From mid-November through the New Year we captured a total of eleven hard felons, eighteen traffic warrantees and three parole and probation absconders. Our rousts of suspicious loiterers got us an additional half dozen arrests, all of them for narcotics violations. We worked from Ellis Loew’s direct orders, the felony sheet and squadroom scuttlebutt, filtered through Lee’s instincts. His techniques were sometimes cautious and roundabout and sometimes brutal, but he was always gentle with children, and when he went strong-arm to get information, it was because it was the only way to grab results.
So we became a “good guy—bad guy” interrogation team; Mr. Fire the black hat, Mr. Ice the white. Our boxing reputations gave us an added edge of respect on the street, and when Lee rabbit-punched for information and I interceded on the punchee’s behalf, it got us what we wanted.
The partnership wasn’t perfect. When we worked twenty-four-hour tours, Lee would shake down hopheads for Benzedrine tablets and swallow handfuls to stay alert; then every Negro roustee became “Sambo,” every white man “Shitbird,” every Mexican “Pancho.” All his rawness came out, destroying his considerable finesse, and twice I had to hold him back for real when he got carried away with his black-hat role.
But it was a small price to pay for what I was learning. Under Lee’s tutelage I got good fast, and I wasn’t the only one who knew it. Even though he’d dropped half a grand on the fight, Ellis Loew warmed to me when Lee and I brought in a string of felons he was drooling to prosecute, and Fritz Vogel, who hated me for snatching Warrants from his son, reluctantly admitted to him that I was an ace cop.
And, surprisingly, my local celebrity lingered long enough to do me some extra good. Lee was a favored repo man with H.J. Caruso, the auto dealer with the famous radio ads, and when the job was slow we prowled for delinquent cars in Watts and Compton. When we found one, Lee would kick in the driver’s side window and hot-wire the sled, and I would stand guard. Then we’d run a two-car convoy to Caruso’s lot on Figueroa, and H.J. would slip us a double sawbuck apiece. We gabbed cops and robbers and fight stuff with him, and afterward he kicked back a good bottle of bourbon, that Lee always kicked back to Harry Sears to keep us greased up with good tips from Homicide.
Sometimes we joined H.J. for the Wednesday night fights at the Olympic. He had a specially constructed ringside booth that kept us protected when the Mexicans in the top tier tossed coins and beer cups full of piss down at the ring, and Jimmy Lennon introduced us during the prefight ceremonies. Benny Siegel stopped by the booth occasionally, and he and Lee would go off to talk. Lee always came back looking slightly scared. The man he’d once defied was the most powerful gangster on the West Coast, known to be vindictive, with a hair-trigger temper. But Lee usually got track tips—and the horses Siegel gave him usually won.
So that fall went. The old man got a pass from the rest home at Christmas, and I brought him to dinner at the house. He had recovered pretty well from his stroke, but he still had no memory of English, and rambled on in German. Kay fed him turkey and goose and Lee listened to his Kraut monologues all night, interjecting, “You tell ‘em, pop” and “Crazy, man” whenever he paused for breath. When I dropped him back at the home, he gave me the fungoo sign and managed to walk in under his own steam.
On New Year’s Eve, we drove down to Balboa Island to catch Stan Kenton’s band. We danced in 1947, high on champagne, and Kay flipped coins to see who got last dance and first kiss when midnight hit. Lee won the dance, and I watched them swirl across the floor to “Perfidia,” feeling awe for the way they had changed my life. Then it was midnight, the band fired up, and I didn’t know how to play it.
Kay took the problem away, kissing me softly on the lips, whispering, “I love you, Dwight.” A fat woman grabbed me and blew a noisemaker in my face before I could return the words.
We drove home on Pacific Coast Highway, part of a long stream of horn-honking revelers. When we got to the house, my car wouldn’t start, so I made myself a bed on the couch and promptly passed out from too much booze. Sometime toward dawn, I woke up to strange sounds muffling through the walls. I perked my ears to identify them, picking out sobs followed by Kay’s voice, softer and lower than I had ever heard it. The sobbing got worse—trailing into whimpers. I pulled the pillow over my head and forced myself back to sleep.
Chapter 6
I dozed through most of the lackluster January 10 felony summary, coming awake when Captain Jack barked, “That’s it. Lieutenant Millard, Sergeant Sears, Sergeant Blanchard and Officer Bleichert, go to Mr. Loew’s office immediately. Dismissed!”
I walked down the corridor to Ellis Loew’s inner sanctum. Lee, Russ Millard and Harry Sears were already there, milling around Loew’s desk, examining a stack of morning Heralds.
Lee winked and handed me a copy, folded over to the local section. I saw a piece titled, “Criminal Division DA to Try for Boss’s Job in ‘48 Republican Primary?” read three paragraphs lauding Ellis Loew and his concern for the citizens of Los Angeles and tossed the paper on the desk before I threw up. Lee said, “Here comes the man now. Hey Ellis, you going into politics? Say ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ Let’s see how you sound.”
Lee’s FDR imitation got a laugh all around; even Loew chuckled as he handed out rap sheet carbons with mug shot strips attached. “Here’s the gentleman we all have to fear. Read those and find out why.”
I read the sheet. It detailed the criminal career of Raymond Douglas “Junior” Nash, white male, born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1908. Nash’s convictions went back to 1926, and included Texas State Prison jolts for statutory rape, armed robbery, first degree mayhem and felonious assault. There were five California charges filed against him: three armed robbery warrants from up north in Oakland County and two 1944 LA papers—first degree statch rape and felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The rap sheet ended with notations from the San Francisco PD Intelligence Squad, stating that Nash was suspected of a dozen Bay Area stickups and was rumored to be one of the outside men behind the May ‘46 Alcatraz crash-out attempt. Finishing, I checked out the mug shots. Junior Nash looked like a typical inbred Okie shitkicker: long bony head, thin lips, beady eyes and ears that could have belonged to Dumbo.
I glanced at the other men. Loew was reading about himself in the Herald; Millard and Sears were still on the sheets, pokerfaced. Lee said, “Give us the good news, Ellis. He’s in LA and acting uppity, right?”
Loew fiddled with his Phi Beta Kappa key. “Eyewitnesses have made him for two market stickups in Leimert Park over the weekend, which is why he wasn’t in the felony summary. He pistol-whipped an old lady during the second robbery, and she died an hour ago at Good Samaritan.”
Harry Sears stammered, “Kn-kn-known as-s-sociates?”
Loew shook his head. “Captain Tierney talked to the SFPD this morning. They said Nash is a lone wolf type. Apparently he was recruited for his part in the Alcatraz thing, but that’s an exception. What I—”
Russ Millard raised his hand. “Is there a common denominator in Nash’s sex beefs?”
“I was getting to that,” Loew said. “Nash apparently likes Negro girls. Young ones, still in their teens. All of his sex offense complainants have been colored.”
Lee motioned me toward the door. “We’ll hit University Station, read the dick’s report and take it from there. My bet is that Nash is holing up somewhere in Leimert Park. It’s white, but there’s shines from Manchester on south. Lots of places to prowl for poontang.”