White Jazz

16

Dirt roads, shacks. Hills trapping smog — Chavez Ravine.

Swamped — I parked long-distance and scanned it:

Geeks waving placards. Newsmen, bluesuits. Commie types chanting: “Justice, sí! Dodgers, no!”

Friendly throngs — eyes on Reuben Ruiz, gladhander. Sheriff’s bulls, Agent Will Shipstad.

Ruiz — Fed witness?

I jogged into it — “Hey, hey! No, no! Don’t drive us back to Mexico!” Badge out — blues eased me through.

Heckler hubbub:

Ruiz, fighting tonight — be there to cheer his opponent. The fascist Bureau of Land and Way: plans to relocate the spics to Lynwood slum pads. “Hey, hey! No, no! Justice, sí! Dodgers, no!”

Ruiz blasting bullhorn Spanish:

Move out early! Your relocation dough means Easy Street! New homes soon available! Enjoy the new Dodger Stadium YOU helped create!

Noise war — Reuben’s bullhorn won. Deputies tossed tickets — spics genuflected, grabbed. I snatched one: Ruiz vs. Stevie Moore, Olympic Auditorium.

Chants, jabber — Ruiz saw me and bucked fans.

I shoved close. Reuben cupped a shout: “We should yak! Say my dressing room after my bout?”

I nodded yes — “Scum! Dodger pawn!” — no way to talk.

A quick run — the Bureau, my office.

A message from Lester Lake — meet me 8:00 tonight — Moonglow Lounge. Exley skirted Ad Vice — I gestured him over.

“I had a few questions.”

“Ask them, as long as they’re not ‘What do you want?’ ”

“Let’s try ‘Why just two men on a case you’re so hot to clear?’ ”

“No. Next question, and don’t ask “ ‘Why me?’ ”

“Let’s try ‘What’s in it for me?’ ”

Exley smiled. “If you clear the case I’ll exercise a rarely used chief of detective’s prerogative and jump you to captain without a civil-service listing. I’ll rotate Dudley Smith into Ad Vice and give you the Robbery Division command.”

Jig heaven — don’t swoon.

“Is something wrong, Lieutenant? I would have expected you to express your gratitude.”

“Thanks, Ed. That’s a dandy carrot you just dangled.”

“Given what you are, I’d say it is. Now I’m busy, so ask your next question.”

“Lucille Kafesjian’s the key to this thing. I’ve got a hunch that the family knows damn well who the burglar is, and I want to bring her in for questioning.”

“No, not yet.”

Change-up: “Give me the Hurwitz fur job. Take it away from Dudley.”

“No, and no emphatically, and don’t ask me again. Now, let’s wrap this up.”

“Okay, then let me lean on Tommy Kafesjian.”

“Explain ‘lean on,’ Lieutenant.”

“Lean on. Muscle. I fuck Tommy up, he tells us what we want to know. You know, outré police methods, like the time you shot those unarmed niggers.”

“No direct approach on the family. Other than that, you have carte blanche.”

Carte blanche shitwork, overdue: big fucking distractions.

Simple:

Lucille pix/tape rig/motel list — haul them southbound and ask questions:

Have you rented to her?

Has a man requested a room adjoining hers?

Have wino/bums rented rooms here by proxy?

Bad odds — call the Red Arrow her sole trick pad.

Southbound — Central Avenue all the way. Police intrigue, big-time:

IA cars trailing Fed cars — discreet. Bum rousts — Vag cops spread thick. Prostie wagons prowling for whores.

Feds:

License-plate checks outside bars and nightclubs.

Kibitzing a sidewalk crap game.

Staking out a swanky coon whorehouse.

Crew-cut gray suit Feds Darktown rife.

I stopped at 77th Street Station and borrowed a tape rig. Sweat box row was packed: jig-on-jig 187 “clearance.” Feds outside with cameras — snapping cop IDs.

Shitwork now:

Tick Tock Motel, Lucky Time Motel — no to all my questions. Darnell’s Motel, De Luxe Motel — straight nos. Handsome Dan’s Motel, Cyril’s Lodge — No City. Hibiscus Inn, Purple Roof Lodge — NO.

Nat’s Nest — 81st and Normandie. “Kleen Rooms Always” — brace the clerk.

“Yessir, I know this girl. She’s a short-timer rental, an’ she always ask for the same room.”

I gripped the counter. “Is she registered now?”

“Nosir, an’ not for maybe six, seven days.”

“Do you know what she uses the room for?”

“Nosir. My motto is ‘See no evil, hear no evil,’ an’ I adheres to that policy ‘cept when they be makin’ too much noise doin’ whatever it is they be doin’.”

“Does the girl ask for a front room with a street view?”

Shocked: “Yessir. How you know that?”

“Have you rented the room next to hers to a young white man? Did a bum request that particular room and register for him?”

Shut-my-mouth shocked — he dipped behind the counter and pulled out a rent card. “See, ‘John Smith,’ which in my opinion be an alias. See, he gots two days left on his rent. He ain’ in right now, I seen him leave this morn—”

“Show me those rooms.”

He beelined outside, fumbling keys. Two doors opened quick — good and cop scared.

Separate bungalows — no connecting door.

I caught up. Easy now — frost him with a ten spot. “Watch the street. If that white guy shows up, stall him. Tell him you’ve got a plumber in his room, then come and get me.”

“Yessir, yessir” — genuflecting streetside—

Two doors — no mutual access. Side windows — the peeper could WATCH her. Hedges below, a loose-stone walk path.

Look:

A wire out HIS window.

Into HIS hedge, out, under the stones.

I grabbed it and pulled—

Stones flew — the wire jerked taut. Into HER room — under the carpet, yank — a spackle-covered mike snapped off the wall.

Walk the cord back:

HIS window — jam the ledge up — step in. Pull — thunk — a tape machine under the bed.

Empty reels.

Back outside, check the doors — no pry marks. Figure HE went in HER window.

I shut both doors and tossed HIS room.

The closet:

Soiled clothes, empty suitcase, record player.

The dresser: skivvies, jazz albums — Champ Dineen, Art Pepper. Title matchers — Tommy K.’s smashed wax duplicated.

The bathroom:

Razor, shaving cream, shampoo.

Pull the rug:

Girlie mags — Transom — three issues. Cheesecake, text: movie-star “confessions.”

No tape.

Dump the mattress, punch the pillow — a hard spot — tear, rip—

One tape spool — rig it up for a listen fast—

Nerves — I fumbled the goods, smeared potential prints. Spastic-handed — loop the tape/push Start.

Rustles, coughs. I shut my eyes and imagined it: lovers in bed.

Lucille: “You don’t get tired of these games?”

Unknown Man: “Hand me a cigarette” — pause — “No, I don’t tire of them. You certainly know how to—”

Sobs — distant — motel room walls shutting my man out.

Trick Man: “... and you know that father-daughter games have staying power. Really, given our age variance, it’s quite a natural bed game to play.”

A cultured voice — Tommy/J.C. antithetical.

Sobs, louder.

Lucille: “These places are filled with losers and lonesome creeps.”

No hink/no recognition/no surveillance fear.

Click — figure a radio — “... chanson d’amour, ratta-tat-tatta, play encore.” Blurred voices, click, Trick Man: “... of course, there was always that little dose you gave me.”

“Dose”: clap/syph?

I checked the reels — tape running out.

Sleepy voices jumbled — more than a trick stand. I shut my eyes — please, one more game.

Silent tape hiss — sleepy lovers. Hinge creak/“God!” — too close, too real — NOW. Eyes open — a white man standing by the door.

Fucked up blurry vision — I drew down, aimed, fired. Two shots — the doorjamb splintered; one more — wood scraps exploding.

The man ran.

I ran out aiming.

Screams, shouts.

Zigzags — my man bucking traffic. I fired running — two shots went wide. Aiming straight — a clear shot — this jolt: if you kill him, you won’t know WHY?

Bolting traffic, sighting in on this white head bobbing. Horns, brakes — black faces on the sidewalk, my white speck disappearing.

I tripped, stumbled, ran. Losing him — black all around me.

Shouts.

Black faces scared.

My reflection in a window: this terrified geek.

I slowed down. Another window — black faces — follow their eyes:

A curbside roust — Feds and niggers. Welles Noonan, Will Shipstad, FBI muscle.

Grabbed, shoved — pinned to a doorway. Rabbit-punched — I dropped my piece.

Pinned — gray suit Fed gorillas. Welles Noonan sucker-punched me: spit in my face. His punch line: “That’s for Sanderline Johnson.”

17

The Moonglow — early for Lester. Jukebox tunes killed time.

Noonan, backed by music — replays still smelling his spittle:

Those Feds — cut-rate revenge. Back to Nat’s Nest — prowl cars responding to shots. I chased them off and bagged evidence: records, skin mags, tape rig, tape.

Calls next:

Orders to Ray Pinker: dust both rooms, bring a sketch man — make the clerk face-detail the peeper. Mugshot checks later — pray for good eyes.

Jack Woods, glad tidings: he spotted Junior, tailed him for two hours and lost him. Busy Junior — three indy pusher shakedowns — Jack glommed descriptions and plate numbers.

Jack, verbatim: “He looked fried to the gills and fucking insane. I checked his car out while he stopped for cigarettes. You know what I saw in the backseat? A hypodermic kit, six empty tuna-fish cans and three sawed-off shotguns. I don’t know what he’s got on you, but in my opinion you should clip him.”

The jukebox, unmistakable — Lester Lake’s “Harbor Lights” — and not on my dime.

Bingo — Lester himself, oozing fear. “Hello, Mr. Klein.”

“Sit down. Tell me about it.”

“Tell you about what?”

“The look on your face and why you played that goddamn song.”

Sitting down: “Just reassurance. Good to know Uncle Mickey keeps my tune in his Wurlitzers.”

“Mickey should pull his boxes before the Feds pull him. What is it? I haven’t seen you this spooked since the Harry Cohn thing.”

“Mr. Klein, you know a couple of Mr. Smith’s boys named Sergeant Breuning an’ Sergeant Carlisle?”

“What about them?”

“Well, they workin’ overtime at the Seven-Seven.”

“Come on, get to it.”

Breathless: “They goin’ aroun’ tryin’ to solve colored-on-colored killins, word is to forestall all this potential good Federal investigation publicity. You remember you ask me ’bout a mary jane pusher named Wardell Knox? You remember I tol’ you he got hisself killed by person or persons unknown?”

Tommy K. snitched Knox to Narco — Dan Wilhite told Junior. “I remember.”

“Then you should remember I tol’ you ol’ Wardell was a cunthound with a million fuckin’ enemies. He was fuckin’ a million different ladies, includin’ this high-yellow cooze Tilly Hopewell that I was also climbin’. Mr. Klein, I heard them Mr. Smith boys been lookin’ for me on account of some bogus rumor that I snuffed fuckin’ Wardell, and it looks to me like they be measurin’ me for a quick statistic. Now you want skinny on the fuckin’ Kafesjians and their fuckin’ known associates, so I got a real knee-slapper for you, which is that I just recently heard that crazy Tommy Kafesjian popped ol’ Wardell roun’ September, some kind of fuckin’ dope or sex grievance, ’cause he was also climbin’ that fine Tilly Hopewell on occasion.”

Breathless/heaving.

“Look, I’ll talk to Breuning and Carlisle. They’ll lay off you.”

“Yeah, maybe thas’ true, ’cause ol’ slumlord Dave Klein knows the right people. But Mr. Smith, he hates the colored man. An’ I don’ see you people pinnin’ the Wardell Knox job on Tommy the K., your righteous motherfuckin’ informant.”

“So do you want to change the world or waltz on this thing?”

“I wants you to give me an extra month’s free rent for all the fine skinny I gots on the fuckin’ Kafesjian family.”

“Harbor Lights” snapped on again. Lester: “And on that note, I heard the daughter’s a righteous semipro hooker. I heard Tommy and J.C. beat up Mama Kafesjian and her like batting practice. I heard Madge — that’s Mama — used to have a thing goin’ with Abe Voldrich, he’s this head guy in their dope operation, an’ he runs one of their dry-cleaning joints on the side. I heard Voldrich dries up big bushels of mary jane in them big dryers they got at their plants. I heard the way they keep things copacetic with rival pushers is kickbacks from little Mickey Mouse independents that they tolerates, but no righteous organizations would ever try to infringe on the Southside, ’cause they knows the LAPD would come down hard just to keep them Armenian fucks happy. I heard the only humps they snitch to you people is the indies who won’t kick back no operatin’ tribute. I heard the family is fuckin’ skin tight, even though they don’t treat each other with so much fuckin’ respect. I heard that outside of Voldrich an’ this colored trim Tommy the K. goes for, the family only gots employees and customers, not no fuckin’ friends. I heard Tommy used to be pals with some white kid named Richie, I don’t know no last name, but I heard they blew these punk square horns together, like they pretended they had talent. That crazyass burglary you told me about — them chopped-up watchdogs an’ stolen silverware an’ shit — I heard jackshit ’bout that. I also heard you thinkin’ ’bout raisin’ the rent in my buildin’, so I—”

Cut him off: “What about Tommy fucking Lucille?”

“Say what? I didn’ hear nothin’ like that. I said ‘skin tight,’ not fuckin’ skin deep.”

“What about this Richie guy?”

“Shit, I tol’ you what I heard, no more, no less. You want me—”

“Keep asking around about him. He might connect to this peeper guy I’ve been chasing.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that Peepin’ Tom motherfucker, an’ I knows how to improvise off what a man tells me. So I been askin’ aroun’ ’bout that, an’ I ain’t heard nothin’. Now, ’bout that rent increase—”

“Ask around if the Kafesjians have been looking for a peeper themselves. I have a hunch that they know who the burglar is.”

“An’ I got a hunch slumlord Dave Klein gonna raise my rent.”

“No, and I’ll carry you to January. If Jack Woods comes around to collect, call me.”

“What about Mr. Smith’s boys in hot pursuit of ol’ Lester?”

“I’ll take care of it. Do you know Tilly Hopewell’s address?”

“Can my people dance? Have I strapped on at that love shack more than a few times myself?”

“Lester—”

“8491 South Trinity, apartment 406. Say, where you goin’?”

“The fights.”

“Moore and Ruiz?”

“That’s right.”

“Bet on the Mex. I used to climb Stevie Moore’s sister, an’ she tol’ me Stevie couldn’t take it to the breadbasket.”

I badged in ringside — late.

The sixth-round break — card girls strutting. Spectator chants: “Dodgers, no! Ruiz must go!” Boos, shouts: pachucos vs. Commies.

The bell—

Rockabye Reuben circling; Moore popping right-hand leads. Mid-ring clinch — Ruiz loose, the spook winded.

“Break! Break!” — the ref in and out.

Moore stalking slow — elbows up, open downstairs. Headhunter Reuben — near-miss hooks moving back.

Lazy Reuben, bored Reuben.

A snap guess: tank job.

Moore — no steam, no juice. Ruiz — lazy hooks, lazy right-hand leads.

Moore swarming and sucking in air; Reuben eating blockable shots — the coon wide open.

Ruiz — a lazy left hook.

Moore catching wind, his guard low.

Bullseye — the wrong man went down.

Pachuco cheers.

Pinko boos.

Reuben — this oh-fuck look — stalling the count. Dawdle time — he oozed over to a neutral corner slow.

Six, seven, eight — Moore up, wobbly.

Ruiz dawdling center ring. Moore backing up — shot to shit. Bomb range, Reuben bombs — wild misses. Ten, twelve, fourteen — real air whizzers.

Ruiz fake-gasping; fake-weary arms flopping dead.

Moore threw a bolo shot.

Rockabye Reuben staggered.

Moore — left/right bolos.

Reuben hit the canvas — eyes rolling, fake out. Seven, eight, nine, ten — Moore kissed Sammy Davis, Jr., at ringside.

Bleacher attack — get the Reds — spics tossing piss-filled beer cups. Placard shields — no help — the pachucos moved in swinging bike chains.

I hit an exit — coffee down the block, let things chill. Twenty minutes, back over — shitloads of prowl cars and Commies shackled up.

Back in — follow the liniment stench. Dressing rooms, Ruiz alone — wolfing a taco plate.

“Bravo, Reuben. The best tank job I’ve ever seen.”

“Hey, and the riot wasn’t so bad neither. Hey, Lieutenant, what did those back-pedal hooks tell you?”

I shut the door — noise down the hall — newsmen and Moore. “That you know how to entertain the chosen few.”

Chugging beer: “I hope Hogan Kid Bassey saw the fight, ’cause the deal was Moore gets the bantam elimination shot and I move up to the feathers and fight him. I’ll kick his ass, too. Hey, Lieutenant, we ain’t talked since that night Sanderline jumped.”

“Call me Dave.”

“Hey, Lieutenant, a nigger and a Mexican jump out a six-story window the same time. Who hits the ground first?”

“I’ve heard it, but tell me anyway.”

“The nigger, ’cause the Mexican’s got to stop on the way down and spray ‘Ramón y Kiki por vida’ on the wall.”

Ha, ha — polite.

“So, Lieutenant, I know you saw Will Shipstad watch-dogging me at the ravine. Let me reassure you and Mr. Gallaudet that I’m grateful for this what you call public-relations gig you got me, ’specially since it got my goddamn brother off another GTA bounce. So, yeah, I’m a Fed witness again, but Noonan just wants me to testify on some stale-bread bookie stuff, and I’d never snitch Mickey C. or your buddy Jack Woods.”

“I always figured you knew how to play.”

“You mean play to the chosen few?”

“Yeah. Business is business, so you fuck your own people to get next to the DA.”

Smiling nice: “I got a trouble-prone family, so I gotta figure they’re more important than Mexicans in general. Hey, I kiss a little ass, so that what you call them — slumlords? — like you and your sister can stay fat. You know, Dave, the fuckin’ Bureau of Land and Way’s been checking out these dumps in Lynwood. There’s supposed to be some what you call converted whorehouse that these hard boys want to dump my poor evicted hermanos into, so maybe you and your goddamn slumlord sister can buy in on the ground floor.”

Brains — fuck his bravado. “You know a lot about me.”

“Hey, Dave ‘the Enforcer’ Klein, people talk about you.”

Change-up: “Is Johnny Duhamel queer?”

“Are you nuts? He is the snatch hound to end all snatch hounds.”

“Seen him lately?”

“We keep in touch. Why?”

“Just checking up. He’s on the Hurwitz fur case, and it’s a big assignment for an inexperienced officer. Has he talked to you about it?”

Head shakes — half-ass wary. “No. Mostly he talks about this Mobster Squad job he’s got.”

“Anything specific?”

“No, he said he’s not supposed to talk about it. Hey, why you pumping me?”

“Why did you look so sad all of a sudden?”

Hooks, jabs — air whizzed. “I saw Johnny maybe a week ago. He said he’d been doing this bad stuff. He didn’t, how you say, elaborate, but he said he needed a penance beating. We put on gloves, and he let me punch him around. I remember he had these what you call blisters on his hands.”

Rubber-hose work — Johnny probably hates it. “Remember Sergeant Stemmons, Reuben?”

“Sure, your partner at the hotel. Nice haircut, but a punk if you ask me.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No.”

“Has Johnny mentioned him to you?”

“No. Hey, what’s this Johnny routine?”

I smiled. “Just routine.”

“Sure, subtle guy. Hey, what do you get when you cross a Mexican and a nigger?”

“I don’t know.”

“A thief who’s too lazy to steal!”

“That’s a riot.”

Fondling a Schlitz: “You ain’t laughing so hard, and I can tell you’re thinking: at the ravine Rockabye Reuben said we should talk.”

“So talk.”

Pure pachuco — he bit off the bottle cap and guzzled. “I heard Noonan talking to Will Shipstad about you. He hates you like a goddamn dog. He thinks you pushed Johnson out the window and fucked up some guy named Morton Diskant. He tried to get me to say I heard you toss Johnson, and he said he’s gonna take you down.”

18

Forensics — at my living room desk.

Dust the magazines, tape rig, spools — smudges and four identical latents. I rolled my own prints to compare — it confirmed my own fumble-hand fuck-up.

The phone rang—

“Yes?”

“Ray Pinker, Dave.”

“You’re finished?”

“Finished is right. First, no viable suspect latents, and we dusted every touch surface in both rooms. We took elimination sets off the clerk, who’s also the owner, the janitor and the chambermaid, all Negroes. We got their prints in the rooms and nothing else.”

“Fuck.”

“Succinctly put. We also bagged the male clothing and tested some semen-stained shorts. It’s O positive again, with the same cell breakdown — your burglar or whatever is quite a motel hopper.”

“Shit.”

“Succinct, but we had better luck on the sketch reconstruction. The clerk and the artist worked up a portrait, and it’s waiting for you at the Bureau. Now—”

“What about mug shots? Did you tell the clerk we’ll need him for a viewing?”

Ray sighed — half pissed. “Dave, the man took off for Fresno. He implied that your behavior disturbed him. I offered him an LAPD reimbursement for the door you shot out, but he said it wouldn’t cover the aggravation. He also said don’t go looking for him, because he is gone, no forwarding. I didn’t press for him to stay, because he said he’d complain about that door you destroyed.”

“Shit. Ray, did you check—”

“Dave, I’m way ahead of you. I asked the other employees if they had seen the tenant of that room. They both said no, and I believed them.”

Shit. Fuck.

Half pouty: “Lots of trouble for a one-shot 459, Dave.”

“Yeah, just don’t ask me why.”

Click — my ear stung.

Go, keep dusting:

Smudges off the album covers — grooved records themselves wouldn’t take prints. Champ Dineen on my hi-fi: Sooo Slow Moods, The Champ Plays the Duke.

Background music — I skimmed Transom.

Piano/sax/bass — soft. Cheesecake pix, innuendo: blond siren M.M. craves she-man R.H. — she’ll do anything to turn him around. Nympho J.M. — gigantically endowed — seeks doubledigit males at Easton’s Gym. Ten inches and up, please — J.M. packs a ruler to make sure. Recent conquests: B-movie hulk F.T.; gagster M.B.; laconic cowboy star G.C.

Breathy sax, heartbeat bass.

Stories — traveling-salesman gems. Pix: big-tit slatterns drooping out of lingerie. Piano trills — gorgeous.

One issue down, Dineen percolating. Transom, June ’58:

M.M. and baseball M.M. hot — her J.D.M. torch pushed her toward hitters. The swank Plaza Hotel — ten-day/ten-night homestand.

Alto sax riffs — Glenda/Lucille/Meg, swirling.

Ads: dick enlargers, home law school. “Mood Indigo” à la Dineen — low brass.

A daddy/daughter story — a straight-dialogue intro. Photos: this skank brunette, bikini-clad.

“Well... you look like my daddy.”

“Look? Well, yeah, I’m old enough. I guess a game is a game, right? I can be the daddy because I fit the part.”

“Well, like the song says, ‘My heart belongs to Daddy.’ ”

Skim the text:

Orphan Loretta lusts for a daddy. The evil Terry deflowered her — she crawls for him, she hates it. She sells herself to older men — a preacher kills her. Accompanying pix: the skank sash-cord-strangled.

Champ Dineen roaring — think it through:

Loretta equals Lucille; Terry equals Tommy. “Orphan” Loretta — non sequitur. Lucille lusts for Daddy J.C. — hard to buy her hot for that greasy shitbird.

Call the dialogue voyeured.

Call the peeper “author.”

Transom, July ’58 — strictly movie-star raunch. Check the masthead — a Valley address — hit it tomorrow.

The phone rang — cut the volume — catch it.

“Glen—”

“Yes. Are you psychic or just hoping?”

“I don’t know, maybe both. Look, I’ll come up to the set.”

“No. Sid Frizell’s shooting some night scenes.”

“We’ll go to a hotel. We can’t use your place or my place — it’s too risky.”

That laugh. “I read it in the Times today. Howard Hughes and his entourage left for Chicago for some Defense Department meeting. David, the Hollywood Hills ‘actress domicile’ is available, and I have a key.”

Past midnight — call it safe. “Half an hour?”

“Yes. Miss you.”

I put the phone down and cranked the volume. Ellington/Dineen — “Cottontail.” Memory lane — ’42 — the Marine Corps. Meg — that tune — dancing at the El Cortez Sky Room.

Raw now — sixteen years gone bad. The phone right there — do it.

“Hello?”

“I’m glad I got you, but I figured you’d be out after Stemmons.”

“I had to get some sleep. Look, slavedriver—”

“Kill him, Jack.”

“Okay by me. Ten?”

“Ten. Clip him and buy me some time.”

19

The hills — a big Spanish off Mulholland.

Lights on, Glenda’s car out front. Twenty-odd rooms — fuck pad supreme.

I parked, beams on a ’55 Chevy. Bad familiar: Harold John Miciak’s.

Be sure, tweak the high beams — Hughes Aircraft decals on the back fender.

Late-night quiet — big dark houses, just one lit.

I got out and listened. Voices — his, hers — muffled low.

Up, try the front door — locked. Voices — his edgy, hers calm. Circuit the house, listen:

Miciak: “... you could do worse. Look, you come across for me, you pretend it’s Klein. I seen him come see you in Griffith Park, and as far as that goes, you can still give it to him — I’m not possessive and I got no partners. Mr. Hughes, he’s never gonna know, just you come across for me and get that money I want from Klein. I know he’s got it, ’cause he’s connected with some mob guys. Mr. Hughes, he told me so hisself.”

Glenda: “How do I know there’s just you?”

Miciak: “ ’Cause Harold John’s the only daddy-o in L.A. man enough to mess with Mr. Hughes and this cop who thinks he’s so tough.”

Around to the dining room window. Curtain gaps — look:

Glenda edging backward; Miciak pressing up, grinding his hips.

Slow walking — both of them — a knife rack behind Glenda.

I tried the window — no give.

Glenda: “How do I know there’s just you?”

Glenda: one hand reaching back, one hand out come hither.

Glenda: “I think we’d be good together.”

Around the back, a side door — I shoulder-popped it and ran in.

The hallway, the kitchen, there—

A clinch: his hands groping, hers grabbing knives.

Slow-motion numb — I couldn’t move. Shock-still frozen, look:

Knives down — in his back, in his neck — twisted in hilt-deep. Bone cracks — Glenda dug in — two hands blood-wet. Miciak thrashing AT HER—

Two more knives snagged — Glenda stabbing blind.

Miciak clawing the rack, up with a cleaver.

I stumbled in close — numb legs — smell the blood—

He stabbed, missed, lurched into the knife rack. She stabbed — his back, his face — blade jabs ripped his cheeks out.

Gurgles/screeches/whines — Miciak dying loud. Knife handles sticking out at odd angles — I threw him down, twisted them, killed him.

Glenda — no screams, this look: SLOW, I’ve been here before.

SLOW:

We killed the lights and waited ten minutes — no outside response. Plans then — soft whispers holding each other bloody.

No dining room carpet — luck. We showered and swapped clothes — Hughes kept a male/female stash. We bagged our own stuff, washed the floor, the rack, the knives.

Blankets in a closet — we wrapped Miciak up and locked him in his car trunk. 1:50 A.M. — out, back — no witnesses. Out and back again — our cars tucked below Mulholland.

A plan, a fall guy: the Wino Will-o-the-Wisp, L.A.’s favorite at-large killer.

Out to Topanga Canyon solo — I drove Miciak’s car. Hillhaven Kiddieland Kamp — defunct, wino turf. I flashlight-checked all six cabins — no bums residing.

I stashed the car out of sight.

I wiped it.

Kougar Kub Kabin — dump the body.

I throttled the corpse per the Wisp MO.

I rolled it through sawdust to stuff up the stab wounds. Forensic logic: impacted wounds made knife casting impossible.

Hope logic:

Howard Hughes, publicity shy — he might not push to find his man’s killer.

I walked back to Pacific Coast Highway. SLOW fear speeding up—

Sporadic tails dogging me.

A tail tonight meant grief forever.

Glenda picked me up at PCH. Back to Mulholland, two cars to my place, bed just to talk.

Small talk — her will held. CinemaScope/Technicolor knife work — I pushed to know she didn’t like it.

I hit the pillow by her face.

I shined the bed light in her eyes.

I told her:

My father shot a dog/I torched his toolshed/he hit my sister/I shot him, the gun jammed/these Two Tony fucks hurt my sister/I killed them/I killed five other men/I took money — what gives you the right to play it so stylish—

Hit the pillow, make her talk — no style, no tears:

She was floating, carhopping, this pretend actress. She was sleeping around for rent money — a guy told Dwight Gilette. He propositioned her: turn tricks for a fifty-fifty split. She agreed, she did it — sad sacks mostly. Georgie Ainge once — no rough stuff from him — but regular beatings from Gilette.

She got mad. She got this pretend-actress idea: buy a gun off Georgie and scare Dwight. Pretend actress with a prop now: a real pistol.

Dwight made her drive his “nieces” to his “brother’s” place in Oxnard. It was fun — cute colored toddlers — their pictures on TV a week later.

Two four-year-olds starved, tortured and raped — found dead in an Oxnard sewer.

Pretend actress, errand girl. This real-actress idea:

Kill Gilette — before he sends any more kids out to be snuffed.

She did it.

She didn’t like it.

You don’t skate from things like that — you crawl stylish.

I held her.

I talked a Kafesjian blue streak.

Champ Dineen lulled us to sleep.

I woke up early. I heard Glenda in the bathroom, sobbing.

20

Harris Dulange — fifty, bad teeth: “Since me and the magazine are as clean as a cat’s snatch, I will tell you how Transom works. First, we hire hookers or aspiring actresses down on their luck for the photos. The written stuff is by yours truly, the editor-in-chief, or it’s scribed by college kids who write out their fantasies in exchange for free issues. It’s what Hush-Hush calls ‘Sinuendo.’ We tack those movie-star initials onto our stories so that our admittedly feeble-minded readers will think, ‘Wow, is that really Marilyn Monroe?’ ”

Tired — I made an early Bureau run for Pinker’s sketch. Exley said no all-points distribution — last night left me too fried to fight him.

“Lieutenant, are you daydreaming? I know this isn’t the nicest office in the world, but...”

I pulled the June ’58 issue out. “Who wrote this father-daughter story?”

“I don’t even have to look. If it’s plump brunettes hot for some daddy surrogate, it’s Champ Dineen.”

“What? Do you know who Champ Dineen is?”

“Was, because he died some time back. I knew the guy was using a pseudonym.”

I flashed Pinker’s sketch. Dulange deadpanned it: “Who’s this?”

“Odds are it’s the man who wrote those stories. Haven’t you seen him?”

“No. We only talked on the phone. Nice-looking picture, though. Surprising. I figured the guy would be a troll.”

“Did he say his real name was Richie? That might be a lead on his ID.”

“No. We only talked on the phone once. He said his name was Champ Dineen, and I thought, ‘Copacetic, and only in L.A.’ Lieutenant, let me ask you. Does the Champster have a voyeur fetish?”

“Yes.”

Dulange — nodding, stretching: “Say eleven months ago, around Christmas, this pseudo-Champ guy calls me up out of the blue. He says he’s got access to some good Transom-type stuff, something like a whorehouse peek. I said, ‘Swell, send me a few samples, maybe we can do business.’ So... he sent me two stories. There was a PO-box return address, and I thought, ‘What? He’s on the lam or he lives in a post office box?’ ”

“Go on.”

“So the stuff was good. Cash good — and I rarely pay for text, just pictures. Anyway, it was two girlie-daddy stories, and the dialogue introductions were realistic, like he eavesdropped on this sick game stuff. The accompanying stories weren’t so hot, but I sent him a C-note off the books and a note: ‘Keep the fires stoked, I like your stuff.’ ”

“Did he send the stories in handwritten?”

“Yes.”

“Did you keep them?”

“No, I typed them over, then tossed them.”

“You did that every time he sent stories in?”

“That’s right. Four issues featuring the Champ, four times I typed the stuff up and tossed it. That was June ’58 you showed me, plus the Champ also made it in February ’58, May ’58 and September ’58. You want copies? I can have the warehouse send them to you, maybe take a week.”

“No sooner?”

“The wetbacks they got working there? For them a week’s Speedy Gonzales.”

I laid a card down. “Send them to my office.”

“Okay, but you’ll be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“The Champ’s a one-trick jockey. It’s all quasi-incest stuff featuring plump brunettes. I think I’ll start editing him and change things around. Rita Hayworth looking to bang father surrogates is spicier, don’t you think?”

“Sure. Now, what about a contributors’ file?”

He tapped his head. “Right here. We’re cramped for space in the plush offices of Transom magazine.”

Itchy — thinking Glenda. “Do you pay the man by check?”

“No, always cash. When we talked on the phone he said cash only. Lieutenant, you’re getting antsy, so I’ll tell you. Check PO box 5841 at the main downtown post office. That’s where I send the gelt. It’s always cash, and if you’re thinking of finking me to the IRS, don’t — because the Champ man is covered under various petty-cash clauses.”

Hot — the A.M. sweats. “How did he sound that one time you talked to him?”

“Like a square punk who always wanted to be a hepcat jazz musician. Say, did you know that my kid brother was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case?”

PO box stakeout? — too time-consuming. Glom a writ to bag the contents? — ditto. Bust the box open? — yes — call Jack Woods.

Phone dimes:

Jack — no answer. Meg — tap our property account for ten grand cash. Okay, no “Why?”, news: She and Jack were an item again. I resisted a cheap laugh: give him the ten — he’s killing Junior for me.

Shot/shivved/bludgeoned — picture it — Junior dead.

Pincushion Miciak — seeing it/feeling it: knife blades snagged on his spine.

More calls:

Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle — 77th, the Bureau — no luck. Picture Lester Lake scared shitless — cops out to frame him.

Picture Glenda: “Shit, David, you caught me crying.”

I drove down to Darktown — a name-tossing run. Bars and early-open jazz clubs — go.

Names:

Tommy Kafesjian, Richie — an old Tommy friend? Tilly Hopewell — consort — Tommy and the late Wardell Knox. My wild card: Johnny Duhamel — ex-fighter cop.

Names tossed to:

B-girls, hopheads, loafers, juice friends, bartenders. My tossbacks: Richie — straight deadpans. White Peeping Toms — ditto. Tilly Hopewell — junkie talk — she was an ex-hype off a recent hospital cure. Wardell Knox — “He dead and I don’t know who did it.” Schoolboy Johnny — boxing IDs only.

My peeper sketch: zero IDs.

Dusk — more clubs open. More name tosses — zero results — I checked slot-machine traffic on reflex. A coin crew at the Rick Rack — white/spic — Feds across the street, camera ready. Mickey slot men on film — Suicide Mickey.

Cop-issue Plymouths out thick — Feds, LAPD. Intermittent heebie-jeebies — tails on me LAST NIGHT?

I stopped at a pay phone. Out of dimes — I used slugs.

Glenda — my place, her place — no answer. Jack Woods — no answer. Over to Bido Lito’s — toss names, toss shit — I got nothing but sneers back.

Two-drink minimum — I grabbed a stool and ordered two scotches. Voodoo eyes: wall-to-wall niggers.

I downed the juice fast-two drinks, no more. Scotch warm, this idea: wait for Tommy K. and shove him outside. Do you fuck your sister/does your father fuck your sister — brass knucks until he coughed up family dirt.

The barman had drink three ready — I said no. A combo setting up — I waved the sax man over. He agreed: twenty dollars for a Champ Dineen medley.

Lights down. Vibes/drums/sax/trumpet — go.

Themes — loud/fast, soft/slow. Soft — the barman talked mythic Champ Dineen.

Dig:

He came out of nowhere. He looked white — but rumor made his bloodlines mongrel. He played piano and bass sax, wrote jazz and cut a few sides. Handsome, jumbo hung: he fucked in whorehouse peek shows and never had his picture taken. Champ in love: three rich-girl sisters, their mother. Four mistresses — four children born — a rich cuckold daddy shot the Champ Man dead.

A drink on the bar — I bolted it. My mythic peeper — dig his story, just maybe:

Whorehouse peek equals Transom; family intrigue equals KAFESJIAN.

I ran outside — across the street to a phone bank. Jack Woods’ number, three rings — “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Dave, don’t ask. I’m still looking for him.”

“Keep going, it’s not that.”

“What is it?”

“It’s another two grand if you want it. You know the all-night post office downtown?”

“Sure.”

“Box 5841. You break in and bring me the contents. Wait until three o’clock or so, you’ll get away clean.”

Jack whistled. “You’ve got Fed trouble, right? Some kind of seizure writ won’t do it, so—”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes. I like you in trouble, you’re generous. Call me tomorrow, all right?”

I hung up. My memory jolted — plate numbers. Jack’s work — those Junior shakedownees he spotted. I dug my notebook out and buzzed the DMV.

Slow — read the numbers off, wait. Cold air juked my booze rush and cleared my head — pusher shakedown victims — potential Junior/Tommy snitchers.

My readout:

Patrick Dennis Orchard, male caucasian — 1704 1/2 S. Hi Point; Leroy George Carpenter, male negro — 819 W. 71st Street, #114; Stephen NMI Wenzel, male caucasian, 1811 S. St. Andrews, #B.

Two white men — surprising. Think: Lester Lake shot me Tilly Hopewell’s address. There, grab it: 8491 South Trinity, 406.

Close by — I got there quick. A four-story walk-up — I parked curbside.

No lift — I walked up for real. 406 — push the buzzer.

Spyhole clicks. “Who is it?”

“Police.”

Chain noise, the door open. Tilly: a thirtyish high yellow, maybe half white.

“Miss Hopewell?”

“Yes” — no coon drawl.

“It’s just a few questions.”

She walked backward — dead cowed. The front room: shabby, clean. “Are you from the Probation?”

I closed the door. “LAPD.”

Goosebumps: “Narco?”

“Administrative Vice.”

She whipped papers off the TV. “I’m clean. I had my Nalline test today. See?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then...”

“Let’s start with Tommy Kafesjian.”

Tilly backed up, brushed a chair, plunked down. “Say what, Mr. Po-lice?”

“Say what shit, you’re not that kind of colored. Tommy Kafesjian.”

“I know Tommy.”

“And you’ve been intimate with him.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been intimate with Wardell Knox and Lester Lake.”

“That’s true, and I’m not the kind of colored who thinks it’s all a big sin, either.”

“Wardell’s dead.”

“I know that.”

“Tommy killed him.”

“Tommy’s evil, but I’m not saying he killed Wardell. And if he did, he’s LAPD protected, so I’m not giving away anything you don’t already know.”

“You’re a smart girl, Tilly.”

“You mean for colored I’m smart.”

“Smart’s smart. Now give me a motive for Tommy killing Wardell. Was it bad blood over you?”

Sitting prim — this junkie schoolmarm. “Tommy and Wardell could never get that fired up over a woman. I’m not saying Tommy killed him, but if he killed him, it’s because Wardell was behind on some kind of dope payment. Which doesn’t mean anything to you, considering the Christmas baskets Mr. J.C. Kafesjian sends downtown.”

Change-up: “Do you like Lester Lake?”

“Of course I do.”

“You don’t want to see him get popped for a murder he didn’t commit, do you?”

“No, but who says that’s going to happen? Any plain fool can tell Lester’s not the kind of man who could kill anybody.”

“Come on, you know things don’t work that way.”

Getting antsy — raw off that dope cure. “Why do you care so much about Lester?”

“We help each other out.”

“You mean you’re the slum man Lester snitches for? You want to help him out, fix his bathtub.”

Change-up: “Johnny Duhamel.”

“Now I’ll say ‘say what’ for real. Johnny who?”

Name toss: “Leroy Carpenter... Stephen Wenzel... Patrick Orchard... Let’s try a policeman named George Stemmons, Jr.”

Cigarettes on a tray close by — Tilly reached trembly.

Kick it over, set her off—

“That Junior is trash! Steve Wenzel’s my friend, and that Junior trash stole his bankroll and his speedballs and called him a white nigger! That Junior talked this crazy talk to him! I saw that crazy Junior man popping goofballs right out in the open by this club!”

Flash it — my bankroll. “What crazy talk? Come on, you’re just off the cure, you know you can use a fix. Come on, what crazy talk?”

“I don’t know! Steve just said crazy nonsense!”

“What else did he tell you about Junior?”

“Nothing else! He just said what I told you!”

“Patrick Orchard, Leroy Carpenter. Do you know them?”

“No! I just know Steve! And I don’t want a snitch jacket!”

Twenty, forty, sixty — I dropped cash on her lap. “Tommy and his sister Lucille. Anything ugly. Tommy will never know you told me.”

Dope eyes now — fuck fear. “Tommy said that sometimes Lucille whores. He said that a man in Stan Kenton’s band recommended her to this Beverly Hills call-girl man. Doug something... Doug Ancelet? Tommy said that Lucille worked for that man for a while like several years ago, but he fired her because she gave these tricks of hers the gonorrhea.”

Recoil: Glenda, ex-Ancelet girl. My peeper tape — the trick to Lucille — “that little dose you gave me.”

Tilly: dope eyes, new money.

Carpenter/Wenzel/Orchard — I swung an address circuit south/northwest. Nobody home — circuit south, crack the wind wings — cold air cleared my head.

Make Junior dead or dead soon — faggot-smear him postmortem. Leak queer dirt to Hush-Hush — taint his Glenda dirt. Retoss his pad, dump evidence — pump his shakedown victims. Work Kafesjian 459 — and tie in Junior dirty. Question mark: his Exley file.

Brain circuits:

Exley proffers my Kafesjian payoff: Robbery Division CO. It’s a shiv to Dudley Smith, the fur-job boss — the perp his “protégé” Johnny Duhamel.

Johnny and Junior — heist partners?

My instinct: unlikely.

Reflex instinct: hand Johnny up to Dud — deflect Exley’s shiv, curry Dud’s favor.

South, hit the gas: talk had Smith working 77th. Over — newsmen outside — a captain grandstanding:

Ignore Negro-victim 187s — never!

Watch for zealous justice soon!

Door guards kept reporters out: civilians verboten, zealotry wrapped.

I badged in. Sweat box row was packed: nigger suspects, two cop teams twirling saps.

“Lad.”

Smith in the bullpen doorway. I walked over; he shot me a bonecrusher shake. “Lad, was it me you came to see?”

Sidestep: “I was looking for Breuning and Carlisle.”

“Ahh, grand. Those bad pennies should turn up, but in the meantime share a colloquy with old Dudley.”

Chairs right there — I grabbed two.

“Lad, in my thirty years and four months as a policeman I have never seen anything quite like this Federal business. You’ve been on the Department how long?”

“Twenty years and a month.”

“Ah, grand, with your wartime service included, of course. Tell me, lad, is there a difference between killing Orientals and white men?”

“I’ve never killed a white man.”

Dud winked — oh, you kid. “Nor have I. Jungle bunnies account for the seven men I have killed in the line of duty, stretching a point to allow for them as human. Lad, this Federal business is damningly provocative, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Concisely put. And in that concise attorney’s manner of yours, what would you say is behind it?”

“Politics. Bob Gallaudet for the Republicans, Welles Noonan for the Democrats.”

“Yes, strange bedfellows. And ironic that the Federal Government should be represented by a man with fellow-traveler tendencies. I understand that that man spat in your face, lad.”

“You’ve got good eyes out there, Dud.”

“Twenty-twenty vision, all my boys. Lad, do you hate Noonan? It’s safe to say that he” — wink — “considers you negligent in the matter of Sanderline Johnson’s unscheduled flight.”

I winked back. “He thinks I bought him the ticket.”

Ho, ho, ho. “Lad, you dearly amuse this old man. By any chance were you raised Catholic?”

“Lutheran.”

“Aah, a Prod. Christianity’s second string, God bless them. Do you still believe, lad?”

“Not since my pastor joined the German-American Bund.”

“Aah, Hitler, God bless him. A bit unruly, but frankly I preferred him to the Reds. Lad, did your second-string faith feature an equivalent to confession?”

“No.”

“A pity, because at this moment our interrogation rooms are filled with confessees and confessors, that grand custom being utilized to offset any untoward publicity this Federal business might foist upon the Department. Brass tacks, lad. Dan Wilhite has told me of Chief Exley’s potentially provocative fixation on the Kafesjian family, with you as his agent provocateur. Lad, will you confess your opinion of what the man wants?”

Sidestep: “I don’t like him any more than you do. He got chief of detectives over you, and I wish to hell you’d gotten the job.”

“Grand sentiments, lad, which of course I share. But what do you think the man is doing?”

Feed him — my Johnny snitch prelim. “I think — maybe — he’s sacrificing Narco to the Feds. It’s a largely autonomous division, and maybe he’s certain that the Fed probe will prove successful enough to require a scapegoat that will protect the rest of the Department and Bob Gallaudet. Exley is two things: intelligent and ambitious. I’ve always thought that he’ll get tired of police work and try politics himself, and we know how tight he is with Bob. I think — maybe — he’s convinced Parker to let Narco go, with his eye on his own goddamn future.”

“A brilliant interpretation, lad. And as for the Kafesjian burglary itself, and your role as Exley’s chosen investigating officer?”

I ticked points: “You’re right, I’m an agent provocateur. Chronologically: Sanderline Johnson jumps, and now Noonan hates me. The Southside Fed probe is already rumored, and the Kafesjian burglary occurs coincident to it. Coincident to that, I operate a pinko politician who’s enamored of Noonan. Now, the Kafesjian burglary is nothing — it’s a pervert job. But the Kafesjians are scum personified and tight with the LAPD’s most autonomous and vulnerable division. At first I thought Exley was operating Dan Wilhite, but now I think he put me out there to draw heat. I’m out there, essentially getting nowhere on a worthless pervert 459. It’s a one — I mean two-man job, and if Exley really wanted the case cleared he would have put out a half-dozen men. I think he’s running me. He’s playing off my reputation and running me.”

Dudley, beaming: “Salutary, lad — your intelligence, your lawyer-sharp articulation. Now, what does Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr., think of the job? My sources say he’s been behaving rather erratically lately.”

Spasms — don’t flinch. “You mean your source Johnny Duhamel. Junior taught him at the Academy.”

“Johnny’s a good lad, and your colleague Stemmons should trim his disgraceful sideburns to regulation length. Did you know that I co-opted Johnny to the Hurwitz investigation?”

“Yeah, I’d heard. Isn’t he a little green for a case like that?”

“He’s a grand young copper, and I heard that you yourself sought to command the job.”

“Robbery’s clean, Dud. I’m looking out for too many friends working Ad Vice.”

Ho-ho, wink-wink. “Lad, your powers of perception have just won you the undying friendship of a certain Irishman named Dudley Liam Smith, and I am frankly amazed that two bright lads such as ourselves have remained merely acquaintances all these many years.”

SNITCH DUHAMEL.

DO IT NOW.

“On the topic of friendship, lad, I understand that you and Bob Gallaudet are quite close.”

Hallway noise — grunts/thuds/“Dave Klein my friend!”

Lester — sweat box row.

I sprinted over — door number 3 was just closing. Check the window — Lester handcuffed, dribbling teeth — Breuning and Carlisle swinging saps overtime.

Shoulder wedge — I snapped the door clean.

Breuning — distracted — huh?

Carlisle — blood-fogged glasses.

Out of breath, pitch the lie: “He was with me when Wardell Knox was killed.”

Carlisle: “Was that a.m. or p.m.?”

Breuning: “Hey, Sambo, try to sing ‘Harbor Lights’ now.”

Lester spat blood and teeth in Breuning’s face.

Carlisle balled his fists — I kicked his legs out. Breuning yelped, blood-blind — I sapped his knees.

That brogue:

“Lads, you’ll have to release Mr. Lake. Lieutenant, bless you for expediting justice with your splendid alibi.”

21

Dawn — the trailer. Glenda sleeping; Lester curled up outside by the spaceship.

I stepped out; Lester stirred and gargled T-Bird. Confab: the camera boss and director.

“Come on, Sid, this time the head vampire plucks the guy’s eyes out.”

“But Mickey’s afraid I’m making things too gruesome. I... I don’t know.”

“Jesus Christ, you take the extra and pour some fake blood in his eyes.”

“Wylie, you come on. Let me have coffee before I start thinking gore at six-forty-nine in the morning.”

Lester weaved over — cut, bruised. “I always wanted to be a movie star. Maybe I stick aroun’ an extra day or so, play the Negro vampire.”

“No, Breuning and Carlisle will be looking for you. They didn’t pin Wardell Knox on you, but they’ll find something.”

“I don’t feel so much like runnin’.”

“You do it. I told you last night: call Meg and tell her I said she should stake you. You want to end up dead for resisting arrest some goddamn night when you think they’ve forgotten about it?”

“No, I don’t think I do. Say, Mr. Klein, I never thought I’d see the day Mr. Smith gave me a break.”

I winked à la Dudley. “He likes my style, lad.”

Lester strolled back to his bottle. The director fisheyed me — I strolled to the trailer, nonchalant.

Glenda was reading my note. “David, this could kill — I mean ruin me in the film business.”

“We have to give them something. If they believe it, they won’t press theft charges. And it diverts attention from the actress pads.”

“There’s been nothing on TV or in the papers.”

“The more time goes by, the better. Hughes might report him missing, and the body will be found sooner or later. Either way, we might or might not be questioned. I had words with him, so I’m more likely to be a pro forma suspect. I can handle it, and I know you can handle it. We’re... oh shit.”

“We’re professionals?”

“Don’t be so cruel, it’s too early.”

She took my hands. “When can we go public?”

“We may have already. I shouldn’t have stayed so late, and we should probably cool things for a while.”

“Until when?”

“Until we’re cleared on Miciak.”

“That’s the first time we’ve said his name.”

“We haven’t really talked about it at all.”

“No, we’ve been too busy sharing secrets. What about alibis?”

“For up to two weeks you were home alone. After two weeks you don’t remember — nobody remembers that long.”

“There’s something else bothering you. I could tell last night.”

Neck prickles — I blurted it. “It’s the Kafesjian job. I was questioning a girl who knows Tommy K., and she said Lucille did call jobs for Doug Ancelet.”

“I don’t think I knew her. The girls never used their real names, and if I knew someone similar to the way you described her, I would have told you. Are you going to question him?”

“Yeah, today.”

“When did she work for Doug?”

“Doug?”

Glenda laughed. “I worked for Doug briefly, after the Gilette thing, and you’re disturbed that I used to do what I did.”

“No — I just don’t want you connected to any of this.”

Lacing our fingers — “I’m not, except that I’m connected to you” — squeezing tighter — “So go. It’s Premier Escorts, 481 South Rodeo, next to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.”

I kissed her. “You make things worse, then you make them better.”

“No, it’s just that you like your trouble in smaller doses.”

“You’ve got me.”

“I’m not so sure. And be careful with Doug. He used to pay off the Beverly Hills Police.”

I walked — lightheaded. Lester serenaded winos by the spaceship — “Harbor Lights” — the gap-toothed version.

Phone news:

Woods spotted Junior in Darktown — then lost him running a red light. Jack — irked, going back out: “It looks like he’s living in his car. He had his badge pinned to his coat, like he’s a fucking Wild West sheriff, and I saw him buying gas with two big automatics shoved down his pants.”

Bad, but:

He hit box 5841 — check under his doormat, grab the key, check his mail slot. “Four envelopes, Dave. Jesus, I thought you were sending me after jewels or something. And you owe me—”

I hung up and drove over. There: the key, the slot, four letters. Back to my car — Champ Dineen mail.

Two letters sealed, two slit. I opened the sealed ones — both from Transom to Champ — recent postmarks. Inside: fifty-dollar bills, notes: “Champ — Thanx mucho, Harris”; “Champ — Thanx, man!”

Two slit — left for safekeeping? — no return address, Christmas ’57 postmarks. Eleven months PO box stashed — why?

Neat handwriting, ridged paper — non-print-sustaining. No Richie confirmation; “Long history of insanity/both our families.” My peeper: mother/father/sisters. “Circumstances of our family life and theirs too has done something to you.”

Sisters/music/well-heeled father.

Mother suicidal — close three months before — “it spurred you to do a rash thing.”

“Your father gave me what that prostitute gave him.”

The peeper tape, Trick Man to Lucille: “that little dose you gave me.”

Doug Ancelet fires Lucille — “She gave these tricks of hers the gonorrhea.”

Snap call:

The peeper taped Lucille and his own father.

“Insanity.”

“Both our families.”

“Our family life and theirs too has done something to you.”

I drove home, changed, grabbed the tape rig, extra sketches and my john list. A pay-phone stop, a call to Exley — I pitched him hard, no explanation:

Leroy Carpenter/Steve Wenzel/Patrick Orchard — I want them. Send squadroom men out — I want those pushers detained.

Exley agreed — grudgingly. Agreed too: Wilshire Station detention. Suspicious: Why not 77th?

Unsaid:

I’m having a cop killed/I don’t want Dudley Smith around — he’s too close to this fur-thief cop—

“I’ll implement it, Lieutenant. But I want a full report on your interrogations.”

“Yes, sir!”

10:30 A.M. — Premier Escorts should be open.

Out to Beverly Hills — Rodeo off the Beverly Wilshire. Open: a ground-floor suite, a receptionist.

“Doug Ancelet, please.”

“Are you a client?”

“A potential one.”

“May I ask who recommended you?”

“Peter Bondurant” — pure bluff — a big-time whorehound.

Behind us: “Karen, if he knows Pete, send him in.”

I walked back. A nice office — dark wood, golf prints. An old man dressed for golf, PR smile on.

“I’m Doug Ancelet.”

“Dave Klein.”

“How is Pete, Mr. Klein? I haven’t seen him in a dog’s age.”

“He’s busy. Between his work for Howard Hughes and Hush-Hush he’s always on the run.”

Pseudo-warm: “God, the stories that man has. You know, Pete has been both a client for several years and a talent scout for companions for Mr. Hughes. In fact, we’ve introduced Mr. Hughes to several young ladies who’ve gone on to become contract actresses for him.”

“Pete gets around.”

“He does indeed. My God, he’s the man who verifies the veracity of those scurrilous stories in that scurrilous scandal rag. Has he explained how Premier Escorts works?”

“Not in detail.”

Practiced: “It’s by word of mouth exclusively. People know people, and they recommend us. We operate on a principle of relative anonymity, and all our clients use pseudonyms and call us when they wish to have an introduction made. That way we don’t have their real names or phone numbers on file. We have picture files on the young ladies we send out on dates, and they use appropriately seductive pseudonyms themselves. With the exception of a few clients like Pete, I doubt that I know a half-dozen of my clients and girls by their real names. Those picture files on the girls also list the pseudonyms of the men they’ve dated, to aid us in making recommendations. Anonymity. We accept only cash as payment, and I assure you, Mr. Klein — I’ve forgotten your real name already.”

Tweak him: “Lucille Kafesjian.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Another client mentioned her to me. A sexy brunette, a little on the plump side. Frankly, he said she was great. Unfortunately, he also said that you dismissed her for giving your clients venereal disease.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve dismissed a few girls for that offense, and one of them did use an Armenian surname. Who was the client who mentioned her?”

“A man in Stan Kenton’s band.”

Eyeing me — copwise now. “Mr. Klein, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an attorney.”

“And that’s a tape recorder you’re carrying?”

“Yes.”

“And why are you carrying a revolver in a shoulder holster?”

“Because I command the Administrative Vice Division, Los Angeles Police Department.”

Turning florid: “Did Pete Bondurant give you my name?”

Flash the peeper sketch, dig his reaction: “He gave you my name? I’ve never seen him before, and that likeness reads much younger than the vast majority of my clients. Mr.—”

“Lieutenant.”

“Mr. Lieutenant Whatever Out-of-Your-Jurisdiction Policeman, leave this office immediately!”

I shut the door. Ancelet flushed heart-attack red — baby him. “Are you in with Mort Riddick on the BHPD? Talk to him, he’ll verify me. I bluffed in with Pete B., so call Pete and ask about me.”

Turning beet-red/purple. A decanter set on his desk — I poured him a shot.

He guzzled it and made refill nods. I poured him a short one — he chased it with pills.

“You son of a bitch, using a trusted client of mine as subterfuge, you son of a bitch.”

Refill number two — he poured this time.

“A few minutes of your time, Mr. Ancelet. You’ll make a valuable contact on the LAPD.”

“No good son of a bitch” — winding down.

I flashed the john list. “These are trick names I got out of a police file.”

“I will not identify any of my client names or pseudonyms.”

“Former clients, then, that’s all I’m asking.”

Squinting, finger-scanning: “There, ‘Joseph Arden.’ He used to be a client several years back. I remember because my daughter lives near the Arden Dairy in Culver City. This man trucks with common street girls?”

“That’s right. And johns always keep the same alias. Now, did this man trick with that Armenian-named girl you told me about?”

“I don’t recall. And remember what I told you: I don’t keep client files, and my picture file on that clap-passing slut is strictly ancient history.”

Lying fuck — file cabinets stacked wall-to-wall. “Listen to a tape. It’ll take two minutes.”

He tapped his watch. “One minute. I’m due on the tee at Hillcrest.”

Fast: rig the spools, press Play. Squelch, Stop, Start, there:

Lucille: “These places are filled with losers and lonesome creeps.”

Stop, Start, “Chanson d’Amour,” the trick: “... of course, there was always that little dose you gave me.”

I pressed Stop. Ancelet, impressed: “That’s Joseph Arden. The girl sounds somewhat familiar, too. Satisfied?”

“How can you be sure? You only listened for ten seconds.”

More watch taps. “Listen, I do most of my business on the phone, and I recognize voices. Now, follow this train of thought: I have asthma. That man had a slight wheeze. I remembered that he called me out of the blue several years ago. He wheezed, and we discussed asthma. He said he heard two men in an elevator discussing my service and got the Premier Escorts number out of the Beverly Hills Yellow Pages, where frankly I advertise my more legitimate escort business. I set the man up with a few dates and that was that. Satisfied?”

“And you don’t recall which girls he selected.”

“Correct.”

“And he never came in to look at your picture file.”

“Correct.”

“And of course you don’t keep a pseudonym file on your clients.”

Tap tap. “Correct, and Jesus Christ, they’ll tee off without me. Now, Mr. Policeman Friend of Pete’s Who I Have Humored Past the Point of Courtesy, please—”

In his face: “Sit down. Don’t move. Don’t pick up the phone.”

He kowtowed — twitching and fuming dark red. File cabinets — nine drawers — go—

Unlocked, manilla folders, side tabs. Male names — lying old whoremaster fuck. Alphabetical: “Amour, Phil,” “Anon, Dick,” “Arden, Joseph”—

Pull it:

No real name/no address/no phone number.

Ancelet: “This is a rank invasion of privacy!”

Assignations:

7/14/56, 8/1/56, 8/3/56 — Lacey Kartoonian — call her Lucille. 9/4/56, 9/11/56 — Susan Ann Glynn, a footnote: “Make this girl use a pseudonym: I think she wants clients to be able to locate her thru normal channels to avoid paying commission.”

“They are on the second hole already!”

I yanked drawers — one, two, three, four — male names only. Five, six, seven — initialed folders/nude whore pix.

“Get out now, you fucking hard-on voyeur, before I call Mort Riddick!”

Yanking folders — no L.K., no Lucille pictures—

“Karen, call Mort Riddick at the station!”

I yanked his phone out by the cord — watch his face throb. My own throbs: fuck L.K., find G.B.—

“Mr. Ancelet, Mort’s on his way!”

No L.K., files dwindling. There, G.B. paydirt — “Gloria Benson” in brackets. Glenda’s movie name — she said she chose it.

I grabbed the file, grabbed the tape rig and hauled. Outside, my car — I peeled rubber — down to my jurisdiction.

Look:

Two nude snapshots dated 3/56 — Glenda looked embarrassed. Four “dates” listed, a note: “A headstrong girl who went back to carhopping.”

I ripped it all up.

I hit my siren out of pure fucking joy.

22

One Susan Ann Glynn DMV-listed — Ocean View Drive, Redondo Beach.

Twenty minutes south. A clapboard shack, no view — a pregnant woman on the porch.

I parked and walked up. Blond, mid-twenties — DMV stat bullseye.

“Are you Susan Ann Glynn?”

She patted a sit-down place. Expectant: cigarettes, magazines.

“You’re the policeman Doug called about?”

I sat down. “He warned you?”

“Uh-huh. He said you looked through an old trick file that had my name on it. He said you might come to see me and make trouble like you did with him. I said I sure hope he makes it before three-thirty, when my husband gets home.”

Noon now. “Your husband doesn’t know what you used to do?”

A kid yelping inside — she lit a cigarette on reflex. “Uh-uh. And I bet if I cooperate with you, you won’t tell him.”

“That’s right.”

She coughed, smiled. “The baby kicked. Now, uh, Doug said the trick was Joseph Arden, so I put on my thinking cap. This isn’t for murder or anything like that, is it? Because that man behaved like a gentleman.”

“I’m investigating a burglary.”

Cough, wince. “You know, I remember that I liked that man. I remember him good because Doug said be nice ’cause this other service girl gave him the clap, and he had to get it treated.”

“Did he tell you his real name?”

“No. I used my real name at the service for a while, but Doug accused me of trying to recruit customers for myself, so I stopped.”

“What did Joseph Arden look like?”

“Nice looking. Cultured looking. Maybe in his late forties. He looked like he had money.”

“Tall, short, heavy, slender?”

“Maybe six feet. I guess you’d say he had a medium build. Blue eyes, I think. What I guess you’d call medium-brown hair.”

I showed the sketch. “Does this look like him?”

“This man looks too young. The chin sort of reminds me of him, though.”

Noise inside — Susan winced. Check her magazines: Photoplay, Bride’s. “Do you know what mug shots are?”

“Uh-huh, from the TV. Pictures of criminals.”

Soft: “Would you—?”

“No” shakes — emphatic. “Mister, this man was no criminal. I could look at your pictures until this new baby of mine has her sweet sixteen and never see his face.”

“Did he mention a son named Richie?”

“We didn’t talk much, but on like our second date he said his wife just tried to kill herself. At first I didn’t believe it, ’cause lots of men tell you sad things about their wives so you’ll feel sorry for them and pretend you like it more.”

“You said at first you didn’t believe him. What convinced you?”

“He told me he and his wife had this fight a few weeks back, and she just started screaming and picked up a can of Drano and started drinking it. He said he stopped her and fetched this doctor neighbor of his so he wouldn’t have to take her to the hospital. Believe me, that story was so awful that I knew he didn’t make it up.”

“Did he say that she went to a hospital for follow-up treatment?”

“No. He said the neighbor doctor took care of all of it. He said he was glad, ’cause that way nobody knew how crazy his wife was.”

One dead lead. “Did he tell you his wife’s name?”

“No.”

“Did he mention the names of any other family members?”

“No, he sure didn’t.”

“Did he mention any other girls who worked for Doug Ancelet?”

Nods — eager. “Some girl with one of those foreign-type I-A-N names. It seemed to me he had—”

“Lacey Kartoonian?”

“Riiight.”

“What did he say about her?”

“That she loved it. That’s a big thing with call-service customers. They think they’re the only ones who can make you love it.”

“Be more specific.”

“He said, ‘Do it like Lacey does.’ I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘Love it.’ That’s all he said about her, I’m sure.”

“He didn’t mention her as the one who gave him a dose?”

“Uh-uh, that’s all he said. And I never met that girl myself, and nobody else ever brought her up to me. And if she didn’t have such a funny call name I wouldn’t have remembered her at all.”

Chrono links:

Christmas ’57: peeper’s mother with the suicide blues again. Susan Glynn/Joseph Arden — trick dates 9/56. Mrs. Arden, Drano drinker — private treatment. Police agencies sealed suicide files. Arden, wealthy — if his wife killed herself, he’d buy extra legal closure.

Linkage:

Letters, peeper tapes, Ancelet.

Quotes:

Joseph Arden to Lucille: “that dose you gave me.”

Mom to Champ/peeper: “Your father gave me what that prostitute gave him.”

Conclusive:

The peeper peeped his own father fucking Lucille.

Susan: “Penny for your thoughts.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Ask me one.”

Try her: “When you worked for the service, did you know a girl named Gloria Benson? Her real name’s Glenda Bledsoe.”

Smiling, pleased: “I remember her. She quit Doug’s to become a movie star. When I read she was under contract to Howard Hughes it made me so happy.”

23

Wilshire Station — wait, work.

I dusted the Mom-peeper envelopes — two prints surfaced. I checked Jack Woods’ Vice sheet — match-up — Jack pawed the goods.

No post-Christmas letters box-stashed — why?

I buzzed Sid Riegle: check white female attempted suicides/suicides Christmas ’57 up. Assume Coroner’s file closure; inquire station squad to squad — City/County. Look for: middle-aged/affluent/husband/son/daughters. Sid said I’ll help you part time — you never show up — I’m running Ad Vice by default.

I called the Arden Dairy — a shot at a Joseph Arden make. Strikeout: no Arden-surname owners/employees; the founder dead, heirless.

I called University Station — 4:00 — nightwatch roll call in progress. Via intercom hookup:

Did any of you men trick-card Joseph Arden — white male alias?

One taker — “I think I carded that alias” — no real name, vehicle or description recalled.

Joseph Arden — dead for now.

A teletype check: no Topanga Canyon 187s — Pincushion Miciak decomposing.

Dinner: candy bars from a vending machine. Grab a sweat room, wait.

I tilted a chair back — sleep waves hit me. Half dreaming: Mr. Third Party says hi!

The Red Arrow Inn — peeper jimmies Lucille’s door. Jimmy marks on the peeper’s door — nonmatching. Kafesjian 459: watchdogs chopped and blinded — eyes shoved down their throats.

The peeper sobbing, listening to:

Lucille with odd tricks — and his own father.

Read the peeper passive.

Read the burglar brutal.

Silverware stolen, found: the peeper’s bed stabbed and ripped. Assumed: the peeper himself. My new instinct: third party/door chopper = burglar/bed slasher =

One separate fiend.

Half dreaming — sex-fiend gargoyles chasing me. Half waking — “Double-header, Lieutenant” — Joe Plainclothes shoving two punks in.

One white, one colored. The plainclothesman cuffed them to chairs, their hands racked to the slats.

“Blondie’s Patrick Orchard, and the Negro guy’s Leroy Carpenter. My partner and me checked Stephen Wenzel’s place, and it looked like he cleaned it out in a hurry.”

Orchard — skinny, pimples. Carpenter — purple suit, this coon fashion plate.

“Thanks, Officer.”

“Glad to oblige” — smile — “Glad to earn a few points with Chief Exley.”

“Did you run them for warrants?”

“Sure did. Leroy’s a child-support skip, and Pat’s a Kern County probation absconder.”

“If they cooperate, I’ll cut them loose.”

He winked. “Sure you will.”

I winked. “Check the jail roster tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”

Orchard smiled. Leroy said, “Say what?” Plainclothes — huh? — back out shrugging.

Showtime.

I reached under the table — bingo — a sap taped on. “I meant what I said, and this has got nothing to do with you. This is about a policeman named George Stemmons, Jr. He was observed rousting you two and a guy named Stephen Wenzel, and all I want is for you to tell me about it.”

Orchard — wet lips — snitch-eager.

Leroy — “Fuck you, ofay motherfuck, I know my rights.”

I sapped him — arms, legs — and dumped his chair. He hit the floor sideways — no bleats, no yelps — good stones.

Orchard, snitch frenzied: “Hey, I know that Junior cat!”

“And?”

“And he shook me down for my roll!”

“And?”

“And he stole my... my...”

“And he stole your felony narcotics. And?”

“And he was stoned out of his fucking gourd!”

“And?”

“And he was talking this ‘I’m a criminal mastermind’ rebop!”

“And?”

“And he boosted my shit! He popped these goofballs right out in the open by the Club Alabam!”

Tilly Hopewell confirmed. “And?”

“An-an-an—”

I sapped his chair. “AND?”

“An-an-an’ I know Steve Wenzel. St-St-Steve s-said J-Junior t-t-talked this crazy shit to him!”

Tilly confirmation ditto. I checked Leroy — too quiet — watch his fingers—

Waistband pokes, surreptitious.

I hauled his chair up and jerked his belt — H bindles popped out of his pants.

Improvise:

“Pat, I didn’t find these on Mr. Carpenter, I found them on you. Now, do you have anything else to say about Junior Stemmons, Steve Wenzel and yourself?”

Leroy — “Crazy, daddy-o!” — dig the ofay.

“AND, Mr. Orchard?”

“An-an-and St-Steve s-said he c-cut a d-deal w-w-with c-crazy Junior. J-Junior p-promised Steve this b-big money to buy this b-bulk horse. C-couple days ago, Steve, he told me this. He s-s-said J-Junior n-needed twenty-four hours to get the money.”

Leroy: “Sissy fink stool pigeon motherfucker.”

Craaazy Junior — KILL HIM, JACK.

Twirling my sap: “Possession of heroin with intent to sell. Conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Assault on a police officer, because you just took a swing at me. AND, Mr. Orch—”

“Okay! Okay! Okay!”

I sapped the table. “AND?”

“A-and c-crazy Junior, he made me go with him to the club Alabam. Y-y-you know that b-boxer cop?”

“Johnny Duhamel?”

“R-right, who w-won the G-Golden Gloves. J-J-Junior, he started bothering the-the-the—”

Tongue tied bad — uncuff him, cut him slack.

Leroy: “You afraid to let my hands free, Mr. Po-lice?”

Orchard: “Fuck, that’s better.”

“AND?”

“And J-Junior, he was bugging the G-Golden Gloves guy.”

“What was Duhamel doing at the Club Alabam?”

“It looked like he was eyeballing these guys back by this curtained-off room they got there.”

“What guys? What were they doing?”

“It looked like they were filing numbers off these slot machines.”

“And?”

“Man, you keeping saying that!”

I sapped the table hard — it jumped off the floor. “AND why did Junior Stemmons take you to the Club Alabam?”

Orchard, hands up, begging: “Okay okay okay. Junior what’s-his-name was stoned out of his gourd. He buttonholed the Golden Gloves man and told him this crazy fantasy rebop that I had this big money to buy mink coats with. The boxer cop, he almost went nuts shushing Junior. They almost threw blows, and I saw these two other cops that I sorta knew by sight watching the whole thing sort of real interested.”

“Describe the two other cops.”

“Shit, mean looking. A heavyset blond guy, and this thin guy with glasses.”

Breuning and Carlisle — go from there:

Duhamel scoping slot work — Mobster Squad duty? Goons scoping him — suspected fur thief?

Orchard: “Man, I got no more ‘ands’ for you. Whatever you threaten me with, I’ll be feeding you bullshit from here on in.”

Work the spook: “Give, Leroy.”

“Give shit, I ain’t no stool pigeon.”

“No, you’re a small-time independent narcotics pusher.”

“Say what?”

“Say this heroin is a month’s pay for you.”

“An’ say I got a bail bondsman ready to stand my bail an’ a righteous Jew lawyer set to defend me. Say you book me, say I get my phone call. Say what, shit.”

I uncuffed him. “Did Tommy Kafesjian ever muscle you, Leroy?”

“Tommy K. don’t scare me.”

“Sure he does.”

“Horse pucky.”

“You’re either paying him protection, snitching for him or running from him.”

“Horse pucky.”

“Well, I don’t think snitching’s your style, but I think you’re looking over your shoulder a lot waiting for some Kafesjian guy to notice you.”

“Maybe that’s true. But maybe the Kafesjians ain’t gonna control the Southside traffic that much longer.”

“Did Junior Stemmons tell you that?”

“Maybe he did. But maybe it’s just loose talk pertainin’ to this big Southside Federal thing. And either way I ain’t no snitch.”

Tough monkey.

“Leroy, why don’t you tell me how Junior Stemmons muscled you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you two talked about.”

“Fuck your mother.”

“You know, if you cooperate with me, it might help bring the Kafesjians down.”

“Fuck you. I ain’t no snitch.”

“Leroy, were you acquainted with a mary jane pusher named Wardell Knox?”

“Fuck you, so what if I was.”

“He was murdered.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“You know, there’s quite a push to clear up these Negro homicides.”

“No shit, Dick Tracy.”

Tough and stupid.

I walked Orchard next door and cuffed him in tight. Back to Leroy—

“Give on you and Junior Stemmons, or I drive you down to 77th Street and tell Dudley Smith you killed Wardell Knox and molested a bunch of little white kids.”

Coup de grace — I laid the H on the table. “Go ahead, I never saw it.”

Leroy snatched his shit back. Zoooom — instant cooperation:

“All that Junior punk and me did was talk. Mostly he talked and I listened, ’cause he shook me down for my roll and some shit, and I knew that wasn’t no crackerjack badge he showed me.”

“Did he mention Tommy Kafesjian?”

“Not Tommy specific.”

“Tommy’s sister Lucille?”

“Uh-uh.”

“A peeper spying on Lucille?”

“Uh-uh, he just said the Kafesjian family itself was going down, gonna get fucked up by the Federal business. He said LAPD Narco was gonna get neutralized by the Feds, and he was gonna be the new Southside dope kingpin—”

KILL HIM.

—“this snotnose little twerpy cop flying on a snootful of shit. He said he had the goods on the Kafesjians, and access to his boss’s burglary investigation, which was full of dirty stuff to blackmail J.C. Kafesjian with—”

KILL HIM.

—“and he said he was gonna drive the Kafesjians out and steal their turf, and right about this time I’m biting my tongue to keep from laughing. Next he says he’s got stuff on these brothers working for Mickey Cohen. He said they’re gonna pull these sex shakedowns on movie stars—”

Junior’s FI cards — Vecchio stud service—

—“and the capper is little Junior says he’s gonna take over Mickey Cohen’s kingdom, which as I understand it ain’t such a hot kingdom no more.”

“And?”

“And I was just thinking the money and dope I lost was worth it to catch this crazy motherfucker’s act.”

Woods’ surveillance — Junior, Tommy and J.C. at Bido Lito’s. Overheard: he’d protect THEM from ME. Double-agent Junior — mercy-kill him.

“Give me the dope back.”

“Man, you said I could have it!”

“Give it to me.”

“Fuck you, lying motherfucker!”

I sapped him down, broke his wrists, pried it free.

24

“Crazy motherfucker’s act.”

Junior’s door — six padlocks — crazy new precautions. The dumbfuck used LAPD hardware — my master keys got me in.

Hit the lights—

Rice Krispies on the floor.

Piano wire strung ankle-high.

Closet doors nailed shut; mousetraps on the furniture.

CRAAAAZY.

Toss it slow now — the trunk distracted me last time—

I pried the closets open — nothing but food scraps inside.

Cornflakes and tacks on the kitchen floor.

Sink sludge — motor oil, glass shards; friction tape sealing the icebox. Peel it off—

Amyl nitrite poppers in an ice tray.

Reefer buds in a casserole dish.

Chocolate ice cream — plastic shoved down an open pint container. Dump it, yank—

One Minox spy camera — no film loaded in.

The hall — neck-high wires — duck. The bathroom — mousetraps, a medicine chest glued shut. Smash it open — K-Y jelly and two C-notes on a shelf.

A hamper — nailed tight — pry, pull—

Bloody hypos — spikes up — a booby trap. Dump them — a small steel strongbox underneath.

Locked — I banged it open on the wall.

Booty:

One B of A Hollywood branch passbook — balance $9,183.40.

Two safe-deposit-box keys, one instruction card. Fuck: “Box access requires password and/or visual okay.”

Call it:

Evidence holes — Junior caution pre-complete CRAAAZY.

Logic:

Glenda/Klein dispositions stashed THERE — ditto the gun Georgie Ainge sold Glenda.

Find the password.

I tossed the bedroom — carpet glass spread thick — the trunk gone. The drawers — pure shit — paper scraps gibberish-scrawled.

I dumped the mattress, the couch, the chairs — no rips, no stash holes. I pulled the TV apart — mousetraps snapped. That wall section I shot out — stuffed with Kotex.

No password. No FI cards. No depositions. No Exley/no Duhamel files.

Snap, crackle, pop — Rice Krispies underfoot.

Phone bbrinng—

The hall extension — grab it.

“Uh, yeah?”

“It’s me, Wenzel. Uh, Stemmons... look, man... I don’t want any part of dealing with you.”

I faked Junior’s voice: “Meet me.”

“No... I’ll get your money back to you.”

“Come on, let’s talk about—”

“No, you’re nuts!” — click, say it: Junior bought Wenzel’s dope; Wenzel wised up later.

Bank books, box keys — mine now. I clipped the padlocks fumble-handed — kill him, Jack.

I drove to Tilly’s place. Four flights up — knock — no answer.

Peep the spyhole, listen — light, TV laughs. A shoulder wedge snapped the door.

Tilly flipping channels — sprawled on the floor, hophead-dreamy.

Bindles on a chair — say a pound’s worth.

Flip — Perry Como, boxing, Patti Page. Slack-face Tilly on cloud nine.

I crammed the door shut and bolted it. Tilly flipped stations, goofy-eyed: Lawrence Welk, Spade Cooley. I grabbed her, dragged her—

Clenching up, kicking — good. The bathroom, the shower, full-blast water—

Cold — soak her clothes, freeze her sober. Wet myself — fuck it.

Freezing her: big shivers, jumbo goosebumps. Teeth clicks trying to beg me — sweat her.

Hot water — fighting now — I let her hit, kick, squirm. Back to ice-cold — “All right! All right!” — no dope slur.

I pulled her out, sat her down on the toilet.

“I think Steve Wenzel left you that dope for safekeeping. He was going to give it to that policeman Junior Stemmons we talked about the other night, and Junior already paid him for it. Now he wants to give Junior his money back because Junior’s crazy and he’s scared. Now you tell me what you know about that.”

Tilly trembled — spastic shivers. I tossed her towels and tapped the heater.

She bundled up. “Are you going to tell the Probation?”

“Not if you cooperate with me.”

“And what about that...”

“That shit in your front room that will get you a dime in some dyke farm if I decide to get ugly?”

Popping cold sweat now. “Yes.”

“I won’t touch it. And I know you want to geez, so the sooner you talk to me, the sooner you can.”

Red coils, heat. Tilly: “Steve heard that Tommy Kafesjian’s out to kill him. This seller man Pat Orchard, he knows Steve, and he was in jail this afternoon. This policeman strongarmed him—”

“That was me.”

“I’m not surprised, but just let me tell you. Anyway, according to Steve, that policeman which I guess was you asked this Pat Orchard all these questions about this Junior policeman. You released him, and he went to Tommy Kafesjian and snitched that Junior man and Steve. He said that Steve sold Junior this big stash, and that the Junior policeman was talking up all this dope-kingpin jive. Steve said he moved out of his place, and he’s going to try to give Junior his money back, ’cause he heard Tommy’s out to get him.”

“And Wenzel left his shit with you for safekeeping.”

Antsy — squirming up her towels. “That’s right.”

“I cut Orchard loose no more than three hours ago. How did you learn all this so quickly?”

“Tommy came by here before Steve did. He told me, ’cause he knows I know Steve, and he thought I might know where he’s hiding. I didn’t tell him I talked to you the other night, and I said I don’t know where Steve is, which is the truth. He left, then Steve came by and dropped his stash off. I told him, ‘You run from that crazy Tommy and that crazy Junior.’ ”

Steve calls Junior — and gets me. “What else did you and Tommy talk about?”

Stifling coil heat — Tilly dripped sweat. “He wanted to do it to me, but I said no ’cause you told me he killed Wardell Knox.”

“What else? The sooner I go, the sooner you can—”

“Tommy said he’s looking for this guy spying on his sister, Lucille. He said he’s going crazy looking for that spyer.”

“What else did he tell you about him?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he say his name was Richie?”

“No.”

“Did he say he was a musician?”

“No.”

“Did he say he had leads on where the guy was?”

“No. He said the spyer was like a f-ing phantom, and he didn’t know where he was.”

“Did he mention a different man, someone spying on the spyer?”

“No.”

“Did he mention any name on the spyer?”

“No.”

“Champ Dineen?”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Champ Dineen was this music writer who died years ago.”

“What else did Tommy say about Lucille?”

“Nothing.”

“Did he mention the name Joseph Arden?”

“No. Please, I need to—”

“Did Tommy say he was screwing Lucille?”

“Mister, you got an evil curiosity about that girl.”

Fast: out to the front room, back with the dope.

“Mister, that belongs to Steve.”

I cracked the window, looked down — a crap game in the alley dead below.

“Mister...”

I tossed a bindle out — dice-blanket bullseye. “What else did Tommy say about Lucille?”

“Nothing. Mister, please!”

Shouts downstairs — dope from heaven.

Two more bindles out — “Mister, I need that!” — four, five — alleyway roars.

“TOMMY AND LUCILLE” — six, seven, eight.

Nine, ten — “It’s wrong to be thinking what you’re thinking. Would you be doing that with your own sister?!”

Crap-game reveries — praise Jesus.

Eleven, twelve — I threw them at Tilly.

Downtown — R&I — a run for Steve Wenzel’s rap sheet and mugshots. Wenzel — two dope falls, butt-ugly: lantern-jaw white trash. No KAs/known haunts listed — I shifted to THEM.

A run by their house — lights on, cars out front. I parked, window reconned.

Down the driveway — dark — I watched for new dogs. Hop the fence, peep around — Madge cooking, no Lucille. Dark rooms, the den — J.C., Tommy and Abe Voldrich.

I squatted down. Closed windows — no sound. Eyeball it:

J.C. waving papers; Tommy giggling. Voldrich — read his hands — be calm.

Muffled shouts — the window glass hummed.

I squinted; J.C. kept waving those papers. He moved closer — fuck — Ad Vice forms.

No way to read the fine print.

Probably Klein-to-Exley stuff — peeper leads. Stolen, leaked — maybe Junior, maybe Wilhite.

“Tommy going crazy chasing that spyer.”

I circuited back to my car. Peep surveillance — my eyes on her window. Forty minutes down — there — Lucille nonchalant naked. Her lights went out too fucking soon — I scoped the front door still hungry to watch.

Ten minutes, fifteen.

Slam — the three men ran out — over to separate cars. Tommy’s Merc crunched off the sidewalk dragging sparks.

J.C. and Voldrich headed northbound.

Tommy — dead south.

Follow him—

La Brea south, Slauson east — this purple coon coach. Way east, Central Avenue south.

Peeper turf.

Light traffic — lay back, tail that jig rig. Way south — Watts — east.

Tommy, brake lights on — Avalon and 103 — after-hours-party-club row.

Nigger Heaven:

Two tenements wood-plank-linked — three stories up, open windows, fire-escape access.

Tommy parked. I cruised by, backed up, watched him:

He walked over to the right-side building.

He climbed up the fire escape and stepped on the plank.

Tommy creeping — wobbly wood, rope holds.

Tommy crouching.

Tommy peeping the left-side window.

Big-time-hinky wrong: Tommy just plain looking.

I bolted my car, bolted the left-side steps. No lobby lookout — sprint.

Three floors up — bouncers at the door. Looks: who’s this cop know? Instant bouncer-doormen — I walked in.

Mock-zebra walls, party geeks — white, colored. Music, party noise.

I scanned the room — no peeper-sketch look-alikes, no Tommy.

Check the window — no Tommy on the plank.

Geeks packed tight — white hepcats/snazzy niggers — hard to move.

Reefer smoke close by — lantern-jaw Steve Wenzel passing a stick.

Geeks between us.

Tommy behind him, hands in his coat.

Hands out — a sawed-off pump getting loose.

I yelled—

Some nigger hit a switch — the room went black.

Shotgun roar — full auto — one long blast. Spatter spray/ random pistol shots/screams — muzzle flash lit up Steve Wenzel, faceless.

Screams.

I ripped through them out the window.

I crawled the plank, glass and brains in my hair.

25

Harbor Freeway northbound, two-way squawk:

“Code 3 all units vicinity 103rd and Avalon multiple homicides 10342 South Avalon third floor ambulances responding repeat all units multiple 187s 10342 South Avalon see the building superintendent—”

Breathing blood — my raincoat cleaned me up — clean, but still smelling it.

“Repeat all units four dead 10342 South Avalon Code 3 ambulances responding.”

Shell shock worse than Saipan — the road blurred.

“Traffic units vicinity 103 and Avalon Code 3 see Sergeant Disbrow Code 3 urgent.”

6th Street off-ramp, down to Mike Lyman’s — Exley’s late dinner spot. I palmed a waiter: get the Chief now.

Happy people all around me — gargoyles.

“Lieutenant, this way please!”

I followed the waiter. A booth at the back — Exley standing, Bob Gallaudet sprawled — what’s this?

Exley: “Klein, what is it?”

Bar seats close — I gestured him over. Bob — feelers perking, out of earshot.

“Klein, what is it?”

“You remember that pickup order you issued this morning?”

“Yes. Three men to be detained at Wilshire Station. You owe me an explanation on it, so start—”

“One of the men was an indie pusher named Steve Wenzel, and half an hour ago Tommy Kafesjian shotgunned him at one of those sanctioned after-hours pads in Watts. I was there, I saw it, it’s all over the City air. Four dead so far.”

“Explain this to me.”

“It all pertains to Junior Stemmons.”

“Explain it.”

“Fuck... he’s dirty past your wildest... fuck, he’s shooting dope, he’s shaking down pushers. He’s a faggot, he’s extorting queers in Fern Dell Park, I think he’s leaking my 459 reports to you to the Kafesjians, he’s driving around Niggertown like a crazy man, talking up how he’s the new—”

Restraining me: “And you’ve been trying to take care of it yourself.”

I pulled loose. “That’s right. Junior bought Wenzel’s stash, to quote unquote ‘set himself up as the new Southside dope kingpin.’ One of the other men on that pickup order, who I questioned extensively about Stemmons and Wenzel, snitched both of them to Tommy K. I tailed Tommy down to Watts, and I was there when he took out Wenzel.”

Pure patrician frost: “I’ll send an IAD team down to seal those homicides. It was Wenzel and innocent bystanders?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll make sure his ID is kept away from the press, which will prevent that pickup order from coming back to haunt us.”

“You don’t want the Feds getting ahold of this, so you’d better drop a blanket on the press right now.”

“Klein, you know that you can’t approach—”

“I won’t go near Tommy Kafesjian — yet — even though I saw him kill a man, even though you won’t tell me why you’re using me to operate that family.”

No rebuke, no comeback.

“Where’s Stemmons now?”

“I don’t know” — KILL HIM, JACK.

“Do you think they’ll...”

“I don’t think they’ll clip him. They might put Dan Wilhite on it, but I don’t think they’d clip an LAPD man.”

“I want a detailed confidential report on this within twenty-four hours.”

I crowded him — Bob G. watching. “Nothing on paper, are you fucking insane? And while I’ve got you, you should know that Junior’s queer for Johnny Duhamel. Next time you see Dudley, tell him he’s got a fruit heartthrob working for him.”

Exley blinked — simple loose talk shivved him. “There must be a reason why you didn’t tell me these things about Stemmons before.”

“You don’t inspire friendly talks.”

“No, but you’re much too smart to bypass authority when it can get you what you want.”

“Then help me get a bank writ. Junior has some dope stashed in safe-deposit boxes. Help me get it out before it embarrasses the Department.”

“Altruistic of you to be so concerned, but you’re the lawyer, bank writs are Fed business and Welles Noonan is the U.S. Attorney here.”

“You could petition a Federal judge.”

“No.”

“No, and?”

“No, and right now I want you to go by that man Wenzel’s place and toss it for evidence on his dealings with Junior Stemmons. If you find any, destroy it. That would be a service to the Department.”

“Chief, let me take care of Stemmons.”

“No. I’m going to call out every man in IAD. I’m going to wrap that Watts shootout up, find Stemmons and sequester him where the Feds can’t find him.”

Junior ratting Glenda — wide screen/VistaVision/3-D—

“Will you quash anything incriminating that comes out on me and mine?”

“Yes. But don’t cloak your self-serving motives in respect for the Department. Given what you are, it’s pitifully transparent.”

Change-up: “Has IAD been tailing me sporadically since the Johnson thing?”

“No. If you’ve been under surveillance, it’s the Feds. I forgave you for that murder, remember?”

X-ray eyes — the fuck made me blink.

“Clean yourself up, Lieutenant. You smell like blood.”

I cruised by Wenzel’s pad — J.C.’s car was parked outside. Call it: potential Tommy links snipped quick.

Shell-shock images:

The Feds bag Junior live. He plea bargains: queer exposure quashed in exchange for Dave Klein nailed. Junior, evidenceprof savant — all my killings, all my payoffs itemized.

Go — toss that insane hovel one more time—

I drove over, unlocked six padlocks to get in. Lights on, new horror:

Shotgun shells in the oven.

Cherry bombs crammed down a toaster.

Razor blades choking a heat duct.

Do it:

Bag the spy camera.

Bag the gibberish notes.

Dump the furniture again — four chairs in — loose stitching. Rip, reach—

Cash tucked away — $56.

Gilette 187 carbons — Homicide-pilfered.

A new Glenda/Klein report — more detail:

I ripped it up, flushed it.

“Safe”/“wrapped”/powdered = safety-box-stashed.

I tapped the walls — no hollow spots.

I unzipped cushions — mousetraps set with Cheez Whiz snapped at me.

I yanked a loose floorboard — an electric dashboard Jesus glowed up iridescent.

I laughed—

99 % CRAAAZY Junior — 1 % sane. Sane evidence — methodical, logical, concise, succinct, plausible — assume death provisions rigged — willing the concise, logical, plausible, succinct evidence to its most logical, potentially vindictive heir: Howard Fucking Hughes.

Laughing — hard to breathe — Rice Krispies popping on the floor. Voices next door — why’s that nice Mr. Stemmons laughing so CRAAAZY?

I grabbed the phone, fumbled it, dialed.

“Hello? Dav—”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Where are you? What happened with Doug?”

Ancelet — skewed time — ancient stuff. “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Then come over now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m waiting someplace. There’s an off chance the guy who lives here might show up.”

“Then leave him a note and have him call you at my place.”

Don’t laugh. “I can’t.”

“You sound very strange.”

“I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

Silence — line crackle — Miciak hovered.

“David, do you...”

“Don’t say his name, and if it hasn’t been in the papers or on TV, figure no.”

“And when it’s yes, I know what to do.”

“You always know what to do.”

“And you’ll always push me for where I learned it.”

“I’m a detective.”

“No, you’re this man who implements things. And everything about me can’t be explained.”

“But I’ll—”

“But you’ll always try — so come over and try now.”

“I can’t. Glenda, tell me things. Distract me.”

Hear it — match flare, exhale. “Well, Herman Gerstein came by the set today and raised hell with Mickey. It seems that he’s seen rushes, and he’s afraid Sid Frizell’s making the movie too gory. Also, quote, ‘This vampire incest routine might get that goddamn goyishe Legion of Decency on our ass,’ unquote. To top that off, Touch told me that Rock gave him the crabs, and Sid’s been screening outtakes from this stag film he’s shooting down in Lynwood. Not the most attractive performers, but the crew seemed to enjoy it.”

I checked a window — dawn coming. “I should keep this line open.”

“Tonight then?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.”

I hung up, grabbed a chair and drifted someplace. Vampires there: Tommy, Pops chasing Meg with his fly down. Blank sleep, hands on me — “Yeah, he’s the boss at Ad Vice.”

“Lieutenant, wake up.”

Up thrashing.

Two prototype IA men, guns out.

“Sir, Junior Stemmons is dead.”

26

Code 3 to Bido Lito’s — two cars — no explanation. Spooked: Jack said he’d lose the corpse.

Side streets, there:

Reporters, prowl cars, Plymouths — Feds snapping zoom-lens pix. Civilians milling around — no crowd ropes yet.

I parked and followed a morgue team. Feds talking — duck by, listen:

“... and their pictures weren’t in our Intelligence files. These were unknown, most likely out-of-town hoods seen servicing the coin machines here and at a dozen other Southside locations.”

“Frank—”

“Please, just listen. Yesterday, Noonan got an anonymous tip on a garage down here. We hit it, and we found slot machines up the wazoo. But — it was just a separate garage on a dirty little street, and we can’t trace the ownership to save our lives.”

Slot intrigue — fuck it—

I ran inside. Heavy brass: Exley, Dudley Smith, Inspector George Stemmons, Sr. Lab men swarming, Dick Carlisle, Mike Breuning.

Voodoo eyes strafed me — Lester Lake’s savior. They flipped stiff fingers surreptitious — Breuning kissed his.

Flashbulb pops. Stemmons shouting, close to tears.

Morgue jockeys pushed a gurney in. I chased them — past the bandstand, back hallways — a slot room.

FUCK—

Junior dead — fetal-curled on the floor.

Junkie-tied — an arm tourniquet — rigor-locked teeth on a sash cord.

A spike bent off a mainline; bulging eyes. Short sleeves — needle tracks and vein scars exposed.

A bluesuit, gawking: “I checked his pockets. He had a key to the front door on him.”

A lab man: “The janitor got here early and found him. Jesus, this kind of grief right in the middle of the Fed thing.”

The coroner, mind reader: “It’s either a legitimate OD or a very skillful hotshot. Those marks are proof of the man’s addiction. My God, a Los Angeles police officer.”

Jack Woods — never.

Ray Pinker nudged me. “Dave, Chief Exley wants to see you out back.”

I double-timed it out to the lot. Exley was standing by Junior’s car. “Interpret this.”

“Interpret shit. It’s real or it’s the Kafesjians.”

“IA said they found you asleep at Stemmons’ apartment.”

“That’s right.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I drove over to Steve Wenzel’s place and saw J.C.’s car in front. Junior’s apartment was close, and I thought he might show up. What happened with Watts?”

“Five dead, and no eyewitnesses. It was dark when Tommy Kafesjian fired, is that correct?”

“Yeah, he had some nigger kill the lights. Did you—”

“Wenzel was the only white victim, and the state of his body precluded an early ID. Apparently, the shotgun rounds provoked a reaction from a number of independently armed men inside the club. Bob Gallaudet and I went down there and mollified the press. We told them all the victims were Negroes and promised them passes to the Chavez Ravine evictions if they soft-pedaled the story. Of course they agreed.”

“Yeah, but you can bet the Feds were monitoring our radio calls.”

“They were there taking pictures, but so far as they know it was just some sort of glorified Negro altercation.”

“And since they’re charging us with giving shine killings the go-by, you sent a dozen Homicide dicks over for appearances.”

“Correct, and Bob and I spoke to an influential Negro minister. He has political aspirations, and he promised to talk to the victims’ loved ones. While he’s at it, he’s going to urge them not to talk to the Feds.”

Junior’s car — grime-streaked windows, filthy. “What did you find here?”

“Narcotics, canned food and homosexual literature. IA’s impounding it.”

Noise inside the club. Check the window: Stemmons, Sr., kicking chairs. “What about Junior?”

“We’ll tell the press it was accidental death. IA will investigate, very discreetly.”

“And steer clear of the Kafesjians.”

“They’ll be dealt with in time. Do you think Narco could have done this?”

Stemmons sobbing.

“Klein—”

“No. Sure, they could rig a hotshot, but I don’t think it’s them. I’m leaning toward a legit OD.”

“Why?”

“A patrolman said Junior had a front-door key in his pocket. He was a doped-up crazy fuck, and this place is a known Tommy K. dope drop and hangout. If they were going to kill him, they wouldn’t have left the body here.”

“What kind of condition did you find his apartment in?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and you should let me forensic it. I aced forensics undergrad, and I trashed the place and probably left prints up the ying-yang.”

“Do it, then wipe it. And call Pacific Bell and get his phone records sealed. Now, last night you said Stemmons had dope stored in safe-deposit boxes.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know which banks?”

“I’ve got his bank books and the box keys.”

“Good, and you’re an attorney, so I’ll go along with your ‘dope stash’ fantasy and tell you to study your law books and figure out a strategy to bypass Welles Noonan and secure a bank writ.”

“Fantasy?”

Sighing: “Stemmons has dirt on you. It’s most likely stored in those boxes. He was extorting you on some level, or you would have dealt with him in your inimitable strongarm fashion before this lunacy of his extended so far out of control.”

NOW, SPILL IT:

“He had a clipping file on you. It was hidden with some Personnel forms on Johnny Duhamel. Last night I made a bullshit comment on Duhamel that jacked your blood pressure up about twenty points, so don’t you fucking patronize me.”

“Describe the file” — no reaction, pure frost.

“All your Bureau cases. Thorough — Junior was as good a paperwork evidence man as I’ve ever seen. I broke into his apartment last week and found it. Last night it was gone.”

“Interpret.”

I winked Dudley-style. “Let’s just say it’s nice to know that my good buddy Ed has got a personal stake in this too. And don’t worry on Kafesjian 459 PC–I’m in way too deep to stop.”

Window view — Papa Stemmons grieving. “You should calm him down, Eddie. We don’t want him screwing up this personal thing of ours.”

“Call me after your forensic” — about-face, watch him go.

Window view:

Exley waltzing up to Stemmons — no handshake, no embrace. Crack the window, listen:

“Your son... forbid you to interfere or talk to the press... spare you the pain of his pervert tendencies made public.”

Stemmons weaving, grief-crazy.

27

Car radio downtown:

KMPC: Policeman Found Dead at Southside Jazz Club — LAPD Says Heart Attack.

KGFJ: After-Hours Shootout! Five Negroes Dead!

Press blanket — Exley working fast.

Nothing on Harold John Miciak.

Police-band check — dipshit cops ID’ing Junior by name.

The Bureau, my office — a run for clean clothes. A lockerroom shave and shower — keyed up, exhausted.

Down the hall to Personnel — I requisitioned Junior’s print abstract. Furtive: I grabbed Johnny Duhamel’s.

The lab — I bagged an evidence kit and a camera. A call to PC Bell — Exley’s name dropped.

Do this:

Compile all Gladstone 4–0629 calls going back twenty days.

List the names and addresses of all people called.

Hold all George Stemmons, Jr., records — awaiting Chief Exley’s court order.

Call me at that number — with full results — inside four hours.

Car radio back out:

Watts killings — Negro preacher blames liquor — “the enslaver of our people.”

Exley press-leak fantasia:

During a hot pursuit through a closed-down Southside nightclub, Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr., suffers a fatal heart attack. The robber escapes; there will be no autopsy — it violates the dead officer’s religion.

No Miciak.

No Fed stuff.

Blues guarding Junior’s door — I locked them out and worked.

I took photos:

Booby traps/cornflake piles/sloth.

I bagged fibers, listed property.

Print dusting next — tedious, slow. I got Junior himself — multiple sets — ten point matched to the abstract. The living room/hallway/kitchen — odd latents, featuring scar ridges. An easy make — me — Pops caught me stealing and burned my fingers.

Three rooms down — I wiped them clean. The inside doorway — a new set, a match: Duhamel, eight comparison points. Extrapolate it: Johnny scared to enter.

I wiped them. The phone rang — PC Bell, responding.

I copied:

Writer’s cramp — interpret the data:

Mom-Dad/work early on — straight biz. Duhamel calls next — Junior going crazy. The Victory Motel — Mobster Squad HQ — Smith’s strongarm spot/Johnny on duty.

Pay phones then — Darktown locations — say dope biz, maybe talks with Steve Wenzel. A non-sequitur phone booth — Olympic and La Brea — the Kafesjian pad six blocks south. Crazy Junior — THEY said don’t call the house.

11/12 to 11/16 — no calls, Junior INSANE. 11/16 — my late Glenda call.

Logical, but:

Lynwood pay-phone calls =????

Exhaustion-fried — I dusted the bed rail.

Fuck—

Interlocked hand spreads — laced fingers gripping. Sweat smears, viable latents: and no Johnny points. Obvious Junior prints linked with unknown prints: some ham-handed faggot.

Wipe them — bbring bbring — grab the phone, shut the bed out.

“Exley?”

“It’s John Duhamel.”

“What the — how did you know I was here?”

“I heard a radio call about Stemmons. I drove by his place, and the patrolmen told me you were inside. I — look, I need to talk to you.”

ADRENALINE — my head buzzed.

“Where are you?”

“No... meet me tonight.”

“Come on, now.”

“No, we’ll make it eight o’clock. 4980 Spindrift. It’s in Lynwood.”

“Why there?”

“Evidence.”

“Johnny, tell me—”

Click — dial tone — tap the button — Exley, fast.

NO.

Don’t — he’s hinked on Johnny — just maybe.

Option call — I dialed MA 4–8630.

“Office of the District Attorney.”

“Dave Klein for Bob Gallaudet.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Gallaudet is in a staff meeting.”

“Tell him it’s urgent.”

Transfer clicks, “Dave, what can I do for you?”

“A favor.”

“Name it — you’ve shot me a few recently.”

“I need a look at an IAD personal file.”

“Is this an Ed innovation? IA’s very much his cadre.”

“Yeah, it’s an Exley thing. When a man makes the Detective Bureau, IAD does a very thorough background check. I’m meeting a man tonight, and I need more of a handle on him. It’s about the Darktown trouble, and you could get a look at the file with no questions.”

“You’re doing this behind Ed’s back.”

“Yeah, like those Kafesjian reports I gave you.”

A pause — seconds ticking. “Touché, so call me back in a few hours. It can’t leave the Bureau, but I’ll oblige you with a synopsis. What’s the man’s name?”

“John Duhamel.”

“Schoolboy Johnny? I lost a bundle on his pro debut. Care to enlighten me?”

“When it’s over, Bob. Thanks.”

“Well, quid pro quo for now. And next time I see you, let me tell you about the meeting Ed and I had with this colored minister. Strange bedfellows, huh?”

That bed — laced hands. “The fucking strangest.”

28

Surplus adrenaline — it jacked me up to peep the Kafesjians.

I staked their house from three doors down — no bedroom-window strip show. Nobody peeper-chasing — three cars on the lawn.

Stakeout time killer — my car radio:

Junior eulogized — LAPD chaplain Dudley Smith: “He was a grand lad. He was a dedicated crimefighter, and it is a cruel caprice of fate that so young a man should suffer cardiac arrest while chasing a common robber.”

Welles Noonan on KNX: “... and I’m not saying that the surprising death of an allegedly healthy young policeman is connected to the other five deaths that have occurred within the past twenty-four hours in South Central Los Angeles, but it seems curious to me that the Los Angeles Police Department should be so eager to explain it all away and be done with it.”

Smart Noonan — shit draws flies.

4:00 — Tommy sax-honks — my cue to leave. My own music juicing me — I was closing in on SOMETHING.

Early dusk — clouds, rain. A phone booth stop — Bob out, Riegle in. Bum station check news — no suicides clicked in PEEPER’S MOTHER.

Up to the set — hard rain — no shooting in progress. Luck: her trailer light on. A sprint — in the door dodging puddles.

Glenda was smoking, distracted. Sprawled on the bed — no rush to touch me.

Easy guess: “Miciak?”

She nodded. “Bradley Milteer came by. Apparently he and Herman Gerstein know each other independent of his work for Hughes. He told Herman that Miciak’s body and car were found, and that all of Hughes’ contract players were going to be discreetly questioned. Mickey overheard him tell Herman that detectives from the Malibu Sheriff’s Station would be by to talk to me.”

“That’s all you heard?”

“No. Mickey said the Sheriff’s are keeping their investigation under wraps to avoid embarrassing Howard.”

“Did he mention the Hollywood Division LAPD? A killer named the Wino Will-o-the-Wisp?”

Glenda blew smoke rings. “No. I thought — I mean we thought Hughes would just push this under the table.”

“No, we wished it. And there’s no evidence that Miciak was killed at...”

“At the fuck pad where Howard Hughes used to fuck me and the man I killed wanted to fuck me?”

Stop her/make her think. “You bought it, and now you’re paying for it. Now you act your way out.”

“Direct me. Tell me something to make it easy.”

Touch me, tell me things.

“You say you were home alone that night. You don’t flirt with the officers or try to charm them. You subtly drop that Hughes is a lech and you can spill the goods on it. You reach for whatever it is that you won’t tell me about that gave you the stones to... oh shit, Glenda.”

“Okay” — just like that — “Okay.”

I kissed her — dripping wet. “Is there a phone I can use?”

“Outside Mickey’s trailer. You know, if I could cry on cue, I would.”

“Don’t, please.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I have to meet a man.”

“Later, then?”

“Yeah, I’ll come by your place.”

“I won’t expect much. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

Raining buckets — I ducked under Mickey’s trailer awning. The phone worked — I dialed Gallaudet’s private line.

He picked up himself. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Bob.”

“Dave, hi, and quid pro quo fulfilled. Are you listening?”

“Shoot.”

“John Gerald Duhamel, age twenty-five. As far as IA personal files go, not much — I checked a few others for a comparison.”

“And?”

“And aside from the interesting combination of a cum laude engineering degree and an amateur boxing career, not much of note.”

“Family?”

“An only child. His parents were supposedly rich, but died in a plane crash and left the kid broke while he was still in college, and under known associates we’ve got the somewhat dicey Reuben Ruiz and his sticky-fingered brothers, but of course Reuben’s on our side now. The kid apparently has an undiscriminating appetite for poontang, which I did myself when I was twenty-five. There were unsubstantiated rumors that he tanked his one and only pro fight, and that’s all the news that’s fit to print.”

No bells rang. “Thanks, Bob.”

“I’ll never high-hat you, son — I remember those crib sheets too well.”

“Thanks.”

“Take care, son.”

I hung up, took a breath, ran—

“Dave! Over here!”

Lightning glow lit up the voice — Chick Vecchio under a tarp hang. Bums behind him, sucking T-Bird.

I dashed over — time to kill.

Chick: “Mickey’s at home today.”

Glenda — fifty-fifty he knew. “I should have known. Fuck, this rain.”

“The Herald said two inches. The Herald also said that kid partner of yours had a heart attack. Why don’t I believe the Herald?”

“Because your kid brother told you my kid partner shook him down in Fern Dell Park.”

“Yeah, and I don’t feature twenty-nine-year-old extortionist cops having heart attacks.”

“Chick, come on.”

“All right, all right. Touch told me he told you about him and Stemmons in Fern Dell, but there’s something he didn’t tell you.”

Preempt him: “You, Touch and Pete Bondurant are planning your own shakedown gig. It’s sex, and it’s cough up or Hush-Hush gets the pictures. Stemmons got it out of Touch, so now you’re afraid that we know.”

“Hey, you know.”

I lied: “Stemmons told me. The regular Bureau doesn’t have a clue, and if they knew they’d bury it to protect the kid’s reputation. Your gig’s covered.”

“Copacetic, but I still don’t feature no heart attack.”

“Off the record?”

“Uh-huh, and on the QT, like Hush-Hush.”

I cupped a whisper. “The kid was fucking around with J.C. and Tommy Kafesjian. He was popping H, and he OD’d or took a hotshot. It’s a toilet job, and it’s headed for a whitewash.”

Chick cupped a whisper. “Feature the K. boys are not to screw around with.”

“Feature I’m starting to think that Ed Exley’s going to take those humps down two seconds after the Fed heat peters out.”

“Which may be a while, the way things are looking.”

Wind, rain. “Chick, what’s with Mickey? I saw some new guys moving slots out of the Rick Rack, with Feds right across the street taking pictures.”

Chick shrugged. “Mickey’s Mickey. He’s this hebe hardhead you can’t talk sense to half the time.”

“The whole thing played funny. A couple of the slot guys were Mex, and Mickey never hires spics. I tipped him on the Feds early on, but he still won’t pull his metal.”

“Touch and me are staying out of all this Southside business. It sounds to me like Mickey’s hiring freelance.”

Winos pissing on the spaceship. “Yeah, and maybe cut-rate, like your crew here. Does he need money that bad? I know he’s buffered, but sooner or later the Feds will pin those machines on him.”

“Off the record?”

“Sure.”

“Then feature Mickey’s paying off a syndicate loan with his slot percentages, so he’s got to let the machines linger a bit. I guess he knows it’s risky, but he’s scuffling.”

“Yeah — ‘He’s a scrapper, and scrappers always get results.’ ”

“I said it and I meant it.”

“And he thinks he’ll get a district gambling franchise.”

“Feature that bill could pass.”

“Feature the AG’s office under Gas Chamber Bob Gallaudet? Feature him granting Mickey Cohen a franchise?”

Smirking: “Feature I don’t think you came here to see Mickey.”

Wet ground — the spaceship capsized — bums cheered. “I hope this movie makes money.”

“So does Mickey. Hey, where you going?”

“Lynwood.”

“Hot date?”

“Yeah, with a pretty-boy strongarm cop.”

“I’ll tell Touch — he’ll be jealous.”

Adrenaline — rain peaked it.

29

Lynwood — wind, rain — streets running crisscross and diagonal. Dark — hard to see; Aviation and Hibiscus — that pay phone on the corner.

Tombstone laughs — Jack’s call reprised:

“He kicked natural or got snuffed by somebody else? Come on, let me redeem myself. Say Welles Noonan for that same ten?”

Stucco pads — quasi slums; empty bungalow courts. Spindrift — the 4900 block — I skimmed numbers.

24, 38, 74. 4980: a two-deck stucco dive, abandoned.

One light on — downstairs left, the door open.

I walked up.

An empty living room — cobwebs, dusty floor — Schoolboy Johnny standing there calm.

No jacket, empty holster — trust me.

Trust shit — watch his hands.

“Are you grieving for Junior, Johnny?”

“What do you know about Stemmons and me?”

“I know he made you for the fur heist. I know that other stuff doesn’t count.”

“Other stuff” made him blink. Ten feet apart — watch his hands.

“He had evidence on you, too. He felt terrible things for certain people, and he collected evidence on them to even things out.”

“We can work out a deal. I don’t care about the fur job.”

“You don’t know the half” — eye flickers craaaazy.

Footsteps behind me.

My hands pinned/my mouth cupped — smothered/my sleeves rolled up/stabbed.

Walking air — tunnel vision — peripheral grass. Tingles/flutters up my groin/toasty warm.

Side doorways, shoes, trouser legs flapping.

Elbow dipped, shoes on concrete, right turn—

A door opened — warm air, light. Mirrored walls, herringbone patterns up close. Somebody stretched me prone.

Light overhead — snowflake blurry.

Whir, click/click — cylinder noise, like a camera. Sliding on my knees — white wax paper under me.

Propped up.

Tape strips on my eyes — slapped sticky blind.

Somebody hit me.

Somebody poked me.

Somebody burned me — hot/cold sizzles on my neck.

Not so tingly/toasty warm — no flutters up my groin.

Somebody pulled the tape off — sticky red blood in my eyes.

Cylinder click-clicks.

Propped up on white wax paper. Something in my right hand, heavy and shiny: MY souvenir Jap sword.

Shoved, focused in:

Johnny Duhamel naked, holding MY gun.

Burned: hot/cold — my neck, my hands.

Burned raw — Johnny kneeling, glassy eyes, taunting me.

Burned — steam in my face — Johnny taunting me — blue slant eyes.

Get him, cut him — wild swings, misses.

Johnny weaving — grip down, swing two-handed.

Miss, hit, miss — pale skin ripped, tattoos gouting blood. Hit, rip, rip — an arm gone, socket spray. Johnny jabbering Jap singsong, blue slant eyes—

Miss, miss — Jap Johnny prone, twitching crazy. Sight in — this chest tattoo — split it, split him—

Miss, miss — wax paper shredding.

Hit, jerk down — spine snaps/blade drag/pull — red EVERYWHERE.

Gasping — hard to breathe — blood in my mouth.

Somebody stabbed me — I went tingly/toasty warm/flutters up my groin.

Fading out: flamethrower burns toasty nice, Jap surrender.

Floating toasty black. Tick tick somewhere — a clock — I counted seconds. Six thousand — drifting off — ten thou four hundred.

Jap zeros gliding, voices:

Meg: Pops never touched me — David, don’t hurt him. The peeper: Daddy, Daddy. Lucille: He’s my Daddy.

Jap zeros strafing Darktown. Tick tick — fourteen thousand odd.

Toasty black.

Blurry: gray herringbones, shoes.

Wall mirrors topsy-turvy; Jap zeros. I tried to wave — stupid — taped-down arms wouldn’t let me.

A chair — taped in snug.

Projector clicks.

White light, a white screen.

Movie time — Pops and Meg? — don’t let him grope her.

I thrashed — futile — sticky tape, no give.

A white screen.

Cut to:

Johnny Duhamel naked.

Cut to:

Dave Klein swinging a sword.

Zooming in — the sword grip: SSGT D.D. Klein USMC Saipan 7/24/43.

Cut to:

Johnny begging — “Please” — mute sound.

Cut to:

Dave Klein thrashing — stabbing, missing.

Cut to:

A severed arm twitching on wax paper.

Cut to:

Dave Klein, gutting motions — Johnny D. coughing entrails.

Cut to:

Lens glass dripping red; a finger flicking spine chips off the surface.

I screamed—

A needle stab cut me off mute.

Fading in — moving — night — windshield blur.

Niggertown — South Central.

Chest pains, neck pains. Beard stubble, no holster.

Swerving.

Sirens whoop whoop.

Burn aches.

Disinfectant stink — somebody washed me.

Where/what/who — Johnny Duhamel begging.

No.

Not for real.

THEY made me do it.

Please — I didn’t like it.

Sirens, flames up ahead.

30

Fire trucks, prowl cars. Beard stubble — say a day’s worth. Smoke, fire — Bido Lito’s flaming skyward.

A roadblock — swing right — I jumped the curb. Gray suit camera men right there — monsters.

Bumper crunch, this sign: “Self-Determination Is Yours With the Prophet Muhammed.”

Resting now — a nice soft dashboard. Fading out: “That’s Klein. Grab him.”

“I think he’s got a concussion.”

“He looks drugged to me.”

“I don’t think this is legal.”

“It’s dicey, but it’s legal. We found him blacked out near an arson homicide scene, and he’s a major suspect in our overall investigation. Mr. Noonan has a source in the Coroner’s Office. He told him that Klein’s partner died of a heroin overdose, and just look at this man’s condition.”

“Jim, for the written record in case this reaches litigation.”

“Shoot.”

“All right. It’s 3:40 A.M., November 19, 1958, and I am Special Agent Willis Shipstad. With me are Special Agents James Henstell and William Milner. We are at the downtown Federal Building with Lieutenant David Klein of the Los Angeles Police Department. Lieutenant Klein was picked up in a stuporous condition one hour ago at 67th Street and Central Avenue in South Los Angeles. He was unconscious and in a disheveled state. We brought him here to assure that he receives proper medical attention.”

“That’s a riot.”

“Jim, strike Bill’s comment. Resuming, Lieutenant Klein, whom our Intelligence records indicate to be forty-two years old, has sustained possible head injuries. His hands and neck have been burned, the scarring forensically consistent with burns caused by dry ice. There are bloodstains on his shirt and there is friction tape stuck to his jacket. He is unarmed. We properly parked his 1957 Plymouth police vehicle at the intersection where we found him. Prior to interrogation, Lieutenant Klein will be offered medical attention.”

Propped up in a straight-backed chair.

Feds.

“Jim, have this typed and see that Mr. Noonan gets a carbon.”

A sweat hole. Will Shipstad, two G-men. A table, chairs, a steno rig.

Shipstad: “He’s coming to. Jim, get Mr. Noonan.”

One Fed walked. I stretched — kinks and aches head to toe.

Shipstad: “You know me, Lieutenant. We met at the Embassy Hotel.”

“I remember.”

“This is my partner, Special Agent Milner. Do you know where you are?”

My Jap sword — wide screen/color.

“Do you want to see a doctor?”

“No.”

Milner — fat, cheap cologne. “Are you sure? You’re looking a little raggedy-ass.”

“No.”

Shipstad: “Witness that Mr. Klein refused medical attention. What about an attorney? Being one yourself, you know that we have the right to hold you for questioning.”

“I waive.”

“You’re sure?”

Johnny — Jesus God.

“I’m sure.”

“Bill, witness that Mr. Klein was offered and refused legal counsel.”

“Why am I here?”

Milner: “Look at yourself. The question should be where have you been?”

Shipstad: “We picked you up at 67th and Central. A short time prior to that, the Bido Lito’s club was arsoned. We had agents in the vicinity on general surveillance, and one of them heard a witness talking to LAPD detectives. The witness said he was walking by Bido Lito’s shortly after the club closed for the night and saw a broken front window. Seconds later the place caught fire. That certainly sounds like a firebombing to me.”

Milner: “Three people died in that fire. So far, we’re assuming it was the club’s two owners and the cleanup man. Lieutenant, do you know how to concoct a Molotov cocktail?”

Shipstad: “We’re not suggesting that you torched Bido Lito’s. Frankly, the condition we picked you up in suggests that you were incapable of lighting a cigarette. Lieutenant, look how this appears. Two nights ago, five people were killed at an after-hours club in Watts, and a somewhat reliable source told us that Ed Exley and Bob Gallaudet exerted a great deal of pressure to keep the details under wraps. Now, the following morning your colleague Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr., is found dead at Bido Lito’s. Chief Exley feeds the press a song and dance about a heart attack, when we’ve heard that it was most likely a self-inflicted heroin overdose. Now, forty-odd hours after that, Bido Lito’s is torched, and you drive by not long after in a state that indicates narcotic-induced intoxication. Lieutenant, do you see how all this appears?”

Kafesjian setup. Johnny D. gouting blood—

Milner: “Klein, are you with us?”

“Yes.”

“Do you routinely use narcotics?”

“No.”

“Oh, just occasionally?”

“Never.”

“How about submitting to a blood test?”

“How about releasing me on a prima facie evidence writ?”

Milner: “Hey, he went to law school.”

Shipstad: “Where were you coming from when we picked you up?”

“I refuse to answer.”

Milner: “Sure, on the grounds that it might incriminate you.”

“No, on the grounds of nonincriminating information disclosure as detailed in Indiana v. Harkness, Bodine, et al., 1943.”

“Hey, he went to law school. You got anything to add to that, hotshot?”

“Yeah, you’re a fat piece of shit and your wife fucks Rin-Tin-Tin.”

Cardiac red — fat shitbird. Shipstad: “Enough. Lieutenant, where were you?”

“Refuse to answer.”

“What happened to your service revolver?”

“Refuse to answer.”

“Can you explain the unkempt condition we found you in?”

“Refuse to answer.”

“Can you explain the blood on your shirt?”

Johnny begging—

“Refuse to answer.”

Milner: “Something getting to you, hotshot?”

Shipstad: “Where were you?”

“Refuse to answer.”

“Did you torch Bido Lito’s?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“Did the LAPD do it as revenge for Stemmons’ death?”

“No, you’re crazy.”

“Did Inspector George Stemmons, Sr., order the torch?”

“I don’t — no, you’re crazy.”

“Did you torch Bido Lito’s to avenge your partner’s death?”

“No” — getting light-headed.

Milner: “We don’t smell liquor on your breath.”

Shipstad: “Were you under the influence of narcotics when we found you?”

“No.”

“Do you use narcotics?”

“No” — speaker lights on the wall — listeners somewhere.

“Were you forcibly administered narcotics?”

“No” — a good guess — JOHNNY CO-STAR. The door opened — Welles Noonan stepped in.

Milner walked out. Noonan: “Good morning, Mr. Klein.”

Jack Kennedy hair — reeking of hairspray. “I said, ‘Good morning.’ ”

JOHNNY BEGGING.

“Klein, are you listening to me?”

“I heard you.”

“Good. I had a few questions before we release you.”

“Ask them.”

“I will. And I look forward to sparring with you. I remember that precedent you upbraided Special Agent Milner with, so I think we’d be evenly matched.”

“How do you get your hair to do that?”

“I’m not here to share my hairdressing secrets with you. Now, I’m going—”

“Cocksucker, you spit in my face.”

“Yes. And you were at the very least criminally negligent in the matter of Sanderline Johnson’s death. So far, these are—”

“Ten minutes or I call Jerry Geisler for habeas.”

“He’ll never find a judge.”

“Ten minutes or I engage Kanarek, Brown and Mattingly to file nuisance claims that entail immediate court appearances.”

“Mr. Klein, did you—”

“Call me ‘Lieutenant.’ ”

“Lieutenant, how well do you know the history of the Los Angeles Police Department?”

“Get to it, don’t lead me.”

“Very well. Who initiated what I’ll euphemistically describe as the ‘arrangement’ between the LAPD and Mr. J.C. Kafesjian?”

“What ‘arrangement’?”

“Come, Lieutenant. You know you despise them as much as we do.”

Lead him, cut him slack. “I think it was Chief Davis, the chief before Horrall. Why?”

“And this was circa 1936, ’37?”

“Around then, I think. I joined the Department in ’38.”

“Yes, and I hope that the fact that your pension is secure hasn’t given you a false sense of invulnerability. Lieutenant, Captain Daniel Wilhite is the liaison between the Kafesjian family and Narcotics Division, is he not?”

“Refuse to answer.”

“I understand, brother-officer loyalty. Has Wilhite operated the Kafesjians since the beginning of your arrangement?”

“The way I understand it, Chief Davis brought the Kafesjians in and operated them until Horrall took over as chief late in ’39. Dan Wilhite didn’t join the Department until mid-’39, so he couldn’t have been their original operator, if he has fucking indeed ever been their operator.”

Fey aristocrat: “Oh, come, Lieutenant. You know Wilhite and the Kafesjians are near-ancient allies.”

“Refuse to comment. But keep asking me about the Kafesjians.”

“Yes, we’ve heard they’ve piqued your interest.”

JOHNNY BEGGING.

Shipstad: “You’re looking queasy. Do you want a drink of—”

Noonan: “Did you tell Mickey Cohen to remove his slot and vending machines? He was lax, you know. We’ve got pictures of his men servicing them.”

“Refuse to answer.”

“We’ve recently turned a major witness, you know.”

Don’t bite.

“A major witness.”

“Your clock’s ticking.”

“Yes, it is. Will, do you think Mr. Klein torched Bido Lito’s?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“He can’t or won’t account for his whereabouts.”

“Sir, I’m not so sure he knows himself.”

I stood up — my legs almost went. “I’ll take a cab back to my car.”

“Nonsense, Special Agent Shipstad will drive you. Will, I’m curious as to where the lieutenant has spent the past day or so.”

“Sir, my guess is either a hell of a woman or a run-in with a grizzly bear.”

“Aptly put, and the blood on his shirt suggests the latter. Do you know how I suggest we find out?”

“No, sir.”

“We monitor Southside homicide calls and see which ones Edmund Exley tries to obfuscate.”

“I like it, sir.”

“I thought you would. It’s empirically valid, since we both know that Dave here murdered Sanderline Johnson. I think it’s a family enterprise. Dave does the scut work, sister Meg invests the money. How’s this for an adage? ‘The family that slays together stays—’ ”

I jumped him — my legs caved — Shipstad pried me off. Thumbs on my carotid, hauled across the hallway blacking out—

Locked in, snapping back fast — wide awake quick. A four-by-six space — quilt walls — no chairs, no table. A wall speaker outlet and mirrored spyhole — adjoining-room access.

A padded cell/watching post — scope it out:

Scarred glass — some distortion. Audio squelch — I slapped the speaker — better. Check the mirror: Milner and Abe Voldrich next door.

Milner: “... what I’m saying is that either J.C. and Tommy will be indicted, or the publicity they get when we make the grand jury minutes available to the press will ruin them. Narco is going to be cut off at the knees, and I think Ed Exley knows it himself, because he has taken no measures to protect them or to sequester evidence. Abe, without Narco the Kafesjians are just a bunch of stupes running a marginally profitable dry-cleaning business.”

Voldrich: “I... am... not... an informant.”

Milner: “No, you’re a fifty-one-year-old Lithuanian refugee with a green card we can revoke at any time. Abe, do you want to live behind the Iron Curtain? Do you know what the Commies would do to you?”

“I am not a snitch.”

“No, but you’d like to be. You’re letting hints drop. You told me you dried marijuana bales in one of the E-Z Kleen dryers.”

“Yes, and I told you J.C., Tommy and Madge didn’t know about it.”

Cigarette smoke — blurred faces.

Milner: “You know that J.C. and Tommy are scum. You always go to lengths to differentiate Madge from them. She’s a nice woman, and you’re an essentially decent man who fell in with bad people.”

Voldrich: “Madge is a very fine woman who for many reasons... well, she just needs Tommy and J.C.”

Milner: “Did Tommy clip a drunk driver who killed a Narco cop’s daughter?”

“I stand on that Fifth Amendment thing.”

“You and the whole goddamn world — they never should have broadcast the Kefauver hearings. Abe—”

“Agent Milner, please charge me or release me.”

“You got your phone call, and you elected to call your sister. If you’d called J.C., he would have found a smart lawyer to get you released on a writ. I think you want to do the right thing. Mr. Noonan explained the immunity agreement to you, and he’s promised you a Federal service reward. I think you want it. Mr. Noonan wants to take three major witnesses to the grand jury, one of them you. And the nice thing is that if all three of you testify, everyone who could conceivably hurt you will be indicted and convicted.”

“I am not an informant.”

“Abe, did Tommy and J.C. kill Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr.?”

“No” — hoarse.

“He died from a heroin overdose. Tommy and J.C. could have faked something like that.”

“No — I mean I don’t know.”

“Which one?”

“I mean no, I don’t think so.”

“Abe, you’re not exactly a poker face. Now, along those lines, we know that Tommy plays his horn at Bido Lito’s. Is he tight there?”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“That’s TV for you. Kids break a window, they plead the Fifth. Abe, how well did the Kafesjians know Junior Stemmons?”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“Stemmons and a Lieutenant David Klein were bothering them about a burglary that occurred at their house two weeks ago. What do you know about that?”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“Did they try to shake down the Kafesjians for money?”

“No — I mean Fifth Amendment.”

“Abe, you’re an open book. Come on, Stemmons was a junkie, and Klein’s as dirty as cops get.”

Voldrich coughed — the speaker caught static. “No. Fifth Amendment.”

Milner: “Let’s change the subject.”

“How about politics?”

“How about Mickey Cohen? Do you know him?”

“I have never met the man.”

“Maybe not, but you’re an old Southside hand. What do you know about Mickey’s coin racket down there?”

“I know buppkis. I know that slot machines play to a nickel-and-dime mentality, which explains their allure to stupid shvartzes.”

Milner: “Let’s change the subject.”

“How about the Dodgers? If I was a Mexican, I’d be happy to leave Chavez Ravine.”

“How about Dan Wilhite?”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“We’ve looked at his tax records, Abe. J.C. gave him twenty percent of the E-Z Kleen shop on Alvarado.”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“Abe, every man working Narco owns unaffordable items that we think J.C. gave them. We’ve audited their tax returns, and when we call them in to explain those items and say ‘Tell us where you got them and you’ll skate,’ J.C. will be sunk on twenty-four counts of bribery and suborning federal tax fraud.”

“Fifth Amendment.”

“Abe, I’ll give you some advice: always plead the Fifth across the board. Conversational answers interspersed with the Fifth simply serve to single out the responses that indicate guilty knowledge.”

Silence.

“Abe, you’re looking a little green at the gills.”

No answer.

“Abe, we heard Tommy’s been looking for a guy named Richie. We’ve got no last name, but we’ve heard that he and Tommy used to play jazz together and pull B&E’s.”

I pressed up to the glass — smoke, distortion — “Fifth Amendment.”

“Abe, you never won a dime at poker.”

Pressing up — squinting, ears cocked.

“You really do want to help us out, Abe. Once you admit it you’ll feel a lot better.”

Door clangs — I eased off the wall.

Two Feds flanking Welles Noonan. I hit first: “You want to turn me as a witness.”

Noonan patted his hair. “Yes, and my wife’s pulling for you. She saw your picture in the papers, and she’s quite smitten.”

“Quid pro quo?”

“You’re not desperate enough, but try me.”

“Richie Something. Tell me what you’ve got on him.”

“No, and I’ll have to upbraid Agent Milner for leaving that speaker on.”

“Noonan, we can deal on this.”

“No, you’re not ready to beg yet. Gentlemen, escort Mr. Klein to a taxi.”

31

Bido Lito’s — daybreak.

Scorched rubble, the bandstand dead center. Ash heaps, shattered glass.

Sidewalk phones intact. One dime in my pockets — be there, please.

Six rings — “Hello?” sleepy-voiced.

“It’s me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m all right.”

“I didn’t ask you — David, where were you?”

Tingles — just hearing her.

“I can’t — look, were you questioned?”

“Yes, two Sheriff’s men. They said it was routine, that all the Hughes contract actresses were being questioned. They didn’t seem to know that Howard had me under surveillance, and I didn’t have to give an alibi for a specific time, because they couldn’t establish the time Miciak died. They—”

“Don’t say names.”

“Why? Where are you calling from?”

“A pay phone.”

“David, you sound frightened. Where were you?”

“I’ll tell you if — I mean when it’s over.”

“Is this the Kafesjian thing?”

“How did you know that?”

“I just did. There’s things you don’t tell me, so—”

“There’s things you don’t tell me.”

Silence.

“Glenda?”

“Yes, and there’s things that I won’t.”

“Talk to me, then.”

“Come over.”

“I can’t, I have to sleep.”

“What kind of things should I tell you?”

“I don’t know, good things.”

Soft, sleepy-voiced: “Well, when I was seeing H.H. I pumped him for some stock tips and bought low. Those stocks are rising now, so I think I’ll make a nice profit. When you stood me up night before last, I had dinner with Mickey. He’s still enamored of me, and he had me critique his acting style, something to do with his making an important speech soon. My car has a loose clutch, and I—”

“Look, it’s going to be all right.”

“Is it all going to be all right?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’ll call you when I can.”

Vandals got my hubcabs. Movie time encore:

“PLEASE DON’T KILL ME.”

“PLEASE DON’T KILL ME LIKE YOU KILLED ALL THE OTHERS.”

Happytime Liquor two doors down.

I walked in, bought a pint of Scotch. Back to the car — three shots quick.

Shudders — no toasty-warm tingles.

I tossed the rest — booze was for perverts and cowards. Meg taught me.

32

My place: neat and clean. I holstered up replacement goods: my Marine .45.

A scream then:

My Jap sword on a bookshelf — blood-flecked.

Five grand beside it.

Sleep — JOHNNY BEGGING.

Noon — I woke up reaching for the phone. A quick reflex call: Lynwood City Hall.

Inquire:

4980 Spindrift — vacant four-flat — who’s it belong to? A clerk shuffle, the word:

Lynwood City foreclosed — the owner died circa ’46. Abandoned for twelve years, rebuilding bids out: potential Chavez Ravine evictee housing. A title search? — impossible — storage-basement floods destroyed those records.

Lynwood — why meet there?

Duhamel: “Evidence.”

Out for the papers, back for coffee. Four L.A. dailies full of Darktown:

The after-hours shootout — five dead, no clues, no suspects. Four shines ID’d — “Negro” Steve Wenzel deleted. Exley: “Experienced Homicide detectives are working this case full-time. It is a top LAPD priority.”

A flash:

Movie time — mirrored walls — familiar somehow—

The Herald:

“Three Dead in Jazz Club Fire: Arson Cops Tag Blaze ‘Accidental.’ ” Exley: “We believe that the fire at Bido Lito’s is in no way connected to the tragic heart attack death of Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr., two days before on those same premises.”

Instinct: Junior hotshot — by THEM.

Instinct: potential evidence torched.

The Mirror-News — skank-slanted:

Dead cop/niteclub inferno — what’s shaking? Stemmons, Sr., quoted: “Negro hoodlums killed my son!” Exley’s rebuttal: “Pure nonsense. Sergeant Stemmons died of cardiac arrest pure and simple. The Coroner’s Office will release findings along those lines within twenty-four hours. And the notion that the Los Angeles Police Department set fire to Bido Lito’s as revenge for Sergeant Stemmons’ death is simply preposterous.”

Junior RIP — a Catholic service upcoming. Officiating: Dudley Smith, lay chaplain.

Snide:

“With a Federal rackets probe in full swing down in South Central Los Angeles (and one generally believed to be aimed at discrediting the Los Angeles Police Department), Chief of Detectives Edmund J. Exley certainly is doing his best to pooh-pooh the current Southside crime wave to members of the press. Local sources say that there are as many Federal agents on the streets as there are LAPD men, which one would think bodes for diminished crime statistics. Something is fishy here, and it certainly isn’t the catfish gumbo which used to be served at the recently scorched Bido Lito’s Club.”

Exley, L.A. Times: “I feel sorry for the Federal authorities currently seeking to manufacture a successful rackets investigation in Los Angeles. They will fail, because the enforcement measures employed by the Los Angeles Police Department have proven successful for many years. Apparently, Welles Noonan has targeted the LAPD’s Narcotics Division for indictments, and I was recently asked why I have not sequestered the men working that division. My answer? Simply that those men have nothing to hide.”

BIG instinct — Narco, Fed bait.

The Times/Herald/Mirror — no male DB’s found. The Examiner: “Sewer Worker Makes Grisly Discovery.”

Skim it:

A storm drain on the Compton/Lynwood border — Sheriff’s turf. Found: a white male DB — tall, pale, 160 — headless, no fingers, no feet. Dead for twenty-four to thirty-six hours — EVISCERATED, SPINE SEVERED.

“No identifying marks were found on the body. Sheriff’s detectives believe that the killer or killers decapitated the victim and cut off his hands and feet to render a forensic identification impossible.”

“If you have information regarding this man, John Doe #26–1958, County Homicide Bulletin 141–26–1958, call Sgt. B.W. Schenkner, Firestone Sheriff’s Station, TU 3–0985.”

I could call that number. I could plead:

No location or exact time-frame knowledge — I was drugged and coerced.

My assumed coercers: the Kafesjians. Two-man coercion minimum — logistics dictated it.

THEM:

Dope access.

A motive — rogue cop orbits — Duhamel linked to Junior linked to me.

I could plead details:

Johnny and Junior — fur-job filthy — maybe more. Junior — would-be “Dope Kingpin” — extorting THEM. Me — this crazed peeper chaser — THEY wanted HIM.

I could plead evidence:

My Jap sword and five grand on a bookshelf.

My hit fee — common insider knowledge.

My sword — common knowledge — I killed a shitload of Japs with it and won the Navy Cross.

I could plead linkage:

I knew Junior/Junior knew Johnny/I fucked with the Kafesjians/Junior fucked with them/Johnny fucked with them directly or indirectly — directly or indirectly due to crazy faggot Junior Stemmons/Johnny called me to plead out or buy out like I’m pleading out now/the Kafesjians made me kill him — they made me a movie star.

Home movie time.

Splicing and developing time — who did the work?

Dave Klein left alive — movie killer. Time ticking, two ways it could go:

Straight coercion: desist on the peeper.

Fed/LAPD screenings: countless angles.

I could plead theories:

Say Johnny called me legit.

Say he kept the meet quiet.

I told Bob Gallaudet about it; I told Chick Vecchio — obliquely.

Chick knew my clip fee.

Chick knew my sword.

Chick knew THEM — or people who did.

Chick knew Junior was fucking with the Kafesjians.

Chick tips THEM off.

99 % sure — I was coerced into killing Johnny Duhamel.

1% doubt — I’m a murderer.

My closing plea:

I don’t like it.

I shaved and showered. Haggard, new gray hair — forty-two going on dead. Burn tickles toweling off — dry ice coaxed my performance. My sword, five grand — fear tactics.

Invest that money—

I called Hughes Aircraft — Pete picked up.

“Bondurant.”

“Dave Klein, Pete.”

Caught short: “You never call me here. This is work, right?”

“Five grand’s worth.”

“Split?”

“Your share.”

“Then this isn’t a police gig like last time.”

“No, this is a muscle job on a hard boy.”

“You’re good at that by yourself.”

“It’s Chick Vecchio, and I know about that shakedown deal you’re working with him and Touch. I want to play an angle on it.”

“And you’re not gonna tell me how you found out about it.”

“Right.”

“And if I say no, you’re not gonna spoil it for us.”

“Right.”

“And you figured you by yourself, Chick might not fold, but both of us he would.”

“Right.”

Knuckle pops on his end — Pete thinking angles.

“Go to seven and answer a few questions.”

“Seven.”

Pop, pop — ugly. “So what’s the beef?”

“Chick put me in shit with the Kafesjians.”

“So clip him. That’s more your style.”

“I need a snitch.”

“Chick’s a tough boy.”

“Seven. Yes or no.”

Pop, pop — phone static — killer hands. “Yes with a condition, because I always thought Chick was essentially a greasy wop fuck, and because Mickey changed his mind and told him and Touch not to do this sex gig. I figure Mickey was always nice to me, so I’m doing him a solid he can pay back if he ever quits this movie-mogul shit and starts behaving like a white man again. Now, what’s the angle?”

“Straight strongarm, with dirt on Chick himself — in case he runs to Sam Giancana. Chick’s Outfit, and the Outfit doesn’t like this kind of extortion.”

“So you want to catch him at it. I bring my camera, we go from there.”

“Right. If we don’t have to wait too long.”

Knuckle pops—

“Pete, come on.”

“I need two days.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck nothing, Chick’s set to bed down Joan fucking Crawford. Now that is worth waiting for.”

Movie stars/movie time — Johnny begging.

“All right. Two days.”

“There’s that condition, Klein.”

“What?”

“If it looks like Chick’s thinking revenge, then we clip him.”

“Agreed.”

Walking air — tunnel vision — peripheral grass.

Side doorways.

Mirrored walls.

Gray herringbones — a coat?

I drove down to Lynwood — crowding the speed limit.

Aviation and Hibiscus first — that pay phone. Feed the slot, use it:

PC Bell said outgoing booth calls weren’t tallied.

Sid Riegle said his suicide queries yielded zero.

4980 Spindrift — still abandoned. The downstairs-left unit — unlocked.

Four empty rooms — like Johnny never showed up there.

Rainy that night, sunny now. I made street circuits — nothing clicked. Vacant bungalow courts — whole blocks of them.

Treading air that night — like I was carried. Grass, side doorways, a right turn.

Maybe: a courtyard right-side room — movie time.

Wet that night, sunny now — maybe dried footprints on grass.

GO—

Six blocks — thirty-odd courts. Epidemic crabgrass — weedy dry, no footprints. Right-side doors — boarded/nailed/locked — dusty, no fresh entry marks.

Johnny laughed: “Why Lynwood, Dave?”

More street circuits — empty courtyards forever. Fuck.

Downtown to Central Records. Their burglary file vault — crime sheets back to ’50.

Agent Milner:

“We heard Tommy’s been looking for a guy named Richie. We’ve got no last name, but we heard that he and Tommy used to play jazz together and pull B&E’s.”

Tommy’s rap sheet — undoubtedly expunged. Richie Something — maybe not.

GO—

Male adults — four cabinets’ worth — no “Richard”-derivation Caucasians. Juvie — seven Richards — five Negro, two white — porkers topping out 250.

“Unsolved” — adult/juvie — hodgepodge stuff. ’50 and up, bad typing — I got eyestrain. Tilt — 11/6/51:

Music Man Murray’s, 983 N. Weyburn, Westwood Village. Trumpets stolen and recovered: traced to unnamed juvies. No arrests, two kid suspects — “Tommy,” “Richie” — no surnames. The detective assigned: Sgt. M.D. Breuning, West L.A. Squad.

Three more cabinets — no Tommy/Richie extant.

Easy to extrapolate:

Strongarm Breuning works a chump 459. He blows the job and gets nudged: Tommy’s J.C. Kafesjian’s son.

Do it — eat dirt.

I called Robbery first — “Breuning’s out.” 77th ditto — try the Victory Motel.

“Mobster Squad, Carlisle.”

“Sergeant, it’s Dave Klein.”

Breath flutters — “Yeah, what is it?”

“Look, I’m sorry about that trouble with Lester Lake.”

“Sure. You side with a nigger over two... Shit, all right, he was your snitch. Look, you want Dudley? He’s out.”

“Is Breuning in?”

“He’s with Dud. What is it?”

“It’s an old juvie 459 Breuning worked. November ’51.

Have Mike call me, all right?”

“Mike? Sure, Dave” — slam/dial tone.

Tapping out.

My best move now — tail THEM.

My worst move — they’d spot me.

My best nightmare: THEY approach ME. Movie time explained: threats, offers — at least I’d know WHY.

Darktown by default — go, let things happen.

Familiar now — synced to music in my head. Familiar faces staring back: black, sullen. Slow cruising, two-way-radio sputter:

County calls — no Johnny John Doe talk. No Miciak, no Bido’s — half-ass comforting.

I tapped the glove box — no candy — just dope stashed and forgotten. Hiss, crackle — a gang fight at Jordan High.

North — a run by THEIR house — Fed surveillance thick. Sax noise — Will Shipstad wearing earplugs.

Radio hum — my soundtrack for Johnny begging. North on instinct overdrive: Chavez Ravine.

Feds thick — I stuck to the car. Check the view:

Eviction papers tacked door to door. A face-off: Commie geeks and pachucos. Earthmovers, dump trucks — LAPD guards standing by.

More:

The main drag cordoned off: Reuben Ruiz dancing a samba. Fans pressing close, wet-eyed women. Fed bodyguards — disgusted.

Two-way boom:

“Code 3 all units vicinity 249 South ARDEN repeat 249 South ARDEN multiple homicides 249 South ARDEN Detective units Roger your locations 249 South ARDEN on-call Homicide units that vicinity Roger your locations!”

33

Rolling Code 3.

South Arden/Joseph Arden/street name/trick name. A Hancock Park address — affluent — a strong maybe.

“Request animal disposal unit 249 South Arden. Be advised all units now standing.”

I hit the mike: “4-ADAM-31 to Bureau base urgent. Over.”

“Roger, 4-A-31.”

“Urgent. Repeat urgent. Lieutenant D.D. Klein seeking Chief Exley. Over.”

“Roger, 4-A-31.”

Makeshift code: “Urgent. Advise Chief Exley homicides at 249 South Arden likely major case connected. Request permission to seal under IA autonomy. Urgent that you find Chief Exley. Over.”

“Roger, 4-A-31. State your location.”

“3rd and Mariposa westbound. Over.”

Dead air, speeding—

“4-A-31, please Roger.”

“Roger, this is 4-A-31.”

“4-A-31, assume command 249 South Arden IA autonomy. Over.”

“4-A-31, Roger, over.”

3rd westbound — siren earaches. Arden Boulevard — right turn, right there:

A big Tudor house swamped — prowl cars, morgue cars.

Civilian cliques on the sidewalk — nervous.

Ice cream trucks, kids.

I jammed in curbside. Two brass hats on the porch, looking queasy.

I ran up. One lieutenant, one captain — green. A hedge behind them dripping vomit.

“Ed Exley wants this sealed: no press, no downtown Homicide. I’m in charge, and IA’s bagging the evidence.”

Nods — queasy — nobody said, “Who are you?”

“Who found them?”

The captain: “Their mailman called it in. He had a special-delivery package, and he wanted to leave it at the side door. The dogs didn’t bark like they usually do, and he saw blood on a window.”

“He ID’d them?”

“Right. It’s a father and two daughters. Phillip Herrick, Laura and Christine. The mother’s dead — the mailman said she killed herself earlier this year. Hold your nose when you—”

In — smell it — blood. Flashbulbs, gray suits — I pushed through.

The entrance foyer floor: two dead shepherds belly-up, dripping mouth foam. Tools nearby — spade/shears/pitchfork — bloody.

Meat scraps/drool/puke trails.

Stabbed and cut and forked — entrail piles soaking a throw rug.

I squatted down and pried their jaws loose — tech men gasped.

Washrags in their mouths — stelfactiznide-chloride-soaked.

Match it up — Kafesjian 459.

Walk/look/think — plainclothesmen gave me room:

The front hallway — broken records/tossed covers. Christmas jazz wax — confirm the Mom-peeper letters.

The dining room:

Booze bottles and portraits smashed — another K.-job match. Family pictures: a dad and two daughters.

Mom to peeper: “Your sisters.”

Suicide talk/suicide confirmation.

A tech stampede — follow it — the den.

Three dead on the floor: one male, two female.

Details:

Their eyes shot out — powder-black cheeks, exit spatter.

Ripped cushions on a chair — bullet mufflers.

Shears, chainsaw, axe — bloody, propped in a corner.

The rug — soaked bubbling.

His pants down.

Castrated — his penis in an ashtray.

The women:

Cut/sawed/snipped — limbs dangling by skin shreds.

Bloody walls, windows sprayed — kids looking in.

Artery gout red: the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Plain-clothesmen oozing shell shock.

A framed photo spritzed: handsome daddy, grown daughters.

Peeper kin.

“Fuuuck”/“My God”/Hail Marys. I skirted the blood and checked access.

Rear hall, back door, steps — jimmy marks, meat scraps, drool.

One high-heel pump just inside.

Work it:

He pries in quiet, throws the meat, waits outside.

The dogs smell it, eat it, quease.

He walks in.

Shoots Herrick.

Finds the tools, kills the dogs.

The girls come home, see the door, run in. One shoe lost — scattered tools — he hears them.

CRAAAZY shooting/mutilation — leaded windows kill the noise.

Homicide/symbolic destruction — he probably didn’t steal.

Snap guess: the girls showed up unexpected.

I looked outside — trees, shrubs — hiding spots. No blood drip — say he stole clean clothes.

Blues and a mailman smoking — brace them. “Did the Herricks have a son?”

The mailman nodded. “Richard. He escaped from Chino something like September of last year. He went up on dope charges.”

Mom — “pen pals/same city” — lamster Richie explained it. “Spurred you/rash thing” — he waltzed minimum-security Chino.

Nervous blues jabbering: Richie caught/convicted/gassed — their instant suspect.

Killer Richie? — NO — think it through:

The Red Arrow Inn — Richie’s peep spot B&E’d. His bed ripped — with Kafesjian 459 silver. Dead cert — this killer/that burglar — one man — broken bottle/smashed record/snuffed dog confirmation. Richie — passive watcher — someone watching and pressing him. Tommy K. chasing him outright, flirt with the notion: Tommy stone psycho, Tommy trashes his own house, now THIS.

Back inside:

Blood drops — dark, fading — the main hallway off the den. I followed them upstairs — red into pink, a bathroom — stop.

Floor water — the toilet bowl full — a knife floating in piss water. Pink water in the shower, bloody hair clots.

Reconstruct it:

Bloody clothes ripped and flushed — the toilet floods. A shower then? — check the towel rack — one towel sodden.

Recent — broad-daylight killings.

I checked the hallway — wet footprint indentations on the carpet. Easy tracks — straight to a bedroom.

Drawers open, clothes scattered. A wallet on the floor — turned out, no cash.

A driver’s license: Phillip Clark Herrick, DOB 5/14/06. The ID pic: “Fuck me Daddy” bland handsome.

Wallet sleeves — a photo — Lucille naked. A fake license: Joseph Arden — Herrick stats, a fake address.

I checked the window: South Arden was roped off. Bluesuit cordons held reporters back.

Other bedrooms—

One hallway, three doors. Two open — girlish bedrooms — undisturbed. One door locked — I shoulder-popped it.

A snap make: Richie’s room preserved.

Neat, mothball-reeking.

Jazz posters.

Books: music bios, sax theory.

Kid-type paintings: Lucille softened, demure.

A graduation pic: Richie, peeper sketch perfect.

Doors slamming — check the window — IA swarming in.

Lucille — idealized, a madonna.

Books: all jazz.

Funny — no tech stuff — and Richie knew bugging.

Running footsteps — Exley in my face, catching breath. “You should be downstairs. Ray Pinker briefed me, but I wanted your interpretation first.”

“There’s nothing to interpret. It’s Richie Herrick, or it’s the guy who broke into his motel room. Check my early reports, I mentioned him then.”

“I remember. And you’ve been avoiding me. I told you to call me after you forensic’d Stemmons’ apartment.”

“There was nothing to report.”

“Where have you been?”

“People keep asking me that.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Bloody wing tips — he got close.

“So what now? That’s a question.”

“I’m issuing an APB on Richard Herrick.”

“Think it over first. I don’t think this is him.”

“You obviously want me to prompt you. So, Lieutenant?”

“So I think we should haul in Tommy K. I’ve got a strong tip that he’s been looking for Richie Herrick. Richie’s a damn good hider, but Tommy knows him. He’s got a better chance of finding him than we do.”

“No direct approach on the Kafesjians. And I am issuing that APB, because the Kafesjians are under blanket Fed surveillance, which somewhat impedes their ability to search for Herrick. Moreover, these deaths are front-page news. Herrick will read about them and act even more furtively. We can only control the press so far.”

“Yeah, which must really gall you.”

“Frankly, it does. Now surprise me or anticipate me. Tell me something I don’t know.”

I jabbed his vest — hard. “Johnny Duhamel’s dead. He’s a Sheriff’s John Doe down near Compton, and I think you two are dirty together. You’re running me on the Kafesjians, and it ties in to Duhamel. I’m not thinking so straight these days, and I’m getting to the point where I’m going to fuck you for it.”

Exley stepped back. “You’re detached to Homicide and in charge of this investigation. You can do anything you want except approach the Kafesjians.”

Chimes streetside — ice cream trucks.

34

3rd Street, Bureau bound. A stoplight at Normandie — Plymouths cut me off and boxed me in.

Four cars — Feds piled out aiming shotguns. Radio mike loud: “You are under arrest. Get out with your hands up.”

I killed the engine, set the brake, complied. Slooow: grip the roof, arms spread.

Swamped/frisked/cuffed — crew-cut shitbirds loving it.

Milner poked me. “Reuben Ruiz said he saw you dump Johnson.”

Three men tossed my car. A skinny hump checked the glove compartment.

“Milner, look. Looks like white horse to me!”

Lying snitch fuck Ruiz.

Heroin jammed in my face.

Downtown — the Fed Building — manhandled upstairs. Shoved into an office—

Four walls paper-draped — graph lines visible underneath.

Noonan and Shipstad waiting.

Milner sat me down; Shipstad took my cuffs off. My dope passed Fed to Fed — whistles all around.

Noonan: “Too bad Junior Stemmons is dead. He could have been your alibi on Johnson.”

“You mean you know Ruiz is lying? You know he was sleeping when Johnson jumped?”

Shipstad: “There’s no evidence sticker on this bag of white powder, Lieutenant.”

Milner: “I think he’s got a habit.”

His partner: “Stemmons sure as hell did.”

Noonan tugged his necktie — his underlings walked out.

Shipstad: “Do you wish to examine the arrest warrant, Mr. Klein?”

Noonan: “We’ll have to amend it to include violation of Federal narcotics statutes.”

I threw a guess out: “You rigged the warrant with a friendly judge. You told Ruiz to lie, then recant when you turned me. You told the judge what you were doing. It’s a Federal warrant on some trumped-up civil-rights violation, not a California Manslaughter One paper, because no Superior Court judge would sign it.”

Noonan: “Well, it got your attention. And of course we have binding evidence.”

“Release me.”

Noonan: “I said ‘binding.’ ”

Shipstad: “Shortly after we released you early this morning, Abe Voldrich was released to take care of some personal business. He was found murdered this afternoon. He left a suicide note, which a graphologist examined and said was written under physical duress. Voldrich had agreed to testify as a Federal witness, on all matters pertaining to the Kafesjian family and this perhaps tangential burglary investigation that you and the late Sergeant Stemmons were involved in. An agent went by his house to pick Voldrich up for more questioning and found him.”

Noonan: “Agent Milner canvassed the area. A 1956 powder-blue Pontiac coupe was seen parked by his house around the approximate time of his death.”

Shipstad: “Did you kill him?”

Noonan: “You own a blue automobile, don’t you?”

“You know I didn’t kill him. You know it’s Tommy and J.C. You know that I own a dark blue ’55 Dodge.”

Shipstad: “The Kafesjians have an excellent alibi for the time of Voldrich’s death.”

Noonan: “They were at home, under twenty-four-hour Federal surveillance.”

“So they called out a contract.”

Shipstad: “No, their phone was tapped.”

Noonan: “And had been tapped, going back prior to the time we picked up Voldrich.”

“What else did they discuss on the phone?”

Shipstad: “Unrelated matters. Nothing pertaining to that Richie you seemed to be so interested in last night.”

Scooped — no Herrick update — clueless on the South Arden slaughter.

“Get to it. Get to ‘binding evidence.’ ”

Noonan: “Your appraisal of the situation first, Mr. Klein.”

“You want to take three witnesses to the grand jury. I’m one, one just died, one’s this so-called major surprise witness. You’re short a man, so you’re doubling up on me. That’s my appraisal, so let’s hear your offer.”

Noonan: “Immunity on the Johnson killing. Immunity on all potential criminal charges that you might accrue. A written guarantee that no Federal tax liens will be filed against you should it be revealed that you have unreported income earned as a direct result of criminal conspiracies that you’ve engaged in. For this, you agree to enter Federal custody and testify in open court as to your knowledge of the Kafesjian family, their LAPD history and most importantly your own history of dealings with organized crime, excluding Mickey Cohen.”

Light bulb — Major Witness Mickey.

Reflex jolt — never.

“You bluffed, I call.”

Shipstad ripped the draping off the walls. Shredded paper in piles — column graphs underneath.

I stood up. Boldface print — easy to read.

Column one: names and dates — my mob hits.

Column two: my property transactions detailed. Corresponding dates — Real Estate Board kickbacks — five thousand dollars each — my clip fee funneled.

Column three: kickback receivers listed. Detailed: slum dives offered to me lowball cheap. Corresponding dates: escrow and closing.

Column four — Meg’s tax returns ’51–’57. Her unreported cash listed and traced: to appraisers and permit signers bribed.

Column five — witness numbers — sixty-odd bribe takers listed.

Names and numbers — pulsing.

Noonan: “Much of the data regarding you is circumstantial and subject to interpretation. We’ve listed only the men that the underworld grapevine credits you with killing, and those five-thousand-dollar windfalls that followed are circumstantially seductive and not much more. The important thing is that you and your sister are indictable on seven counts of Federal tax fraud.”

Shipstad: “I convinced Mr. Noonan to extend the immunity agreement to cover your sister. If you agree, Margaret Klein Agee will remain exempt from all Federal charges.”

Noonan: “What’s your answer?”

Shipstad: “Klein?”

Clock ticks, heartbeats — something short-circuiting inside me.

“I want four days’ grace before I enter custody, and I want a Federal bank writ to allow me access to Junior Stemmons’ safe-deposit boxes.”

Shipstad, bait grabber: “Did he owe you money?”

“That’s right.”

Noonan: “I agree, provided a Federal agent goes with you to the bank.”

A contract in my face — fine print pulsing.

I signed it.