The Black Marble (6 page)

Just then the rape victim stormed out of the interrogation room yelling: “Well if you won't bust that sucker, I'm goin to the F.B.I. cause I ain't his escape goat. And
you
nigger!” She aimed a skinny finger at Nate Farmer. “You I'm suin for defecation of character!”

All the yelling was interrupted when a radio voice came over the monitor. It was the police helicopter.

“This is Air Six,” the radio voice said. “Anything for us?”

And then, as always, three or four ex-vice cops called out suggestions:

“Yeah, bomb the dopers on Sunset.”

“Strafe the pimps on Hollywood Boulevard.”

“Napalm the fruits on Selma Avenue.”

And so forth.

Suddenly Frick threw his arrest reports to Frack. “Rape and murder. Rape and murder. I'm getting sick of it!” Frick cried.

“Hmph,” Clarence Cromwell snorted. “You the one doin all the rape and murder, chump. Killin time and screwin the city.”

All conversations, bitching, and dramatic outcries were suddenly interrupted. It became breathlessly still.

Dora Simpson, the record clerk from downstairs, sashayed into the squad room, dropped some reports on the desk of Woodenlips Mockett, and wriggled out again.

“With those lungs, that girl could stay underwater for
days
,” Fuzzy Spinks sighed.

Dora Simpson had gone unnoticed during ten years of employment with the Los Angeles Police Department, until she transferred from Northeast Station to Hollywood Station. Then she had begun dating a retired plastic surgeon with a Pygmalion complex.

Dr. Henry Sprackle took a centimeter off the bridge of her nose and two off the tip. He implanted nearly a
pound
of foam in her sagging breasts and buttocks. He whacked away the loose flesh from under her chin and eyes and hacked off two and a half inches of belly fat.

Finally, he threw away her cat's-eye horn-rims and had her fitted with tinted contact lenses. He took her to Elizabeth Arden's for a Far-rah Fawcett feather-cut and she was
almost
perfect. Then he took her to Frederick's of Hollywood and bought her ten pairs of crotchless black underwear and she
was
perfect.

Dora Simpson was born again, but no Baptist preacher had a hand in it. A former ugly duckling was now the object of many a wet dream at Hollywood Station, and indeed all over the Los Angeles Police Department. They said that Deputy Chief Digby Bates, the most notorious swain among the ranking brass, had offered the area commander
four
additional patrol officers if he would release Dora Simpson for a transfer.

Frick and Frack were insane over her. The two young cops had worked together six years, both in patrol and detectives, and they'd bedded the same station house groupies for so long they'd begun to have similar erotic fantasies. Most of them these days involved Dora Simpson because they thought of her as an android. She wasn't human. She was sculpted in the laboratory of Dr. Henry Sprackle.

All that jiggly stuffing in there! Imagine searching for the surgical scars! Would she do
anything
her master told her? It was wildly decadent and perverse. Frick said that as soon as his second divorce was final he was going to propose to her. Frack said that
he
was going to propose to Dr. Sprackle, since Dora Simpson as an android was not in a position to accept on her own behalf.

She was the station house celebrity for sure. Everyone called her Spareparts Simpson.

“Looks like you're goin to a funeral, and it's yours,” Clarence Cromwell said when Valnikov weaved through the maze of tables and coffee-drinking detectives with his second cup of tea.

The voices. The noise. The painful cacophony of two dozen detectives wearing out the only essential tools of an investigator: pencil and telephone.

“Light workload, Clarence?” Valnikov asked.

“Nothin to it,” Clarence Cromwell said. Broad-chested with a face as creased and shiny as old leather, he was a twenty-five-year cop who had also worked “downtown” in better days.

Covering for a high-rolling girlfriend who passed some bad checks had been Clarence's downfall and earned him a transfer (“There is
no such thing
as a disciplinary transfer in the Los Angeles Police Department. Of course, you understand that, Sergeant Cromwell? This is merely an administrative readjustment.”) back to where he started, Hollywood Station. But if one saw the glass half full, well, it wasn't as bad as 77th Street Station, which policed Watts, and was the armpit of detective duty. Hollywood dicks wasn't such bad duty, considering.

But poor Clarence Cromwell was withering on the vine. He wore a big moustache and a medium Afro and Italian suits. He was rushing resentfully into middle age, drinking too much, but not nearly like Valnikov. He was still wearing two shoulder holsters which thrilled the hell out of cop groupies but weren't much better than ballast these days. When Clarence had worked robbery-homicide downtown, those twin Colt magnums had blown away four bandits in six short happy years.

On the night following the last shoot-out, a Chinatown groupie sidled up to the still shaking detective at a bar and grabbed him by the crotch and said, “I wanna see your
other
magnum, Clarence. Baby, you look like Sidney Poitier
wishes
he looked.”

Those were the days.

“You okay?” Clarence Cromwell asked when he saw Valnikov's trembling hands.

“I'm all right, Clarence,” Valnikov smiled, losing the thread of what the burglary report was all about.

“Got any bodies in jail today, Val?”

Valnikov looked at Clarence Cromwell and just shrugged pathetically. Clarence Cromwell lit a cigarette and looked at Valnikov's hands again.

Clarence Cromwell had been there many many times. Valnikov was one of four or five detectives Clarence Cromwell would bother with. First, because he knew Valnikov from robbery-homicide in better days. And secondly, because Valnikov was a veteran with more than twenty years' service, most of it in the detective bureau. If there was anything Clarence Cromwell despised more than the police brass it was RE-cruits.

Clarence Cromwell looked around in disgust. Fuckin RE-cruits. Add up the total service of the whole burglary detail and there wouldn't be three hashmarks total. Except for himself and Valnikov. Fuzz-nutted kids. Like that little brother, Nate Farmer, always hollerin. Thinks he's some kind a black Kojak, or somethin. And those two kids Frick and Frack. All they ever thought about was their cocks. Homicide detectives, my ass.

Not detectives—“investigators.” Now they were all “investigators.” At least that's what the business cards said. That's what the brass decided they should be called nowadays. And they did “team policing.” Whatever the hell that is. Nobody knew. Four “teams” of “investigators” working their little areas. Teams, my ass. This ain't no football game, Chief. Police work is a whole bunch of decisions you got to make your
own
self out on those streets. Except that every few years the brass had to come up with some new catchword to justify the budget. “Team policing.” All it did was add a whole bunch of new chiefs to supervise fewer Indians. Some stations used to get by with one captain. Now they had to have
three.
And a whole fuckin sack full of lieutenants. They were about as useful as Woodenlips Mockett's balls. And Clarence knew
they
hadn't been used in years.

Clarence leafed through Valnikov's reports quickly and said, “You ain't got no bodies in jail. Get your ass on home, I'll cover for you. Shit, you're so full a Russian potata juice you're all swole up like a toad.”

“That's real nice of you, Clarence.” Valnikov tried to smile, but it hurt.
Hurt
to smile. “I'm okay.”

Clarence Cromwell knew better. And it wasn't just the hangover. Valnikov was
not
okay. He was not anything like the detective who worked homicide downtown for fifteen years. That man was quiet and shy, but he was alert. This guy next to him was just some shipwreck victim. Clarence Cromwell pitied him, but he didn't know him.

Clarence looked around at the roar of activity, at the grinding paper mill. Papers everywhere. Take away my gun and car, but
please
don't take my pencils. Nobody noticed yet how extra bad Valnikov looked today: “Val, you got a comb?”

“A comb?” Valnikov looked at Clarence like he didn't understand the word. Like he didn't talk English anymore. “Yeah, Val, you know, a fuckin
comb.
”

Clarence wondered if he could be using drugs. Naw, he thought, a lush like Val don't go smokin dope.

“Here's a comb, Val. I used to ride a old sorrel horse in Griffith Park, had neater lookin hair than you got. Go comb your hair, at least. You look like a skid row blood donor. What're they payin for a pint a blood these days, ten bucks for positive, twelve for negative?”

“Pardon?” Valnikov said.

“Gud-damn, man! Go in my locker and get yourself a clean necktie. Looks like you washed that one in vodka. Git your
shit
together, Val!”

But it was too late. Clarence Cromwell looked up and locked eyes with Captain Hooker, who nodded toward his office.

“There's jist one thing savin your ass, Val,” Clarence Cromwell whispered before he stood up. “Me.” Then he was gone toward the captain's office.

Valnikov just sat and stared blankly at his crime reports, and trembled, and thought he could hear the voices of a Slavonic choir. Far away. In the frozen Siberia of his mind.

Natalie Zimmerman was furious. She took long-legged strides back and forth, from wall to wall in Captain Hooker's private office. The giant strides were stretching the woolen skirt tight across her thighs.

Well now, old Nat's wheels ain't too bad, Clarence Cromwell thought, as he sat down. Ain't too bad at all.

“I do my job, Captain!” she said, voice shaking.

“I know you do, Natalie. You get straight upper-ten ratings, don't you?”

“Look, Captain, I wanna make Investigator Three.”

“You will, I'm sure.”

“Not if I work with that … with Valnikov. Because I'll get as bad as he is, you make me his partner!” She finally stopped pacing, flopped down in the chair next to Clarence Cromwell and brushed a wisp of frizzy buckskin-colored hair from her forehead.

Clarence Cromwell looked approvingly at Natalie Zimmerman's crossed legs and thought maybe this'll turn out to be a good idea. Might be what old Val needs.

“It's not forever, Natalie,” Captain Hooker soothed. He was one of those scholarly looking kind of guys in three-button suits that always made Clarence Cromwell wonder how come they're cops. Hooter was hipless and had to wear suspenders to hold up his pants and gunbelt.

“Did you see him today, Captain?” Natalie pleaded, raising oversized glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “The sucker's bombed. Let's face it!”

“He ain't bombed,” Clarence offered. “He's jist hung over. Jist gotta have some tea, git his shit … uh, mind together.”

“Why me, why me?” Natalie asked the lock of frizzy hair which usually hung on her forehead. She wore her Friz longer than most.

Captain Hooker studied her, nodding like a condescending headmaster. “You're the best female investigator I've got,” Captain Hooker answered softly, hoping Natalie would lower her voice.

“That's great. You've only got two. How about Clarence here? Why can't he work with him? They're old buddies!”

“Uh, well, I, ar-uh, got my team to run,” Clarence reminded her. Thinking: Uh-uh,
no
way, baby. I got my own drinkin problem. Me and Val together? Shit! Hose out the drunk tank, Barney, make room for the burglary detail!

“I've known Valnikov for twenty years,” Captain Hooker said patiently. “He was only a two-year policeman then. He's always been a fine officer. And always a gentleman, I might add.”

“Yeah, well that means this
gentleman's
got twenty-two years on the job, so he can go ahead and retire now and …”

“Valnikov is
still
a fine policeman,” Captain Hooker said, raising his hand ever so slightly to quiet the passion of Natalie Zimmerman, who happened to catch Clarence Cromwell inspecting her bustline.

Clarence looked up innocently. The old bastard! It was no secret that Hooker did whatever Cromwell wanted. All Hooker was doing was biding his time. Three more months, he would have his thirty in, and would retire to a cushy teaching job in the Police Science Department at Cal State L.A. Everyone knew it. Just like everyone knew that Clarence Cromwell ran the goddamn detective division. Just because his bail bondsman buddy, No-Show Weems, had given him unlimited use of his 53-foot motor yacht with twin diesels and a flying bridge—an
idiot
like Cromwell who couldn't even drive a golf cart!—and Hipless Hooker just had to be the most fanatical deep-sea fisherman who ever lived. And Mrs. Hooker got seasick in the bathtub, so Hipless Hooker could sneak off unattended with Clarence Cromwell on that stinking boat practically every goddamn weekend, probably with some of Cromwell's old wino girlfriends. The evil old spook! He was looking at her tits again!