Inez shook her head. “No, who is he?”
“He’s an investor of sorts, that’s all I can tell you. I need you to use your access at Dream-a-Dreamland to check his financial connections to Dieterling. Check back to the late ’20s, very quietly. Will you do that for me?”
“Exley, this sounds like police business. And what does it have to do with your father?”
Recoiling: doubting the man who formed him. “Father might be in some tax trouble. I need you to check Dieterling’s financial records for mention of him.”
“Bad trouble?”
“Yes.”
“Check back to ’50 or so? When they began planning for Dream-a-Dreamland?”
“No, go back to 1932. I know you’ve seen the books at Dieterling Productions, and I know you can do it.”
“With explanations to follow?”
More recoil. “On Election Day. Come on, Inez. You love him almost as much as I do.”
“All right. For your father.”
“No other reason?”
“All right, for what you’ve done for me and the friends you gave me. And if that sounds cruel, I’m sorry.”
A Moochie Mouse clock struck ten. Ed said, “I should go, I’ve got a meeting in L.A.”
“Go out the back way. I think I still hear the vultures.”
o o o
The recoil got squared driving back.
Call it standard elimination procedure:
If his father really did know Ray Dieterling during the time of the Atherton case, he had a valid reason for not revealing it, he was probably embarrassed at plumbing business deals with a man he once rubbed shoulders with in the process of a hellish murder investigation. Preston Exley believed that policemen striking friendships with influential civilians was inimical to the concept of impartial absolute justice, and if he fell short of his own standards it was understandable that he would not want the fact known.
Squared with love and respect.
Ed made the Dining Car early; the maître d’ said his guest was waiting. He walked back to his favorite booth–a private nook behind the bar. Vincennes was there, holding a tape spool.
Ed sat down. “That’s tape off a bug?”
Vincennes slid the spool over. “Yeah, filled with Mickey C. running off at the mouth on stuff that has nothing to do with the Nite Owl. Too bad, but I think we can put Davey down as a traitor to Mickey, and I think he must have heard the Engleklings offer Mick the Cathcart deal. He liked the sound of it and sent Van Gelder after Duke. And that’s as far as I can take it.”
The man looked shot. “Good work, Jack. Really, I mean it.”
“Thanks, and that first name bit just went over large.”
Ed picked up a menu, emptied his pockets underneath it. “It’s midnight and I’m all out of subtlety.”
“You’re working up to something. What’d you get out of Bracken?”
“Nothing but lies. And you’re right, Sergeant. The McNeil end is dead for now.”
“So?”
“So tomorrow I’m hitting Patchett. I’m sealing l.A. off from Dudley and his men and bringing in Terry Lux, Chester Yorkin and every Patchett flunky that Fisk and Kleckner can find.”
“Yeah, but what about Bracken and Patchett?”
Ed saw Lynn naked. “Bracken tried to buy out of your deposition. She snitched you on that escapade in Malibu, and I played her back on it.”
Trash slammed his head down on two clenched fists. Ed said, “I told her you’d do anything to get the file back. I told her you still love dope and you’re in hock to some bookies. You’re up for a trial board and you want to crash Patchett’s rackets.”
Vincennes raised his head–pale, knuckle-gouged. “So tell me you’ll square what’s in the file.”
Ed picked up his menu. Underneath: heroin, Benzedrine, a switchblade, a 9mm automatic. “You’re going to shake Patchett down. He snorts heroin, so you offer him some. If you want some stuff to get your own juice up, you’ve got it. You’re going after him to get your file back and to find out who made the blood smut and killed Hudgens. I’m working on a script, and you’ll have it by tomorrow night. You’re going to scare the shit out of Patchett and you’re going to do whatever it takes to get what we both want. I know you can do it, so don’t make me threaten you.”