The ocean blurred through his tears. White winked and said, "Thanks for the push." Ed turned around. The monster, the dope, the money-gone.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The pool stash: twenty-one pounds of heroin, $871,400, carbons of Sid Hudgens' dirt files. Included: blackmail photos, records of Pierce Patchett's criminal enterprises. The name "Dudley Smith" did not appear--nor did the names of John Stompanato, Burt Arthur Perkins, Abe Teitlebaum, Lee Vachss, Dot Rothstein, Sergeant Mike Breuning, Officer Dick Carlisle. Coleman Stein, Sal Bonventre, George Magdaleno--killed in the crash-out. Davey Goldman reinterviewed at Camarillo State Hospital--he could not give a coherent statement. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled Dot Rothstein's death a suicide. David Mertens stayed in locked-ward custody at Pacific Sanitarium. Relatives of the three innocent citizens killed at Abe's Noshery brought suit against the LAPD for reckless endangerment. The crash-out received national news coverage, was labeled the "Blue Denim Massacre." Surviving inmates told Sheriff's detectives that squabbling among the armed prisoners resulted in guns changing hands-- soon every inmate on the train was free. Racial tensions flared up, aborting the crash-out before the authorities arrived.
Jack Vincennes was posthumously awarded the LAPD's Medal of Valor. No LAPD men were invited to the funeral--the widow refused an audience with Captain Ed Exley.
Bud White refused to die. He remained in intensive care at Fontana General Hospital. He survived massive shock, neurological trauma, the loss of over half the blood in his body. Lynn Bracken stayed with him. He could not speak, but responded to questions with nods. Chief Parker presented him with his Medal of Valor. White freed an arm from a traction sling, threw the medal in his face.
Ten days passed.
A warehouse in San Pedro burned to the ground--remnants of pornographic books were discovered. Detectives labeled the fire "professional arson," reported no leads. The building was owned by Pierce Patchett. Chester Yorkin and Lorraine Malvasi were reinterrogated. They offered no salient information, were released from custody.
Ed Exley burned the heroin, kept the files and the money. His final Nite Owl report omitted mention of Dudley Smith and the fact that David Mertens, now the object of an all-points bulletin for his murders of Sid Hudgens, Billy Dieterling and Jerry Marsalas, was also the 1934 slayer of Wee Willie Wennerholm and five other children. Preston Exley's name was not spoken in any context.
Chief Parker held a press conference. He announced that the Nite Owl case had been solved-correctly this time. The gunmen were Burt Arthur "Deuce" Perkins, Lee Vachss, Abraham "Kikey" Teitlebaum--their motive to kill Dean Van Gelder, an ex-convict masquerading as the incorrectly identified Delbert "Duke" Cathcart. The shootings were conceived as a terror tactic, an attempt to take over the vice kingdom of Pierce Morehouse Patchett, a recent murder victim himself. The State Attorney General's Office reviewed Captain Ed Exley's 114-page case summary and announced that it was satisfied. Ed Exley again received credit for breaking the Nite Owl murder case. He was promoted to inspector in a televised ceremony.
The next day Preston Exley announced that he would seek the Republican Party's gubernatorial nomination. He shot to the front of a hastily conducted poll.
Johnny Stompanato returned from Acapulco, moved into Lana Turner's house in Beverly Hills. He remained there, never venturing outside, the object of a constant surveillance supervised by Sergeants Duane Fisk and Don Kleckner. Chief Parker and Ed Exley referred to him as their Nite Owl "Addendum"-- the living perpetrator to feed the public now that they were temporarily moffified with dead killers. When Stompanato left Beverly Hills for Los Angeles City proper, he would be arrested. Parker wanted a clean front-page arrest just over the city line--he was wiffing to wait for it.
The Nite Owl case and the murders of Billy Dieterhng and Jerry Marsalas remamed news They were never speculatively connected. Timmy Valburn refused to comment. Raymond Dieterhng issued a press release expressmg grief over the loss of his son He closed down Dream a Dreamland for a one month period of mourning. He remained in seclusion at his house in Laguna Beach, attended to by his friend and aide Inez Soto.
Sergeant Mike Breuning and Officer Dick Carlisle remained on emergency leave.
Captain Dudley Smith remained front stage center throughout the post-reopening round of press conferences and LAPD/D.A.'s Office meetings. He served as toastmaster at Thad Green's surprise party honoring Inspector Ed Exley. He did not appear in any way flustered knowing that Johnny Stompanato remained at large, was under twenty-four-hour surveillance and thus immune to assassination. He did not seem to care that Stompanato would be arrested in the near future.
Preston Exley, Raymond Dieterling and Inez Soto did not contact Ed Exley to congratulate him on his promotion and reversal of bad press.
Ed knew they knew. He assumed Dudley knew. Vincennes dead, White fighting to live. Only he and Bob Gallaudet knew--and Gallaudet knew nothing pertaining to his father and the Atherton case.
Ed wanted to kill Dudley outright.
Gallaudet said, kill yourself instead, that's what you'd be doing.
They decided to wait it out, do it right.
Bud White made the wait unbearable.
He had tubes in his arms, splints on his fingers. His chest held three hundred stitches. Bullets had shattered bones, ripped arteries. He had a plate in his head. Lynn Bracken tended to him--she could not meet Ed's eyes. White could not talk--being able to talk in the future was doubtful. His eyes were eloquent: Dudley. Your father. What are you going to do about it? He kept trying to make the V-for-victory sign. Three visits, Ed finally got it: the Victory Motel, Mobster Squad HQ.
He went there. He found detailed notes on White's prostitutekilling investigation. The notes were a limited man reaching for the stars, puffing most of them down. Limits exceeded through a briffiantly persistent rage. Absolute justice--anonymous, no rank and glory. A single line on the Englekling brothers that told him their killer still walked free. Room 11 at the Victory Motel--Wendell "Bud" White seen for the first time.
Ed knew why he sent him there--and followed up.
A phone company check, one interview--all it took. Confirmation, an epigraph to build on it: Absolute Justice. The TV news said Ray Dieterling walked through Dream-a-Dreamland every day-casing his grief in a deserted fantasy kingdom. He'd give Bud White a full day of his justice.
o o o
Good Friday, 1958. The A.M. news showed Preston Exley entering St. James Episcopal Church. Ed drove to City Hall, walked up to Ellis Loew's office.
Still early--no receptionist. Loew at his desk, reading. Ed rapped on the door.
Loew glanced up. "Inspector Ed. Have a chair."
"I'll stand."
"Oh? Is this business?"
"Of sorts. Last month Bud White called you from San Francisco and told you Spade Cooley was a sex killer. You said you'd put a D.A.'s Bureau team on it, and you didn't. Cooley has donated in excess of fifteen thousand dollars to your slush fund. You called the Biltmore Hotel from your place in Newport and talked to a member of Cooley's band. You told him to warn Spade and the rest of the guys that a crazy cop was going to come around and cause trouble. White braced Deuce Perkins, the real killer. Perkins sent him after Spade, he probably thought he'd kill him and save him from the rap. Perkins was warned by you and went into hiding. He stayed out long enough to turn White into a vegetable."