Chapter 5: Jack Rabbit Slim's

Freddy drove down the street, squinting through the rain that had begun to fall. Not too far to go now.

Kelvin had analyzed the video footage they had gotten of the top of Dov's desk, and found a good shot of an open appointment book beside the telephone. Most of it had been obscured, unintelligible, or too blurry, but Kelvin found a meeting penciled in the previous weekend at a place called Jack Rabbit Slim's. Holdaway had contacts there, and a quick phone call confirmed that someone had information for them. Freddy had volunteered to check it out.

He pulled into the parking lot of the diner and stopped short, staring up at an enormous neon rabbit. "Jack Rabbit Slim's" the sign proclaimed, and underneath, "The Next Best Thing to a Time Machine" glowed in yellow. He was obviously at the right place, and it appeared to be in the middle of closing for the night. A few last patrons were leaving, dashing through the rain, and a giddy couple staggered out of the doors holding a shiny trophy.

Freddy stepped inside, dazzled by the neon as he shook rain from his jacket. An electric car track stood nearby, there were plastic tables shaded by umbrellas, old movie posters covered the walls, and a stage was surrounded by booths made out of old cars. A wall of TV monitors depicting a 1950's street scene flickered before turning off for the night. This was one fucking cool place.

"I'm sorry sir, we're closing."

A man with a marked resemblance to Ed Sullivan stood before him, wearing a large plastic button on his jacket that said: "Hi I'm Ed, pleasing you pleases me."

Freddy took out his wallet and showed his badge, still gazing around the place. "I need to speak with one of the waitresses, Susan," he said.

The Ed Sullivan look-alike tore his glance away from Freddy's scarred face to exchange significant looks with the little page standing beside him. "Oh no," he said with a broad smile. "You want to speak to Marilyn."

"I – I do?" asked Freddy, confused.

"Yes, you do. You said Susan, but you meant Marilyn. Say, the lady ain't in any trouble, now, is she?"

"No, nothing like that." Freddy frowned at the other man. "What do you mean by – ?"

"Well son, in this place my name's not Jerome, it's Ed. And this guy ain't Michael, he's the Phillip Morris Page. And that guy over there," he pointed at the bar where a man wearing glasses and a white dinner jacket was chatting with a guy dressed as Zorro. "His name ain't Steve, it's Buddy. Understand?"

"Right," said Freddy faintly. This place was a madhouse. He was watching Buddy Holly have a conversation with Zorro, Ricky Nelson was wiping down tables, and in a corner Mamie Van Doren was flirting with James Dean. "Right," he said with more self-assurance. "So, where's Su– er, Marilyn?"

In answer, "Ed" pointed at the door to the ladies' room, which was just opening. A gold high-heel shoe emerged, and was followed by the rest of the waitress Susan, who was the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe. She was shrugging into a coat, swinging a big red purse from her hand.

"Oh Marilyn," called Ed, beckoning her over. She came, heels clicking on the black-and-white checkered floor, and looked at Freddy curiously. He thought she was even more gorgeous in person, and was suddenly very self-conscious of the scar on his right cheek. "This young fellow here would like a word with you. He's a policeman."

"Holdaway sent me," said Freddy by way of explanation, and the waitress' expression cleared.

"Maybe we should find someplace else to talk. You mind if I leave now, Eddie honey?" she asked in a breathy voice, and the man shrugged and smiled benignly. "Thanks. Tell Mamie I won't be needing a ride home tonight."

Freddy held the door open, feeling strangely surreal. That feeling abruptly vanished when she removed her bottle-blonde wig. They dashed through the rain to his car, and Freddy started the engine on the second try. "Where d'you wanna go?"

"We can get some coffee down the road," said the waitress, unpinning her brown hair. Now that she was out of the diner she spoke in her normal voice, which had a bit of a Southern drawl. "You got a name, officer?"

"It's detective," he corrected without really knowing why. He'd never given a fuck about rank. "I'm Freddy. And you're Susan Griffiths, right?"

The Marilyn look-alike smiled. "When I'm not working." She tucked the wig into her purse.

They pulled into the lot beside a Teriyaki Donut and ran through the pouring rain to the door, Susan holding her coat over her head. It was full of patrons getting some late-night chow. Susan felt uncomfortable sharing her information with other people around, so they took their order to go.

Soon they were sitting in Freddy's junk heap of a car, parked by the curb, slurping coffee and eating doughnuts. The rain was pounding on the roof and streaming down the windshield, and Freddy could barely make out Susan's features in the dim yellow light of the streetlamps. "So you got some information for us?" he asked, taking a large bite out of a Boston Cream.

"I think so. Holdaway said you were interested in some thin old man who was at the restaurant Sunday night. I mighta been his server."

Freddy took a manila envelope from the backseat and passed it to Susan. "Is that the guy?"

The waitress wiped icing sugar from her hands and pulled out the photo of Dov, angling it so that it caught the light from the streetlamp outside. "Yeah, that's him," she confirmed. "He was having dinner with a huge black guy. I mean a real whale, y'know? The guy's name is Tony."

"Tony?"

"Mm-hmm. Tony Rocky Horror. He's got a speech impediment now. I've seen him at the restaurant a couple times before."

Freddy swallowed the rest of his doughnut. "With the old guy?" he asked thickly.

"No, this was the first time I've seen that guy." She passed the photo back. "Whenever I saw Tony, he was always with another black guy. Called Marsellus, I think. Weird name, huh? Bald too."

Freddy fell silent. It sounded like Susan was describing the gangster Marsellus Wallace. But if Wallace was using Jack Rabbit Slim's to make deals, then it was clearly his territory. Freddy knew the Cabots never went to that place. Shit, he hadn't known this place existed before now. So if Dov had met with this Tony fellow, maybe he was trying to muscle in on some of Wallace's business. It was a risky move, and it meant that Dov was determined to revive the company. All the more reason to try to bring him down while he was still relatively weak.

"You hear what they were talking about, Susan?" asked Freddy after draining his coffee.

"Some of it. The old guy was trying to convince Tony to work for him I think. He mentioned salaries. Tony looked pretty nervous. Said he was risking a lot just by meeting him. I'm not sure what else they said, sorry."

"Hey, that's okay." Freddy raised an eyebrow. "You heard a lot. You've been a great help."

"Have I?" Susan stuffed her napkin into her paper cup and rolled down the window to toss it outside. The rain pattered loudly until she rolled the window back up. "People say things in front of me because they think I'm just some dumb blonde," she muttered. Her face was turned away but her voice was bitter.

"I don't think you're a dumb blonde," Freddy heard himself saying. "Even with the wig on."

He watched her silhouette against the window. "And you call me by my real name." She turned to him and cocked her head to the side. "You've got green eyes, don't you detective?"

"You must have really good vision."

"I noticed in the restaurant."

The rain sounded unnaturally loud now as it battered against the roof, but Freddy was still very aware of the sound of his own breathing. Golden light filtered through the back window, distorted by the rivulets of rain. Before he knew it, he was in the backseat of his car being straddled by a waitress he'd met less than an hour ago. Kissing fiercely – she tasted sweet, like strawberries – running their hands over each others' bodies, Freddy was strongly reminded of his hard-partying hormonal teenage years.

Susan broke their kiss to throw off her coat. "I've never fucked a cop before," she said throatily. Her hands went to the zipper of his jeans. "Mostly movie fans with loose purse strings who want some special time with Marilyn Monroe." She slid her hands tantalizingly up his shirt. "And Eric once. He's the James Dean look-alike. Some rich guy wanted to watch the two of us together."

"You know, this conversation won't exactly keep me in the mood," Freddy remarked, looking up from kissing her collarbone.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I – oh my." She was staring at the scars. One on the right side of his chest, and another on his stomach. "What happened to you?"

"I got shot while working undercover," he mumbled.

Her hand ghosted lightly over his right cheek. "This one too?"

"Yeah."

Susan looked at him and smiled. "That is so hot."

After that they didn't talk for a while.

A/N: And Freddy finally gets some! Jack Rabbit Slim's and everything inside it (including the staff) are, of course, from Pulp Fiction. For the real names of the look-alikes I took the names of the actors who portrayed them. Tony Rocky Horror and Marsellus Wallace are also from Pulp Fiction. Tony was the guy thrown out of his apartment window on Marsellus Wallace's orders, allegedly for giving Mia Wallace a foot massage.