The Big Nowhere (44 page)

“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.”

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.”

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.

From there, Mal talked Coleman. Coleman’s intro lead on Marty Goines as a fruit, Coleman stressing the tall, gray man, Coleman wearing a gray wig and probably makeup when he glommed his victims, shucking the beard Upshaw saw on him. Loftis and Claire had Mondo Lopez steal Danny’s files when they found out he was working the homo killings—Juan Duarte had snitched him as a cop. Mal recounted the Minear interrogation, Coleman the third point of the ’42–’44 love triangle, Chaz shooting blackmailer Gordean to redeem himself in Claire and Loftis’ eyes, Claire and Loftis searching for Coleman. And they both agreed: Marty Goines, a longtime Coleman pal, was probably a victim of opportunity—he was there when the rat man
had
to kill. Victims two, three and four were to tie in to Daddy Reynolds—a hellish smear tactic.

They hit the Central Avenue Strip, daytime quiet, a block of spangly facades: the Taj Mahal, palm trees hung with Christmas lights, sequined music clefs, zebra stripes and a big plaster jigaboo with shiny red eyes. None of the clubs appeared to be open: bouncer-doormen and parking lot attendants sweeping up butts and broken glass were the only citizens out on the street. Mal parked and took the west side; Buzz took the east.

He talked to bouncers; he talked to auto park flunkies; he handed out all the cash he didn’t stuff down Terry Lux’s throat. Three of the darkies gave him “Huh?”; two hadn’t seen Coleman the alto guy in a couple of weeks; a clown in a purple admiral’s tunic said he’d heard Healy was gigging at a private sepia club in Watts that let whiteys perform if they were hep and kept their lily-white meathooks off the colored trim. Buzz crossed the street and started canvassing toward his partner; three more “Huh?’s” and Mal came trotting over to him.

He said, “I talked to a guy who saw Coleman last week at Bido Lito’s. He said he was talking to a sickly old Jewish man about half dead. The guy said he looked like one of the old jazz fiends from the rest home on 78th and Normandie.”

Buzz said, “You think Lesnick?”

“We’re on the same track, lad.”

“Quit callin’ me lad, it gives me the willies. Boss, I read a Bureau memo at Ellis’ house. Lesnick’s daughter said Pops was thinkin’ about checkin’ in to a rest bin to kick. There was a list of them, but I couldn’t grab it.”

“Let’s hit that Normandie place first. You get anything?”

“Coleman might be playin’ his horn at some private jig club in Watts.”

Mal said, “Shit. I worked 77th Street Division years ago, and there were tons of places like that. No more details?”

“Nix.”

“Come on, let’s move.”

They made it to the Star of David Rest Home fast, Mal running yellow lights, busting the speed limit by twenty miles an hour. The structure was a low tan stucco; it looked like a minimum security prison for people waiting to die. Mal parked and walked straight to the reception desk; Buzz found a pay phone outside and looked up “Sanitariums” in the Yellow Pages.

There were thirty-four of them on the Southside. Buzz tore the page of listings out; he saw Mal standing by the car and walked over shaking his head. “Thirty-four bins around here. A long fuckin’ day.”

Mal said, “Nothing inside. No Lesnick registered, nobody dying of lung cancer on the ward. No Coleman.”

Buzz said, “Let’s try the hotels and pushers. If that’s no go, we’ll get some nickels and start callin’ the sanitariums. You know, I think Lesnick’s a lamster. If that was him with Coleman, he’s in this somehow, and he wouldn’t be registered under his own name.”

Mal tapped the hood of the car. “Buzz, Claire wrote that hotel list out. Minear said she and Loftis have been trying to find Coleman. If they’ve already tried—”

“That don’t mean spit. Coleman’s been seen around here inside a week. He could be movin’ around, but always stayin’ close to the music. Somethin’s goin’ on with him and music, ’cause nobody made him for playin’ an instrument, now these boogies down here say he’s a hot alto sax. I say we hit hotels and H men while it’s still light out, then come dark we hit those jig joints.”

“Let’s go.”

The Tevere Hotel on 84th and Beach—no Caucasians in residence. The Galleon Hotel on 91st and Bekin—the one white man staying there a three-hundred-pound rummy squeezed into a single room with his negress wife and their four kids. Walking back to the car, Buzz checked the two lists and grabbed Mal’s arm. “Whoa.”

Mal said, “What?”

“A matcher. Purple Eagle Hotel, 96th and Central on Claire’s list. Roland Navarette, Room 402 at the Purple Eagle on Lux’s.”

“It took you a while.”

“Ink’s all smudged.”

Mal handed him the keys. “You drive, I’ll see what else you missed.”

They drove southeast. Buzz ground gears and kept popping the clutch; Mal studied the two lists and said, “The only matchup. You know what I was thinking?”

“What?”

“Lux knows Loftis and De Haven, and Loftis used to cop Claire’s stuff. They could have access to Lux’s suppliers, too.”

Buzz saw the Purple Eagle—a six-story cinderblock dump with a collection of chrome hood ornaments affixed above a tattered purple awning. He said, “Could be,” and double-parked; Mal got out first and practically ran inside.

Buzz caught up at the desk. Mal was badging the clerk, a scrawny Negro with his shirt cuffs buttoned full in a sweltering lobby. He was muttering, “Yessir, yessir, yessir,” one eye on Mal, one hand reaching under the desk.

Mal said, “Roland Navarette. Is he still in 402?”

The hophead said, “Nossir, nossir,” his hand still reaching; Buzz swooped around and pinned his wrist just as he was closing in on a junk bindle. He bent the fingers back; the hophead went, “Yessir, yessir, yessir”; Buzz said, “A white man, late twenties, maybe a beard. A jazz guy. He glom horse from Navarette?”

“Nossir, nossir, nossir.”

“Boy, you tell true or I break the hand you geez up with and throw you in the cracker tank at the Seven-Seven.”

“Yessir, yessir, yessir.”

Buzz let go and laid the bindle out on the desk. The clerk rubbed his fingers. “White man, white woman here askin’ same thing twenty minutes ’go. I tol’ them, I tell you, Roland straighten up, fly right, don’t sell no sweet horsey nohow.”

The punk’s eyes strayed to a house phone; Buzz ripped it out and chucked it on the floor. Mal ran for the stairs.

Buzz huffed and puffed after him, catching up on the fourth-floor landing. Mal was in the middle of a putrid-smelling hallway, gun out, pointing to a doorway. Buzz got his breath, pulled his piece and walked over.

Mal ticked numbers; at three they kicked in the door. A Negro in soiled underwear was sitting on the floor sticking a needle in his arm, pushing the plunger down, oblivious to the noise and two white men pointing guns at him. Mal kicked his legs and pulled the spike out of his arm; Buzz saw a C-note resting under a fresh syringe on the dresser and knew Claire and Loftis had bought themselves a hot lead.

Mal was slapping the H man, trying to bring him back from cloud nine; Buzz knew that was futile. He hauled him away from Mal, dragged him to the bathroom, stuck his head in the toilet and flushed. Roland Navarette came back to earth with shakes, shivers and sputters; the first thing he saw out of the bowl was a .38 in his face. Buzz said, “Where’d you send them white people after Coleman?”

Roland Navarette said, “Man, this a humbug.”

Buzz cocked the gun. “Don’t make me.”

Roland Navarette said, “Coleman gigging at this after-hours on One-O-Six an’ Avalon.”

Watts, code three without a siren. Buzz fingered his billy club; Mal leadfooted through twilight traffic. One hundred an sixth and Avalon was the heart of the heart of Watts: every tarpaper shack on the block had goats and chickens behind barbed-wire fences. Buzz thought of crazed darkies sacrificing them for voodoo rituals, maybe inviting Coleman over for some wolverine stew and a night of jazz hot. He saw a string of blue lights flickering around the doorway of a corner stucco; he said, “Pull over, I see it.”

Mal swung hard right and killed his engine at the curb. Buzz pointed across the street. “That white car was in De Haven’s driveway.” Mal nodded, opened the glove compartment and took out a pair of handcuffs. “I was going to let the papers in on this, but I guess there’s no time.”

Buzz said, “He might not be here. Loftis and Claire might be waitin’ him out, or there’d of been grief already.
You
ready?”

Mal nodded. Buzz saw a group of Negroes line up by the blue-lit door and start filing in. He motioned Mal out of the car; they hurried across the sidewalk and rode the last jazzbo’s coattails.

The doorman was a gigantic shine in a blue bongo shirt. He started to block the way in, then stepped back and bowed—an obvious police courtesy.

Buzz went in first. Except for blue Christmas bulbs taped to the walls and a baby spot illuminating the bar, the joint was dark. People sat at card tables facing the stage and a combo back-lit by more blue lights: blinkers covered with cellophane. The music was ear-splitting shit, one step down from noise. The trumpet, bass, drums, piano and trombone were Negro guys in blue bongo shirts. The alto sax was Coleman, no beard, a cracked blue bulb blinking across the set of Daddy Reynolds’ eyes.

Mal nudged Buzz and spoke loud in his ear. “Claire and Loftis at the bar. Over in the corner, tucked away.”

Buzz pivoted, saw the two, half shouted to make himself heard: “Coleman can’t see ’em. We’ll take him when this goddaman noise shuts off.”

Mal moved to the left side wall, ducking his head, moving up toward the bandstand; Buzz followed a few feet behind, doing a little shuffle: I’m not conspicuous, I’m not a cop. When they were almost to the edge of the stage, he looked back at the bar. Claire was still there; Loftis wasn’t; a door on the right side of the room was just closing, showing a slice of light.

Buzz tapped Mal; Mal pointed over like he already knew. Buzz switched his gun from his holster to his right pants pocket; Mal had his piece pressed to his leg. The jigs quit playing and Coleman flew solo: squeals, rasps, honks, barks, growls, squeaks—Buzz thought of giant rats ripping flesh to the beat. There was a keening noise that seemed to go on forever, Coleman pitching his sax to the stars. The blue lights died; the keen went low note shuba-shuba-shuba in darkness and died. Real lights went on and the audience stampeded the bandstand, applauding.

Buzz pushed into the crush of bodies, Mal beside him, extra tall on his tiptoes. Everyone surrounding them was black; Buzz blinked for white and saw Coleman, sax held above his head, going through the right side door.

Mal looked at him; Buzz looked back. They pushed, punched, shoved, elbowed and kneed their way over, getting elbows, shoves and tossed drinks in their faces. Buzz came up on the door wiping bourbon sting out of his eyes; he heard a scream and a shot on the other side—and Mal went through the door gun first.

Another shot; Buzz ran after Mal’s shadow. A smelly linoleum corridor. Two shapes struggling on the floor twenty feet down; Mal aiming, gun hand braced. A black guy turned a side corner and tried to block his aim; Mal shot him twice. The man careened off the walls and went down face first; Buzz got a look at the two on the floor. It was Loftis being strangled by Coleman Healy, big ugly pink dentures with fangs attached in his mouth. Coleman’s chest was bloodied; Loftis was soaked dark red at the legs and groin. A revolver lay beside them.

Mal yelled, “Coleman, get back!” Buzz slid down the wall, .38 out, looking for a clean shot at the rat man. Coleman made a denture-muffled bleat and bit off his father’s nose; Mal fired three times, hitting Loftis in the side and chest, pitching him away from the thing attacking him. Coleman wrapped his arms around Daddy like an animal starved for food and went for his throat. Buzz aimed at his gorging head; Mal blocked his arm and fired again, a ricochet that tore the walls with zigzags. Buzz got free and squeezed a shot; Coleman grabbed his shoulder; Mal fumbled out his handcuffs and ran over.

Buzz threw himself prone and tried to find a shot; Mal’s legs and flapping suitcoat made it impossible. He stumbled up and ran himself; he saw Coleman grab the gun on the floor and aim. One, two, three shots—Mal lifted clean off his feet and spun around with his face blown away. The body collapsed in front of him; Buzz walked to Coleman; Coleman leered behind bloody fangs and raised his gun. Buzz shot first, emptying his piece at the wolverine toothwork, screaming when he finally got an empty chamber. He kept screaming, and he was still screaming when a shitload of cops stormed in and tried to take Mal Considine away from him.