L.A. Confidential (20 page)

  Ed pointed to Scooter Squirrel. "You didn't throw him away."

  "He's special."

  "Do you like Dieterling characters?"

  "So what if I do!"

  "Just asking. And where do you put Bud White in your chain of events?"

  Inez fluffed her pillows. "He killed a man for me."

  "He killed him for himself."

  "And that _puto_ animal is dead just the same. Officer White just comes by to say hello. He warns me about you and Mr. Loew. He tells me I should cooperate, but he doesn't press the subject. He hates you, subtle man. I can tell."

  "You're a smart girl, Inez."

  "You want to say 'for a Mexican,' I know that."

  "No, you're wrong. You're just plain smart. And you're lonely, or you would have asked me to leave."

  Inez threw her magazine down. "So what if I am!"

  Ed picked it up. Dog-eared pages: a piece on Dream-aDreamland. "I'm going to recommend that we give you some time to get well and recommend that when this mess goes to court you be allowed to testify by written deposition. If we get enough Nite Owl corroboration from other sources, you might not have to testify at all. And I won't come back if you don't want me to."

  She stared at him. "I've still got no place to go."

  "Did you read that article on the Dream-a-Dreamland opening?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you see the name 'Preston Exley'?"

  "Yes."

  "He's my father."

  "So what? I know you're a rich kid, blowing your money on stuffed animals. So what? Where will I go?"

  Ed held the bed rail. "I've got a cabin at Lake Arrowhead. You can stay there. I won't touch you, and I'll take you to the Dream-a-Dreamland opening."

  Inez touched her head. "What about my hair?"

  "I'll get you a nice bonnet."

  Inez sobbed, hugged Scooter Squirrel.

o        o          o

  Ed met the sappers at dawn, groggy from dreams: Inez, other women. Ray Pinker brought flashlights, spades, metal detectors; he'd had Communications Division issue a public appeal: witnesses to the Griffith Park shotgun blastings were asked to come forth to ID the blasters. The occurrence report locations were marked out into grids--all steep, scrub-covered hillsides. The men dug, uprooted, scanned with gizmos going tick, tick, tick--they found coins, tin cans, a .32 revolver. Hours came, went; the sun beat down. Ed worked hard--breathing dirt, risking sunstroke. His dreams returned, circles leading back to Inez.

  Anne from the Marlborough School Cotillion--they did it in a '38 Dodge, his legs banged the doors. Penny from his UCLA biology class: rum punch at his frat house, a quick backyard coupling. A string of patriotic roundheels on his bond tour, a one-night stand with an older woman--a Central Division dispatcher. Their faces were hard to remember; he tried and kept seeing Inez--Inez without bruises, no hospital smock. It was dizzying, the heat was dizzying, he was filthy, exhausted--it all felt good. More hours went--he couldn't think of women or anything else. More time down, yells in the distance, a hand on his shoulder.

  Ray Pinker holding out two spent shotgun shells and a photo of a shotgun shell strike surface. A perfect match: identical firing pin marks straight across.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Two days since the Fleur-de-Lis grab--no way to tell how far he could take it.

  Two days, one suspect: Lamar Hinton, age twenty-six, arrested for strongarm assault, a conviction on an ADW, a deuce at Chino--paroled 3/51. Current employment: telephone installer at P.C. Bell--his parole officer suspected he moonlighted tigging bootleg bookie lines. A mugshot match: Hinton the muscle boy at Timmy Valburn's house.

  Two days, no break on his stalemate: a made case would ticket him back to Narco, making _this_ case meant Valburn and Billy Dieterling for material witnesses--well-connected homos who could flush his Hollywood career down the toilet.

  Two days of page prowling--every roundabout approach tapped out. He checked the collateral case reports, talked to the arrestees--more denials--nobody admitted buying the smut. One day wasted; nothing at Ad Vice to goose his leads: Stathis, Henderson, Kitka reported zero, Millard was trying to co-boss the Nite Owl--pornography was not on his mind.

  Two days since: midway through day two he hit hard--the bootleg number, Muscle Boy.

  No Fleur-de-Lis phone listing; brain gymnastics tagged his personal connection--the first time he saw the caffing card.

  Tilt:

  Xmas Eve '51, right before Bloody Christmas. Sid Hudgens set up a reefer roust--he popped two grasshoppers, found the card at their pad, thought nothing else of it.

  Scary Sid: "We've all got secrets, Jack."

  He pushed ahead anyway, that undertow driving him: he wanted to know who made the smut--and why. He hit the P.C. Bell employment office, cross-checked records against physical stats until he hit Lamar Hinton--tilt, tilt, tilt, tilt, tilt-- Jack looked around the squadroom--men talking Nite Owl, Nite Owl, Nite Owl, the Big V chasing hand-job books.

  The orgy pix.

  Vertigo.

  Jack chased.

o        o          o

  Hinton's route: Gower to La Brea, Franklin to the Hollywood Reservoir. His A.M. installations: Creston Drive, North Ivar. Jack found Creston on his car map: Hollywood Hills, a cul-de-sac way up.

  He drove there, saw the phone truck: parked by a pseudoFrench chateau. Lamar Hinton on a pole across the street-- monster huge in broad daylight.

  Jack parked, checked the truck--the loading door wide open. Tools, phone books, Spade Cooley albums--no suspiciouslooking brown paper bags. Hinton stared at him; Jack went over badge first.

  Hinton trundled down the pole: six-four easy, blond, muscles on muscles. "You with Parole?"

  "Los Angeles Police Department."

  "Then this ain't about my parole?"

  "No, this is about you cooperating to avoid a parole rap."

  "What do you--"

  "Your parole officer don't really approve of this job you've got, Lamar. He thinks you might start doing some bootlegs."

  Hinton flexed muscles: neck, arms, chest. Jack said, "Fleur-de-Lis, 'Whatever You Desire.' You desire no violation, you talk. You don't talk, then back to Chino."

  One last flex. "You broke into my car."

  "You're a regular Einstein. Now, you got the brains to be an informant?"

  Hinton shifted; Jack put a hand on his gun. "Fleur-de-Lis. Who runs it, how does it work, what do you push? Dieterling and Valburn. Tell me and I'm out of your life in five minutes."

  Muscles thought it through: his T-shirt bulged, puckered. Jack pulled out a fuck mag--an orgy pic spread full. "Conspiracy to distribute pornographic material, possession and sales of felony narcotics. I've got enough to send you back to Chino until nineteen-fucking-seventy. Now, did you move this smut for Fleur-de-Lis?"

  Hinton bobbed his head. "Y-y-yeah."

  "Smart boy. Now, who made it?"

  "I d-don't know. Really, honest, I d-don't."

  "Who posed for it?"

  "I don't kn-know, I just d-d-delivered it."

  "Billy Dieterling and Timmy Valburn. Go."

  "J-just c-customers. Queers, you know, they like to fag party."

  "You're doing great, so here's the big question. Who-"

  "Officer, please don't--"

  Jack pulled his .38, cocked it. "You want to be on the next train to Chino?"

  "N-no."

  "Then answer me."

  Hinton turned, gripped the pole. "P-pierce Patchett. He runs the business. He-he's some kind of legit businessman."

  "Description, phone number, address."

  "He's maybe fifty something. I th-think he lives in Bbrentwood and I don't know his n-number 'cause I get paid b-by the m-mail."

  "More on Patchett. Go."

  "H-he sugar-p-pimps girls made up like movie stars. H-he's rich. I-I only met him once."

  "Who introduced you?"

  "This guy Ch-chester I used to see at M-m-muscle Beach."

  "Chester who?"

  "I don't know."

  Hinton: bunching, flexing--Jack figured hot seconds and he'd snap. "What else does Patchett push?"

  "L-lots of b-boys and girls."

  "What about through Fleur-de-Lis?"

  "W-whatever you d-desire."

  "Not the sales pitch, what specifically?"

  Pissed more than scared. "Boys, girls, liquor, dope, picture books, bondage stuff!"

  "Easy, now. Who else makes the deliveries?"

  "Me and Chester. He works days. I don't like--"

  "Where's Chester live?"

  "I don't know!"

  "_Easy, now_. Lots of nice people with lots of money use Fleur-de-Lis, right?"

  "R-right."

  The records in the truck. "Spade Cooley? Is he a customer?"

  "N-no, I just get free albums 'cause I party with this guy Burt Perkins."

  "You fucking would know him. The names of some customers. Go."

  Hinton dug into the pole. Jack flashed: the monster turning, six .38s not enough. "Are you working tonight?"

  "Y-yes."

  "The address."

  "No . . . please."

  Jack frisked: wallet, change, butch wax, a key on a fob. He held the key up; Hinton bobbed his head barn bam--blood on the pole.

  "The address and I'm gone."

  Barn barn--blood on the monster's forehead. "5261B Cheramoya."

  Jack dropped the pocket trash. "You don't show up tonight. You call your parole officer and tell him you helped me, you tell him you want to be picked up on a violation, you have him put you up someplace. You're clean on this, and if I get to Patchett I'll make like one of the smut people snitched. _And if you clean that place out you are Chino-fucking-bound_."

  "B-but you _t-told_ me."

  Jack ran to his car, gunned it. Hinton tore at the pole barehanded.

o        o          o

  Pierce Patchett, fifty-something, "some kind of legit businessman."

  Jack found a pay phone, called R&I, the DMV. A make: Pierce Morehouse Patchett, DOB 6/30/02, Grosse Pointe, Michigan. No criminal record, 1184 Gretna Green, Brentwood. Three minor traffic violations since 1931.

  Not much. Sid Hudgens next--fuck his smut hink. A busy signal, a buzz to Morty Bendish at the _Mirror_.

  "City Room, Bendish."

  "Morty, it's Jack Vincennes."

  "The Big V! Jack, when are you going back to the Narco Squad? I need some good dope stories."

  Morty wanted shtick. "As soon as I get squeaky-clean Russ Millard off my case and make a case for him. And _you_ can help."

  "Keep talking, I'm all ears."

  "Pierce Patchett. Ring a bell?"

  Bendish whistled. "What's this about?"

  "I can't tell you yet. But if it breaks his way, you've got the exclusive."

  "You'd feed me before you feed Sid?"

  "Yeah. Now I'm all ears."

  Another whistle. "There's not much, but what there is is choice. Patchett's a big handsome guy, maybe fifty, but he looks thirty-eight. He goes back maybe twenty-five years in L.A. He's some kind of judo or jujitsu expert, he's either a chemist by trade or he was a chemistry major in college. He's worth a boatload of greenbacks, and I know he lends money to businessman types at thirty percent interest and a cut of their biz, I know he's bankrolled a lot of movies under the table. Interesting, huh? Now try this on: he's rumored to be some kind of periodic heroin sniffer, rumored to dry out at Terry Lux's clinic. All in all, he's what you might wanta call a powerful behind-the-scenes strange-o."

  Terry Lux--plastic surgeon to the stars. Sanitarium boss: booze, dope cures, abortions, detoxification heroin available--the cops looked the other way, Terry treated L.A. politicos free. "Morry, that's all you've got?"

  "Ain't that enough? Look, what I don't have, Sid might. Call him, but remember I got the exclusive."

  Jack hung up, called Sid Hudgens. Sid answered: "_Hush-Hush_. Off the record and on the QT."

  "It's Vincennes."

  "Jackie! You got some good Nite Owl scoop for the Sidster?"

  "No, but I'll keep an ear down."

  "Narco skinny maybe? I want to put out an all-hophead issue--shvartze jazz musicians and movie stars, maybe tie it in to the Commies, this Rosenberg thing has got the public running hot with a thermometer up their ass. You like it?"

  "It's cute. Sid, have you heard of a man named Pierce Patchett?"

  Silence--seconds ticking off long. Sid, too Sid-like. "Jackie, all I know on the man is that he is very wealthy and what I like to call 'Twilight.' He ain't queer, he ain't Red, he don't know anybody I can use in my quest for prime sinuendo. Where'd you hear about him?"

  Bullshitting him--he could taste it. "A smut peddler told me."

  Static--breath catching sharp. "Jack, smut is from hunger, strictly for sad sacks who can't get their ashes hauled. Leave it alone and write when you get work, _gabishe?_"

  Hang up--bang!--a door slamrning, cutting you off, some line you couldn't cross back to. Jack drove to the Bureau, MALIBU RENDEZVOUS stamped on that door.

o        o          o

  The Ad Vice pen stood empty, just Millard and Thad Green in a huddle by the cloakroom. Jack checked the assignment board-- more no-leads--walked around to the supply room on the QT. Unlocked--easy to pull off a snatch. Downwind: the high brass talking Nite Owl.

  "Russ, I know you want in. But Parker wants Dudley."

  "He's too volatile on Negroes, Chief. We both know it."

  "You only call me 'Chief' when you want something, _Captain_."

  Millard laughed. "Thad, the sappers found matching spents in Griffith Park, and I heard 77th Street turned the wallets and purses. Is that true?"

  "Yes, an hour ago, in a sewer. Blood-caked, print-wiped. SID matched to the victims' blood. It's the coloreds, Russ. I know it."

  "I don't think it's the ones in custody. Do you see them leaving a rape scene on the southside, then driving the girl around to let their friends abuse her, _then_ driving all the way to Hollywood to pull the Nite Owl job--when two of them are high on barbiturates?"