TV tubes dumped on chairs and a dusty old couch. A six-slat shelf packed with diodes and diagnostic devices. Four walls of perverted pinup pulchritude.
Women trussed with rope. Women spread-eagled. Women gagged with black rubber balls. Chaste shots of Joi Lansing on the Dragnet set.
I lingered on Joi. Harvey caught it.
“She just broke up with Jack Webb. Jack’s torching. Joi’s working the line at Ciro’s, and Jack sits ringside every night.”
Cal Dinkins knew Jack Webb. Webb was LAPD Shill #1.
“Did you take those pictures of her?”
Harvey twisted three wires and taped them above my right nipple. “I used to be Jack’s unit photographer.”
I took a big whiff of Harvey. I took in his peeper pix and his panty-sniffer paraphernalia. I smelled ex-con. I smelled snitch. I smelled rabid Rottweiler.
“Let me guess. Jack heard you served time. He cut you loose, and Freddy 0 picked up your option.”
Harvey deadpanned me. “You should stand away from electrical appliances. They screw up the sound quality.”
I said, “Jack’s tight with Chief Parker. I heard the LAPD runs R & I checks on the Dragnet crew, and I’ll bet they turned up a rap sheet on you.”
Harvey pulled a wild hair off my chest. I yelped. Harvey dabbed a styptic pencil on the raw spot.
“I’m a certified genius. I can broadcast TV pictures from any installation to any individual TV set, which means I don’t have to sit still for your insinuations.”
I looked at the bondage pix. I saw yellow bands on the girls’ wrists. Sybil Brand inmates wore yellow wristbands.
Cal Dinkins to Playboy:
“Recruit colored tail for the movie gig” / “Chauffeur the girls out of Sybil Brand” / “All he wants to do is take pictures.”
“What did you go up for, Harvey? Statch rape? Flimflam? Some weenie-wagger beef? I think you–”
Harvey pinched a tuft of hair and ripped it off my chest. I yelped. Harvey said, “Be nice, Dick. You’re an ex-convict yourself.”
4
My chest stubble itched. My tape wrap stung. My tuxedo smelled like mothballs.
I parked outside the Wilshire-Ebell. I saw a sign by the door: SISTER KENNY FOUNDATION GALA. I saw the nut-ward orderly and a strapping goon parked in a tow-away zone.
I walked inside. They watched me. I flashed my invitation to a hostess and zoomed straight back to the bar.
I was early. The ballroom was almost empty. Two nuns and a priest were blasting scotch at a bar-side table. The nuns looked half-gassed. They saw me and giggled.
I ordered a quadruple martini. I told the barman to put it in a pail or a dog dish. He brought me a pitcher and a glass and cleared out fast.
I drank. I kept my back to the ballroom and heard it fill up behind me. I heard people at the bar whisper, “That’s Dick Contino.”
I kept my snout in my glass. The booze sparked political conversions and apostasies. I moved left and denounced Joe McCarthy. I moved right and shot Alger Hiss 2,000 volts. I freed the Scottsboro Boys and beat Helen Gahagan Douglas to death with my accordion.
The booze enlightened. The booze obfuscated. I figured I’d see Viv and respond to stimuli like Pavlov’s fucking dog.
I heard a familiar voice. I recognized it. I glanced two stools down.
Gene Biscailuz plucked the fruit off an old-fashioned. L. Trent Woodard sucked a cherry out of his Manhattan.
I saw Woodard. He didn’t see me. I eavesdropped.
Biscailuz made small talk. Polio and Sister Kenny–blah, blah, blah. Woodard said, “Sheriff, let’s talk turkey. You can’t let Bill Parker and the city cops bootjack all that money. You can’t–”
Woodard saw me. He dropped the Sheriff in midspiel and slid two stools down. I slid to the far right and got right up in his face.
“Back off, baby doll. I’m a pistol-packing white man, and I don’t like your leanings. And don’t blast the LAPD and invoke me in the same breath. Those guys are the thin blue line between freedom and the fifth column.”
Woodard dropped his glass. A priest spun off his stool and spilled scotch in my lap. I shouted my declaration. My chest mike must have caught every word.