Buzz pulled his jacket over the butt of his .38. “Yes, I am. In private, please. No man likes to discuss such grave matters in the presence of his family.”
The girl nodded, led Buzz through the foyer to a book-lined study and left him there with the door ajar. He noticed a liquor sideboard and thought about a quick one–a mid-afternoon bracer might give him some extra charm. Then “Phil, what’s this in-private stuff?” took it out of his hands.
A short pudgy man, bald with a fringe, had pushed the door open. Buzz held out his badge; the man said, “What is this?”
“DA’s Bureau, Mr. Hartshorn. I just wanted to keep your family out of it.”
Charles Hartshorn closed the door and leaned against it. “Is this about Duane Lindenaur?”
Buzz drew a blank on the name, then remembered it from yesterday’s late-edition Tattler: Lindenaur was a victim in the homo killings Dudley Smith told him about–the job the Sheriff’s dick they just co-opted was set to run. “No, sir. I’m with the Grand Jury Division, and we’re investigating the Santa Monica Police. We need to know if they abused you when they raided the Knight in Armor back in ‘44.”
Veins throbbed in Hartshorn’s forehead; his voice was boardroom-lawyer cold. “I don’t believe you. Duane Lindenaur attempted to extort money from me nine years ago–spurious allegations that he threatened to leak to my family. I dealt with the man legally then, and a few days ago I read that he had been murdered. I’ve been expecting the police at my door, and now you show up. Am I a suspect in Lindenaur’s death?”
Buzz said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. This is about the Santa Monica Police.”
“No, it is not. This pertains to the spurious allegations Duane Lindenaur made against me and the non sequitur of my happening to be in a cocktail lounge frequented by certain not respectable people when a police raid occurred. I have an alibi for the newspapers’ estimated time of Duane Lindenaur’s and the other man’s deaths, and I want you to corroborate it without involving my family. If you so much as breathe a word to my wife and daughter, I will have your badge and your head. Do you understand?”
The lawyer’s tone had gotten calmer; his face was one massive contortion. Buzz tried diplomacy again. “Reynolds Loftis, Mr. Hartshorn. He was rousted with you. Tell me what you know about him, and I’ll tell the Sheriff’s detective who’s workin’ the Lindenaur case to leave you alone, that you’re alibied up. That sound nice to you?”
Hartshorn folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t know any Reynolds Loftis and I don’t make deals with grubby little policemen who reek of cheap cologne. Leave my home now.”
Hartshorn’s “Reynolds” was all wrong. Buzz moved to the sideboard, filled a glass with whiskey and walked up to the lawyer with it. “For your nerves, Charlie. I don’t want you kickin’ off a heart attack on me.”
“Get out of my home, you grubby little worm.”
Buzz dropped the glass, grabbed Hartshorn’s neck and slammed him against the wall. “You’re humpin’ the wrong boy, counselor. The last boy around here you want to fuck with. Now here’s the drill: you and Reynolds Loftis or I go into the living room and tell your little girl that daddy sucks cock at the Westlake Park men’s room and takes it up the ass on Selma and Las Palmas. And you breathe a word to anybody that I leaned on you, and I’ll have you in Confidential Magazine porkin’ nigger drag queens. Do you understand?”
Hartshorn was beet red and spilling tears. Buzz let go of his neck, saw the imprint of a big ham hand and made that hand a fist. Hartshorn tremble-walked to the sideboard and picked up the whiskey decanter. Buzz swung at the wall, pulling the punch at the last second. “Spill on Loftis, goddamnit. Make it easy so I can get the fuck out of here.”
Glass on glass chimed, followed by hard breathing and silence. Buzz stared at the wall. Hartshorn spoke, his voice dead hollow. “Reynolds and I were just a… fling. We met at a party a Belgian man, a movie director, threw. The man was very au courant, and he threw lots of parties at clubs for our… his kind. It never got serious with Reynolds because there was a screenwriter he had been seeing, and some third man they were disturbed over. I was the odd man… so it never…”