Silent Partner

23

I reached Milo the next morning and told him what I’d learned.

He said nothing for a moment, then: “I’ve got us a history lesson lined up at eleven. Maybe we can tie up some more loose ends.”

He arrived at ten after ten. We got in the Seville and he directed me east on Sunset. The boulevard was Sunday-empty even on the Strip. Only a thin gathering of brunchers and featherheaded rockers hunched at sidewalk cafés, mixing with coke whores, call girls, and call boys trying to shake off the night before.

“Wholesome,” said Milo. He pulled out a cigar, said, “You got me started on these again,” lit up, and blew soapy-looking smoke out the window.

“What is that? Panamanian?”

“Transylvanian.” He puffed with enthusiasm. Within seconds the car was fogged.

We cruised past La Brea, past Western. No more café scene, just fast-food stands, pawnshops, discount outlets, and darker skin tones. Through the window came laughter and transistor music seasoned with bursts of Spanish. Families strolled the boulevard- parents young enough to be kids themselves, marshaling broods of black-haired cherubs.

“Now that’s wholesome,” I said.

He nodded. “Cream of the crop- I mean it. Poor devils ransom everything they own to the goddam coyotes, get raped, robbed, and ripped off trying to make it over the fence. Then we treat ’em like vermin and send ’em back, as if the goddam country wasn’t built on immigration- hell, if my forebears hadn’t stowed away on a steamer and snuck in through Canada, I’d be digging potatoes somewhere out in County Cork.” He thought about that. “Seen postcards of County Cork. Maybe better off?”

We passed through the Hospital Row that stretched between Edgemont and Vermont, rode past Western Peds, where I’d spent so much of my life.

“Where’re we going?” I asked.

“Just keep driving.” He ground the cigar out in the ashtray. “Listen, there’s something else I should tell you. After I left you yesterday, I took a drive out to Newhall and spoke to Rasmussen’s old lady- Seeber.”

“How’d you find her? I never gave you her name.”

“Don’t worry, your virtue’s intact. Newhall sheriffs took her statement on the accident. I got the address from that.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Seems to have made a good recovery- already has another guy shacking up with her. Skinny Casanova with junkie eyes and dirty arms, thought I was raiding and was halfway out the window before I calmed him down.”

He stretched, yawned. “Anyway, I asked her if Rasmussen had been working much recently. She says no, his temper had gotten him into too many scrapes. Nobody wanted him on their crew. She’s been supporting the both of them for the past six months with the roach wagon gig. Then I popped the matter of the thousand bucks he left her on the pillow, and she almost wet her pants. Even though the sheriffs released the money to her, she’s scared I’m gonna confiscate it- what’s left of it. Chances are Junkie’s shoveled most of it up his arm.

“I calm her down, tell her if she cooperates she can keep it, keep all the rest of it too. She gives me this look that says ‘How’d you know about all the rest of it?’ Bingo. I say, how much was it, Carmen? Fess up. She hems and haws, tries to play hard-to-get- gives it her best shot, but she really doesn’t have much will and finally she just blurts everything out: D.J. had come into lots of money recently, was throwing it around, buying expensive parts for his truck. She’s not really sure of the exact amount- ya know? But she found ya know forty-four hundred more in one of his ya know socks.”

“How long ago was recently?”

“Couple of weeks ago. At least one week before everyone started dying.”

I kept driving, past the Silverlake district and Echo Park, toward the western edge of downtown, where skyscrapers rose out of a tangle of freeway loops and back streets, glinting silver and bronze against a mud-bottomed sky.

“If it was cash for kill,” he said, “you know what that means. Premeditation- someone’d been planning that contract. Setting it up.”

He told me to turn left on an unmarked alley that climbed north of Sunset and tunneled between two building-supply lots. We passed dumpsters stuffed to the rim, graffiti’d rear walls, piles of plywood discards, damaged window screens, and hacked-up packing crates. Another quarter mile and we were weaving on cracked asphalt through weed-choked lots. At the back of some of the lots were lean-to shacks that looked ready to crumble. The alley angled and turned to dirt. Fifty yards later it terminated at a cinder-block wall. To the left, more dead grass; to the right of it a crow’s-eye view of the freeway.

“Park,” said Milo.

We got out. Even this high up, the traffic roared from the interchange.

The block wall was topped by barbed wire. Cut into the block was a round-topped wooden door scraped raw by time and the elements. No lock, no handle. Just a rusty metal spike imbedded in the wood. Looped around it was a leather thong. Hanging from the thong was an old, corroded cowbell. A tile sign over the door said: RUE DE OSCAR WILDE.

I looked up at the barbed wire, said, “Where are the gun turrets?”

Milo frowned, picked up a rock, and hit the cowbell. It gave off a dull clunk.

All at once, from the other side of the wall came a rising tide of animal sounds. Dogs, cats- lots of them. And barnyard clatter: poultry clucks. Goat bleats. The animals got closer, louder- so loud that they almost blocked out the sound of the freeway. The goats were the loudest. They made me think of voodoo rites, and the back of my neck tingled.

“Don’t say I never took you anywhere interesting,” said Milo.

The animals were scratching at the other side of the wall. I could smell them.

Milo called out, “Hello.”

Nothing. He repeated the greeting, pounded the cowbell several times.

Finally a whiny, crackling voice of indeterminate gender said, “Hold your frigging water. Who’s there?”

“Milo.”

“So? What do you want me to do? Break open the frigging Mouton Rothschild?”

“Opening the door would be a good start.”

“Wouldn’t it just.”

But the door did push open. An old man stood in the doorway, wearing only a baggy pair of white boxer shorts, a red silk scarf around his neck, and a long puka-shell necklace that rested on a hairless chest. Behind him an army of quadrupeds bounced and squealed and churned up the dust: dozens of dogs of uncertain pedigree, a couple of battle-scarred tomcats, and in the background, chickens, geese, ducks, sheep, several black Nubian goats, which licked the dust and tried to chomp our cuffs.

“Cool it,” said Milo, swatting.

The old man said, “Down, quiet,” without enthusiasm. He walked through the opening, closed the door behind him.

He was midsized and very thin, but flabby, with stringy arms and knobby, varicosed legs, narrow, sagging, grandmother’s breasts, and a protuberant belly. His skin had been sun-baked the color of bourbon and had an oily sheen. The hair on his head was skimpy white fuzz, as if he’d coated his bare pate with glue, then dipped it in cotton wool. He had a weak chin, big beak nose, and narrow-set eyes that squinted so tightly they appeared sealed shut. A shaggy white Fu Manchu mustache ran down the sides of his mouth, continuing past the jawline and dangling an inch.

He looked us over, frowned, spat on the ground.

Gandhi with gastritis.

“Afternoon, Ellston,” said Milo. “Nice to see you’re in your usual good cheer.” The sound of his voice set the dogs howling.

“Quiet. You’re upsetting them- way you always do.” The old man came up to me and stared, running his tongue along the inner wall of one cheek, scratching his head. He gave off a strange blend of odors: children’s zoo, French cologne, mentholated unguent.

“Not bad,” he said finally, “but Rick was cuter.”

He touched my shoulder. I stiffened involuntarily. His stare hardened and he spat again.

Milo stepped closer to me. “This is Dr. Alex Delaware. He’s a friend.”

“Another doctor?” The old man shook his head and turned to me. “Tell me one thing, Curly: What the hell you upscale medico studs see in an ugly, uncouth lump like him?”

“Friend,” said Milo. “As in friend. He’s straight, Ellston.”

The old man raised a limp wrist, adopted a mincing pose.

“Sure he is, darling.” The old man looped his arm in mine. “What kind of doctor are you, Dr. Alex?”

“Psychologist.”

“Ooh,” he drew away quickly, stuck out his tongue and made a raspberry. “I don’t like your type, always analyzing, always judging.”

“Ellston,” said Milo, “you gave me enough shit over the phone, I have no appetite for any more. If you want to help, fine. If not, that’s fine, too, and we’ll leave you to play Farmer John.”

“Such a rude lump,” said the old man. To me: “He’s a frigging rude lump. Full of anger. Because he still hasn’t accepted what he is, thinks he can deal with all of it by playing po-lice-man.”

Milo’s eyes flashed.

The old man’s opened wide in response. The left iris was blue; the right, milky gray with cataract.

“Tsk, tsk, our poor gendarme is upset. Hit a nerve, Lump? Good. The only time you look half-human is when you’re pissed off. When you get frigging real.”

“ ‘I don’t like your type,’ ” mimicked Milo. “ ‘Always analyzing, always judging.’ ” To me: “Enough of this crap. Let’s split.”

“Suit yourself,” said the old man, but there was worry in his voice. A headstrong kid who’d pushed his parents too far.

We headed back to the car. Every step we took made the dogs bark louder.

The old man cried out, “Stupid lump! No patience! Never had any.”

Milo ignored him.

“Just so happens, Lump, that the subject of your inquiry is one with whom I’m well versed. I actually met the rat bastard.”

“Right,” said Milo over his shoulder. “And you fucked Jean Harlow.”

“Well, maybe I did that too.” An instant later: “What’s in it for me, anyway?” The old man was raising his voice to be heard over the animals.

Milo stopped, shrugged, turned. “Good will?”

“Ha!”

“Plus a hundred for your time. But forget it.”

“Least you could have frigging done,” shouted the old man, “was to be civil!”

“I tried, Ellston. I always try.”

The old man was standing with his hands on his hips. His boxer shorts flapped and his hair flew out like strands of cotton candy.

“Well, you didn’t try hard enough! Where was the introduction? A proper, civil introduction?” He shook one fist and his loose flesh danced.

Milo growled and turned. “An introduction will make you happy?”

“Don’t be an ass, Sturgis. I haven’t aimed for happy in a long, long time. But it might frigging placate me.”

Milo swore under his breath. “C’mon,” he told me. “One more try.”

We retraced our steps. The old man looked away from us, worked his jaws and tried hard to maintain dignity. The boxer shorts interfered.

“Ellston,” said Milo, “this is Dr. Alex Delaware. Alex, meet Mr. Ellston Crotty.”

“Incomplete,” huffed the old man.

“Detective Ellston Crotty.”

The old man held out his hand. “Detective First Grade Ellston J. Crotty, Junior. Los Angeles Police Department, Central Division, retired.” We shook. He thumped his chest. “You’re looking at the Ace of Central Vice, Dr. Curly. A pleasure to make your frigging acquaintance.”

The animals followed us as if heading for the Ark. A homemade pathway of railroad ties and cement squares bordered by unkempt hedges and sick-looking dwarf citrus trees took us to a small, asphalt-shingled house with a wide front porch littered with boxes and old machine parts. Next to the house an ancient Dodge coupe sat on blocks. The structure looked out on a flat half-acre of dirt yard fenced with chicken wire. More goats and poultry paced the yard. To the rear of the property was a ram-shackle henhouse.

The barnyard smell had grown intense. I looked around. No neighbors, only sky and trees. We were atop a hill. To the north were smog-glazed hints of mountaintop. I could still hear the freeway, providing a bass line to the treble clucks of the chickens.

Leaning against one of the fence posts was a bag of feed corn. Crotty stuck his hand in, tossed a handful of grain into the yard, and watched the birds scramble.

“Frigging greedy bastards,” he said, then gave them some more.

Old MacDonald’s farm on the edge of the urban jungle.

We climbed onto the porch.

“This is all frigging illegal,” Crotty said with pride. “Breaks every frigging zoning law in the books. But my compadres down the hill are all illegals living in noncode shacks. Love my fresh eggs and hate the authorities- hell if they’re going to rat. I pay their little kids to clean up the coop, two bucks an hour- more greenback than they’re ever gonna see otherwise. They think I’m some kind of frigging great white father.”

“Great white shark,” muttered Milo.

“What’s that?”

“Some of those little kids are pretty sharp.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, but they do know how to work their little tushies off, so I pay ’em. All of them think I’m the greatest frigging thing since sliced bread. Their mamacitas are so grateful, they bring me food all wrapped in aluminum foil- they love aluminum foil. Good stuff, too, no fast-food shit- menudo and sweet tamales like you used to be able to get over on Alvarado before the corporate frigs took over.”

He pushed open a screen door, walked into the house, and let it slam shut. Milo caught it. We entered.

The house was small and unlit, crammed so full of junk there was barely room to walk. We inched our way past stacks of old newspapers, towers of cardboard boxes and raw-wood fruit crates, jumbles of clothing, an upright piano painted with gray primer, three ironing boards bearing a collection of clock radios in various stages of disassembly. The furniture that managed to coexist with the clutter was cheap, dark wood and overstuffed chairs sleeved with antimacassars and doilies. Thrift shop fare.

The floor was pine, trodden gray, splintered in several places by dry rot. A mantel above the bricked-in fireplace bore porcelain figurines, most of them chipped or missing limbs. The clock on the mantel wall said Coca-Cola. It was frozen at seven-fifteen.

“Sit,” said Crotty. He brushed newspapers off an easy chair and sank down. A cloud of dust rose and settled like dew.

Milo and I cleared a sofa with broken springs, created our own dust storm.

Crotty cleared his throat. Milo pulled out his wallet and handed him several bills. The old man counted it, fanned it out, closed his fingers over it. “Okay, let’s make this quick. Belding. Leland, A. Capitalist pig, too much money, no morals, a latent fag.”

I said, “Why do you say that?” and heard Milo groan.

Crotty turned on me. “Because I’m a frigging expert on latency is why, Dr. Psychology. You might have the diploma, but I’ve got the experience.” He grinned and added, “Hands-on experience.”

“Let’s stick to Belding,” said Milo.

Crotty ignored him: “Let me tell you, Curly, one thing I know, it’s latents. For thirty years I frigging lived that trip.”

Milo yawned, closed his eyes.

“He’s frigging bored,” said Crotty. “If anyone should be listening it’s him. Hell, you’d think someone in his position would seek me out, kneel at my feet and beg for my accumulated wisdom. But no, how do I meet the lump in the first place? Half-dead in the Emergency Room, sweet Rick massaging my heart, bringing me back to life. And then this lump shows up all Dragnet-butch, checking his watch and wanting to know when Rick’s going off-shift. Frigging Beauty and the Beast.”

He turned to Milo, shook one finger. “You were always insensitive. There I was fading away and all you could think of was your cock.”

“Don’t make it sound life-threatening, Ellston. You had an upset stomach. Gas. Too much menudo, not enough fiber.”

“So you say.” To me: “Got your work cut out for you, shrink. That is one big frigging piece of work sitting next to you- take you years just to get through the top layer of denial.”

“Belding,” said Milo. “Or give back the bread.”

“Belding,” repeated Crotty. “A capitalist. Vicious. Because he was a latent. I know what that does to a person.” He got up, looked over a group of boxes on the floor, went down on his knees in front of one of them and pawed through it with both hands.

“Here we go,” said Milo.

Crotty pulled out a brown cloth scrapbook, flipped pages, wiped his forehead, then sat down next to me and pointed.

“There.”

His fingertip rested next to a snapshot of a young man in police uniform. Black-and-white, sawtooth edges, just like the one of Sharon and Shirlee.

The young man wore a police uniform, stood next to a patrol car on a palm-lined street. His features were delicate, almost girlish, his eyes big and round. Innocent. Thick, wavy dark hair parted in the middle, a dimple on his right cheek. A pretty boy- the easily bruised countenance of a young Monty Clift.

“Glom this,” said Crotty and pointed to another photo on the page. Same man in civilian attire, standing next to the Dodge I’d just seen in the driveway. He wore sports clothes and had his arm around the waist of a girl. She wore a halter and shorts, was shapely. Her face had been scratched out with a ballpoint pen.

“I was some piece of beef back then,” said Crotty. He yanked the book away, snapped it shut, and tossed it on the floor.

“Those were taken in ’45. I was just out of Uncle Sam’s Navy, earned ribbons in the Pacific, thought I was God’s gift to women and kept telling myself that those little shipboard episodes with the cook- sweaty Swedish meatball- had been just a bad dream. No matter that doing it with him had felt the way love should feel, and all the frails I nailed had a better time than I did.”

He tapped his chest. “I was as sweet as Mary Pickford but trying to convince myself I was frigging Gary Cooper. So what better job for an overcompensating macho buck than to wear blue and carry a big stick?”

He laughed. “Day I got my discharge papers, I applied to the force. Day I finished the academy I thought I was King Hetero Stud. Being Butch Blue was going to solve all my problems. The brass took one look at me and knew exactly where to send me. Toilet decoy in MacArthur Park till all the local queers made me, then gay-bar detail over in Hollywood. I was great, busted more faggots than any other piece of bait. Got promoted, assigned to Vice, spent the next ten years of my life busting more faggots- busting myself, drinking it off every night. I made detective in record time but was nothing more than a frigging lure- kissed up to so many sad suckers my lips started to callous. Vice loved me. I was their frigging secret weapon, batting my lashes, breaking up private parties up in the hills, rousting raucous black-and-tans out in the colored districts-that gave the other pigs the chance to break some nappy heads.”

He reached over, took hold of my collar, opened his good eye wide. He was sweating and seemed to have gone pale, though in the dim light it was hard to be sure.

“Know the reason I was so frigging good, Curly? ’Cause deep down inside I wasn’t acting Slam, bam, out in the alley, then here come the other Vice pigs with their saps and their sticks. Another meat wagon full of faggots expressed to County Lockup, black-and-blue, puking blood. Once in a while one of them would hang himself in his cell. The Vice boys would say good riddance, less paperwork. I’d laugh the loudest, chug-a-lug the fastest.”

His mustache quivered. “For ten years I was an accessory to the assault and murder of gay men, never stopped to wonder why I was going home each night, puking my own guts out and drinking gin until I could feel my liver sizzling.”

He let go of my collar. Milo was looking the other way, staring off into space.

“I was eating myself up is why,” said Crotty. “Until I took a vacation down south- Tijuana. Crossed the border looking for action, got stoned drunk in a cantina watching a donkey mount a woman, stumbled outside and asked a cabbie to take me to a whorehouse. But the cabbie wasn’t fooled. Drove me to a crappy little place on the outskirts of town. Cardboard walls painted turquoise, chickens outside the door and in. Twenty-four hours later I knew who I was, knew I was trapped. What I didn’t know was how to get out of it.”

He folded and unfolded the money, finally crumpled it in his fist. “No guts for quick suicide, I kept pouring the sauce down. Wasn’t till a year later- February- that opportunity knocked. Someone tipped Vice to a big soiree out on Cahuenga- absinthe drinkers and dancing boys, an all-sweet jazz band, things in drag smoking reefer. I sailed in wearing a boatnecked sailor shirt, red scarf-this frigging scarf. Inside of thirty seconds I’d snagged a fish- good-looking blond kid, Ivy League get-up, rosy cheeks. Took him outside, made sure to unlock the door, let him kiss me, then stood there fighting not to cry as he got beat up. They broke the whole place open, tore the frigging house apart, but I just sat on the sidelines, only got credit for the blond kid’s bust.”

He stopped, wiped his brow again. “Early the next morning I showed up to process the paper on him but they were gone and so was he. I got pissed, checked it out, found out he was the son of a city councilman, champion athlete, high school valedictorian, Harvard sophomore, BMOC. Leverage. I got off the force with honorable discharge, full pension plus another chunk of cash for ‘disability’ settlement. The blond kid went back to Boston, married money, had four kids, ran a bank. I bought El Rancho Illegalo, here, learned about myself, tried to undo ten years by helping others- giving wisdom to those who take it.” He glared at Milo, who ignored him, then turned back to me. “Happy ending, right, Dr. Psychology?”

“Guess so.”

“Then you guess wrong, because at this very moment that blond kid is stretched out on a sanitarium bed out in Altadena, dying of AIDS, frigging skeleton. Dying alone because wifey and the four kids have cut him off like an obscene phone call. I found out through the network, been seeing him. Saw him yesterday, in fact, and changed his frigging diapers.”

Milo cleared his throat. Crotty turned on him.

“God forbid you should get involved with the network, Lump. Maybe reach out to help someone. Perish the thought you should admit to sizzling your liver ’cause you don’t know who you are.”

“Belding,” said Milo, taking out his note pad. “That’s what we’re here to talk about.”

“Ah,” said Crotty disgustedly.

No one spoke for a while.

“Mr. Crotty,” I said, “why do you think Belding was latent?”

The old man coughed, waved his hand. “Ahh, who the hell knows. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I’m full of shit. One thing I can tell you, he was no stud, despite how the papers played up his dating all those actresses. I did meet him. At a party. He used to hire off-duty cops for security. And sometimes not so off-duty- the department was in to him in a big way, kissing his rich ass until it sparkled.”

“Be specific,” said Milo.

“Yeah, right. Okay, one time, must have been back in ’49 or ’50, I got pulled off a child-molesting case and assigned to one of his bashes out in Bel Air- priorities, eh? Big charity thing, full orchestra, all the best folks tooting and shuffling, lots of female flesh, plenty of cloak-room clinches. But all Stud Belding did was watch everyone else. That’s what he was- a watcher. Like some frigging camera on legs. I remember thinking what a cold bastard he was- repressing. Latent.”

“That’s what you meant by meeting him?”

“Yeah. We shook frigging hands, okay?”

“Why’d you call him vicious?” I said.

“I call killing vicious.”

“Who’d he kill?” asked Milo.

Crotty wiped his brow and coughed. “Thousands of people, Lump- all the ones his frigging planes bombed.”

Milo looked disgusted. “Thanks for the political commentary. Anything more you want to tell us about Belding?”

“I told you plenty.”

“How about his sidekick, Vidal?”

“Billy the Pimp? He was at that party too. Very suave. Good teeth. Excellent-looking teeth.”

“Anything else besides his dental health?”

“He was supposed to be the one who supplied Belding with the girls.”

“What about the War Board parties?” asked Milo. “The ones Belding got investigated for. Did the department do guard duty on those?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Like I said, the department was in to him.”

“Name names,” said Milo, pencil poised.

“It was a frigging long time ago, Lump.”

“Listen, Ellston, I didn’t pay a hundred to get stuff I can get in the locker room.”

Crotty smiled. “Guy in your situation, Lump, doesn’t get anything in the locker room.”

Milo ran his hand over his face. A knot swelled his jawline.

“Okay, okay,” said Crotty. “The two I’m sure were in Belding’s pocket were a couple of shits named Hummel and DeGranzfeld. Working Ad-Vice when I came on- as head crackers. Soon after, Hummel was transferred out to be the chief’s chauffeur. A year later he was a lieutenant out at Newton Division, which was a hell of a match because he was a racist pig, used to go down to Main Street and beat colored whores to a pulp. Wore pigskin gloves- said he wanted to avoid infection.”

“How do you know he and the other guy were Belding’s boys?”

“It was obvious from the way they moved up fast without earning it- they were connected. And both of them always dressed good, ate good. DeGranzfeld had a big house out in Alhambra, horses, orchard land. You didn’t have to be Sherlock to see they were in somebody’s pocket.”

“Lots of pockets besides Belding’s.”

“Let me frigging finish, Lump. Later, both of them quit the force and went to work for Belding at probably six times the salary, all the graft they could eat.”

“First names,” said Milo, writing.

“Royal Hummel. Victor DeGranzfeld- Sticky Vicky we used to call him. He was a twerp and a sneak, too yellow-bellied to get physical but just as sadistic as Hummel. When he worked Vice he was head bagman, coordinated collections from all the downtown bookies and pimps. When Hummel moved to Newton he had DeGranzfeld transferred over there as day-watch commander. Bosom buddies, probably a couple of latents themselves. Later both of them were picked to head Metro Narcotics- this was in the early fifties, there was a big dope panic, and the department knew it could get funding increases by making big busts.”

“All right,” said Milo. “Let’s talk about the houses Belding owned- the party pads. Know where any of them were located?”

Crotty laughed. “Party pads? Isn’t that sweet? Where’d you come up with that, Lump? Party pads. They were fuck pads- everyone called ’em that, ’cause that’s what Mr. Leland Belding used ’ em for. Brought bigwigs there, had a stable of bimboes all set to clean their pipes until they were ready to sign on any frigging dotted line. And no, I don’t know any locations. Never got invited to those soirees.”

He got up, sidestepped a wall of boxes, and went through a doorway into what I assumed was the kitchen.

Milo said, “Sorry you had to hear his life story.”

“It’s okay. It was interesting.”

“Not after the thousandth time.”

“You bad-mouthing me?” Crotty had come out of the kitchen, was glaring at us, a glass of water in one hand, the other balled up in a fist.

“No,” said Milo. “Just admiring the decor.”

“Hah!” The old man opened his free hand, revealing a palmful of pills.

“Vitamins,” he said and swallowed some of them. He washed them down, grimaced, swallowed some more, and rubbed his abdomen. “I’m getting tired. Get the hell out of here and let me get some rest.”

“Tab’s not run yet,” said Milo.

“Make it snappy.”

“Got a couple more names for you. Actress named Linda Lanier, rumored to be one of Belding’s bimboes. And some doctor she screwed on a stag film- give him the physical description, Alex.”

As I did, Crotty lost color and put the glass down on a crate. Wiped his forehead, seemed to lose balance, and rested his hands on the back of a moth-eaten settee. He puffed out his cheeks.

Milo said, “Let’s have it, Ellston.”

“Why’re you poking around in the dead-letter pile, Lump?”

Milo shook his head. “You know the rules.”

“Sure, sure. Come here and squeeze me, then throw me a few crumbs.”

“A hundred buys a lot of squeeze,” said Milo, but he pulled out his wallet and gave the old man more money.

Crotty looked surprised. He stared at the bills.

“Linda Lanier,” said Milo. “And the doctor in the film.”

“In reference to Belding?” asked Crotty.

“In reference to anything. Spit it out, Ellston. Then we’ll leave you to dream of your Swede.”

“You should know such dreams,” said Crotty. He looked at the floor, rubbed his mustache, crossed his legs. “Linda Lanier. Well, well, well. Everything comes around in a circle, doesn’t it? Like my little blond banker and everything else in this frigging world.”

He straightened, stood, made his way to the gray piano, sat down and picked off a couple of notes. The instrument was badly out of tune. He extracted a dissonant boogie-woogie with his left hand, random high notes with his right.

Then, as abruptly as he’d begun, he stopped and said, “This is terribly weird, Lump. If I didn’t know better, I’d start using words like destiny- not that I’d want you in my destiny.” He played several bars of slow blues, let his hands fall to his sides. “Lanier and the doctor- you say they did it on film?”

Milo nodded and pointed to me. “He saw it.”

“She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

I said, “Yes, she was.”

“C’mon,” said Milo, “spit it out.”

Crotty gave a weak smile. “I fibbed, Lump. When you asked me about Belding being a killer. I fudged with that political shit because I didn’t know what alley cat you were chasing. Actually I meant it literally, but I didn’t want to get into it- nothing I could ever prove.”

“You don’t have to prove a goddam thing,” said Milo. “Just tell me what you know.” He peeled off more bills. Crotty snatched them.

“Your doctor,” he said, “sounds exactly like a guy named Neurath. Donald Neurath, M.D. You described him to a T, Curly, and I know he and Linda Lanier had a thing going.”

“How do you know that?” said Milo.

Crotty looked ill-at-ease.

“C’mon, Ellston.”

“Okay, okay. One of my assignments, when I wasn’t snaring faggots, was working the Scraper Club detail- illegal abortions. Back in those days there were three ways for a girl in trouble to go: coat hanger in the alley, some butcher in a white coat, or a bona fide medico moonlighting for big bucks. Neurath was one of the bona fides- plenty of doctors did it. But it was still a Class A felony, meaning excellent payoff potential for the department.

“There was an approved group of abortionists- we used to call it the Scraper Club- maybe twenty or so doctors, spread all over the city, respectable guys with established practices. They kicked back a percentage of their fees in return for protection by Vice and a guarantee that anyone not in the club would get busted hard and fast. And it worked. There was this one guy, osteopath out in the Valley, tried to muscle in on one of the approved guys’ business by charging half as much for a scrape. A week after he started, they busted him- using a female cop who just happened to be pregnant. Bail denied, stuck in a county cell with hardcases. While he was in lockup, his office got torched and someone scared his daughter while she was walking home from school.”

“Pretty,” said Milo.

“That’s the way it was back then, Lump. Are you sure it’s that much better now?”

“You’re positive this Neurath was a member of the club.”

“I know it for a fact because I picked up moolah from his office. Big fancy suite on Wilshire near Western.” He stopped, stared at Milo. “That’s right, I played bagman too. Not my favorite frigging assignment, but I had enough on my mind without worrying about some penny-ante payoff for something that was gonna happen anyway. Hell, today a kid can walk into a clinic and leave scraped, half-hour later. So what’s the big deal, right?”

Milo said, “Keep talking.”

Crotty gave him a sour look. “We conducted our business after hours, no one around. I’d ride the elevator up to his office, make sure I was alone, give a coded knock on the door. Once I was in, neither of us would talk- pretending it wasn’t happening. He’d hand me a manila envelope; I’d do a superficial count and be off.”

“What kind of doctor was he?”

“Obstetrician. Nice little irony there, eh? Neurath giveth, Neurath taketh away.”

“What about him and Lanier?”

“One evening, after I picked up the loot, I went down the block to this Chinese place to have a little moo-goo and rice wine before heading back. I was sitting in a back booth when in walks Neurath with this platinum-blond dish. It was dark; they didn’t notice me. She had her arm in his- they were looking pretty cozy. They took a table across the room, sat close together, talking pretty intense. The old piece-on-the-side routine, except this dish was really elegant-looking, no tramp. Few minutes later she got up to go to the ladies’ room and I got a good look at her face. It was then that I recognized her- from Belding’s party. She’d been wearing a black dress- no back, very little front, lots of mink trim. Because of the mink, I’d figured her for a rich brat. She’d stuck in my mind because she was gorgeous, really gorgeous. Perfect face, delicious body. But elegant. Classy.”

He shifted his glance to me. “I’m not without feeling for females, Dr. Psychology. Probably appreciate the species a lot more than most hetero studs.”

“What else?” said Milo.

“Nothing else. They had a couple of drinks, coochy-cooed, then left- no doubt for some motel. No big deal. Then, about a year later, the dish’s face is all over the papers. And the more I learn about it the more curious I get.”

He coughed again, scratched his midriff. “There was this dope bust, lots of shooting. She got killed, along with some guy who turned out to be her brother. The papers made both of them out to be big-time pushers. She was a contract player with Belding’s studio- never made a single film and supposedly that was strong evidence it was just a cover. No matter that most of the players never worked, and she’d been a party girl- not a word of that in print. The brother worked at the studio, too, as a grip. Both of them small potatoes. Yet they managed to pay the rent on this very ritzy pad on Fountain- ten rooms- owned a fancy car, were living frigging high. Papers made a big deal about that, going into detail about her furs and jewelry, about how the two of them had come a long way for a couple of Texas crackers-’cause that’s what they were. Her real name was Eulalee Johnson. The brother was a nasty little punk named Cable, used to strong-arm small-time bookies, lean on streetwalkers, but never got too far- small-time all the way. Not exactly your big-time pushers, huh, Lump? But the department fed it to the papers, and the papers ate it like candy. Three hundred grand worth of H found on the premises- hell of a lot in those days. John Q. Public bought it.”

“You didn’t.”

“Hell, no. No one pushing that much smack south of Fresno was doing it without mob connections- Cohen or Dragna. Certainly not a couple of Texas crackers who’d come out of nowhere. I checked the brother’s sheet- drunk and disorderly, lewd conduct, larceny, the strong-arm stuff. Penny ante. No connections with anyone- no one on the street had ever seen him with a reefer in his pocket. The whole thing smelled bad. And the fact that Hummel and DeGranzfeld did the shooting made it stink to high heaven.”

“Why were you checking, Ellston?”

Crotty smiled. “Always searching for leverage, Lump, but this was too scary. I didn’t want to touch it. Still, it stuck in my craw. Now here you are stirring it up again- ain’t that sweet.”

“How’d it go down?” asked Milo.

“Supposedly someone phone-tipped Metro Narc to a huge stash in the Fountain pad. Hummel and DeGranzfeld took the call, brought a couple of black-and-whites along for backup, but had the uniforms wait outside while they checked out the premises. All’s quiet on the western front, then bang bang bang. The uniforms rush in. Both Johnsons are shot to pieces on the living room floor; Hummel and De Granzfeld are tallying up this giant dope stash. Department’s version is they knocked on the door, were met with unfriendly fire, smashed the door down and jumped in, guns ablazin. Cute, eh? A party girl and a small-time drifter taking on Narco bulls.”

“Any board of inquiry into the shooting?” said Milo.

“Very funny, Lump.”

“Even with a woman getting shot? John Q.’s usually squeamish about that.”

“This was ’53, McCarthy fever, height of the dope panic. John Q. was paranoid about pushers in every schoolyard. And the department made Lanier out to be a big-time bad girl, Satan’s frigging bride. Not only weren’t Hummel and Sticky Vicky investigated, they were instant heroes- the mayor pinned ribbons on them.”

This was ’53. Just before Leland Belding had turned into a playboy.

The year of Sharon and Shirlee’s birth.

“Did Linda Lanier leave any children?” I asked.

“No,” said Crotty. “I’d remember that. That kind of thing would have made it into the papers- human interest and all that. Why? You got family members out for revenge?”

“Revenge against who?” asked Milo.

“Belding. That phony bust had his name written all over it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Hummel and DeGranzfeld were his boys; Lanier was his party girl- supporting that place on Fountain woulda been like you and me springing for lunch. In the process of asking around, I learned Lanier might have been more than just a party girl- she’d been known to enter Belding’s private office on the studio lot, stay in for a couple of hours, leave happy. This is stuff office boys knew, but it never got a line of print. I figure they had something or other going, she offended Belding in some serious way, and he had to get rid of her.”

“Offended how?” said Milo.

“Who knows? Maybe she got pushy about something. Maybe her stupid brother put the arm on the wrong guy.”

“The doctor- Neurath- could have been her sugar daddy,” said Milo.

Crotty shook his head. “Neurath had money problems. His wife was a compulsive gambler; he was into the sharks on and off- it’s why he started moonlighting in the first place. And one more thing: Lanier’s building on Fountain was owned by Belding.”

Milo and I looked at each other.

Crotty said, “Bastard owned half of L.A. at one time.”

“Neurath was an obstetrician,” I said. “Maybe Linda Lanier was seeing him professionally.”

“Pregnant?” said Crotty. “Putting the paternal squeeze on Belding? Sure, why not?”

Milo said, “How soon after the shooting did Hummel and DeWhatsisname quit?”

“Not long after, maybe a couple of months. And this with both of them commended and promoted. Now tell me more about the film Lanier and Neurath were on.”

“Doctor and nurse skit,” I said. “The doctor didn’t know he was on camera.”

“More strong-arm,” said Milo. “The brother?”

“Could be,” said Crotty.

“What would they be strong-arming Neurath about?”

“Who knows? Maybe the Scraper Club, maybe the wife’s gambling problem. Either could have screwed up his reputation- he had a society practice, nice plump Hancock Park matrons waiting for stirrup time.”

“Is he still around?”

“Who knows?”

“What about Hummel and DeGranzfeld?”

“DeGranzfeld died a couple of years after moving to Nevada. Affair with a married woman, husband had a temper. Far as I know, Hummel’s still in Vegas. One thing for sure, he’s still got pull in the department, or at least he did a couple of years ago.”

“How so?” said Milo.

“He had this nephew, real fascist fuckup, liked the booze, almost flunked out of the academy, the bullying son of a bitch- frigging chip off the old block. He was involved in that Hollywood Division robbery scandal a few years back, eminently qualified for a Board of Rights or worse. But nothing, except a transfer to Ramparts. Then all of a sudden, guy’s a born-again Christian, promoted to captain, West L.A.-” He stopped, stared at Milo, grinned like a kid on Christmas morning.

“So that’s what this is about.”

“What?” said Milo, innocently.

“Lump, you crafty badger. Gonna get that scum, aren’t you? Finally do a good deed, after all.”