watching a football game. The only thing marring this classically macho tableau was that Harry was fifteen minutes early. The pre-game show was not set to commence until 1:30. So Harry was stuck with the last quarter of American Bandstand.
Dick Clarke was there, looking about the same as he had for the past three decades, and the set was more or less as Harry remembered it from his teens, but the dancers were completely different. Harry couldn’t help but marvel at the teens and cameramen’s almost total lack of taste and innocence. These kids didn’t want to dance, they wanted to shake whatever they had the most of, and the photographers wanted a close-up of whatever that was.
Harry stared in quiet awe at the bouncing breasts of young girls dissolving into high-heel, ankle-strap stiletto shoes dissolving into thrusting pelvises dissolving into heavily painted faces winking and licking their lips. Harry had to get another beer after a cameraman shot from the floor up a girl’s dress as she spun around in place. Whatever happened to the freshness of Kenny Rossi and Carol Ann Scaldeferri and Frankie Lobis and Arlene Sullivan, he wondered, and the other regular dancers on “AB’s” golden age twenty-five years ago?
The telephone rang in reply. That was the only answer he was going to get for the moment. Lieutenant Bressler was on the other end of the line, and he wasn’t interested in pubescent flesh.
“Harry, get down to Uhuru headquarters,” he demanded without so much as a hello. “All hell has broken loose.”
“What’s the matter?” Harry wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” cried the lieutenant, “but for some reason, Mohamid boarded up all the entrances and opened fire on the reporters.”
“Opened fire?”
“Guns, Callahan! Weapons. The Uhuru headquarters has become an armed camp!”
When Harry got to the Mission District, things were already in full swing. An impressive police cordon was around the Victorian house, and cops were coming out of the woodwork in every dwelling nearby. There were snipers on the roofs across the way, SWAT teams crawling all over the trees, and a platoon of uniformed men behind a fleet of squad cars lining every street on four sides of the Uhuru house.
Mohamid’s place was tightly closed with planks nailed to the inside of the windows and not a soul was to be seen in the yard or garage. For the present, all guns were silent. The area birds and assorted wildlife were taking the opportunity to sing and buzz their heads off, as if absolutely nothing was happening that sunny San Francisco afternoon.
Harry was waved over by a uniformed man. He flashed the cop his badge as he got out and asked where Captain Avery was. Callahan was sent over to the captain, who was holding court behind his big Cutlass Supreme, which was parked in the front yard of the house across from the Uhuru residence.
When Avery saw Harry approaching, he sent the collected officers on their way. He turned to greet Callahan full front, with a satisfied smile on his face.
“Still think Mohamid is an innocent dupe of a frame-up, Callahan?” the captain barked.
“Maybe,” Harry said slowly, deliberately. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” Avery proclaimed. “Everything was exactly as it was. People were coming and going, when, suddenly, for no reason at all, Mohamid shuts the place up and starts firing upon the police guards and members of the press.”
Harry ignored Avery’s dramatic rhetoric for the most part. His flowery regular conversation was born of years facing those very same members of the press. “For no reason at all?” Harry repeated. “Did anyone ask Mohamid?”
“No one can get near Mohamid!” Avery declared. “If anyone goes near the place they’re shot at.”
“From where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Did you actually see a shot from every single window,” Harry asked purposefully, “or are you guessing?”
Avery bristled at that, drawing himself up to his full
Dick Clarke was there, looking about the same as he had for the past three decades, and the set was more or less as Harry remembered it from his teens, but the dancers were completely different. Harry couldn’t help but marvel at the teens and cameramen’s almost total lack of taste and innocence. These kids didn’t want to dance, they wanted to shake whatever they had the most of, and the photographers wanted a close-up of whatever that was.
Harry stared in quiet awe at the bouncing breasts of young girls dissolving into high-heel, ankle-strap stiletto shoes dissolving into thrusting pelvises dissolving into heavily painted faces winking and licking their lips. Harry had to get another beer after a cameraman shot from the floor up a girl’s dress as she spun around in place. Whatever happened to the freshness of Kenny Rossi and Carol Ann Scaldeferri and Frankie Lobis and Arlene Sullivan, he wondered, and the other regular dancers on “AB’s” golden age twenty-five years ago?
The telephone rang in reply. That was the only answer he was going to get for the moment. Lieutenant Bressler was on the other end of the line, and he wasn’t interested in pubescent flesh.
“Harry, get down to Uhuru headquarters,” he demanded without so much as a hello. “All hell has broken loose.”
“What’s the matter?” Harry wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” cried the lieutenant, “but for some reason, Mohamid boarded up all the entrances and opened fire on the reporters.”
“Opened fire?”
“Guns, Callahan! Weapons. The Uhuru headquarters has become an armed camp!”
When Harry got to the Mission District, things were already in full swing. An impressive police cordon was around the Victorian house, and cops were coming out of the woodwork in every dwelling nearby. There were snipers on the roofs across the way, SWAT teams crawling all over the trees, and a platoon of uniformed men behind a fleet of squad cars lining every street on four sides of the Uhuru house.
Mohamid’s place was tightly closed with planks nailed to the inside of the windows and not a soul was to be seen in the yard or garage. For the present, all guns were silent. The area birds and assorted wildlife were taking the opportunity to sing and buzz their heads off, as if absolutely nothing was happening that sunny San Francisco afternoon.
Harry was waved over by a uniformed man. He flashed the cop his badge as he got out and asked where Captain Avery was. Callahan was sent over to the captain, who was holding court behind his big Cutlass Supreme, which was parked in the front yard of the house across from the Uhuru residence.
When Avery saw Harry approaching, he sent the collected officers on their way. He turned to greet Callahan full front, with a satisfied smile on his face.
“Still think Mohamid is an innocent dupe of a frame-up, Callahan?” the captain barked.
“Maybe,” Harry said slowly, deliberately. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” Avery proclaimed. “Everything was exactly as it was. People were coming and going, when, suddenly, for no reason at all, Mohamid shuts the place up and starts firing upon the police guards and members of the press.”
Harry ignored Avery’s dramatic rhetoric for the most part. His flowery regular conversation was born of years facing those very same members of the press. “For no reason at all?” Harry repeated. “Did anyone ask Mohamid?”
“No one can get near Mohamid!” Avery declared. “If anyone goes near the place they’re shot at.”
“From where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Did you actually see a shot from every single window,” Harry asked purposefully, “or are you guessing?”
Avery bristled at that, drawing himself up to his full
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