by James Ellroy
His tired manner perked up when he saw me standing there, white and official-looking in my suit and tie. He smiled; the nervous, edgy smile of someone hungry for company. He looked me up and down. “Cop?” he said.
I tried to sound surprised: “No, why do you ask?”
The mailman laughed and swung his leather mail sack from one shoulder to the other. “Because any white man over six feet in a suit on a day like this in Medina Court has gotta be a cop.”
I laughed. “Wrong, but you’re close. I’m a private investigator.” I didn’t offer any proof, because of course I didn’t have any. The mailman whistled; I caught a whiff of booze on his breath. I stuck out my hand. “Herb Walker,” I said.
The mailman grasped it. “Randy Rice.”
“I need some information, Randy. Can we talk? Can I buy you a beer? Or can’t you drink on duty?”
“Rules are made to be broken,” Randy Rice said. “You wait here. I’ll deliver this mail and see you in twenty minutes.”
He was good to his word, and half an hour later I was in a seedy bar near the freeway, listening politely to Randy Rice expound on his theory of the “wetback problem plaguing America.”
“Yeah,” I finally broke in, “and it’s a tough life for the white working man. Believe me, I know. I’m on this tough case now, and none of the Mexicans I talk to will give me a straight answer.” Randy Rice went bug-eyed with awe. I continued: “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I figured a smart white man familiar with Medina Court ought to be able to give me a few leads.”
I ordered another beer for Rice. He gulped it, and his face contorted into a broad parody of caginess. “What do you wanna know?” he asked.
“I heard Marcella Harris used to hang out on Medina Court. I think that’s a hell of a place for a white woman with a kid to be spending her time.”
“I seen the Harris dame there,” Randy Rice said, “lots of times.”
“How did you know it was her? Did you just recognize her from her picture in the paper when she got knocked off?”
“No, she lived on my block at home. I seen her leave for work in the morning, and I seen her at the store, and I used to see her walk her dog. I used to see her play catch with that crazy kid of hers in her front yard, too.” Rice swallowed. “Who hired you?” he blurted out.
“Her ex-husband. He’s out for blood. He thinks one of her boyfriends croaked her. Why do you say her kid is crazy?”
“Because he is. That kid is poison, mister. For one thing, he’s only nine years old and he’s at least six feet tall. He hates the other kids, too. My boy told me that Michael was always breakin’ up the softball games at school, always challengin’ everyone to fight. He’d always get beat up—I mean he’s a gigantic kid, but he don’t know how to fight and he’d get beat up, then he’d start laughing like a madman, and…”
“And expose himself?”
“…Yeah.”
“You didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned Marcella Harris’s boyfriends.” With a flourish I ordered the now red-faced Rice another beer. “Tell me about that,” I said.
He leered and said, “I been seein’ her around Medina for months, drivin’ in her Studebaker, hangin’ out in Deadman’s Park—”
“Deadman’s Park?”
“Yeah, where Medina dead-ends. Dead dogs and dead winos and dead cars. I seen her a coupla times hangin’ out with Joe Sanchez on his stoop, lookin’ real cozy with him. Him in his zoot suit and Harris in her nurse’s uniform. Once she walked out of Sanchez’s apartment real glassy-eyed, like she was walkin’ on mashed potatoes, and nearly knocked me over. Jesus, I said to myself, this dame is high on dope. She—”
I halted Rice. “Does Sanchez sell dope?” I asked.
“Does he ever!” Rice said. “He’s the number one pusher in the San Gabriel Valley. I seen loads of hopheads leavin’ his dump like they was on cloud nine. The cops roust him all the time, but he’s always clean. He don’t use the shit himself, and he don’t hide it at Medina. I heard lots of young punks talk about what a smart vato he is. If you ask me, scum like Sanchez should be sent straight to the electric chair.”
I considered this latest information. “Have you talked to the cops about this, Randy?” I asked.
“Hell no, it’s none of my business. Sanchez didn’t bump off Harris, some loony did. That’s obvious. I got my job to consider. I gotta deliver mail to Medina. It’s no skin off my ass what Sanchez does.”
“Is Sanchez tough, Randy?”
“He don’t look tough, he just looks oily. Mexican-smart.”
“What’s his address?”
“Three-one-one Medina, number sixty-one.”
“Does he live alone?”
“I think so.”
“Describe him for me, would you?”
“Well, five foot eight inches, one-forty, skinny, duck’s-ass haircut. Always wears khakis and a purple silk jacket with a wolf’s head on the back, even in the summer. I guess he’s about thirty.”
I got up and shook Randy Rice’s hand. He winked and started in on another windy monologue on the wetback problem. I cut him off with a wink of my own and a clap on the shoulder. As I walked out of the bar I heard him giving his spiel to the other lonely booze-hounds.
* * *
—
Twenty minutes later I was back on Medina Court, sweltering in the vestibule of number 311. I scanned the bank of mailboxes for apartment 61, found it, and ripped the metal latch off to find the box stuffed with letters bearing Mexican postmarks.
Taking a chance on my rudimentary Spanish, I tore open three of the envelopes at random and read. The letters were scrawled illegibly, but I managed to discern one main theme after reading all three. Cousin Joe Sanchez was moving the Mexican wing of his family up to America, cautiously, one at a time, for a nominal charge. The letters were brimful of gratitude and hope for a good life in the New World. Cousin Joe was effusively praised, and monetary commitments were promised once the new Americans found work. I started to dislike Cousin Joe.
* * *
—
He showed up at six thirty, just as the sun’s hammer blows were starting to fall short of Medina Court. I watched from the steps of his tenement as a purple 1950 Mercury with fender skirts pulled to the curb and a skinny Mexican with a purple silk jacket and a sullen grin got out, locked the car carefully, and skipped up the steps in my direction.
I had my eyes locked into his face, waiting to read it for signs of fear or violence when he noticed my presence. But when he saw me Sanchez just threw up his hands in mock surrender and said, “You waiting for me, Officer?” grinning broadly all the while.
I grinned back. “I know you’re clean, Joe. You always are. I just wanted to have a little talk with you.”
Sanchez grinned again. “Why don’t we go up to my crib, then?”
I nodded assent and let him walk into the steaming hallway ahead of me. We took the stairs up to the third floor. Sanchez fiddled with the double lock on his door, and when the door opened I slammed my right fist into the back of his neck, sending him sprawling into his immaculate, cheap-plush living room. He looked up at me from the floor, his whole body trembling in anger. I closed the door behind me, and we stared at each other. Sanchez recovered quickly, getting to his feet and brushing off his silk jacket.
The sardonic grin returned. “This ain’t happened in a while,” he said. “You with the sheriff’s?”
“L.A.P.D.,” I said, for old-times’ sake. I dug the letters out of my coat pocket, holding my coat closed so that Sanchez wouldn’t know that I was unarmed. I tossed them in his face. “You forgot your mail, Joe.”
I waited for a reaction. Sanchez shrugged and plopped into a sofa covered with Mexican souvenir blankets. I pulled a chair up to within breathing distance of him.
“Dope and green ca
rds, pretty nice,” I said.
Sanchez shrugged, then looked at me defiantly. “What do you want, man?” He spat at me.
“I want to know what a good-looking, middle-class white woman like Marcella Harris was doing down here on Medina Court,” I said, “besides buying dope from you.”
Sanchez’s manner seemed to crumple in relief, then tense up in fear. It was bizarre. “I didn’t kill her, man,” he said.
“I’m sure you didn’t. Let’s make this simple. You tell me what you know, and I’ll leave you alone—forever. You don’t tell me, and I’ll have the Immigration cops and the feds up here in fifteen minutes. Comprende?”
Sanchez nodded. “A friend of mine brought her around. She wanted to buy some reefer. She kept coming back. She thought Medina Court was kicks. She was a loca, a hotheaded redhead. She liked to smoke reef and dance. She liked Mexican music.” Sanchez shrugged, indicating completion of his story.
It wasn’t enough. I told him so: “Not good enough, Joe. You make it sound like you just tolerated her. I don’t buy it. I heard she used to hang out with you and a bunch of other pachucos down at the auto graveyard.”
“Okay, man. I liked her. ‘La Roja,’ I used to call her. ‘The Red One.’ ”
“Were you screwing her?”
Sanchez was genuinely indignant: “No, man! She wanted me to, but I’m engaged! I don’t mess with no gringas.”
“Forgive me for mentioning it. Was she hooked on stuff?”
Sanchez hesitated. “She…she took pills. She was a nurse and she could get codeine. She used to get crazy and act silly when she was high on it. She said she could be…”
I leaned forward. “She said what, Joe?”
“She…she…said she could outfight any Mexican, and out-fuck and out-drink any puta. She said that she’d seen stuff that…that…”
“That what?” I screamed.
“That would have made our cojones fall off!” Sanchez screamed back.
“Did she hang out with any other guys here on Medina?” I asked.
Sanchez shook his head. “No. She was just interested in me. I told the others to leave her alone, that she was bad news. I liked her, but I had no respect for her. She used to leave her kid alone at night. Anyway, I started giving Marcella the cold shoulder. She took the hint and didn’t come around no more. I ain’t seen her in six months.”
I got up and walked around the room. The walls were adorned with bullfight posters and cheap landscape prints. “Who introduced her to you?” I asked.
“My friend, Carlos. He used to work at that factory where she was the nurse.”
“Where can I find Carlos?”
“He went back to Mexico, man.”
“Did Marcella Harris ever bring anyone else around to see you?”
“Yeah, once. She knocks on my door at seven in the morning. She had this guy with her, she was hanging on to him real tight, like they been…”
“Yeah, I know. Go on.”
“Anyway, she starts jabbering about the guy, how he just got promoted to graveyard foreman at the plant. I sold them some reef and they split.”
“What did this guy look like?”
“Kind of fat and blond. Kind of like a stúpido. He had no thumb on his left hand. It kind of spooked me. I’m superstitious and I…”
I sighed. “And what, Joe?”
“And I knew that Marcella was gonna die mean. That she wanted to die mean.”
“Ever see Marcella with a dark-haired man or a blond woman with a ponytail?”
“No.”
I got up to leave. “Poor roja,” Joe Sanchez said as I walked out his door.
* * *
—
Mrs. Gaylord Wilder, Marcella Harris’s landlady, had nervous gray eyes and a manner of barely controlled hysteria. I didn’t know how to play her—impersonating a cop was too risky with a solid citizen, and intimidation might well bring repercussions from the real cops.
Standing in her doorway as she openly scrutinized me, I hit on it. Mrs. Wilder had an avaricious look about her, so I tried a wild gambit: I attempted to pass myself off as an insurance investigator, interested in the recent past of the late Marcella. Mrs. Wilder took it all in, wide-eyed, with a nervous hand on the doorjamb. When I said “…and there’s a substantial reward for anyone who can help us,” she swung the door open eagerly, and pointed to an imitation leather davenport.
She went into the kitchen, leaving me alone to survey the crammed living room, and returned in a moment with a box of See’s candy. I popped a piece of sticky chocolate into my mouth. “That’s delicious,” I said.
“Thank you, Mr….”
“Carpenter, Mrs. Wilder. Is your husband at home?”
“No, he’s at work.”
“I see. Mrs. Wilder, let me level with you. Your late tenant, Marcella Harris, had three policies with us. Her son, Michael, was the beneficiary on all of them. However, there has been a rival claim, filed out of nowhere. A woman who claims to be a dear friend of the late Mrs. Harris states, in an affidavit, that Mrs. Harris told her that she was the beneficiary on all three policies. Right now, I’m investigating to determine if this woman even knew Marcella Harris.”
Mrs. Wilder’s hands did a nervous little dance in her lap. Her eyes did a little dance of greed. “How can I help you, Mr. Carpenter?” she asked eagerly.
I gave that some mock concentration. “Mrs. Wilder, you can help me by telling me anything and everything you know about the friends of Marcella Harris.”
Now the woman’s whole body seemed to dance. Finally, her tongue caught up with her. “Well, to tell you the truth…” she began.
“You are sworn to tell the truth,” I interjected sternly.
She went for it. “Well, Mr. Carpenter, Marcella’s friends were mostly men. I mean she was a good mother and all, but she had lots of men friends.”
“That’s no crime.”
“No, but—”
I interrupted. “I heard Michael Harris was a wild boy. That he got into fights. That he exposed himself to the other kids in the neighborhood.”
Mrs. Wilder went red and shrieked, “That boy was the devil! All he needed was horns! Then everyone would have known. A boy without a father is a sinful thing!”
“Well, Michael is with his father now.”
“Marcella told me about that one! What a no-good, handsome, good-for-nothing he was!”
“About her men friends, Mrs. Wilder…”
“I thought you said a woman filed this claim you’re investigating.”
“Yes, but this woman claimed that Marcella didn’t have any gentleman friends, that Marcella was a quiet career woman dedicated to her son.”
“Ha! Women like Marcella attract men the way sweets attract flies. I know. I had my share of suitors before I got married, but I never carried on the way that hussy did!”
I let Mrs. Wilder catch her breath. “Please be specific,” I said.
Mrs. Wilder continued, warily this time. “Well…when Marcella moved in I offered to throw a little get-together for her, invite some of the ladies in the neighborhood. Well…Marcella told me that she didn’t want any women friends, that women were all right to have a cup of coffee with once in a while, but she’d take men any day. I told her, ‘You’re a divorcée. Haven’t you learned your lesson?’ I’ll never forget what she said: ‘Yes, I did. I learned to use men the way they use women, and keep it at that.’ I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Carpenter, I don’t mind telling you I was shocked!”
“Yes, that is shocking. Did Marcella Harris ever talk about her ex-husband at length? Or any of her boyfriends?”
“She just told me that Doc Harris was a charming, good-for-nothing snake. And about her boyfriends? If I’d known they were sleeping over I would have put a stop to it right away! I don’
t put up with promiscuous goings on.”
I was getting tired of Mrs. Wilder. “How did you finally find out about Mrs. Harris’s goings on?” I asked.
“Michael. He…used to leave notes. Anonymous ones. Obscene ones. I don’t—”
I came awake. “Do you still have them?” I blurted.
Mrs. Wilder shrieked again: “No, no, no! I don’t want to talk about it. I knew she was bad from the moment she moved in. I require references, and Marcella gave me fake ones, fake all the way down the line. If you ask me, she—”
The telephone rang. Mrs. Wilder went into the kitchen to answer it. When she was out of sight, I gave the room a quick toss, checking out the contents of shelves and bookcases. On top of the television set I found a stack of unopened mail. There was a letter addressed to Marcella Harris. Someone, probably Mrs. Wilder, had written in pencil on the envelope: “Deceased. Forward to William Harris, 4968 Beverly Blvd., L.A. 4, Calif.”
I heard the landlady jabbering away in the kitchen. I put the envelope into my pocket and quietly left her house.
* * *
—
It was almost dusk. I drove toward the freeway, stopping a few blocks from the on-ramp to check the letter. It was just an overdue dentist’s bill, and I threw it out the window, but it fit in: Marcella Harris lived a fast life and neglected small commitments. I wondered what kind of nurse she had been. I headed back toward Santa Monica to see if I could find out.
The freeways that night were surreal; seemingly endless red and white glowing jet streams carrying travelers to home and hearth, work and play, lovers’ rendezvous and unknown destinations. This was not my Los Angeles I was passing over, and the dead nurse was none of my business, but as the eastern suburbs turned into good old familiar downtown L.A., old instincts clicked into place and the excitement of being out there and on the track of the immutable yet ever-changing took me over. There was nothing happening in my life, and looking for a killer was as good a way as any to fill the void.