"Look at my partner dancing with that K-9 weasel!" Dilford said to Cecil Higgins, who was staring into the bottom of his glass as usual. "Doing the twist. Huh! She's twenty-three years old. What does she know about the twist?" Suddenly he yelled, "Dolly, you never even heard of Chubby Checker!"
But Hans just giggled and waved bye-bye at Dilford, and leered down at Dolly while they did the twist.
"I don't really care if there's a brawl," Cecil Higgins said. "Long as they take off their guns. Any shootin starts and somebody's gonna end up in San Quentin with a asshole roomy enough for two Christmas trees, a phone booth, and Shelley Winters."
"That pervert!" Dilford said, and made a quick move as though to stalk over to the three-coffin-sized dance floor and cut in.
The move was too quick. Ludwig was standing at the bar with his big clumsy front feet wrapped around a beer bottle to the delight of the two drunken groupies. Ludwig was trained to be wary of any fast moves toward his partner. Ludwig growled at Dilford. Ludwig sounded like a lion. Dilford got very pale and went back to his barstool.
"Just like the whiny noodle-neck pervert," a very jealous Dilford said of Hans. "Gotta have his big brother with him."
"Dilford, I wouldn't advise ya to push this," Cecil Higgins said. "I jist bet if you so much as spit on Hans, Ludwig would eat you. There'd be nothin left but a shinbone, I bet."
"Has to bring his big brother along when he steals someone's girl, the skinny little pervert," Dilford said.
That woke up Jane Wayne. "Have you lost your mind, Dilford?" she asked. "Dolly's your partner, not your girl! Do you think you own her?"
"I heard that!" the mini-cop said, breaking off from the twisting K-9 cop while old Chubby Checker's voice blared from the jukebox, encouraging everyone to do the twist. "How dare you tell me what to do when we're off duty? How dare you tell me what to do when we're on duty? I'm not on probation anymore, Dilford."
"I don't know why you even wanna dance with Hans," Dilford said, and now he was sounding whiny. "He's a pervert. He looks like he's seen too many steam rooms. Don't you agree, Cecil?"
"Leave me outa this," Cecil Higgins muttered. "I don't wanna get ate by Ludwig."
"He's so perverted he reeks of Mazola oil," Dilford said.
But the skinny K-9 cop wouldn't be provoked. He giggled drunkenly and kissed his groupies and said to Dilford, "Just do unto others as you would do unto yourself. If you were double-jointed."
"He'd sleep with an Egyptian mummy," Dilford said. Then, deciding to make the insults political, he added, "I bet he's a Democrat!"
"At least I can say government," Hans said. "That's more than your Republican President can do. Guv-ment. He can't even say the word."
"You know, I'm sick of people like you thinking you own the female officers," Dolly said to Dilford as she staggered backward.
"Better sit down, Dolly," Cecil Higgins said to the mini-cop. "I don't wanna see a little cop flop."
"You know what it's like being the first full-fledged female officers on patrol in this police department?" Dolly asked boozily.
"You tell em, Dolly," Leery said. A good argument always made them drink more.
"You males are the worst gossips in the world," she continued. "You're expected to score with your female partners. I know you, Dilford. You don't say yes you did, but you don't say no you didn't. You just smile when they ask you about me, and let them draw their own conclusions."
"Want another double, Dolly?" Leery asked. He was leering for all he was worth.
Jane Wayne had had enough to drink to throw in with Dolly. "Yeah, Dilford, how would you like to be out on some assignment in full uniform and you can't take a leak? It's fine for you men. You just run in an alley for a few seconds. We need five minutes to take off our Sam Brownes and uniform pants. We just have to stand around tap dancing till we get a chancel"
It was obvious that Dilford, as drunk as he was, couldn't handle the two-pronged attack of Dolly and Jane Wayne. "Well, you women aren't always nice to us either," he whined. "You know that other bionic bitch that works Hollywood? I heard she went to a Japanese restaurant with her partner and when the sushi chef asked if they wanted giant clam, her partner said, 'No thanks, I got one.' And she popped him across the chops! In full uniform! In front a people!"
"And our makeup," Jane Wayne griped. " 'Don't look like a hooker,' they say."
"Pin up our hair with a dumb barrette like my mother did in grade school!" Dolly said.
"Goddamnit, cops shouldn't wear makeup, and have hair below the collars unless they're sex perverts like Hans!" Dilford sneered. His face was getting red and he couldn't take much more.
"Mahatma Gandhi liked daily enemas from his granddaughter," Hans informed them, sharing a beer with Ludwig. "Nobody called him a pervert."
"We can't wear shorts or tank tops when we're off duty and come in to pick up our checks," Jane Wayne said. "But the male officers can wear anything they damn well please. We can't be comfy like you."
"No shorts up the wa-zoo," Dolly said. "Do you know how many times I've heard that? Look at Jane. Cleavage for days and days. What's she supposed to do, hide them in a bra all the time?"
"I saw Dolly putting on lip gloss and combing her hair when we had a man-with-a-gun radio call!" Dilford said to Leery. "Does that sound professional to you?"
"You know what the department psychiatrist said to me when I was trying to get on the police department?" Dolly asked Hans, who was all ears, cheek-to-cheek with one groupie and Ludwig. "He asked questions like, 'Have you ever had sex before?' I asked him 'Before what?' Do you think the men got asked questions like that?"
"He asked me if I ever wanted to have sex with my sister," Dilford said to Leery, who replied, "Why don't you buy a few drinks and let's talk about it, Dilford."
"You know what else he asked me?" Dolly said. " 'During sexual encounters do you like to throw oranges?' "
"Do you, Dolly?" Hans screamed suddenly, scaring the crap out of both the groupie and Ludwig. "Do you?"
"Do you smoke after sex? I don't know, I never looked," Leery said, but no one laughed.
" ' Have you ever had sex with an animal?' he asked me," Jane Wayne said.
"Did you know The Bad Czech then?" Cecil Higgins wanted to know.
"I'll bet he never asked you such things, Dilford," Dolly said. "You don't know what we women have had to endure to become cops. I really got mad when he said to me 'Do you climax big or little?' "
All of a sudden it got very tense and quiet down at Hans' end of the bar. One groupie was dressed like a bazaar in Istanbul. She wore so many metal bracelets she couldn't lift her drink with one hand. And now that she was blasted she began to side with the female cops. She shot a hostile look at Hans, whose eyes got big and round and scared. He feared the worst. And he got it.
"I happen to know somethin about climaxes," the groupie announced. She turned her fat dumpling face to Hans and said, "I happen to know that some a the male cops act like their dogs."
"Ludwig!" Hans cried out. "It's time to go! Leery, I wanna pay my tab!"
Just getting revved up, the groupie said, "I happen to know that some male cops can't keep it hard long enough to do a girl any good. They have a little P. E. trouble, if ya know what I mean."
"What's P. E. trouble?" Leery asked. It had been a long, long time for Leery.
Then she said it publicly: "Some guys gotta carry two jizz rags, one for their dog and one for ..."
"You big-mouthed cunt!" Hans screamed.
"Whaddaya think, we're married?" the groupie said huffily. "If we was, you'd have to sign a pre-ejaculation agreement. And don't call me a cunt or I'll let a rat crawl in my wa-zoo before you ever see it again!"
So they all knew. Jane Wayne looked sorry for Hans. Leery just leered as usual. Cecil Higgins thought, what the hell, jizzing too soon was better than not jizzing at all. But Dilford's grin was two nightsticks wide.
"Well, no shit!" Dilford said. "Go ahead, Hans, steal some
body else's girl. See how happy you can make her with your P. E. problem."
"I'm your partner, scuzzbag!" Dolly yelled at Dilford. "I'm not your girl friend!"
***
And while the groupie was letting the cat out of the bag to the mortification of the doggie cop, Mario Villalobos was smoking his third cigarette in an all-night ice-cream parlor near Farmer's Market. He was watching Dagmar Duffy putting away a banana split and trying to pull himself together to talk about Russian spies.
"I just love hot chocolate syrup," Dagmar Duffy said, sweating from the tension.
"Uh huh," Mario Villalobos said. "How about wiping it off the end of your nose and let's talk about Missy Moonbeam now."
"Oh Lord!" Dagmar Duffy said, wiping off the syrup. "I was gonna call ya this morning, but I lost my nerve."
"Why?"
Dagmar Duffy shivered so palpably that his blond curls jumped. "I was scared to call ya and scared not to call ya."
"You know who killed Missy. Is that it?"
"I know what" Dagmar Duffy said.
"Yeah, Russian spies," Mario Villalobos sighed. "Wanna cigarette?"
"I don't smoke. It's terrible for the complexion. It ages ya." Dagmar Duffy reflexively fluffed his perm when he said it.
"What's your connection to Missy?"
"Okay," Dagmar Duffy said. He pushed away the empty dish and licked the syrup off his lips, which had just a hint of clear gloss on them. "I knew her because she scored coke from Howard. He's my old boyfriend."
"Go on."
"Well... I don't wanna get Howard in no trouble. He only started selling because he was tooting about a thousand lines a day. I told him he was gonna be a railhead, but he wouldn't listen. I never use drugs myself. I'm thirty-nine years old but you'd never know it, would ya? I'm not from the drug generation."
"Enough with your mid-life crisis," Mario Villalobos said. "I got my own to deal with. Get to the point."
"Then we became friends, Missy and me," Dagmar Duffy said. "I started shining on old Howard because of his flake habit and all. Missy wasn't a dumb girl. She used to read books and listen to good rock 'n roll. I really liked her. Sometimes we'd get together at my place when she wasn't hustling."
"Did she have an old man?"
"A pimp? I don't think. Like, she had to pay money to black guys sometimes just to make them leave her alone and all. She was a lonely kid. Reminded me a my little sister, Missy did."
"Tell me about the Russian spies," Mario Villalobos said.
"Oh Lord!" Dagmar Duffy shushed Mario Villalobos while the waitress removed the ice cream dish and brought fresh coffee. When she'd gone he said, "I don't turn tricks for money. I'm not that kind a person."
"Yeah," Mario Villalobos sighed.
"But this one time, Missy told me she had a special date. Real special. She said the date was all-time important and she could let me have a hundred bucks out a what she was gonna get.
"Yeah, and what did it involve, this special date?"
"He liked to party with two people, man and woman. That's all she'd tell me. It wasn't like her, cause she usually told me everything, we was such good friends. At first I told her no and she goes, 'I'll give ya more money.' Then I asked why it was so important and she said it just was, and she begged me. Finally I did it for the hundred bucks."
"You and Missy did a double?"
uUh huh," Dagmar Duffy said.
"Where? When?"
"About the middle a April. It was a Saturday night. We were in a hotel in downtown L. A. The tall glass one that looks like a pinball machine inside. Or maybe a jukebox."
"I know the one," Mario Villalobos nodded.
"There was lots a foreigners there. All over the lobby. He was a foreigner."
"Who made the contact with this foreigner?"
"I don't know. Missy had some friend who set him up. She never knew the foreigner before we saw him in the lobby. He was sitting near the glass elevators. Missy said he'd be fifty years old and be tall and blondish and be wearing a blue suit and a brown hac with a feather.
She smiled at him and he smiled back, and I smiled at him and he smiled back. He offered to buy us a drink in the bar and we played a little hard to get for a minute. He was easy. We settled on twenty bucks apiece. He was so square he actually thought he picked us both up for forty bucks. Of course, somebody else had set it up and paid the real freight."
"What did he call himself?"
"Edwin. We had one drink and went to his room and turned the trick."
"Did he speak English?"
"Oh yeah, but with an accent."
"What country was he from?"
"Dutch is what I thought. He had blue eyes and milky skin. He was nice but I didn't dig it, turning tricks for money like that. I'm not a whore. When I can get a job, I'm a great housekeeper. You know anybody needs a macho maid, gimme a call."
"I'm sort of fond of my clutter and dust," the detective said. "How about any special instructions Missy gave you before the date?"
"Well, the sex was normal. I mean normal for us, you understand, but there was a scary part. It makes me scared when I think about it. We weren't really alone with him."
"Whadda you mean?"
"I'm not dumb. I mean I'm not smart, but I'm not dumb. I could see what Missy was doing. The way she turned in bed. The way she made him turn when we were on the bed. The way she said things and made him talk."
"What was she doing?"
"We were making a movie! Or at least we were posing for still shots. Maybe a tape recording. Like that. There was somebody there. Maybe in the closet, I don't know. Maybe in the other room, shooting pictures through a wall. I don't know how they do those things. But I know somebody was getting us down."
"Did the john guess?"
"He was totally square," Dagmar Duffy said, shaking his head. "He was drunk and into what he was doing. We made him crazy, Missy and me." Dagmar DufTy looked as though he wanted to take a bow. "When it was over, he thanked us and gave us each a ten-dollar tip. He was a real gentleman, drunk or not."
"That was a month ago. Did you see Missy after that?"
"A few times."
"Did she ever talk about that date?"
"Sort of. I mean, she said how much she appreciated me helping her. And that pretty soon she'd make it up to me and pretty soon she'd be off the streets. Poor Missy, she was doing coke like crazy at a hundred and fifty a gram. I knew she wouldn't be off the streets. Ever. Anyways, I knew what she meant."
"Extortion?"
"Whadda^OM think? I feel bad about it. He seemed like such a nice man."
"Now let's get on to the Russian spies," Mario Villalobos said.
"Oh Lord!" Dagmar Duffy said. "Well, the week before she went off the roof I seen her a couple times. Once was in her apartment. She was real excited, looking at magazines. One was Time or Newsweek, but it was from last year. It was open to a picture of the Russian sub that got caught by Sweden. Then I saw this other magazine that didn't look familiar. It had pictures of scientists in white coats doing experiments and things. I go, 'Whatcha reading?' She surprises the shit outa me by going, 'Dagmar, can you believe I'm gonna make a lotta money and get off the streets?' I go, 'Sure and I'm gonna be straight and start dating waitresses.' She goes, 'No lie. The Russians're doing it for me.' Then she goes, lMy boyfriend's a Russian agent.' Then she blows a rail or two of coke and starts laughing like a maniac and she wouldn't say no more."
"That's it?"
"Don't ya see? We turned a trick with this guy. At first I thought he was Dutch, but I bet he was a Russian! Maybe he was a famous Russian scientist and the KGB was involved!" "KGB."
"Yeah! And the KGB took pictures of us and they're now telling him he can't deflect."
"Defect."
"Yeah! And the KGB decides to get rid a Missy!"
"Why?"
"Cause Missy contacted the Russians and said she's gonna tell!"
"This isn't making much sense, Dagmar."
&
nbsp; "Well I haven't worked it all out," Dagmar Duffy said. "Anyways, I'm next! I was in that room too!"
It was hard for Mario Villalobos not to sigh and roll his eyes. But it was easy to ask himself what the hell he was doing here. Russians? Fruitcake and caviar?
"Tell me, Dagmar, did Missy ever mention a friend of hers in Pasadena? An older guy named Lester? A private investigator?"
"Come to think, she knew an old geezer in Pasadena. I don't know his name, but he called the same day she was looking at the Russian's picture. She never said who he was, but after she hung up she goes, 'That's a friend a mine from Pasadena.' I go, 'Keepin the good stuff for yourself?' She goes, 'He only likes girls. And besides, he's too old to interest you.' Old guy in Pasadena! Is he connected with this?"
"No, he's dead," Mario Villalobos said.
"Dead? They got him too? Oh Lord!"
"Heart attack," Mario Villalobos said. "Try to calm down, Dagmar, and tell me, do you know anything about Missy having a stolen or borrowed credit card belonging to a man named Lester?"
"No," he said. "No credit card. Well..
"Puh-leese, Dagmar!" Mario Villalobos said, and this time he did show the whites of his eyes.
Dagmar Duffy said, "I mean, okay, like she was a coke freak, she was a hooker. Sometimes she lifted guys' wallets when she tricked with them. She talked about it, about how risky it was, but how it gave her a rush to do it. Like coke, she said. Trick with a guy and lift his wallet and run outa the motel. Crazy girl."
"And about the credit card?"
"Sometimes she'd take me out to dinner. We'd get dressed up real nice and she'd... I can't get in trouble, can I? I never did it."
"I'm only interested in murder."
"Sometimes she'd use a hot credit card and pay for the meal. She looked like a lady when she dressed up. She talked very nice. Her husband's card, she'd say. We did it a few times, no problem."
Mario Villalobos took Lester Beemer's credit card from his pocket. "Did you ever see this card?"
the Delta Star (1983) Page 17