A black Escalade pulls into a 7-Eleven parking lot, headlights off. Its two silent occupants track the spectacle unfolding across the street at the El Cerrito Adult Emporium.

There, a vintage black-and-metallic-gray Vandura squeals to a halt, momentarily blocking their line of sight to the porn store’s entrance. Its rooftop spoiler, black-and-red mag wheels, and signature red stripe are identical to the vehicle used in the eighties seminal television hit, The A-Team. Dust covers the back window where someone has written I pity the fool. The front windows are down. The radio is up. The theme song to the television show is blaring into the nighttime California sky.

A man in a stocking mask, carrying a blowup sex doll under his left arm, rounds the front of the van. He flings open the door and shoves the driver over before tossing the sex doll in after him, buckling up, and peeling out. The theme song to the A-Team melts into the night.

Next, a stampeding cow with a DVD case in its mouth charges down the street.

The two men in the black Escalade exchange puzzled glances, sit forward in their seats, watch, wait, tense…

The owner of the Adult Emporium closes the store, and the two men slump back in their seats. They’re too late. Their target–a dart-gun-toting neurologist in diving flippers–has eluded them once again.

“Told you we shouldn’t have stopped for drive-through.”

“It’s demoralizing is what it is. What say we leave the flippers out of the report?”

“Mm-hmm.”

The two men are wearing Ray-Bans at night. They are dressed in identical black suits, ties, and wing-tipped black shoes. They’re holding identical .300 Win Mag sniper rifles. They’re also wearing identical Fruit of the Loom underpants. Their names are Ted and Ed.

“Fine,” says Ted. “So we lost him again. We’ve been losing this guy for going on twenty years, so, you know, business as usual there. But, I mean, we gotta kill somebody, though. Right?”

“Kill somebody?” Ed shrugs. “Well, yeah. By all means, kill away.” Tapping the dashboard clock, he adds, “But no way we’re makin’ the eleven fifty to Miami.”

“No,” agrees Ted, targeting the cow, which is waiting for the light to change one block farther on. “What say I pop Moo Town?”

“The cow? What’d the cow ever do to you?” says Ed. “How ’bout that guy there?”

Ted’s scope pans across the El Cerrito Adult Emporium to a graffiti-laden Dumpster where a butt and legs are flailing over the top like a malfunctioning squid.

“Two points,” mutters Ed, gazing sideways at his partner.

Wordlessly, Ted shifts the rifle, bracing it into his shoulder. He lines up his sights, squeezes the trigger. The gun recoils. The silencer mutes the shot. Across the street, the owner of the butt and legs falls into the Dumpster. Ted passes Ed the rifle before turning the key in the ignition. The engine roars to life. The headlights turn on.

“Where to?” asks Ed.

“HQ,” replies Ted. “Fred, Ned, Red, and Zed are probably wondering what the hell’s goin’ on.”

Ed arches an eyebrow. “Not Ked?”

Ted identically arches an eyebrow. “Ked? You kidding? Psh. That guy’s in bed.”