The sheriff shoved the papers at Davis. “He might have, you didn’t interrupt our interrogation.”
“You’ve had him for three days,” I said. “He should have blabbed by now”
Treadwell spat blood on the sheriff’s spit-shined cowboy boots; when the man balled his fists to retaliate, Davis stationed himself between the two. “He’s my prisoner now Signed, sealed, and deeeelivered.”
Stensland said, “This won’t wash. Treadwell’s a federal prisoner.” I shook my head. “He’s got city warrants predating the extradition one, and the extradition warrant is countersigned by a federal judge. He’s ours.”
Stensland bored in on me with beady gray eyes. I stood there, deadpan, and he tried a smile and cop-to-cop empathy. “Listen, Officer–”
“It’s Sergeant.”
“All right, _Sergeant_, listen: the Viertel girl and the other two men are still at large, and this filth was responsible for one of my agents losing six fingers. Don’t you want to go back to Los Angeles with a confession? Don’t you want his filthy brothers captured? Don’t you want to let us try it our way just a little bit longer?”
Davis said, “Your way don’t work, so we try mine,” walked over, and unlocked Harwell Treadwell’s cuffs. Standing up, the Okie snatch artist almost collapsed, and bile crept from the corners of his mouth. Davis eased him out to the catwalk, and I said to Stensland, “That warrant has an evidence clause. I need everything you found at the crime scene, including the ransom money you recovered.”
The fed flinched, then shook his head. “Not until Monday. It’s locked up in a safe at the courthouse, and the courthouse is closed until then.”
“How much was there?”
“Twenty-one hundred something.”
I said, “Send it down with an itemized receipt,” and walked out of the cell with the two minions of the law staring razor blades at me. I caught up with Davis and Treadwell at the barred enclosure, and the deputy snickered at the doubled-over prisoner. Treadwell shot a blood cocktail onto his shirtfront, and when fat boy stood up, shot him a pointy-toe boot to the balls. Davis whooped, “You a mother dog!” and the deputy nosedived onto his well-thumbed issue of _Batman_.
* * *
Davis’s “way” consisted of our taking Harwell Treadwell to a jig joint on Ventura’s south side and plying him with fried chicken, gravy-drenched biscuits, and yams while I held my gun on him and my car-crazed partner fired questions about the ’36 Auburn speedster. Treadwell obliged between wolfish mouthfuls, and Davis expressed worry that the Auburn would get shot up when the remaining Treadwell brothers got taken down by the law. “You worry about that girl,” Harwell told us over and over. “Them partners of mine got hound blood.” Then I interjected, “You mean your brothers?” and Treadwell always countered with, “I ain’t no snitch, son.”
It was midafternoon when we finally headed south on Pacific Coast Highway, me at the wheel, Davis and the extraditee in the backseat, Treadwell’s wrists cuffed behind his back, ankles manacled to the front-seat housing. The ragtop was down and sunlight and seabreeze had me thinking that this wasn’t such a bad assignment after all. Behind me, the two Okies jawed, sparred, rattled each other’s cages.
“Who’s got the pink slip on the speedster, boy?”
“Who’s your haberdasher? I never seen so many divergent angles on a set of threads in my life.”
“I got Hollywood in me, boy.”
“Nigger blood more like it. Where you from in Oklahoma?”
“Outside Norman. You from Gila Bend?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s to do there?”
“Set dog’s tails on fire and watch flies fuck, drink, fight, and chase your sister.”
“I heard your brothers go for anything white and on the hoof.”
“Plain anything, boss. If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
“You think they’ll hurt the Viertel girl?”
“That girl can take care of herself, and I ain’t sayin’ my brothers got her.”
“How’d you find out about her?”
“Miller read the society page and fell in love.”
“I thought you said your brothers weren’t in on this.”
“I ain’t sayin’ they are, I ain’t sayin they isn’t.”
“Kidnappin’s Oklahoma stuff from way back. The Barkers, Pretty Boy. How you account for that?”