Bud kept working. No logic to the file mess: Mercs, Chevies, Caddies, L.A., Sacramento, Frisco, whoever registered the car would’ve used a phony name. One luck-out: the registers’ race, DOB and physical stats listed on cards attached to the initial purchase carbons. Facts to eliminate against, like he learned in school: ’48–’50 Mercs, Southern California purchasers, stats that matched to Dudley, Stomp, Vachss, Teitlebaum, Perkins, Carlisle and Breuning. Hours of digging, a pile inches thick–then a strange one that felt warm.
1948 primer-gray Merc coupe, purchased April 10, 1953. Register: Margaret Louise March, W.F., DOB 7/23/18, brown and brown, 5 ‘9″, 215 lbs. Register’s address: 1804 East Oxford, Los Angeles. Phone number: NOrmandie 32758.
Warm to scalding–Fat Dot Rothstein’s specs. Oxford ran north-south–not east-west. The call to Dot from the Noshery– DU-32758–the dumb dyke tacked her own number onto a different exchange.
And bought herself some purple paint.
Bud whooped, punched the air, kicked boxes. Two cases made in one day–if anyone believed him. All dressed up and no one to kill. Circumstantial Dudley evidence–no hard proof. Dudley too well placed to fall, nobody who cared like he did.
Except Exley.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
A stakeout on the house he grew up in. He couldn’t go in and question his father; he couldn’t ask for his help. He couldn’t tell the man he confided secrets to a woman–and gave a brutal enemy the means to patricide. He brought the Atherton file with him–there was nothing in it he didn’t already know, the man who made the smut and killed Sid Hudgens was intrinsic to the Atherton murders, maybe the killer himself–truths Preston Exley would dispute out of pride. He couldn’t go in; he couldn’t stop thinking. He counted memories instead.
His father bought the house for his mother; it was really just a sop to his pride–the Exleys flee the middle class grandly. They never had Christmas lights on the lawn–Preston Exley said it was lowlife. Thomas fell off balconies–and had the style not to cry. His father threw him a “back from the war” party–only the mayor, the City Council and LAPD men who could further his career were invited.
Art De Spain walked to his car, looking frail, one arm bandaged. Ed watched him drive off, his father’s man, his Dutch uncle. Memory: Art said he wasn’t cut out to be a detective.
The house loomed big and cold. Ed drove back to the hospital.
o o o
Trash was up, giving Fisk a statement. Ed watched from the doorway.
“. . . and I was playing off Exley’s script. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but Patchett pulled out a gun and shot me. That shit piece Exley gave me jammed, and Patchett slammed me with a hypo. Then I heard shots and ‘No, Abe, no, Lee, no.’ And now you know as much as I do.”
From the hall, loud: “Abe Teitlebaum, Johnny Stompanato and Lee Vachss. They did the Nite Owl. Throw in Deuce Perkins as part of the gang and get ready to shit when I tell you who else I got.”
Ed smelled his sweat, his breath. White pushed him inside– firm, not too rough. “Put our stuff aside for a minute. Did you hear what I said?”
The names registered: gang muscle, a not-bad line to HEROIN. ‘White looked insane–disheveled, a zealot. Fisk said, “Sir, do you want me to . .
Ed moved his shoulders–White dropped his hands right on cue. “Two minutes, _Captain_.”
Scared–_be a captain_. “Duane, go get yourself some coffee. White, get my interest before I ream you for the Chinamen.”
Fisk walked out. Ed said, “Jack, you stay. White, you keep my interest.”
White closed the door. Disheveled: soiled clothes, inksmudged hands. “Good I heard the radio on you, Trashcan. I didn’t know you were here, I mighta tried to do it all myself.”
Vincennes, on the bed looking queasy. “Do _what?_ Abe, Lee. You make Teitlebaum and Vachss for Patchett, spell it out.”
Ed: “You look Crim 101, White. Make like you’re writing an occurrence chronology.”
White smiled–pure kamikaze. “I been tracking a string of hooker killings for years. It started with this girl Kathy Janeway. She got snuffed back in ’53, right around the Nite Owl. She was Duke Cathcart’s girlfriend.”