Upshaw pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his hip pocket. “This was in last Tuesday’s _Herald_. ‘Yesterday evening tragedy occurred at a convivial cocktail lounge in the Silverlake District. A gunman entered the friendly Moonmist Lounge, carrying a large-caliber pistol. He forced the bartender and three patrons to lie on the floor, ransacked the cash register and stole jewelry, wallets and purses belonging to his four victims. The bartender tried to apprehend the robber, and he pistol-whipped him senseless. The bartender died of head injuries this morning at Queen of Angels Hospital. The surviving robbery victims described the assailant as “an Italian-looking white man, late thirties, five-ten, one hundred and ninety pounds.”‘ Vinnie, that’s you.”
Scoppettone shrieked, “That ain’t me!” Mal craned his neck and squinted at the print on Upshaw’s newspaper, glomming a full page on last week’s fight card at the Olympic. He thought: pull out the stops, bluff him down, hit him once, don’t get carried away and you’re my boy–
“_That ain’t fucking me!_”
Upshaw leaned over the table, hard in Scoppettone’s face. “I don’t fucking care. You’re standing in a lineup tonight, and the three squarejohns from the Moonmist Lounge are gonna look you over. Three white bread types who think all wops are Al Capone. See, I don’t want you for the Sun-Fax, Vinnie, I want you for keeps.”
“I didn’t do it!”
“Prove it!”
“I can’t prove it!”
“Then you’ll take the fucking fall!”
Scoppettone was putting his whole body into his head, the only part of him not lashed down. He shook it; he twisted it; he thrust his chin back and forth like a ram trying to batter a fence. Mal got a flash: the kid had him nailed for a backup heist that night; the whole performance was orchestrated for the newspaper punch line. He elbowed Dudley and said, “Ours”; Dudley gave him the thumbs-up. Vinnie Scoppettone tried to jerk his chair off the floor; Danny Upshaw grabbed a handful of his hair and slapped his face–forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand–until he went limp and blubbered, “Deal. Deal. Deal.”
Side 76
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Upshaw whispered in Scoppettone’s ear; Vinnie drooled an answer. Mal stood on his tiptoes for a better shot at the speaker and heard only static.
Dudley lit a cigarette and smiled; Upshaw hit a button under the table. Two uniformed deputies and a woman holding a steno pad double-timed down the corridor. They opened the interrogation room door and swooped on their live one; Danny Upshaw walked out and said, “Oh shit.”
Mal studied the reaction. “Good work, Deputy. You were damn good.”
Upshaw looked at him, then Dudley. “You’re City, right?”
Mal said, “Right, DA’s Bureau. My name’s Considine, this is Lieutenant Smith.”
“And it’s about?”
Dudley said, “Lad, we were going to reprimand you for rattling Mr.
Herman Gerstein’s cage, but that’s water under the bridge now. Now we’re going to offer you a job.”
“_What_?”
Mal took Upshaw’s arm and steered him a few feet away. “It’s a decoy plant for a grand jury investigation into Communist activity in the movie studios. A very well-placed DA is running the show, and he’ll be able to square a temporary transfer with Captain Dietrich. The job is a career maker, and I think you should say yes.”
“No.”
“You can transfer to the Bureau clean after the investigation. You’ll be a lieutenant before you’re thirty.”
“No. I don’t want it.”
“What _do_ you want?”
“I want to supervise the triple homicide case I’m working–for the County _and_ the City.”
Mal thought of Ellis Loew balking, other City hotshots he could grease for the favor. “I think I can manage it.”
Dudley came over, clapped Upshaw on the back and winked. “There’s a woman you’ll have to get next to, lad. You might have to fuck the pants off of her.”
Deputy Danny Upshaw said, “I welcome the opportunity.”
PART TWO
Upshaw, Considine, Meeks
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He was a cop again, bought and paid for, in with major leaguers playing for keeps. Howard’s bonus had him out of hock with Leotis Dineen, and if the grand jury succeeded in booting the UAES from the studios he’d be minor-league rich. He had a set of keys to Ellis Loew’s house and the use of the City clerks who’d be typing and filing there. He had a “target list” of Pinkos untouched by previous grand juries. And he had the _big_ list: UAES top dogs to glom criminal dirt on, no direct approaches now that they were deep in subterfuge, with newspaper pieces planted that said their investigation was dead. An hour ago he’d had his secretary place query calls to his local Fed contact, City/County DMV/R&I and the criminal records bureaus of California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon States, requesting arrest report information on Claire De Haven, Morton Ziffkin, Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis and three unholy-sounding pachucos: Mondo Lopez, Sammy Benavides and Juan Duarte, asterisks after their names denoting them “known youth gang members.” The gang squad boss at Hollenbeck Station had been his only call back; he said that the three were bad apples– members of a zooter mob in the early ’40s before they cleaned up and “got political.” East LA would be his first stop–once his secretary logged in the rest of her responses to his call-outs.