by James Ellroy
Fisk turned me around and popped in my mouthpiece, hissing, “Don’t mix it up with him! Stay outside! Work off the jab!”
The bell rang. Fisk stepped out of the ring; Blanchard made a beeline for me. His stance was straight up now, and he threw a series of jabs that stopped just short of the money, moving in a step at a time, measuring me for a big right cross. I stayed on my toes and flicked doubled-up jabs from too far out to hurt, trying to set up a rhythm that would lull Blanchard into leaving his body open.
Most of my shots hit; Blanchard kept pressing. I banged a right to his ribs; he leaped in with a counter-right to mine. At close range, we threw body shots two handed; with no swinging room, the blows were nothing more than arm action, and Blanchard kept his chin dug into his collarbone, obviously wise to my inside uppercuts.
We stayed in close, landing only glancing blows to the arms and shoulders. I felt Blanchard’s superior strength through all of it, but made no move to get out, wanting to put some hurt on him before I got back on my bicycle. I was settling into serious trench warfare when Mr. Fire got as cute as Mr. Ice at his cutest.
In the middle of a body exchange, Blanchard took one simple step backward and shot a hard left to my lower gut. The blow stung, and I backed up, getting ready to dance. I felt the ropes and brought up my guard, but before I could move sideways and away, a left-right caught me in the kidneys. My guard came down, and a Blanchard left hook connected with my chin.
I bounced off the ropes and hit the canvas on my knees. Shock waves pulsed from my jaw to my brain; I caught a jiggly picture of the referee restraining Blanchard, pointing to a neutral corner. I got up on one knee and grabbed the bottom rope, then lost my balance and flopped on my stomach. Blanchard had reached a neutral turnbuckle, and being prone took the jiggle out of my vision. I sucked in deep breaths; the new air eased the crackling feeling in my head. The ref came back and started counting, and at six I tried my legs. My knees buckled a little, but I was able to stand steady. Blanchard was blowing glove kisses to the fans, and I began hyperventilating so hard that my mouthpiece almost popped out. At eight the referee wiped my gloves on his shirt and gave Blanchard the signal to fight.
I felt out of control with anger, like a humiliated child. Blanchard came at me loose-limbed, his gloves open, like I wasn’t worth a closed fist. I met him head-on, throwing a mock-woozy jab as he got into firing range. Blanchard slipped the punch easily—just like he was supposed to. He loaded up a huge right cross to finish me, and while he was rearing back I pounded a full-force counter-right at his nose. His head snapped; I followed through with a left hook to the body. Mr. Fire’s guard fell; I stepped inside with a short uppercut. The bell rang just as he staggered into the ropes.
The crowd was chanting, “Buck-kee! Buck-kee! Buck- kee!” as I weaved to my corner. I spat out my mouthpiece and gasped for air; I looked out at the fans and knew that all bets were off, that I was going to pound Blanchard into dog meat and milk Warrants for every process and repo dollar I could get my hands on, put the old man in a home with that money and have the whole enchilada.
Duane Fisk shouted: “Box him! Box him!” The high brass judges at ringside grinned at me; I flashed them the bucktoothed Bucky Bleichert salute in return. Fisk shoved a bottle of water at my mouth, I guzzled and spat in the pail. He popped an ammonia cap under my nose and replaced my mouthpiece—then the bell rang.
Now it was straight cautious business—my specialty.
For the next four rounds I danced, feinted and jabbed from the outside, utilizing my reach advantage, never letting Blanchard tie me up or get me on the ropes. I concentrated on one target—his scarred eyebrows—and flicked, flicked, flicked my left glove at them. If the jab landed solidly and Blanchard’s arms raised in reflex, I stepped inside and right-hooked to the breadbasket. Half the time Blanchard was able to counter to my body, and each shot that landed took a little bounce off my legs, a little oomph off my wind. By the end of the sixth round Blanchard’s eyebrows were a gashed ridge of blood and my sides were welted from trunk line to rib cage. And we were both running out of steam.
Round seven was trench warfare fought by two exhausted warriors. I tried to stay outside and work the jab; Blanchard kept his gloves high to wipe blood out of his eyes and protect his cuts from further ripping. Every time I stepped in, firing a one-two at his gloves and gut, he nailed me to the solar plexus.
The fight had turned into a second-to-second war. Waiting for the eighth stanza, I saw that my welts were dotted with pinpoints of blood; the shouts of “Buck-kee! Buck-kee!” hurt my ears. Across the ring, Blanchard’s trainer was swabbing his eyebrows with a styptic pencil and applying tiny adhesive bandages to the flaps of skin hanging loose. I slumped on my stool and let Duane Fisk feed me water and knead my shoulders, staring at Mr. Fire the whole sixty seconds, making him look like the old man so I’d have the hate juice to top out the next nine minutes.
The bell sounded. I moved toward the center of the ring on wobbly legs. Blanchard, back in a crouch, came at me. His legs were trembling just like mine, and I saw that his cuts were closed.
I fired off a weak jab. Blanchard caught it coming in and still kept coming, muzzling my glove out of the way as my dead legs refused to backpedal. I felt the laces rip open his eyebrows; my gut caved in just as I saw Blanchard’s face streaming with blood. My knees buckled; I spat my mouthpiece, toppled backward and hit the ropes. A right hand bomb was arching toward me. It looked like it was launched from miles and miles away, and I knew I’d have time to counter. I put all my hate into my own right and shot it straight at the bloody target in front of me. I felt the unmistakable crunch of nose cartilage, then everything went black and hot yellow. I looked up at blinding light and felt myself being lifted; Duane Fisk and Jimmy Lennon materialized beside me, holding my arms. I spat blood and the words “I won” Lennon said, “Not tonight, laddie. You lost—eighth-round KO.”
When it all sank in, I laughed and pulled my arms free. The last thing I thought of before passing out was that I had cut the old man loose—and clean.
I got ten days off from duty—at the insistence of the doctor who examined me after the fight. My ribs were bruised, my jaw was swollen to twice its normal size and the punch that did me in loosened six of my teeth. The croaker told me later that Blanchard’s nose was broken, and that his cuts required twenty-six stitches. On the basis of damage inflicted, the fight was a draw.
Pete Lukins collected my winnings, and together we scouted rest homes until we found one that looked fit for human habitation—the King David Villa, a block off the Miracle Mile. For two grand a year and fifty a month deducted from his Social Security check, the old man would have his own room, three squares and plenty of “group activities.” Most of the oldsters at the home were Jewish, and it pleased me that the crazy Kraut was going to be spending the rest of his life in an enemy camp. Pete and I installed him there, and when we left he was fungooing the head nurse and ogling a colored girl making up beds.
After that I stuck to my apartment, reading and listening to jazz on the radio, slopping up ice cream and soup, the only food I could handle. I felt content in knowing I had played as hard as I could—winning half the apples in the process.
The phone rang constantly; since I knew it had to be reporters or cops offering condolences, I never answered. I didn’t listen to sports broadcasts and I didn’t read the newspapers. I wanted a clean break with local celebrity, and holing up was the only way to accomplish it.
My wounds were healing, and after a week I was itchy to go back on duty. I took to spending afternoons on the back steps, watching my landlady’s cat stalk birds. Chico was eyeing a perched bluejay when I heard a reedy voice call out, “Ain’t you bored yet?”
I looked down. Lee Blanchard was standing at the foot of the steps. His eyebrows were laced with stitches and his nose was flattened and purple. I laughed and said, “Getting there.”
Blanchard hooked his thumbs in his belt. “Wanta work Wa
rrants with me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Captain Harwell’s been calling to tell you, only you were fucking hibernating.”
I was tingling. “But I lost. Ellis Loew said—”
“Fuck what Ellis Loew said. Don’t you read the papers? The bond issue passed yesterday, probably because we gave the voters such a good show. Horrall told Loew that Johnny Vogel was out, that you were his man. You want the job?”
I walked down the steps and stuck out my hand. Blanchard shook it and winked.
So the partnership began.
Five
Central Division Warrants was on the sixth floor of City Hall, situated between the LAPD’s Homicide Bureau and the Criminal Division of the DA’s Office—a partitioned-off space with two desks facing each other, two file cabinets spilling folders and a map of the County of Los Angeles covering the window. There was a pebbled glass door lettered with DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY ELLISLOEW separating the cubicle from the Warrants boss and DA Buron Fitts—his boss—and nothing separating it from the Homicide dicks’ bullpen, a huge room with rows of desks and corkboard walls hung with crime reports, wanted posters and miscellaneous memoranda. The more battered of the two desks in Warrants had a plate reading SERGEANT L.C. BLANCHARD. The desk facing it had to be mine, and I slumped into the chair picturing OFFICER D.W. BLEICHERT etched on wood next to the phone.
I was alone, the only one on the sixth floor. It was just after 7:00 A.M., and I had driven to my first day’s duty early, in order to savor my plainclothes debut. Captain Harwell had called to say that I was to report to my new assignment on Monday morning, November 17, at 8:00, and that the day would begin with attending the reading of the felony summary for the previous week, which was mandatory for all LAPD personnel and Criminal Division DA’s. Lee Blanchard and Ellis Loew would be briefing me on the job itself later, and after that it would be the pursuit of fugitive warrantees.
The sixth floor housed the Department’s elite divisions: Homicide, Administrative Vice, Robbery and Bunco, along with Central Warrants and the Central Detective Squad. It was the domain of specialist cops, cops with political juice and up-and-comers, and it was my home now. I was wearing my best sports jacket and slacks combo, my service revolver hung from a brand-new shoulder rig. Every man on the Force owed me for the 8 per cent pay raise that came with the passage of Proposition 5. My departmental juice was just starting. I felt ready for anything.
Except rehashing the fight. At 7:40 the bullpen started filling up with officers grumbling about hangovers, Monday mornings in general and Bucky Bleichert, dancemaster turned puncher, the new kid on the block. I stayed out of sight in the cubicle until I heard them filing into the hall. When the pen fell silent, I walked down to a door marked DETECTIVES’ MUSTER ROOM. Opening it, I got a standing ovation.
It was applause military style, the forty or so plainclothesmen standing by their chairs, clapping in unison. Looking toward the front of the room, I saw a blackboard with “8%!!!” chalked on it. Lee Blanchard was next to the board, standing beside a pale fat man with the air of high brass. I sighted in on Mr. Fire. He grinned, the fat man moved to a lectern and banged on it with his knuckles. The claps trailed off; the men sat down. I found a chair at the back of the room and settled into it; the fat man rapped the lectern a last time.
“Officer Bleichert, the men of Central Dicks, Homicide, Ad Vice, Bunco, et cetera,” he said. “You already know Sergeant Blanchard and Mr. Loew, and I’m Captain Jack Tierney. You and Lee are the white men of the hour, so I hope you enjoyed your ovation, because you won’t get another one until you retire.”
Everyone laughed. Tierney rapped the podium and spoke into an attached mike. “Enough horseshit. This is the felony summary for the week ending November 14, 1946. Pay close attention, it’s a doozy.
“First off, three liquor store stickups, on the nights of 11/10, 11/12 and 11/13, all within ten blocks on Jefferson in University Division. Two teenaged Caucasians with sawed-offs and the heebie-jeebies, obviously hopheads. The University dicks have got no leads, and the squad boss there wants a Robbery team on it full-time. Lieutenant Ruley, see me at 0900 on this, and all you men put out the word to your snitches—hopheadheister is a bad MO.
“Moving east, we’ve got freelance prosties working the restaurant bars in Chinatown. They’re servicing their johns in parked cars, lowballing the girls Mickey Cohen’s been running there. Misdemeanor stuff so far, but Mickey C. doesn’t like it and the Chinks don’t like it because Mickey’s girls use the hot sheet flops on Alameda—all Chink owned. Sooner or later we’re looking at grief, so I want the restaurant owners pacified and forty-eight-hour detentions on every Chinatown whore we can grab. Captain Harwell’s detaching a dozen nightwatch blues for a sweep later in the week, and I want the Ad Vice whore files gone through and mug shots and rap sheets pulled for every independent hooker known to work Central. I want two men from Central dicks in on this, with Ad Vice supervising. Lieutenant Pringle, see me at 0915.”
Tierney paused and stretched; I looked around the room and saw that most of the officers were writing in notebooks. I was cursing myself for not bringing one when the captain slammed the lectern with two flattened palms. “Here’s a collar that would please old Captain Jack no end. I’m talking about the Bunker Hill house burglaries Sergeants Vogel and Koenig have been working on. Fritzie, Bill, have you read the SID memo on it?”
Two men sitting side by side a few rows up from me called out, “No, Cap” and “Nossir.” I got a good profile look at the older of them—the spitting image of Fat Johnny Vogel, only fatter.
Tierney said, “I suggest you read it immediately after this briefing. For the benefit of you men not directly involved in the investigation, the print boys found a set of latents at the last break-in, right near the silverware cupboard. They belonged to a white male named Coleman Walter Maynard, age 31, two sodomy priors. A surefire degenerate baby raper.
“County Parole’s got no line on him. He was living at a transient hotel on 14th and Bonnie Brae, but he hotfooted around the time the burglaries started. Highland Park’s got four sodomy unsolveds, all little boys around eight years old. Maybe it’s Maynard and maybe it isn’t, but between them and the B&Es we could fix him up with a nice one-way to Q. Fritzie, Bill, what else are you working on?”
Bill Koenig hunched over his notebook; Fritz Vogel cleared his throat and said, “We’ve been working the downtown hotels. We collared a couple of key thieves and rousted some pickpockets.”
Tierney tapped the podium with one heavy knuckle. “Fritzie, were the key thieves Jerry Katzenbach and Mike Purdy?”
Vogel squirmed in his chair. “Yessir.”
“Fritzie, did they snitch each other off?”
“Ah … yessir.”
Tierney rolled his eyes up to heaven. “Let me enlighten those of you not familiar with Jerry and Mike. They’re homos, and they live with Jerry’s mother in a cozy little love nest in Eagle Rock. They’ve been bedmates since God was a pup, but every once in a while they have spats and get the urge to chase jailhouse chicken, and one rats the other off. Then the other reciprocates and they both draw a county jolt. They stool on the gangs while they’re in stir, pork nancy boys and get sentence reductions for their snitch duty. This has been going on since Mae West was a virgin. Fritzie, what else have you been working on?”
There was a rumble of laughter throughout the room. Bill Koenig started to get up, twisting his head to see who the laughers were. Fritz Vogel pulled him back down by his coat sleeve, then said, “Sir, we’ve also been doing some work for Mr. Loew. Bringing in witnesses for him.”
Tierney’s pale face was working toward beet red. “Fritzie, I am the commander of Central Detectives, not Mr. Loew. Sergeant Blanchard and Officer Bleichert work for Mr. Loew, you and Sergeant Koenig do not. So drop what you’re doing for Mr. Loew, leave the pickpockets alone and bring in Coleman Walter Maynard before he rapes any more little boys, would you please? There’s
a memo on his known associates on the squadroom bulletin board, and I suggest all officers acquaint themselves with it. Maynard’s a lamster now, and he might be holing up with one of them.”
I saw Lee Blanchard leave the muster room by a side exit. Tierney leafed through some papers on the lectern and said, “Here’s one that Chief Green thinks you should know about. Over the past three weeks someone’s been tossing chopped-up dead cats into the cemeteries off Santa Monica and Gower. Hollywood Division’s taken a half dozen reports on it. According to Lieutenant Davis at 77th Street, that’s a calling card of nigger youth gangs. Most of the cats have been dumped on Thursday nights, and the Hollywood roller rink’s open to shines on Thursdays, so maybe there’s something to that. Ask around, talk to your informants and relay anything pertinent to Sergeant Hollander at Hollywood dicks. Now the homicides. Russ?”
A tall, gray-haired man in an immaculate double-breasted suit took the podium; Captain Jack plopped into the nearest available chair. The tall man carried himself with an authority that was more like a judge or hotshot lawyer than a cop; he reminded me of the smooth Lutheran preacher who palled around with the old man until the Bund went on the subversive list. The officer sitting next to me whispered, “Lieutenenat Millard. Number two in Homicide, but the real boss. A real piece of velvet.” I nodded and listened to the lieutenant speak in a velvet-smooth voice:
“… and the coroner ruled the Russo-Nickerson job murder-suicide. The Bureau is handling the hit-and-run on Pico and Figueroa on 11/10, and we located the vehicle, a ‘39 La Salle sedan, abandoned. It’s registered to a male Mexican named Luis Cruz, age 42, of 1349 Alta Loma Vista in South Pasadena. Cruz is a two-time loser with a Folsom jacket—both falls Robbery One. He’s long gone, and his wife claims the La Salle was stolen in September. She says it was snatched by Cruz’s cousin Armando Villareal, age 39, who’s also missing. Harry Sears and I took the initial squeal on this one, and eyeball witnesses said there were two male Mexicans in the car. Have you got anything else, Harry?”