THE BIG NOWHERE by James Ellroy

Buzz stood up. “Like I said, I’m not hog-wild about this job, but I need the money. So let’s just say it’s got me thinkin’ about the amenities of life.”

“I’m not hog-wild about it either, but I need it.”

Meeks said, “I’m sorry about Laura.”

Mal tried to remember his ex-wife naked, and couldn’t. “It wasn’t me that had you shot. I heard it was Dragna triggers.”

Meeks tossed Mal the velvet box. “Take it while I’m feelin’ generous. I just bought my girl two C-notes’ worth of sweaters.”

Mal pocketed the insignia and stuck out his hand; Meeks gave him a bonecrusher. “Lunch, Skipper?”

“Sure, Sarge.”

They took the elevator down to ground level and walked out to the street. Two patrolmen were standing in front of a black-and-white sipping coffee; Mal picked a string of words out of their conversation: “Mickey Cohen, bomb, bad.”

Meeks badged the two, hard. “DA’s Bureau. What’d you just say about Cohen?”

The younger cop, a peach-fuzz rookie type, said, “Sir, we just heard on the radio. Mickey Cohen’s house just got bombed. It looks bad.”

Meeks took off running; Mal followed him to a mint green Caddy and got in–one look at the fat man’s face telling him “why?” was a useless question. Meeks hung a tire-screeching U-ey out into Westwood traffic and hauled west, through the Veterans Administration Compound, out onto San Vicente. Mal thought of Mickey Cohen’s house on Moreno; Meeks kept the pedal down, zigzagging around cars and pedestrians, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” At Moreno, he turned right; Mal saw fire engines, prowl units and tall plumes of smoke up the block. Meeks skidded up to a crime scene rope and got out; Mal stood on his tiptoes and saw a nice Spanish house smoldering, LA’s number-one hoodlum standing on the lawn, unsinged, ranting at a cadre of uniform brass. Rubberneckers were choking the street, the sidewalk and adjoining front lawns; Mal looked for Meeks and couldn’t see him anywhere. He turned and gave his backside a shot–and there was his grand jury cohort, the most corrupt cop in LA history, engaged in pure suicide.

Buzz was just past the edge of the commotion, smothering a showstopper blonde with kisses. Mal recognized her from gossip column pics: Audrey Anders, the Va Va Voom Girl, Mickey Cohen’s on-the-side woman. Buzz and Audrey kissed; Mal gawked from a distance, then turned around and checked the lovebirds’ flank, scoping for witnesses, Cohen goons who’d squeal to their master. The whole crowd was contained behind the crime scene ropes, occupied with Mickey’s tirade; Mal kept scanning anyway. He felt a hard tap on his shoulder; Buzz Meeks was there wiping lipstick off his face. “Boss, I am in your power. Now we gonna go get that steak?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“…And Norm says you can fight. He’s a prizefighting fan, so it must be true. Now the question is, are you willing to fight in other ways–and for us.”

Danny looked across the table at Claire De Haven and Norman Kostenz. Five minutes into his audition; the woman all business so far, keeping friendly Norm businesslike with little taps that chilled his gushing about the picket line fracas. A handsome woman who had to keep touching things: her cigarettes and lighter, Kostenz when he gabbed too heavy or said something that pleased her. Five minutes in and he knew this about acting: a big part of the trick was sneaking what was really going on with you into your performance. He’d been up all night canvassing darktown straight off a weird jag of sobbing, coming up with nothing on the stolen Pontiac, but sensing HIM watching; the La Paloma Drive canvassing was a zero, ditto the bus line and cab company checks, and Mike Breuning had called to tell him he was trying to wangle four officers to tail the men on his surveillance list. He felt tired and edgy and knew it showed; he was running with his case, not this Commie shit, and if De Haven pressed for background verification he was going to play pissed and bring the conversation down to brass tacks: his resurgence of political faith and what UAES had for him to prove it with. “Miss De Haven–”