L.A. Confidential

by James Ellroy

  He walked up, rang the bell--stage fright all the way. Patchett opened the door. Pinned-back eyes like Exley predicted--a nose junkie.

  Jack, per the script: "Hello, Pierce"--all contempt. Patchett shut the door. Jack threw the dope in his face. It hit him, fell to the floor.

  Ad lib time. "Just a peace offering. Not up to that shit you tested on Yorkin anyway. Did you know my brother-in-law's the City D.A.? He's a bonus you get if you make a deal with me."

  Patchett: "Where did you get that?" Calm, the stuff up his nose wouldn't let him show fear.

  Jack pulled out the knife, scratched his neck with the blade. He felt blood, licked it off a finger--Academy Award psycho. "I shook down some niggers. You know all about that, right? _Hush-Hush_ Magazine used to write me up. You and Sid Hudgens go way back, so you should know."

  No fear. "You made trouble for me five years ago. I still have that file carbon on you, and I think it's fair to say that you broke your part of our bargain. I'm assuming you've shown your superiors your deposition."

  Knife bit: the tip of the blade in one palm, a little push to retract it. More blood, a key Exley line. "I'm way past you in the information department. I know about the heroin you got from the Cohen-Dragna deal and what you've been doing with it. I know about the smut you were pushing in '53, and I know all about those extortion shakedowns with your whores. And all I want is my file and some information. You give me that and I'll put the fritz to everything Captain Exley has."

  "What information?"

  The script, verbatim. "I made a deal with Hudgens. The deal was my file destroyed and ten grand in cash in exchange for some juicy dirt I had on the LAPD high brass. I knew Sid was going to work a shakedown scheme with you, and I'd already backed down on Fleur-de-Lis--you know that's true. Sid got killed before I could pick up the money and the file, and I think the killer got both of them. I need that money, 'cause I'm getting shitcanned off the Department before I can collect my pension, and I want the fucker who robbed me dead. You didn't make that smut back in '53, but whoever did killed Sid and robbed me. Give me the name and I'm yours."

  Patchett smiled. Jack smiled--one last push before the pistolwhipping. "Pierce, the Nite Owl was smut and heroin--yours. Do you want to swing for that?"

  Patchett pulled out a piece, shot him three times. Silencer thwaps--the slugs shattered the tape gizmo, bounced off his vest.

  Three more shots--two in the vest, one wide.

  Jack crashed into a table, came up aiming. A jammed slide, Patchett on him, two misfire clicks right up close. Patchett in his face, the knife out, a blind stab, a scream--the blade catching.

  Patchett's left hand nailed to the table. Another scream, his right hand arcing--a hypo in it. The needle mainline close, stab, zooooom somewhere nice. Shots rifle loud, "No, Abe, no, Lee, no!" Flames, smoke, rolling away from the grief, so he could live to love the needle again, maybe see the funny man with his hand shivved to the table.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  The clock in his head was way off, his watch had quit working--he wasn't sure if it was Wednesday or Thursday. His Nite Owl "disclosure" ate up a whole evening--Dudley was so far ahead of him he never even took notes. The man left him at midnight, pumped up with bold language, no date for the strongarm cop's ball. Dud's date was Exley: clear the Nite Owl and ruin his career, seconds for Bad Bud White: "Think of grand ways to hurt him." Murder was all he could think of--a fair trade for Lynn; killing an LAPD captain was the springs in his clock all snapping--one more span of skewed time and he'd do it. Some point early A.M. Kathy Janeway hit him up--Kathy the way she looked then. She found him a date for the wee small hours--the man who killed her.

  And Spade Cooley stood him up.

  He went by the Biltmore, talked to the Cowboy Rhythm Band--Spade was still gone, Deuce Perkins was off on his own toot. The D.A.'s Bureau night clerk gave him the brush--were they even on the case? Another tear through Chinatown, a run by his apartment--a couple of I.A. hard-ons parked out front. A wolfed meal at a burger stand, dawn creeping up, a pile of _Heralds_ that told him it was Friday. A Nite Owl headline: jigs crying police brutality, Chief Parker promising justice.

  He felt tired one second, keyed up the next. He tried to set his watch to the radio; the hands stuck; he threw a hundred-dollar Gruen out the window. Tired, he saw Kathy; keyed up, he saw Exley and Lynn. He drove to Nottingham Drive to check cars.

  No white Packard--and Lynn always parked the same place. Bud walked around the building--no sign of Exley's blue Plymouth. A neighbor woman bringing in milk. She said, "Good morning. You're Miss Bracken's friend, aren't you?"

  The old snoop-Lynn said she peeped bedrooms. "That's right."

  "Well, as you can see, she's not here."

  "Yeah, and you don't know where she is."

  "Well..."

  "Well what? You seen her with a man? Tall, glasses?"

  "No, I haven't. And mind your tone, young man. Well what, indeed."

  Bud badged her. "_Well what_, lady? You were gonna tell me something."

  "Until you got cheeky, I was going to tell you where Miss Bracken went. I heard her talking to the manager last night. She was asking for directions."

  "_Where to?_"

  "Lake Arrowhead, and I would have told you before you got cheeky."

  o o o

  Exley's place, Inez told him about it, a cabin flying flags: American, state, LAPD. Bud drove to Arrowhead, cruised by the lake, found it: banners cutting wind, no blue Plymouth. Lynn's Packard in the driveway.

  A brodie to the porch; a leap up the steps. Bud punched in a window, unlatched the door. No response to the noise--just a musty front room done up hunting lodge provincial.

  He walked into the bedroom. Sweat stink, lipstick blots on the bed. He kicked the feathers out of the pillows, dumped the mattress, saw a leather binder underneath. Lynn's "Scarlet Letters" for sure--she'd been talking up her diary for years.

  Bud grabbed it, got ready to rip--down the spine like his old phone book trick. The smell made him stop-if he didn't look, he was a coward.

  Flip to the last page. Lynn's handwriting, bold black ink, the gold pen he'd bought her.

  March 26, 1958

  More on E.E. He just drove off and I could tell he was chagrined by all the things he told me last night. He looked vulnerable in the A.M. light, stumbling to the bathroom without his glasses. I pity Pierce his misfortune in encountering such an essentially frightened and unyielding man. E.E. makes love like my Wendell, like he never wants it to end, because when it ends he will have to return to what he is. He is perhaps the only man I have ever met who is as compromised as I am, who is so smart, circumspect and cautious that you can always see his wheels turning and thus wish you could always talk in the dark so that face value would be less complex. He is so smart and pragmatic that he makes W.W. appear childish and thus less heroic than he really is. And considering his dilemma, my betiayal of Pierce's friendship and patronage seem frankly callow. This man has been so obsessively beholden to his father for so long that the crux of it must influence every step he takes, yet he is still taking steps, which amazes me. E.E. didn't delve too far into specifics, but the basic thrust is that some of the more artful pornographic books that Pierce was selling five years ago have diagrams that match the mutilations on Sid Hudgens' body and the wounds on the victims of a murderer named Loren Atherton, who was apprehended by Preston Exley in the 1930s. P.E. is soon to announce his candidacy for governor and E.E. now considers that his father solved the Atherton case incorrectly and inferred that he suspects P.E. of establishing business relations with Raymond Dieterling at the time of that case (one of Atherton's victims was a Dieterling child star). Another strange crux: E.E., my trIs smart pragmatist, considers his father such a moral exemplar and paragon of efficacy that he is terrified of accepting normal incompetence and rational business self-interest as within the bounds of acceptable human behavior. He is afraid that solving his "Nite Owl related" cases will reveal P.E.
's fallibility to the world and destroy his gubernatorial chances, and he is obviously even more afraid of having to accept his father as a mortal, especially difficult since he has never accepted himself as one. But he will go ahead with his cases, deep down he seems quite determined. As much as I love him, in the same situation my Wendell would just shoot everyone involved, then look for somebody a bit more inteffigent to sort out the bodies, like that urbane Irishman Dudley Smith he always mentions. More on this and related matters after a walk, breakfast and three strong cups of coffee.

  Now he ripped--down the spine, across the grain, leather and paper shredded to bits.

  The phone, IAD direct. Buzz, buzz, "Internal Affairs, Kleckner."

  "It's White. Put Exley on."

  "White, you're in troub--" a new voice on the line. "This is Exley. White, where are you?"

  "Arrowhead. I just read Lynn's diary and got the whole story on your old man, Atherton and Dieterling. _The whole fucking story_. I'm running a suspect down, and when I find him it's your daddy on the six o'clock news."

  "I'll make a deal with you. Just listen."

  "Never."

  o o o

  Back to L.A., the old Spade routine: Chinatown, the Strip, the Biltmore, his third circuit since time went haywire. The chinks were starting to look like the Cowboy Rhythm Band, the El Rancho guys were growing slant eyes. Every known haunt triple-checked, three times everything--except for a single hit on his agent.

  Bud drove to Nat Penzler Associates. The connecting door was open--Mr. Natsky was eating a sandwich. He took a bite, said, "Oh shit."

  "Spade's been ditching out on his gig. He must be costing you money."

  Penzler eased a hand behind his desk. "Caveman, if you knew the grief my clients cause me."

  "You don't sound so concerned."

  "Bad pennies always turn up."

  "Do you know where he is?"

  Penzler brought his hand up. "My guess is on the planet Pluto, hanging out with his pal Jack Daniels."

  "What were you doing with your hand?"

  "Scratching my balls. You want the job? It pays five yards a week, but you have to kick back ten percent to your agent."

  "Where is he?"

  "He is somewhere in the vicinity of nowhere I know. Check with me next week and write when you get brains."

  "Like that, huh?"

  "Caveman, if I knew would I withhold from a bruiser like you?" Bud kicked him out of his chair. Penzler hit the floor; the chair spun, tipped. Bud reached under the desk, pulled out a bundle wrapped with string. A foot on top, a jerk on the knot--clean black cowboy shirts.

  Penzler stood up. "Lincoln Heights. The basement at Sammy Ling's, and you didn't get it from Natsky."

  o o o

  Ling's Chow Mein: a dive on Broadway up from Chinatown. Parking spaces in back; a rear entrance to the kitchen. No outside basement access, steam shooting from an underground vent. Bud circled the place, heard voices out the vent. Make the trapdoor in the kitchen.

  He found a two-by-four in the lot, went in the back way. Two slants frying meat, an old geek skinning a duck. A fix on the trapdoor, easy: lift the pallet by the oven.

  They spotted him. The young chinks jabbered; Papa-san waved them quiet. Bud held his shield out.

  The old man rubbed fingers. "I pay! I pay I pay! You go!"

  "Spade Cooley, Papa. You go downstairs and tell him Natsky brought the laundry. Chop-chop."

  "Spade pay! You leave alone! I pay! I pay!"

  The kids circled. Papa-san waved his cleaver.

  "You go now! Go now! I pay!"

  Bud fixed a line on the floor. Papa stepped over it.

  Bud swung his stick--pops caught it waist-high. He crashed into the stove, his face hit a burner, his hair caught fire. The kids charged; Bud got their legs in one shot. They hit the floor tangled up-Bud smashed in their ribs. Pops doused his head in the sink, charged with his face scorched black.

  A roundhouse to the knees--Papa went down glued to that cleaver. Bud stepped on his hand, cracked the fingers--Papa let go screaming. Bud dragged him to the oven, kicked the pallet loose. Yank the trapdoor, drag the old man downstairs.

  Fumes: opium, steam. Bud kicked Papa-san quiet. Through the fumes: dope suckers on mattresses.

  Bud kicked through them. All chinks--they grumbled, swatted, sucked back to dreamland. Smoke: in his face, up his nose, breathing hard so he took it down his lungs. Steam like a beacon: a sweat room at the back.

  He kicked over to the door. Through a mist: naked Spade Cooley, three naked girls. Giggles, arms and legs cockeyed--an orgy on a slippery tile bench. Spade so tangled up in women that you couldn't shoot him clean.

  Bud flipped a wall switch. The steam died, the mist fizzled. Spade looked over. Bud took his gun out.

  KILL HIM.

  Cooley moved first: a shield, two girls pressed tight. Bud moved in--yanking arms, legs, nails raking his face. The girls slipped, stumbled, tumbled out the door. Spade said, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

  Smoke inside him, brewing up his very own dreamland. Last rites, stretch the moment. "Kathy Janeway, Jane Mildred Hamsher, Lynette Ellen Kendrick, Sharon--"

  Cooley yelled, "GODDAMN YOU IT'S PERKINS!"

  The moment snapped--Bud saw his gun half-triggered. Colors swirled around him; Cooley talked rapid fire. "I saw Deuce with that last girlie, that Kendrick. I know'd he liked to hurt hooers, and when that last girlie turned up dead on the TV I asked him 'bout it. Deuce, he like to scared me to death, so's I took off on this here toot. Mister, you gotta believe me."

  Color flashes: Deuce Perkins, plain vicious. One color blinking-- turquoise, Spade's hands. "Those rings, where'd you get them?"

  Cooley pulled a towel over his lap. "Deuce, he makes them. He brings a hobby kit with him on the road. He's been crackin' all these vague-type jokes for years, how they protects his hands for his intimate-type work, and now I know what he means."

  "Opium. Can he get it?"

  "That cracker shitbird steals my shit! Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  Starting to. "My killing dates put you in the right place to do the jobs. Just you. Your booking records show different goddamn guys traveling with you, so how do you--"

  "Deuce, he's been my road manager since '49, he always travels with me. Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  "_Where is he?_"

  "I don't know!"

  "Girlfriends, buddies, other perverts. _Give_."

  "That miserable sumbitch got no friends I know of 'cept that wop shitbird Johnny Stompanato. Mister, you gotta believe--"

  "I believe you. You believe I'll kill you if you scare him away from me?"

  "Praise Jesus, I believe."

  Bud walked into the smoke. The chinks were still on the nod, Papa was just barely breathing.

  o o o

  R&I on Perkins:

  No California beefs, clean on his Alabama parole--he'd spent '44--'46 on a chain gang for animal sodomy. Transient musician, no known address listed. K.A. confirmation on Johnny Stompanato--ditto Lee Vachss and Abe Teitlebaum--mob punks all. Bud hung up, remembered a talk with Jack Vincennes--he'd rousted Deuce at a _Badge of Honor_ party-- Johnny, Teitlebaum and Vachss were there with him.

  Kid gloves: Johnny used to be his snitch, Johnny hated him, feared him.

  Bud called the DMV, got Stomp's phone number--ten rings, no answer. Two more no-answers: the Cowboy Rhythm Band at the Biltmore, the El Rancho. Kikey Teitlebaum's deli next-- Kikey and Johnny were tight.

  A run out Pico, shaking off fumes. A keen edge settling in: get Perkins alone, kill him. Then Exley.

  Bud parked, looked in the window. A slow afternoon, pay dirt--Johnny Stomp, Kikey T. at a table.

  He walked in. They spotted him, whispered. Years since he'd seen them--Abe was fatter, Stomp still guinea slick.

  Kikey waved. Bud grabbed a chair, carried it over. Stomp said, "Wendell White. How's tricks, _paesano?_"

  "Tricky. How's tricks with Lana Turner?"

 
"Trickier. Who told you?"

  "Mickey C."

  Teitlebaum laughed. "Must have a hole like the Third Street Tunnel. Johnny's leaving for Acapulco with her tonight, and me, I shack with Sadie five-fingers. White, what brings you here? I ain't seen you since Dick Stens used to work for me."

  "I'm looking for Deuce Perkins."

  Johnny tap-tapped the table. "So talk to Spade Cooley."

  "Spade don't know where he is."

  "So why ask me? Mickey tell you Deuce and me are close?" No ritual question: what do you want him for? And fat-mouth Kikey too quiet. "Spade said you and him were acquaintances."

  "Acquaintances is right. We go back, _paesano_, so I'll tell you I haven't seen Deuce in years."

  Change-up pitch. "You ain't my _paesano_, you wop cocksucker." Johnny smiled, maybe relieved, their old cop-snitch game one more time. A look at Kikey--the fat man working on spooked. "Abe, you're tight with Perkins, right?"

  "Nix. Deuce is too meshugeneh for me. He's just a guy to say hi to once in a blue fucking moon."

  A lie--Perkins' rap sheet said different. "So maybe I'm confused. I know you guys are tight with Lee Vachss, and I heard him and Deuce are tight."

  Kikey laughed--too stagy. "What a yuck. Johnny, I think Wendell here is really confused."

  Stomp said, "Oil and water, those two. Tight? What a howl."

  _Standing up for Vachss for no reason_. "You guys are the howl. I figured you'd ask me what the grief was right off."

  Kikey pushed his plate aside. "It occur to you we just don't care?"

  "Yeah, but you guys love to shmooz and milk the grapevine."

  "So shmooz."

  A rumor: Kikey beat a guy to death for calling him a yid. "I'll shmooz, it's a nice day and I got nothing better to do than hobnob with a greasy wop and a fat yid."

  Abe ho-ho-ho'd, cuffed his arm oh-you-kid. "You're a pisser. So what do you want Deuce for?"

  Bud cuffed him back hard--"None of your fucking business, Jewboy"--throw a change-up to Johnny. "What are you doing now that Mickey's out?"