The Glitter Dome (22 page)

In fact, the nine old pussies of the Potomac had made Schultz so mad he couldn't take a joke when the call came in from Gloria La Marr down at the county lockup. The Weasel said they write lots of songs about lovers parted by prison walls, and Schultz informed the Weasel that the health plan includes dental care now, so go ahead and keep dumping on him.

“Hello, Gunther, how
are
you?” Gloria La Marr purred.

“Hi, Gloria,” Schultz said, then turned his bearish body toward the pin map on the wall and put his hand over the mouthpiece, since the entire squadroom was eavesdropping.

“I told them at my arraignment that I just wanted to plead guilty so as not to be no more trouble,” Gloria La Marr said.

“That's the right thing to do, Gloria,” Schultz said.

“This is a
very
confidential call. You were awful nice to me, buying me drinks and all, and never making fun of me like other people sometimes do.”

“You're a nice person, Gloria,” Schultz said.

“Thank you, Gunther. Well, they have me in the sissy tank with all the gay people so I don't think I have to worry about being … attacked or nothing like that.”

“That's good, Gloria,” Schultz said. “I'm glad to hear that.”

“I'm going to have the rest of my operation just as soon as I get out.”

“That's good too, Gloria,” Schultz said.

“Reason I called you is, well, I know I can trust you and I know nobody in jail will ever find out and … well, if
anything
good should happen as a result of what I'm going to tell you, well, I just know you'd talk to the judge and …”

“I'll help you any way I can, you know that.”

“Thank you, Gunther,” Gloria said. And then she knocked off the cooing and her voice became more tense and masculine. “I never snitched off nobody before, you understand. I never gave nobody up, but … well, there's a boss queen down here named Violet. She read all about the thing where two of your cops started following a silver Mercedes in Hollywood and ended up in San Pedro. Violet was in the army ten years ago and she spent a year in Vietnam and she knows a little of the language. She
swears
she tricked with Bozwell, that guy the cops arrested. Him and a Vietnamese guy picked her up on the street in that Mercedes a few nights before she read about the bust. The guy Bozwell was drunk and talked to the other guy in rice-paddy lingo. About
gold
. She caught
that
word, all right. She says Bozwell offered to take her to a restaurant on Melrose near Western that looked Chinese. They dropped the Vietnamese guy there and she never saw them after that night.”

“I'll pass it on,” Schultz said.

“It probably don't mean much, Gunther, but if something good should come out of it, you'll put in a word for me, won't you?”

“Sure I will, Gloria.”

Then Gloria La Marr sounded feminine again. She started to weep. “Now that I'm …
almost
a woman, I … I hate jail. I just
hate
it now. It's different for a … a
woman
!”

“If anything comes of it, I'll put in a word, kid. I promise.”

When Schultz hung up and turned his grizzly shape around in the chair, everyone started shuffling paper, dialing phones, drinking coffee, and generally averting the eyes. Would Gloria La Marr come to Schultz's retirement party someday? As his
date?

Then Schultz took Simon, the Weasel and the Ferret into an interrogation room and closed the door. Which worried the Weasel no end. “I was only joking about Gloria, Gunther!”

“Might not amount to nothing,” Schultz said. “But how would you two like to take down that gook that tried to kill you down there in San Pedro last week?”

“Would I like to take down the gook!” the Ferret cried. “Would I like a broad with four tits?” And he glared knowingly at the Weasel.

“Okay, might not be much, but Gloria La Marr says there's some queen down in the fruit tank who tricked with your boy Bozwell. Somebody called Violet. Don't go talk to Violet or Gloria's gonna get burned. Anyways, Violet saw the picture of Bozwell in the paper. Bozwell was with a dink the night Violet met him and they talked a few words of gook. About
gold
. That woulda been two nights before he tried to shoot your eyes out, Ferret. Maybe it's nothing. It's worth a check, is all. She said the gook went to some restaurant on Melrose near Western. Maybe a Chinese restaurant.”

“Just Plain Bill Bozwell
did
serve in Vietnam for two years,” the Ferret said. “It was on an old five-ten in his package. Maybe that's where he learned to cut throats. Old habits?”

“Can't ya make him a deal if he turns the gook for ya?” Schultz asked.

“He's saying nothing more,” the Weasel said. “Wouldn't talk much to the robbery dicks from downtown. Told the dicks from the Harbor to go dance in eel shit. Had enough money to get a lawyer and writ out the next day. Anyway, he just might be telling the truth about not knowing the slope too well. Maybe they
did
just meet in a massage parlor, and Just Plain Bill started practicing his Vietnamese, and … birds of a feather?”

“Well”—Schultz shrugged—“want me to give it to robbery? After all, they're handling the case.”

“No, let
us
check it out,” the Ferret said. “I got a personal interest in finding that boy.” His heart started beating irregularly. Don't kill me! Mother! “A
personal
interest.”

“Got any leads at all?” Simon asked.

“Naw,” the Weasel said. “The dink dropped a few things outa his pocket when he was ripping himself up on the fence. A key and piece a paper with a phone number.”

“Where's the number come back to?”

“Nowhere that means anything. Main switchboard of a big movie studio. Probably five thousand people in and out a those places every day. They even film TV shows there. Probably trying to get on a game show or something.”

“Which studio?” Schultz asked.

“The one where that guy was the boss, the one that got dusted in the bowling alley parking lot.”

“Nigel St. Claire,” Schultz said, looking at Simon. “And how about the key? They make it?”

“Just an ordinary key,” the Ferret said. “Nothing.”

“Maybe it's a key they
use
at the movie studio,” Schultz said.

“First thing they checked after they ran the telephone number. Wrong brand a key.”

“
Somebody
oughtta find the Chinese restaurant and stake it out,” Schultz said. “Somebody has to be
you
, Ferret. You're the only one knows what the gook looks like. You'd know him, wouldn't ya?”

The Ferret remembered him. The bastard
grinned
when he pulled the trigger. Then the grin disappeared when it clicked. The Ferret remembered him, all right.

“We don't have much going on anyway,” the Weasel said, knowing how badly the Ferret wanted the assassin.

Although they were still sore about having the murder case taken away from them, Schultz and Simon were policemen enough to report the slim lead to Al Mackey and Martin Welborn.

“The Oriental bandit had the number of the studio? Must be a thousand extensions and private numbers there,” Al Mackey said when he was told.

“Just thought I'd tell ya,” Schultz said. “It's
your
case now.”

“That wasn't by choice.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.”

“Maybe they're doing another thirty-million-dollar war epic and he wants to play a Vietcong. Maybe …”

“Just thought I'd
tell
ya,” Schultz said.

“If anything comes of it, I'll be sure to put in a word for Gloria La Marr,” Al Mackey said, sending Schultz scowling back to his table.

The
whole
fucking world knew! “Just because the broad's serving time,” Schultz moaned to Simon when he sat down. “Gordon Liddy did
more
time and he's on the
talk
shows!”

That did it. Gordon Liddy was Simon's hero. Comparing Gloria La Marr to Gordon Liddy! This was the day to take Schultz up to the police academy and thump him on his noggin and hope it wasn't too late to get his head all straightened out.

That afternoon while Simon had Schultz on the police academy wrestling mat trying to make Schultz see that he was going bughouse, the Weasel and the Ferret were intently watching the entrance of the only restaurant in the general vicinity described by Violet. It was not Chinese but Thai. They were staked out on the rooftop of a secondhand store on Melrose Avenue, wearing cowboy hats to shade them from the sun while they ate the world's driest burritos, served by an Arab in a Mexican restaurant owned by a Korean.

Al Mackey and Martin Welborn went about their ordinary business, which involved two aggravated assaults, one domestic shooting, and a lover's stabbing of a gay. The stabbee ended up with more sympathy for the knife wielder than he had for himself, which was not unusual. The detectives decided to get a rejection of a criminal complaint and let them work it out themselves over wine and linguini.

It was up to the street monsters, Buckmore Phipps and Gibson Hand, to open the next door into the mysterious murder of Nigel St. Claire.

Buckmore Phipps was mad today because the roller derby and the
$1.98 Beauty Contest
got preempted by a presidential address. Gibson Hand was irritated because a bunch of celebrity pussies were trying to put his favorite newspaper,
The National Enquirer
, out of business. There was trouble in their world.

So they were in no mood for bullshit while cruising up La Brea on the way back from Gibson Hand's favorite barbecue grill, when they spotted two drunks having it out on the sidewalk in the presence of three other winos and a moaning basset hound.

The lackluster combatants, who were pounding each other wearily with a length of two-by-four and a piece of lead pipe, didn't even notice the cops gliding up in the black-and-white. Finally one of the winos in the gallery saw the street monsters.

“Uh oh,” he said, elbowing the wino who was sitting next to him on the curb, who elbowed the next wino, who elbowed the moaning basset hound and said, “Shut the fuck up, dog.”

When the street fighters finally saw the street monsters, each dropped his weapon and waited meekly for the bracelets. However, Buckmore Phipps and Gibson Hand were out of their divisional boundaries and full of ribs and black-eyed peas. They weren't
about
to get out of their car. The basset hound moaned even louder when all the yelling and fighting ceased.

“Why is that dog groanin like that?” Gibson Hand asked lazily.

“Got hit by a car bout a hour ago,” a wino answered.

“Country dog,” another wino added. “Jist brought him in from a farm. Not used to cars. Jist stood there and watched the car run over hisself.”

“Either shoot him or shut him up,” Gibson Hand said.

“
You
kin shoot him, you want to,” a wino said. “Course he was jumpin around a minute ago. I think he jist liked the attention he got when he was run over.”

“Why are you two beatin on your heads with that two-by-four and piece a pipe?” Buckmore Phipps asked wearily, as Gibson Hand leaned back on the headrest and picked his teeth with a matchbook.

“Motherfucker went to git some wine and chicken goblets and ate it
all
fore he got back,” one fighter said.

The other one made a terrible mistake. He said to the cops, “I know my rights. I ain't got nothin to say to
you
.”

Gibson Hand rolled his head slowly toward Buckmore Phipps, wondering if he should take the shotgun out of the rack and turn it into a pistol by busting the stock across the fighter's noodle, but decided he'd eaten too many ribs for all that.

Buckmore Phipps said “You!” to the fighter who had made the big mistake. “Get in the car. We're bookin you for ADW.”

“What's that?”

“Assault with a deadly weapon.”

“Deadly weapon? Shee-it! I on'y hit the motherfucker with a pipe!”

Gibson Hand knew they were not going to book the wino for ADW or anything else, because when the drunk got in the car they headed out of the city and into the jurisdiction of the county sheriff.

Buckmore Phipps, driving leisurely, looked at the surly combatant and said, “Maybe we oughtta just book him for drunk instead?”

“I ain't drunk
either
,” the fighter said, adding insult to injury.

“We're gonna let our sergeant check you,” said Buckmore Phipps. “He's a qualified expert. Drinks a fifth a day. He says you're drunk, you're drunk. He says you ain't, you ain't.”

Gibson Hand was getting curious when they pulled up in front of the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station. Buckmore Phipps jotted something in laboriously disguised handwriting. He folded it carefully, but the fighter was so bagged he couldn't have read it anyway, and after sobering up he said he wouldn't know those two cops from Cheech and Chong.

Buckmore Phipps said, “Take this note
and
your lead pipe inside and hand the note to the desk officer. If the sergeant thinks you're sober enough and wants to let you go, it's up to him. I explained everything on the note as I saw it. We'll wait here.”

The wino staggered around the sidewalk, tucked his shirt in, zipped up his fly, rehearsed walking a straight line. When he was convinced he could pull it off, he weaved his way up the steps and into the sheriff's station with his note and lead pipe.

The deputy on the desk was reading a
Penthouse
magazine and was pissed off at being interrupted. The length of pipe in the asshole's hand got his attention, however. The fighter handed the deputy the note and said, “Lemme see the sergeant right away.”

The deputy unfolded the note. It said: “This pipe is loaded with plastic explosives. I want twenty thousand dollars, a helicopter, and the Big Sheriff himself as a hostage or I'm blowing this fucking place into the ocean.”