The Glitter Dome (35 page)

And during all this, Al Mackey was trying to kiss her flat little belly and get things going again but she kept screaming obscenities. And the obscenities
scared
him!

“I don't get it!” he cried, finally. “I don't know what I'm supposed to do!”

“Now!” she yelled. “Now! I'm blindfolded! I'm chained to this table! I'm helpless, you filthy gorilla of a rapist! I can't stop you! I can beg, I can plead. Please don't rape me, you raping bastard!”

“I won't!” Al Mackey bleated. He was sitting on the floor holding his forlorn cock in his hand.

“I'm as helpless as a baby!” she screamed. “I'm like a ten-year-old child!”

“Stop it!” Al Mackey cried. “You're just making it worse!”

Then Billie from Topeka said, “Huh?” and threw Al Mackey's T-shirt off her face, and saw him sitting there with yet another round that failed to fire.

“Jesus, Al, you're supposed to ravish me now! What the fuck's wrong with you!”

“I don't know!” he cried. “All that talk. The handcuffs, and my T-shirt over your eyes. I don't know! It just … died!”

Billie from Topeka sat up disgustedly and said, “Just my luck! I was looking forward to this ever since Herman said you were a cop. T
AKE THESE THINGS OFF ME
!”

They fumbled in the dark for three minutes until he found the handcuff key and unfettered her. She put on her onion suit and graduation cap in record time while the mortified detective struggled into his clothes, all the time enduring righteous and withering insults.

“You know Al, I thought cops were macho and sexy.”

“I'm sorry, Billie.”

“You're about as sexy as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.”

“I'm sorry, Billie.”

“You're about as sexy as a bucket of saltpeter, Al.”

“I'm
really
sorry, Billie.”

But before storming out of the dressing room, Billie from Topeka got hold of herself, and took another little toot of cocaine and remembered that this putz was a pal of Herman III's. Yet she wasn't actress enough to keep
all
the edge out of her voice when she turned those brittle eyes on him and said, “It's not the end of the world, Al. Maybe some other time. A finished movie's never as good as the dailies, or as
bad
as the rough-cut. Remember that.”

“Good-bye, Billie!” he cried.

The cinematic philosophizing didn't help. It was a disheveled Al Mackey whom Martin Welborn found waiting in front of the Holmby Hills mansion, clutching the red rose that a sympathetic valette had given him.

Al Mackey refused to discuss his evening all the way home. He said a brisk farewell to his partner upon being dropped off at his apartment and was too despondent to kick the cat out of bed. This seemed to confuse and infuriate the animal, who responded by clawing the silk border from the blanket.

On Sunday night, while Martin Welborn was keeping his date with Deedra Briggs, Al Mackey knew he had only one hope for surviving all this, and it was to be found not sitting at the bar of The Glitter Dome but in the
pocket
of Wing himself. He dressed grimly for a momentous journey to Chinatown while Martin Welborn lay nude beside Deedra Briggs, on floor pillows, looking out at the lights of Westwood Village.

“And you can cook too,” Martin Welborn said, running a finger down her buttercup hip.

She laughed and said, “You've got a few talents yourself, Sergeant Elbowpatches.”

“I can't believe you're real,” he said. “It's like a …”

“A dream,” she whispered, kissing him gently.

“No, I was going to say a prayer.”

“That's an odd way to put it,” she said, kissing him again. “You're a peculiar policeman, Martin Welborn.”

“You're the most beautiful woman I've …”

“And you're a divine gentle lover,” she said, putting her face on his bare chest.

“I'm decidedly out of practice. And never had much practice to begin with.”

“Divine gentle lovers like you are born, not made, pardon the pun.”

“Why do you stay in show business?” he asked, “if you hate it so much.”

“Because I never met someone like you.”

“That sounds like a line from a script.”

“It is,” she chuckled. “A bad script. I loved to act at one time. Never mind if I was good or wasn't. I wanted it more than I can explain. But I'm older now, and a little wiser, I hope.”

“Then get out of it,” he said.

“Will you come and be my love and let me make pasta for you?”

“I could be persuaded,” Martin Welborn said.

“So could I, Sergeant Elbowpatches,” she said. “So could I.”

And while Martin Welborn was busy talking to Deedra Briggs about her going over a bigger wall than he vaulted when he left the seminary, Al Mackey was stalking somberly into The Glitter Dome on a quiet Sunday night.

Wing was extremely depressed. He hadn't had a single customer all evening who wasn't sober. He hadn't stolen a dime. He hopped around gleefully when he spotted Al Mackey. All was not lost!

“A free one to start the evening!” Wing cried, pouring Al Mackey a one-ounce shot of Tullamore Dew. No sense being
too
grateful.

“I gotta talk to you
privately
, Wing,” the detective said.

“Look around,” Wing said, pointing to a couple at the far end of the long bar. “This is about as private as it can get.”

Al Mackey tossed back the Tullamore Dew, smacked the glass on the bar, and said, “Make the next one a double.” Then the detective opened his wallet and placed a twenty on the bar in front of him.

Wing chuckled as he glided over to the cash register to break down the twenty. His antenna hairs came unglued when he bounded back with the pile of money. He always broke bills into lots of ones and lots of silver to facilitate his moves. Al Mackey didn't care. In fact, to keep Wing's little eyes all agleam, he opened his wallet and laid two more tens on top of the pile.

“Staying for a while tonight, eh?” Wing giggled. He pulled his hands from his sleeves and rubbed them together and poured
another
double.

“I don't know how to begin. I need help. I heard you can help guys with my problem.”

But Wing couldn't keep from sliding back and forth. Toward the money pile. This had been his longest day.

“Goddamnit, Wing, pay attention to me,” Al Mackey whined. “I'll let you steal some money after I get drunk.”

“How about another double?”

“I haven't finished this one. Goddamnit, pay attention!”

“Okay okay,” Wing said, pulling himself together and smoothing down the antenna hairs on the side of his oily little head. “So I'm listening.”

“I've been having this … problem lately and …”

“Yes yes,” Wing said. “Yes yes.”

“Goddamnit, stop with the yes yes! You sound like some Jap I know in a massage parlor.”

Wing quickly reached below the bar and brought up
another
glass and poured a second double. Now Al Mackey had two drinks in front of him. “You
gotta
drink,” Wing explained. “Makes you talk easier.” Then Wing grabbed a ten off the bar and slid to the cash register, where he slipped two ones up his loose emerald sleeve before hopping back with the change.

“Okay, I'll drink,” Al Mackey sighed, polishing off the first double of Tullamore Dew and picking up the other one. “I think I need …”

“Acupuncture? I can fix it up. Cures headaches, bad backs, athlete's foot, gonorr …”

“I don't need any freaking acupuncture! I need a … a broad!”

“A broad? Is that all? I thought all you detectives fucked left and right?”

“Wing, I'm not even fucking in and out!” Al Mackey cried. “That's the problem!”

“You're just not getting enough?”

“None! I got a limp noodle,” he whispered.

“Absence makes the cock grow harder.” Wing grinned slyly.

“Stop it with your fortune cookie philosophy! I got a limber whang, Wing! I don't get straight I might as well become a priest!” Al Mackey took the double down in two gulps. Where was Marty's old seminary?

Wing clucked sympathetically and stole two quarters before Al Mackey put the glass back down. “I might be able to help you.”

“You
gotta
help me, Wing!”

“How long's it been?”

“Almost four months!”

“Well, it's not something you forget,” Wing said, wiping the bar with a towel, sweeping a stray quarter right into the emerald sleeve.

“I've almost forgotten already!”

“Naw, it's like painting by numbers. Anybody can do it. Wish there was a chicken or two around tonight. I'd show you.”

“Chicken! Vulture! Anything! Just take away this fucking albatross!”

“Okay, I don't do this for everybody,” Wing said, removing a little ivory box from his pants pocket.

“That's the aphrodisiac?” Al Mackey whispered.

“Keep your voice down,” Wing hissed, glancing quickly at the couple drinking quietly at the end of the bamboo long bar. “You want
them
to hear us?”

When Al Mackey turned to look at
them
, Wing got another quarter into the sleeve. “This never fails,” he said, taking a blue tissue-wrapped bindle from the ivory box. As Al Mackey leaned over the bar, Wing opened the tiny bindle and showed him perhaps a quarter of a gram of pearly powder. Then he folded the tissue carefully.

“That'll be fifty bucks. Wholesale because you're a good customer.”

“Fifty bucks!” Al Mackey cried.

“That's genuine ground-up elk antler. Put it on your Master Charge.”

“Fifty bucks! Why so much?”

“You think it's easy to find a goddamn elk in Chinatown these days?” Wing said testily, palming two quarters while Al Mackey reached for his credit card.

16

The Performers

When Al Mackey drove by Martin Welborn's apartment to pick him up for work Monday morning, he found Marty waiting in front. As dapper as always, in a gray three-piece worsted and a blue silk tie.

“Don't tell me, you had a successful date with Deedra whatser name.”

“She's a great cook.” Martin Welborn smiled.

“A great cook. What time did you get home last night?”

“I was in bed by eleven-thirty.”

“Whose?”

“Mine. What did you do last night?”

“Went to The Glitter Dome.”

“Have a nice time?”

“Don't ask. I spent almost a hundred bucks.”

“On what?”

“Don't ask. In fact, let's change the subject.”

“Okay. On to Nigel St. Claire,” Martin Welborn said. “Let's do some thinking this morning. I've got renewed vigor.”

“I can see that.”

“We have to review all our information. And we have to do some calling. I made a mental list on Saturday.”

“Don't you ever take a day off?”

“An idle mind …”

“Yeah yeah.”

It was a day to slog through it. Martin Welborn had made a mental list, all right. They called the studio security people and started them checking their logs for three weeks prior to Nigel St. Claire's death, to get a list of every visitor who signed in with the St. Claire office as his destination. Ditto for Sapphire Productions. All this tedious research was okayed by Herman III, who could think of no one in Trousdale Estates who might be a close friend of Uncle Nigel's, or who might loan him his house as the need arose.

Nor could Herman think of anyone in or out of Trousdale who drove a black Bentley. The Beverly Hills P.D. promised to check with all officers of the night shift who worked the six square miles of Trousdale Estates and may have had any calls during the past several weeks reflecting strange comings or goings, or a black Bentley. One officer thought he'd seen a dark-colored Bentley parked by one of the homes on the upper streets of Trousdale, but couldn't remember which house.

“
If
Bozwell's even connected with the murder,” Al Mackey moaned at two
P.M.
that day, his finger sore from dialing. “Do you realize we don't have a shred of evidence connecting Bozwell with Nigel St. Claire? Just
speculation
, that's all.”

“It's time to sort out the troubling things,” Martin Welborn said after he'd been making notes for more than an hour. He had taken his coat off but otherwise looked as fresh as he had in the morning. Al Mackey, on the other hand, was a wreck, what with all these calls, and paper shuffling, and getting nowhere, and dying to get off duty and down to The Glitter Dome to find some chicken and test the goddamn elk antler potion. If that didn't work it was acupuncture. After that? He shivered, thinking about the night in the apartment chewing on that off-duty gun.

“Do you know what troubles me most, Al?” Martin Welborn asked.

“No.”

“Lies. I believe Peggy Farrell lied.”

“Hell,
all
whores lie. Which lie in particular?”

“I think a girl like Peggy would keep her eyes open when she was being taken somewhere by a guy she didn't know. Even if he was in a Bentley. She's obviously a bright, observant girl.”

“So?”

“So, she was
too
quick to say she couldn't find the house again. Remember, this is a girl who gets around. By car. By cab. She gives outcall massages, so she can read a map. She knows the West Side pretty well. In fact, she even had a few customers in Trousdale, remember?”

“Well, she's not going to tell us if she knows,” Al Mackey shrugged.

“But why would she
not
tell us? That's what bothers me. Unless Lloyd warned her. Or scared her?”

“Or Mister Silver?”

“I'm convinced she told part of the truth. As much as she thought was safe to tell.”