Buzz spit tobacco juice. He doused the porch steps good.
“Did he snitch to any particular policemen?”
Mama shook her head. “I always told him ‘Don’t name me no names, ’cause what I don’t know can’t hurt me.’ I know he snitched to these two fools on the Alien Squad, but I made sure he didn’t name no names.”
Elmer relit his cigar. “You’re saying you didn’t know Archie’s running partners, and you only had a general sense that he was out in the world, causing trouble.”
“That’s right. Archie was a snake in the grass, but I told him ‘Don’t you bring no mice home to me.’ ”
Elmer said, “Archie must have had himself a parole officer. He’d have known Archie’s associates.”
“He always topped out his parole, so there’d be no strings attached. He said that way, he’d have the world on a string.”
Buzz said, “How many niños you got, ma’am? You think they’d have more details on their daddy’s pals and activities?”
Mama snorted. “Arturo was a back-door man. You don’t conceive no niños that way.”
Elmer whooped. Ashida posted a lab report. Oooga-booga. Jizz stains, K-Y jelly, shit traces.
“Here’s a question, ma’am. You’re the late Archie Archuleta. You’ve got time on your hands and a penchant for trouble. How do you spend your days?”
Mama picked her nose. “Arturo knew his way around C-town and J-town. He sought most of his trouble there. ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ He sold his dope and bought his dope there, and he snitched to these two Alien Squad bulls who worked around there. He knew lots of tong men, crooked Japs, and these Jap Fifth Column types. He bought these Nazi-type trinkets from some Jap, and he sold them to the zoot-suit pendejos here in the Heights.”
Elmer said, “Is that the Sinarquistas you’re talking about?”
Mama crossed herself. Mama whipped out some voodoo amulet and hexed the world at large.
“Evil fascistas. May they boil in a vat of nigger pus and potato-chip lard.”
Buzz winked at Elmer. “What about that clubhouse, ma’am? 46th and Central, off the jazz strip?”
Mama went ¿Qué?/Who cares?/So what?
Elmer said, “These two Alien Squad cops. Do the names Wendell Rice and George Kapek sound familiar?”
Mama went Huh?/¿Qué?/So what?
Buzz spritzed tobacco juice. He nailed Mama’s mailbox gooooood.
“Give us some names, mama. Feed these two weary dogs a bone.”
“I don’t got no names. I know Arturo went back with them Alien Squad bulls, to when they worked the Narco Detail. Arturo said, ‘Better to snitch to the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.’ ”
Rice and Kapek worked Narco. They allegedly grafted there. It was pre-established drift.
Elmer teethed his cigar. “What else can you tell us about these nameless Narco guys?”
Mama waved her amulet. “They were dos fascistas. They loved Hitler, Tojo, and Father Coughlin. Arturo mostly finked out these Jap pharmacists who wouldn’t sell him no morphine.”
Buzz said, “Names, ma’am?”
A rat zipped across the porch. A big cat-sized fucker. Mama hexed him.
“Arturo said he only snitched off one real Fifth Column fool. Some fool white boy named Huey Cressmeyer. The Alien Squad bulls said, ‘Huey’s sacrosanct. He’s got high-up friends, and he’s our pal.’ ”
50
(Los Angeles, 5:00 P.M., 2/1/42)
Call-Me-Jack shagged phone calls. He lived to wheedle, bully, and schmooze. Dudley shagged the chair by his desk.
Jack blah-blahed and yeah-yeahed. He bloviated with Fletch Bowron and Fourth Interceptor. Dudley lit a cigarette. Jack went Un momento.
His phone-light blinked. He winked at El Dudster. He coo-coo’d and oh-baby’d now.
It was surely Brenda Allen. The two shared a history. It predated Brenda’s liaison with doltish Elmer Jackson.
Dudley wore civvies and a belt piece. He drove up rápido. Mike B. called him in Baja. Mike reported this:
Tommy Glennon’s address book appeared at the klubhaus. It contained Huey Cressmeyer’s name. Ditto Lin Chung’s name and Saul Lesnick’s name. Plus more provocative listings.
Chung and Lesnick were Watanabe-case adjunct. That mandated discretion. Huey was a glue addict and plainly psychopathic. That mandated a T.J. retreat.
Jack coo-coo’d good-byes and hung up. He stared across his desk. He read the Dudster’s dire look.
“Lay it out. Bypass the blarney and get to it.”
“Jim Davis killed the Watanabes. Bill Parker put it together. Jim confessed to him in late December, and unburdened himself to me more recently. I’m assuming that no one else knows. That stated, I should add that we now have peripheral names crossing over to the klubhaus job. Dare I say that we need to be careful here?”
Jack went deep-vein sclerotic. He chugged digitalis straight from the vial. He chased it with desk-jug scotch.
“Parker won’t blab. He goes way back with Jim, and Jim’s got dirt on him that could sink his career.”
Dudley said, “Yes, but our Bill is nothing if not capricious. He’ll do anything to appease God and impress young women.”
The desk phone rang. Jack squelched the call.
“Adjudicate this thing with Parker, Dud. Make whatever concessions you deem necessary. Brace Jim D. and tell that lunatic cocksucker in no uncertain terms to keep his fucking mouth shut. As for the klubhaus job, I’ll state this. We need a clean solve and dead suspects who’ll never enter a courtroom. Keep that in mind, along with this. Do whatever you deem necessary to put the quietus on those ‘peripheral names’ you just mentioned. ¿Tú comprende, muchacho?”
Dudley chained cigarettes. “You pulled Rice’s and Kapek’s Personnel files. That severely restricts our access to their arrest records. I’ll hazard a guess here, sir. They ran bag for you when they worked the Narco Squad back in the Davis regime.”
Call-Me-Jack tipped scotch. The pills kicked in. His color receded.
“They covered niggertown for Jim D. and yours truly. Envelopes changed hands. My old Army pal the Reverend Mimms greased the skids south of Slauson. That’s the drift, and here’s the upscut. I burned the Personnel files and the Narco files. Leave Mimms alone, and get me a clean solve despite those restrictions. Elmer Jackson and Buzz Meeks are playing gadfly with you, but I’m disinclined to cut them loose. As our pal Sid Hudgens says, ‘That’s all the news that’s unfit to print.’ ”
The phone rang. Jack squelched it. He slurped scotch and wagged his eyebrows.
“You’re working angles in Baja. My best guess is that Ace the K. is covering you here. By my calculations, I should be in for 8 %.”
Dudley smiled. “12 %, sir. With a codicil attached.”
“Would that be latitude on everything we’ve just discussed?”
“Yes, and I would like you to detach Lieutenant Ashida, effective immediately.”
“Yes to the former, no to the latter. I need Ashida here.”
Dudley stood up. Jack said, “I met Jim Davis in 1919. He’s always been good to me. Here’s my codicil. I positively forbid you to kill him.”
Whiskey Bill dozed in his prowl sled. Long naps served to revive him. Dudley tagged him in the City Hall lot.