“Off the–”
“Yeah, off the record.”
Lynn smoked, sipped scotch. “Well, putting what he’s done for me aside, Pierce is a Renaissance man. He dabbles in chemistry, he knows judo, he takes good care of his body. He loves having beautiful women beholden to him. He had a marriage that failed, he had a daughter who died very young. He’s very honest with his girls, and he only lets us date well-behaved, wealthy men. So call it a savior complex. Pierce loves beautiful women. He loves manipulating them and making money off them, but there’s real affection there, too. When I first met Pierce I told him my little sister was killed by a drunken driver. He actually cried. Pierce Patchett is a hardcase businessman, and yes, he runs call girls. But he’s a good man.”
It played straight. “What else has Patchett got going?”
“Nothing illegal. He puts business deals and movie deals together. He advises his girls on business matters.”
“Smut?”
“God, not Pierce. He likes to _do_ it, not look at it.”
“Or sell it?”
“Yes, or sell it.”
Almost too smooth–like Patchett’s smut hink needed a whitewash. “I’m starting to think you’re snowing me. There’s gotta be a perv deal here. Sugar-pimping’s one thing, but you make this guy out to be fucking Jesus. Let’s start with Patchett’s ‘little studio.”‘
Lynn put out her cigarette. “Suppose I don’t want to talk about that?”
“Suppose I give you and Patchett to Administrative Vice?”
Lynn shook her head. “Pierce thinks you have your own private vendetta going, that it’s in your best interest to eliminate him as a suspect in whatever it is you’re investigating and keep quiet about his dealings. He thinks you won’t inform on him, that it would be stupid for you to do it.”
“Stupid is my middle name. What else does Patchett think?”
“He’s waiting for you to mention money.”
“I don’t do shakedowns.”
“Then why–”
“Maybe I’m just fucking curious.”
“So be it. Do you know who Dr. Terry Lux is?”
“Sure, he runs a dry-out farm in Malibu. He’s dirty to the core.”
“Correct on both counts, and he’s also a plastic surgeon.”
“He did a plastic on Patchett, right? Nobody his age looks that young.”
“I don’t know about that. What Terry Lux _does_ do is alter girls for Pierce’s little studio. There’s Ava and Kate and Rita and Betty. Read that as Gardner, Hepburn, Hayworth and Grable. Pierce finds girls with middling resemblances to movie stars, Terry performs plastic surgery for exact resemblances. Call them Pierce’s concubines. They sleep with Pierce and selected clients– men who can help him put together movie and business deals. Perverse? Perhaps. But Pierce takes a cut of all his girls’ earnings and invests it for them. He makes his girls quit the life at thirty–no exceptions. He doesn’t let his girls use narcotics and he doesn’t abuse them, and I owe him a great deal. Can your policeman’s mentality grasp those contradictions?”
Bud said, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“No, Mr. White. Pierce Morehouse Patchett.”
“Lux cut you to look like Veronica Lake?”
Lynn touched her hair. “No, I refused. Pierce loved me for it. I’m really a brunette, but the rest is me.”
“And how old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty next month, and I’ll be opening up a dress shop. See how time changes things? If you’d met me a month from now, I wouldn’t be a whore. I’d be a brunette who didn’t look quite so much like Veronica Lake.
“Jesus Christ.”
“No, Lynn Margaret Bracken.”
Too quick–almost a blurt. “Look, I want to see you again.”
“Are you asking me for a date?”
“Yeah, because I can’t afford what Patchett charges.”
“You could wait a month.”
“No, I can’t.”
“No more shoptalk, then. I don’t want to be somebody’s suspect.”
Bud made a check mark in the air: Patchett crossed off for Kathy and the Nite Owl. “Deal.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Mickey Cohen’s cell.
Gallaudet laughed: velvet-covered bed, velvet-flocked shelves, commode with a velvet-flocked seat. Heat through a wall vent–Washington State, still cold in April. Ed was tired: they talked to Jack “The Enforcer” Whalen, eliminated him, flew a thousand miles. 1:00 A.M.–two cops waiting for a psychopathic hoodlum busy with a late pinochle game. Gallaudet patted Cohen’s pet bulldog: Mickey Cohen, Jr., snazzy in a velvetflocked sweater. Ed checked his Whalen notes.