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CLICK—

Chairs/shelves/tables—I threw them and kicked them and dumped them. I punched myself arm-dead on the curtains; exhaustion had me swaying light-headed.

Radio squawk:

“Madge left the house alone. The point car’s on her.”

“Lucille’s entering Chavez Ravine. She’s driving erratic, she’s sideswiping trees—”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Crisscross headlights, dirt roads—Chavez Ravine.

Dark—no streetlights—cop lights only. Roof lights, headlights, flashlights—tail men mobile and on foot.

Bumper crunched upside a tree: Lucille’s Ford, abandoned.

APBs out on me—

I ditched my car and sprinted up the access road. Zigzag flashlights down below: a shack-to-shack search.

“Lad.”

Dark, just his voice. I aimed at it, half pull triggered.

“Lad, hear me out before you act precipitously.”

“You sent that movie to Noonan.”

“No, Bob Gallaudet did. I told him you had Chick Vecchio hidden, and Bob assumed that Chick would behave in a cowardly fashion and inform on us. Lad, Bob handed you up to Noonan. He threatened to make public a second copy of the film if you testified as a Federal witness, assuming that your testimony would damn both himself and this aging Irishman who bears quite a grudging fondness for you. Noonan was furious, of course, and Bob quite wisely retreated to a more judicious footing: he said that the film threat stood, but he would not enter the attorney general’s race if Noonan promised no open-court mention of him. Noonan, bright lad that he is, agreed.”

“Gallaudet ratted you to Noonan?”

“No, Allah be praised, he just evinced panic and spoke nebulously of complex criminal conspiracies. I’m sure Noonan considers me just an aging policeman with a gift for language and a stern reputation.”

Shouts down below. Stray headlights blipped Dudley smiling benign.

“Who gave Bob that movie copy?”

“Mike Breuning. He was afraid our enterprises were in jeopardy, so he gave Robert a copy to cut a deal for himself. Alas, Mike confessed what he had done before I sent him out to meet you, which is why I set him up so harshly.”

“Gallaudet?”

“Ensconced with Allah, lad. Neatly dismembered and unreachable. Kill Vecchio, if you haven’t already, and there’s just Exley sans hard evidence.”

“Chick told me Duhamel snitched Exley.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“He said Exley kept money in a safe?”

“Yes, Chick is correct.”

“Inside his house?”

“Yes, lad, that would be logical.”

“Big money?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Lad, get to the point, you’re tantalizing me.”

“I can tap that safe. I’ll kill Vecchio and steal Exley’s money. We’ll split it.”

“You’re very generous, and I’m surprised that you haven’t expressed rancor over my machinations at the Ranch Market.”

“I want you to like me. If I run, I don’t want you coming after the people I leave here.”

“You’re perceptive to assume my survival.”

“The money?”

“I’ll accept half graciously.”

Commotion down the hill: cops kicking in shack doors.

“Chick told you the thrust of my plans, did he, lad?”

“Yes.”

“Did you infer that I enjoy watching?”

“Yes.”

“I view it as a dispensation for the grand work of containment I’ll be doing. I view it as a means to touch compelling filth without succumbing to it.”

FLASH: Lucille nude.

“You’re a watcher, lad. You’ve touched your own dark capacities, and now you enjoy the surcease of simple watching.”

FLASH: whore-pad windows.

“I empathize with your curiosities, lad.”

FLASH—peeper tapes—pictures synced to sounds.

“It pleases me that the Kafesjians and Herricks seem to have piqued those curiosities. Lad, I could tell you many grand stories about those two families.”

FLASH—bright open windows—TELL ME THINGS.

“Lad, do you feel the basis of an understanding starting to form? Are you beginning to see the two of us as kindred souls, brothers in curious—”

Shouts, flashlights converging—

I ran down—tripping and stumbling. Shacks pressed up tight together—lights fixed in one doorway.

Tail men huddled outside—push through, look:

Lucille and Richie Herrick—DOA.

Tourniquet tied/veins pumped/mouths frozen gasping.

Entwined on a mink coat bed.

H bindles, spikes and Drano on a fox pelt.

Chapter Fifty

8:01 A.M.—Federal fugitive.

Fugitive pad, fugitive car—a ‘51 Chevy bought off a junker lot. Fugitive calls:

Glenda safe—style vs. fear—style winning.

Sid Riegle, panicked—Exley men rousted my men.

Bureau talk: Lucille and Richie died from heroin-Drano cocktails. Sid: “Ray Pinker said she hotshot him, then killed herself. Doc Newbarr said no way was it murder, then suicide—everything was too nice and neat.”

More talk:

Tommy and J.C.—Fed-rousted and released at 4:00 A.M. Madge K. gone for parts unknown—the point man lost her.

A call to Pete—find me that woman, she can TELL ME things. Fugitive wheels: the Cahuenga Pass south. Rearview panic checks—everything looked strange and wrong.

Radio news: Hot L.A. Crime Wave! Mickey Cohen Federal Witness! DA Gallaudet Misses Breakfast Talk—Assembled Scribes Baffled!

Last night—Dudley’s farewell:

“I’ll require verification on Chick. His right hand should suffice—it bears quite a recognizable tattoo.”

Brain teaser:

Vampire gore/the Kafesjian-Herrick case—who?/why?

South: Hollywood, Hancock Park. Left turn—432 South McCadden.

Virgin—no cars curb or driveway.

I walked up and knocked. Nobody watching—knife the keyhole, work the lock.

In.

Close the door, bolt it—lights on, go.

I checked the living room walls: no pictures, no fake panels.

I checked the den—framed photos—Dudley Smith, Bureau toastmaster. Pull them, look behind—

No safe.

Upstairs—three bedrooms—more walls, more pictures:

Dudley Smith as Santa Claus—a polio ward, ‘53.

Dudley Smith, guest speaker—Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.

Dudley Smith at a crime scene: ogling a dead jigaboo.

Three bedrooms—twenty Dudley Smith pictures—Exley hate fuel.

No safe.

Back downstairs-check the kitchen—nothing.

Check the carpets—every one tacked flat. Upstairs—hallway throw rugs—pull them—

A hinged panel under a red Persian.

Inset with a tumbler dial and handle.

Trembly—34L—16R—31L—two run-throughs, snap/thunk—yank the handle.

Drawstring bank bags. Five. Nothing else.

Hundreds, fifties, twenties. Old bills.

I shut the lid, spun the dial and fixed the rugs. Downstairs, the kitchen—

Cutlery right there. I grabbed a cleaver—heebie-jeebies—Chick.

Chapter Fifty-One

“Davey… please.”

Psychic: begging me two seconds in the door. A tattoo on his right hand: “Sally 4-Ever.”

“Davey, please.”

683 grand and that cleaver. Pete out chasing Madge, Fred asleep in the bedroom.

Chick, cuffed down—panic spritzing:

We go back, we had laughs, I’m sorry I got fresh with Glenda, but how can you blame me? We had laughs, we made money, Pete wants to kill me, he’s a fucking neon sign....

“Davey, please.”

Pillow bullet mufflers. Curtains for a makeshift shroud.

“Davey… Jesus Christ…Davey.”

Tired—no stones for it—yet.

Dead man talking:

I’ll disappear ... you can trust me.... Glenda’s great ... Sid Frizell says she’s star stuff. Frizell…what a chump…no ideas…that camera guy Wylie Bullock’s got twice the smarts, and he couldn’t direct traffic on Mars. You and Glenda…I wish you the best… Davey, I know what you got planned, I can see it in your eyes....

Tired.

No stones for it—yet.

The phone rang—I cradled it up. “Yeah?”