Buzz parked, got out and peered through the wire. Two men in hipboots and khaki smocks were slaughtering chickens, hacking them with razor-bladed two-by-four’s—the zoot sticks Riot Squad bulls used to pack back in the early ’40s, emasculating Mex hoodlums by slashing their threads. The stick wielders were good: single neck shots, on to the next one. The few remaining birds were trying to run and fly away; their panic had them scudding into the walls, the roof and the zoot men. Buzz thought: no chicken marsala at the Derby tonight, and heard a voice behind him.
“Two birds with one stone. A bad pun, good business.”
Buzz turned. Terry Lux was standing there—all rangy gray handsomeness, like a dictionary definition of “physician”. “Hello, Doc.”
“You know I prefer Doctor or Terry, but I’ve always made allowances for your homespun style. Is this business?”
“Not exactly. What’s that? You doin’ your own catering?”
Lux pointed to the slaughterhouse, silent now, the stick men tossing dead chickens in sacks. “Two birds, one stone. Years ago I read a study that asserted a heavy chicken diet is beneficial to people with low blood sugar, which most alcoholics and drug addicts have. Stone one. Stone two is my special cure for narcotics users. My technicians drain out all their existing contaminated blood and rotate in fresh, healthy blood filled with vitamins, minerals and animal hormones. So, I have a hatchery and a slaughterhouse. It’s all very cost-effective and beneficial to my patients. What is it, Buzz? If it isn’t business, then it’s a favor. How can I help you?”
The smell of blood and feathers was making him gag. Buzz noticed a pulley system linking the maintenance huts to the clinic, a tram car stationed on a landing dock about ten yards in back of the chicken shack. “Let’s go up to your office. I’ve got some questions about a woman who I’m pretty damn sure was a patient of yours.”
Lux frowned and cleaned his nails with a scalpel. “I never divulge confidential patient information. You know that. It’s a prime reason why Mr. Hughes and yourself use my services exclusively.”
“Just a few questions, Terry.”
“I suppose money instead is out of the question?”
“I don’t need money, I need information.”
“And if I don’t proffer this information you’ll take your business elsewhere?”
Buzz nodded toward the tram car. “No tickee, no washee. Be nice to me, Terry. I’m in with the City of Los Angeles these days, and I just might get the urge to spill about that dope you manufacture here.”
Lux scratched his neck with the scalpel. “For medical purposes only, and politically approved.”
“Doc, you tellin’ me you don’t trade the skim to Mickey C. for his referrals? The City hates Mickey, you know.”
Lux bowed in the direction of the car; Buzz walked ahead and got in. The doctor hit a switch; sparks burst from the cables; they moved slowly up and docked on an overhang adjacent to a portico with a spectacular ocean view. Lux led Buzz down a series of antiseptic white hallways to a small room crammed with filing cabinets. Medical posters lined the walls: a picture primer for plastic surgeons, facial reconstruction in the style of Thomas Hart Benton. Buzz said, “Claire Katherine De Haven. She’s some kind of Commie.”
Lux opened a cabinet, leafed through folders, plucked one and read from the top page: “Claire Katherine De Haven, date of birth May 5, 1910. Chronic controlled alcoholic, sporadically addicted to phenobarbital, occasional Benzedrine use, occasional heroin skin-popper. She took my special cure I told you about three times—in ’39, ’43, and ’47. That’s it.”
Buzz said, “Nix, I want more. That file of yours list any details? Any good dirt?”
Lux held up the folder. “It’s mostly medical charts and financial accountings. You can read them if you like.”
“No thanks. You remember her good, Terry. I can tell. So feed me.”
Lux put the file back and slid the cabinet shut. “She seduced a few of her fellow patients while she was here the first time. It caused an upheaval, so in ’43 I kept her isolated. She was on remorseful both times, and on her second go-round I gave her a little psychiatric counseling.”
“You a headshrinker?”
Lux laughed. “No, but I enjoy getting people to tell me things. In ’43 De Haven told me she wanted to reform because some Mexican boyfriend of hers got beat up in the zoot suit riots and she wanted to work more efficaciously for the People’s Revolt. In ’47 the Red hearings back east sent her around the twist—some pal of hers got his you-know-what in the wringer. HUAC was good for business, Buzz. Lots of remorse, ODs, suicide attempts. Commies with money are the best Commies, don’t you agree?”
Buzz ran the rest of the target list through his head. “Who got his dick in the wringer, some bimbo of Claire’s?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Morton Ziffkin?”
“No.”
“One of her spics? Benavides, Lopez, Duarte?”
“No, it wasn’t a Mex.”
“Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis?”
Bingo on “Loftis”—Lux’s face muscles tensing, coming together around a phony smile. “No, not them.”
Buzz said, “Horseshit. You give on that. Now.”
Lux shrugged—phony. “I had a case on Claire, and so did Loftis. I was jealous. When you mentioned him, that brought it all back.”
Buzz laughed—his patented shitkicker job. “Horse pucky. You’ve only got a case on money, so you fuckin’ give me better than that.”
The doctor got out his scalpel and tapped it against his leg. “Okay, let’s try this. Loftis used to buy heroin for Claire, and I didn’t like it—I wanted her beholden to me. Satisfied?”
A good morning’s work: the woman as a hophead/Mex fucker, Benavides a maybe kiddie raper, Loftis copping H for a fellow Red. “Who’d he glom from?”
“I don’t know. Really.”
“You got anything else good?”
“No. You have any fine young Howard rejects to spice up the ward?”
“See you in church, Doc.”
* * *
A stack of messages was waiting back at the office, partial results from his secretary’s phone queries. Buzz leafed through them.
Traffic ticket rebop predominated, along with some stale bread on the spics: unlawful assembly, nonfelony assault and battery resulting in Mickey Mouse juvie time. No sex shit on Samuel Tomás Ignacio Benavides, the “devil incarnate”; no political dirt on any of the three ex–White Fencers. Buzz turned to the last message slip—his secretary’s call back from the Santa Monica PD.
Mr. Meeks—
3/44—R. Loftis & another man—Charles (Eddington) Hartshorn, D.O.B. 9/6/1897, routinely questioned during Vice Squad raid of S.M. deviant bar (Knight in Armor - 1684 S. Lincoln, S.M.) This from F.I. card check. DMV/R&I on Hartshorn: no crim. rec., traffic rec. clean, attorney. Address - 419 S. Rimpau, L.A. - hope this helps - Lois.
419 South Rimpau was Hancock Park, pheasant under glass acres, old LA money; Reynolds Loftis had a case on Claire De Haven—and now it looked like he addressed the ball from both sides of the plate. Buzz ran an electric shaver over his face, squirted cologne at his armpits and brushed a chunk of pie crust off his necktie. Filthy rich always made him nervous; filthy rich and fruit was a combo he’d never worked before.
Audrey Anders stuck with him on the ride over; he pretended his Old Spice was her Chanel #5 in just the right places. 419 South Rimpau was a Spanish mansion fronted by a huge expanse of grass dotted with rose gardens; Buzz parked and rang the bell, hoping for a single-o play: no witnesses if it got ugly.
A peephole opened, then the door. A peaches-and-cream blonde about twenty-five had her hand on the knob, wholesome pulchritude in a tartan skirt and pink button-down shirt. “Hello. Are you the insurance man here to see Daddy?”
Buzz pulled his jacket over the butt of his .38. “Yes, I am. In private, please. No man likes to discuss such grave matters in the presence of his family.”
The girl nodded, led Buzz through the foyer to a book-lined study and left him there with the door ajar. He noticed a liquor sideboard and thought about a quick one—a mid-afternoon bracer might give him some extra charm. Then “Phil, what’s this in-private stuff?” took it out of his hands.
A short pudgy man, bald with a fringe, had pushed the door open. Buzz held out his badge; the man said, “What is this?”
“DA’s Bureau, Mr. Hartshorn. I just wanted to keep your family out of it.”
Charles Hartshorn closed the door and leaned against it. “Is this about Duane Lindenaur?”
Buzz drew a blank on the name, then remembered it from yesterday’s late-edition Tattler: Lindenaur was a victim in the homo killings Dudley Smith told him about—the job the Sheriff’s dick they just co-opted was set to run. “No, sir. I’m with the Grand Jury Division, and we’re investigating the Santa Monica Police. We need to know if they abused you when they raided the Knight in Armor back in ’44.”
Veins throbbed in Hartshorn’s forehead; his voice was board-room-lawyer cold. “I don’t believe you. Duane Lindenaur attempted to extort money from me nine years ago—spurious allegations that he threatened to leak to my family. I dealt with the man legally then, and a few days ago I read that he had been murdered. I’ve been expecting the police at my door, and now you show up. Am I a suspect in Lindenaur’s death?”
Buzz said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. This is about the Santa Monica Police.”
“No, it is not. This pertains to the spurious allegations Duane Lindenaur made against me and the non sequitur of my happening to be in a cocktail lounge frequented by certain not respectable people when a police raid occurred. I have an alibi for the newspapers’ estimated time of Duane Lindenaur’s and the other man’s deaths, and I want you to corroborate it without involving my family. If you so much as breathe a word to my wife and daughter, I will have your badge and your head. Do you understand?”
The lawyer’s tone had gotten calmer; his face was one massive contortion. Buzz tried diplomacy again. “Reynolds Loftis, Mr. Hartshorn. He was rousted with you. Tell me what you know about him, and I’ll tell the Sheriff’s detective who’s workin’ the Lindenaur case to leave you alone, that you’re alibied up. That sound nice to you?”
Hartshorn folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know any Reynolds Loftis and I don’t make deals with grubby little policemen who reek of cheap cologne. Leave my home now.”
Hartshorn’s “Reynolds” was all wrong. Buzz moved to the sideboard, filled a glass with whiskey and walked up to the lawyer with it. “For your nerves, Charlie. I don’t want you kickin’ off a heart attack on me.”
“Get out of my home, you grubby little worm.”
Buzz dropped the glass, grabbed Hartshorn’s neck and slammed him against the wall. “You’re humpin’ the wrong boy, counselor. The last boy around here you want to fuck with. Now here’s the drill: you and Reynolds Loftis or I go into the living room and tell your little girl that daddy sucks cock at the Westlake Park men’s room and takes it up the ass on Selma and Las Palmas. And you breathe a word to anybody that I leaned on you, and I’ll have you in Confidential Magazine porkin’ nigger drag queens. Do you understand?”
Hartshorn was beet red and spilling tears. Buzz let go of his neck, saw the imprint of a big ham hand and made that hand a fist. Hartshorn tremble-walked to the sideboard and picked up the whiskey decanter. Buzz swung at the wall, pulling the punch at the last second. “Spill on Loftis, goddamnit. Make it easy so I can get the fuck out of here.”
Glass on glass chimed, followed by hard breathing and silence. Buzz stared at the wall. Hartshorn spoke, his voice dead hollow. “Reynolds and I were just a…fling. We met at a party a Belgian man, a movie director, threw. The man was very au courant, and he threw lots of parties at clubs for our…his kind. It never got serious with Reynolds because there was a screenwriter he had been seeing, and some third man they were disturbed over. I was the odd man…so it never…”
Buzz turned and saw Hartshorn slumped in a chair, warming his hands on a whiskey glass. “What else you got?”
“Nothing. I never saw Reynolds after that time at the Knight in Armor. Who are you going to—”
“Nobody, Charlie. Nobody’s gonna know. I’ll just say I got word that Loftis is…”
“Oh God, is this the witchhunts again?”
Buzz exited to the sound of the sad bastard weeping.
* * *
Rain had hit while he was applying the strongarm—hard needle sheets of it, the kind of deluge that threatened to melt the foothills into the ocean and sieve out half the LA Basin. Buzz laid three to one that Hartshorn would keep his mouth shut; two to one that more cop work would drive him batshit; even money that dinner at the Nickodell and the evening at home writing up a report on the day’s dirt was the ticket. He could smell the queer’s sweat on himself, going stale with his own sweat; he felt a beaucoup case of the sucker punch blues coming on. Halfway to the office, he cracked the window for air and a rain bracer, changed directions and drove to his place.
Home was the Longview Apartments at Beverly and Mariposa, four rooms on the sixth floor, southern exposure, the pad furnished with leftovers from RKO movie sets. Buzz pulled into the garage, ditched his car and took the elevator up. And sitting by his door was Audrey Anders in a rain-spattered, sequin-spangled, gold lamé gown, a wet mink coat in her lap. She was using it as an ashtray; when she saw Buzz, she said, “Last year’s model. Mickey’ll get me a new one,” and stubbed her cigarette out on the collar.
Buzz helped Audrey to her feet, holding her hands just a beat too long. “Did I really get this lucky?”
“Don’t count your chickens. Lavonne Cohen took a trip with her mah-jongg club and Mickey thinks it’s open season on me. Tonight was supposed to be the Mocambo, the Grove and late drinks with the Gersteins. I pulled a snit and escaped.”
“I thought you and Mickey were in love.”
“Love has its flip side. Did you know you’re the only Turner Meeks in the Central White Pages?”
Buzz unlocked the door. Audrey walked in, dropped her mink on the floor and scoped the living room. The furnishings included leather couches and easy chairs from London Holiday and zebra head wall mounts from Jungle Bwana; the swinging doors leading to the bedroom were scavenged off the saloon set of Rage on the Rio Grande. The carpeting was lime green and purple striped—the bedspread one the Amazon huntress lollygagged on in Song of the Pampas. Audrey said, “Meeks, did you pay for this?”
“Gifts from a rich uncle. You want a drink?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Why not?”
“My father, sister and two brothers are drunks, so I thought I’d give it a pass.”
Buzz was thinking she looked good—but not as good as she did with no makeup and Mickey’s shirt hanging to her knees. “And you became a stripper?”
Audrey sat down, kicked off her shoes and warmed her feet on the mink. “Yes, and don’t ask me to do the tassel trick for you, because I won’t. Meeks, what is the matter with you? I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
He could still smell the queer. “I coldcocked a guy today. It was shitty.”
Audrey wriggled her toes, making the coat jump. “So? That’s what you do for a living.”
“The guys I usually do it to give me more of a fight.”
“So you’re telling me it’s all a game?”
He’d told Howard once that the only women worth having were the ones who had your number. “There’s gotta be somethin’ we’re better at than buttin’ heads and askin’ each other questions.”
The Va Va Voom Girl kicked the mink up in her lap. “Is the bedroom this outré?”
Buzz laughed. “Casbah Nocturne and Paradise Is Pink. That tell you anything?”
“That’s another question. Ask me something provocative.”
Buzz took off his jacket, unhooked his holster and threw it on a chair. “Ok
ay. Does Mickey keep a tail on you?”
Audrey shook her head. “No. I made him stop it. It made me feel cheap.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Three blocks away.”
All green lights to make his best stupid move an epic. “You got it all figured out.”
Audrey said, “I didn’t think you’d say no.” She waved her mink coat. “And I brought a towel for the morning.”
Buzz thought, RIP Turner Prescott Meeks, 1906–1950. He took a deep breath, sucked in his flab, pushed through the saloon doors and started peeling. Audrey came in and laughed at the bed—pink satin spread, pink canopy, pink embroidered gargoyles as foot posts. She got naked with a single flick of a clasp; Buzz felt his legs buckling as her breasts bobbed free. Audrey came to him and slipped off his tie, undid his shirt buttons, loosened his belt. He pried his shoes and socks off standing up; his shirt hit the floor via a bad case of the shivers. Audrey laughed and traced the goosebumps on his arms, then ran her hands over the parts of himself he couldn’t stand: his melon gut, his side rolls, the knife scars running up into his chest hair. When she started licking him there he knew she was okay on it; he picked her up to show her how strong he was—his legs almost blowing it—and put her down on the bed. He got out of his trousers and boxers under his own steam and lay down beside her—and in a half second she was all arms and legs around him, face to face and mouth open, pushing up against him like he was everything she’d ever wanted.
He kissed her—soft, hard, soft; he rubbed his nose into her neck and smelled Ivory Soap—not the perfume he’d played pretend with. He took her breasts in his hands and pinched the nipples, remembering everything every cop had told him about the headliner at the Burbank Burlesque. Audrey made different noises for each part of her he touched; he kissed and tongued between her legs and got one big noise. The big noise got bigger and bigger; her legs and arms went spastic. Her going so crazy got him almost there, and he went inside her so he could be part of it. Audrey’s hips pushing off the covers made him burst going in; he held on and she held him, and he gave her all his strength to smother their aftershocks. Half his weight, she was still able to push him up as she kept coming—and he grabbed her head and buried his head in her hair until he went limp and she quit fighting him.