“Suppose he doesn’t have the stuff?”

“Then tell him to get it.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

The stash pad—my low-rent unit.

Pete, Freddy T.; Chick Vecchio cuffed to a heat pipe. A tape rig and shortwave set—with band 7 pickup.

Mobile units calling in to Newton. Broadcasting base to cars: Exley himself.

Incoming:

Tommy and Lucille cruising separate—Lincoln Heights, Chinatown, moving south.

The point man at the K. house:

“I heard it out the boom mike. It sounded to me like J.C. just slapped the piss out of Madge. To top it off, there’s Fed cars driving by on the QT every hour or so.”

Unit 3-B71: “Lucille’s walking around Chinatown asking questions. She’s looking sorta distraught, and that last joint she went into—the Kowloon—it looked like a dope front to me.”

Pete—wolfing spareribs.

Fred—nursing a highball.

Chick—purple bruises, half his scalp scorched.

Fred poured himself a refill. “The Kafesjians and you. I don’t get it.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Sure, and I wouldn’t mind listening to something other than these goddamn radio calls.”

Pete said, “Don’t tell him shit, it’ll end up in Hush-Hush.”

“I’m just thinking twelve mobile tail cars and Ed Exley monitoring calls himself means it’s some kind of big deal, which maybe Dave should elaborate on. Like for instance, who are these Tommy and Lucille chumps looking for?”

Light bulb:

Richie “Peeper” Herrick—Chino inmate/bugging know-how. Fred Turentine, drunk driver—Chino teaching gigs.

“Freddy, when were you teaching that electronics class up at Chino?”

“Early ‘57 up till I got bored and hung up my probation maybe six months ago. Why? What’s that got to do with—”

“Did a kid named Richie Herrick take the class?”

Light bulb—dim—juicer Freddy. “Riiiight, Richie Herrick. He escaped, and some psycho chopped his family.”

“So, did he take your class?”

“Sure did. I remember him, because he was a shy kid and he played these jazz records while the class worked on their projects.”

“And?”

“And that’s it. There was this other white guy that he palled with, and he took the class with Herrick. He stuck close to him, but I don’t think it was a queer thing.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Nooo, I can’t place it.”

“Description?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Just your average white-trash inmate with a duck’s-ass haircut. I don’t even remember what he was in for.”

Something?/nothing?—tough call. Chino files missing—

“Dave, what’s this all ab—”

Pete: “Leave Klein alone, you’re getting paid for this.”

Band 7:

Tommy mobile—Chinatown.

Lucille mobile—Chinatown near Chavez Ravine.

I doused the volume and grabbed a chair. Chick edged his chair back.

In his face: “DUDLEY SMITH.”

“Davey, please”—raspy dry.

“He’s behind all the trouble in Niggertown, and he just sent Mike Breuning out to die. Spill on him, and I’ll cut you loose and give you some money.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“Then I’ll kill you.”

“Davey…”

Pete signaled me: feed him liquor.

“Davey… Davey…please.”

I handed him Freddy’s glass.

“You guys don’t know Dudley. You don’t know the kind of stuff he’d do to me.”

Bonded sour mash—three fingers. “Drink it, you’ll feel better.”

“Davey…”

“Drink.”

Chick guzzled it down. Grab the glass, refill it, watch him swill.

Instant booze panache: “So what kind of money are you talking about? I’ve got expensive tastes, you know.”

“Twenty grand”—pure bullshit.

“That plays lowball to me.”

Pete said, “Talk to Klein or I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Okay, okay, okay”—refill gestures.

I filled the glass. “Chick, give.”

“Okay okay okay”—sipping slow.

I propped the tape rig up by his chair and hit Record.

“Dudley, Chick. The furs, Duhamel, the Kafesjians, the whole takeover story.”

“I guess I know most of it. Feature Dudley likes to talk, ‘cause he figures everybody’s too scared of him to tattle.”

“Get to it.”

Booze-brave: “I say Domenico ‘Chick’ Vecchio knows when to talk and when to shut up. I say fuck ‘em all except six, and save them for the pallbearers.”

Pete said, “Will you please fucking give?”

“Okay okay, feature Dudley, he was the boss at Robbery Division. Exley, he had this hard-on for him, because he made Dud for lots of stuff over the years—”

“Like the Nite Owl job?”

“Yeah, like the Nite Owl. Anyway, Dudley always took the most interesting robbery cases for himself, ‘cause that’s just the way he is. So Exley shot the Hurwitz Fur case to Robbery, and Dud grabbed it, and he got some leads that he later on figured out were planted by Exley, and those fucking leads led him to his very own so-called protégé, Johnny Duhamel.”

Freddy and Pete noshing spareribs—rapt.

“Keep going.”

“Okay, now Dudley, he’d recruited Schoolboy Johnny for the Mobster Squad. You know how he drools for tough boys, and when Johnny was in the LAPD Academy he showed some meanness that Dud really liked. So he stayed mean on the Mobster Squad, and now Dudley sees that he’s a fucking badass heist guy, which, being Dudley, pleases him no fucking end. So, Dud called Johnny on the heist, and Johnny admitted it, but he refused to snitch his partners, which also impressed Dud. So, feature, Dudley gave Johnny a skate on the fur job and confided some of his own crime gigs to him, which meant that so far Exley’s trap was working.”

Tape hiss. Chick, snitching nice and loose now: “So feature that Dudley bagged Johnny’s furs and stored them at a storage locker joint. A couple got out, ‘cause Dudley told Johnny to get next to Lucille Kafesjian when Exley assigned you and that punk Stemmons to that burglary job. Johnny, he got a little lightweight boner for Lucille and gave her one.”

“Dudley told Johnny to become intimate with Lucille?”

“Yeah, sort of like a safeguard if you started leaning on the Kafesjians too hard.”

“Then what?”

“Then that goddamn Stemmons blundered in. He was Johnny’s teacher at the Academy, and Johnny made him for a closet fruit back then. So Junior, he saw this striptease that Lucille did with this mink Johnny gave her, I think he was working Bido Lito’s on the burglary job. Johnny was there, and him and Junior talked, which resparked this fucking faggot torch Stemmons had for Johnny.”

“So at first Junior came on like a pal.”

“Right, and feature that all that Mobster Squad strongarm stuff wasn’t really Johnny’s style, it was just this role Exley had him playing. Anyway, Johnny, he was stretched pretty thin and feeling pretty bad about it, and he told Stemmons about how brutal the work was, and Junior started figuring out that somebody was running him undercover. Johnny never flatout snitched Dudley to him, but he told him about these ‘auditions’ Dudley was doing without naming no names.”

“What ‘auditions’?”

“Dud was bringing these out-of-town guys in. He needed them to work the Southside coin, and he wanted the Feds to see them. Dud said later that Johnny figured out the guys were going to get clipped when Mickey went public with his Fed witness bit.”

Haverford Wash—four dead. “But Johnny didn’t confide that to Junior.”

“Right.”

“And the coin men were just pigeons set up to get clipped later?”

“Right.”

“What about the ‘auditions’ themselves?”

“Dudley told the out-of-town guys they had to earn the right to work for him. He said that meant enduring pain. He paid them money to let Johnny hurt them while he watched and talked this philosophical shit to them. Dick Carlisle said Dud broke their spirits and made them goddamn slaves.”

Pete said, “Holy shit.”

Freddy said, “I don’t believe this.”