“Look, it’s going to be all right.”

“Is it all going to be all right?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’ll call you when I can.”

Vandals got my hubcabs. Movie time encore:

“PLEASE DON’T KILL ME.”

“PLEASE DON’T KILL ME LIKE YOU KILLED ALL THE OTHERS.”

Happytime Liquor two doors down.

I walked in, bought a pint of Scotch. Back to the car—three shots quick.

Shudders—no toasty-warm tingles.

I tossed the rest—booze was for perverts and cowards.

Meg taught me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

My place: neat and clean. I holstered up replacement goods: my Marine .45.

A scream then:

My Jap sword on a bookshelf—blood-flecked.

Five grand beside it.

Sleep—JOHNNY BEGGING.

Noon—I woke up reaching for the phone. A quick reflex call: Lynwood City Hall.

Inquire:

4980 Spindrift—vacant four-flat—who’s it belong to? A clerk shuffle, the word:

Lynwood City foreclosed—the owner died circa ‘46. Abandoned for twelve years, rebuilding bids out: potential Chavez Ravine evictee housing. A title search?—impossible—storage-basement floods destroyed those records.

Lynwood—why meet there?

Duhamel: “Evidence.”

Out for the papers, back for coffee. Four L.A. dailies full of Darktown:

The after-hours shootout—five dead, no clues, no suspects. Four shines ID’d—”Negro” Steve Wenzel deleted. Exley: “Experienced Homicide detectives are working this case full-time. It is a top LAPD priority.”

A flash:

Movie time-mirrored walls—familiar somehow—

The Herald:

“Three Dead in Jazz Club Fire: Arson Cops Tag Blaze ‘Accidental.’” Exley: “We believe that the fire at Bido Lito’s is in no way connected to the tragic heart attack death of Sergeant George Stemmons, Jr., two days before on those same premises.”

Instinct: Junior hotshot—by THEM.

Instinct: potential evidence torched.

The Mirror-News—skank-slanted:

Dead cop/niteclub inferno-what’s shaking? Stemmons, Sr., quoted: “Negro hoodlums killed my son!” Exley’s rebuttal: “Pure nonsense. Sergeant Stemmons died of cardiac arrest pure and simple. The Coroner’s Office will release findings along those lines within twenty-four hours. And the notion that the Los Angeles Police Department set fire to Bido Lito’s as revenge for Sergeant Stemmons’ death is simply preposterous.”

Junior RIP—a Catholic service upcoming. Officiating: Dudley Smith, lay chaplain.

Snide:

“With a Federal rackets probe in full swing down in South Central Los Angeles (and one generally believed to be aimed at discrediting the Los Angeles Police Department), Chief of Detectives Edmund J. Exley certainly is doing his best to pooh-pooh the current Southside crime wave to members of the press. Local sources say that there are as many Federal agents on the streets as there are LAPD men, which one would think bodes for diminished crime statistics. Something is fishy here, and it certainly isn’t the catfish gumbo which used to be served at the recently scorched Bido Lito’s Club.”

Exley, L.A. Times: “I feel sorry for the Federal authorities currently seeking to manufacture a successful rackets investigation in Los Angeles. They will fail, because the enforcement measures employed by the Los Angeles Police Department have proven successful for many years. Apparently, Welles Noonan has targeted the LAPD’s Narcotics Division for indictments, and I was recently asked why I have not sequestered the men working that division. My answer? Simply that those men have nothing to hide.”

BIG instinct—Narco, Fed bait.

The Times/Herald/Mirror—no male DB’s found. The Examiner: “Sewer Worker Makes Grisly Discovery.”

Skim it:

A storm drain on the Compton/Lynwood border—Sheriff’s turf. Found: a white male DB—tall, pale, 160—headless, no fingers, no feet. Dead for twenty-four to thirty-six hours—EVISCERATED, SPINE SEVERED.

“No identifying marks were found on the body. Sheriff’s detectives believe that the killer or killers decapitated the victim and cut off his hands and feet to render a forensic identification impossible.”

“If you have information regarding this man, John Doe #26-1958, County Homicide Bulletin 141-26-1958, call Sgt. B.W. Schenkner, Firestone Sheriff’s Station, TU 3-0985.”

I could call that number. I could plead:

No location or exact time-frame knowledge—I was drugged and coerced.

My assumed coercers: the Kafesjians. Two-man coercion minimum—logistics dictated it.

THEM:

Dope access.

A motive-rogue cop orbits—Duhamel linked to Junior linked to me.

I could plead details:

Johnny and Junior—fur-job filthy—maybe more. Junior—would-be “Dope Kingpin”—extorting THEM. Me—this crazed peeper chaser—THEY wanted HIM.

I could plead evidence:

My Jap sword and five grand on a bookshelf.

My hit fee—common insider knowledge.

My sword—common knowledge—I killed a shitload of Japs with it and won the Navy Cross.

I could plead linkage:

I knew Junior/Junior knew Johnny/I fucked with the Kafesjians/Junior fucked with them/Johnny fucked with them directly or indirectly—directly or indirectly due to crazy faggot Junior Stemmons/Johnny called me to plead out or buy out like I’m pleading out now/the Kafesjians made me kill him—they made me a movie star.

Home movie time.

Splicing and developing time—who did the work?

Dave Klein left alive—movie killer. Time ticking, two ways it could go:

Straight coercion: desist on the peeper.

Fed/LAPD screenings: countless angles.

I could plead theories:

Say Johnny called me legit.

Say he kept the meet quiet.

I told Bob Gallaudet about it; I told Chick Vecchio—obliquely.

Chick knew my clip fee.

Chick knew my sword.

Chick knew THEM—or people who did.

Chick knew Junior was fucking with the Kafesjians.

Chick tips THEM off.

99% sure-I was coerced into killing Johnny Duhamel.

1% doubt—I’m a murderer.

My closing plea:

I don’t like it.

I shaved and showered. Haggard, new gray hair—forty-two going on dead. Burn tickles toweling off—dry ice coaxed my performance. My sword, five grand—fear tactics.

Invest that money—

I called Hughes Aircraft—Pete picked up.

“Bondurant.”

“Dave Klein, Pete.”

Caught short: “You never call me here. This is work, right?”

“Five grand’s worth.”

“Split?”

“Your share.”

“Then this isn’t a police gig like last time.”

“No, this is a muscle job on a hard boy.”

“You’re good at that by yourself.”

“It’s Chick Vecchio, and I know about that shakedown deal you’re working with him and Touch. I want to play an angle on it.”

“And you’re not gonna tell me how you found out about it.”

“Right.”

“And if I say no, you’re not gonna spoil it for us.”

“Right.”

“And you figured you by yourself, Chick might not fold, but both of us he would.”

“Right.”

Knuckle pops on his end—Pete thinking angles.

“Go to seven and answer a few questions.”

“Seven.”

Pop, pop—ugly. “So what’s the beef?”

“Chick put me in shit with the Kafesjians.”

“So clip him. That’s more your style.”

“I need a snitch.”

“Chick’s a tough boy.”

“Seven. Yes or no.”

Pop, pop—phone static—killer hands. “Yes with a condition, because I always thought Chick was essentially a greasy wop fuck, and because Mickey changed his mind and told him and Touch not to do this sex gig. I figure Mickey was always nice to me, so I’m doing him a solid he can pay back if he ever quits this movie-mogul shit and starts behaving like a white man again. Now, what’s the angle?”