High swank gone white trash–three crackers passed out on the floor. Booze empties, dumped ashtrays, no Spade.
Connecting doors–the one on the right featured noise. Bud kicked it in.
Deuce Perkins in bed watching cartoons. Bud pulled his gun. “Where’s Cooley?”
Perkins popped in a toothpick. “On a drunk, which is where I’m goin’. You want to see him, come to the El Rancho tonight. Chances are he’ll show up.”
“The fuck, he’s the headliner.”
“Most times. But Spade’s been erratic lately, so I been film’ in. I sing good as him and I’m better lookin’, so nobody seems to mind. Now, you want to get out of here and leave me alone with my entertainment?”
“Where’s he drinking?”
“Put that gun away, junior. The worse you got him for’s nonpayment of child support, and Spade always pays sooner or later.”
“Nix, this is Murder One, and I heard he likes opium.”
Perkins coughed out his toothpick. “What’d you say?”
“Hookers. Spade like young girls?”
“He don’t like to kill them, just play hide the tubesteak like you and me.”
“_Where is he?_”
“Man, I’m not no snitch.”
Backhanded pistolwhips–Perkins yelped, spat teeth. The TV went loud: kids squealing for Kellogg’s Cornflakes. Bud shot the screen out.
Deuce snitched: “Check the ‘0’ joints in Chinatown and please fuckin’ leave me alone!”
Kathy said KILL HIM. Bud thought of his mother for the first time in years.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The doctor said, “I told this to your Captain Exley, and I told him an interview with Mr. Goldman would most likely prove fruitless–the man is simply not lucid most of the time. However, since he insisted on sending you up here, I’ll run through it again.”
Jack looked around. Camarillo was creepy: lots of geeks, geek artwork on the walls. “Would you? The captain wants a statement from him.”
“Well, he’ll be lucky to get one. Last July, Mr. Goldman and his confrere Mickey Cohen were attacked with knives and pipes at McNeil Island Prison. Unidentified assailants apparently, and Cohen was relatively unharmed while Mr. Goldman suffered serious brain damage. Both men were paroled late last year, and Mr. Goldman began to behave quite erratically. Late in December he was arrested for urinating in public in Beverly Hills, and the judge ordered him here for ninety days’ observation. We’ve had him since Christmas and we’ve just recycled him in for another ninety. Frankly, we can’t do a thing with him, and the only thing mysterious is that Mr. Cohen visited and offered to transfer Mr. Goldman to a private treatment facility at his own expense, but Mr. Goldman refused and acted terrified of him. Isn’t that odd?”
“Maybe not. Where is he?”
“On the other side of that door. Be gentle with him, please. The man was a gangster, but he’s just a sad human being now.”
Jack opened the door. A small padded room; Davey Goldman on a long padded bench. He needed a shave; he reeked of Lysol. Slack-jawed Davey scoping a _National Geographic_.
Jack sat beside him–Goldman moved away. Jack said, “This place is the shits. You should’ve let Mickey spring you.”
Goldman picked his nose, ate it.
“Davey, you on the outs with Mickey?”
Goldman held out his magazine–naked Negroes waving spears.
“Cute, and when they start showing white stuff I’ll subscribe. Davey, you remember me? Jack Vincennes? I used to work LAPD Narco and we used to run into each other on the Strip.”
Goldman scratched his balls. He smiled, low voltage, nobody home.
“Is this an act? Come on, Davey. You and the Mick go way back. You know he’d take care of you.”
Goldman squashed an invisible bug. “Not anymore.”
A gone man’s voice–nobody could fake it that good. “Say, Davey, whatever happened to Dean Van Gelder? You remember him, he used to visit you at McNeil.”
Goldman picked his nose, wiped it on his feet. Jack said, “Dean Van Gelder. He visited you at McNeil in ’53, right around the time these two guys Pete and Bax Englekling visited Mickey. Now you’re afraid of Mickey, and Van Gelder clipped a guy named Duke Cathcart and got clipped himself during the world famous Nite Owl fucking Massacre. You got any brains left to talk about that?”