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“No.”
“Have you seen the film?”
“Nyet. Porno ain’t my bag. I like the real thing there in the sack with me. I’m an in-and-out kind of guy. Ten minutes of bliss and I’m back watching Bowling for Dollars on Cha
Crutch rubbed his neck. He was all knots and kinks.
“Who went to the screenings? Give me some names.”
Arnie sucked on the jug. “I don’t know. I sent Tattoo a mimeograph copy of my list.”
“She was murdered that summer. How does that sit with you?”
Arnie made the jackoff sign. “It don’t sit with me one way or the other. That Haitian guy thought she’d been clipped, so I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. Bobby the K. and that civil rights macher just bought it, so it’s not like some stray piece of island gash carries all that much weight with me.”
Crutch saw RED. Just like then. No, don’t do it.
“Where’s the fucking customer list?”
Arnie popped a zit on his neck. “It’s in my garage, if it’s anywhere. The key’s on the hook by the john. Have fun, but don’t come back in another four years and put me through this shit again.”
Dust, mildew, cobwebs, spiders’ nests, mice. Oil cans, dead batteries, a cracked engine block. Car Craft back to ‘52. Forty forged Sandy Koufax baseballs.
Arnie Moffett’s garage, Mar Vista.
Stolen prescription pads. The full run of Food Service Monthly. A photo of Marlon Brando with a dick in his mouth. Four BB guns, two defunct lawn mowers, the skeletal remains of a cat.
Crutch worked. He dug through pack-rat shit to get at a pile of boxes. He hit the first box row. Arnie’s rйsumй expanded. He sold French ticklers, he sold rosaries, he sold the Donkey Dan Dong Extender. He sold counterfeit football tix. He ran the Debra Paget Fan Club. He mail-ordered JFK and Jackie K. dolls. He drop-shipped amyl-nitrate poppers to fag bars. He owned an employment agency for wetback kitchen help.
There-”Arnie’s Island Exotics.”
He ripped the box open. An invoice stack popped out. He dumped the box on the floor. Gotcha-”Customers/’59-’63.”
Four stapled pages. A fuckload of names.
Crutch sca
“Weiss, Charles. 1482 North Roxbury, Beverly Hills.”
Chick: divorce lawyer. Chick: wheelman consort. Chick: Phil Irwin’s best pal. Phil: hired and fired by Dr. Fred Hiltz-find me Gretchen Farr. Chick: dope fiend and mud shark.
And…
There’s…
The…
CLICK.
Chick’s office. Rope-job strategy. The three-phallus statue. The open-legged Negress. Imports-all voodoo vile.
He needed a throwdown. The fallback was close. Cold pieces. Dwight might have left some.
It was dusk. He floored it northeast. He looped by Karen’s place en route. Window view: Karen and Joan in the living room. The girls acting rambunctious.
The fallback lights were on. Crutch snagged the key under the mat and let himself in. A file was propped up on the desk. Joan had left him a note.
A friend found this. The Feds have paper on you. I thought you might like to see it.
Clyde Duber-culled reports. Knife-redacted paragraphs. Clyde’s assessments: “Voyeurs make good wheelmen.” “Weird tendencies.” The kid was working the Farr case. He was too tweaked on it.
A CBI report: Phil Irwin, Fed snitch.
“My buddy Chick and I like to peep. We studied under the best, Crutch Crutchfield. There ain’t a window in Hancock Park that that twisted cocksucker ain’t put his snout up to. He never knew it, but Chick and I used to tail him and study his technique.”
PD reports below: Phil and Chick popped for loitering. KA Arnie Moffett questioned per “porno parties.” Arnie shares Chick’s love of “bizarre Negro art.”
He saw RED. He couldn’t breathe. He gulped sink water and coughed it out. He got some wind back.
Dwight had left a goody basket in the closet. He found a throwdown, handcuffs and a roll of duct tape.
Phil was a car-dweller. He crashed in his Tiger kab most nights. He usually parked in the wheelman lot, away from the street.
Crutch drove over. The station was closed. A Tiger stretch was parked by the toolshed. Phil was sleepytimed in the backseat. His arms dangled out the window.
Snores. Booze breath wafting. Phil’s head propped on the window ledge.
Crutch parked and walked up. Phil dozed on. Crutch opened his. cuffs and snapped Phil’s left wrist. Phil dream-yipped. Crutch cranked the ratchets and spare-cuffed the doorpost. Phil grimaced and snored.
Crutch yanked the door wide. The cuff chain gouged Phil and pulled him up and out of the seat. He roused. He hit the world on his knees. He didn’t get it. I can’t move. My arm’s above my head and it hurts.
He shrieked. He blinked and saw Crutch. He said, “Hey, Peep-”
Crutch kicked him in the balls. Phil hurled booze laced with peanuts. He tried to stand and get some chain slack. Crutch re-kicked his balls. Phil re-hit his knees.
He screamed. The cuff gouged him tight. Blood leaked down his arm. Crutch said, “Summer ‘68. You got the Gretchen Farr gig first, I got it second. You went on a bender, I took over then.”
Phil tried to sit down. The cuff chain dug tighter. Phil tried to stand up. Crutch kicked him in the balls. Phil hit his knees, harder.
He screamed, he coughed, he dribbled puke. He lolled his head on his chest and panted.
Crutch said, “You and Weiss. The peeping, Arnie Moffett, that voodoo film.”
Phil lolled his head. Crutch slapped him. Phil ducked and tried to bite his hand. Crutch pulled the throwdown and held it out eye level.
“I’ll run the radio. No one will hear the shot. You work Tiger Kab. You’re all over darktown. You’re fucking half the black chicks south of Washington Boulevard. How much time will LAPD give it?”
Phil took some breaths. Phil scooched around on his knees. His eyes got snitch-darty. Blood ran down his arm and soaked his shirt.
“So, we like to peep. You like it, I like it, Chick likes it. He knew this Arnie guy. Chick used to buy knickknacks and shit from him. Arnie owned party cribs and showed movies at them. Chick saw this weird-ass flick and got hipped on some babe in it. He heard she was living in some empty house around there, and my guess is he peeped her.”
Crutch said, “And that’s it?”
“You want more?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, you’ve got it. We peeped you peeping, so we learned from the King. Whatever you’re in a lather over came straight from you.”
Crutch pulled out his duct tape. Phil squirmed and thrashed his head. Crutch grabbed his hair and mummy-wrapped him. He left a nose hole open. He covered his mouth, his head, his ears. He pulled him off the ground and kicked him into the backseat. The cuff ratchets gouged him. His bones showed plain. The mock-tiger seat covers shed all over him.
Hash smoke. Follow the trail. The wife’s car is gone. He’s tripping back by the pool.
Crutch walked down the driveway. The backyard was dark. The pool supplied shimmer light.
Olympic-size. Artful nudes scrolled on the bottom. Picasso on LSD.
Chick sat by the deep end. He rocked his chair and toed the diving board. The fumes got stronger. He had a little mesh-spouted pipe.
Crutch pulled a chair up. Chick focused in on him.