90
(San Diego, 11:00 A.M., 3/8/42)
The boys are back in town.
At this lice-lair motel. On the PD’s dime. Staking Tommy G.’s PO box. To no fucking good avail.
The Seaglade Motel. Off the main drag in Dago. A hot-sheet hut for sailors and jarheads. All-nite whore traffic. One big VD stain.
Buzz read a Donald Duck comic book. He gassed on Donald’s rage and perved on Daisy Duck. Elmer gabbed with Thad Brown, long-distance.
He spilled his break-in at Bev’s Switchboard. Thad went Yikes. Elmer steamrolled the reaction and ran down the mail-forward scam. Link Rockwell held a box at Bev’s and sent smut pix to Tommy’s box in La Jolla. The pix featured klubhaus backdrops. A white girl and Mex girl frolicked with masked men. The girls fit Ashida’s snatch-hair prognostications.
Thad went Yikes. Elmer relaunched his spiel.
The post office stakeout bore no ripe fruit. Fruitcake Tommy hasn’t showed. Elmer ran down the envelope in Meyer Gelb’s box. It featured a La Paz PO box return address and no return name. The envelope contained blotter paper and maybe microdots.
Thad went Yikes. He told Elmer to ring Ashida — chop, chop. Tell him to check the La Paz box and apply his brain to microdots. Beyond that — chop, chop. You and Meeks go find that Tommy fuck.
Elmer went Yeah, boss. Buzz read his comic book. Thad laid out some hot PD dish.
Whiskey Bill keestered Jack Horrall. Ouch! — straight up the shit chute. Bill pulled Breuning and Carlisle off of the klubhaus job. Bill told Jack he’d quash a bogus-suspect solve. Ouch! — Bill keestered Dudley Smith.
Elmer went Yikes. Buzz tapped his wristwatch — wrap this shit up. Thad motor-mouthed. He said Parker’s wrangling a material-witness writ. Link Rockwell’s at some Navy flight school in Florida. Parker wants to extradite him. Jack Horrall’s dragging his heels.
Elmer went Yikes. Thad went Chop, chop, you dumb hayseeds. Thad went Quit jerking off and go to work.
They restaked the post office. The posh hamlet cocooned them. La Jolla was swanksville. Cypress trees and golf courses. Nice stores with candy-cane awnings. A nifty beach close by.
The stakeout was yawnsville. They pondered a more direct approach. Brace the Postal Inspection Service. Have the postal cops dump Tommy’s PO box.
They discussed it. They nixed it. This was a strongarm job. The postal cops would demur. They had to snatch Tommy. They had to hurl some hurt on him before they dumped him on Thad.
Swanksville. Yawnsville. They sat in Elmer’s civilian sled and evinced ennui.
Buzz said, “Maybe Tommy ducked down to T.J. He’s bored, so he’s thinking he’ll go catch the donkey show and see his pal Huey. I say we go down there and stir up some shit.”
Elmer said, “We overstirred the shit the last time we went down there. I say we check with SDPD Burglary. We’re brother officers looking for a hot-prowl man. They might have some fresh cases and some leads they could share.”
SDPD was close by the Seaglade. That greased the skids. They drove over and parked in a visitor’s slot. The building was whitewashed adobe and two stories high. They walked up to the DB. Dago was a turkey town. Burglary Division was one fat-slob cop.
The dink sat in a gnat-sized office. His desk plate read SGT. LEW SARNI. They walked in, deliberate. The dink shook himself awake.
“L.A., right? You’ve got that look. You’re down here on a job, and you need a hand.”
The dink dwarfed his dink-sized desk. Elmer and Buzz straddled chairs and faced him. They lit up cigars. Elmer tossed the dink a one-dollar Cuban. It bounced on his desk.
“We’re looking for a hot-prowl geek named Tommy Glennon. He’s a homo, but he rapes women. He’s got a postal box in La Jolla, and we thought you might have made him for some incidents down here.”
Buzz slid the dink a mug-shot strip. The dink lit the cigar and studied the fotos.
“We’ve got a series of 459/rapes, and your guy matches the suspect’s description. The victims are all Navy women, working out of Point Loma. Navy CID’s handling it, because they make the rape-o for a sailor. The guy’s vicious, and he’s pulled six jobs so far, but the whole thing’s going nowhere.”
Elmer said, “That’s it?”
The dink savored his cigar. He flicked ash and went Yum-yum.
“No, that isn’t it. A Wave officer called us and reported a man following her and skulking around her apartment house. He matches your guy’s and our suspect’s description, but CID and the DB here can’t spare a stakeout team or a woman cop to play decoy.”
Buzz whipped out his flash roll. He peeled off two yards and dropped them on the desk.
“Let us handle it. What CID don’t know won’t hurt them.”
The dink coughed cigar smoke. “Well... uh... I like to accommodate the L.A. boys whenever I can.”
Elmer said, “Give us the Wave’s statistics. We’ll take it from there.”
Ensign Margaret May Mewshaw. An Omaha transplant. Ensign Meg lived in Pacific Beach. She lived alone and had no boyfriend. She lived in a second-floor/street-facing crib. It was a two-crib stucco building. Outside stairs led up to her door.
They waited for dusk. They hunkered in and car-sat across the street. Ensign Meg was home alone. They brought a short dog of 151 rum. It got them lubricated and motivized.
It was late-winter warm. Ensign Meg kept her front window cracked and the shades up. She played the radio. Bucky Beaver shilled Ipana toothpaste. Charlie Barnet played “Cherokee.”
Ensign Meg schlepped around in her slip. She was a big blonde. She had that Annie Staples scope and je ne sais quoi. Elmer got erotified. Tommy G. was a leg man. Ensign Meg had legs from Dago to Detroit.
Elmer said, “I don’t get it. Tommy’s a fruit, but he rapes women.”
Buzz said, “Sex is powerful juju.”
“Moonlight Serenade” drifted over. Elmer yawned. That tune and 151 put him dozy. He wisped off somewhere. He saw Wayne Frank in a limousine packed with gold bars. He saw Dudley in the green room at San Quentin. Buzz went Ssshhh and elbowed him awake.
“Hush now. We got a prowler.”
Elmer rubbed his eyes and looked out his window. This jamoke stood by the stairs. He’s wearing gloves. He’s holding a tool pouch. He’s pivoting to creep upward. Hold the phone, mama. It’s Tommy Glennon.
They bolted the sled and ran over. They crouched low at the foot of the stairs. Tommy stood outside Ensign Meg’s door. He brandished a lock pick and blew on it for luck. Buzz kicked a tin can, accidental. Tommy heard it and glanced down the stairs.
He saw the boys. He was trapped-rat confined. He dropped the pick and pulled a shiv and charged down the stairs.
Elmer charged up. He pulled his belt sap and crashed Tommy low. Tommy stabbed down and snagged his sport coat. Elmer sap-slammed a nut shot and cartwheeled him. Tommy screeched and tumbled ass over elbows.
He hit the ground, all bruised and splayed. Buzz rabbit-punched him and bashed his head on a stair ledge. Elmer tripped down the stairs and cuffed his hands behind his back.
They cuff-dragged him across the street. They made the sled in one split second. Elmer unlocked the trunk. They dumped Tommy in and slammed the trunk shut. Ensign Meg looked out her window. What’s all this ruckus? Elmer blew her a kiss.