Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The THE BIG NOWHERE

Juan Duarte ground out his cigarette. “You mean this is about our friends?”

Mal dredged the files for ammo, grabbing the fact that all three tried to join the service after Pearl Harbor. “Look, I’ve checked your Selective Service records. You quit the Sinarquistas and the Flats, you tried to fight the Japs, you were on the right side with Sleepy Lagoon. When you were wrong you copped to it. That’s the sign of a good man in my book.”

Sammy Benavides said, “Is a stool pigeon a good man in your book, Mr.

Po–”

Duarte silenced him with a sharp elbow. “Who you trying to tell us is wrong now? Who you _want_ to be wrong?”

Finally a good opening. “How about the Party, gentlemen? How about Uncle Joe Stalin getting under the sheets with Hitler? How about slave labor camps in Siberia and all the stuff the Party has pulled in America while they condoned the stuff going on over in Russia? Gentlemen, I’ve been a cop for sixteen years and I’ve never asked a man to snitch his friends. But I’ll ask _any_ man to snitch his _enemies_, especially if they also happen to be mine.”

Mal caught his breath, thinking of Summations 115 at Stanford Law; Dudley Smith stood easy at his side. Mondo Lopez eyed the blacktop, then his _Tomahawk Massacre_ co-stars. Then all three started clapping.

Dudley flushed; Mal could see his red face going toward purple. Lopez brought a flat palm slowly down, killing the applause. “How about you tell us what this is all about?”

Mal thrashed for file dirt and came up empty. “This is a preliminary investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood. And we’re not asking you to snitch your friends, just _our_ enemies.”

Benavides pointed west, toward the front office and two picket lines.

“And this has got nothing to do with Gerstein wanting our union out and the Teamsters in?”

“No, this is a preliminary investigation that has nothing to do with whatever current labor troubles your union is involved in. This is–”

Duarte interrupted. “Why _us_? Why me and Sammy and Mondo?”

“Because you’re reformed criminals and you’d make damn good witnesses.”

“Because you thought we’d be jail-wise and bleed easy?”

“No, because you’ve been zooters and Reds, and we figured that maybe you had the brains to know it was _all_ shit.”

Benavides kicked in, a leery eye on Dudley. “You know the HUAC Committee pulled this snitch routine, and good people got hurt. Now it’s happening again, and you want us to fink?”

Mal thought of Benavides as a kiddie raper talking decency; he could _feel_ Dudley thinking the same thing, going crazy with it. “Look, I _know_

corruption. The HUAC chairman is in Danbury for bribery, HUAC itself was reckless. And I’ll admit the LAPD screwed up on the Sleepy Lagoon thing. But you can’t tell–”

Mondo Lopez shouted, “Screwed up! Pendejo, it was a fucking pogrom Side 53

Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The against my people by your people! You’re sweet-talking the wrong people on the wrong case to get the wrong fuck–”

Dudley stepped in front of the three, his suitcoat open, .45 automatic, sap and brass knuckles in plain view. His bulk cast the Mexicans in one big shadow and his brogue went up octaves, but didn’t crack. “Your seventeen filthy compatriots murdered José Diaz in cold blood and beat the gas chamber because traitors and perverts and deluded weaklings banded up to save them. And I will brook no disrespect for a brother officer in my presence. Do you understand?”

Complete silence, the UAES men still in Dudley’s shadow, stagehands eyeballing the action from the walkway. Mal stepped up to speak for himself, taller than Dudley but half his breadth. Scared. Pendejo. He got ready to give signals, then Mondo Lopez hit back. “Those seventeen got fucked by the puto LAPD

and the puto City court system. And that ees la fucking verdad.”

Dudley moved forward so that all there was between him and Lopez was the arc of a short kidney punch. Benavides backed away, shaking; Duarte mumbled that the SLDC got anonymous letters making a white guy for José Diaz, but nobody believed it; Benavides pulled him out of harm’s way. Mal grabbed Dudley’s arm; the big man flung him back and lowered his brogue to baritone range. “Did you enjoy perverting justice with the SLDC, Mondo? Did you enjoy the favors of Claire De Haven–filthy rich capitalista, tight with the City Council, a real love for that undersized spic cock?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *