The Big Nowhere

“Pride. Gordean was tormenting Reynolds.”

“He started tormenting him back in ‘44. It took you a while to get around to revenge.”

Minear focused on Mal. “The police told Reynolds and Claire that I informed on Reynolds to the House Committee. I don’t know how they knew, but they did. They confronted me about it, and I could tell Reynolds’ poor heart was broken. I knew Gordean was blackmailing him again, so I did penance. Claire and Reynolds and I had gotten so close again, and I imagine you could present a case for me acting in my own self-interest. It was good having friends, and it was awful when they started hating me.’

The rap was falling on him—he was the one who snitched the snitch. “Why didn’t you take the money?”

“Oh Lord, I couldn’t. It would have destroyed the gesture. And Claire has all the money in the world. She shares so generously with Reynolds… and with all her friends. You’re not really a criminal, are you? You look more like an attorney or an accountant.”

Mal laughed—a kamikaze queer romantic had his number. “I’m a policeman.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“No. Do you want to be arrested?”

“I want everyone to know what I did for Reynolds, but…”

“But you don’t want them to know why? Why Gordean was blackmailing Loftis?”

“Yes. That’s true.”

Mal threw a switcheroo. “Why did Reynolds and Claire steal Upshaw’s files? To protect all of you from the grand jury?”

“No.”

“Because of Reynolds’ kid brother? His son? Was it Upshaw’s homicide file they were most interested in?”

Minear sat mute; Mal waved Stompanato toward the back of the apartment. “Chaz, you’ve said it once. Now you have to say it to me.”

No answer.

“Chaz, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make sure everyone knows you killed Gordean, but I won’t let Reynolds get hurt anymore. All you’ll get is what you want. Reynolds will know you had courage and you paid him back. He’ll love you again. He’ll forgive you.”

“Love you” and “forgive you” made Minear cry, sputters of tears that he dried with his sweater sleeves. He said, “Reynolds left me for him. That’s why I informed to HUAC.”

Mal leaned closer. “Left you for who?”

“For him.”

“Who’s ‘him’?”

Minear said, “Reynolds’ little brother was really his son. His mother was a crazy religious woman Reynolds had an affair with. She got money from him and kept the boy. When Coleman was nineteen, he ran away from the woman and found Reynolds. Reynolds took him in and became his lover. He left me to be with his own son.”

Mal pushed his chair back, the confession a horror movie he wanted to run screaming from. He said, “All of it,” before he bolted for real.

Minear raised his voice, like he was afraid of his confessor ru

“Claire and Reynolds confided in me, and I knew I could make up for informing. They knew after the first three killings that it had to be Coleman—they read a tabloid that had details on the mutilations, and they knew from the names of the victims. They knew about it before the policeman tried to infiltrate UAES, and they were looking for Coleman to try to stop him. Juan Duarte saw Upshaw at the morgue when Augie was there, and recognized him from a picture Norm Kostenz took. He told Claire and Reynolds who Upshaw really was, and they got scared. They had read that the police were looking for a man who resembled Reynolds, and they thought Coleman must be trying to frame his father. They left out clues to exonerate Reynolds, and I followed Upshaw home from Claire’s house. The next day, Claire got Mondo Lopez to pick the lock on his apartment and look for things on the killings—things that would help them find Coleman. Mondo found his files and brought them to Claire. She and Reynolds were desperate to stop Coleman and keep the…”

Keep the whole horror epic from ruining Reynolds Loftis worse than the grand jury ever could.

Mal thought of Claire—terrified of a harmless Sleepy Lagoon remark the first time they talked; he thought of Coleman’s burn face, put it aside and went straight for the woman. “Claire and Coleman. What’s between them?”

The queer redeemer glowed. “Claire nurtured Coleman back in the SLDC days. He was in love with her, and he told her he always thought about her when he was with Reynolds. She heard out all his ugly, violent fantasies. She forgave them for being together. She was always so strong and accepting. The killings started a few weeks after the papers ran the wedding a

Mal couldn’t make himself say no and break the rest of Chaz Minear. He couldn’t say anything, because Joh

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Mary Margaret Conroy was coming across as a major league Mexophile.

Buzz had tailed her from her sorority house to a hand-holding kaffeeklatch at the UCLA Student Union; she was a simpering frail in the presence of a handsome taco bender named Ricardo. Their conversation was all in Spanish, and all he recognized were words like “corazon” and “felicidad,” love stuff he knew from the juke box music at Mexican restaurants. From there, Dudley Smith’s dough-faced niece went to a meeting of the Pan American Students’ League, a class in Argentine history, lunch and more fondling with Ricardo. She’d been sequestered in a classroom with “Art of the Mayans” for over an hour now, and when she walked out he’d pop the question—shit or get off the pot time.

He kept checking his flank, seeing bad guys everywhere, like Mickey with the Commies. Only his were real: Mickey himself, Cohen goons armed with icepicks and saps and garottes and silencered heaters that could leave you dead in a crowd, a heart attack victim, squarejohns summoning an ambulance while the triggerman walked away. He kept checking faces and kept trying not to cut odds, because he was too good an oddsmaker to give himself and Audrey much of a chance.

And he had a monster hangover.

And his back ached from boozy catnaps on Mal Considine’s floor.

They’d been up most of the night, pla

They talked escape routes next. Buzz held back on his idea—it would have sounded as crazy as Mal taking down Dudley. They talked East Coast hideouts, slow boats to China, soldier of fortune gigs in Central America, where the local strongmen paid gringos good pesos to keep the Red Menace in check. They talked the pros and cons of taking Audrey, leaving Audrey, the lioness stashed someplace safe for a couple of years. They came to one conclusion: he’d give payback another forty-eight hours tops, then go in a hole somewhere.