THE BIG NOWHERE by James Ellroy

Considine pointed to a folder atop the cubicle’s Out basket. “It’s all in there. You’re Ted Krugman, DOB 6/16/23, a Pinko New York stagehand. In reality you were killed in a car wreck on Long Island two months ago. The local Feds hushed it up and sold the identity to Ed Satterlee. All your past history and KAs are in there. There’s surveillance pictures of the Commie KAs, and there’s twenty-odd pages of Marxist claptrap, a little history lesson for you to memorize.

“So, day after tomorrow, around two, you go to the Gower Street picket line, portraying a Pinko who’s lost his faith. You tell the Teamster picket boss that the day labor joint downtown sent you out, muscle for a buck an hour. The man knows who you are, and he’ll set you up to picket with two other guys. After an hour or so, you’ll get into political arguments with those guys–per the script I’ve written out for you. A third argument will result in a fistfight with a real bruiser–a PT instructor at the LAPD Academy. He’ll pull his punches, but you fight for real. You’re going to take a few lumps, but what the hell. Another Teamster man will shout obscenities about you to the UAES picket boss, who’ll hopefully approach you and lead you to Claire De Haven, UAES’s member screener. We’ve done a lot of homework, and we can’t directly place Krugman with any UAESers. You look vaguely like him and at worst you’ll be secondhand heard of. It’s all in that folder, kid. Pictures of the men you’ll be pulling this off with, everything.”

A clean day to work the homicides; a full night to become Ted Krugman. Danny said, “Tell me about Claire De Haven.”

Considine countered, “Have you got a girlfriend?”

Danny started to say no, then remembered the bogus paramour who helped him brazen out Tamarind. “Nothing serious. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know how susceptible you are to women in general, but De Haven’s a presence. Buzz Meeks just filed a report that makes her as a longtime hophead–H and drugstore–but she’s still formidable–and she’s damn good at getting what she wants out of men. So I want to make sure you seduce her, not the opposite. Does that answer your question?”

“No.”

“Do you want a physical description?”

“No.”

“The odds that you’ll have to lay her?”

“No.”

“Do you want her sexual background?”

Danny threw his question out before he could back down. “No. I want to know why a ranking policeman has a crush on a Commie socialite.”

Considine blushed pink–the way Felix Gordean told him he blushed; Danny tried reading his face and caught: got me. Call-me-Mal laughed, slid off his wedding band and tossed it in the wastebasket. He said, “Man to man?”

Danny said, “No, brass to brass.”

Considine made the sign of the cross on his vestfront. “Ashes to ashes, and not bad for a minister’s son. Let’s just say I’m susceptible to dangerous women, and my wife is divorcing me, so I can’t chase around and give her ammo to use in court. I want custody of my son, and I will not give her one shred of evidence to spoil my case. And I don’t usually offer my confessions to junior officers.”

Danny thought: this man is so far out on a limb that you can say anything to him and he’ll stick around–because at 1:00 A.M. he’s got no place fucking else to go. “And that’s why you’re getting such a kick out of operating De Haven?”

Considine smiled and tapped the top desk drawer. “Why am I betting there’s a bottle, in here?”

Danny felt himself blush. “Because you’re smart?”

The hand kept tapping. “No, because your nerves are right up there with mine, and because you always stink of Lavoris. Brass to rookie, here’s a lesson: cops who smell of mouthwash are juicers. And juicer cops who can keep it on a tight leash are usually pretty good cops.”

“Pretty good cops” flashed a green light. Danny nudged Considine’s hand away, opened the drawer and pulled out a pint and two paper cups. He poured quadruple shots and offered; Considine accepted with a bow; they hoisted drinks. Danny said, “To both our cases”; Considine toasted, “To Stefan Heisteke Considine.” Danny drank, warmed head to toe, drank; Considine sipped and hooked a thumb over his back at Harlan “Buddy” Jastrow. “Upshaw, who is this guy? And why are you so bent out of shape on your goddamn homo killings?”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *