Danny threw out a tweak on general principles. “A dead queer script hack.”
Gerstein looked him over. “Now that really ain’t funny, because I would never let a known homo work at my shop under any conditions. Ever. Is that clear?”
“Vividly.”
Gerstein whipped three long cigars out of his slacks and stuck them in Danny’s shirt pocket. “Develop a sense of humor and you might go places. And if you have to come on the lot again, see me first. You understand?”
Danny dropped the cigars on the ground, stepped on them and walked out the gate.
o o o
A check of the local papers and more phone work were next. Danny drove to Hollywood and Vine, bought all four LA dailies, parked in a no-parking zone and read. The Times and Daily News had nothing on his case; the Mirror and Herald gave it a back page brush-off, “Mangled Bodies Found in Griffith Park,” and “Dead Derelicts Discovered at Dawn” their respective taglines. Sanitized descriptions of the mutilations followed; Gene Niles blasted his horn about the job’s random nature. There was no mention of ID on the victims and nothing pertaining to the death of Marty Goines.
A pay phone stood next to the newsstand. Danny called Karen Hiltscher and got what he expected–her dental lab queries were going very slowly, ten negatives since he gave her the job; her calls to other LASD stations and the Detective Bureau for checks on burglars with dental tech backgrounds got a total zero–no such men existed. Trial calls to two taxidermists yielded the fact that all stuffed animals wore plastic teeth; real animal teeth did not show up in dentures, only in the mouths of creatures still on the hoof. Danny urged Karen to keep plugging, said his goodbyes accompanied by kissy sounds and dialed the Moonglow Lounge.
Janice Modine was not waitressing that night, but John Lembeck was drinking at the bar. Danny made nice with the man he’d spared a beating; the car thief/pimp made nice back. Danny knew he was good for some free information and asked him for scoop on homosexual pimps and escort services. Lembeck said the only queer service he knew of was ritzy, hush-hush and run by a man named Felix Gordean, a legit talent agent with an office on the Strip and a suite at the Chateau Marmont. Gordean wasn’t fruit himself, but provided boys to the Hollywood elite and old money LA.
Danny admonished Lembeck to stay frosty and took his Gordean dope to R&I and the DMV night line. Two calls, two squeaky-clean records and three plush addresses: 9817 Sunset for his office, the Chateau Marmont down the Strip at 7941 for his apartment, a beach house in Malibu: 16822 Pacific Coast Highway.
With one dime and one nickel left in his pocket, Danny played a hunch. He called Firestone Station, got Sergeant Frank Skakel and asked him the name of the “fruit introduction service” where extortionist Duane Lindenaur met extortionee Charles Hartshorn. Skakel grumbled and said he’d ring Danny at his pay phone; ten minutes later he called back and said he’d dug up the original complaint report. Lindenaur met Hartshorn at a party thrown by a man who owned an escort service–Felix Gordean. Skakel ended with his admonition: while he was digging through the files, a buddy on the squad gave him some lowdown: Gordean was paying heavy operation kickbacks to Sheriff’s Central Vice.
Danny drove to the Chateau Marmont, an apartment house-hotel done up like a swank Renaissance fortress. The main building was festooned with turrets and parapets, and there was an inner courtyard of similarly adorned bungalows connected by pathways–high, perfectly trimmed hedges surrounding them. Gaslights at the end of wrought-iron poles illuminated address plates; Danny followed a winding string of numbers to 7941, heard dance music wafting behind the hedge and started for the path to the door. Then a gust of wind scudded clouds across the sky and moonlight caught two men in evening clothes kissing, swaying together in the dark porch enclosure.
Danny watched; the moon was eclipsed by more cloud cover; the door opened and admitted the men–laughter, a jump crescendo and a few seconds’ worth of brightness easing them inside. Danny went pins and needles, squeezed between the hedge and the front wall and scissor-walked over to a large picture window covered by velvet drapes. There was a narrow space where the two furls of purple were drawn apart, with a strip of light giving access to tuxedos swirling across parquet, wall tapestries, the sparkle of glasses hoisted. Danny pressed his face to the window and looked in.