Goose egg from Johnny; Mickey screwing up his face like he was actually considering the suggestion. Buzz tested the water again. “Get some big jig to play sidekick, make like he’s giving it to Audrey. Coons are always good for a laugh.”
More nothing. Mickey said, “Shvartzes I don’t need, shvartzes I don’t trust. What do you get when you cross a nigger and a Jew?”
Buzz played dumb. “I don’t know. What?”
Mickey sprayed laughter. “A janitor who owns the building!”
Johnny chuckled and excused himself; Buzz eyed the Va Va Voom Girl at twenty and made quick book: a hundred to one he knew less than nothing about them. Mickey said, “You should laugh more. I don’t trust guys who don’t have no sense of humor.”
“You don’t trust anybody, Mick.”
“Yeah? How’s this for trust. February eighth at the haber-dashery, my deal with Jack D. Twenty-five pounds of Mex brown, cash split, food and booze. All my men, all Jack’s. Nobody heeled. That is trust.”
Buzz said, “I don’t believe it.”
“The deal?”
“The nobody heeled. Are you fuckin’ insane?”
Mickey put an arm around Buzz’s shoulders. “Jack wants four neutral triggers. He’s got two City bulls, I got this Sheriff’s dick won the Golden Gloves last year, and I’m still one short. You want the job? Five hundred for the day?”
He’d spend the money on Audrey: tight cashmere sweaters, red and pink and green and white, a size too small to show off her uplift. “Sure, Mick.”
Mickey’s grip tightened. “I got a storefront on the Southside. County juice, a little sharking, a little book. Half a dozen runners. Audrey’s keeping the ledgers for me, and she says I’m getting eaten alive.”
“The runners?”
“Everything tallies, but the daily take-in’s been short. I pay salary, the guys enforce their own stuff. Short of shaking down the guys, I got no way to know.”
Buzz slid free of Mickey’s arm, thinking of lioness larceny: Audrey with a hot pencil and a wet brain. “You want me to ask around on the QT? Get the squad boss at Firestone to shake down the locals, find out who’s bettin’ what?”
“Trust, Buzzchik. You nail who’s doing me, I’ll throw some bones your way.”
Buzz grabbed his coat. Mickey said, “Hot date?”
“The hottest.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Rita Hayworth.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, trust me.”
“She red downstairs?”
“Black at the roots, Mick. There’s no business like show business.”
* * *
His date was for 10:00 at Howard’s spot near the Hollywood Bowl; Mickey and Johnny’s no-take and the skim story had him running jumpy, his watch set to Audrey standard time, which made killing an hour somewhere pure horseshit. Buzz drove to the lion woman’s house, parked behind her Packard ragtop and rang the bell.
Audrey answered the door, slacks, sweater and no makeup. “You said you didn’t even want to know where I lived.”
Buzz shuffled his feet, making like a swain on a prom date. “I checked your driver’s license while you were asleep.”
“Meeks, that’s not something you do to somebody you’re sleeping with.”
“You’re sleepin’ with Mickey, ain’t you?”
“Yes, but what does—”
Buzz slid past Audrey, into a bargain basement front room. “Savin’ money on furnishings to bankroll your shopping center?”
“Yes. Since you ask, I am.”
“Sweetie, you know what Mickey did to the ginzo killed Hooky Rothman?”
Audrey slammed the door and wrapped her arms around herself. “He beat the man senseless and had Fritzie what’s his name drive him over the state line and warn him never to come back. Meeks, what is this? I can’t stand you this way.”
Buzz shoved her against the door, pinned her there and put his hands on her face, holding her still, his hands going gentle when he saw she wasn’t going to fight him. “You’re skimmin’ off Mickey ’cause you think he won’t find out and he wouldn’t hurt you if he did and now I’m the one that has to fuckin’ protect you because you are so fuckin’ dumb about the fuckin’ guys you fuck and I’m in way over my fuckin’ head with you so you get fuckin’ smart because if Mickey hurts you I’ll fuckin’ kill him and all his fuckin’ kike guinea pigshit—”
He stopped when Audrey started bawling and trying to get out words. He stroked her hair, bending down to listen better, turning to jelly when he heard, “I love you, too.”
* * *
They made love on the bargain basement living room floor and in the bedroom and in the shower, Buzz pulling the curtain loose, Audrey admitting she cheapskated on the bathroom fixtures, too. He told her he’d check with an ex-Dragna paper man he knew and show her how to redoctor Mickey’s books—or fix an angle to lay the onus off on some nonexistent welcher; she said she’d quit skimming, straighten up, fly right, and play the stock market like a squarejohn woman who didn’t screw gangsters or Red Squad bagmen. He said, “I love you” fifty times to make up for her saying it first; he got her sizes so he could blow all his kickback take on clothes for her; they went down on each other to seal a pact: nobody was supposed to mention Mickey unless absolutely necessary, nobody was to talk about their future or lack of it, two dates a week was their limit, Howard’s fuck pads rotated, her place or his place as a treat once in a while, their cars stashed where the bad guys wouldn’t see them. No outside dates, no trips together, no telling friends what they had going. Buzz asked Audrey to do the tassel trick for him; she did; she went on to model her stripper outfits, then all the clothes in her wardrobe. Buzz figured that if he spent his gambling output on threads he wanted to see her in, he’d never be bored staying inside with her: he could take the clothes off, make love to her, watch her dress again. He thought that if they stayed inside forever, he’d tell her everything about himself, all the shitty stuff included, but he’d lay it out slowly, so she’d get to know him, not get scared and run. He talked a blue streak; she talked a blue streak; he let slip about the Doberman pinscher he killed when he burglarized a lumberyard in Tulsa in 1921, and she didn’t care. Toward dawn, Audrey started falling asleep and he started thinking about Mickey and got scared. He thought about moving his car, but didn’t want to upset the perfect way his lioness had her head tucked against his collarbone. The scare got worse, so he reached to the floor, grabbed his .38 and stuck it under the pillow.
Chapter Twenty-One
The nut bin waiting room featured tables and plasticene couches in soothing colors: mint green, ice blue, pale yellow. Artwork by the nuts was tacked to the walls: finger paintings and draw-by-the-numbers jobs depicting Jesus Christ, Joe DiMaggio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Danny sat waiting for Cyril “Cy” Vandrich, dressed in Ted Krugman garb: dungarees, skivvy shirt, steel-toed motorcycle boots and a bombardier’s leather jacket. He’d been up most of the night studying Mal Considine’s scenario; he’d spent yesterday doing his own background checks on Duane Lindenaur and George Wiltsie, prowling their Valley hangouts and getting nothing but a queasy sense of the two as homo slime. Slipping into the Ted role had been a relief, and when he drove up to the Camarillo gate the guard had double-taked his get-up and New York plates and openly challenged him as a cop, checking his ID and badge, calling West Hollywood Station to get the okay. So far, Upshaw into Krugman was a success—the acid test this afternoon at the picket line.
An orderly ushered a thirtyish man in khakis into the room—a shortish guy, skinny with broad hips, deep-set gray eyes and a hepcat haircut—one greasy brown lock perfectly covering his forehead. The orderly said, “Him,” and exited; Vandrich sighed, “This is a humbug. I’ve got connections on the switchboard, the girl said this is about murders, and I’m not a murderer. Jazz musicians are Joe Lunchmeat to you clowns. You’ve been trying to crucify Bird for years, now you want me.”
Danny let it go, sizi
ng up Vandrich sizing him up. “Wrong. This is about Felix Gordean, Duane Lindenaur and George Wiltsie. I know you’re not a killer.”
Vandrich slumped into a chair. “Felix is a piece of work, Duane what’s his face I don’t know from Adam and George Wiltsie padded his stuff so he’d look big to impress all the rich queens at Felix’s parties. And why are you dressed up like rough trade? Think you’ll get me to talk that way? That image is from hunger, and I outgrew it a long time ago.”
Danny thought: smart, hep, probably wise to the game. The rough trade crack washed over him; he fondled his jacket sleeves, loving the feel of the leather. “You’ve got them all buffaloed, Cy. They don’t know if you’re crazy or not.”
Vandrich smiled; he shifted in his chair and cocked a hip toward Danny. “You think I’m a malingerer?”
“I know you are, and I know that Misdemeanor Court judges get tired of giving the same old faces ninety days here when they could file on them for Petty Theft Habitual and get them some felony time. Quentin time. Up there they don’t ask you for it, they take it.”
“And I’m sure you know a lot about that, with your tough leather goods and all.”
Danny laced his hands behind his head, the jacket’s soft fur collar brushing him. “I need to know what you know about George Wiltsie and Felix Gordean, and maybe what Gordean does or doesn’t know about some things. Cooperate, you’ll always pull ninetys. Dick me around, the judge gets a letter saying you withheld evidence in a triple homicide case.”
Vandrich giggled. “Felix got murdered?”
“No. Wiltsie, Lindenaur and a trombone man named Marty Goines, who used to call himself the ‘Horn of Plenty.’ Have you heard of him?”
“No, but I’m a trumpeter and I used to be known as the ‘Lips of Ecstasy.’ That’s a double entendre, in case you haven’t guessed.”
Danny laughed off the vamp. “Five seconds or I walk and nudge the judge.”
Vandrich smiled. “I’ll play, Mr. Policeman. And I’ll even give you a free introductory observation. But first I’ve got a question. Did Felix tell you about me?”
“Yes.”
Vandrich did a little number, crossing his legs, making mincy hand motions. Danny saw it as the fuck going nance in order to knuckle to authority; he felt himself start to sweat, his lefty threads too hot, too much. “Look, just tell me.”
Vandrich quieted down. “I knew Felix during the war, when I was putting on a crazy act to get out of the service. I played that act everywhere. I was living off an inheritance then, living it up. I went to Felix’s parties and I trucked with Georgie once, and Felix thought I was non compos mentis, so if he sent you to see me he was probably playing a game. There. That’s my free introductory observation.”
And his Gordean instincts confirmed: the pimp couldn’t draw breath without trying an angle—which meant that he was holding back. Danny said, “You’re good,” got out his notebook and turned to the list of questions he’d prepared.
“Burglary, Vandrich. Did you know George Wiltsie to be involved in it, or do you know of anyone connected to Felix Gordean who pulls burglaries?”
Vandrich shook his head. “No. Like I said, George Wiltsie I trucked with once, talk wasn’t his forte, so we stuck to business. He never mentioned that guy Lindenaur. I’m sorry he got killed, but I just take nice things from stores, I don’t associate with burglars.”
Danny wrote down “No.” “The same thing on dentists and dental technicians, men capable of making dentures.”
Vandrich flashed perfect teeth. “No. And I haven’t been to a dentist since high school.”
“A young man, call him a boy—with a scarred, burned-up face in bandages. He was a burglar, and this would be back during the war.”
“No. Ugh. Awful.”
Two more “Nos.” Danny said, “A zoot stick. That’s a long wooden stick with a razor blade or razor blades attached at the end. It’s a weapon from the war days, for cutting up the zoot suits that Mexicans used to wear.”
Vandrich said, “Double ugh and an ugh on pachucos in zoot suits in general.”
No, no, no, no—underlined. Danny put out his ace question. “Tall, gray-haired men, mid-forties now. Nice silver hair, guys who know jazz spots, hep enough to buy dope. Homosexual men who went to Gordean’s parties back when you did.”
Vandrich said, “No”; Danny turned to fresh paper. “This is where you shine, Cyril. Felix Gordean. Everything you know, everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve thought about him.”
Vandrich said, “Felix Gordean is…a…piece of…work,” drawing the words out into a lisp. “He doesn’t truck with man, woman or beast, and his only kick is bringing guys out, getting them to admit what they are, then…procuring for them. He has a legitimate talent agency, and he meets lots of young men, really sensitive creative types…and…well…they’re prone to being like…”
Danny wanted to scream QUEER, FAGGOT, FRUIT, HOMO, PEDERAST, BRUNSER, PUNK, COCKSUCKER and ram slime from the Hollywood Squad reports down Vandrich’s throat, making him spit it out in the open where he could spit on it. He kneaded his jacket sleeves and said, “He gets his thrills getting guys to admit that they’re homosexuals, right?”
“Uh, yes.”
“You can say it, Vandrich. Five minutes ago you were trying to flirt with me.”
“It…it’s hard to say. It’s so ugly and clinical and cold.”
“So Gordean brings these homosexuals out. Then what?”
“Then he enjoys showing them off at his parties and fixing them up. Getting them acting jobs, then taking their money for the introductions he arranges. Sometimes he has parties at his beach house and watches through these mirrors he has. He can look in, but the fellows in the bedroom can’t look out.”
Danny remembered his first pass at the Marmont: peeping, his stuff pressed to the window, jazzing on it. “So Gordean’s a fucking queer voyeur, he likes watching homos fuck and suck. Let’s try this: Does he keep records for his introduction service?”
Vandrich had pushed his chair into the wall. “No. He didn’t back then, at least. The word was that he had a great memory, and he was terrified of writing things down…afraid of the police. But…”
“But what?”
“B-but I h-heard he loves to keep it all in his head, and once I heard him say that his biggest dream was to have something on everybody he knew and a profitable way to use it.”
“Like blackmail?”
“Y-yes, I thought of that.”
“Do you think Gordean’s capable of it?”
No lisp, stutter or hesitation. “Yes.”
Danny felt his soft fur collar sticky with sweat. “Get out of here.”
* * *
Gordean holding back.
His talent agency a tool to fuel his voyeurism.
Blackmail.
No suspicious Gordean reactions on Duane Lindenaur, extortionist; Charles Hartshorn—“Short and bald as a beagle”—eliminated as a suspect on his appearance, that fact buttressed by Sergeant Frank Skakel’s assessment of his character and his take on Hartshorn’s juice—the lawyer unapproachable for now. If Gordean himself was some sort of extortionist, it had to be coincidental to Lindenaur—both men moved in a world rife with blackmailees. The talent agency was the place to start.
Danny took PCH back to LA, all the windows down so he could keep his jacket on and buttoned full. Per Considine’s orders, he parked three blocks from Hollywood Station and walked the rest of the way, heading into the muster room dead on time for the noon meeting he’d called.
His men were already there, sitting in the first row of chairs, Mike Breuning and Jack Shortell gabbing and smoking. Gene Niles was four seats over, picking at a pile of papers on his lap. Danny grabbed a chair and sat down facing them.
Shortell said, “You still look like a cop.” Breuning nodded agreement. “Yeah, but the Commies won’t get it. If they were so smart they wouldn’t be Commies, right?”
Danny laughed; Ni
les said, “Let’s get this over with, huh, Upshaw? I’ve got lots of work to do.”
Danny got out pad and pen. “So do I. Sergeant Shortell, you first.”
Shortell said, “Cut and dried. I’ve called ninety-one dental labs, run the descriptions by the people in charge and got a total of sixteen hinkers: strange-o’s, guys with yellow sheets. I eliminated nine of them by blood type, four are currently in jail and the other three I talked to myself. No sparks, plus the guys had alibis for the times of death. I’ll keep going, and I’ll call you if anything bites me.”
Danny said, “Just make sure it’s a denture bite,” and turned to Breuning. “Mike, what have you and Sergeant Niles got?”
Breuning consulted a big spiral notebook. “What we’ve got is the old goose egg. On the biting MO, we checked LAPD, County and the muni files. We got a shine queer who bit his boyfriend’s dick off, a fat blond guy with a kiddie raper jacket who bites little girls and two guys who match our description—both in Atascadero for aggravated assault. On the queer bar scuttlebutt, zero. Biters do not hang out at homo cocktail lounges and say, ‘I bite. Want some?’ The fruit detail cops I talked to laughed me out on that one. On the Vice and sex offender file eliminations, nothing. Burglary, ditto. I cross-checked them, nothing duplicated. Nothing on a kid with burn scars. There were six middle-aged gray-haired possibles—all either in custody on the nights of the killings or alibied—squarejohn witnesses. On the recanvassing—nada—it’s too old now. Niggertown, Griffith Park, the area where Goines was dumped, nothing. Nobody saw anything, nobody gives a shit. On checking with snitches, forget it. This guy is a loner, I’d bet my pension he does not associate with criminal riffraff. I personally leaned on the only three possibles I got from State and County Parole—two queers and a real sweetheart—this tall, gray preacher type who cornholed three Marines back during the war, used to lube his prong with toothpaste. All three were in for curfew at the Midnight Mission—alibied by no less than Sister Mary Eckert herself.”