o o o
Questions and answers through black, shouts and whimpers through gauze–a wall that held faces back. Stag books, Cathcart, Pierce P.–the full drift couldn’t get through. A strain to hear “Lynn Bracken,” no yield on the name, the black going that much blacker. Mickey Cohen, ’53 and why’d you run–he tore at the gauze for that name. Shrieks that made him burrow into softness–snapshots of Lynn all around him.
Lynn blond and a whore, brunette and herself. Lynn on his thing with Inez: “Be kind to her and spare me the details.” Lynn filling up her diary while he punked out on reading it because he knew she had him down cold. Lynn thinking two steps ahead of him, drifting in and out of his life while he drifted in and out of hers. That black gauze throbbing–questions, answers. Black silence, cracked stucco swirls going light.
Room 7 at the Victory: cots for the Mobster Squad guys. The door to 6 wide open.
Bud rolled off his cot, stood up. His head throbbed, his jaw ached, he’d ripped up his pillow burrowing in. Into 6, a shambles: the hot seat, blood on the walls. No Hinton, no Dot, no Dudley and his boys. 1:10 A.M.–no way to figure out the questions and answers.
He drove home woozy, too trashed to think. He unlocked his door yawning–the overhead light went on. Something/somebody grabbed him.
Cuffs on his wrists. Ed Exley, Jack Vincennes–square in front of him. A side check: Fisk and Kleckner–I.A. shitbirds– pinning his arms.
Exley slapped him. Fisk grabbed his neck, popped a finger on his carotid.
A folder in his face. Exley: “l.A. ran a personal on you when you made sergeant, so we already know about Lynn Bracken. Vincennes had a tail on you back in ’53, and he’s got you, Bracken and Pierce Patchett in this deposition here. You braced Patchett on the Kathy Janeway homicide, and you were all over the Nite Owl like a plague. I need what you know, and if you don’t cooperate I’ll begin an I.A. investigation into your evidence suppression immediately. The Department needs a scapegoat on the old Nite Owl job–and I’m too valuable to take the fall. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll use every bit of my juice to ruin you.”
The choke hold went slack–Bud tried to pull away. Kleckner and Fisk dug in. “You fuck, I’ll fucking kill you.”
Exley laughed. “I don’t think so, and if you play you get your evidence suppression chilled, part of the collar and a little plum–a liaison to those hooker snuffs you care so much about.”
Black gauze coming back. “Lynn?”
“She’s our first interrogation–with pentothal. If she’s clean, she walks.”
He doesn’t know about _Whisper_, I’ve still got that stiff in San Berdoo. “And you and me when it’s over.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
No sleep–Vincennes’ deposition wouldn’t let him. The wake-up call he didn’t need: a reporter at 6:00 A.M. Radio news riding over: reopening speculation, a _mano a mano_ with his father–the freeway system near done, the Nite Owl hero now a villain. Parking lot pickets–Commie types demanding justice.
Early–for the most important meeting of his career.
Parker’s conference room was set up–notepads on the table. Ed wrote “Patchett,” “Bracken,” “Patchett’s ‘deal’ with Hudgens– extortion?”; he underlined “Pornography pictures match Hudgens mutilations–have Vincennes bring smut books to Bureau.” White’s contribution: “Patchett hinked on smut in ’53”; “Patchett/Englekling bros and father chem background”; “Duke Cathcart’s pad tossed & San Berdoo Yellow Pages (printshops) ruffled.” White was still holding back–he knew it.
Deposition underlined: “Patchett involved (through Fleurde-Lis racket) in (contained) distribution of smut Ad Vice chasing in ’53, smut Cathcart developed distribution scheme around, smut connected to mutilations on Hudgens’ body.”
Conclusion:
A dense series of criminal conspiracies at least five years old resulting in no fewer than four and perhaps as many as a dozen major crimes.
The other men filed in–Parker, Dudley Smith, Ellis Loew. Nods, quick sit-downs.
Parker said, “We’re reopening. The A.G.’s Office wants to usurp the job, but Ellis has filed a restraining order against them, which should buy us two weeks’ time. We’ve got two weeks to clear the case and recover the respect we lost. We’ve got two weeks before Sacramento comes down here and makes us a laughingstock. I want this case cleared, legally inviolate and in the hands of the grand jury within twelve days. Do you understand, gentlemen?”