The smell of blood and feathers was making him gag. Buzz noticed a pulley system linking the maintenance huts to the clinic, a tram car stationed on a landing dock about ten yards in back of the chicken shack. “Let’s go up to your office. I’ve got some questions about a woman who I’m pretty damn sure was a patient of yours.”
Lux frowned and cleaned his nails with a scalpel. “I never divulge confidential patient information. You know that. It’s a prime reason why Mr.
Hughes and yourself use my services exclusively.”
“Just a few questions, Terry.”
“I suppose money instead is out of the question?”
“I don’t need money, I need information.”
“And if I don’t proffer this information you’ll take your business elsewhere?”
Buzz nodded toward the tram car. “No tickee, no washee. Be nice to me, Terry. I’m in with the City of Los Angeles these days, and I just might get the urge to spill about that dope you manufacture here.”
Lux scratched his neck with the scalpel. “For medical purposes only, and politically approved.”
Side 81
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The
“Doc, you tellin’ me you don’t trade the skim to Mickey C. for _his_
referrals? The City hates Mickey, you know.”
Lux bowed in the direction of the car; Buzz walked ahead and got in. The doctor hit a switch; sparks burst from the cables; they moved slowly up and docked on an overhang adjacent to a portico with a spectacular ocean view. Lux led Buzz down a series of antiseptic white hallways to a small room crammed with filing cabinets. Medical posters lined the walls: a picture primer for plastic surgeons, facial reconstruction in the style of Thomas Hart Benton. Buzz said,
“Claire Katherine De Haven. She’s some kind of Commie.”
Lux opened a cabinet, leafed through folders, plucked one and read from the top page: “Claire Katherine De Haven, date of birth May 5, 1910. Chronic controlled alcoholic, sporadically addicted to phenobarbital, occasional Benzedrine use, occasional heroin skin-popper. She took my special cure I told you about three times–in ’39, ’43, and ’47. That’s it.”
Buzz said, “Nix, I want more. That file of yours list any details? Any good dirt?”
Lux held up the folder. “It’s mostly medical charts and financial accountings. You can read them if you like.”
“No thanks. You remember her good, Terry. I can tell. So feed me.”
Lux put the file back and slid the cabinet shut. “She seduced a few of her fellow patients while she was here the first time. It caused an upheaval, so in ’43 I kept her isolated. She was on remorseful both times, and on her second go-round I gave her a little psychiatric counseling.”
“You a headshrinker?”
Lux laughed. “No, but I enjoy getting people to tell me things. In ’43
De Haven told me she wanted to reform because some Mexican boyfriend of hers got beat up in the zoot suit riots and she wanted to work more efficaciously for the People’s Revolt. In ’47 the Red hearings back east sent her around the twist–some pal of hers got his you-know-what in the wringer. HUAC was good for business, Buzz. Lots of remorse, ODs, suicide attempts. Commies with money are the best Commies, don’t you agree?”
Buzz ran the rest of the target list through his head. “Who got his dick in the wringer, some bimbo of Claire’s?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Morton Ziffkin?”
“No.”
“One of her spics? Benavides, Lopez, Duarte?”
“No, it wasn’t a Mex.”
“Chaz Minear, Reynolds Loftis?”
Bingo on “Loftis”–Lux’s face muscles tensing, coming together around a phony smile. “No, not them.”
Buzz said, “Horseshit. You give on that. Now.”
Lux shrugged–phony. “I had a case on Claire, and so did Loftis. I was jealous. When you mentioned him, that brought it all back.”
Buzz laughed–his patented shitkicker job. “Horse pucky. You’ve only got a case on money, so you fuckin’ give me better than that.”
The doctor got out his scalpel and tapped it against his leg. “Okay, let’s try this. Loftis used to buy heroin for Claire, and I didn’t like it–I wanted her beholden to me. Satisfied?”
A good morning’s work: the woman as a hophead/Mex fucker, Benavides a maybe kiddie raper, Loftis copping H for a fellow Red. “Who’d he glom from?”