“Mike’s going to take it all down in shorthand, then edit it after Engels confesses. He’s a whiz. I’m going to play bad guy along with Dudley.”
“What if he doesn’t confess?”
“He’ll confess,” Carlisle said, taking off his glasses and polishing them with his necktie.
When we returned from the liquor store with a quart of cheap gin, three bottles of Coke, and a dozen paper cups, Dudley was regaling Eddie Engels with stories of his life in Ireland around the time of World War I, and Mike Breuning was in the room next door, making sandwiches and brewing coffee.
Mike came into the interrogation room bearing a half-dozen stenographic pads and a fat handful of sharp pencils. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and smiled at Engels. Engels’s eyes went back and forth from Mike’s affable blond face to his .38 in its shoulder holster. Eddie was putting up a brave front, but he was scared. And curious about how much we knew, of that I was sure. He had killed at least one woman, but was obviously involved in so much illegal activity that he didn’t know why we had busted him. But he didn’t act like a trapped killer–there was an effete arrogance that cut through even his fear. He had sailed on his good looks and charm for some thirty years and obviously considered himself a naturally superior being. His self-sufficient masquerade was about to end, and I wondered if he knew.
Dudley got the proceedings started, banging his huge hands on the little wooden table that held Mike’s stenographic pads.
“Mr. Engels,” he said, “you are probably wondering exactly who we are, and why we brought you here.” He paused and poured gin and Coca-Cola, mixed half and half, into a paper cup and handed it to Engels, who took it and sipped dutifully, dark intelligent eyes glancing around at the four of us.
Dudley cleared his throat and continued. “Let me introduce my colleagues,” he said, “Mr. Carlisle, Los Angeles Police Department; Mr. Breuning, of the district attorney’s office; I am Lieutenant Dudley Smith of the L.A.P.D.; and this gentleman”–he paused and inclined his head toward me–“is Inspector Underhill of the F.B.I.” I almost laughed at my big new promotion, but kept a straight face. “If you have any legal questions, you ask the inspector. He’s an attorney, he’ll be glad to answer them.”
I butted in, somehow wanting to calm Engels before the onslaught of brutality I knew would be coming. “Mr. Engels, you may not know it, but you are acquainted with some people who exist on the edges of the L.A. crime world. We want to question you about these people. Our methods are roundabout, but they work. Just answer our questions and I assure you everything will be all right.”
It was a well-informed, ambiguous stab in the dark, and it hit home. Engels believed me. His features relaxed and he gulped the rest of his drink in relief. Dudley poured him another immediately, this one a good two-thirds gin.
Eddie took two healthy slugs of it and when he spoke, his voice had gone down considerably, almost to the baritone range. “What do you want to know?” he asked.
“Tell us about yourself, lad,” Dudley said.
“What about me?”
“Your life, lad, past and present.”
“Exactly what do you mean, Lieutenant?”
“I mean _everything_, lad.”
Engels seemed to consider this. He seemed to draw into his memory, and guzzled his gin and Coke to speed his thought processes.
I looked at my watch. It was 7:00 and already getting hot in the sordid little room. I took off my suit coat and rolled up my shirtsleeves. I felt tired, having gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep. Almost as if in answer, Mike Breuning switched on a portable fan and handed me a cup of lukewarm coffee. Dudley poured Engels a cupful of pure gin.
“Your life story, lad,” he said. “We’re all dying to hear it.”
“Mom and Dad were good people,” Eddie began, his voice taking on the stentorian tone of one explaining profound intrinsic truth. “They still are, I guess. I’m from Seattle. Mom and Dad were born in Germany. They came here before the First World War. They–“