_
- _ - I suppose I should start at the end.
- _ - My end, that is.
That poor sap doing the two-step to nowhere is me.
Bet you're wondering how I got into this mess.
Well, like most stories, it started with a white lie
and ended with the dark truth.
I needed a hospital, I needed a day off,
I needed a pretty girl with soft lips and a nursing degree.
What I had was a mop, a bucket, and a bellyful of regret.
_
So, how does an honest man end up spilling his guts
on a dive bar floor?
Don't ask me, pal. I'm just the janitor.
_
Sync & corrections by Costa Dax www.addic7ed.com
Let's go back to when it all began.
It was a wet Tuesday night, half past closing time,
when the drunks wobble home to their beds
and punch their tickets to an all-night ceiling-go-round.
I had already finished my shift,
or maybe it had finished me.
See, that morning I got called to a crime scene
in the men's bathroom.
The victim? A handicap stall.
The murderer? A butt.
But whose butt?
That, my friends, was the hundred-dollar question.
Ah, the hell with it.
And that's when trouble walked in like it always does,
on a great set of legs.
I got a job for you.
- Not interested. - Well, I ain't asking.
Somebody spilled, and I don't mean to the Feds.
So? You know where we keep the mop.
- I'm knocking off. - Knocking off?
- Or knocking back? - Beat it, Stretch.
- I said I'm off the clock. - Oh. Want it the hard way, huh?
Says he won't do it.
Ah, we got a tough guy, eh?
Hey, Charlie, don't make me mop the floor with you, huh?
Boy, has he got you trained. All that for a whistle?
I wonder what you'd do for a biscuit.
Biscuit? Why, you little...
Don't worry. In five minutes,
he'll be up and chasing his tail again.
You're gonna mop that floor, Charlie, or else.
You see, the bar's been rented out tomorrow
for a private party.
Bigwig. Deep pockets.
You know the type.
If those floors aren't up to snuff,
who do you think he'll blame?
The handsome bartender?
Or the mop jockey in the coveralls?
See you around, Charlie.
Mop the floor. That's easy enough.
Only it never stays mopped.
That's the thing about messes.
They never go away,
only spread around.
Well, hello, sweetheart.
You know, they say any port in a storm,
and this port just... Ah, shit, it's you!
Charlie, come quick. Something awful, just awful's happened.
It's Frank. He's been diarrhea-poisoned.
- Diarrhea-poisoned? - Mm-hmm.
His words, not mine. He's stuck at my place.
He's absolutely carpet-bombed my bathroom. And my carpet.
- Huh. Lot of that going around. - Hmm.
Well, why didn't Frank call me himself?
Why send one of his goons?
What? I'm no goon.
- No? - No. I...
I'm a knockout blonde with a body
that would make a statue blush.
I get more of a goon vibe from you.
All right, go...
Can you just come and get him, please?
And also clean my apartment?
I'll make it worth your while.
Ah, sure, I catch.
Either I take the job, or you and the other goons
- play patty-cake with my kidneys. - Goddamn it!
I'm not a...
I'll buy you a new set of rags.
Hey, that's all you had to say. Let me get my hat.
He's in the bedroom. Here, take a smoke.
It smells like shit in there.
All right. I'll also take a drink.
Make it stiff enough to stand on its head
and sing "Oh! Susanna".
You can have tap.
Ooh. Boy.
Charlie. What are you doing here? Who sent you?
Well, you're in the hot seat, so I'll ask the questions.
- Who poisoned you? - Nobody.
- Bad shrimp. - What? No.
No, this morning you barged in here saying, "They got me.
"I've been diarrhea-poisoned.
The rat bastard liquefied my guts".
That sounds like you.
Quit flapping your gums, goon!
- Yeah. - All right, you know what?
- Just, whatever. Here. - You're giving off
- big goon vibes, Dee. - All right. Uh...
- Very goonish. - Just don't ruin my chair.
Goddamn it.
All right, Frank, you don't want to talk names?
Let's talk about the weather instead.
Where were you when the brown lightning hit?
I was on my way to work. I bumped into a dope fiend.
He must have stuck me with a needle.
Don't be a liar, Frankie-Boy, or your pants will catch on fire.
Or they would, if you were wearing any pants.
No, my guess is, it started some time last night
when you were locking up Paddy's.
You waited out the shit storm in the handicap stall.
When I came in in the morning, you fled the scene,
hightailed it to the nearest apartment... Dee's...
only your pants didn't make the trip. How am I doing?
So that means
whoever got to you got to you last night.
So who was it, Frank?
Lay off it, gum-scraper. I'm warning you.
Sorry, chum.
You mess with the toilet, you get the janitor.
You won't help me? Then, fine.
I'll catch the rat bastard myself.
The next day, I hit the pavement
looking for anybody who had a problem with Frank.
And, buddy, I found enough beef to open a hamburger store.
Trouble is, none of 'em had seen Frank in days.
So it all meant diddly.
When it got dark, I swung by Paddy's.
Maybe the bad guy was hiding at the bottom of a beer bottle.
I should've swung my head into a beehive.
It would've been safer than turning that corner.
Leave me alone!
You're making a big mistake.
Hey! What's the matter, Joe?
They don't teach you manners at the School for Big Palookas?
The lady said scram.
You think you can clean up this mess? Be my guest.
I'm a janitor. Cleaning up messes is what I do.
Now dust, before I beat you like an old rug.
He sized me up. But he didn't like the fit.
Suit yourself.
But you'll be back.
They all come back.
There, there, sweetheart.
No use crying over smashed pie.
Now, there was a dame worth the cover charge.
Her eyes glistened in the moonlight
like fresh gasoline puddles.
They were the kind of eyes you could fall in...
and summer in.
- And winter in, too. - Sorry about that.
My boyfriend looks like a bad apple,
but once you get to know Vince, you'd like him even less.
You're too nice a girl to be playing with rotten apples.
Well, my pies haven't always been so sweet.
But I'm trying to turn that all around,
make an honest living selling home-baked goods.
But he won't stand for it.
Oh, gee, there goes my rent money.
Well, if you need a place to stay...
You're a good man.
I wouldn't want to drag you into my troubles.
I ain't the type that drags.
I can see that.
Find someplace safe.
If he shows up again, call me.
I'll straighten him out.
Funny.
You don't seem like the straightening type.
Maybe 'cause you got me all twisted.
Say, fellas. What's the score?
Frank hosed us. Turns out this party's not for the bigwig.
- It's for his daughter. - He hosed us.
Yeah, there's no booze, no legal cooze.
Sounds like a snooze.
- And there's barely any dudes. - Don't add on.
- There's a rhythm. - Come on.
Well, you must be pretty mad at Frank.
Oh, yeah. I hate his guts.
Funny you should mention his guts,
considering Frank got diarrhea-poisoned.
In his guts.
You two wouldn't know anything about that, would you?
Can I get a Red 40?
Yeah. Here's your Red 40, kid.
Look, uh,
Charlie, I don't know what "diarrhea-poisoned" means,
but, uh, I certainly didn't do it to Frank.
Goddamn. Is that Dee?
I told her to stay home and watch Frank.
What is she doing?
Hang on, Dee.
Cricket? What are you doing here?
Dee paid me to cover her shift, hence the getup.
Why were you in the basement?
No reason.
No reason, huh?
I'll give you no reason.
Yeah.
More. Oh, yes. Do it.
Harder. Yes.
I'm a slut.
All right.
Frank let me stay.
Frank let me sleep down there.
I've been working for him.
Doing what?
He's running a cherry racket.
A cherry racket?
You telling me Frank's running underage girls?
I wouldn't put it past him, but, no,
that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking actual cherries.
As in maraschino.
Frank hired me to go down to the local bars
and stick my fingers in the garnish stations.
Why?
Why, to contaminate the cherries with feces,
so people get sick, of course.
- My God, that's disgusting. - It's an honest living.
Not really.
Now, why is Frank trying to contaminate cherries?
Oh, I don't know.
He flashed a roll of nickels, and I didn't ask questions.
When someone flashes a roll of nickels at you,
you don't ask questions, you just do.
No matter what they want or where they want you to put it
or where they want to put into you...
I'm gonna turn around now.
I'd been looking at this all wrong.
It wasn't a poisoning. It was a payback.
All right, street rat, I want to know
which bars you hit and when. Spill.
Go kiss a duck. You'll never make me talk.
I'm not slapping you around again.
All right, fine, just get me a pen and I'll write 'em down.
So Cricket had contaminated the wrong guy's cherries
and now Frank was dancing the porcelain rumba.
And I was still in the dark.
And there's only two things you can do in the dark:
you can drink...
and you can hide.
If you came to shoot me,
at least let me finish my drink first.
I'm not gonna shoot you. What if I missed?
Well, then you'd have to say you missed me.
Maybe I did.
Maybe I missed you, too.
Well, you'd better work on your aim.
Sure, I could do that,
- but I'm better at close range. - Yes, you are.
- Can I fix you a drink? - No, thanks. I'm sober.
Plus, I saw you put cat food in it.
Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.
You did, Charlie, I saw you scoop it out of the can...
- I put a little bit in. - ...and it smells so bad.
You're so close to me with that.
- All right, I'll put it down. - God.
So what you doing here, doll?
I told you to find someplace safe.
The only safe place for me...
is in your arms.
Oh, sure, my arms are safe.
It's my lips you have to watch out for.
That's a risk I'm willing to take.
Unless, wait, a-are you telling me
you have a cold sore or something?
- 'Cause I'm not good with that. - Oh, no, we're good.
- Are you sure? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Morning, dollface.
Goddamn it. Why are you smiling?
Well, I'm trying to look sexy.
- You're supposed to be dead. - I know. I can be dead and sexy.
You're not supposed to be sexy. You're supposed to be the goon.
No, I'm not the goon. I don't want to be the goon.
- I want to be something better. - But you are the goon.
- I'm not the goddamn goon. - You're the goon, Dee.
Who else is the goon? You're the goon.
How could I be a goon? I'm wearing a nightie.
- You're a goon in a nightie. - Maybe that's your murder weapon.
Take it off and you strangle...
Goddamn it. All right, I'm out of here.
All right. Goodbye, goon.
So what's the big idea here, fellas?
Ah, Frank sent us here to blackmail you,
so you stop sticking your nose in where it don't belong.
Ah, so you're in on Frank's cherry scheme?
Yeah, it's easy money.
After Cricket fondles the cherries,
the bars trash their whole supply
thinking they're all contaminated.
Mac and I rescue the perfectly good cherries,
and Frank resells them to the bars for a neat little markup.
He gives us 30%, only Mac thinks it's ten.
- What? - Shut up!
Come on.
Say, you two fellas know anything
about a guy named Vince?
Hangs around the Waitress like a bad cheese burp?
Yeah, we know him.
Runs with a crew out of a church on South Street,
only he ain't the praying type.
Tell him I want to meet.
Yeah.
You talking to me?
Yeah.
Well, I can't tell 'cause I'm not looking at you.
We ain't looking at you either.
Are you still here?
- No, we're gonna go now. - We're leaving now, though.
That's for the best.
Hey, is it, is it ten percent or is it really 30%?
It's whatever I say it is.
Well, that about sewed it up.
Too bad I have a habit of pulling at loose threads.
The doc says that's why my sutures don't heal good.
So I called up Frank.
He told me to meet him at Paddy's
and he would explain everything.
Yeah, like a brick would explain gravity to my head.
Frank?
Cricket?
No johns in the basement, pal.
Frank!
My guts are cut to ribbons.
- What? Who did this to you? - I did.
I was carrying a jar of cherries, I fell on them,
they bust, they sliced my stomach to bits.
I'm no matador, Frank, so you can cut the bull.
I know all about your cherry scam.
My cherry scam?
Oh, Charlie, you sweet innocent dope.
I'm not the top of this sundae.
This goes all the way to city hall.
It all started when I bribed some bigwig
from the Board of Health to ban Red 40,
- the dye used in maraschino cherries. - _
- Red 40? - I used the guys
to round up all the cherries, and then I sat on them
for a couple of months, and then resold them back to the same bar
for jacked-up black market prices,
but there was a snag in the plan.
The bars wouldn't bite.
Turns out, their customers didn't give a shit
about the cherries, so we had to find other buyers
who'd pay through the nose for their maraschino fix.
Old folks homes for pineapple upside-down cake,
teenage birthday parties,
and teetotalers
who only drink Shirley Temples.
All right, enough talk, Franky.
Save your story for St. Peter.
All I want to know is who poisoned you?
I tried to protect you, Charlie,
but this mess is too big for your mop.
- I'm not the bad guy here. It's... - Who is it?
Who is it?
Where is she?
Man.
- Where is who? - The girl.
She belongs with me.
Well, she's a jewel. She belongs in a crown.
You belong in bracelets.
You're trying to provoke me.
But I know how to control myself.
Red 40.
Okay, Vince, I'll take you to the girl.
But first, let me fix a drink.
You seem like a smart cookie. I think you'd do well
in our organization. You should join us.
And if I refuse?
Well...
that could be bad for your health.
Well, how about I drop by a meeting?
Sounds like a gas.
What is...?
What-what is that?
Ammonia-bleach cocktail, aka the Janitor's Helper.
Luckily, I'm immune.
I've built up a healthy tolerance over the years,
or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it.
Huh.
Charlie!
Thank God you're all right.
I am, but Vince isn't.
He's gonna wake up with his head pounding harder
than a Chinese crossword puzzle.
Huh?
- Was that... That one wasn't clear? - No.
All right, I'm running out of them, you know, it's...
But the point is I took care of him.
- My hero. - Yeah.
I guess my pies are finally safe.
Well, not from me. Hand me a spoon.
Say,
why didn't you tell me about Frank's cherry racket?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Yes, you do. You were helping him sell the illegal cherries.
- You connected him with Vince. - Well, I...
I guess I didn't want you to think of me as a petty criminal.
There's nothing petty about you, is there, baby?
Ooh.
Oh.
You idiot.
I didn't tell you because it's my cherry racket.
Frank didn't know what he had. I'm the one
who figured out those cherries had fermented from sitting
in those vats for months. Yeah.
They had turned into a slam-bang booze for the ages,
and we could charge triple in places
where hooch was badly wanted but not allowed.
Old folks homes,
Sweet 16 parties,
court-ordered rehab centers.
It was like shooting fish in a...
Charlie, are you still eating that pie? I poisoned it.
- You did? - Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
Oh, yeah. You know what?
There's a lot of threads going around; I'm losing track.
- Okay, I poisoned the pie. - Yeah.
- So you should stop eating it. - Right.
- There you go. - It's good.
- Thanks. Appreciate that. - Last bite.
- Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. - And carry on.
- What about Frank? - I poisoned Frank, too.
He figured out what I was up to and he wanted out,
but we were making too much money,
so I diarrhea-poisoned him to shut him up.
Aah!
He got the message in the end.
And Vince?
Oh, Vince caught me smuggling boozy pies into A.A.
and threatened to rat me out to my parole officer.
You see, he wasn't actually my boyfriend.
He was my sponsor,
and he was a real buzzkill, literally.
But why poison me?
Well, you were getting too close.
Or maybe I was.
Either way, I'm leaving town tonight and,
well, I can't have you following me.
Well, you're not gonna get away with it.
Oh, yeah? And who's gonna stop me?
I am.
See, I knew you were lying when I found Vince's A.A. chip.
You used me.
You used me like you used Frank.
And I knew it was only a matter of time
before you tried to poison me, too.
So that's why that shot I took wasn't vodka.
- It was bleach. - What?
- The universal poison antidote. - No, it's not.
It's not?
I mean, if anything, you've ingested more poison.
No, you put bleach on poison, it cancels it out, I'm pretty sure.
No, it makes the poison more poisoning.
No. The two things cancel...
No, you're right. Here come the cherries.
Oh, God!
Jesus Christ, Charlie!
Either way, you're done, baby doll.
I called the cops to take you downtown.
- Oh. - Ha ha!
The gig's up, you ugly dame.
You're under arrest.
- You come with me. - What the hell?
I was undercover the whole time.
I mean, what are you talking about?
- That doesn't even make sense. - Yeah, I switched things up.
Got tired of being called a goon. Let's go!
- Ow! - You're out of here!
- You're really hurting my arm. - Yeah, that's okay with me.
- This is so stupid! Let go of me! - All right.
No, I'm not gonna let go of you.
I got one job to do, I'm gonna finish it.
- Let's go. Yeah. - Ow!
- Yeah, well... - Ow! That hurts!
Yeah, that's all right.
Well, this is where you came in.
Only now, you know the whole sticky situation.
It's not every day that a janitor makes his own mess,
but when he does... ooh, boy.
Now I'm about to shit my brains all over this floor.
But don't worry.
I'll mop twice. I always do.
_
Sync & corrections by Costa Dax www.addic7ed.com