The lawyer’s tone had gotten calmer; his face was one massive contortion. Buzz tried diplomacy again. “Reynolds Loftis, Mr. Hartshorn. He was rousted with you. Tell me what you know about him, and I’ll tell the Sheriff’s detective who’s workin’ the Lindenaur case to leave you alone, that you’re alibied up. That sound nice to you?”
Hartshorn folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know any Reynolds Loftis and I don’t make deals with grubby little policemen who reek of cheap cologne. Leave my home now.”
Hartshorn’s “Reynolds” was all wrong. Buzz moved to the sideboard, filled a glass with whiskey and walked up to the lawyer with it. “For your nerves, Charlie. I don’t want you kickin’ off a heart attack on me.”
“_Get out of my home, you grubby little worm_.”
Buzz dropped the glass, grabbed Hartshorn’s neck and slammed him against the wall. “You’re humpin’ the wrong boy, counselor. _The_ last boy around here Side 83
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The you want to fuck with. Now here’s the drill: you and Reynolds Loftis or I go into the living room and tell your little girl that daddy sucks cock at the Westlake Park men’s room and takes it up the ass on Selma and Las Palmas. And you breathe a word to anybody that I leaned on you, and I’ll have you in Confidential Magazine porkin’ nigger drag queens. _Do you understand_?”
Hartshorn was beet red and spilling tears. Buzz let go of his neck, saw the imprint of a big ham hand and made that hand a fist. Hartshorn tremble-walked to the sideboard and picked up the whiskey decanter. Buzz swung at the wall, pulling the punch at the last second. “Spill on Loftis, goddamnit.
Make it easy so I can get the fuck out of here.”
Glass on glass chimed, followed by hard breathing and silence. Buzz stared at the wall. Hartshorn spoke, his voice dead hollow. “Reynolds and I were just a . . . fling. We met at a party a Belgian man, a movie director, threw.
The man was very au courant, and he threw lots of parties at clubs for our . . .
his kind. It never got serious with Reynolds because there was a screenwriter he had been seeing, and some third man they were disturbed over. I was the odd man
. . . so it never . . .”
Buzz turned and saw Hartshorn slumped in a chair, warming his hands on a whiskey glass. “What else you got?”
“Nothing. I never saw Reynolds after that time at the Knight in Armor.
Who are you going to–”
“Nobody, Charlie. Nobody’s gonna know. I’ll just say I got word that Loftis is . . .”
“Oh God, is this the witchhunts again?”
Buzz exited to the sound of the sad bastard weeping.
o
o
o
Rain had hit while he was applying the strongarm–hard needle sheets of it, the kind of deluge that threatened to melt the foothills into the ocean and sieve out half the LA Basin. Buzz laid three to one that Hartshorn would keep his mouth shut; two to one that more cop work would drive him batshit; even money that dinner at the Nickodell and the evening at home writing up a report on the day’s dirt was the ticket. He could smell the queer’s sweat on himself, going stale with his own sweat; he felt a beaucoup case of the sucker punch blues coming on. Halfway to the office, he cracked the window for air and a rain bracer, changed directions and drove to his place.
Home was the Longview Apartments at Beverly and Mariposa, four rooms on the sixth floor, southern exposure, the pad furnished with leftovers from RKO
movie sets. Buzz pulled into the garage, ditched his car and took the elevator up. And sitting by his door was Audrey Anders in a rain-spattered, sequin-spangled, gold lamé gown, a wet mink coat in her lap. She was using it as an ashtray; when she saw Buzz, she said, “Last year’s model. Mickey’ll get me a new one,” and stubbed her cigarette out on the collar.
Buzz helped Audrey to her feet, holding her hands just a beat too long.