The Big Nowhere (35 page)

Clean reactions: Claire giving her coat a brush, saying, “We’d heard. Charlie was a good friend to our cause”; Loftis tensing up just a tad—maybe because he and the lawyer had sex going. “That grand jury went down, but it took Charlie with them. He was a frail man and a kind one, and men like that are easy pickings for the fascists.”

Danny flashed: he’s talking about himself, he’s weak, Claire’s his strength. He moved into close-up range and hit bold. “I read a tabloid sheet that said Hartshorn was questioned about a string of killings. Some crazy queer killing people he knew.”

Loftis turned his back, moving into a shamefully fake coughing attack; Claire played supporting actress, bending to him with her face averted, mumbling, “Bad for your bronchitis.” Danny held his close-up and brain-screened what his eyes couldn’t see: Claire giving her fiancé guts; Loftis the actor, knowing faces don’t lie, keeping his hidden.

Danny walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with sink water, a break to give the players time to recover. He walked back slowly and found them acting nonchalant, Claire smoking, Loftis leaning against the staircase, sheepish, a Southern gentleman who thought coughing déclassé. “Poor Charlie. He liked Greek revelry once in a while, and I’m sure the powers that be would have loved to crucify him for that, too.”

Danny handed him the water. “They’ll crucify you for anything they can. It’s a shame about Hartshorn, but personally, I like women.”

Loftis drank, grabbed his coat and winked. He said, “So do I,” kissed Claire on the cheek and went out the door.

Danny said, “We’ve got bad luck so far. Last night, your friend Charlie.”

Claire tossed her purse on the table holding the meeting ledger—too casual. Her tad too-studied glance said she’d arranged the still life for him—Loftis’ alibi—
even though they couldn’t know who he was
. The threads of who was who, knew who, knew what got tangled again; Danny quashed them with a lewd wink. “Let’s stay in, huh?”

Claire said, “My idea, too. Care to see a movie?”

“You’ve got a television set?”

“No, silly. I’ve got a screening room.”

Danny smiled shyly, proletarian Ted wowed by Hollywood customs. Claire took his hand and led him through the kitchen to a room lined with bookcases, the front wall covered by a projection screen. A long leather couch faced the screen; a projector was mounted on a tripod a few feet behind it, a reel of film already fed in. Danny sat down; Claire hit switches, doused the lights and snuggled into him, legs curled under a swell of skirt. Light took over the screen, the movie started.

A test pattern; a black-and-white fade-in; a zoftig blonde and a Mexican with a duck’s ass haircut stripping. A motel room backdrop: bed, chipped stucco walls, sombrero lamps and a bullfight poster on the closet door. Tijuana, pure and simple.

Danny felt Claire’s hand hovering. The blonde rolled her eyes to heaven; she’d just seen her co-star’s cock—huge, veiny, hooked at the middle like a dowsing rod. She salaamed before him, hit her knees and started sucking. The camera caught her acne scars and his needle tracks. She sucked while the hophead gyrated his hips; he pulled out of her mouth and sprayed.

Danny looked away; Claire touched his thigh. Danny flinched, tried to relax but kept flinching; Claire fingered a ridge of coiled muscle inches from his stuff. Hophead screwed Pimples from behind, the insertion close in. Danny’s stomach growled—worse than when he was on a no-food jag. Claire’s hand kept probing; Danny felt himself shriveling—cold shower time where you shrunk down to nothing.

The blonde and the Mexican fucked with abandon; Claire kneaded muscles that would not yield. Danny started to cramp, grabbed Claire’s hand and squeezed it to his knee, like they were back at the jazz club and he was calling the shots. Claire pulled away; the movie ended with a close-up of the blonde and the Mex tongue-kissing.

Film snapped off the cylinder; Claire got up, hit the lights and exchanged reels. Danny uncramped into his best version of Ted Krugman at ease—legs loosely crossed, hands laced behind his head. Claire turned and said, “I was saving this for après bed, but I think we might need it now.”

Danny winked—his whole head twitching—lady-killer Ted. Claire turned the projector on and the lights off; she came back to the couch and snuggled down again. The second half of their double feature hit the screen.

No music, no opening credits, no subtitles like in the old silents—just blackness—gray flecks the only indication that film was running. The darkness broke down at the corners of the screen, a shape took form and a dog’s head came into focus: a pit bull wearing a mask. The dog snapped at the camera, the screen went black again, then slowly dissolved into white.

Danny remembered the dog breeder and his tale of Hollywood types buying pits to film; he jumped to the masked men at Felix Gordean’s house; he saw that he’d shut his eyes and was holding his breath, the better to think who knew what, said what, lied what. He opened his eyes, saw two dogs ripping at each other, animated red splashed in surreal patterns across black-and-white celluloid, disappearing and coloring the real blood its real color, a spritz fogging the camera lens, gray first, cartoon red next. He thought of Walt Disney gone insane; as if in answer, an evil-looking Donald Duck flashed on the screen, feathered phallus hanging to his webbed feet. The duck hopped around, impotent angry like the real Donald; Claire laughed; Danny watched the snapping dogs circle each other and charge, the darker dog getting a purchase on the speckled dog’s midsection, plunging in with his teeth. And he knew his killer, whoever he was, had gone crazy watching this movie.

A black screen; Danny going light-headed from holding his breath, sensing Claire’s eyes on him. Then all color footage, naked men circling each other just like the dogs, going for each other with sucking mouths, 69 close-ups, a pullback shot and Felix Gordean in a red devil costume, capering, prancing. Danny got hard; Claire’s hand went there—like she
knew
. Danny squirmed, tried to shut his eyes,
couldn’t
and kept looking.

A quick cut; then Pretty Boy Christopher, naked and hard, pointing his thing at the camera, the head nearly eclipsing the screen like a giant battering ram, white background borders looking just like parted lips and teeth holding the image intact through rigor mortis—

Danny bolted, double-timed to the front of the house, found a bathroom and locked the door. He got his shakes chilled with a litany: BE A POLICEMAN BE A POLICEMAN BE A POLICEMAN; he made himself think
facts
, flung the medicine cabinet open and got one immediately: a prescription bottle of sodium secobarbital, Wiltsie’s and Lindenaur’s death ticket in a little vial, Reynolds Loftis’ sleep pills administered by D. Waltrow, MD, 11/14/49. Fumbling through shelves of ointments, salves and more pills got him nothing else; he noticed a second door, ajar, next to the shower stall.

He pushed it open and saw a little den all done up cozy, more bookshelves, chairs arranged around a leather ottoman, another desk with another cluttered blotter. He checked the clutter—mimeographed movie scripts with hand scrawl in the margins—opened drawers and found stacks of Claire De Haven stationery, envelopes, rolls of stamps and an old leather wallet. Flipping through the sleeves, he saw expired Reynolds Loftis ID: library card, membership cards to Pinko organizations, a ’36 California driver’s license with a tag stuck to the back side, Emergency Medical Data—allergic to penicillin, minor recurring arthritis, O +
blood
.

HIM?

Danny closed the drawers, unlocked the bathroom door, wiped a towel across his face and slow-walked back to the screening room. The lights were on, the screen was blank and Claire was sitting on the couch. She said, “I didn’t think a tough boy like you would be so squeamish.”

Danny sat beside her, their legs brushing. Claire pulled away, then leaned forward. Danny thought:
she knows, she can’t know
. He said, “I’m not much of an aesthete.”

Claire put a warm hand to his face; her face was cold. “Really? All my friends in the New York Party were mad for New Drama and Kabuki and the like. Didn’t the movie remind you of Cocteau, only with more of a sense of humor?”

He didn’t know who Cocteau was. “Cocteau never jazzed me. Neither did Salvador Dali or any of those guys. I’m just a square from Long Island.”

Claire’s hand kept stroking. It was warm, but the to-die-for softness of last night was all gone. “I used to summer in Easthampton when I was a girl. It was lovely.”

Danny laughed, glad he’d read Considine’s tourist brochure. “Huntington wasn’t exactly Easthampton, sweetie.”

Claire cringed at the endearment, started to let her hand go, then made with more caresses. Danny said, “Who filmed that movie?”

“A brilliant man named Paul Doinelle.”

“Just for friends to see?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s smut. You can’t release films like that. It’s against the law.”

“You say that so vehemently, like you care about a bourgeois law that abridges artistic freedom.”

“It was ugly. I was just wondering what kind of man would enjoy something like that.”

“Why do you say ‘man’? I’m a woman, and I appreciate art of that nature. You’re strictured in your views, Ted. It’s a bad trait for people in our cause to have. And I
know
that film aroused you.”

“That’s not true.”

Claire laughed. “Don’t be so evasive. Tell me what you want. Tell me what you want to do with me.”

She was going to fuck him just to get what he knew, which meant she knew, which meant
—

Danny made Claire a blank frame and kissed her neck and cheeks; she sighed—phony—sounding just like a Club Largo girl pretending stripping was ecstasy. She touched his back and chest and shoulders—hands kneading—it felt like she was trying to restrain herself from gouging him. He tried to kiss her lips, but her mouth stayed crimped; she reached between his legs. He was frozen and shriveled there, and her hand made it worse.

Danny felt his whole body choking him. Claire took her hands away, reached behind her back and removed her sweater and bra in one movement. Her breasts were freckled—spots that looked cancerous—the left one was bigger and hung strange and the nipples were dark and flat and surrounded by crinkled skin. Danny thought of traitors and Mexicans sucking them; Claire whispered, “Here, babe,” a lullaby to mother him into telling what he knew, who he knew, what he lied. She fondled her breasts toward his face; he shut his eyes and couldn’t thought of boys and Tim and HIM and couldn’t—

Claire said, “Ladies’ man? Oh Teddy, how were you ever able to pull that charade off?” Danny shoved her away, left the house slamming doors and drove home thinking:
SHE CANNOT KNOW WHO I AM
. Inside, he went straight for his copy of the grand jury package, prowled pages to prove it for sure, saw “Juan Duarte—UAES brain trust, extra actor/stagehand at Variety Intl Picts” on a personnel sheet, snapped to Augie Duarte choking on his cock on a morgue slab, snapped to the three Mexes on the
Tomahawk Massacre
set the day he questioned Duane Lindenaur’s KAs, snapped on Norm Kostenz taking his picture after the picket line brawl. Snap, snap, snap, snap to two final snaps: the Mex at the morgue who eyed him funny was a Mex actor on the movie set, he had to be an Augie Duarte relative, Juan Duarte the spic Commie actor/stagehand. The crossout on the meeting ledger had to be his name, which meant that he saw Kostenz’ picture and told Loftis and Claire that Ted Krugman was a police detective working on Augie’s snuff.

Which meant that the ledger was a setup alibi.

Which meant that the movie was a device to test his reactions and find out what he knew.

Which meant that the Red Bitch was trying to do to him what Mal Considine set him up to do to her.

WHICH MEANT THAT THEY KNEW WHO HE WAS.

Danny went for the shelf over the refrigerator, the place were he stashed his Deputy D. Upshaw persona. He picked up his badge and handcuffs and held them to himself; he unholstered his .45 revolver and aimed it at the world.

Chief of Detectives Thad Green nodded first to Mal, then to Dudley Smith. “Gentlemen, I wouldn’t have called you in this early in the morning if it wasn’t urgent. What I’m going to tell you has not been leaked yet, and it will remain that way.”

Mal looked at his LAPD mentor. The man, rarely grave, was coming on almost funereal. “What is it, sir?”

Green lit a cigarette. “The rain caused some mudslides up in the hills. About an hour ago, a body was found on the access road going up to the Hollywood Sign. Sergeant Eugene Niles, Hollywood Squad. Buried, shot in the face. I called Nort Layman in for a quick one, and he took two .38’s out of the cranial vault. They were fired from an Iver-Johnson Police Special, which you know is standard LAPD/LASD issue. Niles was last seen day before yesterday at Hollywood Station, where he got into a fistfight with your grand jury chum Deputy Daniel Upshaw. You men have been working with Upshaw, and I called you in for your conclusions. Mal, you first.”

Mal made himself swallow his shock, think, then speak. “Sir, I don’t think Upshaw is capable of killing a man. I reprimanded him on Niles night before last, and he took it like a good cop. He seemed relieved that Niles was off his Homicide detail, and we all know that Niles was in up to here on Brenda Allen. I’ve heard he ran bag for Jack Dragna, and I’d look to Jack and Mickey before I accused a brother officer.”

Green nodded. “Lieutenant Smith.”

Dudley said, “Sir, I disagree with Captain Considine. Sergeant Mike Breuning, who’s also working that Homicide detail with Upshaw, told me that Niles was afraid of the lad and that he was convinced that Upshaw had committed a break-in in LAPD territory in order to get evidence. Niles told Sergeant Breuning that Upshaw lied about how he came to get word of the second and third victims, and that he was going to try to accrue criminal charges against him. Moreover, Niles was convinced that Upshaw had a very strange fixation on these deviant killings he’s so concerned with, and Niles calling Upshaw a ‘queer’ was what precipitated their fight. An informant of mine told me that Upshaw was seen threatening a known queer pimp named Felix Gordean, a man who is known to heavily pay off Sheriff’s Central Vice. Gordean told my man that Upshaw is crazy, obsessed with some sort of homo conspiracy, and that he made extortion demands on him—threatening to go to the newspapers unless he gave him special information—information that Gordean asserts does not even exist.”

Mal took the indictment in. “Who’s your informant, Dudley? And why do you and Breuning care so much about Upshaw?”

Dudley smiled—a bland shark. “I would not want that lad’s unstable violent behavior to upset his work for our grand jury, and I would no more divulge the names of my snitches than you would, Captain.”

“No, but you’d smear a brother officer. A man who I think is a dedicated and brilliant young policeman.”

“I’ve always heard you had a soft spot for your operatives, Malcolm. You should be more circumspect in displaying it, though. Especially now that you’re a captain. I personally consider Upshaw capable of murder. Violence is often the province of weak men.”

Mal thought that with the right conditions and one drink too many, the kid could shoot in cold blood. He said, “Chief, Dudley’s persuasive, but I don’t make Upshaw for this at all.”

Thad Green stubbed out his cigarette. “You men are too personally involved. I’ll put some unbiased officers on it.”