachi. They also killed the best beanery in my neighborhood, I regret to say..."
Nymble blinked. "Chachi's dead? Jesus. He owed me a crate of bananas."
"Tough. He owed everyone in this town a crate of bananas. You can write 'em off, Nymbel, same as my car. If you don't mind, I'm gonna search this bird. His cuckoo clock don't chime no more for some reason, and I intend to find out why."
Chongo went through Fat Freddy's pockets with no reaction from the big chimp, who was staring vacantly at the bottom of his empty glass. Nymbel filled it up again for him and kept chattering busily about nothing worth noting down for posterity. How did a chimp get this fat anyway? It was disgusting.
"Hmmmm...this guy's name is Freddy. Freddy Moganoll. That rings some kind of a bell. Where have I heard of a really fat chimp named Fat Freddy Moganoll? Wait. He's got an address in...Coral Gables."
"Coral Gables?" chittered Nymbel. "Sounds like a place in the tropics to me. I bet they've got good fruit there."
"Matter of fact," said Chongo, "it's closer than that. It's right next door to Miami. What we got here is your bruno from the Miami mob unless I miss my guess, and if I do let's hope it don't shoot back."
Nymble got so excited he almost had a seizure. Hosting the Miami mob's chief enforcer was not his idea of a good idea, even if his brain was fried. "We gotta get him outa here!" he squeaked.
"Not just yet," said Chongo. "First we see if he can say anthing besides "chongo". It's a beautiful word, and I love to hear it, but it starts to wear after the fiftieth time...Hey, Freddy!" He gave fat Freddy a couple of slaps across the kisser to see if that would wake him up. It didn't help much. Chongo studied Freddy's eyes carefully.
"He ain't been drugged. He has been bopped a good one on the conk, but not hard enough to do this. Somethin' strange goin' on here. He was also tied up not too long ago, and struggled like hell to get loose. I can see the marks on his arms and legs. Someone musta given him the Chinese water torture or somethin'."
Nothing they did helped. It appeared Fat Freddy's brain was cooked, at least for the moment, so Chongo gave it up, put Freddy's papers, keys, and other stuff back in his pockets, and proceeded to fill Nymbel in on the events of the last couple of days. The capuchin might pick up something Chongo had missed.
"You're kiddin' me!" gasped Nymbel, when Chongo reached the part about Laura. "You danced with a dame? A human dame?"
"Yeah," said Chongo morosely. It would be all over town by now anyway, he figured.
"Was she tall?"
"Like a derrick. Hadda be 5'10" in her heels."
"Why did she do that? Why did you?"
"I don't know. I know I'm good lookin', but I ain't stupid. Matter of fact, she played on my pride. Like I was yellow or somepn'. You know broads...I got maneuvered into a spot and I just had to dance my way out of it, that's all."
"Geez. Five ten! Geez." Nymbel was rendered almost speechless as he tried to picture that. "She was almost hairless, right?"
"Yeah. Except for her head. I can't stand how they're so hairless," said Chongo, lying through his teeth. He could still smell her perfume and feel the cool smoothness of her hands. She had long, graceful fingers with polished nails, deep violet. Killer nails.
He briefly summed up his escape from Antonio's, leaving out the part where Laura warned him and more especially the part where she stuck up the Greaser hood in the washroom. The way Chongo told it, he had simply heard the guy coming and conked him when he came in the door. No sense implicating her in any way at this point. She was an unknown quantity.
There wasn't much more to tell except for the nice little chat Chongo had had with the angry dope through the chimney vent. That made Nymbel laugh so hard he just about fell off his chair.
By this time it was getting late. Time to get some shuteye. Fat Freddy was conked out in the armchair and Nymbel had decided to leave him there for a bit. The little monkey excused himself and vanished into the bedroom. Chongo stretched out on the couch and made himself as comfortable as possible, but he didn't fall asleep for a long time. He watched as the sky outside slowly cleared, revealing a cold crescent moon in its first quarter. The thin yellow moonlight fell on Fat Freddy's face from which loud snores were coming. In its glow Chongo noticed something else...a kind of tattoo on one of Freddy's large palms. It was a tattoo...or a brand...of a tenor bango. On the face of the bango were emblazoned three letters. "B.D.M."