o o o
Not home–Karen’s.
He drove there woozy, keyed up. He started to feel the close-out: bad debts settled bad, a clean slate. He got the idea just like he got the idea to shake down Claude Dineen. He didn’t say the words, didn’t rehearse it. He turned the radio on so he’d keep the notion fresh.
A stern-voiced announcer:
“. . . and the southside of Los Angeles is now the focus of the largest manhunt in California history. We repeat, an hour and a half ago, just after dawn, Raymond Coates, Tyrone Jones and Leroy Fontaine, the accused killers in the Nite Owl massacre case, escaped from the Hall of Justice Jail in downtown Los Angeles. The three had been moved to a minimum security cellblock to await requestioning and made their escape by the means of knotted-together bedsheets and a jump out a secondstory window. Here, recorded immediately after the escape, are the comments of Captain Russell Millard of the Los Angeles Police Department, co-supervisor of the Nite Owl investigation.
“‘I . . . assume full responsibility for this incident. I was the one who ordered the three suspects sequestered in a minimum security unit. I . . . every effort will be made to recapture them with all due speed. I . .
Jack turned the radio off. Close-out: pious Russ Millard’s career. Call-out: figure the whole Bureau yanked from bed for the dragnet. He yawned the rest of the way to Karen’s, rang her bell seeing double.
Karen opened up. “Sweetie, _where have you been?_”
Jack plucked curlers out of her hair. “Will you marry me?”
Karen said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Ed, staked out at 1st and Olive. His father’s shotgun for backup, a replay on his hunch.
Sugar Ray Coates: “Roland Navarette, lives on Bunker Hill. Runs a hole-up for parole absconders.”
A whispered snitch: the speakers didn’t catch it, doubtful Coates remembered he said it. R&I, Navarette’s mugshot, address: a rooming house midway down Olive, half a mile from the Hall of Justice Jail. A dawn breakout–they couldn’t make Darktown unseen. Figure all four of them armed.
Scared–like Guadalcanal ’43.
Outlaw–he didn’t report the lead.
Ed drove to mid-block. A clapboard Victorian: four stories, peeling paint. He jumped the steps, checked out the mail slots: R. Navarette, 408.
Inside, his suitcoat around the shotgun. A long hallway, glass-fronted elevator, stairs. Up those stairs–he couldn’t feel his footsteps. The fourth-floor landing–nobody in sight. Down to 408, drop the suitcoat. Inez screaming primed him–he kicked the door in.
Four men eating sandwiches.
Jones and Navarette at a table. Fontaine on the floor. Sugar Coates by the window, picking his teeth.
No weapons in sight. Nobody moved.
Odd sounds–“You’re under arrest” strangling out. Jones put his hands up. Navarette raised his hands. Fontaine laced his hands behind his head. Sugar Ray said, “Cat got your goddamn tongue, sissy?”
Ed jerked the trigger: once, twice–buckshot took off Coates’ legs. Recoil–Ed braced against the doorway, aimed. Fontaine and Navarette stood up screaming; Ed SQUEEZED the trigger, blew them up in one spread. Recoil, a bad pull: half the back wall came down.
Blood spray thick–Ed stumbled, wiped his eyes. He saw Jones make the elevator.
He ran after him: slid, tripped, caught up. Jones was pushing buttons, screaming prayers–inches from the glass, “Please Jesus.” Ed aimed point-blank, squeezed twice. Glass and buckshot took his head off.
Strong legs now, fuck civilian screams all around him.
Ed ran downstairs, into a crowd: blues, plainclothesmen. Hands pounded his back; men shouted his name. A voice close by: “Millard’s dead. Heart attack at the Bureau.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Rain for the funeral. A graveside service: Dudley Smith’s eulogy, a priest’s last words.
Every Bureau man attended: Thad Green’s orders. Parker called out the press: a little ceremony after they planted Russ Millard. Bud watched Ed Exley comfort the widow–his best profile to the cameras.
A week of cameras, headlines: Ed Exley, “L.A.’s Greatest Hero”–World War II stalwart, the man who slayed the Nite Owl slayers and their accomplice. Ellis Loew told the press the three confessed before they escaped–nobody mentioned the niggers were unarmed. Ed Exley was made.
The priest’s spiel picked up steam. The widow started weeping–Exley put an arm around her shoulders. Bud walked away.