True Confessions

by John Gregory Dunne

  He tried to remember when. That morning when Mickey Gag-non died, that was it. Check around, he had said, see if any of the girls know anyone likes to cut. He did not like to remember that morning. He thought that life would be a lot simpler if it hadn’t been for Mickey Gagnon. If Mickey hadn’t decided to get his ashes hauled, he wouldn’t have run into Brenda again. And she wouldn’t have told him why he never got indicted. There were so many ifs. And so many things you were better off not knowing.

  “Find anything?” The cutter. Mickey. Brenda. Des. Corinne. Jack. Lois Fazenda. He had a feeling that everything was connecting in some way he did not understand. Except that it was a maze and he was in the middle and he had a feeling he was not going to get out.

  “It’s hard to find a whore hasn’t been cut. It’s a risk they take.”

  “That’s swell, Brenda. That’s why I came all the way over here for, to hear a lot of deep shit about how tough it is being a hooker.”

  Brenda picked up the cat and put it in her lap. She fed it a piece of bread and began stroking its back.

  “There was a guy, a couple of the girls ran into him, three, four maybe, the word is out, everyone on the bricks seems to have heard about him. Bald, fifty, a Rotary button in his lapel. Elks, Kiwanis, I don’t know that shit. He picks them up in his car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Old. Before the war.”

  “License?”

  Brenda shook her head. “Some kind of sticker in the window. Palm Springs. San Diego Zoo, something like that. Maybe a high school, I don’t know. Everyone, the girls, they all got a different story.”

  “What’s his number?”

  “He likes to shave the girl’s bush. He’s a walking fucking barber’s college, the word is. Scissors, razors, lather, the works.”

  “What if the girls don’t play?”

  “He says he’ll cut their tits off.”

  “Fair enough,” Tom Spellacy said.

  “She still have her bush, your girl?”

  “She still had her bush.”

  “Then that’s the best I got,” Brenda said. “Nobody’s seen him for a while, this guy, the girls say.”

  “Thanks, Brenda.” Tom Spellacy got up to leave. A pigeon swooped down on a piece of bread and escaped a split second before Brenda’s cat struck.

  “I’m leaving town, Tom.”

  He sat back down on the bench and took a piece of bread from her bag. “Why?”

  “Change my luck. I don’t have any leverage anymore.”

  He shredded the bread and threw the pieces into the water. “You in the shit?”

  Brenda shook her head. “I did a scrape a couple of days ago. I made a mistake. I nicked something. She hemorrhaged.”

  “Die?” For an instant he wondered what he would do if she said yes.

  “No.” Brenda did not look at him. “It was one of my old girls. Lucille Cotter. She’ll keep her mouth shut. It was one of those things.”

  “Lucille Cotter.” The name was familiar. “Silver Tongue?”

  Brenda nodded. Lucille Cotter was called Silver Tongue for obvious reasons. A real pump primer. She had been one of the leading attractions at the house on Sunset. There was a peek into her room so that other customers could watch her work. She never turned out in the line. You had to book Silver Tongue in advance.

  “She works lower Sunset now,” Brenda said. “She’s one of the ones ran into the barber.”

  “Lower Sunset,” Tom Spellacy said. “On the bricks?”

  Brenda said yes.

  “That’s a long drop.”

  “She got old, Tom,” Brenda said. “It happens.”

  He considered the answer. “You never used to do scrapes.”

  “That happens, too.”

  Tom Spellacy watched the ducks swimming in the lake. In the old days with Brenda there had never been young couples in pad-dleboats floating in the water.

  “Where you going?” he said.

  “A place in Reno, maybe. And there’s a joint in Vegas I can run.”

  He spoke before thinking. “You want a reference.”

  Brenda looked directly at him for the first time. “I never had any trouble buying cops,” she said evenly. “If you remember.”

  I deserved that, he thought. I sound like the resentful bagman.

  “You know what Jack used to say about you?”

  “I don’t really care.”

  “No discipline, he used to say. He used to see you fight. You had trouble making the weight. No discipline.”

  “He’s a real judge of character, Jack,” Tom Spellacy said. He wondered how Jack judged Des.

  Brenda threw a crust into the lake. Two ducks fought over the piece, pecking at each other with their bills.

  “That girl,” she said, “the one who was cut.”

  “What about her?”

  “She worked for the Protectors of the Poor, didn’t she?”

  Tom Spellacy nodded. He and Masaryk had checked out the charity at County General. He hated hospitals. The smell of antiseptic and starch reminded him of his mother. She had lingered in a charity ward for seven months before she died. He brought her magazines and she demanded holy pictures and asked him to say a novena and to make the nine first Fridays and the Stations of the Cross. Fuck it, he finally told Des, this is your racket, you see her. The hospital superintendent said she did not remember Lois Fazenda. There were so many charities. And so many volunteers. They come and they go. A bad apple was bound to creep in. You can’t blame the hospital for that. The Protectors specialized in Mexicans. Accident victims, mainly. The volunteers passed out candy and cigarettes. The superintendent had smiled. And Roman Catholic doodads, she said.

  “Passing out rosary beads,” Tom Spellacy said.

  “Virgin of Guadalupe medals, too,” Brenda said. “Some of my girls used to work for the Protectors.”

  He stared sharply at her, wondering what whores were doing working for a Catholic charity. “Doing mission work?”

  “Rubbing up against guys. Flashing their tits, too, you want to know the honest truth. I bet she was very good rubbing up against guys, that girl.”

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “To make the guy feel good, I guess. You’re all broken up, it must make you feel good, looking down a girl’s dress.”

  “I bet it would at that.”

  “That’s when she flashes the insurance form at him, Tom. ‘Sign this, I’ll get you a lawyer who’ll sue the bastard who hit you.’ “

  It was slowly beginning to come clear. No wonder whores were volunteers. “I bet there’s lawyers who’d pay for a form like that.”

  “Fifty bucks each, I hear,” Brenda said. “Maybe more.”

  “And the wetback, I bet he never sees the insurance settlement.”

  “There’s a lot of expenses involved, Tom.”

  “Ambulance chasing is what you’d call it, you want to put a dirty name to it.”

  “If you want to put a dirty name to it,” Brenda said. The cat was licking her hand. “It’s worth a fortune. They can’t complain, the wetbacks, they don’t get their money, because they’re illegals, most of them.”

  “And if they do bitch . . .”

  “They can always get hit by another car.” Brenda concentrated on the cat. It was almost as if she were speaking to it and not to Tom Spellacy. “When’s the last time Robbery-Homicide broke its hump for a dead Mex?”

  Tom Spellacy ignored the question. “I wonder who dreamed this one up?”

  “I bet you could guess.”

  Of course I can, he thought. Jack Amsterdam. Every time I turn around, there’s Jack. Lois Fazenda does a good deed and it’s one of Jack’s rackets. That goddamn maze.

  “So he knew her.”

  “He was fucking her.”

  “He cut her?”

  “He’s clean.”

  “So what’s his worry?”

  Brenda looked at him, a hard smile on her face. “He th
inks you’re crazy. He’s old, Jack, he’s going to die. He likes to think he was born at sixty, building cathedrals. And there’s this nut cop reminding people when he was a pimp and stuffing people into laundry dryers. He wishes he never heard of you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  “He thinks you’re going to pull him in.”

  Tom Spellacy suddenly remembered the warning from Marge Madragon. It was all beginning to come clear. He could imagine the raised eyebrows in the department if he pulled in Jack. That would get a few laughs. He tried not to think of Jack’s lawyer telling a judge what old pals they were, Tom and Jack.

  “He thinks you’re going to drop this girl on him,” Brenda said. “And embarrass him. He’s had a private audience with the Pope. How many pimps can say that?”

  Tom Spellacy wondered if Des had arranged the private audience. “He won’t like it, you telling me this.”

  “Fuck him,” Brenda said. “I took the fall for you, Tom. But he’s the one made me do it.” She picked cat hairs from her dress. “This is my going-away present.”

  “I don’t know if I can do anything with it.”

  “That’s up to you.” Brenda held the cat and emptied the rest of the bread bag onto the ground. “Anyway I wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s nice to have somebody to say good-bye to, is all. Who do I have? The lieutenant governor? You think I can call him up and say remember me, we used to fuck?”

  Tom Spellacy did not say anything. All around the bench, birds and ducks were gobbling up the last of the bread.

  “All I’ve got are old whores and people I bought,” Brenda said.

  Tom Spellacy stood up. No one paid any attention to them. We’re just another middle-aged couple, he thought.

  “So long, Brenda.”

  Fifteen

  Sonny McDonough marked his putt and surveyed the green. “You’re away, Des.”

  “You make that one, Des, they’ll give you a gold putter in heaven,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “That’s grand, Dan,” Sonny McDonough said. “A gold putter in heaven. Frank Leary would give up being pastor at Saint Jude’s, he had one of them.”

  “He went over the top, I hear, Frank,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “Most successful fund raiser in the archdiocese,” Sonny McDonough said. “It’s made of money, Saint Jude’s.”

  “There’s not a better pastor than Frank,” Dan T. Campion said. “And a nicer man.”

  “And a worse golfer,” Sonny McDonough said.

  “Is that a fact?” Dan T. Campion said.

  “I was playing with him the other day,” Sonny McDonough said. “And he misses a tap-in. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ he says. And I says, Taking the Lord’s name in vain, Monsignor. You’re going to have to confess that.’ And you know what he says?”

  “No,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “He says, ‘Damn right,’ “ Sonny McDonough said. “Isn’t that grand?”

  “A grand story,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “You got to tell it to His Eminence, Des,” Sonny McDonough said.

  Who’ll think I’ve taken leave of my senses, Desmond Spellacy thought. He contemplated his putt. A twelve-footer with a slight break to the right. This was one he wanted to sink. Just to show his killer instinct. The killer instinct was something Sonny Mc-Donough would respect. If Sonny’s going to be a successful chairman of the Building Fund, he’d better learn right now he’s not going to gull me with stories about Frank Leary’s golf game.

  “You’re blocking my view, Sonny. Your shadow’s on the cup.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Des,” Sonny McDonough said. He scurried out of range.

  “Now it’s your dime, Sonny,” Desmond Spellacy said. “Where you marked your ball. The sun’s glinting off it.”

  “I’ll put a penny down, Des.”

  Desmond Spellacy bent over and addressed his ball. “You know Cornelia Cronin, don’t you, Sonny? Corky, they call her.”

  Desmond Spellacy straightened up. The color had drained from Sonny McDonough’s face. Dan T. Campion glanced back and forth between the two men. He’s heard about Sonny and Corky, too, Desmond Spellacy thought. Although he wasn’t surprised. There wasn’t much about deviant behavior that Dan Campion didn’t know.

  “I do indeed, Monsignor,” Sonny McDonough said. So it’s “Monsignor” now, Desmond Spellacy thought. “Why do you ask?”

  “She ran the Altar Society when I was at Saint Basil’s. She used to work for you.”

  “As a bookkeeper, Monsignor.”

  “Then she had an accident.”

  “She broke her back, didn’t she, Sonny?” Dan T. Campion said.

  He’d kill Dan right now if he could get away with it, Desmond Spellacy thought.

  “Something like that,” Sonny McDonough said.

  “You pensioned her off nicely, I hear,” Desmond Spellacy said. “Five hundred dollars a month, I’m told.”

  “For life, Des,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “You better putt, Monsignor,” Sonny McDonough said.

  Desmond Spellacy stroked the ball evenly. It broke to the right a yard from the hole and dipped into the cup. He gave his putter to his caddy and turned his back on Dan Campion and Sonny McDonough. He could hear Dan chortle and knew that Sonny had missed his putt. He turned around just as Sonny putted a second time. The ball rimmed the cup and rolled to a stop a yard away.

  “We’ll give you that one, Sonny, won’t we, Dan?”

  “It’s you that’s giving it to him, Des, not me,” Dan T. Campion said. Giving Sonny the business is what he means, Desmond Spellacy thought. First the stick, now the carrot. He put his arm around Sonny McDonough as they walked to the next tee.

  “That was a Christian thing you did for Corky, the pension,” Desmond Spellacy said. “There’s not many employers would do that.”

  “Thank you, Monsignor.”

  “It’s one of the reasons I told the Cardinal you should be chairman.”

  “You told His Eminence about—”

  “I told His Eminence you were one in a million.”

  “What a grand thing for you to tell His Eminence, Des,” Sonny McDonough said. He seemed ready to collapse with relief. The killer instinct, Desmond Spellacy thought. He patted Sonny on the arm and walked to the next tee. A par-five, 565-yard hole. Desmond Spellacy put his ball on the tee and whacked it down the fairway. His lie was a good forty yards past Sonny and Dan. Plenty of time to be alone. Away from the chatter of the other two. They’d have a lot to talk about. Both wondering how he knew about Corky Cronin. That was one he owed Tommy. For a moment he thought about the girl in the confessional, then put her out of his mind. There were more immediate things to worry about. He knew Sonny was no longer a problem. No fast ones there. Sonny would do as he was told. There would not be much static from Sonny about getting rid of Jack Amsterdam.

  God, I’m sick of Jack, Desmond Spellacy said to himself as he approached his ball. You can’t look around without seeing him getting his hands dirty. He almost wished now that he had not asked Phil Leahy and Devlin Perkins to check up on the Protectors of the Poor. There was only one thing you could say for Jack: his brain was always working. It was not everyone who would know that Monsignor Aguilar was money in the bank. Ruben Aguilar, the pastor at San Conrado’s. Jack’s parish. Seventy-nine years old and an IQ to match. He wondered when it had occurred to Jack just how dumb Ruben Aguilar really was. Probably listening to him preach every Sunday. Imagine getting a priest to front for you. He wondered how Jack first put the bug in Ruben Aguilar’s ear. A charity. A charity for the Mexicans at County General. Candy and rosary beads and someone to talk to them in Spanish. The Anglos won’t do it. The Anglos don’t care about Mexicans. If there was one way to get Ruben Aguilar’s attention, that was it. Anglos not caring about Mexicans. A tax-exempt charity. Just the thing. You head the charity, Monsignor, I’ll get the tax exemption. That was the way Jack operated. The P
rotectors of the Poor. It would take Ruben Aguilar to come up with a name like that. Or Monsignor Amigo, as the newspapers called him. What a shill. All the volunteers were Jack’s people. And the towing companies and ambulance services and body shops and auto-wrecking yards that supplied the Protectors with the names of Mexican accident victims were all paid off by Jack for just that information. In the spirit of Christian charity. And brotherhood.

  Desmond Spellacy cursed himself. I should have known. That’s what rankles. Every time I saw Ruben Aguilar’s picture in the paper shaking hands with the Mexican consul. Monsignor Amigo. I should have known that moron was being had.

  Desmond Spellacy was on the green in three.

  “It’s a terrible thing,” Sonny McDonough said as he and Dan T. Campion came onto the green.

  “Giving them names like that to sell their newspapers,” Dan T. Campion said.

  “The Virgin Tramp,” Sonny McDonough said. He seemed to have recovered from the Corky Cronin conversation. “If you’ll excuse the expression, Des.”

  “It’s the Virgin Mary they should be reading about, not the Virgin Tramp,” Dan T. Campion said. “You never get a chance to read your newspaper these days, you spend so much time hiding it from the little ones.”

  “She worked for the Protectors,” Sonny McDonough said. “You knew that, didn’t you, Des?”

  Desmond Spellacy nodded.

  “The one grand thing the poor girl did was help the poor Mexicans,” Sonny McDonough said. “Giving them jumping beans, which is what they like.”

  “Why don’t you pipe down and let me putt,” Dan T. Campion said. His face was flushed with irritation. “She would’ve made Mary Magdalene blush with shame, that one.”

  Dan T. Campion hunched over his putt and holed out.

  “You’ve got to look for the beauty in everyone is what I always say,” Sonny McDonough said.

  Annoyance still mottled Dan T. Campion’s face. “You never planted anyone wasn’t a grand girl, Sonny.”

  “You sound like a coon, saying planted,” Sonny McDonough said. He would never stand for any aspersions cast on his profession. “I put the poor child in her final resting place is what I did.”

  “If you planted killer Stalin, you’d make him sound like one of them elves which kissed the Blarney Stone,” Dan T. Campion said. “Because his loved ones had the foresight to pick McDonough & McCarthy, the General Motors of the planting industry.”