the Delta Star (1983)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  "Did he always ask the same thing?"

  "Not the last time. Then he said it was real important because her mother was dyin and he was her brother."

  "Ever see him before last week?"

  "Never did," she said. "He wasn't no on-time guy. No kinda street guy. Had a dark stripe suit on and a necktie."

  "See him on Saturday?"

  "Last time was Friday afternoon."

  "Did you tell him where Missy lived?"

  "I never told him nothin. I never be knowin where she lived, matter a fact."

  "Did any of the girls on Western know where she lived?"

  "Prob'ly not. They mighta told him which corner she worked. If they believed him about havin money for her. I never did believe him. I thought about callin you when I heard she went off that roof. He coulda followed her home or somethin. I didn't like his looks. Wearin dark shades you couldn't see through. Him and his phony moustache."

  "How did you know it was phony?"

  "Not many guys have a moustache that thick. I done a little work as a screen extra."

  "Hooray for Hollywood," Mario Villalobos said. "Did his hair look real?"

  "Couldn't tell. He wore a cap like you wear in a sports car. Not a pimp hat. That's why he looked so off-time. Probably a sicko-psycho that tricked with her a few times. Maybe wanted to go home and stick needles through her eyelids but didn't know where she lived. I picked up a guy like that once."

  "Do you know anyone who was a good friend of Missy?"

  "No ... well, yeah, but none a the real girls. There was this sissy, name a . .. name a ... le's see ... Dagwood, I think it was. Yeah, name a Dagwood. I seen Missy once or twice when she was workin over around Sunset and La Brea with this sissy name a Dagwood. Little teeny sissy with gold hair. Looks enough like a girl to be a queen, but wears guy's clothes, least when I saw him."

  "Know where I can find the sissy?" Mario Villalobos asked.

  "They got a few sissy bars not too far from there," the hooker shrugged. "I think I better be goin now. I ain't made no money all day."

  "Okay, here's my card," Mario Villalobos said.

  "I hope you catch him," she said. "Don't like them freaks that throw girls off roofs. Hard enough in this world tryin to make a honest dollar without some freak throwin you off roofs."

  "If you change your mind about making a report against the pimp, give us a call on that," Mario Villalobos said. "You shouldn't have to put up with some dude using you for an ashtray."

  "Well, he on'y be's mean to me when I'm bad," she said. "When I'm good, the man's full a love!"

  Mario Villalobos nodded and opened the car door for the woman. He understood that even hookers need a little soap opera in their lives.

  There was something nagging at Mario Villalobos. It was one of those relentless little aches that wouldn't take shape and wouldn't go away. There was something that was said to him yesterday, either by Lester Beemer's landlady or his secretary or the mortician who burned Lester Beemer and shoveled him into an urn. Something that didn't check.

  When he looked at his watch to see if it was time to be hungry, it hit him. It was time to be hungry, but first he had to make a call or two.

  "I just wanted to make sure I read your inventory correctly," Mario Villalobos said to the mortician on the other end of the phone. "You released keys and wallet and a little money to his sister, and that was it?"

  "Yes," the mortician said.

  "Was he wearing a wristwatch? His secretary said that he wore an old Timex."

  "No, no wristwatch."

  Next, Mario Villalobos made his first contact with the Pasadena policeman who responded to the call that night in the no-tell motel. He reached the cop at home.

  "When I saw that pacemaker identification bracelet I called the doctor, who called the undertaker," the cop told him.

  "Was Lester Beemer wearing a wristwatch?" Mario Villalobos asked.

  "No, no wristwatch that I recall," the cop said. "You might ask the undertaker."

  After Mario Villalobos hung up he lit his seventeenth cigarette of the day, reminded himself that he had to cut down, and thought it over. Then he called Mabel Murphy.

  "When you helped Lester's sister retrieve the personal effects from the office and his apartment, did you find his Timex?"

  "How did you know he wore a Timex?" she asked.

  "You mentioned it yesterday in passing," Mario Villalobos said.

  "Wasn't he wearing it when he died?" she asked.

  "No, he wasn't."

  "He always wore it," she said. "Bought a new Timex every couple years. He was a clock watcher. Very punctual."

  "Did you find any claim checks in his personal effects? Maybe he had the watch at a jeweler's for cleaning or repair?"

  "No," she said. "And anyway, he never bothered. That's why he didn't buy expensive watches. When the Timex stopped ticking, he'd run down and buy a new one. He was the same way about neckties. When they got too stained and sloppy, he threw them in the trash can and bought a new one."

  When Mario Villalobos hung up he lit a new cigarette, forgetting he already had one cooking. Not only was Lester Beemer missing a credit card at the time of his death, but a worthless wristwatch as well. He wished they hadn't cremated the body.

  He knew what would happen if he called Pasadena detectives at this juncture to suggest that maybe they had a whodunit homicide on their hands. They'd say thanks and politely kiss him off. He'd do the same in their shoes. A wristwatch that may have been lost or put in a jeweler's somewhere? A credit card that could have been left anywhere at any time by the old private eye when he was out romancing whores in downtown L. A.? The Pasadena detectives would suggest that if Lester Beemer had some connection with Missy Moonbeam, and was linked to her death, that was Mario Villalobos' problem. The little child of the science god in Lester Beemer's chest had just kicked off because he had his three hundredth whore of the year in a motel room and got all excited. Any other problem was not their problem.

  After a futile check of the monicker file for a little swish named Dagwood, he decided to try to find him.

  "Hey, Charlie," he said to the black detective lieutenant who was reading the sports page and eating an egg salad sandwich, "I'm going out barhopping tonight."

  "And here I thought you never took a drink," the lieutenant said without looking up.

  "Just thought I'd tell you in case the Hollywood vice squad recognizes me. I'll be looking in some Hollywood gay bars for some swish named Dagwood. Thought I'd better tell you in case you hear about it and worry that I'm turning gay."

  "I don't care anything about your sex life," the lieutenant said, absorbed in the sports page. "Long as you don't wear dresses to work."

  Chapter NINE

  FRUITCAKE AND CAVIAR

  Mario villalobos didn't bother to alter his appearance. This wasn't an undercover operation, and in any case he was the last person anyone would choose for an undercover assignment. He stood before the mirror and realized that in just eight days he'd be forty-two years old. Middle age wasn't that bad. No worse than herpes or tuberculosis. His mind occasionally tried to persuade him that he was thirty-two. His body, already sagging and out of shape, felt every one of the forty-two years. The face he saw in the mirror frightened him a bit. The hair was almost totally gray and he was losing plenty of it. The eyes were beginning to pouch, the mouth had deep lines on either side, and he could feel a pinch of loose insensitive flesh between his chin and Adam's apple. He looked down at the sink. He counted seventeen hairs lying there dead.

  What he was experiencing, of course, made him want to cry for the many failures in his life. Especially for the two marriages and the two sons who were strangers. One son only ignored him, but the other actually despised him. His son Alec was the kind of boy who despised many things, mostly himself. He was a rather unattractive kid, puny and anemic, who in adolescence became addicted to drugs and had to be committed to a hospital at the insistence of Mario Villalobos over
the objections of his wife. It was the final and most destructive blow to their bad marriage.

  The detective learned one thing during the two months his son was in that hospital. First of all, he learned that a cop didn't earn enough money to pay for the hospitalization of an emotionally disturbed child. Secondly, he learned that his son despised and hated himself so much that he needed to despise and hate someone else in order to function.

  Mario Villalobos, the symbol of authority for young Alec, the one who committed him to the hospital over the objections of the boy's mother, was the natural object of the boy's hatred. And Mario Villalobos also learned that being the natural object of his son's hatred was the most unnatural experience of his own lifetime.

  He took upon himself a terrible responsibility after the divorce. Insofar as possible he continued to make the decisions, all of which his son hated. Insofar as possible he monitored the boy for surreptitious drug use which his son hated even more. Insofar as possible he insisted that his ex-wife continue the boy in psychotherapy, and this the boy hated most of all.

  Mario Villalobos believed that by being hated he was committing the greatest act of love possible.

  The detective breathed a weary sigh and decided that the man in the mirror looked ten years older than his chronological age. He didn't bother to change his suit or take off the necktie. The man in the mirror would be recognized as a cop no matter how he dressed, and in any case he wasn't trying to fool anyone. There was one great advantage to working homicide: people involved in minor vices or even major vices, people who functioned in a subculture, were generally unafraid of homicide investigators, since premeditated murder was usually not in their repertoire.

  An ironic thing happened that night. He looked so much like a cop that the people in the gay bars did not think he could be a cop. A young hustler sat next to him within his first five minutes in Hercules' Heaven and asked him if he was looking for a date.

  "I'm looking for someone named Dagwood," the detective said.

  "Won't Blondie do?" the young man winked. "Or how about Daisy?"

  "Not tonight," Mario Villalobos said. "Do you know Dagwood?"

  "I know Elwood," the hustler said. "We can do a double if you like. You and me and Elwood?"

  By ten-thirty he had drunk at least one drink in each of five gay bars. This one was called The Peanut. At least it had entertainment. A pretty good trio banged out some cool jazz and a male vocalist sang "I Only Have Eyes for You," which the detective enjoyed. By his estimate he had seen eighteen slender blond men, about five feet three inches in height, between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, who were potential "Dagwoods."

  He had tried it every way possible. From "Hi, Dagwood," to "I'm scouting this location for a movie and could use some extras. Can I have your name?"

  Just as he was about to leave The Peanut, the drummer played a roll and a spotlight illuminated the tiny dance floor where two gay couples were slow dancing. The couples cleared the floor and the piano player announced Miss Connie Cream-puffs.

  Connie Creampuffs wore ballet slippers and a pink tutu. Connie Creampuffs also wore a pink punk wig, a Wonder Woman headband, a padded pink bra, and a pink ribbon that dangled from under the tutu. Connie CreampufTs was a man, which was to be expected. But what was unexpected was that Connie Creampuffs, who stood only five-feet five-inches tall, weighed at least four hundred pounds.

  "You want another?" the butch bartender said to Mario Villalobos, who watched Connie Creampuffs doing a burlesque bump while the crowd hooted and whistled.

  "I can't leave now," the detective said, paying for another double shot of vodka. This was a show.

  Connie Creampuffs had a Kewpie red mouth and eyelashes that extended past his nose. His belly, legs and back were particularly hairy. He moved with surprising grace and Mario Villalobos had to revise his guess. He believed that Connie Creampuffs weighed at least 425 pounds.

  It was when Mario Villalobos was starting to decide that the "entertainment" at The House of Misery was pretty tame that Connie Creampuffs showed the howling crowd where the pink ribbon went. He dropped the tutu and everyone went mad. There were flaps and folds and rolls of flesh, but there was one particular mass of white hairy belly flesh that hung like a loincloth over the pubis of Connie Creampuffs. Each time the drummer would clash the cymbals, sweating Connie Creampuffs would grab that particular fold of flesh with two hands and show them the pink ribbon obviously tied to his genitals. Genitals that might never be seen by Connie Creampuffs without a mirror and could not be seen by anyone else, so deep within the tucks of flesh were they hidden.

  In order to flash the crowd, this stripper didn't lift a dress, a skirt, or a spangle. This stripper had to lift his belly. With two hands, the way one would raise a lead-lined loincloth.

  ***

  Things were pretty dull at The House of Misery that night what with the absence of Rumpled Ronald, who was home nursing his cracked ribs. And especially without the presence of the town crier in blue.

  "Where the hell's The Bad Czech?" Cecil Higgins was getting worried.

  "Maybe he did decide to firebomb the TV station," Dilford said, putting down his third double. "You think he's getting even loonier than usual these days, Cecil?"

  "Well, he does sort a make me wanna bring bail money every time we hit the bricks in the morning," Cecil Higgins admitted.

  "Why do you wanna work with the maniac?" Leery asked Cecil Higgins, leering at the pile of dollar bills that Dilford had in front of him.

  "I might regret it someday," Cecil Higgins said. "When I'm sittin in a prison cell needin all the astro turf in Houston to wipe my ass with. But ya know what? He never does bore me. Ain't nothin worse than bein bored."

  "There's worse things," Dolly said.

  "Everybody looks as cheerful as Bjorn Borg, for chrissake," Dilford said. "What's wrong with everybody?"

  "The Czech isn't here," Jane Wayne said. "Mario isn't here. Ronald's hurt. And Sunney Kee, well, they say some neurological damage, maybe."

  "I could get more belly laughs from the Ayatollah Khomeini," Dilford said miserably.

  There were two Rampart cops sitting at the end of the bar in the place usually occupied by Hans and Ludwig during later hours.

  "Hey, Leech," Dilford said to the younger one. uIs it true you're the one that sent out the APB teletype about the Japanese tourist group that got robbed?"

  "Yeah," the young cop said. "And Too-Tired Loomis threatened me with two days' suspension just cause it said, 'Victims unable to describe suspect, but got three hundred pictures of him.' Something about cultural stereotypes, Loomis said."

  "Two days. That ain't bad for a lightweight joke," Cecil Higgins said. "That's a low bail schedule."

  "Where the hell is the Czech?" Jane Wayne wanted to know. "If he doesn't come soon, you can put my drink in a boozer bag, Leery, and I'll take it with me."

  ***

  Meanwhile, Mario Villalobos could think of only two gay bars he hadn't tried. Tomorrow he was going to call the Hollywood watch commander to ask if any of the night watch knew of a pansy named Dagwood. He tossed down the vodka and decided he'd had enough to drink.

  "Hi, Dagmar," the bartender said to the little man with a bleached blond perm who was perched on the first stool at the bar. "Didn't see you come in. What'll you have?"

  Dagmar Duffy's heart began to beat faster when he saw the masculine gray-haired guy in the suit shooting him a smile of recognition as wide as Connie Creampuff's tutu.

  Dagmar Duffy returned the smile and could hardly believe his good fortune. This guy liked him. This guy couldn't take his eyes off him. This guy came over to him as soon as Dagmar said to the bartender, "I'll have a scorpion, Waldo. And mix me up lots of ice cubes in your jolly blender!"

  The man in the suit sat beside Dagmar Duffy, who batted his lashes and wondered if he should play hard to get.

  "I've been looking for you all night, Dagmar," Mario Villalobos said. "Actually, I thought I was lookin
g for Dagwood."

  "Pardon me?" Dagmar Duffy said, wondering if the guy in the suit had a nice ass.

  "I'd know your voice anywhere, Dagmar," the man in the suit said.

  "I don't understand," Dagmar Duffy cried happily, shaking his golden perm. "But I don't care if I don't understand!" This was his night. Dagmar Duffy was so happy he could have laughed.

  Five minutes later, Dagmar Duffy was so miserable he could have cried. He was walking down the sidewalk with Mario Villalobos and shaking like the ice cubes in Waldo's jolly blender.

  "You got the wrong person!" Dagmar Duffy cried.

  "I'd know your voice anywhere," Mario Villalobos said.

  "Oh Lord! Are you arresting me? I haven't done nothing!"

  "We're just gonna talk, Dagmar," Mario Villalobos said.

  "Oh Lord!" Dagmar Duffy cried. He wrapped his arms around his bare shoulders and goosebumps formed on his bare thighs.

  Mario Villalobos looked at the olive drab tank top and khaki shorts and said, "You oughtta dress warmer when you go out at night."

  "I'm not cold!" Dagmar Duffy cried. "I'm scared! Where we going?"

  "Anywhere we can talk," Mario Villalobos said. "Would you feel okay talking in my office?"

  "Oh Lord!" Dagmar Duffy ran his hands nervously through his perm, and plucked anxiously at the single amethyst stud he wore in his left ear. "Don't take me to a police station!"

  "If you don't calm down you're gonna start hyperventilating again," Mario Villalobos said. "Now let's hear what you know about Missy Moonbeam."

  "Can we get some ice cream?" Dagmar Duffy asked. "My stomach's a mess."

  "I'll be glad to buy you an ice cream, Dagmar," the detective said. "But I hope that doesn't mean we're going steady."

  ***

  Things were getting tense at The House of Misery. Hans and Ludwig showed up drunk. Dilford was half blitzed and Dolly was bagged. Hans was making a move on Dolly, who was too drunk to be sickened by his singsong little double entendres which usually made her want to puke. Two groupies from Chinatown were getting jealous because Hans was making the move on Dolly. Hans and Dolly had already danced twice and were giggling all over the dance floor. And on top of everything else, Dilford was getting insanely jealous of Dolly and Hans.