Chapter Thirty-Six
Reuben Ruiz—talk, strongarm—whatever it took.
R&I shot me his address: 229 South Loma. Not that far—a quick run over—brother Ramon on the porch.
“Reuben’s at the ravine, bein’ a puto for the City of Los Angeles.”
Another quick run—Chavez Ravine.
Swarming now-evictions pending. “Police Parking”—a dirt lot going in. Cop cars jammed up tail to snout: Sheriff’s, LAPD, Feds.
Hills fronting the main drag; Mex kids chucking rocks. Black & whites scratched and dented.
An access road up—narrow, dusty. I walked it, hit the top, caught the view:
Hecklers bucking bluesuit containment—the main road cordoned off. Shack-lined roads/hills/gulleys—eviction notices rife. Camera crews shooting door to door: Feds and a bobbing sombrero.
Dig it: shack dwellers swarming that hat.
I walked down into it; blues juked me through the cordon. Catch the view: Shipstad, Milner, Ruiz in bullfighter garb.
Reuben:
Passing out money, spics swamping him.
“Dinero!”
“El jefe Ruiz!”
Big-time Mex jabber—incomprehensible.
Milner gaga-eyed: what is this?
I shoved, waved—Shipstad saw me. Trembly and flushed—Henstell probably blabbed.
He shoved toward me. We collided: hands on suitcoats instinctive.
“Gracias el jefe Reuben!”—Ruiz tossing cash away.
A dirt yard off the road—Shipstad pointed over. I followed him—tree shade, a sign: “Notice to Vacate.”
“Justify that firebug routine before Noonan revokes your immunity and has you arrested.”
Eyeball magnet: Reuben dishing out greenbacks.
“Look at me, Klein.”
At him, lawyer bullshit: “It was nontangential incriminating evidence. It in no way pertained to the Kafesjian family or to any focus of your investigation or my potential grand jury testimony. Noonan has enough on me as it is, and I didn’t want to feed him more potential indictable information.”
“Attorney to attorney, how can you live the way you do?”
Tongue tied—
“We’re trying to help you get out of this alive. I’m developing a plan to relocate you after you testify, and frankly Noonan doesn’t think I should be working so hard at it.”
“Which means?”
“Which means I dislike him slightly more than I dislike you. Which means he’s two seconds away from arresting you and putting you on display as a hostile witness, then releasing you and letting Sam Giancana or whoever have you killed.”
Meg jailed/ brutalized/clipped—Technicolor. “Will you relocate my sister?”
“That’s impossible. This last escapade has cost you credibility with Noonan, relocation for your sister was not covered in your contract and there is no established precedent for mobsters harming the loved ones of fugitive witnesses.”
GET MONEY.
Ruiz throwing it away.
“We’re your only hope. I’ll square things with Noonan, but you be at the Federal Building by eight A.M. day after tomorrow, or we’ll find you, arrest your sister and begin tax-charge proceedings.”
Crowd noise, dust. Reuben watching us.
I waved the keys. Sunlight on metal—he nodded.
Shipstad: “Klein…”
“I’ll be there.”
“Eight A.M.”
“I heard you.”
“It’s your only—”
“What’s Ruiz doing?”
He looked over. “Expiation of guilt or some such concept. Can you blame him? All this for a baseball stadium?”
Reuben walked up.
“Did you come to see him? And what’s with those keys?”
“Give me some time with him.”
“Is it personal?”
“Yeah, it’s personal.”
Shipstad walked; Ruiz passed him and winked. Rockabye Reuben: bullfight threads, grin.
“Hey, Lieutenant.”
I twirled the keys. “You go first.”
“No. First you tell me this is just two witness buddies gabbing, then you tell me popping Mexican bantamweights for robbery don’t push your buzzer.”
Bulldozers down the road—a shack crashed.
“Keys, Reuben. You saw the originals, memorized the numbers and tried to get that locksmith to cut dupes, and there’s tool marks on the lockers at that storage place.”
“I didn’t hear you say anything like ‘This is just two guys who’d like each other to stay out of trouble talking.’”
Gear whine/wood snap/dust—the noise made me flinch. “I’m way past arresting people.”
“I sort of thought so, given what the Feds been saying.”
“Reuben, spill. I’ve got this half-assed notion you want to.”
“Do penance, maybe. Spill, I don’t know.”
“Did you boost some furs out of those lockers?”
“As many as me and my righteous B&E buddies could carry. And they’re gone, in case you want a mink for your slumlord sister.”
Flowers sprouting next to weeds; smog wafting in.
“So you bagged some furs, sold them and gave the money to your poor exploited brethren.”
“No, I gave a silver fox pelt to Mrs. Mendoza next door, ‘cause I popped her daughter’s cherry and never married her, then I sold the furs, then I got drunk and gave the money away.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, and those stupidos down there’ll probably spend it on Dodger tickets.”
“Reuben—”
“Fuck it, all right—me, Johnny Duhamel and my brothers took down the Hurwitz fur warehouse. You were maybe pushing that way when I saw you in my dressing room, so now you tell me what you got before I sober up and get bored with this penance routine.”
“Let’s try Ed Exley operating Johnny.”
Smog—Reuben coughed. “You picked a good fucking topic.”
“I figured if Johnny talked to anybody, it was you.”
“You figured pretty good.”
“He told you about it?”
“Most of it, I guess. Look, this is, you know, off the record?”
I nodded—easy now—cut him rope.
Tick tick tick tick.
Jerk the rope: “Reuben—”
“Yeah, okay, I guess it was like this spring, like April or something. Exley, he read this newspaper story about Johnny. You know, a what you call human-interest story, like here’s this guy in graduate school working all these jobs, he used to be a comer in the Golden Gloves, but now he’s gotta turn pro even though he don’t want to, ‘cause his parents croaked and stiffed him and his school, and how he’s broke. You follow me so far?”
“Keep going.”
“Okay, so Exley, he approached Johnny and what you call manipulated him. He gave Johnny money and paid off his college loan, and he paid off these debts Johnny’s parents left. Exley, he’s like some kind of rich-kid cop with this big inheritance, and he gave Johnny this bonaroo fucking amount of money and paid these reporter guys to write these other, you know, similar-type newspaper stories about him, playing on this angle that he had to turn pro out of, you know, financial necessity.”
“And Exley made Johnny tank that one pro fight he had.”
“Right.”
“And the newspaper pieces and the tank job were to set Johnny up as some sort of hard-luck kid, so it would look realistic when he applied to the LAPD.”
“Right.”
“And Exley got Johnny eased into the Academy?”
“Right.”
“And all this was to set Johnny up to work undercover.”
“Right, to get next to some people or something that Exley had this hard-on for, but don’t ask me who, ‘cause I don’t know.”
THEM/Dan Wilhite/Narco—mix them, match them—
“Keep going.”
Bobs, feints—Reuben oozed sweat. “So Exley, he got Johnny this outside work while he was in the Academy, this gig where he what you call infiltrated these Marine Corps guys who were beating up and robbing all these rich queers. That punk Stemmons, you know, that ex-partner of yours, he was Johnny’s teacher at the Academy, and he read this report that Johnny wrote on the fruit-roller gig.”
“And?”
“And Stemmons, he was both, you know, attracted to and, what you call it, repelled by homos. He had the hots for Johnny, which embarrassed the shit out of Johnny, ‘cause he’s a cunt man from the gate. Anyway, Johnny busted up the fruit-roller ring, and the Marine Corps police, they got, you know, convictions against the guys. Johnny graduated from the Academy and got assigned to the Detective Bureau right off, ‘cause the queer gig made him look righteous good, and ‘cause being a Golden Gloves champ gave him some righteous prestige. Anyway, that Irish guy, you know, Dudley Smith, he took a shine to Johnny and got him assigned to the Mobster Squad, ‘cause he wanted an ex-fighter for this strongarm work they do.”