by Jack Tunney
Crawley stumbled backward, tangling himself up with the three-foot baton he had wedged in his belt. His gun went flying, and I stepped in and hit him with an open-handed roundhouse right with the whip of my hips behind it. He was a big man, but he went down like a headshot elephant.
There was noise and confusion all around me. I realized the bos had turned on the Southern Pacific men – and Tombstone and the cavalry had also arrived wielding ax handles as if they were auditioning for spots in the Yankee’s line up.
The Hat Squad knew their business. The targets of their ax handles were knees and elbows, not heads. Hit a man in the knee or elbow and he can’t fight back. Hit him in the head and he just gets angry.
“About time,” I said to Tombstone when he reached me.
“Gate to the yard was locked.”
“I know your mouth is moving, but the sound coming out of it isn’t making any sense.”
Tombstone shrugged and showed me those big teeth. “All I’m saying is getting here was trickier than it should have been ...”
“You forgot to bring the bolt cutters, didn’t you?”
Tombstone looked down, but he was still grinning. “Yeah. Haskell had to ram the gate four times before it gave way. The front of his sedan looks like it was in an argument with one of these trains.”
Tombstone had brought Detective Roger Haskell – a man easily mistaken for a fireplug – and four others from the squad with him. Once they arrived, they had been ruthlessly efficient.
The Southern Pacific bulls had been rounded up and disarmed. The bos had been allowed to scramble back and retrieve their belongings, but were now all sitting on the telephone poles around the makeshift boxing ring.
I personally helped Crawley to his feet. It took a while because he spat at me. As a result, he accidentally fell down – twice – before I got a set of handcuffs on him. Haskell led him away to a paddy wagon the squad had brought with them.
Several squad cars of uniformed officers arrived as Haskell slammed the paddy wagon doors behind Crawley. He talked to a uniformed sergeant and then walked back to us.
“Apparently, the chief wants you two back at the office,” he said. “We’ll clear up here. Make sure Southern Pacific gets a new crew in.”
“Lots of paperwork,” I said.
“Story of my life,” Haskell said, shrugging his heavy shoulders. “What do you want us to do with the bos?”
I looked over to where Billings was sitting. He looked back at me and nodded. “The guy named Billings will be your best witness. Get statements from the rest then deliver them to Father Cruz,” I said. “He’ll feed ‘em and give ‘em a bed.”
“What do you want the charges to be against the bulls?”
“Book all of ‘em, except for Crawley, for extortion under color of authority. Charge Crawley with extortion, assault with a deadly weapon, and filth and ignorance in the presence of a police officer.”
As Haskell chuckled, I turned and started walking away with Tombstone.
“What do you think the chief wants?”
Tombstone looked over at me and wrinkled his nose. “Probably wants to talk to you about your personal hygiene.” He ran a finger around the brim of his Borsalino. “You bringing down the tone of the whole squad.”
ROUND FOUR
The Police Administration Building at the intersection of First and Los Angeles streets had finally opened for business two months earlier after being under construction for over ten years. Prior to moving into PAB, the various entities of the police department had been scattered throughout the downtown area. Having an actual headquarters building was helping Chief Parker solidify his power base.
From his office on the seventh floor, he ran the department with an iron fist. His personal mandate as chief was first to take the department back from the corrupt and brutal jack-booted thugs police had become in the ‘40s, and then take back the city. The first part of his mandate was well in hand, but now he was butting heads with the institutional corruption of the city politicians and gangsters who hid behind them.
For me, the new police headquarters building was a fresh start. Due to my high felony arrest rate, I’d been promoted from uniformed patrol officer to detective after only three years on the job. The inside track had come because the chief had needed my boxing skills in his violent chess game with Mickey Cohen. A detective shield and a spot on the chief’s hand-picked Hat Squad had been my reward.
Now, I also had a desk in a shiny new squad room just down the hall from the chief’s office. Truth be told, the new squad room wasn’t used much. The Hat Squad ruled the roost at Tom Bergin’s Tavern on Fairfax, their preferred place of business. That venerable institution had been around since 1936 and had seen generations of cops come and go.
Right now, however, I was able to pick up fresh clothes from my locker in the new squad room and was able to clean up with a cat’s lick and a promise, as Father Tim used to say, in the restroom down the hall.
Tombstone was waiting for me on a bench outside the chief’s office.
“Better?” I asked, as I approached.
“Much,” Tombstone said, standing and opening the door to the chief’s office’s anteroom and ushering me through.
It was late in the afternoon, but Peggy Parsons, the chief’s secretary, was still at her desk. She stood up when we walked in. She was closer to forty than thirty, but she emanated the energy of a much younger woman. Stylish in a calf-length gray pencil skirt, a flattering red blouse, black seamed stocking and heels, she took her job as guardian of the gate with deadly seriousness.
“Heard you added another knockout to your record, champ,” she said to me with a high wattage smile.
“News travels fast,” I said. Peggy’s husband had been an LA cop killed in the line of duty. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, but everyone on the job looked out for her.
“Go on through,” she said, opening the door to the chief’s inner sanctum. “He’s expecting you.”
Chief Parker turned from where he’d been staring out his corner windows overlooking downtown LA. He was a big man, but four years into his tenure as chief had left a roadmap of stress across his wide features. His black-framed glasses were as plain and no-nonsense as the close-cropped crew cut of his black hair. He wore his uniform like a shield.
Coldly cerebral, he was alternately lauded and reviled for his streamlining of the entire department, his demand for discipline and integrity, and for his pioneering of narcotics and civil rights enforcement. He was intolerant of fools, and famously incorruptible – his avoidance of the department’s 1950 scandal involving a 114 Hollywood pleasure girls had opened the door for his promotion.
Parker nodded at the two detectives and then moved behind his desk and picked up a large manila envelope.
“You know anybody in New Orleans, Flynn?”
“Nobody of which I’m aware.”
“How about Marcus Detroit?” The chief tossed the envelope across the desk to me.
I picked it up and shook out the contents. The photo of a battered dead face looked blindly up at me. I’d seen enough similars to recognize it had been taken from above a coroner’s slab.
The features were unrecognizable due to the battering the face had taken. There was clearly an older scar cutting a finger-wide swath through the left eyebrow. I recognized the scar. I’d given it to Marcus back in the ring at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys – the orphanage in Chicago where my brother Mickey and I had grown up.
I looked at the front of the envelope. The return address was the New Orleans Police Department – the NOPD. I handed the envelope sideways to Tombstone.
I could feel a coldness growing in me. Mickey and I had never been close to Marcus. He’d been a couple of years older, a tough bastard willing to fight anyone over anything. But he was one of Father Tim’s boys – and we all stuck together.
“His real name isn’t Detroit. It’s Marcus de Trod. Detroit was the moniker we hung on h
im in the orphanage. What happened to him?”
The chief sat down in his chair and leaned his arms on the desk in front of him. “Apparently, he got himself chopped by a crocodile trying to escape from the Sauvage Federal Penitentiary in the fresh water bayou outside New Orleans.”
“Probably a gator not a croc,” Tombstone said, slipping the envelope back onto the chief’s desk.
Parker gave him a hard look.
“Sorry,” Tombstone said, standing up a little straighter.
I pointed at the photo that had half slipped out of the envelope. “There’s only one thing that makes those kind of facial injuries – another man’s fists.”
Parker looked back at me. “When was the last time you heard from this guy?”
I shrugged. “Not since he left the orphanage ten years ago.”
“Then why would he have the words Get Felony Flynn LAPD newly jail tattooed in both armpits?”
“Really? His armpits? Ouch ...” Tombstone tapered off when Parker looked hard at him again.
I could feel the coldness that had started in my heart moving down to my fists. “Probably means he had more trouble than he could handle. Knew he wouldn’t be around to call me himself.”
“Why would he contact you if he was in trouble?”
‘You grow up in an orphanage, Chief?” I asked in an even voice.
Parker opened his mouth and then shut it without speaking. Instead, he pushed a smaller envelope across his desk. “Train tickets,” Parker said. “New Orleans Superintendent of Police, Colonel Provosty A. Dayries, has only been in the top office a few months, but he’s already brought in some ex-FBI hotshot named Banister to clean up his department.”
“Is he the one who sent the photos?” I asked.
Parker nodded. “By all accounts, Banister is a hard nose – once called the Bureau a prostitute who wanted keep her virginity. He’s in charge of the NOPD’s internal investigations bureau. And he isn’t happy about this body turning up chomped on his turf, needle-pointed with an LAPD detective’s name. He wants a little help, and we’re going to give it to him.”
“New Orleans?” Tombstone looked a little stunned.
“You got a problem with New Orleans?” Chief Parker asked.
“Took my mother nearly ten years to get me out of there,” Tombstone said, shaking his big head. “She isn’t going to be too pleased about me going back. This Banister know you’re sending him a black detective?”
Parker shook his head. “All he knows is I’m sending two of my best – the man who’s named in the tattoo and his partner. I don’t care that you’re black, why should he?”
“Maybe because more than forty percent of the homicides involving black victims in New Orleans are committed by white police officers.” Tombstone was getting an odd glint in his eyes. “Maybe because police brutality is accepted, expected, and relied upon to keep us darkies in line, sho-enuf, boss.”
Color flushed Chief Parker’s face. “They have black officers in their department.”
“Since nineteen fifty,” Tombstone agreed. “But they’re only allowed to patrol colored communities.”
“You saying you can’t handle this assignment?” Parker asked.
“I’m saying I put up with more crap in LA than a sewer worker simply because I’m black. You’ve treated me well, Chief, but I still pay for doing this job. You send me to New Orleans and fists are going to fly.”
Parker nodded his head. “I’ve told you before, you’re no longer black. You’re blue. LAPD blue. I expect you to go and do what I tell you. If some eggs get broken along the way, just make sure to clean up the mess.”
“Yes, sir,” Tombstone said. The expression on his face was a collision of chastisement and pride.
“Why does the LAPD care about a body in New Orleans?” I asked, trying to move the conversation on.
Parker sat back in his chair. “Just because I didn’t grow up in an orphanage, Flynn, doesn’t mean I don’t understand loyalty. Could I stop you going to New Orleans?”
“No.”
“Then go and show ‘em how we do it here and then get the hell back. We’ve got more than enough of our own chalk outlines for you to solve.”
ROUND FIVE
A National Airlines Douglas DC-6 flew us from Los Angles to Moisant Field on the outskirts of New Orleans in relative comfort – at least for me. Tombstone, white-knuckled his seat arms the entire way. During takeoff and landing, he was whiter than me.
“Taking the train back,” he said, as we exited the plane. His voice was little more than a croak, but there was no way I was going to make fun of him. As far as I was concerned, I’d just watched a man conquer his fears.
A metal rolling staircase led us down from the door of the plane into a large, open, hanger-like structure. The humidity was a suffocating wet blanket. Even with my suit jacket off and my tie loosened, my white shirt was instantly soaked with sweat.
Two men, wearing lightweight seersucker suits, straw fedoras, and cop’s eyes watched us approach the exit where family members were greeting other passengers. It was clear they were waiting for us. It was also clear they hadn’t expected Tombstone.
“Patrick Flynn,” I said, extending my right hand. “LAPD. This is my partner, Cornel Jones.”
The taller and much thinner of the two men accepted my hand and shook it firmly. “Wallace Ward,” he said. “New Orleans PD.” The badge parked on his belt next to a holstered .38 was comprised of an interesting star and crescent design. “This is my partner John Quint.” He indicated the short, heavyset man next to him. “We work the department’s Bureau of Investigation.”
I shook hands with Quint.
“Hell, we are the department’s Bureau of Investigation,” Quint said.
“Along with Deputy Superintendent Banister,” Ward agreed, shaking hands with Tombstone.
When Tombstone extended his hand toward Quint, the NOPD detective turned his back and walked away.
Ward and Quint led us to a standard black, four door, police sedan. Even driving with all the windows down didn’t help much with the heat or the conversation, and the ten mile drive to the city center took twenty sweaty minutes.
Straddling the Mississippi River, New Orleans was not only names after a city in Centre, France, but had fought hard to retain its distinct French Creole architecture, as well as its cross-cultural and multilingual heritage. In the early 1800s, thousands of refugees from the Haitian revolution, both whites and free people of color had fled to New Orleans, often bringing African slaves with them.
For years, New Orleans had been a hotbed of racial and urban upheaval, progressing, regressing, and progressing again. All the while, it had retained its unique French and Creole culture – sprinkled with Italian and Southern Antebellum flavoring and spiced with superstitions and clashing religions. It was as different from the rest of the United States as the moon was from Earth.
When we finally pulled to a stop outside the Criminal Courts Building at Tulane Avenue and South Broad Streets, I was already feeling the spell of the city descending upon me.
Checking locations had been second nature to me ever since I’d first joined the LAPD. The first day on night watch, my training officer suddenly let our patrol car drift into the curb.
When I looked over at him in surprise, he was staring intently at me.
“I’ve just been shot,” he calmly said. “Where are we? When you radio for help, what location are you going to give the units and the ambulance?”
I was mortified. I had no idea where we were. The lesson stayed with me ever since.
The Criminal Courts Building was a looming anachronistic structure by LA standards, and its parking lot wended around several stately live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Ward parked the car under one of the trees. We all got out, Ward and Quint still wearing their jackets. However, Tombstone and I had our jackets draped over one arm, ties at half-mast, and our cuffs rolled up. I had a feeling I was in more danger from the heat t
han from any felon.
There were several pedestrians going up and down the wide stairs leading to the building’s front doors, but like Ward and Quint, none of them appeared to be in a hurry, their pace slow and measured. Maybe it was how they dealt with the heat and humidity, but trailing behind the two NOPD detectives I felt I was melting into the ground.
When the old woman in black stepped out from behind a pillar at the top of the steps, she moved faster than anything we’d seen since we arrived. She appeared to materialize in front of me after Ward and Quint passed her by. She put a gnarled hand on my chest, one long fingernail slipping between the buttons of my shirt front and making contact directly with my skin.
She was a hag, anywhere from fifty to a hundred. My height, but straw thin, translucently white. Stringy black hair hung in front of startling green, deeply hooded, eyes split by perfectly straight nose. A profusion of beads and bright bangles hung around her neck over the top of the ragged black sheath she wore. Several strands had small leather pouches hanging from them.
Somehow, I had been stopped instantaneously in my tracks. I might struggle to keep my bulk up to heavyweight standards, but I’m a match for any man – you don’t just stop me. Her fingernail on my chest was like the tip of a razor, and I felt a slight burn – knowing she had pierced me.
She whispered again in the same harsh rasp.
A hand reached over the woman’s shoulder and spun her around. I felt a tearing as her fingernail left my chest then a surge, as if a draft had entered into the slight wound.
I was still frozen in place, watching as Quint, his face distorted, pushed the old woman back. Her head hit with a crack as he c-clamped her throat in the curve his thumb and index finger, pinning her against the pillar from where she had materialized. Her hair was away from her face, and I saw she wasn’t white, but black – very black. The translucently white image of her face, however, was transfixed in my brain.