"Great white shark," muttered Milo.
"What's that?"
"Some of those little kids are pretty sharp."
"Well, I wouldn't know about that, but they do know how to work their little tushies off, so I pay 'em. All of them think I'm the greatest frigging thing since sliced bread. Their mamacitas are so grateful, they bring me food all wrapped in aluminum foil—they love aluminum foil. Good stuff, too, no fast-food shit—menudo and sweet tamales like you used to be able to get over on Alvarado before the corporate frigs took over."
He pushed open a screen door, walked into the house, and let it slam shut. Milo caught it. We entered.
The house was small and unlit, crammed so full of junk there was barely room to walk. We inched our way past
stacks of old newspapers, towers of cardboard boxes and raw-wood fruit crates, jumbles of clothing, an upright piano painted with gray primer, three ironing boards bearing a collection of clock radios in various stages of disassembly. The furniture that managed to coexist with the clutter was cheap, dark wood and overstuffed chairs sleeved with antimacassars and doilies. Thrift shop fare.
The floor was pine, trodden gray, splintered in several places by dry rot. A mantel above the bricked-in fireplace bore porcelain figurines, most of them chipped or missing limbs. The clock on the mantel wall said Coca-Cola. It was frozen at seven-fifteen.
"Sit," said Crotty. He brushed newspapers off an easy chair and sank down. A cloud of dust rose and settled like dew.
Milo and I cleared a sofa with broken springs, created our own dust storm.
Crotty cleared his throat. Milo pulled out his wallet and handed him several bills. The old man counted it, fanned it out, closed his fingers over it. "Okay, let's make this quick. Belding. Leland, A. Capitalist pig, too much money, no morals, a latent fag."
I said, "Why do you say that?" and heard Milo groan.
Crotty turned on me. "Because I'm a frigging expert on latency is why, Dr. Psychology. You might have the diploma, but I've got the experience." He grinned and added, "Hands-on experience."
"Let's stick to Belding," said Milo.
Crotty ignored him: "Let rne tell you, Curly, one thing I know, it's latents. For thirty years I frigging lived that trip."
Milo yawned, closed his eyes.
"He's frigging bored," said Crotty. "If anyone should be listening it's him. Hell, you'd think someone in his position would seek me out; kneel at my feet and beg for my accumulated wisdom. But no, how do I meet the lump in the first place? Half-dead in the Emergency Room, sweet Rick massaging my heart, bringing me back to life. And then this lump shows up all Dragnet-butch,
checking his watch and wanting to know when Rick's going off-shift. Frigging Beauty and the Beast."
He turned to Milo, shook one finger. "You were always insensitive. There I was fading away and all you could think of was your cock."
"Don't make it sound life-threatening, Ellston. You had an upset stomach. Gas. Too much menudo, not enough fiber."
"So you say." To me. "Got your work cut out for you. shrink. That is one big frigging piece of work sitting next to you—take you years just to get through the top layer of denial."
"Belding," said Milo. "Or give back the bread."
"Belding," repeated Crotty. "A capitalist. Vicious. Because he was a latent. I know what that does to a person." He got up, looked over a group of boxes on the floor, went down on his knees in front of one of them and pawed through it with both hands.
"Here we go," said Milo.
Crotty pulled out a brown cloth scrapbook, flipped pages, wiped his forehead, then sat down next to me and pointed.
"There."
His fingertip rested next to a snapshot of a young man in police uniform. Black-and-white, sawtooth edges, just like the one of Sharon and Shirlee.
The young man wore a police uniform, stood next to a patrol car on a palm-lined street. His features were delicate, almost girlish, his eyes big and round. Innocent. Thick, wavy dark hair parted in the middle, a dimple on his right cheek. A pretty boy—the easily bruised countenance of a young Monty Clift.
"Glom this," said Crotty and pointed to another photo on the page. Same man in civilian attire, standing next to the Dodge I'd just seen in the driveway. He wore sports clothes and had his arm around the waist of a girl. She wore a halter and shorts, was shapely. Her face had been scratched out with a ballpoint pen.
"I was some piece of beef back then," said Crotty. He
yanked the book away, snapped it shut, and tossed it on the floor.
"Those were taken in '45. I was just out of Uncle Sam's Navy, earned ribbons in the Pacific, thought I was God's gift to women and kept telling myself that those little shipboard episodes with the cook—sweaty Swedish meatball—had been just a bad dream. No matter that doing it with him had felt the way love should feel, and all the frails I nailed had a better time than I did."
He tapped his chest. "I was as sweet as Mary Pickford but trying to convince myself I was frigging Gary Cooper. So what better job for an overcompensating macho buck than to wear blue and carry a big stick?"
He laughed. "Day I got my discharge papers, I applied to the force. Day I finished the academy thought I was King Hetero Stud. Being Butch Blue was going to solve all my problems. The brass took one look at me and knew exactly where to send me. Toilet decoy in MacArthur Park till all the local queers made me, then gay-bar detail over in Hollywood. I was great, busted more faggots than any other piece of bait. Got promoted, assigned to Vice, spent the next ten years of my life busting more faggots—busting myself, drinking it off every night. I made detective in record time but was nothing more than a frigging lure— kissed up to so many sad suckers my lips started to callus. Vice loved me. I was their frigging secret weapon, batting my lashes, breaking up private parties up in the hills, rousting raucous black-and-tans out in the colored districts—that gave the other pigs the chance to break some nappy heads."
He reached over, took hold of my collar, opened his good eye wide. He was sweating and seemed to have gone pale, though in the dim light it was hard to be sure.
"Know the reason I was so frigging good, Curly? 'Cause deep down inside I wasn't acting. Slam, bam, out in the alley, then here come the other Vice pigs with their saps and their sticks. Another meat wagon full of faggots expressed to County Lockup, black-and-blue, puking blood. Once in a while one of them would hang himself in
his cell. The Vice boys would say good riddance, less paperwork. I'd laugh the loudest, chug-a-lug the fastest."
His mustache quivered. "For ten years 1 was an accessory to the assault and murder of gay men, never stopped to wonder why I was going home each night, puking my own guts out and drinking gin until I could feel my liver sizzling."
He let go of my collar. Milo was looking the other way, staring off into space.
"I was eating myself up is why," said Crotty. "Until I took a vacation down south—Tijuana. Crossed the border looking for action, got stoned drunk in a cantina watching a donkey mount a woman, stumbled outside and asked a cabbie to take me to a whorehouse. But the cabbie wasn't fooled. Drove me to a crappy little place on the outskirts of town. Cardboard walls painted turquoise, chickens outside the door and in. Twenty-four hours later I knew who I was, knew I was trapped. What I didn't know was how to get out of it."
He folded and unfolded the money, finally crumpled it in his fist. "No guts for quick suicide, I kept pouring the sauce down. Wasn't till a year later—February—that opportunity knocked. Someone tipped Vice to a big soiree out on Cahuenga—absinthe drinkers and dancing boys, an all-sweet jazz band, things in drag smoking reefer. I sailed in wearing a boatnecked sailor shirt, red scarf—this frigging scarf. Inside of thirty seconds I'd snagged a fish— good-looking blond kid, Ivy League get-up, rosy cheeks. Took him outside, made sure to unlock the door, let him kiss me, then stood there fighting not to cry as he got beat up. They broke the whole place open, tore the frigging house apart, but I just sat on the si
delines, only got credit for the blond kid's bust."
He stopped, wiped his brow again. "Early the next morning, I showed up to process the paper on him but they were gone and so was he. I got pissed, checked it out, found out he was the son of a city councilman, champion athlete, high school valedictorian, Harvard sophomore, BMOC. Leverage. I got off the force with honorable
discharge, full pension plus another chunk of cash for 'disability' settlement. The blond kid went back to Boston, married money, had four kids, ran a bank. I bought El Rancho Illegalo, here, learned about myself, tried to undo ten years by helping others—giving wisdom to those who take it." He glared at Milo, who ignored him, then turned back to me. "Happy ending, right, Dr. Psychology?"
"Guess so."
"Then you guess wrong, because at this very moment that blond kid is stretched out on a sanitarium bed out in Altadena, dying of AIDS, frigging skeleton. Dying alone because wifey and the four kids have cut him off like an obscene phone call. I found out through the network, been seeing him. Saw him yesterday, in fact, and changed his frigging diapers."
Milo cleared his throat. Crotty turned on him.
"God forbid you should get involved with the network, Lump. Maybe reach out to help someone. Perish the thought you should admit to sizzling your liver 'cause you don't know who you are."
"Belding," said Milo, taking out his note pad. "That's what we're here to talk about."
"Ah," said Crotty disgustedly.
No one spoke for a while.
"Mr. Crotty," I said, "why do you think Belding was latent?"
The old man coughed, waved his hand. "Ahh, who the hell knows. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe I'm full of shit. One thing I can tell you, he was no stud, despite how the papers played up his dating all those actresses. I did meet him. At a party. He used to hire off-duty cops for security. And sometimes not so off-duty—the department was in to him in a big way, kissing his rich ass until it sparkled."
"Be specific," said Milo.
"Yeah, right. Okay, one time, must have been back in '49 or '50 I got pulled off a child-molesting case and assigned to one of his bashes out in Bel Air—priorities, eh? Big charity thing, full orchestra, all the best folks tooting and shuffling, lots of female flesh, plenty of cloak-
room clinches. But all Stud Belding did was watch everyone else. That's what he was—a watcher. Like some frigging camera on legs. I remember thinking what a cold bastard he was—repressing. Latent."
"That's what you meant by meeting him?"
"Yeah. We shook frigging hands, okay?"
"Why'd you call him vicious?" I said.
"I call killing vicious."
"Who'd he kill?" asked Milo.
Crotty wiped his brow and coughed. "Thousands of people, Lump—all the ones his frigging planes bombed."
Milo looked disgusted. "Thanks for the political commentary. Anything more you want to tell us about Belding?"
"I told you plenty."
"How about his sidekick, Vidal?"
"Billy the Pimp? He was at that party too. Very suave. Good teeth. Excellent-looking teeth."
"Anything else besides his dental health?"
"He was supposed to be the one who supplied Belding with the girls."
"What about the War Board parties?" asked Milo. "The ones Belding got investigated for. Did the department do guard duty on those?"
"Wouldn't surprise me. Like I said, the department was in to him."
"Name names," said Milo, pencil poised.
"It was a frigging long time ago, Lump."
"Listen, Ellston, I didn't pay a hundred to get stuff I can get in the locker room."
Crotty smiled. "Guy in your situation, Lump, doesn't get anything in the locker room."
Milo ran his hand over his face. A knot swelled his jawline.
"Okay, okay," said Crotty. "The two I'm sure were in Belding's pocket were a couple of shits named Hummel and DeGranzfeld. Working Ad-Vice when I came on—as head crackers. Soon after, Hummel was transferred out to be the chiefs chauffeur. A year later he was a lieutenant
out at Newton Division, which was a hell of a match because he was a racist pig, used to go down to Main Street and beat colored whores to a pulp. Wore pigskin gloves—said he wanted to avoid infection."
"How do you know he and the other guy were Belding's boys?"
"It was obvious from the way they moved up fast without earning it—they were connected. And both of them always dressed good, ate good. DeGranzfeld had a big house out in Alhambra, horses, orchard land. You didn't have to be Sherlock to see they were in somebody's pocket."
"Lots of pockets besides Belding's."
"Let me frigging finish, Lump. Later, both of them quit the force and went to work for Belding at probably six times the salary, all the graft they could eat."
"First names," said Milo, writing.
"Royal Hummel. Victor DeGranzfeld—Sticky Vicky we used to call him. He was a twerp and a sneak, too yellow-bellied to get physical but just as sadistic as Hummel. When he worked Vice he was bagman, coordinated collections from all the downtown bookies and pimps. When Hummel moved to Newton he had DeGranzfeld transferred over there as day-watch commander. Bosom buddies, probably a couple of latents themselves. Later both of them were picked to head Metro Narcotics—this was in the early fifties, there was a big dope panic, and the department knew it could get funding increases by making big busts."
"All right," said Milo. "Let's talk about the houses Belding owned—the party pads. Know where any of them were located?"
Crotty laughed. "Party pads? Isn't that sweet? Where'd you come up with that, Lump? Party pads. They were fuck pads—everyone called 'em that, 'cause that's what Mr. Leland Belding used 'em for. Brought bigwigs there, had a stable of bimboes all set to clean their pipes until they were ready to sign on any frigging dotted line. And no, I don't know any locations. Never got invited to those soirees."
He got up, sidestepped a wall of boxes, and went through a doorway into what I assumed was the kitchen.
Milo said, "Sorry you had to hear his life story."
"It's okay. It was interesting."
"Not after the thousandth time."
"You bad-mouthing me?" Crotty had come out of the kitchen, was glaring at us, a glass of water in one hand, the other balled up in a fist.
"No," said Milo. "Just admiring the decor."
"Hah!" The old man opened his free hand, revealing a palmful of pills.
"Vitamins," he said and swallowed some of them. He washed them down, grimaced, swallowed some more, and rubbed his abdomen. "I'm getting tired. Get the hell out of here and let me get some rest."
"Tab's not run yet," said Milo.
"Make it snappy."
"Got a couple more names for you. Actress named Linda Lanier, rumored to be one of Belding's bimboes. And some doctor she screwed on a stag film—give him the physical description, Alex."
As I did, Crotty lost color and put the glass down on a crate. Wiped his forehead, seemed to lose balance, and rested his hands on the back of a moth-eaten settee. He puffed out his cheeks.
Milo said, "Let's have it, Ellston."
"Why're you poking around in the dead-letter pile, Lump?"
Milo shook his head. "You know the rules."
"Sure, sure. Come here and squeeze me, then throw me a few crumbs."
"A hundred buys a lot of squeeze," said Milo, but he pulled out his wallet and gave the old man more money.
Crotty looked surprised. He stared at the bills.
"Linda Lanier," said Milo. "And the doctor in the film."
"In reference to Belding?" asked Crotty.
"In reference to anything. Spit it out, Ellston. Then we'll leave you to dream of your Swede."
"You should know such dreams," said Crotty. He looked at the floor, rubbed his mustache, crossed his legs. "Linda Lanier. Well, well, well. Everything comes around in a circle, doesn't it? Like my little blond banker and everything else in this frigging world."
He straightened, stood, made his way to the gray piano, sat down and picked off a couple of notes. The instrument was badly out of tune. He extracted a dissonant boogie-woogie with his left hand, random high notes with his right.
Then, as abruptly as he'd begun, he stopped and said, "This is terribly weird, Lump. If I didn't know better, I'd start using words like destiny—not that I'd want you in my destiny." He played several bars of slow blues, let his hands fall to his sides. "Lanier and the doctor—you say they did it on film?"
Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 04 - Silent Partner Page 28