“_A taste of what?_”
“Shit, I just wanted to bust up that Glenda cooze.”
I froze–Ainge kept talking–rank wine breath.
“… you know, I just wanted to put the hurt on something Howard Hughes put the boots to. I got fired at Hughes Aircraft during the war, so you could maybe call that Glenda cunt my payback. Va-va-voom, that is some fine piece of–”
I kicked his chair over, threw the TV at his head. He ducked–tubes popped, exploded. I grabbed Junior’s gun–aimed, fired–clicks, no fucking clip, fuck me.
Ainge snaked under the bed. Soft, talking nice:
“Look, you think that Glenda woman’s My Fair Lady? Look, I _know_ her, she used to whore for this pimp Dwight Gilette. I can hand her up to you on a _guaranteed gas-chamber bounce_.”
“Gilette”–vague–a 187 unsolved. I unloaded my own piece–safety valve.
Ainge, soft: “Look, I sold guns then. Glenda knew that. Gilette was slapping her around, so she bought a .32 to protect herself. I don’t know, something happened, so Glenda shot Gilette. She shot him, and she ended up taking his knife away from him. She fucking cut him too, and then she sold me the gun back.
I’ve got it stashed, you know, I figured maybe some day, some reason, maybe it’s got prints on it, I was gonna threaten her with it on the kidnap thing. Touch, he don’t know about it, _but you can make this a fucking gas-chamber job_.”
Make the case:
’55, ’56–Dwight Gilette, mulatto pimp, dead at his pad. Highland Park dicks handled it: fatal shots, no gun found–the stiff stabbed postmortem. Knife man Gilette–aka “Blue Blade.” Forensics: two blood types made; female hair and bone chips found. Hypothesis: knife fight with a whore, some hooker shot/shanked a skilled blade freak.
Bugs up my spine.
Ainge kept talking–gibberish–I didn’t hear it. Junior scribbled up his notebook fast.
Fast–don’t think why–find the gun.
One room–an easy toss–closet, dresser, cupboards. Ainge blabbing non-stop–Junior coaxing him out from under the bed. Tossing hard, tossing zero: skin mags, probation forms, rubbers. Topsy-turvy glimpses: evidence prof Junior stacking pages.
No gun.
Side 49
Ellroy – White Jazz
“Dave.”
Ainge cozied up–a fresh bottle half guzzled. Junior: “Dave, we’ve got ourselves a homicide.”
“No. It’s too old, and there’s just this geek’s word.”
“Dave, come on.”
“No. Ainge, where’s the gun?”
No answer.
“Tell me where the gun is, goddamn it.”
No answer.
“Ainge, give up the fucking gun.”
Junior, quick hand signals: LET ME WORK HIM.
Work shit–grab his notebook. Skim it–Georgie’s pitch down– details, approximate dates. No locate on the gun–call odds on latent prints thirty to one.
Junior, flexing his mean streak: “Dave, give me my notebook back.”
I shoved it at him. “Wait outside.”
This X-ray stare-not bad for a punk.
“_Stemmons, wait outside_.”
Junior eeeased out, tough-guy slow. I locked the door and fixed on Ainge.
“Give up the gun.”
“Not on your life. I was talking scared then, but now I figure different. You want my interpretation?”
Brass knucks, get ready.
“My interpretation is the kid thinks a murder beef for the Glenda cooze is a good idea, but for some reason you don’t. I also know that if I give up that gun it’s a probation violation vis-a-fucking-vis harboring contraband items. You know what a ‘hole card’ is? You know–”
On him–knucks downstairs/upstairs–flab rippers/broken face bones/fear-of-God time:
“No kidnapping. Not a word to Touch or Rockwell. You don’t talk about Glenda Bledsoe, you don’t go near her. You don’t give that gun up to my partner or anyone else.”
Coughs/moans/sputters trying to yes me. Bloody phlegm on my hands; shock waves up my knuck arm. I kicked through TV rubble getting out.
* * *
Junior on the sidewalk, smoking. No preamble: “We pop the Bledsoe woman for Gilette. Bob Gallaudet will grant Ainge immunity on the gun charge. Dave, she’s Howard Hughes’ ex-girlfriend. This is a big major case.”
Head throbs. “It’s shit. Ainge told me the gun story was a lie. What we’ve got is a three-year-old homicide with one convicted-felon hearsay witness. _It’s shit_.”
Side 50
Ellroy – White Jazz
“No, Ainge lied _to you_. I think there is a gun extant.”