Buzz saw Dudley Smith and Mike Breuning at the back edge of the yard, standing by Ellis Loew’s couch, left out in the rain because the DA put business before comfort. A late sun was up; Dudley was laughing and pointing at it. Buzz watched dark clouds barrelling in from the ocean. He thought: fix it, fix it, fix it, be a fixer. Be what Captain Mal told the kid to be.
Be a policeman.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Danny unlocked his door and tapped the wall light. The blood W’s he’d been seeing since the morgue became his front room, spare and tidy, but with something skewed. He eyed the room in grids until he got it: the rug was puckered near the coffee table—he always toed it smooth on his way out.
He tried to remember if he did it this morning. He recalled dressing as Ted Krugman, nude to leather jacket in front of the bathroom mirror; he remembered walking outside thinking of Felix Gordean, Mal Considine’s “Lean on him, Danny” ringing in his ears. He did not remember his methodical rug number probably because Teddy K. wasn’t the meticulous type. Nothing else in the room looked askew; there was no way in the world HE would break into a policeman’s apartment…
Danny thought of his file, ran for the hall closet and opened the door. It was there, pictures and paperwork intact, covered by wadded-up carpeting puckered just the right way. He checked the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom, saw the same old same old, sat down in a chair by the phone and skimmed the book he’d just bought.
The Weasel Family—Physiology and Habits, hot off a back shelf at Stanley Rose’s Bookshop.
Chapter 6, page 59: The Wolverine.
A 40- to 50-pound member of the weasel family indigenous to Canada, the Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest; pound for pound, the most vicious animal on earth. Utterly fearless and known for attacking animals many times its size; known to drive bears and cougars from their kills. A beast that cannot stand to watch other creatures enjoying a good feed—often blitzing them just to get at what remained of their food. Equipped with a highly efficient digestive system: wolverines ate fast, digested fast, shit fast and were always hungry; they possessed a huge appetite to match their general nastiness. All the vicious little bastards wanted to do was kill, eat and occasionally fuck other members of their misanthropic breed.
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
W
The Wolverine.
Alter ego of a biting, gouging, raping, flesh-eating killer of immense hunger: sexual and emotional. A man who possessed total identification with an obscenely rapacious animal, an identity he has assumed to right old wrongs, animal mutilations the specific means, his specific inner reconstruction of what was done to him.
Danny turned to the pictures at the back of the book, ripped three wolverine shots out, dug through his file for the 2307 blood pics and made a collage above the bed. He tacked the awful weasel thing in the middle; he shone his floor lamp on the collection of images, stood back, looked and thought.
A fat, shuffle-footed creature with beady eyes and a thick brown coat to ward off the cold. A slinky tail, a short, pointed snout, sharp nails and long, sharp teeth bared at the camera. An ugly child who knew he was ugly and made up for it by hurting the people he blamed for making him that way. Snap flashes as the animal and 2307 merged: the killer was somehow disfigured or thought he was; since eyewitnesses tagged him as not facially marred, the disfigurement might be somewhere on his body. The killer thought he was ugly and tied it to sex, hence Augie Duarte slashed cheek to bone with his thing sticking out his mouth. A big snap, all instinct, but feeling gut solid: HE knew the burned-face burglar boy, who was too young to be the killer himself; HE drew inspiration or sex from his disfigurement—hence the facial slashing. Zoot stick assaults were being tapped at station houses citywide; car thief MO’s were being collated; he told Jack Shortell to start calling wild-animal breeders, zoo suppliers, animal trappers and fur wholesalers, cross-reference them with dental tech and go. Burglar, jazz fiend, H copper, teeth maker, car thief, animal worshiper, queer, homo, pederast, brunser and devotee of male whores. It was there waiting for them, some fact in a police file, some nonplussed dental worker saying, “Yeah, I remember that guy.”
Danny wrote down his new impression, thinking of Mike Breuning bullshitting him on the Augie Duarte tail, the other tails probably horseshit. Breuning’s only possible motive was humoring him—keeping him happy on the homicide case so he’d be a good Commie operative and keep Dudley Smith happy on his anti-Red crusade. Shortell had called the other three men, warned them of possible danger and was trying to set up interviews: the only cop he could trust now, Jack would be tapping into Dudley’s “boys” to see if the three Gordean “friends” had ever been under surveillance at all. He himself had stuck outside Gordean’s agency trawling for more license plates, more potential victims, more information and maybe Gordean alone for a little strongarm—but the carport had stayed empty, the pimp hadn’t showed and there was no traffic at his front door—rain had probably kept the “clients” and “friends” away. And he’d had to break the stakeout for his date with Claire De Haven.
A thud echoed outside the door—the sound of the paperboy chucking the Evening Herald. Danny walked out and picked it up, scanning a headline on Truman and trade embargoes, opening to the second page on the off-chance there was an item on his case. Another scan told him the answer was no; a short column in the bottom right corner caught his attention.
Attorney Charles Hartshorn a Suicide—Served Both the Society Elite and Society’s Unfortunate
This morning Charles E. (Eddington) Hartshorn, 52, a prominent society lawyer who dabbled in social causes, was found dead in the living room of his Hancock Park home, an apparent self-asphyxiation suicide. Hartshorn’s body was discovered by his daughter Betsy, 24, who had just arrived home from a trip and told Metro reporter Bevo Means: “Daddy was despondent. A man had been around talking to him—Daddy was certain it had to do with a grand jury investigation he’d heard about. People always bothered him because he did volunteer work for the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, and they found it strange that a rich man wanted to help poor Mexicans.”
Lieutenant Walter Redding of the LAPD’s Wilshire Station said, “It was suicide by hanging, pure and simple. There was no note, but no signs of a struggle. Hartshorn simply found a rope and a ceiling beam and did it, and it’s a darn shame his daughter had to find him.”
Hartshorn, a senior partner of Hartshorn, Welborn and Hayes, is survived by daughter Betsy and wife Margaret, 49. Funeral service notices are pending.
Danny put the paper down, stunned. Hartshorn was Duane Lindenaur’s extortionee in 1941; Felix Gordean said that he attended his parties and was “unlucky in love and politics.” He never questioned the man for three reasons: he did not fit the killer’s description; the extortion was nearly nine years prior; Sergeant Frank Skakel, the investigating officer on the beef, had said that Hartshorn would refuse to talk to the police regarding the incident—and he stressed old precedents. Hartshorn was just another name in the file, a tangent name that led to Gordean. Nothing about the lawyer had seemed wrong; aside from Gordean’s offhand “politics” remark, there was nothing that tagged him as having a yen for causes, and there were no notations in the grand jury file on him—despite the preponderance of Sleepy Lagoon information. But he was questioned by a member of the grand jury team.
Danny called Mal Considine’s number at the DA’s Bureau, got no answer and dialed Ellis Loew’s house. Three rings, then, “Yeah? Who’s this?”, Buzz Meeks’ okie twang.
“It’s Deputy Upshaw. Is Mal around?”
“He’s not here, Deputy. This is Meeks. You need somethin’?”
The man sounded subdued. Danny said, “Do you know if anybody questioned a lawyer named Charles Hartshorn?”
“Yeah, I did. Last week. Why?”
“I just read in the paper that he killed himself.”
A long silence, a long breath. Meeks said, “Oh shit.”
Danny said, “What do you mean?”
“Nothin’, kid. This on your homicide case?”
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“Well, I braced Hartshorn, and he thought I had to be a Homicide cop, ’cause a guy who tried to shake him down on his queerness years ago just got bumped off. This was right around when you joined up with us, and I remembered somethin’ about this dink Lindenaur from the papers. Kid, I was a cop for years, and this guy Hartshorn wasn’t holdin’ nothin’ back ’cept the fact he likes boys, so I didn’t tell you about him—I just figured he was no kind of suspect.”
“Meeks, you should have told me anyway.”
“Upshaw, you gave me some barter on the old queen. I owe you on that, ’cause I had to rough him up, and I bought out by tellin’ him I’d keep the Homicide dicks away. And kid, that poor sucker couldn’t of killed a fly.”
“Shit! Why did you go talk to him in the first place? Because he was connected to the Sleepy Lagoon Committee?”
“No. I was trackin’ corroboration dirt on the Commies and I got a note said Hartshorn was rousted with Reynolds Loftis at a fruit bar in Santa Monica in ’44. I wanted to see if I could squeeze some more dirt on Loftis out of him.”
Danny put the phone to his chest so Meeks wouldn’t hear him hyperventilating, wouldn’t hear his brain banging around the facts he’d just been handed and the way they might just really play:
Reynolds Loftis was tall, gray-haired, middle-aged.
He was connected to Charles Hartshorn, a suicide, the blackmail victim of Duane Lindenaur, homicide victim number three.
He was the homosexual lover of Chaz Minear circa early ’40s; in the grand jury psychiatric files, Sammy Benavides had mentioned “puto” Chaz buying sex via a “queer date-a-boy gig”—a possible reference to Felix Gordean’s introduction service, which employed snuff victims George Wiltsie and Augie Duarte.
Last night in darktown, Claire De Haven had been all nerves; the killer had picked up Goines on that block and a hop pusher at the Zombie had addressed her. She sloughed it off, but was known to the grand jury team as a longtime hophead. Did she procure the junk load that killed Marty Goines?
Danny’s hands twitched the receiver off his chest; he heard Meeks on the other end of the line—“Kid, you there? You there, kid?”—and managed to hook the mouthpiece into his chin. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“There something you ain’t tellin’ me?”
“Yes—no—fuck, I don’t know.”
The line hung silent for good long seconds; Danny stared at his wolverine pinups; Meeks said, “Deputy, are you tellin’ me Loftis is a suspect for your killin’s?”
Danny said, “I’m telling you maybe. Maybe real strong. He fits the killer’s description, and he…fits.”
Buzz Meeks said, “Holy fuckin’ dog.”
Danny hung up, thinking he’d kissed Reynolds Loftis in his mind—and he liked it.
* * *
Krugman into Upshaw into Krugman, pure Homicide cop.
Danny drove to Beverly Hills, no rear-view trawling. He Man Camera’d Reynolds Loftis wolverine slashing; the combination of 2307 pictures, Augie Duarte’s body and Loftis’ handsome face rooting in gore had him riding the clutch, shifting when he didn’t need to just to keep the images a little bit at bay. Pulling up, he saw the house lights on bright—cheery, like the people inside had nothing to hide; he walked up to the door and found a note under the knocker: “Ted. Back in a few minutes. Make yourself at home—C.”
More nothing to hide. Danny opened the door, moved inside and saw a writing table wedged against a wall by the stairwell. A floor lamp was casting light on it; papers were strewn across the blotter, a leather-bound portfolio weighing them down, nothing to hide blinking neon. He walked over, picked it up and opened it; the top page bore clean typescript: “MINUTES AND ATTENDANCE, UAES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, 1950 MEETINGS.”
Danny opened to the first page. More perfect typescript: the meeting/New Year’s party on 12/31/49. Present—scrawled signatures—were C. De Haven, M. Ziffkin, R. Loftis, S. Benavides, M. Lopez, and one name crossed out, illegible. Topics of discussion were “Picket Assignments,” “Secretary’s Report,” “Treasurer’s Report” and whether or not to hire private detectives to look into the criminal records of Teamster picketers. The soiree commenced at 11:00 P.M. and ended at 6:00 A.M.; Danny winced at the gist: the ledger could be construed as an alibi for Reynolds Loftis—he was here during the time Marty Goines was snatched and killed—and the minutes contained nothing at all subversive.
Too much nothing to hide.
Danny flipped forward, finding a meeting on 1/4/50, the same people in attendance during the time frame of the Wiltsie/Lindenaur killings, the same strange crossout, the same boring topics discussed. And Loftis was with Claire last night when Augie Duarte probably got it—he’d have to check with Doc Layman on the estimated time of death. Perfect group alibis, no treason on the side, Loftis not HIM, unless the whole brain trust was behind the killings—which was ridiculous.
Danny stopped thinking, replaced the ledger, jammed his jumpy hands into his warm leather pockets. It was too much nothing to hide, because there was nothing to hide, because none of the brain trusters knew he was a Homicide cop, Loftis could have forged his name, a five-time corroborated alibi would stand up in court ironclad, even if the alibiers were Commie traitors, none of it meant anything, get your cases straight and identities straight and be a policeman.
The house was getting hot. Danny shucked his jacket, hung it on a coatrack, went into the living room and pretended to admire the poster for Storm Over Leningrad. It reminded him of the stupid turkeys Karen Hiltscher coerced him to; he was making a note to lube her on 2307 when he heard, “Ted, how the hell are you?”
HIM.
Danny turned around. Reynolds Loftis and Claire were doffing their coats in the foyer. She looked coiled; he looked handsome, like a cultured blood sport connoisseur. Danny said, “Hi. Good to see you, but I’ve got some bad news.”
Claire said, “Oh”; Loftis rubbed his hands together and blew on them, “Hark, what bad news?”
Danny walked up to frame their reactions. “It was in the papers. A lawyer named Charles Hartshorn killed himself. It said he worked with the SLDC, and it implied he was being hounded by some fascist DA’s cops.”
Clean reactions: Claire giving her coat a brush, saying, “We’d heard. Charlie was a good friend to our cause”; Loftis tensing up just a tad—maybe because he and the lawyer had sex going. “That grand jury went down, but it took Charlie with them. He was a frail man and a kind one, and men like that are easy pickings for the fascists.”
Danny flashed: he’s talking about himself, he’s weak, Claire’s his strength. He moved into close-up range and hit bold. “I read a tabloid sheet that said Hartshorn was questioned about a string of killings. Some crazy queer killing people he knew.”
Loftis turned his back, moving into a shamefully fake coughing attack; Claire played supporting actress, bending to him with her face averted, mumbling, “Bad for your bronchitis.” Danny held his close-up and brain-screened what his eyes couldn’t see: Claire giving her fiancé guts; Loftis the actor, knowing faces don’t lie, keeping his hidden.
Danny walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with sink water, a break to give the players time to recover. He walked back slowly and found them acting nonchalant, Claire smoking, Loftis leaning against the staircase, sheepish, a Southern gentleman who thought coughing déclassé. “Poor Charlie. He liked Greek revelry once in a while, and I’m sure the powers that be would have loved to crucify him for that, too.”
Danny handed him the water. “They’ll crucify you for anything they can. It’s a shame about Hartshorn, but personally, I like women.”
Loftis drank, grabbed his coat and winked. He said, “So do I,” kissed Claire on the cheek and went out the door.
Danny said,
“We’ve got bad luck so far. Last night, your friend Charlie.”
Claire tossed her purse on the table holding the meeting ledger—too casual. Her tad too-studied glance said she’d arranged the still life for him—Loftis’ alibi—even though they couldn’t know who he was. The threads of who was who, knew who, knew what got tangled again; Danny quashed them with a lewd wink. “Let’s stay in, huh?”
Claire said, “My idea, too. Care to see a movie?”
“You’ve got a television set?”
“No, silly. I’ve got a screening room.”
Danny smiled shyly, proletarian Ted wowed by Hollywood customs. Claire took his hand and led him through the kitchen to a room lined with bookcases, the front wall covered by a projection screen. A long leather couch faced the screen; a projector was mounted on a tripod a few feet behind it, a reel of film already fed in. Danny sat down; Claire hit switches, doused the lights and snuggled into him, legs curled under a swell of skirt. Light took over the screen, the movie started.
A test pattern; a black-and-white fade-in; a zoftig blonde and a Mexican with a duck’s ass haircut stripping. A motel room backdrop: bed, chipped stucco walls, sombrero lamps and a bullfight poster on the closet door. Tijuana, pure and simple.
Danny felt Claire’s hand hovering. The blonde rolled her eyes to heaven; she’d just seen her co-star’s cock—huge, veiny, hooked at the middle like a dowsing rod. She salaamed before him, hit her knees and started sucking. The camera caught her acne scars and his needle tracks. She sucked while the hophead gyrated his hips; he pulled out of her mouth and sprayed.
Danny looked away; Claire touched his thigh. Danny flinched, tried to relax but kept flinching; Claire fingered a ridge of coiled muscle inches from his stuff. Hophead screwed Pimples from behind, the insertion close in. Danny’s stomach growled—worse than when he was on a no-food jag. Claire’s hand kept probing; Danny felt himself shriveling—cold shower time where you shrunk down to nothing.