Blood's a rover

17

(Los Angeles, 8/19/68)

Scotty Bennett said, “I like your tie and your hair.”

Crutch blushed. The tartan and the crew cut were his lucky charms. He got them the same day he saw Horror House. They prophesied all his magical shit.

Scotty loomed. They stood in the latent-prints room. Crutch was hand-checking print cards. He’d been at it two months.

“Run this by me again. You saw a girl at Woody’s Smorgasburger. She drank a 7UP and left her prints on a glass, and you’ve been trying to ascertain her identity ever since.”

Crutch blushed. “Right. I’ve been on a job for Clyde, and I’ve been ducking over here whenever I get a chance.”

Scotty roared-kid, you slay me. He tucked a ten-spot in Crutch’s pocket. He adjusted his tie and rubbed his crew cut.

“I’m forty-seven, you’re twenty-three. I’m a policeman, you’re not. Lose the tie and let your hair grow. You may get some.”

The ten-spot dangled there. Scotty said, “Call Laurel. Webster-64882. Tell her I said to be kind.”

Crutch re-blushed. Scotty winked and waltzed to the Robbery pen. Print cards jumped up and yelled Study me!

Back to work.

Lay out the photo blowup. Grab the magnifying glass. Lay out the next print card and notch comparison points. He had the rent-a-car print memorized. He knew every loop and whorl. He’d been through six zillion print cards since June 21.

He studied, he tossed cards, he yawned, he stretched, he blinked. Eyestrain goo pooled on his eyeballs. He hit a fast stretch-a card a minute and-

Then:

A fresh card. Familiar loops and whorls. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 comparison points-a courtroom-valid tally.

Crutch studied the card and the blowup. He wiped his eyes, he squinted, he looked. 11, 12, 13, 14-a perfect match.

He turned the card over. He read the stats:

“Klein, Joan Rosen/WF/DOB 10/31/26, New York City. 5'4", 120, brown eyes/dark brown amp; gray hair. Distinguishing marks: Knife scar on upper right arm.”

Her, she, that woman. She had a name: JOAN.

She was forty-one. She was born on Halloween. Her rap sheet looked like a partial. Crutch saw arrests and no convictions. Commie beefs. Alien and Sedition Act violations, back to ‘44. Two armed robbery busts-’51, ‘53-no D.R. numbers for conviction.

Commie beefs. Heists. No attached mug shots. Crutch ran to the photo lab-

His new file room was cramped already. File boxes, file stacks, the big wall graph. He had two pads in one city. He slept in them both. He kept his mother’s file at the Vivian Apartments. He kept his case file at the Elm Hotel. He kept hot-plate chow and shaving gear at both locations.

Crutch split to the Elm. The graph drew him first thing. He’d Scotch-taped masking paper up at eye level. He doodled on it. He drew lines and arrows and wrote daily progress and summary reports.

He got out his grease pen and found a fresh spot. He wrote “Joan” and circled it. He drew some arrows with black feathers and sharp little points, leading to:

“Farlan Brown leads going nowhere to (8/10/68) date. Brown meet at Golden Cavern (8/23/68). F.T. to wire suite.”

“Gretchen Farr/Celia Reyes: all records checks negative to (8/10/68) date.”

“ ‘Grapevine,’ Tommy’ amp; ‘plant’: what do they mean?”

“Tattoo ID, wall markings amp; powder on body parts: no make as of this (8/10/68) date.”

“Bootleg phone #: phone co. trace in progress.”

Crutch scanned the graph. Crutch drew arrows pointing to “Joan.” Crutch circled the name with big question marks.

He flopped on the bed. He studied the photo-lab pix. A single mug-shot strip. One full-face shot, two profiles. Joan Rosen Klein wearing a neck board.

The board numbers supplied a date: 7/12/63. He knew the booking-number prefix. It meant “detained for suspicion.” That probably meant a street roust or wrong-place-at-wrong-time grief. Joan was a Commie and a two-time robbery suspect-she’d attract heat.

She was thirty-six then. She looked the same now. She wore glasses. She smiled into flashbulb glare. That near-black hair with the gray streaks. That wide and harsh jawline. That composed set to her face.

Crutch shut his eyes, opened his eyes and studied the pictures again. He saw gray streaks that he’d missed the first bunch of times.

The bed was covered with library books. He’d checked them out post-Miami. They covered one topic: Cuba.

He kept in touch with Jean-Philippe Mesplede. The Frogman was his friend now. They talked long-distance, L.A. to Miami. The Frogman liked him. The Frogman thought he was a punk kid in over his head and refused to take his case seriously. Fuck him on that-let him think it. The Frogman thought it was just a thieving-girlfriend caper. Crutch held back the wild-ass dimensions.

Wayne Tedrow Jr. wanted Donald Linscott Crutchfield dead, but Jean-Philippe Mesplede relented. The Frogman called Wayne Junior “unstable and politically suspect.” Wayne Junior sustained right-wing alliances and suppressed his left-wing tendencies. Froggy could not commit murder for such a compromised man.

So Crutch got to live and work his case and magnetize all his magical shit.

Their phone calls were all Cuba. A gorgeous island. A tourist mecca. A paradise raped by the Reds. Jack Kennedy betrayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. LBJ appeased Castro. The next prez would ditto his rat-fink policies. The Frogman raged to ravage Reds and reclaim the Caribbean cornucopia. White sands. Swank casinos “nationalized” and turned to Third World troughs. Brown women in pink bikinis.

Crutch skimmed library books and ripped out key photos. Dig it: Fulgencio Batista draped all over Jane Russell. Dig it: the roof pool at the Capri. Dig it: peons pulling fat cats in rickshaws.

He taped the pix to the wall. He ripped out a pic of Fidel Castro fomenting. The Frogman called Castro “The Beard.” His facial hair harbored nests of Red lice.

Crutch taped the Castro pic to the wall and tossed his pocketknife at it. He nailed The Beard four times out of six. The picture started to shred.

The phone rang. Crutch jugged the receiver and caught it. He said, “Hola? Quк tal?” The caller went, “Huh?”

The knife fell off the wall. Fidel was now mucho tattered. The caller said, “It’s Larry from P.C. Bell. Buzz Duber said I should call you. I got a trace on that bootleg number.”

Crutch grabbed his scratch pad. “Shoot.”

“It’s a house on Carmina Perdido in Santa Barbara. The renter’s name is Sam Flood. That’s all I’ve got.”

It was plenty. “Sam Flood” was Sam Giancana’s squarejohn name. Clyde told him that. Sam G. called Gretchen/Celia at Bev’s Switchboard.

Larry blathered-Hey, fool, where’s my bread? Crutch hung up and wrote “Bootleg #/Giancana” on his wall graph.

The words vibrated. Crutch drew little question marks around them. He got the urge to draw Joan. He taped her mug-shot strip to the graph paper and cut loose with paper and pen.

He got her hardness and her softness in alternating portraits. He never got the full her in one take. He gave her different hairdos. He de-swirled and re-swirled the lovely gray streaks every time.