L.A. Confidential (52 page)

  A motorcycle escort met them, shot them out the Pomona Freeway. Half the stretch elevated: you could see the California Central tracks, a single train running north--a freight carrier, inmate cargo in the third car--barred windows, steel-reinforced doors. Surface streets outside Fontana-- up to hills abutting the tracks--and a small standing army.

  Nine prowl cars, sixteen men with gas masks and riot pumps. Sharpshooters in the hills, two machinegunners, three guys with smoke grenades. At the edge of the curve: a big buck deer on the tracks.

  A deputy handed them shotguns, gas masks. "Your pal Kleckner called the command post, said that Rothstein woman was DOA at her apartment. She either hanged herself or somebody hanged her. Either way, we gotta assume she got the guns on. There's four guards and six crewmen on board that train. We stand ready with smoke and call for the password--every prison chain's got one. We hear the okay, we call a warning and wait. No okay, we go in."

  A train whistle blew. Somebody yelled, "Now!"

  The sharpshooters ducked down. The gas men hugged the ground. The fire team ran behind a pine row--Bud found a tree up close. Jack took a spot beside him.

  The train made the curve--brakes caught, sparks on the tracks. The engine car stopped--nose up to the obstruction.

  Megaphone: "Sheriff's! Identify yourself with the password!" Silence--ten seconds' worth. Bud eyeballed the engine car window--blue demin flashed.

  "Sheriff's! Identify yourself with the password!"

  Silence--then a fake bird call.

  The gas men hit the windows--grenades broke glass, slipped between the bars. Tommygunners charged car 3--full clips took down the door.

  Smoke, screams.

  Somebody yelled, "Now!"

  Smoke out the door--men in khaki running through it. A sharpshooter picked one off; somebody yelled, "No, they're ours!"

  Cops swarmed the car--masks on, shotguns up. Jack grabbed Bud. "They're not in that one!"

  Bud ran, hit the car 4 platform. Open the door--a dead guard just inside, inmates running helter-skelter.

  Bud fired, pumped, fired--three went down, one aimed a handgun. Bud pumped, fired, missed--a crate beside the man exploded. Jack jumped on the platform--the inmate squeezed a shot. Jack caught it in the face, spun, hit the tracks.

  The shooter ran. Bud pumped, hit empty. He dropped his shotgun, pulled his .38-one, two, three, four, five, six shots-- hits in the back, he was killing a dead man. Noise outside the car-convicts on the tracks by Trashcan's body. Deputies behind them firing close--buckshot and blood, black/red air.

  A smoke bomb exploded--Bud ran into #5 gagging. Gunfire: white guys in denim shooting colored guys in denim, guards in khaki shooting both of them. He jumped the train, ran for the trees.

  Bodies on the tracks.

  Convicts picked off sitting duck-style.

  Bud hit the pines, hit his car, gunned it over the tracks dragging the axles. Into a gully, fishtailing down, tires sliding on gravel. A tall man standing by a car. Bud saw who he was, aimed straight for him.

  The man ran. Bud sideswiped the car, skidded to a stop. He got out--groggy, bloody from a crack on the dash. Deuce Perkins walked up shooting.

  Bud caught one in the leg, one in the side. Two misses, a hit in the shoulder. Another miss--Perkins dropped the gun, pulled a knife. Bud saw rings on his fmgers.

  Deuce stabbed. Bud felt his chest rip, tried to make fists, couldn't. Deuce lowered his face, smirked--Bud kneed him in the balls and bit his nose off. Perkins shrieked; Bud bit into his arm, threw his weight down.

  They tumbled. Perkins made animal noises. Bud thrashed his head, felt the arm rip out of its socket.

  Deuce dropped the knife. Bud picked it up--blinded by rings that killed women. He dropped the knife, beat Perkins to death with his own two wounded hands.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  The Patchett estate in ruins-- two acres of soot, debris. Shingles on the lawn, a scorched palm tree in the pool. The house itself rubble-collapsed stucco, soaked ashes. Find a booby-trapped safe inside a six-trillionsquare-inch perimeter.

  Ed kicked through the rubble. David Mertens hovered--he had to be _there_, it was just too right.

  The floor collapsed into the foundation blocks--timber to be cleared away. Wood heaps, mounds of sodden fabric--no telltale metal glints. A ten-man/one-week job, a tech for the booby trap. Around to the yard.

  A cement back porch--a slab with fried furniture. Solid cement--no cracks, no grooves, no obvious access to a safe hole. The pool house another rubble heap.

  Wood three feet high--too much work if Mertens was there. Circuit the pool--burned chairs, a diving platform. A handgrenade pin floating in the water.

  Ed kicked the floating palm tree. Porcelain chips in the fronds; a piece of shrapnel embedded in the trunk. Down prone, squinting: capsules in the water, black squares that looked like detonator caps. The shallow end steps exploded plaster--metal grids showing, more pills. Check the lawn--extra-scorched grass running from the pool to the house.

  Access to the safe. Grenade and dynamite safeguards. Flames shooting to the terminus, defusing the booby trap-just maybe.

  Ed jumped in the water, tore at the plaster--pills and bubbles broke to the surface. Two-handed rips--plaster, water, bubbles, a swinging metal door. Pill eruptions, folders under plastic, plastic over cash and white powder. Loads and loads and loads--then nothing but a deep black hole. Sopping-wet runs to his car--the sun beat down--he was almost dry when he got the stash loaded. One last trip in case HE was THERE: pills scooped from the deep end.

o        o          o

  The car heater warmed him up. He drove to the Dieterling school, bolted the fence.

  Quiet--Saturday--no classes. A typical playground--basketball hoops, softball diamonds. Moochie Mouse on everything-- backboards to base markers.

  Ed walked to the south fence perimeter--the closest route from Billy Dieterling's house. Gristled skin on chain links-- handholds up and over. Dark dots on faded asphalt--blood, an easy trail.

  Across the playground, down steps to a boiler room door. Blood on the knob, a light on inside. He took out Bud White's spare, walked in.

  David Mertens shivering in a corner. A hot room--the man sweating up bloody clothes. He showed his teeth, twisted his mouth into a screech. Ed threw the pills at him.

  He grabbed them, gagged them down. Ed aimed at his mouth, couldn't pull the trigger. Mertens stared at him. Something strange happened with time--it left them alone. Mertens fell asleep, his lips curled over his gums. Ed looked at his face, tried for some outrage. He still couldn't kill him.

  Time came back: the wrong way. Trials, sanity hearings, Preston Exley reviled for letting this monster go free. Time hard on the trigger--he still couldn't do it.

  Ed picked the man up, carried him out to his car.

o        o          o

  Pacific Sanitarium--Malibu Canyon. Ed told the gate guard to send down Dr. Lux--Captain Exley wanted to pay back his favor.

  The guard pointed him to a space. Ed parked, ripped off Mertens' shirt. Brutal--the man was one huge scar.

  Lux headed over. Ed pulled out two bags of powder, two stacks of thousand-dollar bills. He placed them on the hood, rolled down the rear windows.

  Lux walked up, checked the back seat. "I know that work. That's Douglas Dieterling."

  "Just like that?"

  Lux tapped the powder. "The late Pierce Patchett's? Let's not be outraged, Captain. The last I heard you were no Cub Scout. And what is it that you wish?"

  "That man taken care of on a locked ward for the rest of his life."

  "I find that acceptable. Is this compassion or the desire to spare our future governor's reputation?"

  "I don't know."

  "Not a typical Exley answer. Enjoy the grounds, Captain. I'll have my orderlies clean up here."

  Ed walked to a terrace, looked at the ocean. Sun, waves-- maybe some sharks out feeding. A radio snapped on behind him. ". . . so for more on that thwarted prison train break. A Highway Patrol spokesman told reporters that the death toll now stands at twenty-eight inmates, seven guards and crew members. Four deputy sheriffs were injured and Sergeant John Vincennes, celebrated Los Angeles policeman and the former technical advisor to the _Badge of Honor_ TV show, was shot and killed. Sergeant Vincennes' partner, LAPD Sergeant Wendell White, is in critical condition at Fontana General Hospital. White pursued and killed the crash-out's pickup man, identified as Burt Arthur 'Deuce' Perkins, a nightclub entertainer with underworld connections. A team of doctors are now striving to save the valiant officer's life, although he is not expected to live. Captain George Rachlis of the California Highway Patrol calls this tragedy--"

  The ocean blurred through his tears. White winked and said, "Thanks for the push." Ed turned around. The monster, the dope, the money-gone.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  The pool stash: twenty-one pounds of heroin, $871,400, carbons of Sid Hudgens' dirt files. Included: blackmail photos, records of Pierce Patchett's criminal enterprises. The name "Dudley Smith" did not appear--nor did the names of John Stompanato, Burt Arthur Perkins, Abe Teitlebaum, Lee Vachss, Dot Rothstein, Sergeant Mike Breuning, Officer Dick Carlisle. Coleman Stein, Sal Bonventre, George Magdaleno--killed in the crash-out. Davey Goldman reinterviewed at Camarillo State Hospital--he could not give a coherent statement. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled Dot Rothstein's death a suicide. David Mertens stayed in locked-ward custody at Pacific Sanitarium. Relatives of the three innocent citizens killed at Abe's Noshery brought suit against the LAPD for reckless endangerment. The crash-out received national news coverage, was labeled the "Blue Denim Massacre." Surviving inmates told Sheriff's detectives that squabbling among the armed prisoners resulted in guns changing hands-- soon every inmate on the train was free. Racial tensions flared up, aborting the crash-out before the authorities arrived.

  Jack Vincennes was posthumously awarded the LAPD's Medal of Valor. No LAPD men were invited to the funeral--the widow refused an audience with Captain Ed Exley.

  Bud White refused to die. He remained in intensive care at Fontana General Hospital. He survived massive shock, neurological trauma, the loss of over half the blood in his body. Lynn Bracken stayed with him. He could not speak, but responded to questions with nods. Chief Parker presented him with his Medal of Valor. White freed an arm from a traction sling, threw the medal in his face.

  Ten days passed.

  A warehouse in San Pedro burned to the ground--remnants of pornographic books were discovered. Detectives labeled the fire "professional arson," reported no leads. The building was owned by Pierce Patchett. Chester Yorkin and Lorraine Malvasi were reinterrogated. They offered no salient information, were released from custody.

  Ed Exley burned the heroin, kept the files and the money. His final Nite Owl report omitted mention of Dudley Smith and the fact that David Mertens, now the object of an all-points bulletin for his murders of Sid Hudgens, Billy Dieterling and Jerry Marsalas, was also the 1934 slayer of Wee Willie Wennerholm and five other children. Preston Exley's name was not spoken in any context.

  Chief Parker held a press conference. He announced that the Nite Owl case had been solved-correctly this time. The gunmen were Burt Arthur "Deuce" Perkins, Lee Vachss, Abraham "Kikey" Teitlebaum--their motive to kill Dean Van Gelder, an ex-convict masquerading as the incorrectly identified Delbert "Duke" Cathcart. The shootings were conceived as a terror tactic, an attempt to take over the vice kingdom of Pierce Morehouse Patchett, a recent murder victim himself. The State Attorney General's Office reviewed Captain Ed Exley's 114-page case summary and announced that it was satisfied. Ed Exley again received credit for breaking the Nite Owl murder case. He was promoted to inspector in a televised ceremony.

  The next day Preston Exley announced that he would seek the Republican Party's gubernatorial nomination. He shot to the front of a hastily conducted poll.

  Johnny Stompanato returned from Acapulco, moved into Lana Turner's house in Beverly Hills. He remained there, never venturing outside, the object of a constant surveillance supervised by Sergeants Duane Fisk and Don Kleckner. Chief Parker and Ed Exley referred to him as their Nite Owl "Addendum"-- the living perpetrator to feed the public now that they were temporarily moffified with dead killers. When Stompanato left Beverly Hills for Los Angeles City proper, he would be arrested. Parker wanted a clean front-page arrest just over the city line--he was wiffing to wait for it.

  The Nite Owl case and the murders of Billy Dieterhng and Jerry Marsalas remamed news They were never speculatively connected. Timmy Valburn refused to comment. Raymond Dieterhng issued a press release expressmg grief over the loss of his son He closed down Dream a Dreamland for a one month period of mourning. He remained in seclusion at his house in Laguna Beach, attended to by his friend and aide Inez Soto.

  Sergeant Mike Breuning and Officer Dick Carlisle remained on emergency leave.

  Captain Dudley Smith remained front stage center throughout the post-reopening round of press conferences and LAPD/D.A.'s Office meetings. He served as toastmaster at Thad Green's surprise party honoring Inspector Ed Exley. He did not appear in any way flustered knowing that Johnny Stompanato remained at large, was under twenty-four-hour surveillance and thus immune to assassination. He did not seem to care that Stompanato would be arrested in the near future.

  Preston Exley, Raymond Dieterling and Inez Soto did not contact Ed Exley to congratulate him on his promotion and reversal of bad press.

  Ed knew they knew. He assumed Dudley knew. Vincennes dead, White fighting to live. Only he and Bob Gallaudet knew--and Gallaudet knew nothing pertaining to his father and the Atherton case.

  Ed wanted to kill Dudley outright.