Madeleine ran her fingers down my rib cage, exploring the welt scars I’d gotten in the Blanchard fight. “Sugar, Betty and I made love once, that one time we met last summer. I just did it to see what it would be like to be with a girl who looked so much like me.”
I felt like I was sinking; like the bed was dropping out from under me. Madeleine looked like she was at the end of a long tunnel, captured by some kind of weird camera trick. She said, “Bucky, that’s all of it, I swear that’s all of it,” her voice wobbling from deep nowhere. I got up and dressed, and it was only when I strapped on my .38 and cuffs that I felt like I’d quit treading quicksand.
Madeleine pleaded, “Stay, sugar, stay”; I went out the door before I could succumb. In my cruiser, I flipped on the two-way, looking for good sane cop noise to distract me. The dispatcher barked, “Code four all units at Crenshaw and Stocker. Clear robbery scene, two dead, suspect dead, unit 4-A-82 reports suspect is Raymond Douglas Nash, white male, object fugitive warrant number—”
I yanked the radio cord and hit the ignition, gas and siren in what felt like a single swipe. Pulling out, I heard Lee pacifying me with “Don’t tell me you don’t know the dead girl is a better piece of pie than Junior Nash”; speedballing downtown, I saw myself kowtowing to my partner’s ghosts even though I knew the Okie killer was a real live killer bogeyman. Jamming into the Hall parking lot, I saw Lee cajoling, wheedling, pushing, pulling and twisting at me to get his way; running up to the Bureau, I saw red.
I came out of the stairway yelling, “Blanchard!” Dick Cavanaugh, walking out of the bullpen, pointed to the bathroom. I kicked in the door; Lee was washing his hands in the sink.
He held them up to show me, blood oozing from cuts on the knuckles. “I beat up a wall. Penance for Nash.”
It wasn’t enough. I let the crimson loose all the way, smashing my best friend until my own hands were ruined and he was senseless at my feet.
Chapter 14
Losing the first Bleichert-Blanchard fight got me local celebrity, Warrants and close to nine grand in cash; winning the rematch got me a sprained left wrist, two dislocated knuckles and a day in bed, woozy from an allergic reaction to the codeine pills Captain Jack gave me when he got word of the punch-out and saw me in my cubicle trying to tape up my fist. The only thing good that came of my “victory” was a twenty-four-hour respite from Elizabeth Short; the worst was yet to come—bracing Lee and Kay to see if I could salvage the three of us, without giving up my balls.
I drove to the house Wednesday afternoon, Dahlia kiss-off day and the one-week anniversary of the celebrity stiff’s first appearance. The confab with Thad Green was scheduled for 6:00 that evening, and if there was any way to work a patch job with Lee before then, it had to be tried.
The front door was standing open; the coffee table held a copy of the Herald, folded open to pages two and three. The detritus of my messy life was smeared all over it—the Dahlia, hatchet-faced Bobby De Witt homeward bound, Junior Nash shot by an off-duty sheriff’s dick after he knocked off a Jap greengrocer, killing the proprietor and his fourteen-year-old son.
“We’re famous, Dwight.”
Kay was standing in the hallway. I laughed; my bad knuckles throbbed. “Notorious, maybe. Where’s Lee?”
“I don’t know. He left yesterday afternoon.”
“You know he’s in trouble, don’t you?”
“I know you beat him up.”
I walked over. Kay’s breath reeked of cigarettes, her face was mottled from crying. I held her; she held me back and said, “I don’t blame you for it.”
I nuzzled her hair. “De Witt’s probably in LA by now. If Lee isn’t back by tonight, I’ll come and stay with you.”
Kay pulled away. “Don’t come unless you want to sleep with me.”
I said, “Kay, I can’t.”
“Why? Because of that neighbor girl you’re seeing?”
I remembered my lie to Lee. “Yes… no, not that. It’s just that…”
“It’s just what, Dwight?”
I grabbed Kay so she wouldn’t be able to look in my eyes and know that half of what I was saying made me a child, half made me a liar. “It’s just that you and Lee are my family, and Lee’s my partner, and until we get this trouble he’s in settled and see if we’re still partners then you and me together is just no damn good. The girl I’ve been seeing is nothing. She doesn’t really mean a thing to me.”
Kay said, “You’re just frightened of anything that doesn’t involve fighting and cops and guns and all that,” and tightened her grip. I let myself be held, knowing she’d nailed me clean. Then I broke it off and drove downtown to “All That.”
The clock in Thad Green’s waiting room hit 6:00, and there was no Lee; at 6:01 Green’s secretary opened his door and ushered me in. The Chief of Detectives looked up from his desk. “Where’s Blanchard? He’s the one I really wanted to see.”
I said, “I don’t know, sir,” and stood at parade rest; Green pointed me to a chair. I sat down, and the COD fixed me with a hard stare. “You’ve got fifty words or less to explain your partner’s behavior Monday night. Go.”
I said, “Sir, Lee’s little sister was murdered when he was a kid, and the Dahlia case is what you might call an obsession with him. Bobby De Witt, the man he sent up on the Boulevard-Citizens job, got out yesterday, and a week ago we killed those four hoods. The stag film was the capper. It set Lee off, and he pulled that stunt at the dyke bar because he thought he could get a lead on the guy who made the film.”
Green quit nodding along. “You sound like a shyster trying to justify his client’s actions. In my police department, a man checks his emotional baggage when he pins on his badge, or he checks out. But just to let you know that I’m not entirely unsympathetic, I’ll tell you this. I’m suspending Blanchard for a trial board, but not for his Monday night tantrums. I’m suspending him for a memo he submitted stating that Junior Nash blew our jurisdiction. I think it was a phony. What do you think, Officer?”
I felt my legs fluttering. “I believed it, sir.”
“Then you’re not as intelligent as your Academy scores led me to believe. When you see Blanchard, tell him to turn in his gun and badge. You stay on the Short investigation, and kindly refrain from fisticuffs on city property. Good night, Officer.”
I stood up, saluted and about-faced out of the office, maintaining my military gait until I was down the hall in the muster room. Grabbing a desk phone, I called the house, University squadroom and the El Nido Hotel—all with zero results. Then a dark thought crossed my mind, and I dialed the number of the County Parole office.
A man answered: “Los Angeles County Parole, may I help you?”
“This is Officer Bleichert, LAPD. I need the disposition on a recent parolee.”
“Shoot, Officer.”
“Robert ‘Bobby’ De Witt. Came out of Quentin yesterday.”
“That’s easy. He hasn’t reported to his PO yet. We called the bus depot at Santa Rosa, and found out that De Witt didn’t buy a ticket for LA, he bought one for San Diego, with a transfer to Tijuana. We haven’t issued an absconder warrant yet. De Witt’s PO figured he might have gone down to TJ to get laid. He’s giving him until tomorrow morning to show up.”
I hung up, relieved that De Witt didn’t head straight for LA. Thinking of prowling for Lee, I took the elevator down to the parking lot and saw Russ Millard and Harry Sears walking toward the back stairs. Russ noticed me and hooked a finger; I trotted over.
I said, “What happened in TJ?”
Harry, breathing Sen-Sen, answered: “Goose egg on the stag movie. We checked for the pad and couldn’t find it, rousted some smut peddlers. Double goose egg. We checked some of the Short girl’s acquaintances in Dago—triple gooser. I—”