L.A. Confidential (21 page)

  "It's a stretch, I'll admit that. We need to nail down the outside rapists and get Inez Soto to talk. So far she's refused. But Ed Exley is working on her, and Ed Exley is very good."

  "Thad, I won't let my ego get in the way. I'm a captain, Dudley's a lieutenant. We'll share the command."

  "I worry about your heart."

  "A heart attack five years ago doesn't make me a cripple."

  Green laughed. "I'll talk to Parker. Jesus, you and Dudley. What a pair."

  Jack found what he wanted: a tape recorder/phone tapper, bolt-on style, headphones. He hustled it out a side door, no witnesses.

o        o          o

  Dusk, Cheramoya Avenue: Hollywood, a block off Franklin. 5261: a Tudor four-flat, two pads upstairs, two down. No lights--probably too late to glom "Chester" the day man. Jack rang the B buzzer--no response. An ear to the door, a listen--no sounds, period. In with the key.

  Jackpot: one glance told him Hinton played it straight--no cleanout. Pervert fucking Utopia--floor-to-ceiling shelves jammed with goodies.

  Maryjane: leaf, prime buds. Pills--bennies, goofballs, red devils, yellow jackets, blue heavens. Patent dope: laudanum, codeine mixtures, catchy brand names: Dreamscope, Hollywood Sunrise, Martian Moonglow. Absinthe, pure alcohol in pints, quarts, half gallons. Ether, hormone pills, envelopes of cocaine, heroin. Film cans, smutty titles: _Mr. Big Dick_, _Anal Love_, _Gang Bang_, _High School Rapist_, _Rape Club_, _Virgin Cocksucker_, _Hot Negro Love_, _Fuck Me Tonite_, _Susie's Butthole Deelite_, _Boys in Love_, _Locker Room Lust_, _Blow the Man Down_, _Jesus Porks the Pope_, _Cocksucker's Paradise_, _Cornholers Meet the Ramrod Boys_, _Rex the Randy Rottweiler_. Old stag books: T.J. venues, women sucking cock, boys sucking cock, up-the-hole close-ups. Dusty--not a hot item; empty spaces alongside, maybe the good smut, his smut, was piled there: make Lamar for cleaning that out? Why? The rest of the shit spelled felony time to the year 2000. Snapshots-- candid-type pix--real-life movie stars in the raw. Lupe Velez, Gary Cooper, Johnny Weissmuller, Carole Landis, Clark Gable, Tallulah Bankhead muff-diving, corpses going 69 on morgue slabs. A color pic: Joan Crawford and a notoriously well hung Samoan extra named "O.K. Freddy" fucking. Dildoes, dog collars, whips, chains, amyl nitrite poppers, panties, brassieres, cock rings, catheters, enema bags, black lizard pumps with six-inch heels and a female mannequin covered by a tarp-- plasterboard, rubber lips, glued-on pubic hair, a snatch made from a garden hose.

  Jack found the bathroom and pissed. A mirror threw his face back: old, strange. He went to work: tapper to the phone, the oldie smut skimmed.

  Cheap stuff, probably Mex-made: spic hairstyles on skinny junkie posers. Vertigo: he felt swirly, like a good hop jolt. The dope on the shelves made him drool; he mixed Karen in with the pictures. He paced the room, tapped a hollow place, pulled up the rug. Bingo on a cute hidey-hole: a basement, stairs leading to an empty black space.

  The phone rang.

  Jack hit the tapper, picked up. "Hi. Whatever You Desire"-- Lamar Hinton mimicked.

  Click, a hang-up, he shouldn't have used the slogan. A half hour passed--the phone rang. "Hi, it's Lamar"--casual.

  A pause, click.

  A chain of smokes--his throat hurt. The phone rang.

  Try a mumble. "Yeah?"

  "Hi, it's Seth up in Bel Air. You feel like bringing something over?"

  "Sure."

  "Make it a jug of the wormwood. Make it fast and you made a nice tip."

  "Uh . . . gimme the address again, would ya?"

  "Who could forget digs like mine? It's 941 Roscomere, and don't dawdle."

  Jack hung up. Ring ring again.

  "Yeah?"

  "Lamar, tell Pierce I need to . . . Lamar, is that you, boychik?"

  SID HUDGENS.

  Lamar--with a tremor. "Uh, yeah. Who's this?"

  Click.

  Jack pushed "Replay." Hudgens talked, recognition creeped in--

  SID KNEW PATCHETF. SID KNEW LAMAR. SID KNEW THE FLEUR-DE-LIS RACKET.

  The phone rang--Jack ignored it. Splitsville--grab the tapper, wipe the phone, wipe all the filth he'd touched. Out the door queasy--night air peaking his nerves.

  He heard a car revving.

  A shot took out the front window; two shots smashed the door.

  Jack drew, fired--the car hauling, no lights.

  Clumsy: two shots hit a tree and sprayed wood. Three more pulls, no hits, the car fishtailing. Doors opening--eyewitnesses.

  Jack got his car--skids, brodies, no lights until Franklin and a main traffic flow. No make on the shooter car: dark, no lights, the cars all around him looked alike: sleek, wrong. A cigarette slowed him down. He drove straight west to Bet Air.

  Roscomere Road: twisty, all uphill, mansions fronted by palm trees. Jack found 941, pulled into the driveway.

  Circular, looping a big pseudo-Spanish: one story, low slate roof. Cars in a row--a Jag, a Packard, two Caddies, a Rolls. Jack got out--nobody braced him. He hunkered down, took plate numbers.

  Five cars: classy, no Fleur-de-Lis bags on plush front seats. The house: bright windows, silk swirls. Jack walked up and looked in.

  He knew he'd never forget the women.

  One almost Rita Hayworth a la _Gilda_. One almost Ava Gardner in an emerald-green gown. A near Betty Grable--sequined swim-suit, fishnet stockings. Men in tuxedos mingled--background debris. He couldn't stray his eyes from the women.

  Astonishing make-believe. Hinton on Patchett: "He sugarpimps these girls made up to look like movie stars." "Made up" didn't cut it: call these women chosen, cultivated, enhanced by an expert. Astonishing.

  Veronica Lake walked through the light. Her face wasn't as close: she just oozed that cat-girl grace. Background men flocked to her.

  Jack pressed up to the glass. Smut vertigo, real live women. Sid, that door slamming, that line. He drove home, bad vertigo--achy, itchy, jumpy. He saw a _Hush-Hush_ card on his door, "Malibu Rendezvous" inked on the bottom.

  He saw headlines:

  DOPED-OUT DOPE CRUSADER SHOOTS INNOCENT CITIZENS!

  CELEBRITY COP INDICTED FOR KILLINGS!

  GAS CHAMBER FOR THE BIG-TIME BIG V! RICH KID GIRLFRIEND BIDS DEATH ROW AU REVOIR!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  An arm-in-arm entrance--Inez in her best dress and a veil to hide her bruises. Ed kept his badge out--it got them past the press. Attendants formed the guests into lines--Dream-a-Dreamland was open for business.

  Inez was awestruck: quick breaths billowed her veil. Ed looked up, down, sideways--every detail made him think of his father.

  A grand promenade--Main Drag, USA, 1920--soda fountains, nickelodeons, dancing extras: the cop on the beat, a paperboy juggling apples, ingenues doing the Charleston. The Amazon River: motorized crocodiles, jungle excursion boats. Snow-capped mountains; vendors handing out mouse-ear beanies. The Moochie Mouse Monorail, tropical isles--acres and acres of magic.

  They rode the monorail: the first car, the first run. High speed, upside down, right side up--Inez unbuckled herself giggling. The Paul's World toboggan; lunch: hot dogs, snow cones, Moochie Mouse cheese balls.

  On to "Desert Idyll," "Danny's Fun House," an exhibit on outer space travel. Inez seemed to be tiring: gorged on excitement. Ed yawned--his own late night catching up.

  A late squeal at the station: a shootout on Cheramoya, no perpetrators caught. He had to go to the scene: an apartment house, shots riddling a downstairs unit. Weird: .38s, .45s retrieved, the living room all shelving--empty except for some sadomasochist paraphernalia--and no telephone. The building's owner couldn't be traced; the manager said he was paid by mail, cashier's checks, he got a free flop and a C-note a month, so he was happy and didn't ask questions--he couldn't even name the dump's tenant. The condition of the apartment indicated a rapid clean-out--but no one saw a thing. Four hours of report writing--four hours snatched from the Nite Owl.

  The exhibit was a bore--a sop to culture. Inez pointed to the ladies' room; Ed stepped outside.

  A VIP tour on the promenade--Timmy Valburn shepherding bigwigs. The _Herald_ front page hit him: Dream-a-Dreamland, the Nite Owl, like nothing else mattered.

  He tried to reinterrogate Coates, Jones and Fontaine--they would not give him one word. Eyewitnesses responded to the appeal for IDs on the Griffith Park shooters and could not identify the three in custody: they said they "can't quite be sure." Vehicle checks now extended to '48--'50 Fords and Chevys-- nothing hot so far. Jockeying for command of the case: Chief Parker supported Dudley Smith, Thad Green pumped up Russ Millard. No shotguns found, no trace of Sugar Ray's Mere. Wallets and purses belonging to the victims were found in a sewer a few blocks from the Tevere Hotel---combine that with the matching shells found in Griffith Park and you got what the papers didn't report: Ellis Loew bullying Parker to bully him: "It's all circumstantial so far, so have your boy Exley keep working on that Mexican girl, it looks like he's getting next to her, have him talk her into a questioning session under sodium pentothal, let's get some juicy Little Lindbergh details and fix the Nite Owl time frame once and for all."

  Inez sat down beside him. They had a view: the Amazon, plaster mountains. Ed said, "Are you all right? Do you want to go back?"

  "What I want is a cigarette, and I don't even smoke."

  "Then don't start. Inez--"

  "Yes, I'll move into your cabin."

  Ed smiled. "When did you make up your mind?"

  Inez tucked her veil under her hat. "I saw a newspaper in the bathroom, and Ellis Loew was gloating about me. He sounded happy, so I figured I'd put some distance between us. You know, I never thanked you for my bonnet."

  "You don't have to."

  "Yes I do, because I'm naturally bad-mannered around Anglos who treat me nice."

  "If you're waiting for the punch line, there isn't any."

  "Yes, there is. And for the record again, I won't tell you about it, I won't look at pictures, and I won't testify."

  "Inez, I submitted a recommendation that we let you rest up for now."

  "And 'for now's' a punch line, and the other punch line's that you go for me, which is okay, because I've looked better in my time and no Mexican man would ever want a Mexican girl who was gang-raped by a bunch of _negrito putos_, not that I've ever gone for Mexican guys anyway. You know what's scary, Exley?"

  "I told you, it's Ed."

  Inez rolled her eyes. "I've got a creep brother named Eduardo, so I'll call you Exley. You know what's scary? What's scary is that I feel good today because this place is like a wonderful dream, but I know that it's got to get really bad again because what happened was a hundred times more real than this. Do you understand?"

  "I understand. For now, though, you should try trusting me."

  "I don't trust you, Exley. Not 'for now,' maybe not ever."

  "I'm the only one you can trust."

  Inez flipped her veil down. "I don't trust you because you don't hate them for what they did. Maybe you think you do, but you're helping your career out at the same time. Officer White, he hates them. He killed a man who hurt me. He's not as smart as you, so maybe I can trust him."

  Ed reached a hand out--Inez slid away. "I want them dead. _Absolutamente meurto. Comprende?_"

  "I _comprende_. Do you _comprende_ that your beloved Officer White is a goddamned thug?"

  "Only if you _comprende_ that you're jealous of him. Look, oh God."

  Ray Dieterling, his father. Ed stood up; Inez stood up starry-eyed. Preston said, "Raymond Dieterling, my son Edmund. Edmund, will you introduce the young lady?"

  Inez, straight to Dieterling. "Sir, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've been . . . oh, I'm just a big fan."

  Dieterling took her hand. "Thank you, dear. And your name?"

  "Inez Soto. I've seen . . . oh, I'm just a big fan."

  Dieterling smiled, sad--the girl's story front-page news. He turned to Ed. "Sergeant, a pleasure."

  A good handshake. "Sir, an honor. And congratulations."

  "Thank you, and I share those congratulations with your father. Preston, your son has an eye for the ladies, doesn't he?"

  Preston laughed. "Miss Soto, Edmund has rarely evinced such good taste." He handed Ed a slip of paper. "A Sheriff's officer called the house looking for you. I took the message."

  Ed palmed the paper; Inez blushed through her veil. Dieterling smiled. "Miss Soto, did you enjoy Dream-a-Dreamland?"

  "Yes, I did. Oh God, yes."

  "I'm glad, and I want you to know that you have a good job here anytime you wish. All you have to do is say the word."

  "Thank you, thank you, sir"--Inez wobbly. Ed steadied her, looked at his message: "Stensland on toot at Raincheck Room, 3871 W. Gage. Felony assembly, parole off. alerted. Waiting for you--Keefer."

  The partners walked off bowing; Inez waved to them. Ed said, "I'll take you back, but I've got a little stop to make first."

o        o          o

  They drove back to L.A., the radio going, Inez beating time on the dashboard. Ed played scenes: Stensland crushed with snappy one-liners. An hour to Raincheck Room--Ed parked behind a Sheriff's unmarked. "I'll only be a few minutes. You stay here, all right?"

  Inez nodded. Pat Keefer left the bar; Ed got out, whistled.

  Keefer came over; Ed steered him away from Inez. "Is he still there?"

  "Yeah, skunk drunk. I'd just about given up on you, you know."

  A dark alley by the bar. "Where's the Parole man?"

  "He told me to take him, this is county jurisdiction. His pals took off, so there's just him."

  Ed pointed to the alley. "Bring him out cuffed."

  Keefer went back in; Ed waited by the alleyway door. Shouts, thuds, Dick Stens muscled out: smelly, disheveled. Keefer pulled his head back; Ed hit him: upstairs, downstairs, flails until his arms gave out. Stens hit the ground retching; Ed kicked him in the face, stumbled away. Inez on the sidewalk. Her one-liner: "Officer White's the thug?"