“I think we fucking roll.”
We took Vermont to Slauson, then headed east, passing storefront churches and hair-straightening parlors, vacant lots and liquor stores with no names—only neon signs blinking L-I-Q-U-O-R at one in the afternoon. Hanging a right turn on Hoover, Lee slowed the car and started scanning tenement stoops. We passed a group of three Negro men and an older white guy lounging on the steps of a particularly seedy dump; I saw the four make us as cops. Lee said; “Hopheads. Nash is supposed to run with jigs, so let’s shake them. If they’re dirty we’ll squeeze for an address on him.”
I nodded; Lee ground the car to a halt in the middle of the street. We got out and walked over; the four stuck their hands in their pockets and shuffled their feet, the dance routine of rousted hoodlums everywhere. I said, “Police. Kiss the wall nice and slow.” They moved into a search position, hands above their heads, palms on the building wall, feet back, legs spread.
Lee took the two on the right; the white guy muttered, “What the—Blanchard?”
Lee said, “Shut it, shitbird,” and started frisking him. I patted down the Negro in the middle first, running my hands along the arms of his suit coat, then dipping into his pockets. My left hand pulled out a pack of Luckys and a Zippo lighter; my right a bunch of marijuana cigarettes. I said, “Reefers” and dropped them to the pavement, then gave Lee a quick sidelong glance. The zoot suit Negro beside him reached toward his waistband; light gleamed on metal as his hand came away. I shouted, “Partner!” and pulled my .38.
The white man swung around; Lee shot him twice in the face point blank. The zooter got a shiv free just as I extended my gun. I fired, he dropped the knife, grabbed his neck and slammed into the wall. Wheeling, I saw the jig at the end fumbling at the front of his trousers and shot him three times. He flew backward; I heard “Bucky duck!” Hitting the cement, I got a topsy-turvy view of Lee and the last Negro drawing on each other from a couple of feet apart. Lee’s three shots cut him down just as he managed to aim a tiny derringer. He fell dead, half his skull blown off.
I stood up, looked at the four bodies and blood-covered sidewalk, stumbled to the curb and vomited into the gutter until my chest ached. I heard sirens approaching, pinned my badge to my jacket front, then turned around. Lee was pulling out the stiffs’ pockets, tossing shivs and reefers onto the sidewalk, away from the pools of blood. He walked over, and I was hoping he’d have a wisecrack to calm me down. He didn’t; he was bawling like a baby.
It took the rest of the afternoon to put ten seconds down on paper.
We wrote out our reports at 77th Street Station, and were questioned by the team of Homicide dicks who investigated all officer-involved shootings. They told us that the three Negroes—Willie Walker Brown, Caswell Pritchford and Cato Early—were known grasshoppers, and that the white man— Baxter Fitch—took two strong-arm falls back in the late ‘20s. Since all four men were armed and harboring marijuana, they assured us that there would be no Grand Jury hearing.
I took the questioning calmly; Lee took it rough, shivering and muttering that he’d rousted Baxter Fitch for loitering a bunch of times when he worked Highland Park, and he sort of liked the guy. I stuck close to him at the station, then steered him out to his car through a throng of reporters hurling questions.
When we got to the house, Kay was standing on the front porch; one look at her gaunt face told me she already knew. She ran to Lee and embraced him, whispering, “Oh baby, oh babe.” I watched them, then noticed a newspaper on the railing.
I picked it up. It was the bulldog edition of the Mirror, featuring a banner headline: “Boxer Cops in Gun Battle! Four Crooks Dead!!” Below were publicity stills of Fire and Ice crouched in gloves and trunks, along with mug shots of the dead men. I read a jazzed-up account of the shoot-out and a replay of October’s fight, then heard Lee shout: “You’ll never understand, so just leave me fucking alone!”
Lee took off running, around the driveway to the garage, Kay right behind him. I stood on the porch, amazed at the soft center in the toughest son of a bitch I’d ever known. I heard Lee’s motorcycle starting up; seconds later he peeled out on it, screeching into a hard right turn, undoubtedly heading for a brutal run at Mulholland.
Kay came back just as the cycle noise died in the distance. Taking her hands, I said, “He’ll get over it. He knew one of the guys, so that made it worse. But he’ll get over it.”
Kay looked at me strangely. “You’re very calm.”
“It was them or us. You look after Lee tomorrow. We’re off-duty, but when we go back we’re going after a real beast.”
“And you look after him, too. Bobby De Witt gets out in a week or so, and he swore at his trial to kill Lee and the other men who arrested him. Lee’s scared, and I know Bobby. He’s as bad as they come.”
I put my arms around Kay and held her. “Ssssh. Fire and Ice are on the job, so rest easy.”
Kay shook herself free. “You don’t know Bobby. You don’t know the things he made me do.”
I brushed a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Yes, I do, and I don’t care. I mean I do care, but—”
Kay said, “I know what you mean,” and pushed me away. I let her go, knowing if I pursued it she’d tell me a shitload of things I didn’t want to hear. The front door slammed, and I sat down on the steps, glad to be alone to sort things out.
Four months ago, I was a radio car hack going nowhere. Now I was a Warrants detective instrumental in passing a million-dollar bond issue, with a double shine killing on my record. Next month I would be thirty years old with five years on the job, eligible to take the Sergeant’s Exam. If I passed it, then played my cards right, I could be detective lieutenant before I was thirty-five, and that was just the beginning.
I started to get itchy, so I went inside and puttered around the living room, thumbing through magazines, checking out the bookshelves for something to read. Then I heard the sound of water drumming hard, coming from the rear of the house. I walked back, seeing the wide-open bathroom door, feeling the steam, knowing it was all for me.
Kay was standing nude under the shower. Her expression stayed fixed in no expression at all, even when our eyes met. I took in her body, from freckled breasts with dark nipples to wide hips and flat stomach, then she pirouetted for me. I saw old knife scars criss-crossing her backside from thighs to spine, choked back tremors and walked away wishing she hadn’t showed me on the day I killed two men.
II
39th and Norton
Seven
The phone woke me up early Wednesday morning, cutting off a dream featuring Tuesday’s Daily News headline—“Fire and Ice Cops KO Negro Thugs”—and a beautiful blonde with Kay’s body. Figuring it was the newshounds who’d been pestering me since the shoot-out, I fumbled the receiver onto the nightstand and dived back to slumberland. Then I heard, “Rise and shine, partner!” and picked it up.
“Yeah, Lee.”
“You know what day this is?”
“The fifteenth. Payday. You called me up at six A.M. to—” I stopped when I caught an edge of nervous glee in Lee’s voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m swell. I ran Mulholland at a hundred ten, played house with Kay all day yesterday. Now I’m bored. Feel like doing some police work?”
“Keep going.”
“I just talked to a snitch who owes me big. He says Junior Nash has got a fuck pad—a garage on Coliseum and Norton, in back of a green apartment building. Race you there? Loser buys the beer at the fights tonight?”
New headlines danced in front of my eyes. I said, “You’re on,” hung up and dressed in record time, then ran out to my car and gunned it the eight or nine miles to Leimert Park. And Lee was already there, leaning against his Ford, parked at the curb in front of the only structure on a huge block of vacant lots—a puke-green bungalow court with a two-story shack at the rear.
I pulled up behind him and got out. Lee winked and said, “You lost.”
I said, “You cheated.
”
He laughed. “You’re right, I called from a pay phone. Reporters been bothering you?”
I gave my partner a slow eyeballing. He seemed relaxed but itchy underneath, with his old jocular front back in place. “I holed up. You?”
“Bevo Means came by, asked me how it felt. I told him I wouldn’t want it for a steady diet.”
I pointed to the courtyard. “You talk to any of the tenants? Check for Nash’s car?”
Lee said, “No vehicle, but I talked to the manager. He’s been renting Nash that shack in the back. He’s used it a couple of times to entertain poon, but the manager hasn’t seen him in a week or so.”
“You shake it?”
“No, waiting for you.”
I drew my .38 and pressed it to my leg; Lee winked and aped me, and we walked through the courtyard to the shack. Both floors had flimsy-looking wooden doors, with rickety steps leading to the second story. Lee tried the bottom door; it creaked open. We pressed ourselves to the wall on opposite sides of it, then I wheeled and entered, my gun arm extended.
No sound, no movement, only cobwebs and a wood floor strewn with yellowed newspapers and bald tires. I backed out; Lee took the lead up the steps, walking on his toes. At the landing, he gave the doorknob a jiggle, shook his head no and kicked the door in, clean off its hinges.
I ran up the stairs; Lee moved inside gun first. At the top, I saw him reholstering his piece. He said, “Okie trash,” and made a gesture that took in the whole room. I stepped over the door and nodded my head in agreement.
The crib reeked of rotgut wine. A bed fashioned from two folded-out car seats took up most of the floor space; it was covered with upholstery stuffing and used rubbers. Empty muscatel short dogs were piled in corners, and the one window was streaked with cobwebs and dirt. The stench got to me, so I walked over and opened the window. Looking out, I saw a group of uniformed cops and men in civilian clothes standing on the sidewalk on Norton, about halfway down the block to 39th Street. All of them were staring at something in the weeds of a vacant lot; two black-and-whites and an unmarked cruiser were parked at the curb. I said, “Lee, come here.”
Lee stuck his head out the window and squinted. “I think I see Millard and Sears. They were supposed to be catching squeals today, so maybe—”
I ran out of the pad, down the steps and around the corner to Norton, Lee at my heels. Seeing a coroner’s wagon and a photo car screech to a halt, I sprinted. Harry Sears was knocking back a drink in full view of a half dozen officers; I glimpsed horror in his eyes. The photo men had moved into the lot and were fanning out, pointing their cameras at the ground. I elbowed my way past a pair of patrolmen and saw what it was all about.
It was the nude, mutilated body of a young woman, cut in half at the waist. The bottom half lay in the weeds a few feet away from the top, legs wide open. A large triangle had been gouged out of the left thigh, and there was a long, wide cut running from the bisection point down to the top of the pubic hair. The flaps of skin beside the gash were pulled back; there were no organs inside. The top half was worse: the breasts were dotted with cigarette burns, the right one hanging loose, attached to the torso only by shreds of skin; the left one slashed around the nipple. The cuts went all the way down to the bone, but the worst of the worst was the girl’s face. It was one huge purpled bruise, the nose crushed deep into the facial cavity, the mouth cut ear to ear into a smile that leered up at you, somehow mocking the rest of the brutality inflicted. I knew I would carry that smile with me to my grave.
Looking up, I felt cold all over; my breath came in spurts. Shoulders and arms brushed me and I heard a jumble of voices: “There’s not a goddamned drop of blood—” “This is the worst crime on a woman I’ve seen in my sixteen years—” “He tied her down. Lock, you can see the rope burns on her ankles—” Then a long, shrill whistle sounded.
The dozen or so men quit jabbering and looked at Russ Millard. He said calmly, “Before it gets out of hand, let’s put the kibosh on something. If this homicide gets a lot of publicity, we’re going to get a lot of confessions. That girl was disemboweled. We need information to eliminate the loonies with, and that’s it. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell your wives, don’t tell your girlfriends, don’t tell any other officers. Harry?”
Harry Sears said, “Yeah, Russ,” palming his flask so the boss wouldn’t see it. Millard caught the act and rolled his eyes in disgust. “No reporters are to view the body. You photo men, take your pictures now. You coroner’s men, put a sheet over the body when they finish. You patrolmen, stake up a crime scene perimeter from the street all the way to six feet in back of the body. Any reporter who tries to cross it, you arrest immediately. When the lab men get here to examine the body, you move the reporters over to the opposite side of the street. Harry, you call Lieutenant Haskins at University Station and tell him to send over every man he can spare for canvassing.”
Millard glanced around and noticed me. “Bleichert, what are you doing here? Is Blanchard here, too?”
Lee was squatting beside the stiff, writing in a pocket notebook. Pointing north, I said, “Junior Nash is renting a garage in back of that building over there. We were shaking it down when we saw the hubbub.”
“Was there blood on the premises?”
“No. This isn’t Nash, Lieutenant.”
“We’ll let the lab men be the judge of that. Harry!”
Sears was sitting in a black-and-white, talking into a radio mike. Hearing his name, he yelled, “Yeah, Russ!”
“Harry, when the lab men get here have them go up to that green building on the corner and test the garage for blood and latent prints. Then I want the street sealed—”
Millard stopped when he saw cars swinging onto Norton, beelining for the commotion; I glanced down at the corpse. The photo techs were still snapping pictures from all angles; Lee was still jotting in his notebook. The men milling around on the sidewalk kept looking at the stiff, then averting their eyes. On the street, reporters and camera jockeys were pouring out of cars, Harry Sears and a cordon of blues standing at the ready to hold them back. I got itchy to stare, and gave the girl a detailed eyeing.
Her legs were spread for sex, and from the way the knees buckled I could tell that they were broken; her jet-black hair was free of matted blood, like the killer had given her a shampoo before he dumped her. That awful death leer came on like the final brutality—it was cracked teeth poking out of ulcerated flesh that forced me to look away.
I found Lee on the sidewalk, helping string up crime scene ropes. He stared through me, like all he could see was the ghosts in the air. I said, “Junior Nash, remember?”
Lee’s gaze zeroed in on me. “He didn’t do this. He’s trash, but he didn’t do this.”
Noise rose from the street as more reporters arrived and a line of blues linked arms to restrain them. I shouted to make myself heard: “He beat an old woman to death! He’s our priority warrantee!”
Lee grabbed my arms and squeezed them numb. “This is our priority, and we’re staying! I’m senior, and I say so!” The words rumbled over the scene, causing heads to turn in our direction. I pulled my arms free and snapped to who Lee’s ghost was.
“Okay, partner.”
Over the next hour, 39th and Norton filled up with police vehicles, reporters and a big crowd of rubberneckers. The body was removed on two sheet-covered stretchers; in the back of the meat wagon a lab team rolled the dead girl’s prints before hauling her downtown to the morgue. Harry Sears gave the press a handout that Russ Millard composed, the straight dope of everything except the gutting of the stiff. Sears drove to City Hall to check the records of the Missing Persons Bureau, and Millard stayed behind to direct the investigation.
Lab technicians were dispatched to prowl the lot for possible murder weapons and women’s clothing; another forensic team was sent to check for latents and bloodstains at Junior Nash’s fuck pad. Then Millard counted cop heads. There were four men directing traffic and keeping c
ivilian ghouls in line, twelve bluesuits and five plainclothesmen, Lee and me. Millard dug a street atlas out of his cruiser and divided the entire Leimert Park area into foot beats, then assigned each man his territory and mandatory questions to be asked of every person in every house, apartment and store: Have you heard female screams at any time over the past forty-eight hours? Have you seen anyone discarding or incinerating women’s clothing? Have you noticed any suspicious cars or people loitering in the area? Have you passed by Norton Avenue between 39th and Coliseum Streets during the past twenty-four hours, and if so, did you notice anyone in the vacant lots?
I was assigned Olmsted Avenue, three blocks east of Norton, from Coliseum south to Leimert Boulevard; Lee was given the stores and building sites on Crenshaw, from 39th north to Jefferson. We made plans to meet at the Olympic at 8:00 and split up; I started pounding pavement.
I walked, rang doorbells and asked questions, getting negative answers, writing down the addresses where no one was at home, so that the second wave of canvassing cops would have the numbers to work from. I talked to sherry-sneaking housewives and bratty little kids; to pensioners and on-leave servicemen, even an off-duty cop who worked West LA Division. I threw in questions on Junior Nash and the late model white sedan and showed around his mug shots. All I got was a big fat zero; at 7:00 I walked back to my car disgusted by what I’d blundered into.
Lee’s car was gone, and forensic arclights were being set up at 39th and Norton. I drove to the Olympic hoping for a good series of bouts to take the bad taste of the day out of my mouth.
H.J. Caruso had left tickets for us at the front turnstile, along with a note saying he had a hot date and wouldn’t be showing up. Lee’s ticket was still in the envelope; I grabbed mine and headed for H.J.’s box. The first prelim of an all-bantamweight card had already started, and I settled in to watch and wait for Lee.