L.A. Confidential (47 page)

  KILL HIM.

  Cooley moved first: a shield, two girls pressed tight. Bud moved in--yanking arms, legs, nails raking his face. The girls slipped, stumbled, tumbled out the door. Spade said, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

  Smoke inside him, brewing up his very own dreamland. Last rites, stretch the moment. "Kathy Janeway, Jane Mildred Hamsher, Lynette Ellen Kendrick, Sharon--"

  Cooley yelled, "GODDAMN YOU IT'S PERKINS!"

  The moment snapped--Bud saw his gun half-triggered. Colors swirled around him; Cooley talked rapid fire. "I saw Deuce with that last girlie, that Kendrick. I know'd he liked to hurt hooers, and when that last girlie turned up dead on the TV I asked him 'bout it. Deuce, he like to scared me to death, so's I took off on this here toot. Mister, you gotta believe me."

  Color flashes: Deuce Perkins, plain vicious. One color blinking-- turquoise, Spade's hands. "Those rings, where'd you get them?"

  Cooley pulled a towel over his lap. "Deuce, he makes them. He brings a hobby kit with him on the road. He's been crackin' all these vague-type jokes for years, how they protects his hands for his intimate-type work, and now I know what he means."

  "Opium. Can he get it?"

  "That cracker shitbird steals my shit! Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  Starting to. "My killing dates put you in the right place to do the jobs. Just you. Your booking records show different goddamn guys traveling with you, so how do you--"

  "Deuce, he's been my road manager since '49, he always travels with me. Mister, you gotta believe me!"

  "_Where is he?_"

  "I don't know!"

  "Girlfriends, buddies, other perverts. _Give_."

  "That miserable sumbitch got no friends I know of 'cept that wop shitbird Johnny Stompanato. Mister, you gotta believe--"

  "I believe you. You believe I'll kill you if you scare him away from me?"

  "Praise Jesus, I believe."

  Bud walked into the smoke. The chinks were still on the nod, Papa was just barely breathing.

o        o          o

  R&I on Perkins:

  No California beefs, clean on his Alabama parole--he'd spent '44--'46 on a chain gang for animal sodomy. Transient musician, no known address listed. K.A. confirmation on Johnny Stompanato--ditto Lee Vachss and Abe Teitlebaum--mob punks all. Bud hung up, remembered a talk with Jack Vincennes--he'd rousted Deuce at a _Badge of Honor_ party-- Johnny, Teitlebaum and Vachss were there with him.

  Kid gloves: Johnny used to be his snitch, Johnny hated him, feared him.

  Bud called the DMV, got Stomp's phone number--ten rings, no answer. Two more no-answers: the Cowboy Rhythm Band at the Biltmore, the El Rancho. Kikey Teitlebaum's deli next-- Kikey and Johnny were tight.

  A run out Pico, shaking off fumes. A keen edge settling in: get Perkins alone, kill him. Then Exley.

  Bud parked, looked in the window. A slow afternoon, pay dirt--Johnny Stomp, Kikey T. at a table.

  He walked in. They spotted him, whispered. Years since he'd seen them--Abe was fatter, Stomp still guinea slick.

  Kikey waved. Bud grabbed a chair, carried it over. Stomp said, "Wendell White. How's tricks, _paesano?_"

  "Tricky. How's tricks with Lana Turner?"

  "Trickier. Who told you?"

  "Mickey C."

  Teitlebaum laughed. "Must have a hole like the Third Street Tunnel. Johnny's leaving for Acapulco with her tonight, and me, I shack with Sadie five-fingers. White, what brings you here? I ain't seen you since Dick Stens used to work for me."

  "I'm looking for Deuce Perkins."

  Johnny tap-tapped the table. "So talk to Spade Cooley."

  "Spade don't know where he is."

  "So why ask me? Mickey tell you Deuce and me are close?" No ritual question: what do you want him for? And fat-mouth Kikey too quiet. "Spade said you and him were acquaintances."

  "Acquaintances is right. We go back, _paesano_, so I'll tell you I haven't seen Deuce in years."

  Change-up pitch. "You ain't my _paesano_, you wop cocksucker." Johnny smiled, maybe relieved, their old cop-snitch game one more time. A look at Kikey--the fat man working on spooked. "Abe, you're tight with Perkins, right?"

  "Nix. Deuce is too meshugeneh for me. He's just a guy to say hi to once in a blue fucking moon."

  A lie--Perkins' rap sheet said different. "So maybe I'm confused. I know you guys are tight with Lee Vachss, and I heard him and Deuce are tight."

  Kikey laughed--too stagy. "What a yuck. Johnny, I think Wendell here is really confused."

  Stomp said, "Oil and water, those two. Tight? What a howl."

  _Standing up for Vachss for no reason_. "You guys are the howl. I figured you'd ask me what the grief was right off."

  Kikey pushed his plate aside. "It occur to you we just don't care?"

  "Yeah, but you guys love to shmooz and milk the grapevine."

  "So shmooz."

  A rumor: Kikey beat a guy to death for calling him a yid. "I'll shmooz, it's a nice day and I got nothing better to do than hobnob with a greasy wop and a fat yid."

  Abe ho-ho-ho'd, cuffed his arm oh-you-kid. "You're a pisser. So what do you want Deuce for?"

  Bud cuffed him back hard--"None of your fucking business, Jewboy"--throw a change-up to Johnny. "What are you doing now that Mickey's out?"

  Tap, tap, tap----a pinky ring on a bottle of Schlitz. "Nothing you'd be interested in. I got things contained, so don't you worry. What are _you_ doing?"

  "I'm on the Nite Owl reopening."

  Johnny tap-tapped too hard--his bottle almost tipped. Kikey, working on pale. "You don't think Deuce Perkins . .

  Stompanato: "Come on, Abe. Deuce for the Nite Owl, what a howl."

  Bud said, "I gotta piss," walked to the bathroom. He closed the door, counted to ten, opened it a crack. The shitbirds spieling full blast--Abe wiping his face with a napkin. Let the pieces fit in.

  Hink: Deuce for the Nite Owl.

  Jack V. spotted Vachss, Stomp, Kikey and Perkins at a party--maybe a year pre--Nite Owl.

  A Mobster Squad roust, a snitch off Joe Sifakis: _three-man_ trigger gangs clipping Cohen franchise hoods, maverick hoods. The Victory Motel buzzing hard.

  Bud grabbed the piece, dropped it, grabbed it.

  "Contain."

  Dudley's favorite big word--"containment."

  His motel pitch: "containing," "profit dispensation," "obstreperous Italian you've dealt with in the past"--Johnny Stomp an old snitch who hated him. Dud hot for his "full disclosure"; the Lamar Hinton roust--a shakedown for Nite Owl information, Dot Rothstein there, Kikey Teitlebaum's cousin--

  Bud washed his face, walked back calm. Stomp said, "Have a good one?"

  "Yeah, and you're right. I want Deuce for some old warrants, but I got a hunch on the Nite Owl."

  Calm Johnny: "Oh, yeah?"

  Calm Kikey: "Some new shvoogies, right? All I know's what I read in the papers."

  Bud: "Maybe, but if it wasn't some new niggers, then that purple car by the Nite Owl was a plant. Take care, guys. If you see Deuce, tell him to call me at the Bureau."

  Calm Johnny tap-tap-tapped.

  Calm Kikey coughed, popped sweat.

  Calm Bud, not so calm: out to the car, around the corner to a pay phone. The P.C. Bell police number, one long fucking wait.

  "Uh, yes, who's requesting?"

  "Sergeant White, LAPD. It's a trace job."

  "For when, Sergeant?"

  "_For now_. It's a homicide priority, private lines and pay phones at a restaurant. _It's now_."

  "One second, please."

  Transfer click-click-clicks--a new woman. "Sergeant, what exactly do you need?"

  No Calm Bud. "Abe's Noshery at Pico and Veteran. All calls out on all phones for the next fifteen goddamn minutes. Lady, don't hump me on this."

  "We can't initiate actual traces, Officer."

  "Just who the calls are to, goddamn it."

  "Well, if it _is_ a homicide priority. What is your number now?"

  Bud read off the phone. "GRanite 48112."

  Harumph. "Fifteen minutes then. And next time allow us more operating leeway."

  Bud hung up--Dudley Dudley Dudley Dudley Dudley--hard time cut off by _brrrinnngg_. He grabbed the phone, fumbled it, cradled it. "Yeah?"

  "Two calls. One to DUnkirk 32758--a Miss Dot Rothstein holds that number. The second to AXminster 46811, the residence of a Mr. Dudley L. Smith."

  Bud dropped the receiver. The clerk babbled from someplace safe and calm that he'd never see again--no Lynn, no safety in a badge.

  Captain Dudley Liam Smith for the Nite Owl.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Jack Vincennes confessed.

  He confessed to knocking up a girl at the St. Anatole's Orphan Home, to killing Mr. and Mrs. Harold J. Scoggins. He confessed to tank-jobbing Bill McPherson with a hot little nigger girl, to planting dope on Charlie Parker, to shaking down hopheads for _Hush-Hush_ Magazine. He tried to jerk out of bed and raise his hands to form the Stations of the Cross. He babbled something like hub rachmones, Mickey, and bump bump bump bump the cute train. He confessed to beating up junkies, to running bag for Ellis Loew. He begged his wife to forgive him for fucking whores who looked like women in dirty picture books. He confessed that he loved dope and was unfit to love Jesus.

  Karen Vincennes stood by weeping: she couldn't listen, she had to listen. Ed tried to shoo her out--she wouldn't let him. He called the Bureau from outside Arrowhead; Fisk gave him the word: Pierce Patchett shot and killed last night, his mansion torched, burned to the ground. Fireman had discovered Vincennes in the backyard--smoke inhalation, rips in his bulletproof vest. They got him to Central Receiving, a doctor took a blood sample. The results: Trashcan on a test flight, a heroin/antipsychotic drug compound. He'd live, he'd be fine--when the OD in his system flushed out.

  A nurse swabbed Vincennes' face; Karen fretted Kleenex. Ed checked Fisk's memo: "Inez Soto called. No info on R.D. $ dealings. R.D. suspicious of queries?? ?--she was cryptic--D.W."

  Ed crumpled it, tossed it. Vincennes went in barefoot--while he was shacked with Lynn. Somebody killed Patchett, left them both to burn.

  Burned like Exley father and son--Bud White holding the torch.

  He couldn't look at Karen.

  "Captain, I've got something."

  Fisk in the hallway. Ed walked over, led him away from the door. "What is it?"

  "Nort Layman completed the autopsy. Patchett's cause of death was five .30-30 slugs fired from two different rifles. Ray Pinker ran ballistics tests and came up with a match to an old Riverside County bulletin. May of '55, unsolved with no leads, I checked. Two men gunned down outside a tavern. It looked like a gangland job."

  All coming down to the heroin. "That's all you've got?"

  "No. Bud White tore up a dope den in Chinatown and beat three Chinamen half to death. He came in asking questions, badged them and went crazy. One of them ID'd his personnel photo. Thad Green called l.A. on it, and I caught the squeal. Pickup order, sir? I know you want him and Chief Green said it's your call."

  Ed almost laughed. "No, no pickup order."

  "Sir?"

  "I said no, so cut it off there. And you and Kleckner do this for me. Contact Miller Stanton, Max Pelts, Timmy Valburn and Billy Dieterling. Have them come to my office tonight at 8:00 for questioning. Tell them I'm the investigating officer, and if they want no publicity, then bring no lawyers. And get me Homicide's file on the old Loren Atherton case. Seal it, Sergeant. I don't want you to look at it."

  "Sir..."

  Ed turned away. Karen in the doorway, dry-eyed. "Do you think Jack did those things?"

  "Yes."

  "He musm't know that I know. Will you promise not to tell him?"

  Ed nodded, looked in the room. The Big V begged for communion.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  A file room at the main DMV-- boxes stacked shoulder-high. A confirmation search--a riff on Johnny and Kikey's last hink. Riff in, out, back, around--he was so high he could think it through and prowl registration records at the same time.

  Make Stomp, Teitlebaum and Lee Vachss for the Nite Owl triggers; make them the shooter gang bumping upstart mobsters and Cohen franchise holders. Deuce Perkins was part of the gang--the others didn't know he beat hookers to death--they'd consider it amateur shit, wouldn't tolerate it. Dudley was the leader--he couldn't be anything else. All his job offer stuff was a try at recruiting him; the Lamar Hinton roust was Dud frosting out loose ends on the Patchett side of things--make Patchett and Smith some kind of K.A.'s, make Hinton dead, Breuning and Carlisle part of the gang. "Contain," "Contained," "Containment," "Profit Dispensation." Call it Dudley trying to control the L.A. rackets--and pin the Nite Owl on a new bunch of jigs.

  Bud tore through boxes: auto registrations, early April '53. Schoolboy thinkm  he figured the car by the Nite Owl was a plant; the shotguns in Coates' car, the shells in Griffith Park, both plants--the killers followed the case, got lucky on the Merc, found some boogies to take the heat. Wrong--LAPD conspirators were in on the job. They read crime reports, got hipped to some joyriding spooks firing shotguns--lay the onus on them-- they figured the arresting officers would kill them, case closed.

  So they got themselves a car that matched the crime report description. They made sure it was spotted near the Nite Owl. They wouldn't steal a car--cops wouldn't risk a late night roust. They didn't buy a purple car--they bought a different colored one and painted it.

  Bud kept working. No logic to the file mess: Mercs, Chevies, Caddies, L.A., Sacramento, Frisco, whoever registered the car would've used a phony name. One luck-out: the registers' race, DOB and physical stats listed on cards attached to the initial purchase carbons. Facts to eliminate against, like he learned in school: '48--'50 Mercs, Southern California purchasers, stats that matched to Dudley, Stomp, Vachss, Teitlebaum, Perkins, Carlisle and Breuning. Hours of digging, a pile inches thick--then a strange one that felt warm.