White Jazz

Junior on the sidewalk, smoking. No preamble: “We pop the Bledsoe woman for Gilette. Bob Gallaudet will grant Ainge immunity on the gun charge. Dave, she’s Howard Hughes’ ex-girlfriend. This is a big major case.”

Head throbs. “It’s shit. Ainge told me the gun story was a lie. What we’ve got is a three-year-old homicide with one convicted-felon hearsay witness. It’s shit.”

“No, Ainge lied to you. I think there is a gun extant.”

“Gallaudet would never file. I’m an attorney, you’re not. Believe me.”

“Dave, just listen.”

“No, forget it. You were damn good in there, but it’s over. We came to break up an impending felony, and—”

“And protect this moonlight job of yours.”

“Right, which I’ll kick back to you on.”

“Which is unreported income in violation of departmental regs.”

Seeing red: “There’s no case. We’re on the Kafesjian job, which is a major case, because Exley’s got a hard-on for it. If you want juice, play tight with me on that. Maybe we soft-pedal it, maybe we don’t. We have to work angles on that case to protect the Department, and I don’t want you going off half-cocked on some stale-bread pimp snuff.”

“A homicide is a homicide. And you know what I think?”

Smug little shitbird. “What?”

“That you want to protect that woman.”

Seeing red, seeing black.

“And I think that for a cop on the take, you take pretty small. If you want to steal, steal big. If I ever broke the regs, I wouldn’t start at the bottom.”

PURE BLACK—knucks out.

Pure rabbit—Junior tripped into his car. Pulling out, window down: “You owe me for the way you patronize me! You owe me! And I might collect damn soon!”

RED BLACK RED.

Junior fishtailed straight through a red light.

I drove to the set just to see her; I figured one look would say yes or no.

Big blue eyes looked right through me—I couldn’t even guess. She acted; she laughed; she talked—her voice gave nothing away. I stuck to the trailers and framed her in longshots—Miss Vampire/maybe pimp slasher. A change of costume, demure stuff to low-cut gown—

Shoulder-blade scars. ID them: slash marks, one puncture wound/bone notch. Call it a la Hush-Hush:

I watched her act, watched her subtle-goof the whole silly business. Dark came on, I just watched, no one bugged the skulking stage-door Joh

Rain shut things down—I would have watched all night otherwise.

A pay-phone stint, zero luck: no Exley at the Bureau, no Junior to wheedle or threaten. Wilhite, my feelers out—not at Narco, not at home. Down to the Vine Street Hody’s: paperwork, di

I wrote out two Exley reports: full disclosure and whore Lucille omitted—insurance if I swung Wilhite’s way. That frame brainstorm—nix it—Exley wouldn’t bite, the Kafesjians made one big monkey wrench. Hard to concentrate—Junior hovered—taunting me with murderess Glenda.

Ex-whore Glenda; whore Lucille.

Rain blurred people outside. Hard to see faces, easy to imagine them—easy to make women Glenda. A brunette looked in the window—Lucille K. one split second. I banged the table getting up; she waved to a waitress, just some plain Jane.

Darktown—nowhere else to go.

Systematic:

No exact peeper locations—two divisions botched paperwork—no whore motel/jazz club addresses to work from. South on Western, driving one-handed, one hand free to jot motel names. Systematic: no tails on me, forty-one hot-sheet flops Adams to Florence.

Jazz clubs, more confined: Central Avenue, southbound. Nineteen clubs, count bars in, boost the tally up to sixty-odd. Rain kept foot traffic thin; neon signs hit hypnotic—half-second blips in my windshield.

Rain fizzling—try the coffee-and-donuts routine.

A Cooper’s stand on Central—whore heaven—I fed the girls coffee and showed the Lucille pix. Big nos, one yes—a Western-and-Adams girl stepping east. Her story: Lucille worked “occasional”—tight pedal pushers—no street name, no truck with other whores.

Pedal pushers—slashed/jacked off on—my burglar.

Midnight—half the clubs shut down. Neon blipped off; I caught boss men locking their doors. Peeper/prowler questions—”Say what?”s straight across. The Lucille mugs—straight deadpans.

1:00 A.M., 2:00 A.M.—shit police work. B-girls at bus stops and cab stands—I talked Lucille with my brain revving Glenda. More nos, more rain—I ducked into a diner.

A counter, booths. Packed—all spooks. Whispers, nudges—niggers smelling Law. Two B-girl types in a front booth—hands under the table furtive quick.

I joined them. One bolted—I jerked her back by the wrist. Sitting beside me: a skanky high yellow. Bad juju percolating—I could feel it.

“Dump your purses on the table.”

Slow and cool: two pseudo-snakeskin bags turned out. Felony tilt: tinfoil Benzedrine.

Change-up: “Okay, you’re clean.”

Darky:”Sheeeit!”

High Yellow: “Man, what you—?”

I flashed the Lucille pix. “Seen her?”

Purse debris zoomed back; High Yellow chased Be

“I said, have you seen her?”

High Yellow: “No, but this other po-lice been—”

The dark girl shushed her—I felt the nudge.

“What ‘other police’? And don’t you lie to me.”

High Yellow: “‘Nuther officer was aroun’ asking questions ‘bout that girl. He didn’ have no photographs, but he had this, this … po-lice sketch, he called it. Very same girl, good picture if you asks me.”

“Was he a young man? Sandy-haired, late twenties?”

“That’s right. He had this big pom-po-dour that he kept playin’ with.”

Junior—maybe working off a Bureau likeness sheet. “What kind of questions did he ask you?”

“He ask did that mousy little white girl ho’ roun’ here. I say, ‘I don’t know.’ He ask did I work the bars down here, and I say yes. He ask ‘bout some Peepin’ Tom, I say I don’t know ‘bout no jive Peepin’ Tom.”

Brace the dark girl: “He asked you the same questions, right?”

“Tha’s right, an’ I told him the same answers, which is the righteous whole truth.”

“Yeah, but you nudged your friend here, which means you told her something else about that policeman, because you are the one acting hinky. Now spill before I find something else in your purse.”

Cop-hater rumbles—the whole room. “Tell me, goddamn it.”

High Yellow: “Lynette tol’ me she see that po-liceman shake down a man in Bido Lito’s parking lot. Colored man, an’ Lynette say the pom-podour cop take money from him. Lynette say she see that same po-lice at Bido’s talkin’ to that pretty-boy blond po-liceman who works for that mean Mr. Dudley Smith, who jist loves to have his strongarm men roust colored people. Am’ all that whooole truth, Lynette?”

“Sho’ is, sugar. The whoooole truth, if I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”

Flying:

Junior—shakedown artist?—”If you want to steal, steal big.” “Prettyboy blond cop”—??????

“Who was the colored man at Bido Lito’s?”

Lynette: “I don’t know, an’ I ain’t seen him before or since.”

“What did you mean by ‘shakedown’?”

“I mean he put the arm on that poor man for money, and he be usin’ rude language besides.”

“Give me a name for that blond cop.”

“Am’ got a name, but I seen him with Mr. Smith, and he so cute I give it free to him.”