Dial Mtv for Murder

By Michael Thornton

It was a steamy night in the summer of 1981 when I got the call. Manhattan lay sprawled beneath me, like an exhausted chippie, throwing off heat. I was sitting in my fourth floor apartment with the windows open and my camel hair blazer unbuttoned, begging for a breeze.  My cell phone rang, and after securing a tight two-handed grip and bending my knees, I lifted the thirty-pound device to my ear.

“Slater, it’s O’Malley.” My boss, the City’s top bull. A lousy cop, but a damn fine dresser.  “We need you at 7^th and 82^nd right away—the old AMR Sound Studio.”

“What are we dealing with, Chief?”

“Homicide. Somebody’s killed a radio star.” I heard a click and the line went dead.

I opened my desk drawer, pulled out my Magnum, and tucked it into the front of my jeans.  I’ve had a few close shaves keeping it there, but the doctors tell me that Ray Jr.’s dyslexia is unrelated. I also grabbed a eighth of pure Colombian blow and tucked it into my breast pocket.  When I was a rookie I would start the night with a whiskey sour, but no one had touched whiskey since ‘78.

Outside the street was quiet.  I hopped in my DeLorean and flew uptown.  I tried to do a line off the dashboard, but hit a bump that sent the powder flying into my hair. Three tries later I looked like a refugee from Mt. St. Helens.

I parked down the street; a crowd was blocking the front of the studio. I pushed my way through the mass and flashed my badge at the officer guarding the door.

“Slater, what’s that shit in your hair? You look like a founding father.”

“It’s all the rage in LA.  In six months you’ll all be doing it.”

Inside the studio it was the usual scene.  Cops taking pictures, dropping evidence into plastic baggies.  I knew this case was high profile, because a few bulls were propping up the corpse while their partners snapped pictures for posterity.  Celebrities. I fucking hated them.

The victim had been strangled with a black plastic ribbon—the kind found in a VHS tape.  This guy was a radio star all right: his skin was like a moldy shower curtain, and his nose made you think of a spoiled cherry tomato. Chief O’Malley was in the corner, refolding his pocket square.

“So, who was this guy? The face isn’t familiar.”

“Maybe not,” said the Chief, “but do you recognize this?”

O’Malley went over to the body and stepped on his chest.  The air in the guy’s lungs moved across his vocal chords, and a C like melted butter filled the room.

I had grown up hearing that voice, we all had. Hearing it got to me. I glanced once more at the crooner’s hideous face. This was the end of an era. Fighting back tears, I bent down and did a line off his forehead.