The Hollywood DMV ran a records desk twenty-four hours. Cops could scoot by and do file checks at whim. Crutch dropped twenty clams and Clyde Duber’s name on the night clerk. The guy let him into the file room.
He had the year and model, plus partial-plate stats. That meant no quickie ID. Phil was a dipso. His memory was suspect. The Comet might be non-California registered. The registration cards were stuffed in large boxes. They were marked by county of origin and filed by the registree’s name. Start at L.A. County, F for Farr, go.
Crutch hauled boxes down and finger-walked through them. No Gretchen Farr/’66 Comet in L.A. County-let’s go on from there.
He worked. He pulled cards all night. He went county-to-county. He started at F for Farr and worked backward and forward. Gretch probably employed false names. Farr could be name sixteen or name forty-two. Dope dregs drizzled out of his system. He felt like one big ache and yawn. Cobwebs stuck to his hands. Mildew clogged up his head.
He saw dawn out the window. He got to Kern County. No F-for-Farr listing, let’s go to G and H. He hit a run of Hertz rent-a-cars, dispersed to offices statewide. He hit paydirt.
White ‘66 Comet, ADF-212. Registered out of Kern County and sent to L.A. County. Rented out of the Sunset-and-Vermont office.
Crutch pulled the card and ran outside to a pay phone. He called the Hertz number. He ID’d himself as Sergeant Robert S. Bennett, LAPD. The Hertz geek bought it. Scotty/Crutch laid out a spiel on the ‘66 Comet and Gretchen Farr-”What can you give me on that?”
The geek shuffled papers. The geek nixed Gretchen Farr-no surprise. Scotty/Crutch said, “Who’s had the car lately and who’s got the car now?” The geek said the Comet was due back at 10:00 tonight. Two-week rental. The rentee: a woman named Celia Reyes. Local address: the Beverly Hills Hotel. Driver’s license from the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean hot spot, the Swingin’ D.R.
Crutch parked outside the Hate Hacienda. Shrieky opera blasted from the backyard. He walked down the driveway. The gate was unlocked. Birds nested on the dictator statues. The music blared out the bomb-shelter door.
He walked over and popped down the steps. He made noise on purpose. Dr. Fred was at a draftsman’s desk, drawing a cartoon. Dig that crazy jigaboo with the watermelon head.
Dr. Fred wore a Klan robe and sandals. A Luger on a gun belt bunched up his sheet. The music was eаrsplitting loud.
He saw Crutch. He hit a desk switch and killed an aria mid-shriek. He quick-drew the Luger and did some gunslinger shtick.
“You’ve got brown eyes. Are you Jewish?”
“You’ve got brown eyes, too.”
“Yes, but I know I’m not Jewish.”
Crutch rubbed his ears-the shriek reverb lingered. Dr. Fred said, “You’ve got blood on your pants.”
“It was on your time card, sir.”
“You’re dying to tell me something. You want my opinion? I think you smell money.”
The shelter smelled: must, mildew, money for sure.
“Gretchen, Arnie Moffett and Farlan Brown. Tell me what you haven’t told me.”
“Why should I do that, schmendrick? You know what schmendrick means? It’s a synonym for schlemiel.”
“I’m trying to help you, sir. I’m just-”
“-a kid adventurer who fell into some shit with Clyde Duber. And now you’ve fallen into some shit with me. Clyde’s paying you six dollars an hour, but I’m going to split a full million with you.”
A squirrel sat on the steps. Dr. Fred aimed the Luger and plugged it. The shot sonic-boomed the shelter. The squirrel vaporized. Dr. Fred snagged the ejected shell in mid-twirl.
“I knew Gretchen was working me, but I didn’t think she’d steal from me. A snatch is a snatch, but a ganef’s a ganef.”
Crutch rubbed his ears. “There’s more to it than that.”
“Why do you say that? You’re a schmendrick. You’re Phil Irwin minus the snootful of juice.”
“Don’t shit a shitter, sir. I’m putting some names together, and they’re all going one place.”
Dr. Fred said, “Dracula.” Crutch went huh? Sonic-boom remnants banged his eardrums.
Dr. Fred re-holstered. “So, I got suspicious of Gretchie. So, I rifled her purse and found Arnie Moffett’s number. So, I called Arnie. So, Arnie was pliable. So, I paid him for the scoop on Gretchie. So, he told me that Gretchie was trying to get next to a Howard Hughes macher named Farlan Brown.”
Crutch said, “So?” A last boom-warble faded.
“So, I wanted to get next to Hughes. We’ve got the same racial sensibility, and I’ve got a purification plan he can bankroll. I had a rival named Wayne Tedrow Senior. Between the two of us, we had the hate-tract biz dicked. He just died, and his numbnuts kid Wayne Junior may be Dracula’s new point man. I want to get my hands on Senior’s hate-mail stash and get next to Dracula, and I’m thinking this Mormon hump Farlan Brown is the key. I’m too controversial to make the approach, but a kid loser like you could breeze in innocuous. Life magazine is offering a million bucks for a snapshot of Hughes, and a kid opportunist like you could get close.”
Tilt, swerve, veer and blood on his pants-Crutch said, “Yessir.”
6
(Las Vegas, 6/20/68)
Another hotel suite. Another bum room-service meal.
Mr. Hoover told him to stay perched in Vegas. The Wayne Senior snuff vexed him. He wanted Wayne Junior mollified and assessed. Thus the bullshit layover. Thus the time at LVPD. Thus the limp salad and gristly steak.
Dwight pushed his plate away. Food taxed him. It slowed him down and sapped the jolt he got off nicotine and coffee. The Chicago guys owned the Stardust. The FBI was allegedly anti-mob. They kept a vouchered suite there anyway. Mr. Hoover had no beef with organized crime. That was strictly Bobby K.’s bкte noire and downfall. Mr. Hoover hated Commies, jigs and lefty gadflies. Mr. Hoover probably loved limp salads and gristly steaks.
The fucking Stardust. Four thousand slot machines and velvet-flocked suites. The Chicago guys were hot to dump the joint on Howard Hughes. Count Dracula was hot to buy it. The guys would skim the Count blind.
And Wayne Tedrow Junior is facilitating it. Wayne’s fucking his dying stepmom. They killed Wayne Senior. Dwight and Senior went waaaaay back. Dwight grooved Junior as a wiiiiild piece of work. Now he’s out to get Junior a skate on Murder One.
Cluster fuck.
It was 114° outside. The wall vents spritzed ice. Dwight got that hotel-captive feeling and paced the suite.
Shit kept crisscrossing. Buddy Fritsch was too nervous. The Vegas SAC said Junior-killed-Senior rumors were fouling the desert air. Mr. Hoover was losing it. Mr. Hoover still had it to some degree. Sirhan Sirhan was foaming at the mouth in L.A. Jimmy Ray was foaming and fighting extradition. The Grapevine Tavern issue was percolating. He saw an ATF teletype this morning. Mr. Hoover telexed it in a tizzy. ATF might put the Grapevine under surveillance. Cracker habituйs were moving dope and guns. Inter-agency grief. The Grapevine bug backfired and inspired conspiracy talk. Most conspiracy talk was dismissible. This might not be. It might require interdiction. Interdiction would not work with ATF hovering.
Proximity. Jimmy Ray’s loose talk. Loose talk at the Grapevine. Valid loose talk-Jimmy Ray’s brother owned a piece of the place.
Cluster fuck.
His nerves were frayed. His sleep was thin. Memphis spiked through at 3:00 a.m. nightly. Car noise sounded like gunshots. Little bed aches felt like someone hitting him.
Dwight walked to the bedroom window. Hotel suites made him miss Karen. Hotel suites got him torqued for real bedrooms. He’d black-bagged Karen’s house a half dozen times. He wanted to stand still there with her absent. He wanted instinctive evidence that she had no other lovers. He found the quiet he was looking for and got his evidence confirmed. She tapped his D.C. suite once. He found some entry signs, rolled for prints and got two Karen Sifakis latents. She saw his anonymous check-writing kit. She read through his journal. He wrote “I fucking love her” just two days before.