J.C. and Phil--friends and partners.
J.C. and Phil--cuckolding each other.
Neither man knows:
Two affairs predate their weddings. Lovers: J.C. and Joan, Phillip and Madge. The adultery continues--five children are born--their patrimony inconclusive.
J.C. opens a dry-cleaning shop; Phil invests in a chemical plant. They continue their home liquor business.
J.C. pushes Phil to cut costs: lower-quality alcohol solvents mean greater profits.
Phil agrees.
They sell a batch to some CCC workers--a dozen men go permanently blind.
June 22, 1937:
A blind man carries a pump shotgun into a tavern.
He fires the weapon at random--three people are killed.
He sticks the barrel in his mouth and blows his own head off.
Sergeant Dudley Smith investigates. He learns the source of the shotgun man's blinding; he tracks the liquor to Phil and J.C. He makes them an offer: his silence for a percentage of their holdings.
They agree.
Dudley recognizes J.C.'s mean streak--and cultivates it. He believes that Negroes could be kept dope-sedated; he urges J.C. to sell them drugs. He urges Chief Davis to let J.C. "serve" them: as a sanctioned dope peddler and informant to the fledgling Narcotics Squad.
Dudley hides his role-few know that he is J.C.'s recruiter. Chief Davis retires in '39; Chief Horrall takes over. He assumes credit for the Kafesjian recruitment--and taps Officer Dan Wilhite to serve as J.C.'s contact.
Years pass; Dudley continues to extract his business percentage. J.C.'s dry-cleaning shops flourish; he builds up a Southside dope kingdom. Phil Herrick earns legitimate wealth: PH Solvents is hugely successful.
The adultery goes on: J.C. and Joan, Phillip and Madge.
Both women have assured their lovers that birth control precautions have been taken. Both have lied--they loathe their husbands, but will not leave them. Madge knows J.C. would kill her; Joan needs Phillip's money and newly developed social connections.
Five children.
Inconclusive patrimony.
No dangerous resemblances emerging.
Joan _wanted_ J.C.'s baby: he treated her atypically tender. Madge wanted Phillip's: she despised her vicious husband. Guesswork fathers softens things--both women believe it.
Post--World War II:
Major Dudley Smith, OSS, sells black-market penicillin to escaped Nazis. Phil Herrick, naval officer, serves in the Pacific; J.C. Kafesjian runs his dry-cleaning shops and dope racket. Dudley returns to L.A. late in '45; Herrick, fourteen months at sea, comes home unexpectedly.
He finds Joan nine months pregnant. He beats her--and learns that J.C. has been her lover throughout their marriage. She had planned to put the child up for adoption; Phil's surprise return prevented her. She hid her pregnancy with long indoor sojourns; Laura, Christine and Richieaway at boarding school-do not know what happened.
Joan runs to J.C.
Madge hears them talking and confronts them.
J.C. brutally beats both women.
Madge admits her long affair with Phil Herrick.
Cuckold husbands, cuckold wives. Enraged men--two women beaten and raped. Terrible chaos. Abe Voldrich calls in Dudley Smith.
He has the five children blood-tested--the results are ambiguous. Joan Herrick delivers her baby; Dudley strangles it three days old.
Laura and Christine never learn the facts of their lineage.
Tommy, Lucille and Richie do-several years later.
The boys grow up friends--maybe brothers--whose father is whose? They burglarize houses and play jazz; Richie falls in love with Lucille. He comforts her with Champ Dineen--he didn't know his bloodlines either.
Tommy emulates his "name" father J.C.--selling dope while still in high school. He's always lusted after Lucille-now there's a chance she _isn't_ his sister. He rapes her--and makes her his personal whore.
Richie finds out--and swears to kill Tommy.
Tommy relishes the vow--he considers Richie a weakling.
Richie drives to Bakersfield and buys a gun. He gets caught selling dope; Dudley Smith intercedes, but cannot convince the DA to drop charges. Richie Herrick, sentenced to Chino: 1955.
Tommy swears he'll kill him when he's released--he knows his personal whore Lucille deeply loves him. Richie swears to kill Tommy--he has debased the maybe sister he loves chastely.
Lucille runs wild--prostitute, window dancer, taunter of men. Phil Herrick seeks her out--his maybe daughter. Their first coupling is a street assignation. Lucille agrees just to taunt him.
His gentleness surprised her--this maybe daddy more like Richie than Tommy. They continued to meet: always talking, always playing games. Phil Herrick and Lucille: maybe daddy-daughter lovers, maybe just a whore and a john.
And Madge and Joan became friends. They hid from the madness together--fugitive time spent simply talking. Confidantes: years of partial shelter.
Richie escaped from Chine-fit only to voyeur-watch Lucille. Joan and Richie exchanged letters; Richie said a friend soon to be paroled would avenge him painlessly. This man seemed to have a hold on Richie: Richie never even said his name.
Joan killed herself nine months ago; the insanity peaked all at once. Lucille did not know Richie was watching her; Tommy read Junior Stemmons' reports and assumed that Richie was the voyeur. He vowed to kill him--afraid that Exley-linked men would find him first. Lucille found him--their ticket to shelter in a needle.
o o o
Tissues on the floor--Madge fretted a whole box to shreds.
"Would you call that 'everything,' Lieutenant?"
"I don't know."
"Then you're a very curious man."
"Do you know the name Wylie Bullock?"
"No."
"Who killed Junior Stemmons?"
"I did. He was browbeating Abe Voidrich at one of our cleaning shops. I was afraid he'd find out the truth about Richie and Lucille, and I wanted to protect them. I attacked him rather foolishly, and Abe subdued him. We knew Dudley would protect us if we killed him, and Abe knew he was an addict."
"So Abe shot him up and dumped him at Bido Lito's."
"Yes."
"And you told Tommy, and he burned the place down. He hung out there, and he was afraid we'd find evidence on him."
"Yes. And I don't feel bad about that young man Stemmons. I think he was in as much pain as Richie and Lucille were."
I emptied my pockets--big wads of cash.
"You're naive, Lieutenant. Money won't make J.C. and Tommy go away."
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
"EVERYTHING" = "MORE" = "BULLOCK."
Back to the trailer dump--a two-tone Packard in the lot. I jammed up behind it, spewing smoke.
Voices, feet kicking gravel.
Thick fumes--I got out coughing. Exley and two IA men--packing shotguns.
"Everything" means "more" means--
Fumes, gravel dust. Shotgun flankers, Exley sweating up a custom-made suit.
"Bullock killed the Herricks and trashed the Kafesjian place. How did you know--"
"I called Chino to get my own roster. That woman in the warden's office told me you went crazy over Bullock."
"Let's take him. And get those guys out of here--I _know_ he's got stuff on Dudley."
"You men wait here. Fenner, give the lieutenant your shotgun."
Fenner tossed it--I pumped a shell home.
Exley said, "All right then."
Now:
We ran three rows over, six trailers down-civilians watched us slackjawed. That Airstream--radio hum, the door open--
I stepped in aiming; Exley squeezed in behind me. Two feet away: Wylie Bullock in a lawn chair.
This bland geek:
Smiling.
Raising his hands cop-wise slow.
Spreading ten fingers wide--no harm meant.
I jammed the shotgun barrel under his chin.
Exley cuffed his hands behind his b
ack.
Radio hum: Starfire 88's at Yeakel Olds.
"Mr. Bullock, you're under arrest for the murders of Phillip, Laura and Christine Herrick. I'm the LAPD chief of detectives, and I'd like to question you here first."
Monster's den: _Playboy_ pinups, mattress. Bullock: Dodger T-shirt, calm brown eyes.
I goosed him: "I know about you and Richie Herrick. I know you told him you'd get him revenge on the Kafesjians, and I'll bet you know the name Dudley Smith."
"I want a cell by myself and pancakes for breakfast. If you say that's okay, I'll talk to you here."
I said, "Make like you're telling us a story."
"Why? Cops like to ask questions."
"This is different."
"Pancakes and _sausage?_"
"Sure, every day."
o o o
Chairs circled up, the door shut. No Q&A/no notebooks--Maniac speaks:
June, 1937--Wylie Bullock, almost twelve-"I was just a kid, you dig me?"
An only child, nice parents--but poor. "Our flop was as small as this trailer, and we ate at this gin mill every night, because you got free seconds on the cold cuts."
June 22:
A crazy blind man enters the tavern. Random shotgun blasts: his parents get vaporized.
"I got hospitalized, 'cause I was in some kind of shock."
Foster homes then--"some nice, some not so hot"--revenge dreams minus a bad guy--the shotgun man killed himself. Trade schools--a knack for cameras--"Old Wylie's a born shutterbug." Camera jobs, curiosity: 6/22/37--why?
Amateur detective Wylie-he kept pestering the cops. The brush-off: "They kept saying the case file was lost." Newspaper study: Sergeant Dudley Smith, investigating officer. Calls to now-Lieutenant Smith--none returned.
He haunted that tavern. Rumors haunted the place itself: bad bootleg trashed the shotgun man's eyes. He chased rumors: who sold bootleg whiskey back in '37?
Bad leads--years' worth--"like impossible to verify, you know?" Two rumors persistent: "dry-cleaning-cut hooch," "this Armenian guy--J.C."
He made a logical jump: the E-Z Kleen shops/J.C. Kafesjian. "I didn't have any proof--it just felt right. I kept a scrapbook on the blind man case, and I had this picture of Sergeant Smith from '37."
"It was becoming like an obsession."
Supporting that obsession: camera work. Illegal: "I took snatch pictures and sold them to sailors and Marines up from Diego."
Obsession focus: the Kafesjians.
"I sort of circled around them. I found out J.C. and Tommy pushed dope and had these police connections. Lucille was a floozy, and Tommy was vicious. It was sort of like they were my pretend family. Tommy had this buddy Richie, and the two of them played this jazz music really lousy. I used to follow them, and I watched them get into some kind of big fallingout over Lucille. Richie got popped selling dope up in Bakersfield. He got sentenced to Chino, and I was in an E-Z Kleen shop one day, and I heard Tommy tell Abe Voldrich that when he got out Richie was dead meat."
Early '56--two bombshells hit him simultaneous:
One--he's outside a Southside E-Z Kleen. Huddled up: J.C. Kafesjian and Dudley Smith--nineteen years older than that news pic.
Two--he gets popped selling snatch photos.
"I figured Dudley Smith and the Kafesjians were dirty together. I couldn't _prove_ anything, but I thought maybe Smith gave J.C. a skate on that poison liquor he sold. After a while I just believed it."
He started hatching revenge plots--this Eyeball Man inside him fed him plans. He pleaded guilty to selling pornography--his lawyer said beg for mercy.
"At the County Jail this guy told me about the X-ray lab at Chinewhat a good job it was. I figured I could get ajob there if I got sentenced to State time, 'cause I knew so much about photography. See, I had a real plan now, and I wanted to do a Chino hitch so I could get next to Richie."
The judge hit him with three-to-five State. They bought his X-ray experience snow job: Wylie Davis Bullock, go to Chino.
"So I went to Chino and got next to Richie. He was a lonely kid, so I befriended him, and he told me this AMAZING goddamn story."
Amazing:
The Kafesjians, the Herricks--who fathered whose children? Phil Herrick and J.C.--bootleg dealers back in the '30s. The blind man killings--Richie said yes, maybe-it might be Dudley Smith's wedge. Incest: maybe/quasi/brother/father perv stuff.
"I guarantee you you have never heard nothing to compare to the stuff Richie told me."
Richie, sissy/voyeur:
"He told me he was in love with Lucille, but he wouldn't touch her because she might be his half-sister. He said he loved spying on her."
Richie, compulsive talker:
"He put things together for me. I figured out enough about Dudley Smith to know that he met up with Herrick and Kafesjian some time right after the killings. I figured Smith got cozy with them and took bribes not to snitch that they brewed that liquor. I knew now. I knew these two crazy families killed my family."
Richie, talking vengeance on Tommy:
"I knew he didn't have the balls for it. I said just wait--I'll get you your revenge if you promise not to bother the Kafesjians."
Richie promised.
"Then his mother wrote him and went through this sob-sister suicide routine. Richie walked Chino--fucking minimum security, he just _walked_."
Richie stayed loose.
_He_ got paroled two months later.
"I tried to find Richie. I staked out the Kafesjian and Herrick houses, but I never saw him."
"That Lucille, though--wow. I used to watch her do the shimmyshimmy naked."
Months ticked by. "One day right before she killed herself I saw Old Lady Herrick leave a letter in her box for the postman. I snuck up and grabbed it, and it was addressed to Champ Dineen, this jazz clown that Richie worshipped. There was a P0 box address, so I figured Moms and Richie were working a mail-drop thing. I sent Richie a note at his box: 'Dig Lucille do the shimmy shimmy in her window. Now you be patient and I'll get you your revenge.'"
The note worked--months ticked by--he peeped Richie peeping Lucille. AMAZING: peeper Richie, amateur bug man--that electronics class did him solid. He walked the straight and narrow himself--movie jobs, parole confabs--nobody knew the Eyeball Man kept his dick hard--
"I started getting these wild ideas.
"The Eyeball Man said I should follow the Kafesjian guys and Dudley Smith around just for kicks.
"I was dogging Smith one day. He had lunch with Mickey Cohen, and I grabbed a booth next to them. Cohen said he was fronting this horror movie shooting in Griffith Park, and this Sid Frizell guy who was directing it shot stag films on the side. Smith said he loved naughty movies, and that Cohen should tell Frizell he had a nice sound stage he could use. Cohen said Frizell was skanky enough to take him up on it."
He hit the _Vampire_ set--"Man, was this fuck from hunger." He offered his camera services cut-rate; Cohen hired him; he gamed dumbfuck Sid Frizell--strapped for ideas. "I fed him these incestuous-type bits and all this blinding stuff, 'cause I figured one day I'd show Richie the finished-up movie. I told Frizell I had smut experience, and he pestered this Cohen guy Chick Vecchio into talking to Smith. Smith gave the okay, so Frizell got to shoot his stuff at this dive down in Lynwood.
"So I got cozy close to things, but I still didn't have the fucking plan worked out. Then the Eyeball Man came through."
He said tweak the Kafesjians with a voodoo B&E. Put the onus on Richie-keep him scared--keep him hiding.
"So I did it. I guess it's like symbolism, 'cause the Eyeball Man told me exactly how to do things. I tried to blind the dogs with this dry-cleaning chemical, but that didn't work, so I pulled their eyes out. I broke liquor bottles to goose them on their bootleg gig, and I broke Tommy's records up 'cause the Eyeball Man said that would symbolize how Richie hated Tommy. Richie always hated Lucille whoring, so I cut her pedal pushers up and shot a load on them."
Wicked fun.
"Th
e Eyeball Man said make Richie squirm, so I scoped him out at these motels, getting all weepy over Lucille, and I cut up his bed with this silverware I stole to spook him. There was lots of heat around the Kafesjians because of the B&E and the Fed thing, so the Eyeball Man told me to kill Phil Herrick early. The daughters came home unexpected, and the Eyeball Man said snuff them too. I figured Richie was a fucking escapee, so the cops would think he did it and snuff him on the spot."
Then?
"The Eyeball Man said kill Tommy and J.C. slow. He said rip Dudley Smith's eyes out and eat them."
Now?
"Pancakes and sausage, daddy-o. A nice safe cell for me and the Eyeball Man."
o o o
Licking his chops.
Flapjack batter on a shelf.
EVERYTHING.
Chest pings/headache/dry mouth--Dudley Smith meets the Eyeball Man.
Exley pointing at the door.
I followed him outside. Spooky sunlight--trailer-park geeks watching us.
"What's your assessment?"
Juke him/fuck him--LIE:
"I want to take Bullock in to Welles Noonan. I'm dodging custody, and he can help me smooth things out. He's a key witness on Dudley and the Kafesjians, and if we cooperate with the Feds we can cut their probe off at the knees, especially with you giving them Narco."
"He's insane. He's not a valid witness."
"Yeah, but all he is to _us_ is a psycho. He's not even fit to stand trial."
"Gallaudet will get indictments. He'll prosecute him himself."
"Bob's dead. He was in with Dudley on some district gambling scheme. Dudley killed him."
Weak knees--I steadied him--Edmund Jennings Exley popping cold sweat.
"I've got Chick Vecchio stashed. He begged me for Federal custody, and Madge Kafesjian filled in some of Bullock's story and told me how Dudley hooked J.C. up with the Department. Exley, it's all _contained_. Vecchio, Bullock, Madge--_they_ rat Dudley and only Narco gets hurt. It's _your_ basic plan, and all you have to do is cut me some slack before I take Bullock in."
"Specifically?"