The Big Nowhere

Chapter Thirty-Two

A week later Buzz went by the grave, his fourth visit since LASD hustled the kid into the ground. The plot was a low-rent number in an East LA cemetery; the stone read:

No beloved whatever of.

No son of whoever.

No crucifix cut into the tablet and no RIP. Nothing juicy to catch a passerby’s interest, like “Cop Killer” or “Almost DA’s Bureau Brass.” Nothing to spell it out true to whoever read the half-column hush job on the kid’s accidental death — a slip off a chair, a nose dive onto a kitchen cutlery rack.

Fall Guy.

Buzz bent down and pulled out a clump of crabgrass; the butt of the gun he’d killed Gene Niles with dug into his side. He stood up and kicked the marker; he thought that “Free Ride” and “Gravy Train” and “Dumb Okie Luck” might look good too, followed by a soliloquy on Deputy Danny Upshaw’s last days, lots of details on a tombstone skyscraper high, like the ones voodoo nigger pimps bought for themselves. Because Deputy Danny Upshaw was voodooing him, little pins stuck in a fat little Buzz Meeks voodoo doll.

Mal had called him with the word. The rain dug up Niles’ body, LAPD grabbed Danny as a suspect, roughhoused him and cut him loose with orders to report for a lie detector test and sodium pentothal questioning the next day. When the kid didn’t show, City bulls hit his pad in force and found him dead on the living room floor, throat slashed, the pad trashed. Nort Layman, distraught, did the autopsy, dying to call it a 187; the evidence wouldn’t let him: fingerprints on the knife and the angle of the cut and fall said “self-inflicted,” case closed. Doc called the death wound “amazing” — no hesitation marks, Danny Upshaw wanted out bad and now.

LASD double-timed the kid graveside; four people attended the funeral: Layman, Mal, a County cop named Jack Shortell and himself. The homo investigation was immediately disbanded and Shortell took off for a vacation in the Montana boonies; LAPD closed the book on Gene Niles, Upshaw’s suicide their confession and trip to the gas chamber. City-County police relations were all-time bad — and he skated, thin-icing it, trying to fix an angle to save both their asses, no luck, too late to do the kid any good.

Free Ride.

What kept nagging at him was that he fixed Audrey’s skim spree first. Petey Skouras paid Mickey back the dough the lioness bilked; Mickey was generous and let him off with a beating: Johnny Stomp and a little blackjack work on the kidneys. Petey took off for Frisco then — even though the Mick, impressed with his repentance, would have kept him on the payroll. Petey had played into his fix by skedaddling; Mickey, Mr. Effusiveness, had upped his payoff on the dope summit guard gig to a grand, telling him the charming Lieutenant Dudley Smith would also be standing trigger. More cash in his pocket — while Danny Upshaw climbed the gallows.

Dumb Okie Luck.

Mal took it hard, going on a two-day drunk, sobering up with a direct frontal attack on the Red Menace. A strongarmed lefty told Dudley Smith that Claire De Haven made “Ted Krugman” as a cop; Mal was enraged, but the consensus of the team was that they now had enough snitch testimony to take UAES down without Upshaw’s covert dirt. Docket time was being set up; if all went well, the grand jury would convene in two weeks. Mal had gone off the deep end, crucifying Reds to perk his juice for his court battle. He’d turned Nathan Eisler’s diary upside down for names, turning out snitches from four of the men Claire De Haven serviced to start her union. His flop at the Shangri-Lodge Motel now looked like Ellis Loew’s living room: graphs, charts and cross-referenced hearsay, Mal’s ode to Danny Upshaw, all of it proving one thing: that Commies were long on talk. And when the grand jury heard that talk, they probably wouldn’t have the brains to think it out one step further: that the sad, deluded fuckers talked because they didn’t have the balls to do anything else.

Buzz kicked the gravestone again; he thought that Captain Mal Considine almost had himself convinced that UAES was a hot damn threat to America’s internal security — that he had to believe it so he could keep his son and still call himself a good guy. Odds on the Hollywood Commies subverting the country with their cornball propaganda turkeys, rallies and picket line highjinks: thirty trillion to one against, a longshot from Mars. The entire deal was a duck shoot, a play to save the studios money and make Ellis Loew District Attorney and Governor of California.

Bagman.

Fixer.

He’d been skating since the moment Mal called him with the news. Ellis told him to run background checks on the names in Eisler’s diary; he called R&I, got their dope and let it go at that. Mal told him to conduct phone interviews with HUAC snitches back east; he gave a third of the numbers cursory calls, asked half the questions he was supposed to and edited the answers down to two pages per man, easy stuff for his secretary to type up. His big job was to locate Dr. Saul Lesnick, the grand jury’s boss fink; he’d skated entirely on that gig — and kept skating in general. And always in the same direction — toward Danny Upshaw.

When he knew the hush was in, he drove up to San Bernardino for a look-see at the kid’s past. He talked to his widowed mother, a faded ginch living on Social Security; she told him she didn’t attend the funeral because Danny had been curt with her on his last several visits and she disapproved of his drinking. He got her talking; she painted a picture of Danny the child as smart and cold, a youngster who read, studied and kept to himself. When his father died, he expressed no grief; he liked cars and fix-it things and science books; he never chased girls and always kept his room spotless. Since he became a policeman, he visited her only on Christmas and her birthday, never more, never less. He got straight B’s in high school and straight A’s in junior college. He ignored the floozies who chased after him; he tinkered with hot rods. He had one close friend: a boy named Tim Bergstrom, now a phys ed teacher at San Berdoo High.

Buzz drove to the school and badged Bergstrom. The man had seen the newspaper plant on Upshaw’s death, said Danny was born to die young and elaborated over beers in a nearby bar. He said that Danny liked to figure things like motors and engines and arithmetic out, that he stole cars because he loved the danger, that he was always trying to prove himself, but kept quiet about it. You could tell he was crazy inside, but you couldn’t figure out how or why; you could tell he was really smart, but you didn’t know what he’d end up doing with his brains. Girls liked him because he was mysterious and played hard to get; he was a terrific street fighter. Years ago, drunk, Danny told him a story about witnessing a murder; that was when he got hipped on being a cop, hipped on scientific forensic stuff. He was a cold drunk: booze just made him more inside, more mysterious and persistent, and sooner or later you knew he’d persist with the wrong guy and get himself shot — what surprised him was that Danny died accidentally. Buzz let that one go and said, “Was Danny a queer?” Bergstrom flushed, twitched, sputtered into his beer and said, “Hell, no” — and two seconds later was whipping out pictures of his wife and kids.

Buzz drove back to LA, called a County pal, learned that Danny Upshaw’s Personnel file had been yanked and that for all intents and purposes the kid was never a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He took a trip by the West Hollywood Substation, talked to the guys on the squad, learned that Danny never accepted bribes or trade pussy; he never moved on his snitch Janice Modine or on switchboard Karen Hiltscher — both of whom were dying to give it to him. Upshaw’s fellow deputies either respected his brains or wrote him off as an idealistic fool with a mean streak; Captain Al Dietrich was rumored to like him because he was methodical, hard-working and ambitious. Buzz thought of him as a kid graduating from machines to people at the wrong time, fishing for WHY? in a river of shit, getting the worst answer two bad cases had to give and ending up dead because he couldn’t lie to himself.

Daniel Thomas Upshaw, 1922–1950. Queer.

Turner Prescott Meeks, 1906–? Free ride because the kid couldn’t take it.

“It” couldn’t be anything else. Danny Upshaw didn’t kill Gene Niles. Mal said Thad Green and two hardnoses roughed him up; they probably recounted Niles calling him a queer and went over what Dudley Smith told Mal and Green: that Danny was seen shaking down Felix Gordean. With a poly test and silly syrup pending, Green let the kid go home with his gun, hoping he’d spare LAPD the grief of a trial and Niles as a Dragna bagman coming out. Danny had obliged — but for the wrong reason and not with his gun.

Scapegoat.

Who got some kind of last laugh.

He couldn’t sleep for shit; when he did put three or four hours together he dreamed of all the crappy stunts he’d pulled: farm girls coerced into Howard’s bed; heroin bootjacked and sold to Mickey, cash in his pocket, the junk sidetracked on its way to some hophead’s arm. Sleeping with Audrey was the only cure — she’d played her string since Niles like a trouper — and touching her and keeping her safe kept the kid away. But their four nights in a row at Howard’s place was dangerous too, and every time he left her he got scared and knew he had to do something about it.

Keeping his take on Danny away from Mal was one way. The cop couldn’t believe the kid killed Niles, and he was pretty shrewd in tagging Cohen gunmen for the job — he’d watched Danny question a Dragna hump named Vinnie Scoppettone, who spilled on the shooting at Sherry’s: LAPD shooters. But that was as far as his reconstruction went, and he still idealized Upshaw as a smart young cop headed for rank and glory. Keeping the kid’s secret was the beginning.

Buzz cocked a finger at the gravestone and made up his mind around two facts. One, when LAPD crashed Upshaw’s pad, they found it thoroughly trashed; Nort Layman did a forensic, came up with Danny’s prints on a shitload of tossed furniture and pegged him going crazy in the last moments of his life. LAPD’s property report — the contents of the apartment inventoried — carried no mention of the grand jury paperwork or the personal file Danny kept on his homicides. He broke into the place and tossed it extra good; no files were secreted anywhere inside the four rooms. Mal was there when the body was discovered; he said LAPD sealed the crib tight, with only Danny and the knife leaving the premises. Two, the night before he died, Danny called him: he was amazed that his two cases had crossed at the juncture of Charles Hartshorn and Reynolds Loftis.

“Deputy, are you tellin’ me Loftis is a suspect for your killin’s?”

“I’m telling you maybe. Maybe real strong. He fits the killer’s description... and he fits.”

No way was Danny Upshaw a murder victim. No way did the file thief wreck his apartment. Dudley Smith had a strange fix on the kid, but there was no reason for him to steal the files, and if he did he would have faked a burglary.

Person or persons unknown — a good starting point for some payback.

Buzz found Mal in Ellis Loew’s back yard, sitting on a sunbleached sofa, going over papers. He looked skinny beyond skinny, like he was starving himself to make the bantamweight limit. “Hey, boss.”

Mal nodded and kept working. Buzz said, “I want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Not some Commie plot, that’s for damn sure.”

Mal connected a series of names with pencil lines. “I know you don’t take this seriously, but it is serious.”

“It’s a serious piece of gravy, I’ll give you that. And I sure want my share. It’s just that I’ve got some other boogeymen on my mind right now.”

“Like who?”

“Like Upshaw.”

Mal put his paper and pencil down. “He’s LAPD’s boogeyman, not yours.”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t kill Niles, boss.”

“We’ve been over that, Buzz. It was Mickey or Jack, and we’d never be able to prove it in a million years.”

Buzz sat down on the couch — it stank of mildew and some Red chaser had burned the arms with cigarette butts. “Mal, you remember Upshaw tellin’ us about his file on the queer snuffs?”

“Sure.”

“It was stolen from his apartment, and so was his copy of the grand jury package.”

“What?”

“I’m certain about it. You said LAPD sealed the pad and didn’t take nothin’, and I checked Upshaw’s desk at West Hollywood Station. Lots of old paperwork, but zilch on the 187’s and the grand jury. You been so absorbed chasin’ pinkers you probably didn’t even think about it.”

Mal tapped Buzz with his pencil. “You’re right, I didn’t, and where are you fishing? The kid’s dead and buried, he was in trouble over that B&E he pulled, he was probably finished as a cop. He could have been the best, and I miss him. But he dug his own grave.”

Buzz clamped down on Mal’s hand. “Boss, we dug his grave. You pushed him too hard on De Haven, and I... oh fuck it.”

Mal pulled his hand free. “You what?”

“The kid had a fix on Reynolds Loftis. We talked on the phone the night before he died. He’d read about Charles Hartshorn’s suicide, the paper made him as a Sleepy Lagoon lawyer and Upshaw had him as a lead on his homicides — Hartshorn was blackmailed by one of the victims. I told him Loftis was rousted with Hartshorn at a queer bar back in ’44, and the kid went nuts. He didn’t know Hartshorn was involved with Sleepy Lagoon, and that sure did seem to set him off. I asked him if Loftis was a suspect, and he said, ‘Maybe real strong.’ ”

Mal said, “Have you talked to that County man Shortell about this?”

“No, he’s in Montana on vacation.”

“Mike Breuning?”

“I don’t trust that boy to answer straight. Remember how Danny told us Breuning fluffed the job and was jerkin’ his chain?”

“Meeks, you sure took your time telling me this.”

“I’ve been thinkin’ it over, and it took me a while to figure out what I was gonna do.”

“Which is?”

Buzz smiled. “Maybe Loftis is a hot suspect, maybe he ain’t. Whatever, I’m gonna get me that queer slasher, whoever he is.”

Mal smiled. “And then what?”

“Then arrest him or kill him.”

Mal said, “You’re out of your mind.”

Buzz said, “I was sorta thinkin’ about askin’ you to join me. A captain out of his mind has got more juice than a loaner cop with a few loose.”

“I’ve got the grand jury, Meeks. And day after tomorrow’s the divorce trial.”

Buzz cracked his knuckles. “You in?”

“No. It’s crazy. And I don’t feature you as the dramatic gesture type, either.”

“I owe him. We owe him.”

“No, it’s wrong.”

“Think of the angles, skipper. Loftis as a psycho killer. You pop him for that before the grand jury convenes and UAES’ll go in the toilet so large they’ll hear it flush in Cleveland.”

Mal laughed; Buzz laughed and said, “We’ll give it a week or so. We’ll put together what we can get out of the grand jury file and we’ll talk to Shortell and see what he’s got. We’ll brace Loftis, and if it goes bust, it goes bust.”

“There’s the grand jury, Meeks.”

“A Commie like Loftis popped for four 187’s makes you so large that no judge in this state would fuck you over on your custody case. Think of that.”

Mal broke his pencil in two. “I need a continuance, now, and I won’t frame Loftis.”

“That mean you’re in?”

“I don’t know.”

Buzz went for the kill. “Well, shit there, Captain. I thought appealin’ to your career would get you, but I guess I was wrong. Just think about Danny Upshaw and how bad he wanted it, and how you got your rocks off sendin’ him after Claire De Haven. Think how maybe her and Loftis played with that cherry kid right before he cut his fuckin’ throat. Then you—”

Mal slapped Buzz hard in the face.

Buzz sat on his hands so he wouldn’t hit back.

Mal threw his list of names on the grass and said, “I’m in. But if this fucks up my grand jury shot, it’s you and me for real. For keeps.”

Buzz smiled. “Yessir, Captain.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Claire De Haven said, “I take it this means all pretenses are off.”

A weak intro — he knew she had Upshaw made and the grand jury on track. Mal said, “This is about four murders.”

“Oh?”

“Where’s Reynolds Loftis? I want to talk to him.”

“Reynolds is out, and I told you before that he and I will not name names.”

Mal walked into the house. He saw the front page of last Wednesday’s Herald on a chair; he knew Claire had seen the piece on Danny’s death, Sheriff’s Academy picture included. She closed the door — her no pretense — she wanted to know what he had. Mal said, “Four killings. No political stuff unless you tell me otherwise.”

Claire said, “I’ll tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mal pointed to the paper. “What’s so interesting about last week’s news?”

“A sad little obituary on a young man I knew.”

Mal played in. “What kind of young man?”

“I think frightened, impotent and treacherous describes him best.”

The epitaph stung; Mal wondered for the ten millionth time what Danny Upshaw and Claire De Haven did to each other. “Four men raped and cut up. No political stuff for you to get noble about. Do you want to get down off your high Commie horse and tell me what you know about it? What Reynolds Loftis knows?”

Claire walked up to him, perfume right in his face. “You sent that boy to fuck information out of me and now you want to preach decency?”

Mal grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them; he got his night’s worth of report study straight in his head. “January 1, Marty Goines snatched from South Central, shot with heroin, mutilated and killed. January 4, George Wiltsie and Duane Lindenaur, secobarbital sedated, mutilated and killed. January 14, Augie Luis Duarte, the same thing. Wiltsie and Duarte were male whores, we know that certain men in your union frequent male whores and the killer’s description is a dead ringer for Loftis. Still want to play cute?”

Claire squirmed; Mal saw her as something wrong to touch and let go. She wheeled to a desk by the stairwell, grabbed a ledger and shoved it at him. “On January first, fourth, and fourteenth, Reynolds was here in full view of myself and others. You’re insane to think he could kill anybody, and this proves it.”

Mal took the ledger, skimmed it and shoved it back to her. “It’s a fake. I don’t know what the crossouts mean, but only your signature and Loftis’ are real. The others are traced over, and the minutes are like Dick and Jane join the Party. It’s a fake, and you had it out and ready. Now you explain that, or I go get a material witness warrant for Loftis.”

Claire held the ledger to herself. “I don’t believe that threat. I think this is some kind of personal vendetta with you.”

“Just answer me.”

“My answer is that your young Deputy Ted kept pressing me about what Reynolds was doing on those nights, and when I discovered that he was a policeman I thought he must have convinced himself that Reynolds did something terrible. Reynolds was here then for meetings, so I left this out for the boy to see, so he wouldn’t launch some awful circumstantial pogrom.”

A perfect right answer. “You didn’t know a graphologist would eat that ledger up in court?”

“No.”

“And what did you think Danny Upshaw was trying to prove against Loftis?”

“I don’t know! Some kind of treason, but not sex murders!”

Mal couldn’t tell if she’d raised her voice to cover a lie. “Why didn’t you show Upshaw your real ledger? You were taking a risk that he’d spot a fake one.”

“I couldn’t. A policeman would probably consider our real minutes treason.”

“Treason” was a howler; profundity from a roundheels who’d spread for anything pretty in pants. Mal laughed, caught himself and stopped; Claire said, “Care to tell me what’s so amusing?”

“Nothing.”

“You sound patronizing.”

“Let’s change the subject. Danny Upshaw had a file on the murders, and it was stolen from his apartment. Do you know anything about that?”

“No. I’m not a thief. Or a comedienne.”

Getting mad shaved ten years off the woman’s age. “Then don’t give yourself more credit than you’re worth.”

Claire raised a hand, then held it back. “If you don’t consider my friends and me serious, then why are you trying to smear us and ruin our lives?”

Mal fizzled at a wisecrack; he said, “I want to talk to Loftis.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m doing the asking. When’s Loftis coming back?”

Claire laughed. “Oh mein policeman, what your face just said. You know it’s a travesty, don’t you? You think we’re too ineffectual to be dangerous, which is just about as wrong as thinking we’re traitors.”

Mal thought of Dudley Smith; he thought of the Red Queen eating Danny Upshaw alive. “What happened with you and Ted Krugman?”

“Get your names straight. You mean Deputy Upshaw, don’t you?”

“Just tell me.”

“I’ll tell you he was naive and eager to please and all bluff where women were concerned, and I’ll tell you you shouldn’t have sent such a frail American patriot after us. Frail and clumsy. Did he really fall on a cutlery rack?”

Mal swung an open hand; Claire flinched at the blow and slapped back, no tears, just smeared lipstick and a welt forming on her cheek. Mal turned and braced himself against the banister, afraid of the way he looked; Claire said, “You could just quit. You could denounce the wrongness of it, say we’re ineffectual and not worth the money and effort and still sound like a big tough cop.”

Mal tasted blood on his lips. “I want it.”

“For what? Glory? You’re too smart for patriotism.”

Mal saw Stefan waving goodbye; Claire said, “For your son?”

Mal, trembling, said, “What did you say?”

“We’re not the fools you think we are, recently promoted Captain. We know how to hire private detectives and they know how to check records and verify old rumors. You know, I’m impressed with the Nazi you killed and rather surprised that you can’t see the parallels between that regime and your own.”

Mal kept looking away; Claire stepped closer to him.“I understand what you must feel for your son. And I think we both know the fix is in.”

Mal pushed himself off the railing and looked at her. “Yeah. The fix is in, and this conversation didn’t happen. And I still want to talk to Reynolds Loftis. And if he killed those men, I’m taking him down.”

“Reynolds has not killed anyone.”

“Where is he?”

Claire said, “He’ll be back tonight, and you can talk to him then. He’ll convince you, and I’ll make you a deal. I know you need a continuance on your custody trial, and I have friends on the bench who can get it for you. But I don’t want Reynolds smeared to the grand jury.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Don’t make a career out of underestimating me. Reynolds was hurt badly in ’47, and I don’t think he’d be able to go through it again. I’ll do everything I can to help you with your son, but I don’t want Reynolds hurt.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll take my knocks.”

“It’s impossible.”

“Reynolds has not killed anyone.”

“Maybe that’s true, but he’s been named as a subversive too many times.”

“Then destroy those depositions and don’t call those witnesses.”

“You don’t understand. His name is all over our paperwork a thousand goddamn times.”

Claire held Mal’s arms. “Just tell me you’ll try to keep him from being hurt too badly. Tell me yes and I’ll make my calls, and you won’t have to go to trial tomorrow.”

Mal saw himself doctoring transcripts, shuffling names and realigning graphs to point to other Commies, going mano a mano: his editorial skill versus Dudley Smith’s memory. “Do it. Have Loftis here at 8:00 and tell him it’s going to be ugly.”

Claire took her hands away. “It won’t be any worse than your precious grand jury.”

“Don’t go noble on me, because I know who you are.”

“Don’t cheat me, because I’ll use my friends to ruin you.”

A deal with a real red devil: the continuance buying him time to un-nail a subversive, nail a killer and nail himself as a hero. And just maybe cross Claire De Haven. “I won’t cheat you.”

“I’ll have to trust you. And can I ask you something? Off the record?”

“What?”

“Your opinion of this grand jury.”

Mal said, “It’s a goddamn waste and a goddamn shame.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Mickey Cohen was pitching a tantrum; Johnny Stompanato was fueling it; Buzz was watching — scared shitless.

They were at the Mick’s hideaway, surrounded by muscle. After the bomb under the house went off, Mickey sent Lavonne back east and moved into the Samo Canyon bungalow, wondering who the fuck wanted him dead. Jack D. called to say it wasn’t him — Mickey believed it. Brenda Allen was still in jail, the City cops had settled into a slow burn and cop bombers played like science fiction. Mickey decided it was the Commies. Some Pinko ordnance expert got word he was fronting the Teamsters, popped his cork and planted the bomb that destroyed thirty-four of his custom suits. It was a Commie plot — it couldn’t be anything else.

Buzz kept watching, waiting by the phone for a call from Mal Considine. Davey Goldman and Mo Jahelka were prowling the grounds; a bunch of goons were oiling the shotguns stashed in the fake panel between the living room and bedroom. Mickey had started squawking half an hour ago, topics ranging from Audrey not giving him any to passive resistance on the picket line and how he was going to fix the UAES’s red wagon. Comedy time until Johnny Stomp showed up and started talking his conspiracy.

The guinea Adonis brought bad news: when Petey Skouras blew to Frisco he took a week’s worth of receipts with him — Audrey told him when he picked up the Southside front’s cash take. Buzz horned in on the conversation, thinking the lioness couldn’t be stupid enough to try to play Petey’s splitsville for a profit — Petey himself had to have done it — his bonus atop the thousand-dollar beating. Johnny’s news got worse: he took a baseball bat to a guy on the welcher list, who told him Petey was no skimmer, Petey would never protect a girlfriend’s brother because Petey liked boys — young darky stuff — a habit he picked up in a U.S. army stockade in Alabama. Mickey went around the twist then, spraying spit like a rabid dog, spitting obscenities in Yiddish, making his Jew strongarms squirm. Johnny had to know that his story contradicted Buzz’s story; the fact that he wouldn’t give him an even eyeball clinched it. When Mickey stopped ranting and started thinking, he’d snap to that, too — then he’d start asking questions and it would be another convoluted epic to explain the lie, something along the lines of Skouras protecting his boyfriend’s brother, how he didn’t want poor Greek Petey smeared as taking it Greek. Mickey would believe him — probably.

Buzz got out his notepad and wrote a memo to Mal and Ellis Loew — abbreviated skinny from three triggermen moonlighting as picket goons. Their consensus: UAES still biding its time, the Teamster rank and file on fire to whomp some ass, the only new wrinkle a suspicious-looking van parked on Gower, a man with a movie camera in the back. The man, a studious bird with Trotsky glasses, was seen talking to Norm Kostenz, the UAES picket boss. Conclusion: UAES wanted the Teamsters to rumble, so they could capture the ass-whomping on film.

His skate work done, Buzz listened to Mickey rant and checked his real notes — the grand jury and shrink files read over and put together with a few records prowls and a brief talk with Jack Shortell’s partner at the San Dimas Substation. Shortell would be returning from Montana tomorrow; he could hit him for a real rundown on Upshaw’s case then. The partner said that Jack said Danny seemed to think the killings derived from the time of the Sleepy Lagoon murder and the SLDC — it was the last thing the kid talked up before LAPD grabbed him. That in mind, Buzz matched the theory to his file facts.

He got:

Danny told him Reynolds Loftis fit his killing suspect’s description — and in general — “he fits.” Charles Hartshorn, a recent suicide, was rousted with Loftis at a local fruit bar in ’44.

Two identical names and an R&I and DMV check got him Augie Duarte, snuff victim number four, and his cousin, SLDC/UAES hotshot Juan Duarte, currently working at Variety International Pictures — on a set next to the room where victim number three, Duane Lindenaur, worked as a rewrite man. SLDC Lawyer Hartshorn was blackmailed by Lindenaur years ago — a check on the crime report led him to an LASD Sergeant named Skakel, who had also talked to Danny Upshaw. Skakel told him that Lindenaur met Hartshorn at a party thrown by fag impresario Felix Gordean, the man Danny said the killer had a fix on.

The first victim, Marty Goines, died of a heroin overjolt. Loftis’ fiancée Claire De Haven was a skin-popper; she took Dr. Terry Lux’s cure three times. Terry said Loftis copped H for her.

From Mal’s report on the Sammy Benavides/Mondo Lopez/Juan Duarte questioning:

Benavides shouted something about Chaz Minear, Loftis’ fag squeeze, buying boys at a “puto escort service” — Gordean’s?

Also on Minear: in his psych file, Chaz justified snitching Loftis to HUAC by pointing to a third man in a love triangle — “ If you knew who he was, you’d understand why I did it.”

Two strange-o deals:

The ’42 to ’44 pages were missing from Loftis’ psych file and Doc Lesnick couldn’t be found. At the three Mexes’ questioning, one of the guys muttered an aside — the SLDC got letters tapping a “big white man” for the Sleepy Lagoon murder.

Strange-o stuff aside, all circumstantial — but too solid to be coincidence.

The phone rang, cutting through Mickey’s tirade on Commies. Buzz picked it up; Johnny Stomp watched him talk.

“Yeah. Cap, that you?”

“It’s me, Turner, my lad.”

“You sound happy, boss.”

“I just got a ninety-day continuance, so I am happy. Did you do your homework?”

Stompanato was still staring. Buzz said, “Sure did. Circumstantial but tight. You talk to Loftis?”

“Meet me at 463 Canon Drive in an hour. We’ve got him as a friendly witness.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

Buzz hung up. Johnny Stomp winked at him and turned back to Mickey.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Headlights bounced over the street, caught his windshield and went off. Mal heard a car door slamming and tapped his highbeams; Buzz walked over and said, “You do your homework?”

“Yeah. Like you said, circumstantial. But it’s there.”

“How’d you fix this up, Cap?”

Mal held back on the De Haven deal. “Danny wasn’t too subtle hitting up Claire for Loftis’ whereabouts on the killing dates, so she faked a meeting diary — Loftis alibied for the three nights. She says there were meetings, and he was there, but they were planning seditious stuff — that’s why she sugar-coated the damn thing. She says Loftis is clean.”

“You believe it?”

“Maybe, but my gut tells me they’re connected to the whole deal. This afternoon I checked Loftis’ bank records going back to ’40. Three times in the spring and summer of ’44 he made cash withdrawals of ten grand. Last week he made another one. Interesting?”

Buzz whistled. “From old Reynolds’s missing-file time. It’s gotta be blackmail, there’s blackmail all over this mess. You wanna play him white hat-black hat?”

Mal got out of the car. “You be the bad guy. I’ll get De Haven out of the way, and we’ll work him.”

They walked up to the door and rang the bell. Claire De Haven answered; Mal said, “You go somewhere for a couple of hours.”

Claire looked at Buzz, lingering on his ratty sharkskin and heater. “You mustn’t touch him.”

Mal hooked a thumb over his back. “Go somewhere.”

“No thank yous for what I did?”

Mal caught Buzz catching it. “Go somewhere, Claire.”

The Red Queen brushed past them out the door; she gave Buzz a wide berth. Mal whispered, “Hand signals. Three fingers on my tie means hit him.”

“You got the stomach for this?”

“Yes. You?”

“One for the kid, boss.”

Mal said, “I still don’t make you for the sentimental gesture type.”

“I guess old dogs can learn. What just happened with you and the princess?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure, boss.”

Mal heard coughing in the living room; Buzz said, “I’ll kick-start him.” A voice called, “Gentlemen, can we get this over with?”

Buzz walked in first, whistling at the furnishings; Mal followed, taking a long look at Loftis. The man was tall and gray per Upshaw’s suspect description; he was dashingly handsome at fifty or so and his whole manner was would-be slick — a costume of tweed slacks and cardigan sweater, a sprawl on the divan, one leg hooked over the other at the knee.

Mal sat next to him; Buzz thunked a chair down a hard breath away. “You and that honey Claire are gettin’ married, huh?”

Loftis said, “Yes, we are.”

Buzz smiled, soft and homespun. “ That’s sweet. She gonna let you pork boys on the side?”

Loftis sighed. “I don’t have to answer that question.”

“The fuck you don’t. You answer it, you answer it now.”

Mal came in. “Mr. Loftis is right, Sergeant. That question is not germane. Mr. Loftis, where were you on the nights of January first, fourth and the fourteenth of this year?”

“I was here, at meetings of the UAES Executive Committee.”

“And what was discussed at those meetings?”

“Claire said I didn’t have to discuss that with you.”

Buzz snickered. “You take orders from a woman?”

“Claire is no ordinary woman.”

“She sure ain’t. A rich bitch Commie that shacks with a fruitfly sure ain’t everyday stuff to me.”

Loftis sighed again. “Claire told me this would be ugly, and she was correct. She also told me your sole purpose was to convince yourselves that I didn’t kill anyone, and that I did not have to discuss the UAES business that was transacted on those three nights.”

Mal knew Meeks would figure out the Claire deal before too long; he joined his partner on the black hat side. “Loftis, I don’t think you did kill anybody. But I think you’re in deep on some other things, and I’m not talking politics. We want the killer, and you’re going to help us get him.”

Loftis licked his lips and knotted his fingers together; Mal touched his tie bar: go in full. Buzz said, “What’s your blood type?”

Loftis said, “O positive.”

“That’s the killer’s blood type, boss. You know that?”

“It’s the most common blood type among white people, and your friend just said I’m no longer a suspect.”

“My friend’s a soft touch. You know a trombone man named Marty Goines?”

“No.”

“Duane Lindenaur?”

“No.”

“George Wiltsie?”

Tilt: Loftis crossing and recrossing his legs, licking his lips. “No.”

Buzz said, “Horse fucking pucky, you don’t Give.”

“I said I never knew him!”

“Then why’d you describe him in the past tense?”

“Oh God—”

Mal flashed two fingers, then his left hand over his right fist: He’s mine, no hitting. “Augie Duarte, Loftis. What about him?”

“I don’t know him” — a dry tongue over dry lips.

Buzz cracked his knuckles — loud. Loftis flinched; Mal said, “George Wiltsie was a male prostitute. Did you ever traffic with him? Tell the truth or my partner will get angry.”

Loftis looked down at his lap. “Yes.”

Mal said, “Who set it up?”

“Nobody set it up! It was just... a date.”

Buzz said, “A date you paid for, boss?”

“No.”

Mal said, “Felix Gordean set you up with him, right?”

“No!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No!”

Mal knew a straight admission was out; he jabbed Loftis hard on the shoulder. “Augie Duarte. Was he just a date?”

“No!”

“Tell the truth, or I’ll leave you alone with the sergeant.”

Loftis pinched his knees together and hunched his shoulders down. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes. We dated once.”

Buzz said, “You sound like a one-night stand man. A date with Wiltsie, a date with Duarte. Where’d you meet those guys?”

“Nowhere... at a bar.”

“What bar?”

“The Oak Room at the Biltmore, the Macombo, I don’t know.”

“You’re rattlin’ my cage, boy. Duarte was Mex and those joints don’t serve spics. So try again. Two goddamn queer slash murder victims you got between the sheets with. Where’d you meet them?”

Reynolds Loftis stayed crimped up and silent; Buzz said, “You paid for them, right? It ain’t no sin. I’ve paid for pussy, so why shouldn’t somebody of your persuasion pay for boys?”

“No. No. No, that’s not true.”

Mal, very soft. “Felix Gordean.”

Loftis, trembling. “No no no no no.”

Buzz twirled a finger and smoothed his necktie — the switcheroo sign. “Charles Hartshorn. Why’d he kill himself?”

“He was tortured by people like you!”

Mal’s switcheroo. “You copped horse for Claire. Who’d you get it from?”

“Who told you that?” — Loftis actually sounding indignant.

Buzz leaned over and whispered, “Felix Gordean”; Loftis jerked back and banged his head on the wall. Mal said, “Duane Lindenaur worked at Variety International, where your friends Lopez, Duarte and Benavides are working. Juan Duarte is Augie Duarte’s cousin. You used to appear in Variety International movies. Duane Lindenaur was blackmailing Charles Hartshorn. Why don’t you put all that together for me.”

Loftis was sweating; Mal caught a twitch at blackmail. “Three times in ’44 and once last week you withdrew ten grand from your bank account. Who’s blackmailing you?”

The man was oozing sweat. Buzz flashed a fist on the QT; Mal shook his head and gave him the switch sign. Buzz said, “Tell us about the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. Some strange stuff happened, right?”

Loftis wiped sweat off his brow; he said, “What strange stuff?”, his voice cracking.

“Like the letters the Committee got that said a big white man snuffed José Diaz. A deputy pal of ours seemed to think these here killings went back to Sleepy Lagoon — zoot stick time. All the victims were cut with zoot sticks.”

Loftis wrung his hands, popping more sweat; his eyes were glazed. Mal could tell Meeks went for a soft shot — innocuous stuff from his interrogation notes — but came up with a bludgeon. Buzz looked bewildered; Mal tamped down his black hat. “Loftis, who’s blackmailing you?”

Loftis squeaked, “No”; Mal saw that he’d sweated his clothes through. “What happened with the SLDC?”

“No!”

“Is Gordean blackmailing you?”

“I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answ—”

“You’re a slimy piece of Commie shit. What kind of treason are you planning at your meetings? Cop on that!”

“Claire said I didn’t have to!”

“Who’s that piece of tail you and Chaz Minear were fighting over during the war? Who’s that piece of fluff?”

Loftis sobbed and keened and managed a squeaky singsong. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answers might tend to incriminate me, but I never hurt anybody and neither did my friends so please don’t hurt us.”

Mal made a fist, Stanford ring stone out to do maximum damage. Buzz put a hand on his own fist and squeezed it, a new semaphore: don’t hit him or I’ll hit you. Mal got scared and went for big verbal ammo: Loftis didn’t know Chaz Minear ratted him to HUAC. “Are you protecting Minear? You shouldn’t, because he was the one who snitched you to the Feds. He was the one who got you blacklisted.”

Loftis curled into a ball; he murmured his Fifth Amendment spiel, like their interrogation was legal and defense counsel would swoop to the rescue. Buzz said, “You dumb shit, we coulda had him.” Mal turned and saw Claire De Haven standing there. She was saying, “Chaz,” over and over.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The picket line action was simmering.

Buzz watched from the Variety International walkway, three stories up. Jack Shortell and Mal were supposed to call; Ellis Loew had called him at home, yanking him out of another Danny nightmare. The DA’s command: convince Herman Gerstein to kick an additional five thou into the grand jury war chest. Herman was out — probably muff-diving Betty Grable — and there was nothing for him to do but stew on Considine’s foul-up and scope the prelim to slaughter down on the street.

You could see it plain:

A Teamster goon with a baseball bat was lounging near the UAES camera van; when the shit hit the fan and the film rolled, he’d be Johnny on the spot to neutralize the cinematographer and bust up his equipment. Teamster pickets were carrying double and triple banner sticks, taped grips, good shillelaghs. Four muscle boys were skulking by the Pinkos’ lunch truck — just the right number to tip it over and coffee-scald the guy inside. A minute ago he saw a Cohen triggerman make an on-the-sly delivery: riot guns with rubber-bullet attachments, wrapped in swaddling cloth like Baby Jesus. Over on De Longpre, the Teamsters had their moviemaking crew at the ready: actor/picketers who’d wade in, provoke just the right way and make sure a few UAES pickets whomped them; three camera guys in the back of a tarp-covered pickup. When the dust cleared, Mickey’s boys would survive on celluloid as the good guys.

Buzz kept posing Mal against the action. The Cap had almost shot Doc Lesnick’s confidentiality on the psych files — blowing the whistle on Minear squealing Loftis — just when they were getting close on the blackmail angle and Felix Gordean. He’d hustled him out of the house quicksville, so he wouldn’t keep trashing the team’s cover — if they were lucky, De Haven and Loftis figured a HUAC source gave them the dope on Minear. For a smart cop, Captain Malcolm Considine kept making stupid moves: it was twenty to one he’d cut a deal with Red Claire for the custody case continuance; ten to one his attack on Loftis came close to deep sixing it. The old nance was no killer, but the ’42 to ’44 gap in his psych file — a time he was terrified remembering — talked volumes, and he and De Haven were looking like prime suspects on the snatch of the kid’s paperwork. And Doc Lesnick being no-place was starting to look as wrong as Mal fucking up his own wet dream.

The Teamster men were passing around bottles; UAES was marching and shouting its sad old refrain: “Fair Wages Now,” “End the Studio Tyranny.” Buzz thought of a cat about to pounce on a mouse nibbling cheese on the edge of a cliff; he gave the matinee a pass and walked into Herman Gerstein’s office.

Still no mogul; the switchboard girl at the plant knew to forward his calls to Herman’s private line. Buzz sat behind Gerstein’s desk, sniffed his humidor, admired his starlet pics on the wall. He was speculating on his grand jury bonus when the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Meeks?”

Not Mal, not Shortell — but a familiar voice. “It’s me. Who’s this?”

“Johnny.”

“Stompanato?”

“How soon they forget.”

“Johnny, what’re you callin’ me for?”

“How soon they forget their good deeds. I owe you one, remember?”

Buzz remembered the Lucy Whitehall gig — it seemed like a million years ago. “Go, Johnny.”

“I’m paying you back, you cracker shitbird. Mickey knows Audrey’s the skimmer. I didn’t tell him, and I even kept hush on what you pulled with Petey S. It was the bank. Audrey put her skim in the Hollywood bank where Mick puts his race wire dough. The manager got suspicious and called him. Mickey’s sending Fritzie over to get her. You’re closer, so we’re even.”

Buzz saw Icepick Fritzie carving. “You knew about us?”

“I thought Audrey looked nervous lately, so I tailed her up to Hollywood, and she met you. Mickey doesn’t know about you and her, so stay icy.”

Buzz blew a wet kiss into the phone, hung up and called Audrey’s number; he got a busy signal, hauled down to the back lot and his car. He ran red lights and yellow lights and took every shortcut he knew speeding over; he saw Audrey’s Packard in the driveway, jumped the curb and skidded up on the lawn. He left the motor running, pulled his .38, ran to the door and shouldered it open.

Audrey was sitting on her bargain basement lounge chair, hair in curlers, cold cream on her face. She saw Buzz and tried to cover herself; Buzz beelined for her and started kissing, getting all gooey. He said, “Mickey knows you skimmed him,” between kisses; Audrey squealed. “This isn’t fair!” and “You’re not supposed to see me this way!” Buzz thought of Fritzie K. gaining ground, grabbed the lioness and slung her out to her car. He gasped, “Ventura by Pacific Coast Highway, and I’m right behind you. It ain’t the Beverly Wilshire, but it’s safe.”

Audrey said, “Five minutes to pack?”

Buzz said, “No.”

Audrey said, “Oh shit. I really liked LA.”

Buzz said, “Say goodbye to it.”

Audrey popped off a handful of curlers and wiped her face. “Bye-bye, LA.”

The two-car caravan made it to Ventura in an hour ten. Buzz ensconced Audrey in the shack at the edge of his farmland, hid her Packard in a pine grove, left her all his money except a tensky and a single and told her to call a friend of his on the Ventura Sheriff’s for a place to stay — the man owed him almost as much as he owed Johnny Stompanato. Audrey started crying when she realized it really was bye-bye LA, bye-bye house, bank account, clothes and everything else except her bagman lover; Buzz kissed off the rest of her cold cream, told her he’d call his buddy to grease the skids and ring her at the guy’s place tonight. The lioness left him with a dry-eyed sigh. “Mickey was good with a buck, but he was lousy in bed. I’ll try not to miss him.”

Buzz drove straight into Oxnard, the next town south. He found a pay phone, called Dave Kleckner at the Ventura Court-house, made arrangements for him to pick up Audrey and dialed his own line at Hughes Aircraft. His secretary said Jack Shortell had called; she’d forwarded him to Herman Gerstein’s office and Mal Considine’s extension at the Bureau. Buzz changed his dollar into dimes and had the operator ring Madison-4609; Mal answered, “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Where are you? I’ve been trying to get you all morning.”

“Ventura. A little errand.”

“Well, you missed the goodies. Mickey went nuts. He gave his boys on Gower Gulch carte blanche, and they’re busting heads as we speak. I just got a call from a Riot Squad lieutenant, and he said it’s the worst he’s ever seen. Want to place bets?”

Odds on him getting the lioness out of the country: even money. “Boss, Mickey’s nuts on Audrey, that’s what probably ripped his cork. He found out she was skimmin’ at his shark mill.”

“Jesus. Does he know about—”

“Ixnay, and I wanta keep it that way. She’s stashed up here for now, but it can’t last forever.”

Mal said, “We’ll fix something. Are you still hot on payback?”

“More than ever. You talk to Shortell?”

“Ten minutes ago. Do you have something to write on?”

“No, but I got a memory. Shoot me.”

Mal said, “The last thing Danny worked was a connection between the Joredco Dental Lab on Bunker Hill — they make animal dentures — and a naturalist who raises wolverines a few blocks away. Nort Layman identified bite marks on the victims as coming from wolverine teeth — that’s what this is all about.”

Buzz whistled. “Christ on a crutch.”

“Yeah, and it gets stranger. One, Dudley Smith never put tails on those men Danny wanted under surveillance. Shortell found out, and he doesn’t know if it means anything or not. Two, Danny’s fix on the Sleepy Lagoon killing and the SLDC ties in to some burglary accomplice of Marty Goines — a youth back in the early ’40s — a kid with a burned face. Bunker Hill had a lot of unsolved B&Es the summer of ’42, and Danny gave Shortell eight names from FI cards — curfew was being enforced then, so there were plenty of them. Shortell ran eliminations on the names and came up with one man with O + blood — Coleman Masskie, DOB 5/9/23, 236 South Beaudry, Bunker Hill. Shortell thinks this guy may be a good bet as Goines’ burglar buddy.”

Buzz got the numbers down. “Boss, this Masskie guy ain’t even twenty-seven years old, which sorta contradicts the middle-aged killer theory.”

Mal said, “I know, that bothers me too. But Shortell thinks Danny was close to cracking the case — and he thought this burglary angle was a scorcher.”

“Boss, we gotta take down Felix Gordean. We were gettin’ close last night, when you...”

Silence, then Mal sounding disgusted. “Yeah, I know. Look, you take the Masskie lead, I’ll shake Juan Duarte. I put four Bureau men out to find Doc Lesnick, and if he’s alive and findable, he’s ours. Let’s meet tonight in front of the Chateau Marmont, 5:30. We’ll stretch Gordean.”

Buzz said, “Let’s do it.”

Mal said, “Did you figure out De Haven and me?”

“Took about two seconds. You don’t think she’ll cross you?”

“No, I’ve got the ace high hand. You and Mickey Cohen’s woman. Jesus.”

“You’re invited to the wedding, boss.”

“Stay alive for it, lad.”

Buzz took Pacific Coast Highway down to LA, Wilshire east to Bunker Hill. Dark clouds were brewing, threatening a deluge to soak the Southland, maybe unearth a few more stiffs, send a few more hardnoses out for payback. Two thirty-six South Beaudry was a low-rent Victorian, every single shingle weatherstripped and splintered; Buzz pulled up and saw an old woman raking leaves on a front lawn as jaundiced as the pad.

He got out and approached her. Closer up, she showed a real faded beauty: pale, almost transparent skin over haute couture cheekbones, full lips and the comeliest head of gray-brown hair he’d ever seen. Only her eyes were off — they were too bright, too protruding.

Buzz said, “Ma’am?”

The old girl leaned on her rake; there was all of one leaf caught on the tines — and it was the only leaf on the whole lawn. “Yes, young man? Are you here to make a contribution to Sister Aimee’s crusade?”

“Sister Aimee’s been out of business awhile, ma’am.”

The woman held out her hand — withered and arthritic looking — a beggar’s paw. Buzz dropped some odd dimes in it. “I’m lookin’ for a man named Coleman Masskie. Do you know him? He used to live here seven, eight years ago.”

Now the old girl smiled. “I remember Coleman well. I’m Delores Masskie Tucker Kafesjian Luderman Jensen Tyson Jones. I’m Coleman’s mother. Coleman was one of the staunchest slaves I bore to proselytize for Sister Aimee.”

Buzz swallowed. “Slaves, ma’am? And you certainly do have a lot of names.”

The woman laughed. “I tried to remember my maiden name the other day, and I couldn’t. You see, young man, I have had many lovers in my role as child breeder to Sister Aimee. God made me beautiful and fertile so that I might provide Sister Aimee Semple McPherson with acolytes, and the County of Los Angeles has given me many a Relief dollar so that I might feed my young. Certain cynics consider me a fanatic and a welfare chiseler, but they are the devil speaking. Don’t you think that spawning good white progeny for Sister Aimee is a noble vocation?”

Buzz said, “I certainly do, and I was sorta thinkin’ about doin’ it myself. Ma’am, where’s Coleman now? I got some money for him, and I figure he’ll kick some of it back to you.”

Delores scratched the grass with her rake. “Coleman was always generous. I had a total of nine children — six boys, three girls. Two of the girls became Sister Aimee followers, one, I’m ashamed to say, became a prostitute. The boys ran away when they turned fourteen or fifteen — eight hours a day of prayer and Bible reading was too strenuous for them. Coleman remained the longest — until he was nineteen. I gave him a dispensation: no prayer and Bible reading because he did chores around the neighborhood and gave me half the money. How much money do you owe Coleman, young man?”

Buzz said, “Lots of it. Where is Coleman, ma’am?”

“In hell, I’m afraid. Those who rebuke Sister Aimee are doomed to boil forever in a scalding cauldron of pus and Negro semen.”

“Ma’am, when did you last see Coleman?”

“I believe I last saw him in the late fall of 1942.”

A half-sane answer — one that played into Upshaw’s timetable. “What was old Coleman doin’ then, ma’am?”

Delores pulled the leaf from her rake and crumbled it to dust. “Coleman was developing worldly ways. He listened to jazz records on a Victrola, prowled around in the evenings and quit high school prematurely, which angered me, because Sister Aimee prefers her slaves to have a high school diploma. He got a dreadful job at a dental laboratory, and quite frankly he became a thief. I used to find strange trinkets in his room, but I let him be when he confessed his transgressions against private property and pledged ten percent of his proceeds to Sister Aimee.”

The dental lab, Coleman as a burglar — Upshaw’s theory coming through. “Ma’am, was this ’42 when Coleman was doin’ his thievery?”

“Yes. The summer before he left home.”

“And did Coleman have a burned face? Was he disfigured somehow?”

The old loon was aghast. “Coleman was male slave beauty personified! He was as handsome as a matinee idol!”

Buzz said, “Sorry for impugnin’ the boy’s looks. Ma’am, who was Masskie? He the boy’s daddy?”

“I don’t really recall. I was spreading myself quite thin with men back in the early nineteen twenties, and I only took the surnames of man with large endowments — the better for when I chanted my breeding incantations. Exactly how much money do you owe Coleman? He’s in hell, you know. Giving me the money might win a reprieve on his soul.”

Buzz forked over his last ten-spot. “Ma’am, you said Coleman hightailed in the fall of ’42?”

“Yes, that’s true, and Sister Aimee thanks you.”

“Why did he take off? Where did he go?”

Delores looked scared — her skin sank over her cheekbones and her eyes bugged out another couple of inches. “Coleman went looking for his father, whoever he was. A nasty man with a nasty brogue came around asking for him, and Coleman became terrified and ran away. The brogue man kept returning with questions on Coleman’s whereabouts, but I kept invoking the power of Sister Aimee and he desisted.”

Sleepy Lagoon killing time; Dudley Smith asking to join the grand jury team; Dudley’s off-the-track hard-on for the José Diaz murder and the SLDC. “Ma’am, are you talkin’ about an Irish brogue? A big man, late thirties then, red-faced, brown hair and eyes?”

Delores made signs, hands to her chest and up to her face, like she was warding off vampires in an old horror movie. “Get behind me, Satan! Feel the power of Foursquare Church, Angelus Temple and Sister Aimee Semple McPherson, and I will not answer another single question until you provide adequate cash tribute. Get behind me or risk hell!”

Buzz turned out his pockets for bubkis; he knew a brick wall when he saw one. “Ma’am, you tell Sister Aimee to hold her horses — I’ll be back.”

Buzz drove home, ripped a photo of then-Patrolman Dudley Smith out of his LAPD Academy yearbook and rolled to the Chateau Marmont. Dusk and light rain were falling as he parked on Sunset by the front entrance; he was settling into a fret on the lioness when Mal tapped the windshield and got in the car.

Buzz said, “Gravy. You?”

“Double gravy.”

“Boss, it plays like a ricochet, and it contradicts ‘middle-aged’ again.”

Mal stretched his legs. “So does my stuff. Nort Layman called Jack Shortell, he called me. Doc’s been grid-searching the LA River near where Augie Duarte’s body was found — he wants a complete forensic for some book he’s writing. Get this: he found silver-gray wig strands with O+ blood — obviously from a head scratch — at the exact spot where the killer would have had to scale a fence to get away. That’s why your ricochet plays.”

Buzz said, “And why Loftis doesn’t. Boss, you think somebody’s tryin’ to frame that old pansy?”

“It occurred to me, yes.”

“What’d you get off Juan Duarte?”

“Scary stuff, worse than goddamn wolverine teeth. Danny talked to Duarte, did you know that?”

“No.”

“It was right before LAPD grabbed him. Duarte told Danny that around the SLDC time Reynolds Loftis had a much younger kid brother hanging around — who looked just like him. At first, the kid had his face bandaged, because he’d been burned in a fire. Nobody knew how much he resembled Loftis until the bandages came off. The kid blabbed at the SLDC rallies — about how a big white man killed José Diaz — but nobody believed him. He was supposed to be running from the killer, but when Duarte said, ‘How come you’re showing up here where the killer might see you,’ the brother said, ‘I’ve got special protection.’ Buzz, there are no notations on a Loftis kid brother in any of the grand jury files. And it gets better.”

Buzz thought: I know it does; he wondered who’d say “Dudley Smith” first. “Keep going. My stuff fits right in.”

Mal said, “Duarte went to see Charles Hartshorn right before his alleged suicide, to see if he could get the cops to put some juice into investigating Augie’s murder. Hartshorn said he’d been ditzed on Duane Lindenaur’s killing — you, partner — and he read about the zoot stick mutilations on the other victims in a scandal sheet and thought the snuffs might be SLDC connected. Hartshorn called the LAPD then, and talked to a Sergeant Breuning, who said he’d be right over. Duarte left, and the next morning Hartshorn’s body was found. Bingo.”

Buzz said it first. “Dudley Smith. He was the big white man and he joined the team so he could keep the SLDC testimony watchdogged. That’s why he was interested in Upshaw. Danny was hipped on the zoot stick mutilations, and Augie Duarte — Juan’s cousin — was on his surveillance list. That’s why Dudley blew off the tails. He went with Breuning to see Hartshorn, and somebody said the wrong thing. Necktie party, bye-bye, Charlie.”

Mal hit the dashboard. “I can’t fucking believe it.”

“I can. Now here’s a good question. You been around Dudley lots more than I have lately. Is he tied to the queer snuffs?”

Mal shook his head. “No. I’ve been racking my brain on it, and I can’t put the two together. Dudley wanted Upshaw to join the team, and he couldn’t have cared less about dead homos. It was when Danny pushed on ‘zoot stick’ and ‘Augie Duarte’ that Dudley got scared. Wasn’t José Diaz a zooter?”

Buzz said, “His threads were slashed with a zoot stick, I think I remember that. You got a motive for Dudley killin’ Diaz?”

“Maybe. I went with Dudley to visit his niece. Apparently she’s got a bent for Mexes and Dudley can’t stand it.”

“Pretty slim, boss.”

“Dudley’s insane! What the fuck more do you want!”

Buzz squeezed his partner’s arm. “Whoa, boy, and just listen to my stuff. Coleman Masskie’s crazy mama and I had a little chat. She had lots of different kids by different daddies, she don’t know who’s whose. Coleman left home in the late fall of ’42. He was a burglar, he loved jazz, he worked at that dental lab. All that fits Upshaw’s scenario. Now, dig this: fall of ’42, a big man with a brogue comes around askin’ for Coleman. I describe Dudley, the ginch gets terrified and clams. I say Coleman’s the one runnin’ from the big white man, who’s Dudley, who bumped José Diaz — and Coleman saw it. I say we stretch Gordean now — then go back and ply that old girl and try to tie her to Reynolds Loftis.”

Mal said, “I’m taking Dudley down.”

Buzz shook his head. “You take another think on that. No proof, no evidence on Hartshorn, an eight-year-old spic homicide. A cop with Dudley’s juice. You’re as nuts as he is if you think that plays.”

Mal put on a lilting tenor brogue. “Then I’ll kill him, lad.”

“The fuck you will.”

“I’ve killed a man before, Meeks. I can do it again.”

Buzz saw that he was out to do it — enjoying the view off the cliff. “Partner, a Nazi in the war ain’t the same thing.”

“You knew about that?”

“Why’d you think I was always afraid it was you ’stead of Dragna set me up? A mild-mannered guy like you kills once, he can do it again.”

Mal laughed. “You ever kill anyone?”

“I stand on the Fifth Amendment, boss. Now you wanta go roust that queer pimp?”

Mal nodded. “7941’s the address — I think it’s back in the bungalow part.”

“You be the bad guy tonight. You’re good at it.”

“After you, lad.”

Buzz took the lead. They walked through the lobby and out a side door to the courtyard; it was dark, and high hedges hid the individual bungalows. Buzz tracked the numbers marked on wrought-iron poles, saw 7939 and said, “It’s gotta be the next one.”

Gunshots.

One, two, three, four — close, the odd-numbered side of the walkway. Buzz pulled his .38; Mal pulled and cocked his. They ran to 7941, pinned themselves to the wall on opposite sides of the door and listened. Buzz heard footsteps inside, moving away from them; he looked at Mal, counted one, two, three on his fingers, wheeled and kicked the door in.

Two shots splintered the wood above his head; a muzzle flickered from a dark back room. Buzz hit the floor; Mal piled on top of him and fired twice blindly; Buzz saw a man spread-eagled on the carpet, his yellow silk robe soaked red from sash to collar. Cash wrapped in bank tabs surrounded the body.

Mal stumbled and charged. Buzz let him go, heard thumping, crashing, glass breaking and no more shots. He got up and checked the stiff — a fancy man with a neat beard, a neat manicure and not much of a torso left. The bank tabs were marked Beverly Hills Federal, and there was at least three thousand in half-grand packets within grabbing distance. Buzz resisted; Mal came back, panting. He wheezed, “Car waiting. Late model white sedan.”

Buzz kicked a pack of greenbacks; they hit an embroidered “F.G.” on the dead man’s sleeve. “Beverly Hills Fed. That where Loftis withdrew his money?”

“That’s the place.”

Sirens in the distance.

Buzz waved goodbye to the cash. “Loftis, Claire, the killer, what do you think?”

“Let’s hit their place now. Before the Sheriffs ask us what we’re—”

Buzz said, “Separate cars,” and took off running as fast as he could.

Mal got there first.

Buzz saw him standing across the street from the De Haven house, U-turned and killed his engine. Mal leaned in the window. “What took you?”

“I run slow.”

“Anybody see you?”

“No. You?”

“I don’t think so. Buzz, we weren’t there.”

“You’re learnin’ this game better every day, boss. What’d you get here?”

“Two cold cars. I looked in a window and saw De Haven and Loftis playing cards. They’re clean. You make the killer for it?”

Buzz said, “Nix. It’s wrong. He’s a psycho fuckin’ rat worshiper, and it’s my considered opinion that psycho rat worshipers don’t carry guns. I’m thinkin’ Minear. He fits with Loftis, and there was a line on him from the files, said he liked to buy boys.”

“You could be right. The Masskie woman next?”

“236 South Beaudry, boss.”

“Let’s do it.”

Buzz got there first; he rang the bell and went eyeball to eyeball with Delores in a long white robe. She said, “Did you bring monetary tribute for Sister?”

Buzz said, “My bagman’s comin’ in a minute.” He took out the picture of Dudley Smith. “Ma’am, is this the fella who was inquirin’ after Coleman?”

Delores blinked at the photograph and crossed herself. “Get behind me, Satan. Yes, that’s him.”

Seven come eleven, one more for Danny Upshaw. “Ma’am, do you know the name Reynolds Loftis?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Anybody named Loftis?”

“No.”

“Any chance you messed with a man named Loftis around the time Coleman was born?”

The old girl harumphed. “If by ‘messed’ you mean engaged in breeding activities for Sister Aimee, the answer is no.”

Buzz said, “Ma’am, you told me Coleman went lookin’ for his daddy when he took off in ’42. If you didn’t know who his daddy was, how’d the boy know where to look?”

Delores said, “Twenty dollars for Sister Aimee and I’ll show you.”

Buzz slid off his high school ring. “Yours to keep, sweetie. Just show me.”

Delores examined the ring, pocketed it and walked away; Buzz stood on the porch wondering where Mal was. Minutes dragged; the woman returned with an old leather scrapbook. She said, “The genealogy of my slave breeding. I took pictures of all the men who gave me their seed, with appropriate comments on the back. When Coleman decided he had to find his father, he looked at this book for pictures of the men he most resembled. I hid the book when the brogue man came by, and I still want twenty dollars for this information.”

Buzz opened the scrapbook, saw that the pages contained stapled-on photographs of dozens of men, held it up to the porch light and started looking. Four pages down, a picture caught his eye: a spellbinder youthful, spellbinder handsome Reynolds Loftis in a tweed knicker suit. He pulled the photo out and read the writing on the back.

“Randolph Lawrence (a nom de guerre?), summer stock actor, the Ramona Pageant, August 30, 1922. A real Southern gentleman. Good white stock. I hope his seed springs fertile.”

1942: burglar, tooth technician, rat lover Coleman witnesses Dudley Smith killing José Diaz, sees this picture or others and locates Daddy Reynolds Loftis. 1943: Coleman, his face burned in a fire??? hangs out at SLDC rallies with his father/phony brother, talks up the big white man, nobody believes him. 1942 to 1944: Loftis’ psych file missing. 1950: killer Coleman. Was the psycho trying to frame Daddy/Reynolds for the queer murders, dressed up like Loftis himself — Doc Layman’s wig fragments the final kicker?

Buzz held out the picture. “That Coleman, ma’am?”

Delores smiled. “Rather close. What a nice-looking man. A shame I can’t remember spawning with him.”

A car door slammed; Mal got out and trotted up the steps. Buzz took him aside and showed him the photo. “Loftis, 1922. AKA Randolph Lawrence, summer stock actor. He’s Coleman’s father, not his brother.”

Mal tapped the picture. “Now I’m wondering how the boy got burned and why the brother charade. And you were right on Minear.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called the DMV. Minear owns a white ’49 Chrysler New Yorker sedan. I went by his place in Chapman Park on my way here. It was in his building’s garage, warm, and it looked just like the car at the Marmont.”

Buzz put an arm around Mal’s shoulders. “Gifts in a manger, and here’s another one. That crazy woman in the doorway ID’d Dudley from a picture I got. He’s the brogue man.”

Mal looked over at Delores. “Do you think Dudley copped Danny’s files?”

“No, I think he’d have faked a burglary. Coleman’s our killer, boss. All we gotta do now is find him.”

“Shit. Loftis and Claire won’t talk. I know it.”

Buzz took his arm away. “No, but I bet we could squeeze Chaz beauty. He was tight with Loftis back in ’43, ’44, and I know a good squeeze artist to help us. You give that lady a double-saw and I’ll go give him a call.”

Mal went for his billfold; Buzz walked into the house and found a phone by the kitchen door. He called Information, got the number he wanted and dialed it; Johnny Stompanato’s slick guinea baritone oiled on the line. “Talk to me.”

“It’s Meeks. You wanta make some money? Number-one muscle on a strongarm job, make sure my buddy don’t go crazy and hurt someone?”

Johnny Stomp said, “You’re a dead man. Mickey found out about you and Audrey. The neighbors saw you hustling her away, and I’m lucky he didn’t figure out I tipped you. Nice to know you, Meeks. I always thought you had style.”

Move over Danny Upshaw, fat man coming through. Buzz looked at Mal paying off the rat killer’s mother; he got an idea — or the idea got him. “Contract out?”

“Ten grand. Fifteen if they get you alive so Mickey can get his jollies.”

“Chump change. Johnny, you wanna make twenty grand for two hours’ work?”

“You slay me. Next you’ll be offering me a date with Lana Turner.”

“I mean it.”

“Where you gonna get that dough?”

“I’ll have it inside two weeks. Deal?”

“What makes you think you’ll live that long?”

“Ain’t you a gambler?”

“Oh shit. Deal.”

Buzz said, “I’ll call you back,” and hung up. Mal was standing beside him, shaking his head. “Mickey knows?”

“Yeah, Mickey knows. You got a couch?”

Mal gave Buzz a soft punch in the arm. “Lad, I think people are starting to get your number.”

“Say what?”

“I figured out something today.”

“What?”

“You killed Gene Niles.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Mal’s take on Johnny Stompanato: two parts olive-oil charm, two parts hepcat, six parts plug-ugly. His take on the whole situation: Buzz was doomed, and his voice talking to Audrey on the phone said he knew it. Coleman arrested for four sex murders plus grand jury indictments added up to Stefan dropped on his doorstep like a Christmas bundle. The Herald and Mirror were playing up the Gordean killing, no suspects, puff pieces on the victim as a straight-arrow talent agent, no mention of the bank money — the catching officers probably got fat. The papers made UAES the instigators of the riot the Teamsters started; Buzz was impressed with his shot in the dark on Gene Niles and believed his promise not to spill on it. The fat man was going to brace Dudley’s niece while he and Stompanato braced Chaz Minear, and when they had Coleman placed, he’d call his newspaper contacts so they could be in on the capture: first interviews with Captain Malcolm E. Considine, captor of the Wolverine Monster. And then Dudley Smith.

They were sitting in Stompanato’s car, 8:00 A.M., a cop-crook stakeout. Mal knew his scenario; Buzz had filled Johnny in on his and had greased the doorman of Minear’s building. The man told him Chaz left for breakfast every morning at 8:10 or so, walked over Mariposa to the Wilshire Derby and returned with the newspaper around 9:30. Buzz gave him a C-note to be gone from 9:30 to 10:00; during that half hour they’d have a wide-open shot.

Mal watched the door; Stompanato gave himself a pocketknife manicure and hummed opera. At 8:09 a small man in tennis sweater and slacks walked out the entrance of the Conquistador Apartments; the doorman gave them the high sign. Stompanato sliced a cuticle and smiled; Mal jacked his plug-ugly quotient way up.

They waited.

At 9:30, the doorman tipped his cap, got into a car and drove off; at 9:33 Chaz Minear walked into the building holding a newspaper. Stompanato put his knife away; Mal said, “Now.”

They quick-marched into the lobby. Minear was checking his mail slot; Johnny Stomp strode ahead to the elevator and opened the door. Mal dawdled by a wall mirror, straightening his necktie, getting a reverse view of Minear grabbing letters, Stompanato keeping the elevator door open with his foot, smiling like a good neighbor. Little Chaz walked over and into the trap; Mal came up behind him, nudged Johnny’s foot away and let the door close.

Minear pushed the button for three. Mal saw his door key already in his hand, grabbed it and rabbit-punched him. Minear dropped his newspaper and mail and doubled over; Johnny pinned him to the wall, a hand on his neck. Minear went purply blue; it looked like his eyes were about to pop out. Mal talked to him, a mimic of Dudley Smith. “We know you killed Felix Gordean. We were his partners on the Loftis job, and you’re going to tell us allll about Reynolds and his son. Allll about it. Lad.”

The door slid open; Mal saw “311” on the key and an empty hallway. He walked out, located the apartment four doorways over, unlocked the door and stood back. Stompanato forced Minear inside and released his neck; Chaz fell down rasping for breath. Mal said, “You know what to ask him. Do it while I toss for the files.”

Minear coughed words; Johnny stepped on his neck. Mal took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and tossed.

The apartment had five rooms: living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, study. Mal hit the study first — it was the furthest from Stompanato and the nance. A radio went on, the dial skimming across jazz, commercial jingles and the news, stopping at an opera, a baritone and a soprano going at each other over a thunderous orchestra. Mal thought he heard Minear scream; the music was turned up.

Mal worked.

The study — desk, filing cabinets and a chest of drawers — yielded stacks of movie scripts, carbons of Minear’s political letters, correspondence to him, miscellaneous memoranda and a .32 revolver, the cylinder empty, a cordited barrel. The bedroom was pastel-appointed and filled with piles of books; there was a wardrobe closet crammed with expensive clothes and rows of shoes arrayed in trees. An antique cabinet featured drawers spilling propaganda tracts; there was nothing but more shoes under the bed.

The opera kept wailing; Mal checked his watch, saw 10:25, an hour down and two rooms clean. He gave the bathroom a cursory toss; the music stopped; Stompanato popped his head in the doorway. He said, “The pansy spilled. Tell Meeks he better stay alive to get me my money.”

The hard boy looked green at the gills. Mal said, “I’ll do the kitchen and talk to him.”

“Forget it. Loftis and Claire what’s her face got the files. Come on, you’ve gotta hear this.”

Mal followed Johnny into the living room. Chaz Minear was sitting prim and proper in a rattan chair; there were welts on his cheeks and blood had congealed below his nostrils. His tennis whites were still spotless, his eyes were unfocused, he was wearing an exhausted, almost slaphappy grin. Mal looked at Stompanato; Johnny said, “I poured half a pint of Beefeater’s into him.” He tapped the sap hooked into his belt. “In vino veritas, capiche?”

Danny Upshaw had said the same thing to him — the one time they drank together. Mal took a chair facing Minear. “Why did you kill Gordean? Tell me.”

Minear, an easy mid-Atlantic accent. “Pride.”

He sounded proud. Mal said, “What do you mean?”

“Pride. Gordean was tormenting Reynolds.”

“He started tormenting him back in ’44. It took you a while to get around to revenge.”

Minear focused on Mal. “The police told Reynolds and Claire that I informed on Reynolds to the House Committee. I don’t know how they knew, but they did. They confronted me about it, and I could tell Reynolds’ poor heart was broken. I knew Gordean was blackmailing him again, so I did penance. Claire and Reynolds and I had gotten so close again, and I imagine you could present a case for me acting in my own self-interest. It was good having friends, and it was awful when they started hating me.”

The rap was falling on him — he was the one who snitched the snitch. “Why didn’t you take the money?”

“Oh Lord, I couldn’t. It would have destroyed the gesture. And Claire has all the money in the world. She shares so generously with Reynolds... and with all her friends. You’re not really a criminal, are you? You look more like an attorney or an accountant.”

Mal laughed — a kamikaze queer romantic had his number. “I’m a policeman.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“No. Do you want to be arrested?”

“I want everyone to know what I did for Reynolds, but...”

“But you don’t want them to know why? Why Gordean was blackmailing Loftis?”

“Yes. That’s true.”

Mal threw a switcheroo. “Why did Reynolds and Claire steal Upshaw’s files? To protect all of you from the grand jury?”

“No.”

“Because of Reynolds’ kid brother? His son? Was it Upshaw’s homicide file they were most interested in?”

Minear sat mute; Mal waved Stompanato toward the back of the apartment. “Chaz, you’ve said it once. Now you have to say it to me.”

No answer.

“Chaz, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make sure everyone knows you killed Gordean, but I won’t let Reynolds get hurt anymore. All you’ll get is what you want. Reynolds will know you had courage and you paid him back. He’ll love you again. He’ll forgive you.”

“Love you” and “forgive you” made Minear cry, sputters of tears that he dried with his sweater sleeves. He said, “Reynolds left me for him. That’s why I informed to HUAC.”

Mal leaned closer. “Left you for who?”

“For him.”

“Who’s ‘him’?”

Minear said, “Reynolds’ little brother was really his son. His mother was a crazy religious woman Reynolds had an affair with. She got money from him and kept the boy. When Coleman was nineteen, he ran away from the woman and found Reynolds. Reynolds took him in and became his lover. He left me to be with his own son.”

Mal pushed his chair back, the confession a horror movie he wanted to run screaming from. He said, “All of it,” before he bolted for real.

Minear raised his voice, like he was afraid of his confessor running; he speeded up, like he was anxious to be absolved or punished. “Felix Gordean was blackmailing Reynolds back in ’44 or so. Somehow he figured out about him and Coleman, and he threatened to tell Herman Gerstein about it. Gerstein hates men like us, and he would have ruined Reynolds. When that policeman came around questioning Felix about the first three killings, Felix put things together. George Wiltsie had been with Reynolds, Marty Goines and Coleman were both jazz men. Then Augie Duarte was killed, and more details had been in the newspapers. The policeman had let some things slip and Felix knew Coleman had to be the killer. He renewed his blackmail demands, and Reynolds gave him another ten thousand.

“Claire and Reynolds confided in me, and I knew I could make up for informing. They knew after the first three killings that it had to be Coleman — they read a tabloid that had details on the mutilations, and they knew from the names of the victims. They knew about it before the policeman tried to infiltrate UAES, and they were looking for Coleman to try to stop him. Juan Duarte saw Upshaw at the morgue when Augie was there, and recognized him from a picture Norm Kostenz took. He told Claire and Reynolds who Upshaw really was, and they got scared. They had read that the police were looking for a man who resembled Reynolds, and they thought Coleman must be trying to frame his father. They left out clues to exonerate Reynolds, and I followed Upshaw home from Claire’s house. The next day, Claire got Mondo Lopez to pick the lock on his apartment and look for things on the killings — things that would help them find Coleman. Mondo found his files and brought them to Claire. She and Reynolds were desperate to stop Coleman and keep the...”

Keep the whole horror epic from ruining Reynolds Loftis worse than the grand jury ever could.

Mal thought of Claire — terrified of a harmless Sleepy Lagoon remark the first time they talked; he thought of Coleman’s burn face, put it aside and went straight for the woman. “Claire and Coleman. What’s between them?”

The queer redeemer glowed. “Claire nurtured Coleman back in the SLDC days. He was in love with her, and he told her he always thought about her when he was with Reynolds. She heard out all his ugly, violent fantasies. She forgave them for being together. She was always so strong and accepting. The killings started a few weeks after the papers ran the wedding announcements. When Coleman learned that Reynolds was getting Claire forever, it must have made him crazy. Are you going to arrest me now?”

Mal couldn’t make himself say no and break the rest of Chaz Minear. He couldn’t say anything, because Johnny Stompanato had just walked into the room with his olive-oil charm back in place, and all he could think of was that he could never keep Stefan safe from the horror.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Mary Margaret Conroy was coming across as a major league Mexophile.

Buzz had tailed her from her sorority house to a hand-holding kaffeeklatch at the UCLA Student Union; she was a simpering frail in the presence of a handsome taco bender named Ricardo. Their conversation was all in Spanish, and all he recognized were words like “corazon” and “felicidad,” love stuff he knew from the juke box music at Mexican restaurants. From there, Dudley Smith’s dough-faced niece went to a meeting of the Pan American Students’ League, a class in Argentine history, lunch and more fondling with Ricardo. She’d been sequestered in a classroom with “Art of the Mayans” for over an hour now, and when she walked out he’d pop the question — shit or get off the pot time.

He kept checking his flank, seeing bad guys everywhere, like Mickey with the Commies. Only his were real: Mickey himself, Cohen goons armed with icepicks and saps and garottes and silencered heaters that could leave you dead in a crowd, a heart attack victim, squarejohns summoning an ambulance while the triggerman walked away. He kept checking faces and kept trying not to cut odds, because he was too good an oddsmaker to give himself and Audrey much of a chance.

And he had a monster hangover.

And his back ached from boozy catnaps on Mal Considine’s floor.

They’d been up most of the night, planning. He called Dave Kleckner in Ventura — Audrey was safely tucked in at his pad. He’d called Johnny Stomp with details on the Minear squeeze and gave Mal the lowdown on Gene Niles. Mal said he’d tagged him as the killer on a hunch — that payback for Danny was so antithetical to his style that he knew the debt had to be huge. Mal got weepy on the kid, then went loony on Dudley Smith — Dudley made for José Diaz, Charles Hartshorn, suppression of evidence and a fuckload of conspiracy raps, Dudley sucking gas up at Q. He never made the next jump: the powers that be would never let Dudley Smith stand trial for anything — his rank, juice and reputation were diplomatic immunity.

They talked escape routes next. Buzz held back on his idea — it would have sounded as crazy as Mal taking down Dudley. They talked East Coast hideouts, slow boats to China, soldier of fortune gigs in Central America, where the local strongmen paid gringos good pesos to keep the Red Menace in check. They talked the pros and cons of taking Audrey, leaving Audrey, the lioness stashed someplace safe for a couple of years. They came to one conclusion: he’d give payback another forty-eight hours tops, then go in a hole somewhere.

A classroom bell sounded; Buzz got pissed: Mary Margaret Conroy would never blab, only confirm by her actions — all he was doing was humoring Mal’s hump on Dudley. “Art of the Mayans” adjourned in a swirl of students, Mary Margaret the oldest by a good ten years. Buzz followed her outside, tapped her shoulder and said, “Miss Conroy, could I talk to you for a second?”

Mary Margaret turned around, hugging her armload of books. She eyed Buzz with distaste and said, “You’re not with the faculty, are you?”

Buzz forced himself not to laugh. “No, I’m not. Sweetie, wouldn’t you say Uncle Dudley went a bit too far warnin’ José Diaz away from you?”

Mary Margaret went sheet white and passed out on the grass.

Dudley for Diaz.

Buzz left Mary Margaret on the grass with a firm pulse and fellow students hovering. He got off the campus quick and drove to Ellis Loew’s house to play a hunch: Doc Lesnick’s absence while UAESer lunacy raged on all fronts was too pat. The four Bureau dicks trying to find the man were filing reports at the house, and there might be something in them to give him a spark atop the hunch and the flicker that caused it: all the psych files ended in the summer of ’49, even though the brain trusters were still seeing Lesnick. That fact reeked of wrong.

Buzz parked on Loew’s front lawn, already crowded with cars. He heard voices coming from the back yard, walked around and saw Ellis holding court on the patio. Champagne was cooling on an ice cart; Loew, Herman Gerstein, Ed Satterlee and Mickey Cohen were hoisting glasses. Two Cohen boys were standing sentry with their backs to him; nobody had seen him yet. He ducked behind a trellis and listened.

Gerstein was exulting: yesterday’s picket brawl was blamed on the UAES; the Teamster film crew leaked their version of the riot to Movietone News, who’d be captioning it “Red Rampage Rocks Hollywood” and shoving it into theaters nationwide. Ellis came on with his good news: the grand jury members being appointed by the City Council looked mucho simpatico, his house was packed with great evidence, mucho indictments seemed imminent. Satterlee kept talking about the climate being perfect, the grand jury a sweetheart deal that was preordained by God for this time and place only, a deal that would never come again. The geek looked about two seconds away from asking them to kneel in prayer; Mickey shut him up and not too subtly started asking questions about the whereabouts of Special Investigator Turner “Buzz” Meeks.

Buzz walked to the front of the house and let himself in. Typists were typing; clerks were filing; there was enough documentation in the living room to make confetti for a thousand ticker tape parades. He moved to the report board and saw that it had been replaced by a whole wall of photographs.

Federal evidence stamps were attached to the borders; Buzz saw “SLDC” a dozen times over and looked closer. The pics were obviously the surveillance shots Ed Satterlee was trying to buy off a rival clearance group; another scope and he noticed every photo was marked SLDC, with ’43 and ’44 dates tagged at the bottom, the pictures arranged chronologically, probably waiting for some artwork: circling the faces of known Commies. Buzz thought: Coleman, and started looking for a face swathed in bandages.

Most of the photos were overhead group shots; some were enlarged sections where faces were reproduced more clearly. The quality on all of them was excellent — the Feds knew their stuff. Buzz saw some blurry, too white faces in the earlier pics, crowd shots from the spring of ’43; he followed the pictures across the wall, hoping for Coleman sans gauze and dressings, an aid to ID the rat killer in person. He got bandage glimpses through the summer of ’43; little looks at Claire De Haven and Reynolds Loftis along the way. Then — blam! — a Reynolds Loftis view that was way off; the handsome queer too, too short in the tooth, with too much hair.

Buzz checked the date — 8/17/43 — rechecked the Loftis glimpses, rechecked the clothes on the bandaged man. Reynolds had noticeably thinning hair throughout; the too young Reynolds sported a full head of thick stuff. In three of the overhead shots, bandage man was wearing a striped skivvy shirt; in the close-up, too young Reynolds was wearing the same thing. Juan Duarte had told Mal that Reynolds’ “kid brother” looked just like him — but this man was Reynolds in every respect except the hair, every facial plane and angle exactly like his father — a mirror image of Daddy twenty years younger.

Buzz thought semantics, thought “just like” might be an uneducated greaseball’s synonym for “identical twin”; Delores Masskie called the resemblance “rather close.” He grabbed a magnifying glass off a typist’s desk; he followed the pictures, looking for more Coleman. Three over he got a close shot of the boy with a man and a woman; he put the lens up to it and squinted for all he was worth.

No burn scars of any kind; no pocked and shiny skin; no uneven patches where flesh was grafted.

Two photos over, one row down. November 10, 1943. The boy standing sideways facing Claire De Haven, shirtless. Deep, perfectly straight scars on his right arm, a row of them, scars identical to scars he saw on the arm of an RKO actor who’d had his face reconstructed after an auto wreck, scars that actor had pointed to with pride, telling him that only Doctor Terry Lux did arm grafts, the skin there was the best, so good that it was worth upper body tissue removal. The actor said that Terry made him look exactly like he did before the accident — when he looked at himself even he couldn’t tell the difference.

Terry Lux dried Claire De Haven out at his clinic three times.

Terry Lux had workers who slaughtered chickens with zoot sticks.

Terry Lux told him Loftis used to cop H for Claire; Marty Goines was snuffed by a heroin overjolt. Terry Lux diluted the morphine for his dope cures on the premises at his clinic.

Buzz kept the magnifying glass to the wall, kept scanning. He got a back view of Coleman shirtless, saw a patchwork of perfectly straight scars that made him think of zoot stick wounds; he found another set of group shots that looked like Coleman fawning all over Claire De Haven. Hard evidence: Coleman Masskie Loftis was plastic surgery altered to look more like his father. He resembled his father enough to ID him from Delores’ pictures before; now he was him. His “special protection” from Dudley Smith was being disguised as Loftis.

Buzz ripped the best Coleman pic off the wall, pocketed it and found a table stacked with reports from the Bureau men. He quick-skimmed the latest update; all the officers had accomplished was a shakedown of Lesnick’s parolee daughter — she said the old man was just about gone from his lung cancer and was thinking about checking into a rest home to check out. He was about to pocket a list of local sanitariums when he heard “Traitor,” and saw Mickey and Herman Gerstein standing a few feet away.

Cohen with a clean shot, but a half dozen witnesses spoiling his chance. Buzz said, “I suppose this means my guard gig’s kaput. Huh, Mick?”

The man looked hurt as much as he looked mad. “Goyishe shitheel traitor. Cocksucker. Communist. How much money did I give you? How much money did I set up for you that you should do me like you did?”

Buzz said, “Too much, Mick.”

“That is no smart answer, you fuck. You should beg. You should beg that I don’t do you slow.”

“Would it help?”

“No.”

“There you go, boss.”

Mickey said, “Herman, leave this room”; Gerstein exited. The typers kept typing and the clerks kept clerking. Buzz gave the little hump’s cage a rattle. “No hard feelin’s, huh?”

Mickey said, “I will make you a deal, because when I say “deal,” it is always to trust. Right?”

“Trust” and “deal” were the man’s bond — it was why he went with him instead of Siegel or Dragna. “Sure, Mick.”

“Send Audrey back to me and I will not hurt a hair on her head and I will not do you slow. Do you trust my word?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust I’ll get you?”

“You’re the odds-on favorite, boss.”

“Then be smart and do it.”

“No deal. Take care, Jewboy. I’ll miss you. I really will.”

Pacific Sanitarium — fast.

Buzz turned off PCH and beeped his horn at the gate; the squawk box barked, “Yes?”

“Turner Meeks to see Dr. Lux.”

Static sounds for a good ten seconds, then: “Park off to your left by the door marked ‘Visiting,’ go through the lounge and take the elevator up to the second floor. Doctor will meet you in his office.”

Buzz did it, parking, walking through the lounge. The elevator was in use; he took stairs up to the second floor, saw the connecting door open, heard, “Okie baboon” and stopped just short of the last step.

Terry Lux’s voice: “...but I have to talk to him, he’s a pipeline to Howard Hughes. Listen, there should be something in the papers today I’m interested in — a guy I used to do business with was murdered. I just heard about it on the radio, so go get me all the LA dailies while I talk to this clown.”

Odds on Lux-Gordean business: six to one in favor of. Buzz retraced his steps to the car, grabbed his billy club, stuck it down the back of his pants and took his time walking inside. The elevator was empty; he pushed the button for 2 and glided up thinking how much Terry loved money, how little he cared where it came from. The door opened; the dope doc himself was there to greet him. “Buzzy, long time no see.”

The administrative corridor looked nice and deserted — no nurses or orderlies around. Buzz said, “Terry, how are you?”

“Is this business, Buzz?”

“Sure is, boss. And on the extra QT. You got a place where we can talk?”

Lux led Buzz down the hall, to a little room with filing cabinets and facial reconstruction charts. He closed the door; Buzz locked it and leaned on it. Lux said, “What the hell are you doing?”

Buzz felt the billy club tickling his spine. “Spring of ’43 you did a plastic job on Reynolds Loftis’ son. Tell me about it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Check my ’43 files if you like.”

“This ain’t negotiable, Terry. This is you spill all, Gordean included.”

“There’s nothing to negotiate, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Buzz pulled out his baton and hit Lux behind the knees. The blow sent Lux pitching into the wall; Buzz grabbed a fistful of his hair and banged his face against the door jamb. Lux slid to the floor, trailing blood on polished mahogany, sputtering, “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me.”

Buzz backed up a step. “Stay there, the floor looks good on you. Why’d you cut the boy to look like his old man? Who told you to do that?”

Lux tilted his head back, gurgled and shook himself like a dog shedding water. “You scarred me. You... you scarred me.”

“Give yourself a plastic. And answer me.”

“Loftis had me do it. He paid me a lot, and he paid me never to tell anybody about it. Loftis and the psycho had essentially the same bone structure, and I did it.”

“Why’d Loftis want it done?”

Lux moved into a sitting position and massaged his knees. His eyes darted to an intercom phone atop a filing cabinet just out of reach; Buzz smashed the contraption with his stick. “Why? And don’t tell me Loftis wanted the boy to look like him so he could be a movie star.”

“He did tell me that!”

Buzz tapped the baton against his leg. “Why’d you call Coleman a psycho?”

“He did his post-op here, and I caught him raiding the hatchery! He was cutting up the chickens with one of those zoot sticks my men use! He was drinking their goddamn blood!”

Buzz said, “That’s a psycho, all right”; he thought Terry had to be clean on snuff knowledge: the fool thought chickens were as bad as it got. “Boss, what kind of business did you do with Felix Gordean?”

“I didn’t kill him!”

“I know you didn’t, and I’m pretty damn sure you don’t know who did. But I’ll bet you hipped him to something about Reynolds Loftis back around ’43, ’44 or so, and Gordean started collectin’ hush money on it. That sound about right?”

Lux said nothing; Buzz said, “Answer me, or I’ll go to work on your kidneys.”

“When I tell Howard about this, you’ll be in trouble.”

“I’m finished with Howard.”

Lux made an overdue move. “Money, Buzz. That’s what this is about, right? You’ve got an angle you want to buy in on and you need help. Am I right?”

Buzz tossed his stick out, holding the end of the thong. The tip hit Lux in the chest; Buzz jerked it back like a yo-yo on a string. Lux yipped at the little wonder; Buzz said, “Coleman, Loftis and Gordean. Put them together.”

Lux stood up and straightened the folds of his smock. He said, “About a year after the reconstruction on Coleman I went to a party in Bel Air. Loftis and his so-called kid brother were there. I pretended not to know them, because Reynolds didn’t want anyone to know about the surgery. Later on that night, I was out by the cabanas. I saw Coleman and Loftis kissing. It made me mad. I’d plasticed the kid for an incestuous pervert. I knew Felix liked to put the squeeze on queers, so I sold him the information. I figured he blackmailed Loftis. Don’t look so shocked, Meeks. You would have done the same thing.”

Minear’s file quote: “If you knew who he was, you’d know why I snitched” — the one reference Doc Lesnick let slip into the grand jury team’s hands — the half-dead old stoolie had to know the whole story. Buzz looked at Lux culling back his dignity, pushed him into the wall and held him there with his stick. “When’s the last time you saw Coleman?”

Lux’s voice was high and thin. “Around ’45. Daddy and Sonny must have had a spat. Coleman came to me with two grand and told me he didn’t want to look so much like Daddy anymore. He asked me to break his face up scientifically. I told him that since I enjoy inflicting pain, I’d only take a grand and a half. I strapped him into a dental chair, put on heavy bag gloves and broke every bone in his face. I kept him on morph while he recovered down by the chicken shed. He left with a teeny weeny little habit and some not so teeny little bruises. He started wearing a beard, and all that was left of Reynolds was the set of his eyes. Now, do you want to take that goddamn club off of me?”

Bingo — the Goines heroin angle. Buzz held off on the baton. “I know you dilute your own morph here on the grounds.”

Lux took a scalpel from his pocket and started cleaning his nails. “Police sanctioned.”

“You told me Loftis copped horse for Claire De Haven. Did you and him use the same suppliers?”

“A few of them. Coloreds with cop connections down in southtown. I only deal with officially sanctioned lackeys — like you.”

“Did Coleman have info on them?”

“Sure. After the first surgery, I gave him a list. He had a crush on Claire, and he said he wanted to help her get the stuff, make the runs himself so she wouldn’t have to truck with niggers. When he left after my second surgery, he probably used them for his own habit.”

A round of applause for Coleman Loftis: he kicked morph and took up rat worship slaughter. “I want that list. Now.”

Lux unlocked the filing cabinet by the demolished phone. He pulled out a slip of lined paper and reached for some blank sheets; Buzz said, “I’ll keep the original,” and grabbed it.

The doctor shrugged and went back to cleaning his nails. Buzz started to tuck his baton away; Lux said, “Didn’t your mother tell you it’s not polite to stare?”

Buzz kept quiet.

“The strong, silent type. I’m impressed.”

“I’m impressed with you, Terry.”

“How so?”

“Your recuperative powers. I’ll bet you got yourself convinced this little humiliation didn’t really happen.”

Lux sighed. “I’m Hollywood, Buzz. Easy come, easy go, and it’s already a dim memory. Got a sec for a question?”

“Sure.”

“What’s this about? There has to be money in it somewhere. You don’t work for free.”

Adios, Terry.

Buzz kidney-punched Lux, his hardest stick shot. The scalpel fell from the doctor’s hand. Buzz caught it, kneed Lux in the balls, smothered him into the wall and placed his right palm against it Jesus style. Lux screamed; Buzz rammed the scalpel into the hand and pounded it down to the hilt with his baton. Lux screamed some more, his eyes rolling back. Buzz shoved a handful of pocket cash into his mouth. “It’s about payback. This is for Coleman.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Mal made another circuit of the De Haven house, wondering if they’d ever leave and give him a crack at the files, wondering if they’d ever leave and give him a crack at the files, wondering if they’d got the word on Gordean yet. If Chaz Minear had called, they would have run to him; the killing was front page and all over the radio, and friends of theirs had to know that Loftis at least knew the man. But both cars stayed put and there was nothing he could do but keep waiting, moving, waiting to swoop.

Canon Drive to Elevado, Comstock to Hillcrest to Santa Monica and around again — sitting surveillance was an invitation for the ubiquitous Beverly Hills cops to roust him, out of his jurisdiction and getting ready to pull a Class B felony. Every time around the house he imagined more horrors inside — Loftis and his own son, a knife to the part of him that lived to protect Stefan. Two hours of circling had him dizzy; he’d called Meeks’ switchboard and left a message: meet me on Canon Drive — but Buzz’s Caddy hadn’t showed and it was getting to the point where he was close to going in the door gun first.

Santa Monica around to Canon. Mal saw a paperboy tossing newspapers on front porches and lawns, hooked an idea, pulled over three houses up from Claire’s and fixed her porch in his rearview. The boy hurled his bundle and hit the door; the door opened and an androgynous arm scooped the newspaper up. If they didn’t already know, they soon would — and if their brains held over their fear they’d think Chaz.

A slow minute passed. Mal fidgeted and found an old sweater in the back seat — a good window punch. Another slow bunch of seconds, then Claire and Loftis hurrying out to the Lincoln in the driveway. She got behind the wheel; he sat beside her; the car backed out and headed south — the direction of Minear’s place.

Mal walked over to the house — a tall, dignified man in a three-piece suit carrying a loosely folded sweater. He saw a side window by the door, punched it in, reached around and picked the lock. The door snapped open; Mal let himself in, closed the door and threw the top bolt.

There were at least fifteen rooms to toss. Mal thought: closets, dens, places with desks — and hit the writing table by the stairwell. He pulled out a half dozen drawers, rummaged in a coat closet adjacent, feeling for folders and loose paper as much as looking.

No loot.

Back to the rear of the house; two more closets. Vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers, mink coats, a prayer to his old Presbyterian God: please don’t let them keep it in a safe. A den off a rear bathroom, bookshelves, a desk there — eight drawers of potpourri — movie scripts, stationery, old Loftis personal papers and no false bottoms or secret compartments.

Mal left the den by a side door and smelled coffee. He followed the scent to a large room with a movie screen and projector set up at the rear. A drop leaf table holding a coffeepot and a scattering of papers was stationed square in the middle, two chairs tucked under it — a study scene. He walked over, started reading and saw how good Danny Upshaw could have been.

The kid block-printed cleanly, thought intelligently, wrote with clarity and would have cracked the four killings easy if LAPD had given him an extra day or so. It was right there on his first summary report, page three, his second eyewitness on the Goines snatch. Claire and Reynolds had circled the information, confirming what Minear said: they were trying to find Loftis’ son.

Page three.

Eyewitness Coleman Healy, questioned by Danny Upshaw on his first full day working the case.

He was late twenties — the right age. He was described as tall, slender and wearing a beard, which was undoubtedly a fake, one that he took off when he impersonated his father/lover. He frontview-confirmed a bartender’s side view description of himself, filling in the middle-aged part. He was the first — and only, according to Jack Shortell — witness to identify Marty Goines as a homosexual, Upshaw’s first homo lead outside of the mutilations. Put makeup on Coleman, and he could look middle-aged; put it all together with Doc Layman’s silver wig strands found by the LA River and you had Coleman Masskie/Loftis/Healy committing murders out of his own blood lust and some kind of desire for revenge on incest raper Reynolds.

But one thing didn’t play: Danny had questioned Coleman and met Reynolds. Why didn’t he snap to their obvious resemblance?

Mal went through the rest of the pages, feeling the kid giving him juice. Everything was perfectly logical and boldly intelligent: Danny was beginning to get the killer’s psyche down cold. There was a six-page report on his Tamarind Street break-in — he did do it — devil take the hindmost, fuck City/County strictures; he was afraid LAPD would ruin him for it, so he didn’t take the polygraph that would have cleared him on Niles and night-trained it instead. Photographs showing blood patterns were mixed in with the reports; Danny had to have taken them himself, he’d risked a forensic in enemy territory. Mal felt tears in his eyes, saw himself building Ellis Loew’s prosecution with Danny’s evidence, making his own name soar on it. The Wolverine Killer in the gas chamber — sent there by the two of them and the unlikeliest best friend a ranking cop ever had: Buzz Meeks.

Mal dried his eyes; he made a neat stack of the pages and photographs. He saw feminine script in the margins of a jigtown canvassing list: Southside hotels, with jazz clubs check-marked against Danny’s printing. He stuffed that page in his pocket, bundled the rest of the file up and walked to the front door with it. Tripping the bolt, he heard a key go in the lock; he opened the door bold, like Danny Upshaw at Tamarind Street.

Claire and Loftis were there on the porch; they looked at the broken glass, then at Mal and his armful of paper. Claire said, “You broke our deal.”

“Fuck our deal.”

“I was going to kill him. I finally figured out there was no other way.”

Mal saw a bag of groceries in Loftis’ arms; he realized they didn’t have time to see Minear. “For justice? People’s justice?”

“We just talked to our lawyer. He said there’s no way you can prove any kind of homicide charges against us.”

Mal looked at Loftis. “It’s all coming out. You and Coleman, all of it. The grand jury and Coleman’s trial.”

Loftis stepped behind Claire, his head bowed. Mal glanced streetside and saw Buzz getting out of his car. Claire embraced her fiancé; Mal said, “Go look after Chaz. He killed a man for you.”

Chapter Forty

Down to darktown in Mal’s car, Lux’s list of heroin pushers and the Danny/Claire list taped to the dashboard. Mal drove; Buzz wondered if he’d killed the Plastic Surgeon to the Stars; they both talked.

Buzz filled in first: Mary Margaret’s swooning confirmation and Lux minus the crucifixion. He talked up the plastic surgery on Coleman, a ploy to keep him safe from Dudley and fulfill his father’s perv; Lux shooting Gordean the incest dope for blackmail purposes, the story of the burned face a device to hide the perv from Loftis’ fellow lefties, the bandages simply the surgery scars healing. Buzz saved Lux rebreaking Coleman’s face for last; Mal whooped and used the point to segue to sax man Healy, questioned by Danny Upshaw on New Year’s Day — that was why the kid never snapped to a perfect Loftis/Coleman resemblance — it didn’t exist anymore.

From there, Mal talked Coleman. Coleman’s intro lead on Marty Goines as a fruit, Coleman stressing the tall, gray man, Coleman wearing a gray wig and probably makeup when he glommed his victims, shucking the beard Upshaw saw on him. Loftis and Claire had Mondo Lopez steal Danny’s files when they found out he was working the homo killings — Juan Duarte had snitched him as a cop. Mal recounted the Minear interrogation, Coleman the third point of the ’42–’44 love triangle, Chaz shooting blackmailer Gordean to redeem himself in Claire and Loftis’ eyes, Claire and Loftis searching for Coleman. And they both agreed: Marty Goines, a longtime Coleman pal, was probably a victim of opportunity — he was there when the rat man had to kill. Victims two, three and four were to tie in to Daddy Reynolds — a hellish smear tactic.

They hit the Central Avenue Strip, daytime quiet, a block of spangly facades: the Taj Mahal, palm trees hung with Christmas lights, sequined music clefs, zebra stripes and a big plaster jigaboo with shiny red eyes. None of the clubs appeared to be open: bouncer-doormen and parking lot attendants sweeping up butts and broken glass were the only citizens out on the street. Mal parked and took the west side; Buzz took the east.

He talked to bouncers; he talked to auto park flunkies; he handed out all the cash he didn’t stuff down Terry Lux’s throat. Three of the darkies gave him “Huh?”; two hadn’t seen Coleman the alto guy in a couple of weeks; a clown in a purple admiral’s tunic said he’d heard Healy was gigging at a private sepia club in Watts that let whiteys perform if they were hep and kept their lily-white meathooks off the colored trim. Buzz crossed the street and started canvassing toward his partner; three more “Huh?’s” and Mal came trotting over to him.

He said, “I talked to a guy who saw Coleman last week at Bido Lito’s. He said he was talking to a sickly old Jewish man about half dead. The guy said he looked like one of the old jazz fiends from the rest home on 78th and Normandie.”

Buzz said, “You think Lesnick?”

“We’re on the same track, lad.”

“Quit callin’ me lad, it gives me the willies. Boss, I read a Bureau memo at Ellis’ house. Lesnick’s daughter said Pops was thinkin’ about checkin’ in to a rest bin to kick. There was a list of them, but I couldn’t grab it.”

“Let’s hit that Normandie place first. You get anything?”

“Coleman might be playin’ his horn at some private jig club in Watts.”

Mal said, “Shit. I worked 77th Street Division years ago, and there were tons of places like that. No more details?”

“Nix.”

“Come on, let’s move.”

They made it to the Star of David Rest Home fast, Mal running yellow lights, busting the speed limit by twenty miles an hour. The structure was a low tan stucco; it looked like a minimum security prison for people waiting to die. Mal parked and walked straight to the reception desk; Buzz found a pay phone outside and looked up “Sanitariums” in the Yellow Pages.

There were thirty-four of them on the Southside. Buzz tore the page of listings out; he saw Mal standing by the car and walked over shaking his head. “Thirty-four bins around here. A long fuckin’ day.”

Mal said, “Nothing inside. No Lesnick registered, nobody dying of lung cancer on the ward. No Coleman.”

Buzz said, “Let’s try the hotels and pushers. If that’s no go, we’ll get some nickels and start callin’ the sanitariums. You know, I think Lesnick’s a lamster. If that was him with Coleman, he’s in this somehow, and he wouldn’t be registered under his own name.”

Mal tapped the hood of the car. “Buzz, Claire wrote that hotel list out. Minear said she and Loftis have been trying to find Coleman. If they’ve already tried—”

“That don’t mean spit. Coleman’s been seen around here inside a week. He could be movin’ around, but always stayin’ close to the music. Somethin’s goin’ on with him and music, ’cause nobody made him for playin’ an instrument, now these boogies down here say he’s a hot alto sax. I say we hit hotels and H men while it’s still light out, then come dark we hit those jig joints.”

“Let’s go.”

The Tevere Hotel on 84th and Beach — no Caucasians in residence. The Galleon Hotel on 91st and Bekin — the one white man staying there a three-hundred-pound rummy squeezed into a single room with his negress wife and their four kids. Walking back to the car, Buzz checked the two lists and grabbed Mal’s arm. “Whoa.”

Mal said, “What?”

“A matcher. Purple Eagle Hotel, 96th and Central on Claire’s list. Roland Navarette, Room 402 at the Purple Eagle on Lux’s.”

“It took you a while.”

“Ink’s all smudged.”

Mal handed him the keys. “You drive, I’ll see what else you missed.”

They drove southeast. Buzz ground gears and kept popping the clutch; Mal studied the two lists and said, “The only matchup. You know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“Lux knows Loftis and De Haven, and Loftis used to cop Claire’s stuff. They could have access to Lux’s suppliers, too.”

Buzz saw the Purple Eagle — a six-story cinderblock dump with a collection of chrome hood ornaments affixed above a tattered purple awning. He said, “Could be,” and double-parked; Mal got out first and practically ran inside.

Buzz caught up at the desk. Mal was badging the clerk, a scrawny Negro with his shirt cuffs buttoned full in a sweltering lobby. He was muttering, “Yessir, yessir, yessir,” one eye on Mal, one hand reaching under the desk.

Mal said, “Roland Navarette. Is he still in 402?”

The hophead said, “Nossir, nossir,” his hand still reaching; Buzz swooped around and pinned his wrist just as he was closing in on a junk bindle. He bent the fingers back; the hophead went, “Yessir, yessir, yessir”; Buzz said, “A white man, late twenties, maybe a beard. A jazz guy. He glom horse from Navarette?”

“Nossir, nossir, nossir.”

“Boy, you tell true or I break the hand you geez up with and throw you in the cracker tank at the Seven-Seven.”

“Yessir, yessir, yessir.”

Buzz let go and laid the bindle out on the desk. The clerk rubbed his fingers. “White man, white woman here askin’ same thing twenty minutes ’go. I tol’ them, I tell you, Roland straighten up, fly right, don’t sell no sweet horsey nohow.”

The punk’s eyes strayed to a house phone; Buzz ripped it out and chucked it on the floor. Mal ran for the stairs.

Buzz huffed and puffed after him, catching up on the fourth-floor landing. Mal was in the middle of a putrid-smelling hallway, gun out, pointing to a doorway. Buzz got his breath, pulled his piece and walked over.

Mal ticked numbers; at three they kicked in the door. A Negro in soiled underwear was sitting on the floor sticking a needle in his arm, pushing the plunger down, oblivious to the noise and two white men pointing guns at him. Mal kicked his legs and pulled the spike out of his arm; Buzz saw a C-note resting under a fresh syringe on the dresser and knew Claire and Loftis had bought themselves a hot lead.

Mal was slapping the H man, trying to bring him back from cloud nine; Buzz knew that was futile. He hauled him away from Mal, dragged him to the bathroom, stuck his head in the toilet and flushed. Roland Navarette came back to earth with shakes, shivers and sputters; the first thing he saw out of the bowl was a .38 in his face. Buzz said, “Where’d you send them white people after Coleman?”

Roland Navarette said, “Man, this a humbug.”

Buzz cocked the gun. “Don’t make me.”

Roland Navarette said, “Coleman gigging at this after-hours on One-O-Six an’ Avalon.”

Watts, code three without a siren. Buzz fingered his billy club; Mal leadfooted through twilight traffic. One hundred an sixth and Avalon was the heart of the heart of Watts: every tarpaper shack on the block had goats and chickens behind barbed-wire fences. Buzz thought of crazed darkies sacrificing them for voodoo rituals, maybe inviting Coleman over for some wolverine stew and a night of jazz hot. He saw a string of blue lights flickering around the doorway of a corner stucco; he said, “Pull over, I see it.”

Mal swung hard right and killed his engine at the curb. Buzz pointed across the street. “That white car was in De Haven’s driveway.” Mal nodded, opened the glove compartment and took out a pair of handcuffs. “I was going to let the papers in on this, but I guess there’s no time.”

Buzz said, “He might not be here. Loftis and Claire might be waitin’ him out, or there’d of been grief already. You ready?”

Mal nodded. Buzz saw a group of Negroes line up by the blue-lit door and start filing in. He motioned Mal out of the car; they hurried across the sidewalk and rode the last jazzbo’s coattails.

The doorman was a gigantic shine in a blue bongo shirt. He started to block the way in, then stepped back and bowed — an obvious police courtesy.

Buzz went in first. Except for blue Christmas bulbs taped to the walls and a baby spot illuminating the bar, the joint was dark. People sat at card tables facing the stage and a combo back-lit by more blue lights: blinkers covered with cellophane. The music was ear-splitting shit, one step down from noise. The trumpet, bass, drums, piano and trombone were Negro guys in blue bongo shirts. The alto sax was Coleman, no beard, a cracked blue bulb blinking across the set of Daddy Reynolds’ eyes.

Mal nudged Buzz and spoke loud in his ear. “Claire and Loftis at the bar. Over in the corner, tucked away.”

Buzz pivoted, saw the two, half shouted to make himself heard: “Coleman can’t see ’em. We’ll take him when this goddaman noise shuts off.”

Mal moved to the left side wall, ducking his head, moving up toward the bandstand; Buzz followed a few feet behind, doing a little shuffle: I’m not conspicuous, I’m not a cop. When they were almost to the edge of the stage, he looked back at the bar. Claire was still there; Loftis wasn’t; a door on the right side of the room was just closing, showing a slice of light.

Buzz tapped Mal; Mal pointed over like he already knew. Buzz switched his gun from his holster to his right pants pocket; Mal had his piece pressed to his leg. The jigs quit playing and Coleman flew solo: squeals, rasps, honks, barks, growls, squeaks — Buzz thought of giant rats ripping flesh to the beat. There was a keening noise that seemed to go on forever, Coleman pitching his sax to the stars. The blue lights died; the keen went low note shuba-shuba-shuba in darkness and died. Real lights went on and the audience stampeded the bandstand, applauding.

Buzz pushed into the crush of bodies, Mal beside him, extra tall on his tiptoes. Everyone surrounding them was black; Buzz blinked for white and saw Coleman, sax held above his head, going through the right side door.

Mal looked at him; Buzz looked back. They pushed, punched, shoved, elbowed and kneed their way over, getting elbows, shoves and tossed drinks in their faces. Buzz came up on the door wiping bourbon sting out of his eyes; he heard a scream and a shot on the other side — and Mal went through the door gun first.

Another shot; Buzz ran after Mal’s shadow. A smelly linoleum corridor. Two shapes struggling on the floor twenty feet down; Mal aiming, gun hand braced. A black guy turned a side corner and tried to block his aim; Mal shot him twice. The man careened off the walls and went down face first; Buzz got a look at the two on the floor. It was Loftis being strangled by Coleman Healy, big ugly pink dentures with fangs attached in his mouth. Coleman’s chest was bloodied; Loftis was soaked dark red at the legs and groin. A revolver lay beside them.

Mal yelled, “Coleman, get back!” Buzz slid down the wall, 38 out, looking for a clean shot at the rat man. Coleman made a denture-muffled bleat and bit off his father’s nose; Mal fired three times, hitting Loftis in the side and chest, pitching him away from the thing attacking him. Coleman wrapped his arms around Daddy like an animal starved for food and went for his throat. Buzz aimed at his gorging head; Mal blocked his arm and fired again, a ricochet that tore the walls with zigzags. Buzz got free and squeezed a shot; Coleman grabbed his shoulder; Mal fumbled out his handcuffs and ran over.

Buzz threw himself prone and tried to find a shot; Mal’s legs and flapping suitcoat made it impossible. He stumbled up and ran himself; he saw Coleman grab the gun on the floor and aim. One, two, three shots — Mal lifted clean off his feet and spun around with his face blown away. The body collapsed in front of him; Buzz walked to Coleman; Coleman leered behind bloody fangs and raised his gun. Buzz shot first, emptying his piece at the wolverine toothwork, screaming when he finally got an empty chamber. He kept screaming, and he was still screaming when a shitload of cops stormed in and tried to take Mal Considine away from him.