Terry Lux dried Claire De Haven out at his clinic three times.
Terry Lux had workers who slaughtered chickens with zoot sticks.
Terry Lux told him Loftis used to cop H for Claire; Marty Goines was snuffed by a heroin overjolt. Terry Lux diluted the morphine for his dope cures on the premises at his clinic.
Buzz kept the magnifying glass to the wall, kept scanning. He got a back view of Coleman shirtless, saw a patchwork of perfectly straight scars that made him think of zoot stick wounds; he found another set of group shots that looked like Coleman fawning all over Claire De Haven. Hard evidence: Coleman Masskie Loftis was plastic surgery altered to look more like his father. He resembled his father enough to ID him from Delores’ pictures before; now he was him. His “special protection” from Dudley Smith was being disguised as Loftis.
Buzz ripped the best Coleman pic off the wall, pocketed it and found a table stacked with reports from the Bureau men. He quick-skimmed the latest update; all the officers had accomplished was a shakedown of Lesnick’s parolee daughter—she said the old man was just about gone from his lung cancer and was thinking about checking into a rest home to check out. He was about to pocket a list of local sanitariums when he heard “Traitor,” and saw Mickey and Herman Gerstein standing a few feet away.
Cohen with a clean shot, but a half dozen witnesses spoiling his chance. Buzz said, “I suppose this means my guard gig’s kaput. Huh, Mick?”
The man looked hurt as much as he looked mad. “Goyishe shitheel traitor. Cocksucker. Communist. How much money did I give you? How much money did I set up for you that you should do me like you did?”
Buzz said, “Too much, Mick.”
“That is no smart answer, you fuck. You should beg. You should beg that I don’t do you slow.”
“Would it help?”
“No.”
“There you go, boss.”
Mickey said, “Herman, leave this room”; Gerstein exited. The typers kept typing and the clerks kept clerking. Buzz gave the little hump’s cage a rattle. “No hard feelin’s, huh?”
Mickey said, “I will make you a deal, because when I say “deal,” it is always to trust. Right?”
“Trust” and “deal” were the man’s bond—it was why he went with him instead of Siegel or Dragna. “Sure, Mick.”
“Send Audrey back to me and I will not hurt a hair on her head and I will not do you slow. Do you trust my word?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust I’ll get you?”
“You’re the odds-on favorite, boss.”
“Then be smart and do it.”
“No deal. Take care, Jewboy. I’ll miss you. I really will.”
* * *
Pacific Sanitarium—fast.
Buzz turned off PCH and beeped his horn at the gate; the squawk box barked, “Yes?”
“Turner Meeks to see Dr. Lux.”
Static sounds for a good ten seconds, then: “Park off to your left by the door marked ‘Visiting,’ go through the lounge and take the elevator up to the second floor. Doctor will meet you in his office.”
Buzz did it, parking, walking through the lounge. The elevator was in use; he took stairs up to the second floor, saw the connecting door open, heard, “Okie baboon” and stopped just short of the last step.
Terry Lux’s voice: “…but I have to talk to him, he’s a pipeline to Howard Hughes. Listen, there should be something in the papers today I’m interested in—a guy I used to do business with was murdered. I just heard about it on the radio, so go get me all the LA dailies while I talk to this clown.”
Odds on Lux-Gordean business: six to one in favor of. Buzz retraced his steps to the car, grabbed his billy club, stuck it down the back of his pants and took his time walking inside. The elevator was empty; he pushed the button for 2 and glided up thinking how much Terry loved money, how little he cared where it came from. The door opened; the dope doc himself was there to greet him. “Buzzy, long time no see.”
The administrative corridor looked nice and deserted—no nurses or orderlies around. Buzz said, “Terry, how are you?”
“Is this business, Buzz?”
“Sure is, boss. And on the extra QT. You got a place where we can talk?”
Lux led Buzz down the hall, to a little room with filing cabinets and facial reconstruction charts. He closed the door; Buzz locked it and leaned on it. Lux said, “What the hell are you doing?”
Buzz felt the billy club tickling his spine. “Spring of ’43 you did a plastic job on Reynolds Loftis’ son. Tell me about it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Check my ’43 files if you like.”
“This ain’t negotiable, Terry. This is you spill all, Gordean included.”
“There’s nothing to negotiate, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Buzz pulled out his baton and hit Lux behind the knees. The blow sent Lux pitching into the wall; Buzz grabbed a fistful of his hair and banged his face against the door jamb. Lux slid to the floor, trailing blood on polished mahogany, sputtering, “Don’t hit me. Don’t hit me.”
Buzz backed up a step. “Stay there, the floor looks good on you. Why’d you cut the boy to look like his old man? Who told you to do that?”
Lux tilted his head back, gurgled and shook himself like a dog shedding water. “You scarred me. You…you scarred me.”
“Give yourself a plastic. And answer me.”
“Loftis had me do it. He paid me a lot, and he paid me never to tell anybody about it. Loftis and the psycho had essentially the same bone structure, and I did it.”
“Why’d Loftis want it done?”
Lux moved into a sitting position and massaged his knees. His eyes darted to an intercom phone atop a filing cabinet just out of reach; Buzz smashed the contraption with his stick. “Why? And don’t tell me Loftis wanted the boy to look like him so he could be a movie star.”
“He did tell me that!”
Buzz tapped the baton against his leg. “Why’d you call Coleman a psycho?”
“He did his post-op here, and I caught him raiding the hatchery! He was cutting up the chickens with one of those zoot sticks my men use! He was drinking their goddamn blood!”
Buzz said, “That’s a psycho, all right”; he thought Terry had to be clean on snuff knowledge: the fool thought chickens were as bad as it got. “Boss, what kind of business did you do with Felix Gordean?”
“I didn’t kill him!”
“I know you didn’t, and I’m pretty damn sure you don’t know who did. But I’ll bet you hipped him to something about Reynolds Loftis back around ’43, ’44 or so, and Gordean started collectin’ hush money on it. That sound about right?”
Lux said nothing; Buzz said, “Answer me, or I’ll go to work on your kidneys.”
“When I tell Howard about this, you’ll be in trouble.”
“I’m finished with Howard.”
Lux made an overdue move. “Money, Buzz. That’s what this is about, right? You’ve got an angle you want to buy in on and you need help. Am I right?”
Buzz tossed his stick out, holding the end of the thong. The tip hit Lux in the chest; Buzz jerked it back like a yo-yo on a string. Lux yipped at the little wonder; Buzz said, “Coleman, Loftis and Gordean. Put them together.”
Lux stood up and straightened the folds of his smock. He said, “About a year after the reconstruction on Coleman I went to a party in Bel Air. Loftis and his so-called kid brother were there. I pretended not to know them, because Reynolds didn’t want anyone to know about the surgery. Later on that night, I was out by the cabanas. I saw Coleman and Loftis kissing. It made me mad. I’d plasticed the kid for an incestuous pervert. I knew Felix liked to put the squeeze on queers, so I sold him the information. I figured he blackmailed Loftis. Don’t look so shocked, Meeks. You would have done the same thing.”
Minear’s file quote: “If you knew who he was, you’d know why I snitched”—the one reference Doc Lesnick let slip
into the grand jury team’s hands—the half-dead old stoolie had to know the whole story. Buzz looked at Lux culling back his dignity, pushed him into the wall and held him there with his stick. “When’s the last time you saw Coleman?”
Lux’s voice was high and thin. “Around ’45. Daddy and Sonny must have had a spat. Coleman came to me with two grand and told me he didn’t want to look so much like Daddy anymore. He asked me to break his face up scientifically. I told him that since I enjoy inflicting pain, I’d only take a grand and a half. I strapped him into a dental chair, put on heavy bag gloves and broke every bone in his face. I kept him on morph while he recovered down by the chicken shed. He left with a teeny weeny little habit and some not so teeny little bruises. He started wearing a beard, and all that was left of Reynolds was the set of his eyes. Now, do you want to take that goddamn club off of me?”
Bingo—the Goines heroin angle. Buzz held off on the baton. “I know you dilute your own morph here on the grounds.”
Lux took a scalpel from his pocket and started cleaning his nails. “Police sanctioned.”
“You told me Loftis copped horse for Claire De Haven. Did you and him use the same suppliers?”
“A few of them. Coloreds with cop connections down in southtown. I only deal with officially sanctioned lackeys—like you.”
“Did Coleman have info on them?”
“Sure. After the first surgery, I gave him a list. He had a crush on Claire, and he said he wanted to help her get the stuff, make the runs himself so she wouldn’t have to truck with niggers. When he left after my second surgery, he probably used them for his own habit.”
A round of applause for Coleman Loftis: he kicked morph and took up rat worship slaughter. “I want that list. Now.”
Lux unlocked the filing cabinet by the demolished phone. He pulled out a slip of lined paper and reached for some blank sheets; Buzz said, “I’ll keep the original,” and grabbed it.
The doctor shrugged and went back to cleaning his nails. Buzz started to tuck his baton away; Lux said, “Didn’t your mother tell you it’s not polite to stare?”
Buzz kept quiet.
“The strong, silent type. I’m impressed.”
“I’m impressed with you, Terry.”
“How so?”
“Your recuperative powers. I’ll bet you got yourself convinced this little humiliation didn’t really happen.”
Lux sighed. “I’m Hollywood, Buzz. Easy come, easy go, and it’s already a dim memory. Got a sec for a question?”
“Sure.”
“What’s this about? There has to be money in it somewhere. You don’t work for free.”
Adios, Terry.
Buzz kidney-punched Lux, his hardest stick shot. The scalpel fell from the doctor’s hand. Buzz caught it, kneed Lux in the balls, smothered him into the wall and placed his right palm against it Jesus style. Lux screamed; Buzz rammed the scalpel into the hand and pounded it down to the hilt with his baton. Lux screamed some more, his eyes rolling back. Buzz shoved a handful of pocket cash into his mouth. “It’s about payback. This is for Coleman.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mal made another circuit of the De Haven house, wondering if they’d ever leave and give him a crack at the files, wondering if they’d ever leave and give him a crack at the files, wondering if they’d got the word on Gordean yet. If Chaz Minear had called, they would have run to him; the killing was front page and all over the radio, and friends of theirs had to know that Loftis at least knew the man. But both cars stayed put and there was nothing he could do but keep waiting, moving, waiting to swoop.
Canon Drive to Elevado, Comstock to Hillcrest to Santa Monica and around again—sitting surveillance was an invitation for the ubiquitous Beverly Hills cops to roust him, out of his jurisdiction and getting ready to pull a Class B felony. Every time around the house he imagined more horrors inside—Loftis and his own son, a knife to the part of him that lived to protect Stefan. Two hours of circling had him dizzy; he’d called Meeks’ switchboard and left a message: meet me on Canon Drive—but Buzz’s Caddy hadn’t showed and it was getting to the point where he was close to going in the door gun first.
Santa Monica around to Canon. Mal saw a paperboy tossing newspapers on front porches and lawns, hooked an idea, pulled over three houses up from Claire’s and fixed her porch in his rearview. The boy hurled his bundle and hit the door; the door opened and an androgynous arm scooped the newspaper up. If they didn’t already know, they soon would—and if their brains held over their fear they’d think Chaz.
A slow minute passed. Mal fidgeted and found an old sweater in the back seat—a good window punch. Another slow bunch of seconds, then Claire and Loftis hurrying out to the Lincoln in the driveway. She got behind the wheel; he sat beside her; the car backed out and headed south—the direction of Minear’s place.
Mal walked over to the house—a tall, dignified man in a three-piece suit carrying a loosely folded sweater. He saw a side window by the door, punched it in, reached around and picked the lock. The door snapped open; Mal let himself in, closed the door and threw the top bolt.
There were at least fifteen rooms to toss. Mal thought: closets, dens, places with desks—and hit the writing table by the stairwell. He pulled out a half dozen drawers, rummaged in a coat closet adjacent, feeling for folders and loose paper as much as looking.
No loot.
Back to the rear of the house; two more closets. Vacuum cleaners and carpet sweepers, mink coats, a prayer to his old Presbyterian God: please don’t let them keep it in a safe. A den off a rear bathroom, bookshelves, a desk there—eight drawers of potpourri—movie scripts, stationery, old Loftis personal papers and no false bottoms or secret compartments.
Mal left the den by a side door and smelled coffee. He followed the scent to a large room with a movie screen and projector set up at the rear. A drop leaf table holding a coffeepot and a scattering of papers was stationed square in the middle, two chairs tucked under it—a study scene. He walked over, started reading and saw how good Danny Upshaw could have been.
The kid block-printed cleanly, thought intelligently, wrote with clarity and would have cracked the four killings easy if LAPD had given him an extra day or so. It was right there on his first summary report, page three, his second eyewitness on the Goines snatch. Claire and Reynolds had circled the information, confirming what Minear said: they were trying to find Loftis’ son.
Page three.
Eyewitness Coleman Healy, questioned by Danny Upshaw on his first full day working the case.
He was late twenties—the right age. He was described as tall, slender and wearing a beard, which was undoubtedly a fake, one that he took off when he impersonated his father/lover. He frontview-confirmed a bartender’s side view description of himself, filling in the middle-aged part. He was the first—and only, according to Jack Shortell—witness to identify Marty Goines as a homosexual, Upshaw’s first homo lead outside of the mutilations. Put makeup on Coleman, and he could look middle-aged; put it all together with Doc Layman’s silver wig strands found by the LA River and you had Coleman Masskie/Loftis/Healy committing murders out of his own blood lust and some kind of desire for revenge on incest raper Reynolds.
But one thing didn’t play: Danny had questioned Coleman and met Reynolds. Why didn’t he snap to their obvious resemblance?
Mal went through the rest of the pages, feeling the kid giving him juice. Everything was perfectly logical and boldly intelligent: Danny was beginning to get the killer’s psyche down cold. There was a six-page report on his Tamarind Street break-in—he did do it—devil take the hindmost, fuck City/County strictures; he was afraid LAPD would ruin him for it, so he didn’t take the polygraph that would have cleared him on Niles and night-trained it instead. Photographs showing blood patterns were mixed in with the reports; Danny had to have taken them himself, he’d risked a forensic in enemy territory. Mal felt tears in his eyes, saw himself building Ellis Loew’s prosecution with
Danny’s evidence, making his own name soar on it. The Wolverine Killer in the gas chamber—sent there by the two of them and the unlikeliest best friend a ranking cop ever had: Buzz Meeks.
Mal dried his eyes; he made a neat stack of the pages and photographs. He saw feminine script in the margins of a jigtown canvassing list: Southside hotels, with jazz clubs check-marked against Danny’s printing. He stuffed that page in his pocket, bundled the rest of the file up and walked to the front door with it. Tripping the bolt, he heard a key go in the lock; he opened the door bold, like Danny Upshaw at Tamarind Street.
Claire and Loftis were there on the porch; they looked at the broken glass, then at Mal and his armful of paper. Claire said, “You broke our deal.”
“Fuck our deal.”
“I was going to kill him. I finally figured out there was no other way.”
Mal saw a bag of groceries in Loftis’ arms; he realized they didn’t have time to see Minear. “For justice? People’s justice?”
“We just talked to our lawyer. He said there’s no way you can prove any kind of homicide charges against us.”
Mal looked at Loftis. “It’s all coming out. You and Coleman, all of it. The grand jury and Coleman’s trial.”
Loftis stepped behind Claire, his head bowed. Mal glanced streetside and saw Buzz getting out of his car. Claire embraced her fiancé; Mal said, “Go look after Chaz. He killed a man for you.”
Chapter Forty
Down to darktown in Mal’s car, Lux’s list of heroin pushers and the Danny/Claire list taped to the dashboard. Mal drove; Buzz wondered if he’d killed the Plastic Surgeon to the Stars; they both talked.
Buzz filled in first: Mary Margaret’s swooning confirmation and Lux minus the crucifixion. He talked up the plastic surgery on Coleman, a ploy to keep him safe from Dudley and fulfill his father’s perv; Lux shooting Gordean the incest dope for blackmail purposes, the story of the burned face a device to hide the perv from Loftis’ fellow lefties, the bandages simply the surgery scars healing. Buzz saved Lux rebreaking Coleman’s face for last; Mal whooped and used the point to segue to sax man Healy, questioned by Danny Upshaw on New Year’s Day—that was why the kid never snapped to a perfect Loftis/Coleman resemblance—it didn’t exist anymore.