Then a gunshot, then another and another.
Danny jolted awake. He heard a fourth ring, saw that he’d sweated the bed sopping, felt like he had to piss and threw off the jacket to find his trousers wet. He fumbled over to the phone and blurted, “Yes?”
“Danny, it’s Jack.”
“Yeah, Jack.”
“Son, I cleared you with the assistant watch commander, this lieutenant Side 130
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The named Poulson. He’s pals with Al Dietrich, and he’s reasonable about our Department.”
Danny thought: and Dietrich’s pals with Felix Gordean, who’s got LAPD
and DA’s Bureau pals, and Niles is pals with God knows who on the Sheriff’s.
“What about Niles?”
“He’s been yanked from our job. I told Poulson he’d been riding you, that he provoked the fight. I think you’ll be okay.” A pause, then, “Are you okay? Did you sleep?”
The dream was coming back; Danny stifled a shot of HIM. “Yeah, I slept.
Jack, I don’t want Mal Considine to hear about what happened.”
“He’s your boss on the grand jury?”
“Right.”
“Well, I won’t tell him, but somebody probably will.”
Mike Breuning and Dudley Smith replaced HIM. “Jack, I have to do some work on the other job. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Shortell said, “One more thing. We got minor league lucky on our hot car queries–an Olds was snatched two blocks from La Paloma. Abandoned at the Samo Pier, no prints, but I’m adding ‘car thief’ to our records checks. And we’re a hundred and forty-one down on the dental queries. It’s going slow, but I have a hunch we’ll get him.”
HIM.
Danny laughed, yesterday’s wounds aching, new bone bruises firing up in his knuckles. “Yeah, we’ll get him.”
o
o
o
Danny segued back to Krugman with a shower and change of clothes, Red Ted the stud in Karen Hiltscher’s sports jacket, pegged flannels and a silk shirt from Considine’s disguise kit. He drove to Beverly Hills middle-lane slow, checking his rear-view every few seconds for cars riding his tail too close and a no-face man peering too intently, shining his headlights too bright because deep down he wanted to be caught, wanted everyone to know WHY. No likely suspects appeared in the mirror; twice his trawling almost got him into fender benders. He arrived at Claire De Haven’s house forty-five minutes early; he saw Caddies and Lincoins in the driveway, muted lights glowing behind curtained windows and one narrow side dormer cracked for air, screened and shade covered–but open. The dormer faced a stone footpath and tall shrubs separating the De Haven property from the neighboring house; Danny walked over, squatted down and listened.
Words came at him, filtered through coughs and garbled interruptions. He picked out a man’s shout: “Cohen and his farshtunkener lackeys have to go nutso first”; Claire’s “It’s all in knowing when to squeeze.” A soft, mid-Atlantic drawl: “We have to give the studios an out to save face with, that’s why knowing when is so important. It has to hit the fan just right.”
Danny kept checking his blind side for witnesses; he heard a long digression on the ’52 presidential election–who’d run, who wouldn’t–that degenerated into a childish shouting match, Claire finally dominating with her opinion of Stevenson and Taft, fascist minions of varying stripes. There was something about a movie director named Paul Doinelle and his “Cocteau-like”
classics; then an almost complete duet: the soft-voiced man chuckling over “old flames,” a man with a stentorian Southern accent punch-lining, “But I got Claire.” Danny recalled the psychiatric files: Reynolds Loftis and Chaz Minear were lovers years ago; Considine told him that now Claire and Loftis were engaged to be married. He got stomach flip-flops and looked at his watch: 8:27, time to meet the enemy.
He walked around and rang the bell. Claire opened the door and said,
“Right on time”; Danny saw that her makeup and slacks suit tamped down her wrinkles and showed off her curves better than the powder job and dress at the restaurant. He said, “You look lovely, Claire.”
Claire whispered, “Save it for later,” took his arm and led him into the living room, subtle swank offset by framed movie posters: Pinko titles from the grand jury package. Three men were standing around holding drinks: a Semitic-looking guy in tweeds, a small, trim number wearing a tennis sweater and white ducks, and a dead ringer composite for HIM–a silver-maned man pushing fifty, topping six feet by at least two inches, as lanky as Mal Considine but ten times as handsome. Danny stared at his face, thinking something about the set of his eyes was familiar, then looked away–queer or ex-queer or whatever, he was just an image–a Commie, not a killer.