“Yes what?”
“Yes. We dated once.”
Buzz said, “You sound like a one-night stand man. A date with Wiltsie, a date with Duarte. Where’d you meet those guys?”
“Nowhere… at a bar.”
“What bar?”
“The Oak Room at the Biltmore, the Macombo, I don’t know.”
“You’re rattlin’ my cage, boy. Duarte was Mex and those joints don’t serve spics. So try again. Two goddamn queer slash murder victims you got between the sheets with. Where’d you meet them?”
Reynolds Loftis stayed crimped up and silent; Buzz said, “You paid for them, right? It ain’t no sin. I’ve paid for pussy, so why shouldn’t somebody of your persuasion pay for boys?”
“No. No. No, that’s not true.”
Mal, very soft. “Felix Gordean.”
Loftis, trembling. “No no no no no.”
Buzz twirled a finger and smoothed his necktie–the switcheroo sign. “Charles Hartshorn. Why’d he kill himself?”
“He was tortured by people like you!”
Mal’s switcheroo. “You copped horse for Claire. Who’d you get it from?”
“Who told you that?”–Loftis actually sounding indignant. Buzz leaned over and whispered, “Felix Gordean”; Loftis jerked back and banged his head on the wall. Mal said, “Duane Lindenaur worked at Variety International, where your friends Lopez, Duarte and Benavides are working. Juan Duarte is Augie Duarte’s cousin. You used to appear in Variety International movies. Duane Lindenaur was blackmailing Charles Hartshorn. Why don’t you put all that together for me.”
Loftis was sweating; Mal caught a twitch at blackmail. “Three times in ‘44 and once last week you withdrew ten grand from your bank account. Who’s blackmailing you?”
The man was oozing sweat. Buzz flashed a fist on the QT; Mal shook his head and gave him the switch sign. Buzz said, “Tell us about the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee. Some strange stuff happened, right?”
Loftis wiped sweat off his brow; he said, “What strange stuff?”, his voice cracking.
“Like the letters the Committee got that said a big white man snuffed José Diaz. A deputy pal of ours seemed to think these here killings went back to Sleepy Lagoon–zoot stick time. All the victims were cut with zoot sticks.”
Loftis wrung his hands, popping more sweat; his eyes were glazed. Mal could tell Meeks went for a soft shot–innocuous stuff from his interrogation notes–but came up with a bludgeon. Buzz looked bewildered; Mal tamped down his black hat. “Loftis, who’s blackmailing you?”
Loftis squeaked, “No”; Mal saw that he’d sweated his clothes through. “What happened with the SLDC?”
“No!”
“Is Gordean blackmailing you?”
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answ–”
“You’re a slimy piece of Commie shit. What kind of treason are you planning at your meetings? Cop on that!”
“Claire said I didn’t have to!”
“Who’s that piece of tail you and Chaz Minear were fighting over during the war? Who’s that piece of fluff?”
Loftis sobbed and keened and managed a squeaky singsong. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that my answers might tend to incriminate me, but I never hurt anybody and neither did my friends so please don’t hurt us.”
Mal made a fist, Stanford ring stone out to do maximum damage. Buzz put a hand on his own fist and squeezed it, a new semaphore: don’t hit him or I’ll hit you. Mal got scared and went for big verbal ammo: Loftis didn’t know Chaz Minear ratted him to HUAC. “Are you protecting Minear? You shouldn’t, because he was the one who snitched you to the Feds. He was the one who got you blacklisted.”
Loftis curled into a ball; he murmured his Fifth Amendment spiel, like their interrogation was legal and defense counsel would swoop to the rescue. Buzz said, “You dumb shit, we coulda had him.” Mal turned and saw Claire De Haven standing there. She was saying, “Chaz,” over and over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The picket line action was simmering.
Buzz watched from the Variety International walkway, three stories up. Jack Shortell and Mal were supposed to call; Ellis Loew had called him at home, yanking him out of another Danny nightmare. The DA’s command: convince Herman Gerstein to kick an additonal five thou into the grand jury war chest. Herman was out–probably muff-diving Betty Grable–and there was nothing for him to do but stew on Considine’s foul-up and scope the prelim to slaughter down on the Street.