Ed walked up to her. "And what am I?"
"Just a run-of-the-mill coward."
Ed raised a fist, flinched when she flinched. Inez pulled off her robe. Ed looked, looked away--at the wall and his framed army medals. A target--he threw them across the room. Not enough. He took a bead on a window, reared back, hit soft padded curtains instead.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jack woke up seeing s.m.u.t.
Karen in orgy shots--Veronica Lake loving her. Blood: f.u.c.k pix as coroner"s pix, beautiful women drenched red. The first real thing he saw was daybreak--then Bud White"s car parked by Lynn Bracken"s pad.
Cracked lips, bone aches head to toe. He swallowed his last bcnnies, brought back his last thoughts before oblivion.
Nothing in the files, Patchett and Bracken his only Hudgens leads. Patchett had servants living in. Bracken lived alone--he"d brace her when White left her bed.
Jack brainstormed a tailing report--lies to snow Dudley Smith. A door slammed--a sound like a gunshot. Bud White walked to his car.
Jack hit the seat p.r.o.ne. The car pulled away, seconds, another gunshot/door slam. A quick look: a brunette Lynn Bracken heading out.
Over to her car, up to Los Feliz, east. Jack followed: the right lane, dawdling back. Spa.r.s.e early morning traffic: call the woman too distracted to spot him.
Due cast, into Glendale. North on Brand, a swerve to the curb in front of a bank. Jack pulled around the corner to a sighting point--the corner store, a grocer"s--milk cartons stacked by the door.
He squatted down, watched the sidewalk. Lynn B. was talking to a man: nervous, a shaky little guy. He opened the bank and hustled her in; a Ford and Dodge were parked further down--no way to nail plate numbers. Lamar Hinton walked outside lugging boxes.
Files, files, files--it had to be.
Bracken and the bank geek hauled boxes: a run to the Dodge and Lynn"s Packard. The geek locked up the bank, hit the Ford and U-turned southbound; Hinton and Bracken formed a chain--separate cars heading north.
Seconds tick tick tick--Jack counted to ten, chased.
He caught them a mile out--weaving, creeping up, falling back-downtown Glendale, north into foothills. Traffic dwindled; Jack found a lookout spot: a clean view of the road winding upward. He parked, watched: the cars kept climbing, took a fork, disappeared.
He followed their route straight to a campsite--picnic tables, barbecue pits. Two cars behind a pine row; Bracken and Hinton carrying boxes--muscle boy dangling a gas can off one pinky.
Jack ditched his car, snuck up behind some scrub pines. Bracken and Hinton dumped: paper in a big charcoal pit. They turned their backs; Jack sprinted over, ducked down.
They came back, another load: Bracken with a lighter out, Hinton"s arms full. Jack stood up, kicked, pistolwhipped--the b.a.l.l.s, left/right/left to the face. Hinton went down dropping paper; Jack broke his arms--knees to the elbows, jerks at the wrists.
Hinton went white--shock coming on.
Bracken had hold of the gas can and a lighter.
Jack stood in front of the pit, his .38 c.o.c.ked.
Standoff.
Lynn held the can, the cap loose, spilling fumes. Flick--a flame on the lighter. Jack drew down--right in her face.
Standoff.
Hinton tried to crawl. Jack"s gun hand started shaking. "Sid Hudgens, Patchett and Fleur-de-Lis. It"s either me or Bud White, and I can be bought."
Lynn killed the flame, lowered the gas. "What about Lamar?"
Hinton: pawing at the dirt, spitting blood. Jack lowered his gun. "He"ll live. And he shot at me, so now we"re quits."
"He didn"t shoot at you. Pierce . . . I just know he didn"t."
"Then who did?"
"I don"t know. Really. And Pierce and I don"t know who killed Hudgens. The first we heard of it was the newspapers yesterday."
The pit--folders on charcoal. "Hudgens" private dirt, right?"
"Yes."
"Yes and keep going."
"No, let"s talk about your price. Lamar told Pierce about you, and Pierce figured out that you were that policeman who always seems to wind up in the scandal sheets. So as you say, you can be bought. Now, for how much?"
"What I want"s in with those files."
"And what do you--"
"I know about you and the other girls Patchett runs. I know all about Fleur-de-Lis and the s.h.i.t Patchett pushes, including the s.m.u.t."
No fl.u.s.ter--the woman put out a stone face. "Some of your stag books have pictures with animated ink. Red, like blood. I saw pictures of Hudgens" body. He was cut up to match those photos."
The stone face held. "So now you"re going to ask me about Pierce and Hudgens."
"Yeah, and who doctored up the photos in the books." Lynn shook her head. "I don"t know who made those books, and neither does Pierce. He bought them bulk from a rich Mexican man."
"I don"t think I believe you."
"I don"t care. Do you want money besides?"
"No, and I"m betting whoever made those photographs killed Hudgens."
"Maybe somebody who got excited by the pictures killed him. Do you care either way? Why am I betting Hudgens had dirt on you, and that"s what"s behind all this?"
"Smart lady. And I"m betting Patchett and Hudgens didn"t play golf or--"
Lynn cut him off. "Pierce and Sid were planning on working a deal together. I won"t tell you any more than that."
Extortion--it had to be. "And those files were for that?"
"No comment. I haven"t looked at the files, and let"s keep this a stalemate and make sure n.o.body gets hurt."
"Then tell me what happened at the bank."
Lynn watched Hinton try to crawl. "Pierce knew that Sid kept his private files in safe-deposit boxes at that B of A. After we read that he"d been killed, Pierce figured the police would locate the files. You see, Sid had files on Pierce"s dealings--dealings legitimate policemen would disapprove of. Pierce bribed the manager into letting us have the files. And here we are."
Jack smelled paper, charcoal. "You and Bud White."
Lynn made fists, pressed them to her legs. "He has nothing to do with any of this."
"Tell me anyway."
"Why?"
"Because I don"t make you two as the hot item of 1953."
A smile from deep nowhere--Jack almost smiled back. Lynn said, "We"re going to strike a deal, aren"t we? A truce?"
"Yeah, a non-aggression pact."
"Then make this part of it. Bud approached Pierce, investigating the murder of a young girl named Kathy Janeway. He"d gotten Pierce"s name and mine from a man who used to know her. Of course, we didn"t kill her, and Pierce didn"t want a policeman coming around. He told me to be nice to Bud . . . and now I"m starting to like him. And I don"t want you to tell him anything about this. Please."
She even begged with cla.s.s. "Deal, and you can tell Patchett the D.A. thinks the Hudgens case is a loser. It"s heading for the back burner, and if I find what I want in that pile, today didn"t happen."
Lynn smiled--this time he smiled back. "Go look after Hinton."
She walked over to him. Jack dug into the folders, found name tabs, kept digging. A spate of T"s, a run of V"s, the kicker. "Vincennes, John."
Eyewitness accounts: squarejohns at the beach that night. Nice folks who saw him drill Mr. & Mrs. Harold J. Scoggins, nice folks who told Sid about it for cash, nice folks who didn"t tell the "authorities" for fear of "getting involved." The results of the blood test Sid bribed the examining doctor into suppressing: the Big V with a snootful of maryjane, Benzedrine, liquor. His own doped-up statement in the ambulance: confessions to a dozen shakedowns. Conclusive proof: Jack V. snuffed two innocent citizens outside the Malibu Rendezvous.
"I got Lamar back to my car. I"ll drive him to a hospital."
Jack turned around. "This is too good to be true. Patchett"s got carbons, right?"
That smile again. "Yes, for his deal with Hudgens. Sid gave him carbons of every file except the files he kept on Pierce himself Pierce wanted the carbons as his insurance policy. I"m sure he didn"t trust Sid, and since we have all of Hudgens" files right here, I"m sure Pierce"s files are in there."
"Yeah, and you have a carbon on mine."
"Yes, Mr. Vincennes. We do."
Jack tried to ape that smile. "Everything I know about you, Patchett, his rackets and Sid Hudgens is going into a deposition, _multiple_ copies to _multiple_ safe-deposit boxes. If anything happens to me or mine, they go to the LAPD, the D.A."s Office and the L.A. _Mirror._"
"Stalemate, then. Do you want to light the match?"
Jack bowed. Lynn doused the files, torched them. Paper sizzled, fireballed--Jack stared until his eyes stung.
"Go home and sleep, Sergeant. You look terrible."
Not home--Karen"s.
He drove there woozy, keyed up. He started to feel the close-out: bad debts settled bad, a clean slate. He got the idea just like he got the idea to shake down Claude Dineen. He didn"t say the words, didn"t rehea.r.s.e it. He turned the radio on so he"d keep the notion fresh.
A stern-voiced announcer: ". . . and the southside of Los Angeles is now the focus of the largest manhunt in California history. We repeat, an hour and a half ago, just after dawn, Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, the accused killers in the Nite Owl ma.s.sacre case, escaped from the Hall of Justice Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The three had been moved to a minimum security cellblock to await requestioning and made their escape by the means of knotted-together bedsheets and a jump out a secondstory window. Here, recorded immediately after the escape, are the comments of Captain Russell Millard of the Los Angeles Police Department, co-supervisor of the Nite Owl investigation.
""I . . . a.s.sume full responsibility for this incident. I was the one who ordered the three suspects sequestered in a minimum security unit. I . . . every effort will be made to recapture them with all due speed. I . .
Jack turned the radio off. Close-out: pious Russ Millard"s career. Call-out: figure the whole Bureau yanked from bed for the dragnet. He yawned the rest of the way to Karen"s, rang her bell seeing double.
Karen opened up. "Sweetie, _where have you been?_"
Jack plucked curlers out of her hair. "Will you marry me?"
Karen said, "Yes."
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ed, staked out at 1st and Olive. His father"s shotgun for backup, a replay on his hunch.
Sugar Ray Coates: "Roland Navarette, lives on Bunker Hill. Runs a hole-up for parole absconders."
A whispered snitch: the speakers didn"t catch it, doubtful Coates remembered he said it. R&I, Navarette"s mugshot, address: a rooming house midway down Olive, half a mile from the Hall of Justice Jail. A dawn breakout--they couldn"t make Darktown unseen. Figure all four of them armed.
Scared--like Guadalca.n.a.l "43.
Outlaw--he didn"t report the lead.
Ed drove to mid-block. A clapboard Victorian: four stories, peeling paint. He jumped the steps, checked out the mail slots: R. Navarette, 408.
Inside, his suitcoat around the shotgun. A long hallway, gla.s.s-fronted elevator, stairs. Up those stairs--he couldn"t feel his footsteps. The fourth-floor landing--n.o.body in sight. Down to 408, drop the suitcoat. Inez screaming primed him--he kicked the door in.
Four men eating sandwiches.
Jones and Navarette at a table. Fontaine on the floor. Sugar Coates by the window, picking his teeth.