Ten fingertips torn to the tendons and burned to the bone. A hot plate hooked into a wall switch. Scorched skin caught in the coils.
I rocked, rolled, reeled, and retched on the rug. I made myself memorize the murder scene.
Overturned ottomans and sofas stabbed into stuffing. Paintings pulled off walls and cut to confetti. Bookcases bumped to the floor and stomped to a stack of stale sticks.
Bad burns on the body. Scorch-scarred skin. Cigarette circles. A batch of butts blended into a blood pool.
Torment-inducing torture. Infernally inflicted. My inference: the inflictors intended to induce Linda Lansing into laying out something of interest. She rigorously resisted and refused to give IT up. IT was not information. Call IT concealable. The inflictors invaded the house with the intent to find where IT was. They went at it impulsively and impetuously. The implosive implication: IT was still here.
I looked at Linda Lansing. I blew the corpse a kiss. My memory snapped me snapshots of Linda alive and alluring and announced an anomaly. The live Linda ran lithe. The corpse ran reduced Rabelaisian.
I nudged my noggin out of necrophile notions. I bopped to a back bathroom and made for the medicine chest. I pillaged pills and concocted a chemical cocktail.
Sexy Secobarbital and devilish Dexedrine. Miltown to mellow them out. A bracing Bromo-Seltzer to bring the brew to a boil.
I licked up my elixir and chased it with a Chesterfield King. It chugged into me and detonated a depth charge. I deliberately and determinedly deep-sixed the house.
I tore up ten rooms. I upended umpteen underwear drawers. I whipped up wall-to-wall carpets and filleted fine furniture down to fabric debris. I deconstructed daybeds, divans, and doilydraped dressers. I drained drainpipes and cleaned out clothes closets and shivved behind shelves. I beat the basement walls with a baseball bat and bored into a hot little hidey-hole.
Inserted inside:
A packet of pix. Glorious glossies surreptitiously shot in Sinemascope.
Linda Lansing boffing boss butch Barbara Stanwyck. Steamy Stanny–still hot stuff.
Linda loin-locked with Lana Turner. Woo! Woo! Salivatingly sapphic!
Linda tasting tough Tallulah Bankhead. Tallulah–too much!
Linda limb-linked on a lavender bedspread. Buck naked beside Barbara Graham and Al Teitelbaum.
Sinful synergy. Pervasive perversion. A tricky trio trapped on filthy film.
A confounding connection.
A furtive fur merchant. A murder victim and a murderess who graced the green room at San Quentin. A connection to confront: Bob Duhamel did duty on the Barbara Graham case.
I pored over the pix. I stared at them and steamed them up. I dripped drool on Linda Lansing–lezzed out and lithe. A dykechotomy: her corpse ran corpulent.
?????
Perched by the pix:
A loose-leaf ledger. Latin names listed in left-hand columns. Five-figure moneymakings mapped to the right.
Martinez, Madragon, Marquez–Mex monickers. Tostado, Trejo, Tarquez–taco-heads all. Pellicar, Peja, P. Pimentel–
Whoa now, wait–
Juan Pimentel–the pincushion/piñata at the parking lot. The make-believe marijuana maven. The bad-luck busboy and scandal scapegoat.
?????
I packed the pix behind some pipes and laid the ledgers under a layer of loose linoleum. I beat feet to the back bedroom and bored through a bunch of books I’d flung to the floor. Va-va-voom–the Variety Directory for 1954.
I leafed to the Ls and found “Lansing, Joi.”
“Actress. B. 416/2 8, Salt Lake City.”
I leafed to “Lansing, Linda.”
“Singer. B. 5/2 1/30, Salt Lake City.”
I looked at the Lansing listings. I perused two publicity pix. They blended blonde. They blurred and blossomed blissfully as near-identical twins.
“Nice stuff. I had the better one, so I should know.”
A vivid voice–low and lezlike.
My hackles hopped. I hurled myself around and hoped for the best. I hitched eyes with Deputy Dot Rothstein.
Dildo dyke. Sheba the Sheriff’s She-Dog at the Women’s Jail downtown. A yenta with a yen for young cooze. A Large Marge in a man’s suit.
I came on cooooool. “You look good, Dot. You make me wish I was a woman.”
Dot shot me a boot to the balls. I belched bile and bounced to my knees. Pain pounded me.
Dot said, “Stay there. I like my women in that position.”
I stood up straight and strong. I flipped Dot the finger. She bent it back and bit itto the bone.