Sexy Sixy

     Things have been rough, lately. Lloyd has gone into a funk that George Clinton and Parliament would be inspired by. I tried to ask him about the Michigan game. He gave me his Bo look and said "A season's worth of special teams mistake in one half. How do you think it went?"
     Point taken.
     Speaking of Bo, it seems like the media is starting to gather kindling for the hot seat. In both Lincoln and Omaha fish-wraps, the terms 'honeymoon is over' and 'bloom is off the Pelini rose' have been used. Sippy over at the LJS even went so far as to compare Pelini's win-loss and blowout losses (apparently, 27+ points is what qualifies as a blowout) to T.O.'s. Yeah, Sip, that seems fair. Compare the coaching job of T.O., who inherited a national championship-caliber team, to that of Bo, who inherited a program that was dangerously close to foundering.
     Lloyd was hot and dug up some stats on his tablet that he said he was going to e-mail to Sipple. Four years previous to T.O.'s take-over (69-72), 42-4-2, .896; four conference championships, four bowl wins, two national championships, and a Heisman Trophy winner.
     In the four years prior to Bo's arrival (04-07), 27-22, .551; no conference champs, one bowl win, no national championships, no Heisman winners.
     Pop quiz, who had the easier job? The guy who had to feed the beast, or the guy who had to go out, re-assemble the beast and bring it back to life?
     That being said, in the first four years of each coach's tenure, T.O. went 37-10-2; no conference champs, three bowl wins, no national champs, no Heisman winners. Bo, if he can manage a win against Iowa and in a bowl, will have gone 39-15, no conference champs, three bowl wins, no national champs, and no Heisman winners. So, you tell me, is Bo just as good, or just as bad as Osborne over the same period?
     Cassandra dropped her rankings on me before making arrangements for a big-time deal involving Lt. Moore, Mr. Davison and oddly enough, the State Patrol. More about that, later.
     She's got Okie State at number six. They are still theoretically alive for a shot at the Big One, but it would take LSU to beat Arkansas, Auburn to beat Alabama, Notre Dame to beat Stanford and a Virginia Tech loss in the ACC Champ in addition to beating OU to get there.
     Stanford is number five, she hasn't taken Luck back, despite his begging (according to her), and just has a Notre Dame game to worry about. They could still get a BCS bid and not have to play in the Pac-12 champ game. They actually have a better chance at getting into the Big One than a lot of contenders. If they beat the Irish, and the SEC goes all sectarian, let's say LSU beats Arkansas, and then loses to Georgia in the SEC champ. Alabama beats Auburn, and Virginia Tech loses to either Virginia or Clemson. Stanford and Alabama could be in the Big One, even though neither team won their conference.
      Virginia Tech is number four. They have to handle Virginia, then Clemson in the ACC champ. Let's say they do that, LSU handles Arkansas but then chokes in the SEC champ. You could have The Hokies and Alabama in the Big One.
     The SEC West is 3-2-1. If I hear correctly, it is the first time a conference has been 1-2-3 since 1971, when the Big 8 did it with Nebraska-Oklahoma-Colorado. Arkansas is at three. If they upset LSU and Georgia, they could meet up with Alabama, again, in the re-match no one outside of Dixie would care about.
     Alabama is number two, and in the perfect position. They win and they're in, and only need to beat Auburn. I say 'only' with the full knowledge that to minimize the 'Iron Bowl' in Alabama is tantamount to suggesting that Bear Bryant and J. Edgar Hoover slow-danced to 'Sentimental Journey'.
      LSU is number one. No pressure, beat Arkansas, who has scored at least 29 points in every game (except for Alabama). What should make LSU fan nervous, though, in the last five years (including this one) LSU has lost 13 games. Three of them to Arkansas. Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have each topped them only twice. In the last five years, the widest margin of victory for either team was 8 points. Then they have to take on Georgia, in Atlanta, for the SEC champ. Georgia hasn't lost since week two and has just been finding ways to win. If they win those two games, LSU more than likely has a re-match with Alabama for the National Championship. If they win those three games, they deserve it.
     To get back to Lt. Moore. I placed a call. Cassandra placed a call. I arranged to meet Mr. Davison to make a proposal. He was to meet me at the Capitol Inn, out on West O. We had a little back and forth, but in a nutshell (no pun intended), I was going to tell him how Lt. Moore had broken me, thanks to the heat that came down as a result of Mr. Davison stirring up the pot. I was pulling up stakes, quitting the biz and heading for a cabin on the Olympic Peninsula to hole up and await the zombie apocalypse.
     I placed a call and told Lt. Moore that we had his doll-maker and that he was available for discussion at the hotel. I told him that once he had his man, we were done, I wanted nothing more to do with him, and however he wanted to handle his 'confidential informers' was up to him. He was in control and I would keep to my side of the turf.
     Lloyd placed a call to a guy he knew at State Patrol. Their Office of Professional Standards had been hearing a lot of rumors about Lt. Moore, and had been preparing a file on him. The investigation had not been requested yet, so they were sitting on their hands for the time being. Lloyd told them to get ready. Some serious stuff was about to go down.
     Lloyd and I set up across the street from the hotel. We watched as Lt. Moore, Mustache and Hands tromped up the stairs heading for Mr. Davison's room. He had the room at the end of the row on the second tier. That's usually known as coffin corner, since it is the furtherst from help, but the quietest, too.
     As soon as they hit the second level, I nodded at Lloyd. He pulled out a cheap-ass disposable cell-phone. He punched send, and as soon as contact was established, he started in. "Hello? 9-1-1? I heard shots fired at the Capitol Hotel on West O...Ohmigawd, I see three guys with guns! Send help! Please oh please they're looking at me!"
     Click. Toss. "Let's roll," he said, a lot less panicky than a few moments before.
     Lt. Moore and his pals had smashed in the door, playing up the gorilla act. I'm still not sure exactly what went down, but as we were pulling away, we could hear the sirens of the approaching police cars.
     That's when I heard four distinct shots. A short pause, and then one more shot.
     When I last saw Lt. Moore in the re-view mirror, he and his pals were standing at the rail, badges out and weapons holstered. The LPD guys had their Beretta's out and were taking tactical approaches to secure the three supposed suspects.
     "Damn, man. I didn't expect actual gun-play," I said. "I just thought there wouldn't be enough to explain what an IAD guy was doing there and start the ball rolling on a State Patrol investigation into the LPD's Internal Affairs arm. Lloyd, what did we just do?"
     Lloyd looked at me, completely inscrutable. "We took care of some bad guys. That's what we do. Didn't you know that Moore carried a throw-down piece?"
     "No. What do you mean?"
     "He had a snub-nosed .38 in an ankle rig. That way he can leave it -- throw down-- at the scene if he needs to 'justify' a shooting. If things went they way I think they did, Mr. Davison has four itty-bitty holes in his chest, and four big chunks out of his back. And there is a .38-caliber bullet in the hotel wall."
     "Lloyd. Serious question now. Did you set me up, too?"
     "Plausible denability. No direct links. We didn't pull the trigger. We didn't tell anyone to kill anyone else. We also helped to clean up the dirtiest cop that has ever roamed the streets of this town."
     "That's fine, I have no problem with taking out Moore. We didn't get him killed. I have no problem with wrecking his career and life, he deserved it. Can you tell me that Davison deserved to die?"
     "No. I can't tell you that. But think about all the crap he's pulled and all the misery he's dropped on other people that wanted nothing to do with him. I'm not just talking about us. Look at the smuggling flights. Look at his super creepy treatment of that working girl, just to mess with you. Look at how he somehow just slid out of situations that seemed way to hinky for their own good. Maybe he didn't deserve to die for what he did to us. But I guarantee that he had a huge Karma bill to pay. It caught up with him today. That, and you don't know that he's dead."
     Lloyd can be scary when he gets like this. Too serene, too calculating. It's almost like he just doesn't care. All I know is that I still want him on my side.
     "You still up for the game, tomorrow?" he asked. Back to his usual, easy-going, Lloyd self.
     "I don't know, man. This will take some time to sort through in my head."
     "Suit yourself. Cassandra, Preacher and I are setting up at Our Lady. You should come. I'll buy you an Oppenheimer."
     "That sounds good, Lloyd." I said. "A few of those might just take the first layer off my conscience."
     Husk-husk and on the qb.