by James Ellroy
One little eye flicker--not quite a hink. "You get your kicks that way? You and Billy take skit like that to bed with you?"
No flinch. "Don't be vile, Jack. It's not your style, but be nice. Remember what I am to Billy, remember what Billy is to the show that gives you the celebrity you grovel for. Remember who Billy knows."
Jack moved extra slow: the smut mags and face sheets to a chair, a lamp pulled over for some light. "Look at those pictures. If you recognize anybody, tell me. That's all I want."
Valburn roiled his eyes, looked. The face sheets first: quizzical, curious. On to the costume skin books--nonchalant, a queer sophisticate. Jack stuck close, eyes on his eyes.
The orgy book last. Timmy saw inked-on blood and kept looking; Jack saw a neck vein working overtime.
Valburn shrugged. "No, I'm sorry."
A tough read--a skilled actor. "You didn't recognize anybody?"
"No, I didn't."
"But you did recognize Bobby."
"Of course, because I know him."
"But nobody else?"
"Jack, really."
"Nobody familiar? Nobody you've seen at the bars your type goes to?"
"_My type?_ Jack, haven't you been sucking around the Industry long enough to call a spade a spade and still be nice about it?"
Let it pass. "Timmy, you keep your thoughts hidden. Maybe you've been playing Moochie Mouse too long."
"What kind of thoughts are you looking for? I'm an actor, so give me a cue."
"Not thoughts, _reactions_. You didn't blink an eye at some of the strangest stuff I've seen in fifteen years as a cop. Arty-fatty red ink shooting out of a dozen people fucking and sucking. Is that everyday stuff to you?"
An elegant shrug. "Jack, I'm _très_ Hollywood. I dress up as a rodent to entertain children. Nothing in this town surprises me."
"I'm not sure I buy that."
"I'm telling you the truth. I don't know any of the people in those pictures, and I haven't seen those magazines before."
"People of your type know people who know people. You know Bobby Inge, and he was in those pictures. I want to see your little black book."
Timmy said, "No."
Jack said, "Yes, or I give _Hush-Hush_ a little item on you and Billy Dieterling as soul sisters. _Badge of Honor_, the _Dream-a-Dream Hour_ and queers. You like that for a three-horse parlay?"
Timmy smiled. "Max Peltz would fire you for that. He wants you to be nice. _So be nice_."
"You carry your book with you?"
"No, I don't. Jack, remember who Billy's father is. Remember all the money you can make in the Industry after you retire."
Pissed now, almost seeing red. "Hand me your wallet. Do it or I'll lose my temper and put you up against the wall." Valburn shrugged, pulled out a billfold. Jack glommed what he wanted: calling cards, names and numbers on paper scraps. "I want those returned."
Jack handed the wallet back light. "Sure, Timmy."
"You are going to fuck up very auspiciously one day, Jack. Do you know that?"
"I already have, and I made money on the deal. Remember that if you decide to rat me to Max."
Valburn walked out--elegant.
o o o
Fruit-bar pickings: first names, phone numbers. One card looked familiar: "Fleur-de-Lis. Twenty-four Hours a Day-- Whatever You Desire. HO-01239." No writing on the back-- Jack racked his brain, couldn't make a connection.
New plan: call the numbers, impersonate Bobby Inge, drop lines about stag books--see who bit. Stick at the pad, see who called or showed up: long-shot stuff.
Jack called "Ted--DU-6831"--busy signal; "Geoff--CR-9640"--no bite on a lisping "Hi, it's Bobby Inge." "Bing--AX-6005"--no answer; back to "Ted"--"Bobby who? I'm sorry, but I don't think I know you." "Jim," "Nat," "Otto": no answers; he still couldn't make the odd card. Last-ditch stuff: buzz the cop line at Pacific Coast Bell.
Ring, ring. "Miss Sutherland speaking."
"This is Sergeant Vincennes, LAPD. I need a name and address on a phone number."
"Don't you have a reverse directory, Sergeant?"
"I'm in a phone booth, and the number I want checked is Hollywood 01239."
"Very well. Please hold the line."
Jack held; the woman came back on. "No such number is assigned. Bell is just beginning to assign five-digit numbers, and that one has not been assigned. Franldy, it may never be, the changeover is going so slow."
"You're sure about this?"
"Of course I'm sure."
Jack hung up. First thoughts: bootleg line. Bookies had them--bent guys at P.C. Bell rigged the lines, kept the numbers from being assigned. Free phone service, no way police agencies could subpoena records, no make on incoming calls.
A reflex call: The DMV police line.
"Yes? Who's requesting?"
"Sergeant Vincennes, LAPD. Address only on a Timothy V-A-L-B-U-R-N, white male, mid to late twenties. I think he lives in the Wilshire District."
"I copy. Please hold."
Jack held; the clerk returned. "Wilshire it is. 432 South Lucerne. Say, isn't Valburn that mouse guy on the Dieterling show?"
"Yeah."
"Well . . . uh . . . what are you after him for?"
"Possession of contraband cheese."
o o o
Chez Mouse: an old French Provincial with new money accoutrements--floodlights, topiary bushes--Moochie, the rest of the Dieterling flock. Two cars in the driveway: the ragtop prowling Hamel, Billy Dieterling's Packard Caribbean--a fixture on the _Badge of Honor_ lot.
Jack staked the pad spooked: the queers were too well connected to burn, his smut job stood dead-ended--"Whatever You Desire" some kind of dead-end tangent. He could level with Timmy and Billy, shake them down, squeeze their contacts: people who knew people who knew Bobby Inge--who knew who made the shit. He kept the radio tuned in low; a string of love songs helped him pin things down.
He wanted to track the filth because part of him wondered how something could be so ugly and so beautiful and part of him plain jazzed on it.
He got itchy, anxious to move. A throaty soprano pushed him out of the car.
Up the driveway, skirting the floodlights. Windows: closed, uncurtained. He looked in.
Moochie Mouse gimcracks in force, no Timmy and Billy. Bingo through the last window: the lovebirds in a panicky spat.
An ear to the glass--all he got was mumbles. A car door slammed; door chimes ting-tinged. A look-see in--Billy walking toward the front of the house.
Jack kept watching. Timmy pranced hands-on-hips; Billy brought a big muscle guy back. Muscles forked over goodies: pill vials, a glassine bag full of weed. Jack sprinted for the street. A Buick sedan at the curb-mud on the front and back plates. Locked doors--kick glass or go home empty.
Jack kicked out the driver's-side window. Glass on his front seat booty--a single brown paper bag.
He grabbed it, ran to his car.
Valburn's door opened.
Jack peeled rubber-east on 5th, zigzags down to Western and a big bright parking lot. He ripped the bag open.
Absinthe--190 proof on the label, viscous green liquid.
Hashish.
Black-and-white glossies: women in opera masks blowing horses.
"Whatever You Desire."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Parker said, "Ed, you were brilliant the other day. I disapprove of Officer White's intrusion, but I can't complain with the results. I need smart men like you, and . . . direct men like Bud. And I want both of you on the Nite Owl job."
"Sir, I don't think White and I can work together."
"You won't have to. Dudley Smith's heading up the investigation, and White will report directly to him. Two other men, Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle, will work with White--however Dudley wants to play it. The Hollywood squad will be in on the job, reporting to Lieutenant Reddin, who'll report to Dudley. We've got divisional contacts assigned, and every man in the Bureau is caffing in informant favors. Chief Green says Russ Millard
wants to be detached from Ad Vice to run the show with Dud, so that's a possibility. That makes twenty-four full-time officers."
"What specifically do I do?"
Parker pointed to a case graph on an easel. "One, we have not found the shotguns or Coates' car, and until that girl those thugs assaulted clears them on the time element we have to assume that they are still our prime suspects. Since White's little escapade they've refused to talk, and they've been booked on kidnap and rape charges. I think--"
"Sir, I'd be glad to have another try at them."
"Let me finish. Two, we still have no IDs on the other three victims. Doc Layman's working overtime on that, and we're logging in four hundred calls a day from people worried about missing loved ones. There's an outside chance that this might be more than just a set of robbery killings, and if that proves to be the case I want you on that end of things. As of now, you're liaison to SID, the D.A.'s Office and the divisional contacts. I want you to go over every field report every day, assess them and share your thoughts with me personally. I want daily written summaries, copies to Chief Green and myself."
Ed tried not to smile--the stitches in his chin helped. "Sir, some thoughts before we continue?"
Parker leaned his chair back. "Of course."
Ed ticked points. "One, what about searching for comparable shell samples in Griffith Park? Two, if the girl clears our suspects on the time element, what was that purple car doing across from the Nite Owl? Three, how likely are we to turn the guns and the car? Four, the suspects said they took the girl to a building on Dunkirk first. What kind of evidence did we get there?"
"Good points. But one, shell samples to compare is a long shot. With breech-load weapons the rounds might have expelled back into the car those punks were driving, the actual locations listed in the crime reports were vague, Griffith Park is all hillsides, we've had rain and mudslides over the past two weeks and that park ranger has waffled on ID'ing the three in custody. Two, the news vendor who ID'd the car by the Nite Owl says now that maybe it was a Ford or a Chevy, so our registration checks are now a nightmare. If you're thinking the car was placed there as a plant, I think that's nonsense--how would anyone know _to_ plant it there? Three, the 77th Street squad is tearing up the goddamn southside for the car and the guns, muscling K.A.'s, the megillah. And four, there was blood and semen all over a mattress in that building on Dunkirk."
Ed said, "It all comes back to the girl."
Parker picked up a report form. "Inez Soto, age twenty-one. A college student. She's at Queen of Angels, and she just came out of sedation this morning."
"Has anyone spoken to her?"
"Bud White went with her to the hospital. Nobody's talked to her in thirty-six hours, and I don't envy you the task."
"Sir, can I do this alone?"
"No. Ellis Loew wants to prosecute our boys for Little Lindbergh--kidnapping and rape. He wants them in the gas chamber for that, the Nite Owl, or both. And he wants a D.A.'s investigator and a woman officer present. You're to meet Bob Gallaudet and a Sheriff's matron at Queen of Angels in an hour. I don't have to mention that the course of this investigation will be determined by what our Miss Soto tells you."
Ed stood up. Parker said, "Off the record, do you make the coloreds for the job?"
"Sir, I'm not sure."
"You cleared them temporarily. Did you think I'd be angry with you for that?"
"Sir, we both want absolute justice. And you like me too much."
Parker smiled. "Edmund, don't dwell on what White did the other day. You're worth a dozen of him. He's killed three men line of duty, but that's nothing compared to what you did in the war. Remember that."
o o o
Gallaudet met him outside the girl's room. The hall reeked of disinfectant--familiar, his mother died one floor down. "Hello, Sergeant."
"It's Bob, and Ellis Loew sends his thanks. He was afraid the suspects would get beaten to death and he wouldn't get to prosecute."
Ed laughed. "They might be cleared on the Nite Owl."
"I don't care, and neither does Loew. Little Lindbergh with rape carries the death penalty. Loew wants those guys in the ground, so do I, so will you once you talk to the girl. So here's the sixty-four-dollar question. Did they do it?"
Ed shook his head. "Based on their reactions, I'd lean against it. But Fontaine said they drove the girl around. 'Sold her out' was the phrase he reacted to. I think it could have been Sugar Coates and a little pickup gang, maybe two of the guys they sold her to. None of the three had money on them when they were arrested, and either way--Nite Owl or gang rape--I think that money is stashed somewhere, covered with blood--like the bloody clothes Coates burned."
Gallaudet whistled. "So we need the girl's word on the time element _and_ IDs on the other rapers."
"Right. _And_ our suspects are clammed, _and_ Bud White killed the one witness who could have helped us."
"That guy White's a pisser, isn't he? Don't look so spooked, being scared of him means you're sane. Now come on, let's talk to the young lady."
They walked into the room. A Sheriff's matron blocked the bed--tall, fat, short hair waxed straight back. Gallaudet said, "Ed Exley, Dot Rothstein." The woman nodded, stepped aside.
Inez Soto.
Black eyes, her face cut and bruised. Dark hair shaved to the forehead, sutures. Tubes in her arms, tubes under the sheets. Cut knuckles, split nails--she fought. Ed saw his mother: bald, sixty pounds in an iron lung.
Gallaudet said, "Miss Soto, this is Sergeant Exley."
Ed leaned on the bed rail. "I'm sorry we couldn't have given you more time to recuperate, and I'll try to make this as brief as possible."
Inez Soto stared at him--dark eyes, bloodshot. A raspy voice: "I won't look at any more pictures."
Gallaudet: "Miss Soto identified Coates, Fontaine and Jones from mugshots. I told her we might need her to look at some mugshots for IDs on the other men."
Ed shook his head. "That won't be necessary right now. Right now, Miss Soto, I need you to try to remember a chronology of the events that happened to you two nights ago. We can do this very slowly, and for now we won't need details. When you're more rested, we can go over it again. Please take your time and start when the three men kidnapped you."
Inez pushed up on her pillows. "They weren't men!"
Ed gripped the rail. "I know. And they're going to be punished for what they did to you. But before we can do that we need to eliminate or confirm them as suspects on another crime."
"I want them dead! I heard the radio! _I want them dead for that!_"
"We can't do that, because then the other ones who hurt you will go free. We have to do this correctly."
A hoarse whisper. "Correctly means six white people are more important than a Mexican girl from Boyle Heights. Those animals ripped me up and did their business in my mouth. They stuck guns in me. My family thinks I brought it on myself because I didn't marry a stupid _cholo_ when I was sixteen. I will tell you nothing, _cabrón_."
Gallaudet: "Miss Soto, Sergeant Exley saved your life."
"He ruined my life! Officer White said he cleared the _negritos_ on a murder charge! Officer White's the hero--he killed the _puto_ who took me up my ass!"
Inez sobbed. Gallaudet gave the cut-off sign. Ed walked down to the gift shop--familiar, his deathwatch. Flowers for 875: fat cheerful bouquets every day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bud came on duty early, found a memo on his desk.
4/19/53
Lad--
Paperwork is not your forte, but I need you to run records checks (two) for me. (Dr. Layman has identified the three patron victims.) Use the standard procedure I've taught you and first check bulletin 11 on the squadroom board: it updates the overall status of the case and details the duties of the other investigating officers, which will prevent you frow doing gratuitous and extraneous tasks.
1. Susan Nancy Lefferts, W.F., DOB 1/29/22, no criminal record. A San Bernardino native recently
arrived in Los Angeles. Worked as a salesgirl at Bullock's Wilshire (background check assigned to Sgt. Exley).
2. Delbert Melvin Cathcart, a.k.a. "Duke," W.M., DOB 11/14/14. Two statutory rape convictions, served three years at San Quentin. Three procuring arrests, no convictions. (A tough ID: laundry markings and the body cross-checked against prison measurement charts got us our match.) No known place of employment, last known address 9819 Vendome, Silverlake District.
3. Malcolm Robert Lunceford, a.k.a. "Mal," W.M., DOB 6/02/12. No last known address, worked as a security guard at the Mighty Man Agency, 1680 North Cahuenga. Former LAPD officer (patrolman), assigned to Hollywood Division throughout most of his eleven-year career. Fired for incompetence 6/5 0. Known to be a late night habitué of the Nite Owl. I've checked Lunceford's personnel file and concluded that the man was a disgraceful police officer (straight "D" fitness reports from every C. O.). You check whatever paperwork exists on him at Hollywood Station (Breuning and Carlisle will be there to shag errands for you).
Summation: I still think the Negroes are our men, but Cathcart's criminal record and Lunceford's cxpoliceman status mean that more than cursory background checks should be conducted. I want you as my adjutant on this job, an excellent baptism of fire for you as a straight Homicide detective. Meet me tonight (9:30) at the the Pacific Dining Car. We'll discuss the job and related matters.
D.S.
Bud checked the main bulletin board. Nite Owl thick: field reports, autopsy reports, summaries. He found bulletin 11, skimmed it.
Six R&I clerks detached to check criminal records and auto registrations; the 77th Street squad shaking down jigtown for the shotguns and Ray Coates' Mere. Breuning and Carlisle muscling known gun jockeys; the area around the Nite Owl canvassed nine times without turning a single extra eyewitness. The spooks refused to talk to LAPD men, D.A.'s Bureau investigators, Ellis Loew himself. Inez Soto refused to cooperate on clearing up the time frame; Ed Exley blew a questioning session, said they should treat her kid-gloves.