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And his Gordean instincts confirmed: the pimp couldn’t draw breath without trying an angle—which meant that he was holding back. Da
“Burglary, Vandrich. Did you know George Wiltsie to be involved in it, or do you know of anyone co
Vandrich shook his head. “No. Like I said, George Wiltsie I trucked with once, talk wasn’t his forte, so we stuck to business. He never mentioned that guy Lindenaur. I’m sorry he got killed, but I just take nice things from stores, I don’t associate with burglars.”
Da
Vandrich flashed perfect teeth. “No. And I haven’t been to a dentist since high school.”
“A young man, call him a boy—with a scarred, burned-up face in bandages. He was a burglar, and this would be back during the war.”
“No. Ugh. Awful.”
Two more “Nos.” Da
Vandrich said, “Double ugh and an ugh on pachucos in zoot suits in general.”
No, no, no, no—underlined. Da
Vandrich said, “No”; Da
Vandrich said, “Felix Gordean is… a… piece of… work,” drawing the words out into a lisp. “He doesn’t truck with man, woman or beast, and his only kick is bringing guys out, getting them to admit what they are, then… procuring for them. He has a legitimate talent agency, and he meets lots of young men, really sensitive creative types… and… well they’re prone to being like…”
Da
“Uh, yes.”
“You can say it, Vandrich. Five minutes ago you were trying to flirt with me.”
“It… it’s hard to say. It’s so ugly and clinical and cold.”
“So Gordean brings these homosexuals out. Then what?”
“Then he enjoys showing them off at his parties and fixing them up. Getting them acting jobs, then taking their money for the introductions he arranges. Sometimes he has parties at his beach house and watches through these mirrors he has. He can look in, but the fellows in the bedroom can’t look out.”
Da
Vandrich had pushed his chair into the wall. “No. He didn’t back then, at least. The word was that he had a great memory, and he was terrified of writing things down… afraid of the police. But…”
“But what?”
“B-but I h-heard he loves to keep it all in his head, and once I heard him say that his biggest dream was to have something on everybody he knew and a profitable way to use it.”
“Like blackmail?”
“Y-yes, I thought of that.”
“Do you think Gordean’s capable of it?”
No lisp, stutter or hesitation. “Yes.”
Da
Gordean holding back.
His talent agency a tool to fuel his voyeurism.
Blackmail.
No suspicious Gordean reactions on Duane Lindenaur, extortionist; Charles Hartshorn—”Short and bald as a beagle”— eliminated as a suspect on his appearance, that fact buttressed by Sergeant Frank Skakel’s assessment of his character and his take on Hartshorn’s juice—the lawyer unapproachable for now. If Gordean himself was some sort of extortionist, it had to be coincidental to Lindenaur—both men moved in a world rife with blackmailees. The talent agency was the place to start.
Da
His men were already there, sitting in the first row of chairs, Mike Breuning and Jack Shortell gabbing and smoking. Gene Niles was four seats over, picking at a pile of papers on his lap. Da
Shortell said, “You still look like a cop.” Breuning nodded agreement. “Yeah, but the Commies won’t get it. If they were so smart they wouldn’t be Commies, right?”
Da
Da
Shortell said, “Cut and dried. I’ve called ninety-one dental labs, run the descriptions by the people in charge and got a total of sixteen hinkers: strange-o’s, guys with yellow sheets. I eliminated nine of them by blood type, four are currently in jail and the other three I talked to myself. No sparks, plus the guys had alibis for the times of death. I’ll keep going, and I’ll call you if anything bites me.”
Da
Breuning consulted a big spiral notebook. “What we’ve got is the old goose egg. On the biting MO, we checked LAPD, County and the muni files. We got a shine queer who bit his boyfriend’s dick off, a fat blond guy with a kiddie raper jacket who bites little girls and two guys who match our description—both in Atascadero for aggravated assault. On the queer bar scuttlebutt, zero. Biters do not hang out at homo cocktail lounges and say, ‘I bite. Want some?’ The fruit detail cops I talked to laughed me out on that one. On the Vice and sex offender file eliminations, nothing. Burglary, ditto. I cross-checked them, nothing duplicated. Nothing on a kid with burn scars. There were six middle-aged gray-haired possibles—all either in custody on the nights of the killings or alibied—squarejohn witnesses. On the recanvassing—nada—it’s too old now. Niggertown, Griffith Park, the area where Goines was dumped, nothing. Nobody saw anything, nobody gives a shit. On checking with snitches, forget it. This guy is a loner, I’d bet my pension he does not associate with criminal riffraff. I personally leaned on the only three possibles I got from State and County Parole—two queers and a real sweetheart—this tall, gray preacher type who cornholed three Marines back during the war, used to lube his prong with toothpaste. All three were in for curfew at the Midnight Mission—alibied by no less than Sister Mary Eckert herself.”
Breuning stopped, out of breath, and lit a cigarette. He said, “Gene and I muscled every southside H man we could find, which wasn’t many—it’s dry all over. Rumor has it that Jack D. and/or Mickey C. are getting ready to move a load of cut-rate. Nothing. We leaned on the jazz musician angle, nothing with our man’s description. Ditto on goofballs. Nothing. And we leaned hard.”
Niles chuckled; Da