As he said the words, Mal knew it was one of the finest moments of his life. “Lean on him, Danny. I’ll stand the heat, and if anyone gives you grief, you’ve got the Chief DA’s Investigator for the City of Los Angeles in your corner.”
Danny stood up, looking heartbreaker grateful. Mal said, “Go home and sleep, Ted. Have a nightcap on me.” The decoy left, saluting his brother officers; Buzz breathed out slowly. “That boy is up on a tall old tree limb lookin’ down at a tall old boy with a saw, and you’ve got more balls than brains.”
It was just about the nicest thing anyone ever told him. Mal said, “Have Side 135
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The another piece of pie, lad. I’m picking up the check.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The hall window scraping, three soft footsteps on the bedroom floor.
Buzz stirred, rolled away from Audrey, reached under the pillow and palmed his .38, camouflaging the movement with a sleep sigh. Two more footsteps, Audrey snoring, light through a crack in the curtains eclipsed. A shape coming around his side of the bed; the sound of a hammer being cocked; “Mickey, you’re dead.”
Buzz stiff-armed Audrey to the floor, away from the voice; a silencer snicked and muzzle flash lit up a big man in a dark overcoat. Audrey screamed; Buzz felt the mattress rip an inch from his legs. In one swipe, he grabbed his billy club off the nightstand and swung it at the man’s knees; wood-encased steel cracked bone; the man stumbled toward the bed. Audrey shrieked, “Meeks!”; a shot ripped the far wall; another half second of muzzle light gave Buzz a sighting. He grabbed the man’s coat and pulled him to the bed, smothered his head with a pillow and shot him twice in the face point-blank.
The explosions were muffled; Audrey screeching was siren loud. Buzz moved around the bed and bear-hugged her, killing her tremors with his own shakes. He whispered, “Go into the bathroom, keep the light off and your head down. This was for Mickey, and if there’s a back-up man outside, he’s comin’.
Stay fuckin’ down and stay fuckin’ calm.”
Audrey retreated on her knees; Buzz went into the living room, parted the front curtains and looked out. There was a sedan parked directly across the street that wasn’t there when he walked in; no other cars were stationed curbside. He did a runthrough on what probably happened: _He_ looked like Mickey from a distance; _he_ drove a green ’48 Eldo.
Mickey’s house was bombed yesterday; Mickey, wife and pet bulldog survived. _He_
parked his car the standard three blocks away; half-assed surveillance convinced the gunman _he_ was Mickey, a short fat okie subbing for a short fat Jew.
Buzz kept eyeballing the sedan; it stayed still, no tell-tale cigarette glow. Five minutes went by; no cops or backup men appeared. Buzz took it as a single-o play, walked back to the bedroom and flicked on the overhead light.
The room reeked of cordite; the bed was soaked in blood; the pillow was solid saturated crimson. Buzz lifted it off and propped up the dead man’s head.
It had no face, there were no exit wounds, all the red was leaking out his ears.
He rifled his pockets–and the wicked bad willies came on.
An LAPD badge and ID buzzer: Detective Sergeant Eugene J. Niles, Hollywood Squad. An Automobile Club card, vehicle dope in the lower left corner–maroon ’46 Ford Crown Victoria Sedan, Cal ’49 JS 1497. A California driver’s license made out to Eugene Niles, residence 3987 Melbourne Avenue, Hollywood. Car keys and other keys and pieces of paper with Audrey’s address and an architectural floor plan for a house that looked like Mickey’s pad in Brentwood.
Old rumors, new facts, killer shakes.
The LAPD was behind the shootout at Sherry’s; Jack D. and Mickey had buried the hatchet; Niles worked Hollywood Division, the eye of the Brenda Allen storm. Buzz ran across the street on fear overdrive, saw that the sedan was ’46
Vicky JS 1497, unlocked the trunk and ran back. He hauled out a big bed quilt, wrapped Niles and his gun up in it, shoulder-slung him up and over to the Vicky and locked him in the trunk, folding him double next to the spare tire. Panting, sweat-soaked and shaky, he walked back and braced Audrey.