Tierney paused and stretched; I looked around the room and saw that most of the officers were writing in notebooks. I was cursing myself for not bringing one when the captain slammed the lectern with two flattened palms. “Here’s a collar that would please old Captain Jack no end. I’m talking about the Bunker Hill house burglaries Sergeants Vogel and Koenig have been working on. Fritzie, Bill, have you read the SID memo on it?”
Two men sitting side by side a few rows up from me called out, “No, Cap” and “Nossir.” I got a good profile look at the older of them—the spitting image of Fat Johnny Vogel, only fatter.
Tierney said, “I suggest you read it immediately after this briefing. For the benefit of you men not directly involved in the investigation, the print boys found a set of latents at the last break-in, right near the silverware cupboard. They belonged to a white male named Coleman Walter Maynard, age1, two sodomy priors. A surefire degenerate baby raper.
“County Parole’s got no line on him. He was living at a transient hotel on 14th and Bonnie Brae, but he hotfooted around the time the burglaries started. Highland Park’s got four sodomy unsolveds, all little boys around eight years old. Maybe it’s Maynard and maybe it isn’t, but between them and the B&Es we could fix him up with a nice one-way to Q. Fritzie, Bill, what else are you working on?”
Bill Koenig hunched over his notebook; Fritz Vogel cleared his throat and said, “We’ve been working the downtown hotels. We collared a couple of key thieves and rousted some pickpockets.”
Tierney tapped the podium with one heavy knuckle. “Fritzie, were the key thieves Jerry Katzenbach and Mike Purdy?”
Vogel squirmed in his chair. “Yessir.”
“Fritzie, did they snitch each other off?”
“Ah… yessir.”
Tierney rolled his eyes up to heaven. “Let me enlighten those of you not familiar with Jerry and Mike. They’re homos, and they live with Jerry’s mother in a cozy little love nest in Eagle Rock. They’ve been bedmates since God was a pup, but every once in a while they have spats and get the urge to chase jailhouse chicken, and one rats the other off. Then the other reciprocates and they both draw a county jolt. They stool on the gangs while they’re in stir, pork nancy boys and get sentence reductions for their snitch duty. This has been going on since Mae West was a virgin. Fritzie, what else have you been working on?”
There was a rumble of laughter throughout the room. Bill Koenig started to get up, twisting his head to see who the laughers were. Fritz Vogel pulled him back down by his coat sleeve, then said, “Sir, we’ve also been doing some work for Mr. Loew. Bringing in witnesses for him.”
Tierney’s pale face was working toward beet red. “Fritzie, I am the commander of Central Detectives, not Mr. Loew. Sergeant Blanchard and Officer Bleichert work for Mr. Loew, you and Sergeant Koenig do not. So drop what you’re doing for Mr. Loew, leave the pickpockets alone and bring in Coleman Walter Maynard before he rapes any more little boys, would you please? There’s a memo on his known associates on the squadroom bulletin board, and I suggest all officers acquaint themselves with it. Maynard a lamster now, and he might be holing up with one of them.”
I saw Lee Blanchard leave the muster room by a side exit. Tierney leafed through some papers on the lectern and said, “Here’s one that Chief Green thinks you should know about. Over the past three weeks someone’s been tossing chopped-up dead cats into the cemeteries off Santa Monica and Gower. Hollywood Division’s taken a half dozen reports on it. According to Lieutenant Davis at 77th Street, that’s a calling card of nigger youth gangs. Most of the cats have been dumped on Thursday nights, and the Hollywood roller rink’s open to shines on Thursdays, so maybe there’s something to that. Ask around, talk to your informants and relay anything pertinent to Sergeant Hollander at Hollywood dicks. Now the homicides. Russ?”
A tall, gray-haired man in an immaculate double-breasted suit took the podium; Captain Jack plopped into the nearest available chair. The tall man carried himself with an authority that was more like a judge or hotshot lawyer than a cop; he reminded me of the smooth Lutheran preacher who palled around with the old man until the Bund went on the subversive list. The officer sitting next to me whispered, “Lieutenenat Millard. Number two in Homicide, but the real boss. A real piece of velvet.” I nodded and listened to the lieutenant speak in a velvet-smooth voice:
“… and the coroner ruled the Russo-Nickerson job murder-suicide. The Bureau is handling the hit-and-run on Pico and Figueroa on 11/10, and we located the vehicle, a ‘39 La Salle sedan, abandoned. It’s registered to a male Mexican named Luis Cruz, age 42, of 1349 Alta Loma Vista in South Pasadena. Cruz is a two-time loser with a Folsom jacket—both falls Robbery One. He’s long gone, and his wife claims the La Salle was stolen in September. She says it was snatched by Cruz’s cousin Armando Villareal, age9, who’s also missing. Harry Sears and I took the initial squeal on this one, and eyeball witnesses said there were two male Mexicans in the car. Have you got anything else, Harry?”
A squat, disheveled man stood up, turned around and faced the room. He swallowed a few times, then stammered, “C-C-C-Cruz’s wife is sc-screwing the c-c-c-cousin. The c-c-c-car was never reported st-stolen, and the neighbors s-say the wife wants the c-cousin’s parole violated so C-C-Cruz won’t find out about them.”
Harry Sears sat down abruptly. Millard smiled at him and said, “Thanks, partner. Gentlemen, Cruz and Villareal are now state parole absconders and priority fugitives. APBs and absconder warrants have been issued. And here’s the punch line: both of these guys are boozehounds, with over a hundred plain drunks between them. Hit-and-run drunks are a damn menace, so let’s get them. Captain?”
Tierney stood up and shouted, “Dismissed!” Cops swarmed me, offering hands and back slaps and chucks under the chin. I soaked it in until the muster room cleared and Ellis Loew approached, fiddling with the Phi Beta Kappa key dangling from his vest.
“You shouldn’t have slugged with him,” he said, twirling the key. “You were ahead on all three cards.”
I held the DA’s stare. “Proposition 5 passed, Mr. Loew.”
“Yes, it did. But some patrons of yours lost money. Play it smarter here, Officer. Don’t blow this opportunity like you did the fight.”
“You ready, canvasback?”
Blanchard’s voice saved me. I went with him before I did something to blow it then and there.
We headed south in Blanchard’s civilian car, a ‘40 Ford coupe with a contraband two-way under the dashboard. Lee rambled on about the job while I looked out at the downtown LA street scene.
“… mostly we go after priority warrantees, but sometimes we chase down material witnesses for Loew. Not too often—he’s usually got Fritzie Vogel running his errands, with Bill Koenig along for muscle. Shitbirds, both of them. Anyway, we get slack periods sometimes, and we’re supposed to go by the other station houses and check the squadrooms for their priority stuff—warrants filed in the regional courts. Every LAPD station has two men working Warrants, but they spend most of their time catching squeals, so we’re supposed to help out. Sometimes, like today, you hear something at the felony summary or get something hot off the bulletin board. If it’s really slow, you can serve papers for the Department 92 shysters. Three bucks a throw, chump change. The real moolah’s in repos. I’ve got delinquent lists from H.J. Caruso Dodge and Yeakel Brothers Olds, all the nigger stiffs the credit agents are too pansy to move on. Any questions, partner?”
I resisted the urge to ask, “Why aren’t you screwing Kay Lake?” and “While we’re on the subject, what’s the story on her?”