Millard and Sears got up to leave. Loew walked up to Lee and said, “Try to avoid killing him, Sergeant. He richly deserves it, but try anyway.”
Lee flashed his patented demon grin. “I’ll try, sir. But you be sure to kill him in court. The voters want boys like Junior fried, makes them feel safe at night.”
Our first stop was University Station. The squadroom boss showed us the Robbery reports and told us not to waste our time canvassing the area near the two markets, that Millard and Sears were doing it, concentrating on getting a better description of Nash’s car, believed to be a postwar white sedan. Captain Jack had called University with word on Nash’s poontang penchant, and three plainclothes Vice officers had been dispatched to check out southside whorehouses specializing in young colored girls. Newton Street and 77th Street divisions, almost entirely colored, would be sending nightwatch radio cars by juke joints and playgrounds where Negro youths congregated, eyeballing for Nash and telling the kids to watch out.
There was nothing we could do but cruise the area on the chance that Nash was still around and put out the word to Lee’s stoolies. We decided on a long Leimert Park tour and took off.
The district’s main drag was Crenshaw Boulevard. Broad, running north all the way to Wilshire and south to Baldwin Hills, it spelled “postwar boom” like a neon sign. Every block from Jefferson to Leimert was lined with dilapidated, once grand houses being torn down, their facades replaced by giant billboards advertising department stores, jumbo shopping centers, kiddie parks and movie theaters. Completion dates ranging from Christmas ‘47 to early ‘49 were promised, and it hit me that by 1950 this part of LA would be unrecognizable. Driving east, we passed vacant lot after vacant lot that would probably soon spawn houses, then block after block of prewar adobe bungalows distinguished only by their color and the condition of their front lawns. Southbound, old wood frame houses took over, getting more and more unkempt.
And no one resembling Junior Nash was on the street; and every late model white sedan we saw was either driven by a woman or squarejohn type.
Nearing Santa Barbara and Vermont, Lee broke our long silence. “This grand tour stuff is the shits. I’m calling in some favors.”
He pulled into a filling station, got out and hit the pay phone; I listened to calls on the two-way. I was at it for ten minutes or so when Lee came back, pale and sweating. “I got a tip. A snitch of mine says Nash is shacking with some poon in a crib near Slauson and Hoover.”
I shut the radio off. “It’s all colored down there. You think—”
“I think we fucking roll.”
We took Vermont to Slauson, then headed east, passing storefront churches and hair-straightening parlors, vacant lots and liquor stores with no names—only neon signs blinking L-I-Q-U-O-R at one in the afternoon. Hanging a right turn on Hoover, Lee slowed the car and started scanning tenement stoops. We passed a group of three Negro men and an older white guy lounging on the steps of a particularly seedy dump; I saw the four make us as cops. Lee said, “Hopheads. Nash is supposed to run with jigs, so let’s shake them. If they’re dirty we’ll squeeze for an address on him.”
I nodded; Lee ground the car to a halt in the middle of the street. We got out and walked over; the four stuck their hands in their pockets and shuffled their feet, the dance routine of rousted hoodlums everywhere. I said, “Police. Kiss the wall nice and slow.” They moved into a search position, hands above their heads, palms on the building wall, feet back, legs spread.
Lee took the two on the right; the white guy muttered, “What the—Blanchard?”
Lee said, “Shut it, shitbird,” and started frisking him. I patted down the Negro in the middle first, running my hands along the arms of his suit coat, then dipping into his pockets. My left hand pulled out a pack of Luckys and a Zippo lighter; my right a bunch of marijuana cigarettes. I said, “Reefers” and dropped them to the pavement, then gave Lee a quick sidelong glance. The zoot suit Negro beside him reached toward his waistband; light gleamed on metal as his hand came away. I shouted, “Partner!” and pulled my .38.
The white man swung around; Lee shot him twice in the face point blank. The zooter got a shiv free just as I extended my gun. I fired, he dropped the knife, grabbed his neck and slammed into the wall. Wheeling, I saw the jig at the end fumbling at the front of his trousers and shot him three times. He flew backward; I heard “Bucky duck!” Hitting the cement, I got a topsy-turvy view of Lee and the last Negro drawing on each other from a couple of feet apart. Lee’s three shots cut him down just as he managed to aim a tiny derringer. He fell dead, half his skull blown off.
I stood up, looked at the four bodies and blood-covered sidewalk, stumbled to the curb and vomited into the gutter until my chest ached. I heard sirens approaching, pinned my badge to my jacket front, then turned around. Lee was pulling out the stiffs’ pockets, tossing shivs and reefers onto the sidewalk, away from the pools of blood. He walked over, and I was hoping he’d have a wisecrack to calm me down. He didn’t; he was bawling like a baby.
It took the rest of the afternoon to put ten seconds down on paper.
We wrote out our reports at 77th Street Station, and were questioned by the team of Homicide dicks who investigated all officer-involved shootings. They told us that the three Negroes—Willie Walker Brown, Caswell Pritchford and Cato Early—were known grasshoppers, and that the white man—Baxter Fitch—took two strong-arm falls back in the late ‘20s. Since all four men were armed and harboring marijuana, they assured us that there would be no Grand Jury hearing.
I took the questioning calmly; Lee took it rough, shivering and muttering that he’d rousted Baxter Fitch for loitering a bunch of times when he worked Highland Park, and he sort of liked the guy. I stuck close to him at the station, then steered him out to his car through a throng of reporters hurling questions.
When we got to the house, Kay was standing on the front porch; one look at her gaunt fate told me she already knew. She ran to Lee and embraced him, whispering, “Oh baby, oh babe.” I watched them, then noticed a newspaper on the railing.
I picked it up. It was the bulldog edition of the Mirror, featuring a banner headline: “Boxer Cops in Gun Battle! Four Crooks Dead!!” Below were publicity stills of Fire and Ice crouched in gloves and trunks, along with mug shots of the dead men. I read a jazzed-up account of the shoot-out and a replay of October’s fight, then heard Lee shout: “You’ll never understand, so just leave me fucking alone!”
Lee took off running, around the driveway to the garage, Kay right behind him. I stood on the porch, amazed at the soft center in the toughest son of a bitch I’d ever known. I heard Lee’s motorcycle starting up; seconds later he peeled out on it, screeching into a hard right turn, undoubtedly heading for a brutal run at Mulholland.
Kay came back just as the cycle noise died in the distance. Taking her hands, I said, “He’ll get over it. He knew one of the guys, so that made it worse. But he’ll get over it.”
Kay looked at me strangely. “You’re very calm.”
“It was them or us. You look after Lee tomorrow. We’re off-duty, but when we go back we’re going after a real beast.”
“And you look after him, too. Bobby De Witt gets out in a week or so, and he swore at his trial to kill Lee and the other men who arrested him. Lee’s scared, and I know Bobby. He’s as bad as they come.”