“I don’t recall.”
“You what?”
“I host parties, guests come and meet the young men I provide, money is discreetly sent to me. Many of my clients are married men with families, and keeping a blank memory is an extra service I provide them.”
The glass was shaking in Danny’s hand. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
Gordean sipped brandy. “No, but I expect you to accept that answer as all you are going to get.”
“I want to see the books for your service, and I want to see a client list.”
“No. I write nothing down. It might be considered pandering, you see.”
“Then name names.”
“No, and don’t ask again.”
Danny forced himself to barely touch his lips to the glass; barely taste the brandy. He swirled the liquid and sniffed it, two fingers circling the stem—and stopped when he saw he was imitating Gordean. “Mr. Gor—”
“Mr. Upshaw, we’ve reached an impasse. So let me suggest a compromise. You said that I don’t fit your killer’s description. Very well, describe your killer to me, and I will try to recall if George Wiltsie went with a man like that. If he did, I will forward the information to Lieutenant Matthews, and he can do with it what he likes. Will that satisfy you?”
Danny bolted his drink—thirty-dollar private stock guzzled. The brandy burned going down; the fire put a rasp on his voice. “I’ve got the LAPD with me on this case, and the DA’s Bureau. They might not like you hiding behind a crooked Vice cop.”
Gordean smiled—very slightly. “I won’t tell Lieutenant Matthews you said that, nor will I tell Al Dietrich the next time I send him and Sheriff Biscailuz passes to play golf at my club. And I have good friends with both the LAPD and the Bureau. Another drink, Mr. Upshaw?”
Danny counted to himself—one, two, three, four—the kibosh on a hothead play. Gordean took his glass, moved to the bar, poured a refill and came back wearing a new smile—older brother looking to put younger brother at ease. “You know the game, Deputy. For God’s sake quit coming on like an indignant boy scout.”
Danny ignored the brandy and sighted in on Gordean’s eyes for signs of fear. “White, forty-five to fifty, slender. Over six feet tall, with an impressive head of silver hair.”
No fear; a thoughtful scrunching up of the forehead. Gordean said, “I recall a tall, dark-haired man from the Mexican Consulate going with George, but he was fiftyish during the war. I remember several rather rotund men finding George attractive, and I know that he went regularly with a very tall man with red hair. Does that help you?”
“No. What about men in general of that description? Are there any who frequent your parties or regularly use your service?”
Another thoughtful look. Gordean said, “It’s the impressive head of hair that tears it. The only tall, middle-aged men I deal with are quite balding. I’m sorry.”
Danny thought, no you’re not—but you’re probably telling the truth. He said, “What did Wiltsie tell you about Lindenaur?”
“Just that they were living together.”
“Did you know that Lindenaur attempted to extort money from Charles Hartshorn?”
“No.”
“Have you heard of either Wiltsie or Lindenaur pulling other extortion deals?”
“No, I have not.”
“What about blackmail in general? Men like your clients are certainly susceptible to it.”
Felix Gordean laughed. “My clients come to my parties and use my service because I insulate them from things like that.”
Danny laughed. “You didn’t insulate Charles Hartshorn too well.”
“Charles was never lucky—in love or politics. He’s also not a killer. Question him if you don’t believe me, but be courteous, Charles has a low threshold for abuse and he has much legal power.”
Gordean was holding out the glass of brandy; Danny took it and knocked the full measure back. “What about enemies of Wiltsie and Lindenaur, known associates, guys they ran with?”
“I don’t know anything about that sort of thing.”
“Why not?”
“I try to keep things separate and circumscribed.”
“Why?”
“To avoid situations like this.”
Danny felt the brandy coming on, kicking in with the shots he’d had at home. “Mr. Gordean, are you a homosexual?”
“No, Deputy. Are you?”
Danny flushed, raised his glass and found it empty. He resurrected a crack from his briefing with Considine. “That old scarlet letter routine doesn’t wash with me.”
Gordean said, “I don’t quite understand the reference, Deputy.”
“It means that I’m a professional, and I can’t be shocked.”
“Then you shouldn’t blush so easily—your color betrays you as a naif.”
The empty glass felt like a missile to heave; Danny hit back on “naif” instead. “We’re talking about three people dead. Cut up with a fucking zoot stick, eyes poked out, intestines chewed on. We’re talking about blackmail and burglary and jazz and guys with burned-up faces, and you think you can hurt me by calling me naif? You think you—”
Danny stopped when he saw Gordean’s jaw tensing. The man stared down at the floor; Danny wondered if he’d stabbed a nerve or just hit him on simple revulsion. “What is it? Tell me.”
Gordean looked up. “I’m sorry. I have a low threshold for brash young policemen and descriptions of violence, and I shouldn’t have called—”
“Then help me. Show me your client list.”
“No. I told you I don’t keep a list.”
“Then tell me what bothered you so much.”
“I did tell you.”
“And I don’t feature you as that sensitive. So tell me.”
Gordean said, “When you mentioned jazz, it made me think of a client, a horn player that I used to broker introductions to rough trade to. He impressed me as volatile then, but he’s not tall or middle-aged.”
“And that’s all?”
“Cy Vandrich, Deputy. Your tactics have gotten you more than I would normally have been willing to part with, so be grateful.”
“And that’s all?”
Gordean’s eyes were blank, giving nothing up. “No. Direct all your future inquiries through Lieutenant Matthews and learn to sip fine brandy—you’ll enjoy it more.”
Danny tossed his crystal snifter on a Louis XIV chair and walked out.
* * *
An hour and a half to kill before his meeting with Considine; more liquor out of the question. Danny drove to Coffee Bob’s and forced down a hamburger and pie, wondering how much of the Gordean questioning slipped between the cracks: his own nerves, the pimp’s police connections and savoir faire. The food calmed him down, but didn’t answer his questions; he hit a pay phone and got dope on Cy Vandrich.
There was only one listed with DMV/R&I: Cyril “Cy” Vandrich, WM, DOB 7/24/18, six arrests for petty theft, employment listed as “transient” and “musician.” Currently on his sixth ninety-day observation jolt at the Camarillo loony bin. A follow-up call to the bin revealed that Vandrich kept pulling crazy man stunts when he got rousted for shoplifting; that the Misdemeanor Court judge kept recommending Camarillo. The desk woman told Danny that Vandrich was in custody there on the two killing nights; that he made himself useful teaching music to the nuts. Danny said that he might come up to question the man; the woman said that Vandrich might or might not be in control of his faculties—no one at the bin had ever been able to figure him out—whether he was malingering or seriously crazy. Danny hung up and drove to West Hollywood Station to meet Mal Considine.
The man was waiting for him in his cubicle, eyeing the Buddy Jastrow mug blowup. Danny cleared his throat; Considine wheeled around and gave him a close once-over. “I like the suit. It doesn’t quite fit, but it looks like something a young lefty might affect. Did you buy it for your assignment?”
“No, Lieutenant.”
?
??Call me Mal. I want you to get out of the habit of using rank. Ted.”
Danny sat down behind his desk and pointed Considine to the spare chair. “Ted?”
Considine took the seat and stretched his legs. “As of today, you’re Ted Krugman. Dudley went by your apartment house and talked to the manager, and when you get home tonight you’ll find T. Krugman on your mailbox. Your phone number is now listed under Theodore Krugman, so we’re damn lucky you kept it unlisted before. There’s a paper bag waiting for you with the manager—your new wardrobe, some fake ID and New York plates for your car. You like it?”
Danny thought of Dudley Smith inside his apartment, maybe discovering his private file. “Sure, Lieut—Mal.”
Considine laughed. “No, you don’t—it’s all happening too fast. You’re Homicide brass, you’re a Commie decoy, you’re a big-time comer. You’re made, kid. I hope you know that.”
Danny caught glee wafting off the DA’s man; he decided to hide his file boxes and blood spray pics behind the rolled-up carpet in his hall closet. “I do, but I don’t want to get fat on it. When do I make my approach?”
“Day after tomorrow. I think we’ve got the UAES lulled with our newspaper and radio plants, and Dudley and I are going to concentrate on lefties outside the union—KAs of the brain trusters—vulnerable types that we should be able to get to snitch. We’re going over INS records for deportation levers on them, and Ed Satterlee is trying to get us some hot SLDC pictures from a rival clearance group. Call it a two-front war. Dudley and I on outside evidence, you inside.”
Danny saw Considine as all frayed nerves; he saw that his suit fit him like a tent, the jacket sleeves riding up over soiled shirtcuffs and long, skinny arms. “How do I get inside?”
Considine pointed to a folder atop the cubicle’s Out basket. “It’s all in there. You’re Ted Krugman. DOB 6/16/23, a Pinko New York stagehand. In reality you were killed in a car wreck on Long Island two months ago. The local Feds hushed it up and sold the identity to Ed Satterlee. All your past history and KAs are in there. There’s surveillance pictures of the Commie KAs, and there’s twenty-odd pages of Marxist claptrap, a little history lesson for you to memorize.
“So, day after tomorrow, around two, you go to the Gower Street picket line, portraying a Pinko who’s lost his faith. You tell the Teamster picket boss that the day labor joint downtown sent you out, muscle for a buck an hour. The man knows who you are, and he’ll set you up to picket with two other guys. After an hour or so, you’ll get into political arguments with those guys—per the script I’ve written out for you. A third argument will result in a fistfight with a real bruiser—a PT instructor at the LAPD Academy. He’ll pull his punches, but you fight for real. You’re going to take a few lumps, but what the hell. Another Teamster man will shout obscenities about you to the UAES picket boss, who’ll hopefully approach you and lead you to Claire De Haven, UAES’s member screener. We’ve done a lot of homework, and we can’t directly place Krugman with any UAESers. You look vaguely like him and at worst you’ll be secondhand heard of. It’s all in that folder, kid. Pictures of the men you’ll be pulling this off with, everything.”
A clean day to work the homicides; a full night to become Ted Krugman. Danny said, “Tell me about Claire De Haven.”
Considine countered, “Have you got a girlfriend?”
Danny started to say no, then remembered the bogus paramour who helped him brazen out Tamarind. “Nothing serious. Why?”
“Well, I don’t know how susceptible you are to women in general, but De Haven’s a presence. Buzz Meeks just filed a report that makes her as a longtime hophead—H and drugstore—but she’s still formidable—and she’s damn good at getting what she wants out of men. So I want to make sure you seduce her, not the opposite. Does that answer your question?”
“No.”
“Do you want a physical description?”
“No.”
“The odds that you’ll have to lay her?”
“No.”
“Do you want her sexual background?”
Danny threw his question out before he could back down. “No. I want to know why a ranking policeman has a crush on a Commie socialite.”
Considine blushed pink—the way Felix Gordean told him he blushed; Danny tried reading his face and caught: got me. Call-me-Mal laughed, slid off his wedding band and tossed it in the wastebasket. He said, “Man to man?”
Danny said, “No, brass to brass.”
Considine made the sign of the cross on his vestfront. “Ashes to ashes, and not bad for a minister’s son. Let’s just say I’m susceptible to dangerous women, and my wife is divorcing me, so I can’t chase around and give her ammo to use in court. I want custody of my son, and I will not give her one shred of evidence to spoil my case. And I don’t usually offer my confessions to junior officers.”
Danny thought: this man is so far out on a limb that you can say anything to him and he’ll stick around—because at 1:00 A.M. he’s got no place fucking else to go. “And that’s why you’re getting such a kick out of operating De Haven?”
Considine smiled and tapped the top desk drawer. “Why am I betting there’s a bottle in here?”
Danny felt himself blush. “Because you’re smart?”
The hand kept tapping. “No, because your nerves are right up there with mine, and because you always stink of Lavoris. Brass to rookie, here’s a lesson: cops who smell of mouthwash are juicers. And juicer cops who can keep it on a tight leash are usually pretty good cops.”
“Pretty good cops” flashed a green light. Danny nudged Considine’s hand away, opened the drawer and pulled out a pint and two paper cups. He poured quadruple shots and offered; Considine accepted with a bow; they hoisted drinks. Danny said, “To both our cases”; Considine toasted, “To Stefan Heisteke Considine.” Danny drank, warmed head to toe, drank; Considine sipped and hooked a thumb over his back at Harlan “Buddy” Jastrow. “Upshaw, who is this guy? And why are you so bent out of shape on your goddamn homo killings?”
Danny locked eyes with Jastrow. “Buddy’s the guy I used to want to get, the guy who used to be the worst, the hardest nut to crack because he was just plain nowhere. Now there’s this other thing, and it’s just plain terror. It’s incredibly brutal, and I think it might be random, but I don’t quite go with that. I think I’m dealing with revenge. I think all the killer’s methods are reenactments, all the mutilations are symbolic of him trying to get his past straight in his mind. I keep thinking it all out, and I keep coming back to revenge on old wrongs. Not everyday childhood trauma shit, but big, big stuff.”
Danny paused, drank and sighted in on the mugboard around Jastrow’s neck: Kern County Jail, 3/4/38. “Sometimes I think that if I know who this guy is and why he does it, then I’ll know something so big that I’ll be able to figure out all the everyday stuff like cake. I can get on with making rank and handling meat and potatoes stuff, because everything I ever sensed about what people are capable of came together on one job, and I nailed why. Why. Fucking why.”
Considine’s, “And why you do what you do yourself,” was very soft. Danny looked away from Jastrow and killed his drink. “Yeah, and that. And why you’re so hopped on Claire De Haven and me. And don’t say out of patriotism.”
Considine laughed. “Kid, would you buy patriotism if I told you the grand jury guarantees me a captaincy, Chief DA’s Investigator and the prestige to keep my son?”
“Yeah, but there’s still De Haven and—”
“Yeah, and me. Let’s just put it this way. I have to know why, too, only I like going at it once removed. Satisfied?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you would be.”
“Do you know why?”
Considine sipped bourbon. “It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“I used to steal cars, Lieut—Mal. I was the ace car thief of San Berdoo County right before the war. Turnabout?”
Lieutenant Mal Considine stuck out a long leg and
hooked the wastebasket over to his chair. He rummaged in it, found his wedding band and slipped it on. “I’ve got a confab with my lawyer for the custody case tomorrow, and I’m sure he’ll want me to keep wearing this fucking thing.”
Danny leaned forward. “Turnabout, Captain?”
Considine stood up and stretched. “My brother used to blackmail me, threaten to rat me to the old man every time I said something snotty about religion. Since ten strokes with a switch was the old man’s punishment for blasphemy, old Desmond pretty much got his way, which was usually me breaking into houses to steal stuff he wanted. So let’s put it this way: I saw a lot of things that were pretty swell, and some things that were pretty spooky, and I liked it. So it was either become a burglar or a spy, and policeman seemed like a good compromise. And sending in the spies appealed to me more than doing it myself, sort of like Desmond in the catbird seat.”
Danny stood up. “I’m going to nail De Haven for you. Trust me on that.”
“I don’t doubt it, Ted.”
“In vino veritas, right?”
“Sure, and one more thing. I’ll be Chief of Police or something else that large before too long, and I’m taking you with me.”
Chapter Nineteen
Mal woke up thinking of Danny Upshaw.
Rolling out of bed, he looked at the four walls of Room 11, the Shangri-Lodge Motel. One framed magazine cover per wall—Norman Rockwell testimonials to happy family life. A stack of his soiled suits by the door—and no Stefan to run them to the dry cleaners. The memo corkboard he’d erected, one query tag standing out: locate Doc Lesnick. The fink/shrink could not be reached either at home or at his office and the 1942–1944 gaps in Reynolds Loftis’ file had to be explained; he needed a general psych overview of the brain trusters now that their decoy was about to be in place, and all the files ended in the late summer of last year—why?
And the curtains were cheesecloth gauze; the rug was as threadbare as a tortilla; the bathroom door was scrawled over with names and phone numbers—“Sinful Cindy, DU-4927, 38-24-38, loves to fuck and suck”—worth a jingle—if he ever ran Vice raids again. And Dudley Smith was due in twenty minutes—good guy/bad guy as today’s ticket: two Pinko screenwriters who avoided HUAC subpoenas because they always wrote under pseudonyms and blew the country when the shit hit the fan in ’47. They had been located by Ed Satterlee operatives—private eyes on the Red Crosscurrents payroll—and both men knew the UAES bigshots intimately back in the late ’30s, early ’40s.