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A pause-seconds ticking. “Touché, so call me back in a few hours. It can’t leave the Bureau, but I’ll oblige you with a synopsis. What’s the man’s name?”
“John Duhamel.”
“Schoolboy Joh
“When it’s over, Bob. Thanks.”
“Well, quid pro quo for now. And next time I see you, let me tell you about the meeting Ed and I had with this colored minister. Strange bedfellows, huh?”
That bed—laced hands. “The fucking strangest.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Surplus adrenaline—it jacked me up to peep the Kafesjians.
I staked their house from three doors down—no bedroom-window strip show. Nobody peeper-chasing—three cars on the lawn.
Stakeout time killer—my car radio:
Junior eulogized—LAPD chaplain Dudley Smith: “He was a grand lad. He was a dedicated crimefighter, and it is a cruel caprice of fate that so young a man should suffer cardiac arrest while chasing a common robber.”
Welles Noonan on KNX: “... and I’m not saying that the surprising death of an allegedly healthy young policeman is co
Smart Noonan—shit draws flies.
4:00—Tommy sax-honks—my cue to leave. My own music juicing me—I was closing in on SOMETHING.
Early dusk—clouds, rain. A phone booth stop-Bob out, Riegle in. Bum station check news—no suicides clicked in PEEPER’S MOTHER.
Up to the set—hard rain—no shooting in progress. Luck: her trailer light on. A sprint—in the door dodging puddles.
Glenda was smoking, distracted. Sprawled on the bed—no rush to touch me.
Easy guess: “Miciak?”
She nodded. “Bradley Milteer came by. Apparently he and Herman Gerstein know each other independent of his work for Hughes. He told Herman that Miciak’s body and car were found, and that all of Hughes’ contract players were going to be discreetly questioned. Mickey overheard him tell Herman that detectives from the Malibu Sheriff’s Station would be by to talk to me.”
“That’s all you heard?”
“No. Mickey said the Sheriff’s are keeping their investigation under wraps to avoid embarrassing Howard.”
“Did he mention the Hollywood Division LAPD? A killer named the Wino WiIl-o-the-Wisp?”
Glenda blew smoke rings. “No. I thought—I mean we thought Hughes would just push this under the table.”
“No, we wished it. And there’s no evidence that Miciak was killed at...”
“At the fuck pad where Howard Hughes used to fuck me and the man I killed wanted to fuck me?”
Stop her/make her think. “You bought it, and now you’re paying for it. Now you act your way out.”
“Direct me. Tell me something to make it easy.”
Touch me, tell me things.
“You say you were home alone that night. You don’t flirt with the officers or try to charm them. You subtly drop that Hughes is a lech and you can spill the goods on it. You reach for whatever it is that you won’t tell me about that gave you the stones to…oh shit, Glenda.”
“Okay”—just like that—”Okay.”
I kissed her-dripping wet. “Is there a phone I can use?”
“Outside Mickey’s trailer. You know, if I could cry on cue, I would.”
“Don’t, please.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to meet a man.”
“Later, then?”
“Yeah, I’ll come by your place.”
“I won’t expect much. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Raining buckets—I ducked under Mickey’s trailer awning. The phone worked—I dialed Gallaudet’s private line.
He picked up himself. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Bob.”
“Dave, hi, and quid pro quo fulfilled. Are you listening?”
“Shoot.”
“John Gerald Duhamel, age twenty-five. As far as IA personal files go, not much—I checked a few others for a comparison.”
“And?”
“And aside from the interesting combination of a cum laude engineering degree and an amateur boxing career, not much of note.”
“Family?”
“An only child. His parents were supposedly rich, but died in a plane crash and left the kid broke while he was still in college, and under known associates we’ve got the somewhat dicey Reuben Ruiz and his stickyfingered brothers, but of course Reuben’s on our side now. The kid apparently has an undiscriminating appetite for poontang, which I did myself when I was twenty-five. There were unsubstantiated rumors that he tanked his one and only pro fight, and that’s all the news that’s fit to print.”
No bells rang. “Thanks, Bob.”
“I’ll never high-hat you, son—I remember those crib sheets too well.”
“Thanks.”
“Take care, son.”
I hung up, took a breath, ran—
“Dave! Over here!”
Lightning glow lit up the voice—Chick Vecchio under a tarp hang. Bums behind him, sucking T-Bird.
I dashed over—time to kill.
Chick: “Mickey’s at home today.”
Glenda—fifty-fifty he knew. “I should have known. Fuck, this rain.”
“The Herald said two inches. The Herald also said that kid partner of yours had a heart attack. Why don’t I believe the Herald?”
“Because your kid brother told you my kid partner shook him down in Fern Dell Park.”
“Yeah, and I don’t feature twenty-nine-year-old extortionist cops having heart attacks.”
“Chick, come on.”
“All right, all right. Touch told me he told you about him and Stemmons in Fern Dell, but there’s something he didn’t tell you.”
Preempt him: “You, Touch and Pete Bondurant are pla
“Hey, you know.”
I lied: “Stemmons told me. The regular Bureau doesn’t have a clue, and if they knew they’d bury it to protect the kid’s reputation. Your gig’s covered.”
“Copacetic, but I still don’t feature no heart attack.”
“Off the record?”
“Uh-huh, and on the QT, like Hush-Hush.”
I cupped a whisper. “The kid was fucking around with J.C. and Tommy Kafesjian. He was popping H, and he OD’d or took a hotshot. It’s a toilet job, and it’s headed for a whitewash.”
Chick cupped a whisper. “Feature the K. boys are not to screw around with.”
“Feature I’m starting to think that Ed Exley’s going to take those humps down two seconds after the Fed heat peters out.”
“Which may be a while, the way things are looking.”
Wind, rain. “Chick, what’s with Mickey? I saw some new guys moving slots out of the Rick Rack, with Feds right across the street taking pictures.”
Chick shrugged. “Mickey’s Mickey. He’s this hebe hardhead you can’t talk sense to half the time.”
“The whole thing played fu
“Touch and me are staying out of all this Southside business. It sounds to me like Mickey’s hiring freelance.”
Winos pissing on the spaceship. “Yeah, and maybe cut-rate, like your crew here. Does he need money that bad? I know he’s buffered, but sooner or later the Feds will pin those machines on him.”
“Off the record?”
“Sure.”
“Then feature Mickey’s paying off a syndicate loan with his slot percentages, so he’s got to let the machines linger a bit. I guess he knows it’s risky, but he’s scuffling.”
“Yeah—’He’s a scrapper, and scrappers always get results.’”
“I said it and I meant it.”