The Big Nowhere (12 page)

“Were any of the men tall and gray-haired?”

Conklin shrugged. “I don’t really remember. One guy had a funny European accent, that I do recall. Besides, my eyes ain’t the best in the world. You about done with your questions, son?”

Ninety-five percent against on the blood bait theory; maybe a quash on his nightmares; useless dope on Hollywood lunacy. Danny said, “Thanks, Mr. Conklin. You were a big help.”

“My pleasure, son. Come back sometime. Rape-o likes you.”

Danny drove to the Station, sent out for a hamburger, fries and milk even though he wasn’t hungry, ate half the meal and called Doc Layman at the City Morgue.

“Norton Layman speaking.”

“It’s Danny Upshaw, Doctor.”

“Just the man I was going to call. Your news first or mine?”

Danny flashed: Rape-o chewing on Marty Goines’ midsection. He threw the remains of his burger in the wastebasket and said, “Mine. I’m sure the teethmarks are human. I just talked to a man who breeds fighting dogs, and he said your blood bait theory is feasible, but it would take a lot of planning, and I think the killing wasn’t
that
premeditated. He said dog menstrual blood would be the best bait, and I was thinking you could tap the cadaver’s organs next to his wounds, see if you got any foreign blood.”

Layman sighed. “Danny, the City of Los Angeles cremated Martin Mitchell Goines this morning. Autopsy completed, no claim on the body within forty-eight hours, ashes to ashes. I have some good news, though.”

Danny thought, “Shit”; said, “Shoot.”

“The slash wounds on the victim’s back interested me, and I remembered Gordon Kienzle’s wound book. Do you know it?”

“No.”

“Well, Kienzle is a pathologist who started out as an emergency room MD. He was fascinated with nonfatal assaults, and he put together a book of photos and specifications on man-inflicted woundings. I consulted it, and the cuts on Martin Mitchell Goines’ back are identical to the sample wounds listed under ‘Zoot Stick,’ a two-by-four with a razor blade or blades attached at the end. Now, the zoot stick dates back to ’42 and ’43. It was popular with anti-Mexican gangs and Riot Squad cops, who used it to slash the zoot suits certain Latin elements were sporting.”

Check the City/County Homicide files for zoot stick killings
. Danny said, “It’s a good lead, Doc. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I checked the files before I decided to call you. There are no zoot stick homicides on record. A friend of mine on the LAPD Riot Squad said 99 percent of your white-on-Mexican assaults weren’t reported and the Mexicans never took the damn sticks to each other, it was considered dirty pool or whatever. But it
is
a lead.”

Robe wad suffocating, hands or sash strangling, teeth biting, and now a zoot stick cutting.
Why the different forms of brutality
? Danny said, “See you in class, Doctor,” hung up and walked back to his car just to be moving. Jungle John Lembeck was leaning against the hood, his face bruised, one eye purple and closed. He said, “They got real rough with me, Mr. Upshaw. I wouldn’t have told Janice to ditz you, except they were hurting me so bad. I’m stand-up, Mr. Upshaw. So if you want payback, I’ll understand.”

Danny balled his right fist and got ready to swing it—but a flash of Booth Conklin and his pit hound stopped him.

The cigars were Havanas, and their aroma made Mal wish he hadn’t quit smoking; Herman Gerstein’s pep talk and Dudley Smith’s accompaniment—smiles, nods, little chuckles—made him wish that he was back at the LAPD Academy interviewing recruits for the role of idealistic young leftist. His one day of it had yielded no one near appropriate, and starting their interrogations without a decoy at the ready felt like a mistake. But Ellis Loew and Dudley, fired up by Lesnick’s psychiatric dirt, were trigger-happy—and here they were getting ready to brace Mondo Lopez, Sammy Benavides and Juan Duarte, UAESers playing Indians on the set of
Tomahawk Massacre
. And now Gerstein’s schtick was making him itchy, too.

The Variety International boss was pacing behind his desk, waving his Havana; Mal kept thinking of Buzz Meeks sliming back into his life at
the
worst possible moment.

“…and I can tell you this, gentlemen: through passive resistance and other Commie shit the UAES is gonna force the Teamsters into kicking some ass, which is gonna make the UAES look good and us look bad. Commies like to get hurt. They’ll eat any amount of shit, smile like it’s filet mignon and ask for seconds, turn the other cheek, then bite
you
on the ass. Like those pachucos down on Set 23. Zoot suit punks who got themselves a union card, a license to give shit and think their own shit don’t stink. Am I right or is Eleanor Roosevelt a dyke?”

Dudley Smith laughed uproariously. “And a grand quiff diver she is. Dark meat, too, I’ve heard. And we all know about the late Franklin’s bent for little black terriers. Mr. Gerstein, Lieutenant Considine and I would like to thank you for your contributions to our endeavor and your hospitality this morning.”

Mal took the cue and stood up; Herman Gerstein reached into a humidor and grabbed a handful of cigars. Dudley got to his feet; Gerstein came at them like a fullback, pumping hands, stuffing Havanas in all their available pockets, showing them the door with hard back slaps. When it closed behind him, Dudley said, “No flair for language. You can take the Jew out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of the Jew. Are you ready to interrogate, Captain?”

Mal looked down at the UAES picket line, caught a back view of a woman in slacks and wondered if she was Claire De Haven. “Okay,
Lieutenant
.”

“Ah, Malcolm, what a grand wit you have!”

They took Herman Gerstein’s private elevator down to ground level and two rows of sound stages separated by a center walkway. The buildings were tan stucco, silo tall and humpbacked at the top, with sandwich boards propped up by the front doors—the name, director and shooting schedule of the movie crayoned on white plastic. Actors riding bicycles—cowboys, Indians, baseball players, Revolutionary War soldiers—whizzed by; motorized carts hauled camera equipment; technicians hobnobbed by a snack cart where a Roman centurion dished out doughnuts and coffee. The enclosed sets extended for nearly a quarter mile, black numbers above the doors marking them. Mal walked ahead of Dudley Smith, running Benavides/Lopez/Duarte file dirt through his head, hoping an on-the-job bracing wasn’t too much, too quick.

Dudley caught up outside Set 23. Mal rang the buzzer; a woman in a saloon girl outfit opened the door and popped her gum at them. Mal displayed his badge and identification. “We’re with the District Attorney’s Office, and we want to speak to Mondo Lopez, Juan Duarte and Sammy Benavides.”

The saloon girl gave her gum a last pop and spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. “They’re on a take. They’re the hotheaded young Indians who want to attack the fort, but the wise old chief don’t want them to. They’ll be finished in a few minutes, and you can—”

Dudley cut in. “We don’t require a plot synopsis. If you’ll tell them it’s the police, they’ll adjust their busy schedule to accommodate us. And please do it now.”

The girl swallowed her gum and walked in front of them. Dudley smiled; Mal thought: he’s a spellbinder—don’t let him run the show.

The sound stage was cavernous: wire-strewn walls, lights and cameras on dollies, anemic-looking horses tethered to equipment poles and people standing around doing nothing. Right in the middle was an olive drab teepee, obviously fashioned from army surplus material, Indian symbols painted on the sides—candy apple red lacquer—like it was some brave’s customized hot rod. Cameras and tripod lights were fixed on the teepee and the four actors squatting in front of it—an old pseudo-Indian white man and three pseudo-Indian Mexicans in their late twenties.

The saloon girl stopped them a few feet behind the cameras, whispering. “There. The Latin lover types.” The old chief intoned words of peace; the three young braves delivered lines about the white eyes speaking with forked tongue, their voices pure Mex. Someone yelled, “Cut!” and the scene became a blur of moving bodies.

Mal elbowed into it, catching the three pulling cigarettes and lighters out of their buckskins. He made them make him as a cop; Dudley Smith walked over; the braves gave each other spooked looks.

Dudley flashed his shield. “Police. Am I talking to Mondo Lopez, Juan Duarte and Samuel Benavides?”

The tallest brave slipped a rubber band off his pony tail and shaped his hair into a pachuco do—duck’s ass back, pompadour front. He said, “I’m Lopez.”

Mal opened up his end strong. “Care to introduce your friends, Mr. Lopez? We don’t have all day.”

The other two squared their shoulders and stepped forward, the move half bravado, half kowtow to authority. Mal tagged the short, muscular one as Duarte, former Sinarquista squad leader, zoot suits and swastika armbands until the CP brought him around; his lanky pal as Benavides—Mr. Tight Lips to Doc Lesnick, his file a complete bore except for one session devoted to an account of how twelve-year-old Sammy molested his nine-year-old sister, a razor blade to her throat. Both men did a sullen foot dance; Muscles said, “I’m Benavides.”

Mal pointed to a side door, then touched his tie clip—LAPD semaphore for
Let Me Run It
. “My name’s Considine, and this is Lieutenant Smith. We’re with the DA’s Office, and we’d like to ask you a few questions. It’s just routine, and we’ll have you back at work in a few minutes.”

Juan Duarte said, “We got a choice?”

Dudley chuckled; Mal put a hand on his arm. “Yes. Here or the Hall of Justice jail.”

Lopez cocked his head toward the exit; Benavides and Duarte fell in next to him, lit cigarettes and walked outside. Actors and technicians gawked at the Indian-paleface migration. Mal schemed a razzle-dazzle, himself abrasive at first, then making nice, Dudley asking the hard questions, him playing savior at the end—the big push to glom them as friendly witnesses.

The three halted their march just out the door, leaning against the wall, nonchalant. Dudley stationed himself to the left of Mal, about a half step back. Mal let the men smoke in silence, then said, “Boy, have you guys got it made.”

Three sets of eyes on the ground, three phony Indians in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Mal rattled the leader’s cage. “Can I ask you a question, Mr. Lopez?”

Mondo Lopez looked up. “Sure, Officer.”

“Mr. Lopez, you must be taking home close to a C-note a week. Is that true?”

Mondo Lopez said, “Eighty-one and change. Why?”

Mal smiled. “Well, you’re making almost half as much as I am, and I’m a college graduate and a ranking police officer with sixteen years’ experience. All of you quit high school, isn’t that true?”

A quick look passed among the three. Lopez smirked, Benavides shrugged and Duarte took a long drag on his cigarette. Mal saw them sighting in on his ploy way too soon and tried for sugar. “Look, I’ll tell you why I brought it up. You guys have beat the odds. You ran with the First Street Flats and the Sinarquistas, did some Juvie time and stayed clean. That’s impressive, and we’re not here to roust you for anything you yourselves did.”

Juan Duarte ground out his cigarette. “You mean this is about our friends?”

Mal dredged the files for ammo, grabbing the fact that all three tried to join the service after Pearl Harbor. “Look, I’ve checked your Selective Service records. You quit the Sinarquistas and the Flats, you tried to fight the Japs, you were on the right side with Sleepy Lagoon. When you were wrong you copped to it. That’s the sign of a good man in my book.”

Sammy Benavides said, “Is a stool pigeon a good man in your book, Mr. Po—”

Duarte silenced him with a sharp elbow. “Who you trying to tell us is wrong now? Who you
want
to be wrong?”

Finally a good opening. “How about the Party, gentlemen? How about Uncle Joe Stalin getting under the sheets with Hitler? How about slave labor camps in Siberia and all the stuff the Party has pulled in America while they condoned the stuff going on over in Russia? Gentlemen, I’ve been a cop for sixteen years and I’ve never asked a man to snitch his friends. But I’ll ask
any
man to snitch his
enemies
, especially if they also happen to be mine.”

Mal caught his breath, thinking of Summations 115 at Stanford Law; Dudley Smith stood easy at his side. Mondo Lopez eyed the blacktop, then his
Tomahawk Massacre
co-stars. Then all three started clapping.

Dudley flushed; Mal could see his red face going toward purple. Lopez brought a flat palm slowly down, killing the applause. “How about you tell us what this is all about?”

Mal thrashed for file dirt and came up empty. “This is a preliminary investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood. And we’re not asking you to snitch your friends, just
our
enemies.”

Benavides pointed west, toward the front office and two picket lines. “And this has got nothing to do with Gerstein wanting our union out and the Teamsters in?”

“No, this is a preliminary investigation that has nothing to do with whatever current labor troubles your union is involved in. This is—”

Duarte interrupted. “Why
us
? Why me and Sammy and Mondo?”

“Because you’re reformed criminals and you’d make damn good witnesses.”

“Because you thought we’d be jail-wise and bleed easy?”

“No, because you’ve been zooters and Reds, and we figured that maybe you had the brains to know it was
all
shit.”

Benavides kicked in, a leery eye on Dudley. “You know the HUAC Committee pulled this snitch routine, and good people got hurt. Now it’s happening again, and you want us to fink?”

Mal thought of Benavides as a kiddie raper talking decency; he could
feel
Dudley thinking the same thing, going crazy with it. “Look, I
know
corruption. The HUAC chairman is in Danbury for bribery, HUAC itself was reckless. And I’ll admit the LAPD screwed up on the Sleepy Lagoon thing. But you can’t tell—”

Mondo Lopez shouted, “Screwed up! Pendejo, it was a fucking pogrom against my people by your people! You’re sweet-talking the wrong people on the wrong case to get the wrong fuck—”

Dudley stepped in front of the three, his suitcoat open, .45 automatic, sap and brass knuckles in plain view. His bulk cast the Mexicans in one big shadow and his brogue went up octaves, but didn’t crack. “Your seventeen filthy compatriots murdered José Diaz in cold blood and beat the gas chamber because traitors and perverts and deluded weaklings banded up to save them. And I will brook no disrespect for a brother officer in my presence. Do you understand?”

Complete silence, the UAES men still in Dudley’s shadow, stagehands eyeballing the action from the walkway. Mal stepped up to speak for himself, taller than Dudley but half his breadth. Scared. Pendejo. He got ready to give signals, then Mondo Lopez hit back. “Those seventeen got fucked by the puto LAPD and the puto City court system. And that ees la fucking verdad.”

Dudley moved forward so that all there was between him and Lopez was the arc of a short kidney punch. Benavides backed away, shaking; Duarte mumbled that the SLDC got anonymous letters making a white guy for José Diaz, but nobody believed it; Benavides pulled him out of harm’s way. Mal grabbed Dudley’s arm; the big man flung him back and lowered his brogue to baritone range. “Did you enjoy perverting justice with the SLDC, Mondo? Did you enjoy the favors of Claire De Haven—filthy rich capitalista, tight with the City Council, a real love for that undersized spic cock?”

Benavides and Duarte had their backs to the wall and were sliding away from the scene an inch at a time. Mal stood frozen; Lopez glared at Dudley; Dudley laughed. “Perhaps that was unfair of me, lad. We all know Claire spread her favors thin, but I doubt she would have stooped to your level. Your SLDC friend Chaz Minear, now that’s another story. Was he there for the prime Mex butthole?”

Benavides moved toward Dudley; Mal snapped out of his freeze, grabbed him and pushed him into the wall, seeing razor blades held to a little girl’s throat. Benavides shouted, “That puto bought boys at a puto escort service, he didn’t do us!” Mal pressed harder, sweat-saturated suit against soaked buckskins, hard muscles straining at the body of a thin man almost forty. Benavides suddenly went slack; Mal took his hands off him and got a file flash: Sammy railing against queers to Doc Lesnick, a weak point they could have played smart.

Sammy Benavides slid down the wall and watched the Smith-Lopez eyeball duel. Mal tried to make his hands give signals, but couldn’t. Juan Duarte was standing by the walkway, scoping the business long-distance. Dudley broke the standoff with a pivot and a lilting brogue aside. “I hope you learned a lesson today, Captain. You can’t play sob sister with scum. You should have joined me on the Hat Squad. You would have learned then in grand fashion.”

Round one blown to hell.

Mal drove home, thinking of captain’s bars snatched away from him, smothered in Dudley Smith’s huge fists. And he had been partly at fault, going too easy when the Mexicans came on too smart, thinking he could reason with them, wheedle and draw them into logical traps. He’d thought of submitting a memo to Ellis Loew—lay off Sleepy Lagoon, it’s too sympathetic—then he tossed it into the pot for empathy, hit a nerve with the Mexes and upset Dudley’s bee in the bonnet on the case. And Dudley had stood up for him before he himself did, which made it hard to fault him for losing his temper; which meant that maybe direct UAES approaches were dead and they should concentrate solely on decoy infiltration and sub-rosa interrogations. His specialty—which didn’t lessen the sting of Dudley’s Hat Squad crack, and which increased the need for Buzz Meeks to join the grand jury team.