We shook, sort of like father and son after the big game. “What next, padre?”
“Next you go back to duty like none of this happened. Harry and I will brace Issler at the nut farm, and I’ll assign some men to look for Sally Stinson on the QT.”
I swallowed. “And Fritzie?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“I want him nailed.”
“I know you do. But you keep one thing in mind. The men that he extorted are criminals who would never testify against him in court, and if he gets wind of this and destroys the carbons, we wouldn’t even be able to get him for an interdepartmental offense. _All_ of this is going to require corroboration, so for now it’s just us. And _you_ had better settle down and control your temper until it’s over.”
I said, “I want in on the collar.’
Russ nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He tipped his hat to Elizabeth on the way out the door.
o o o
I went back to swingwatch and played sob sister; Russ put men out to look for Sally Stinson. A day later, he called me at home with one dose of bad news, one of good:
Charles Issler had found a lawyer to file him a writ of habeaus corpus; he had been released from the Mira Loma ding farm three weeks before. His LA apartment had been cleaned out; he couldn’t be found. That was a kick in the balls, but the confirmation on the Vogel extortion front made up for it.
Harry Sears checked Fritzie’s felony arrest records–from Bunco in 1934 up through his current position in Central Detectives. At one time or another Vogel had arrested every single man on the LAPD-FBI financial carbons. And the feds did not indict a single one of them.
I rotated off-duty the next day, and spent it with the master file, thinking _corroboration_. Russ called to say that he hadn’t got any leads on Issler, that it looked like he’d blown town. Harry was keeping Johnny Vogel under a loose surveillance on and off duty; a buddy working West Hollywood Sheriffs Vice had kicked loose with some KA addresses–friends of Sally Stinson. Russ told me a half dozen times to take it easy and not jump the gun. He knew damn well I already had Fritzie in Folsom and Johnny in the Little Green Room.
I was scheduled to go back on duty Thursday, and got up early in order to spend a long morning with the master file. I was making coffee when the phone rang.
I picked it up; “Yes?”
“It’s Russ. We’ve got Sally Stinson. Meet me at 1546 North Havenhurst in half an hour.”
“Rolling.”
o o o
The address was a Spanish castle apartment house: whitewashed cement shaped into ornamental turrets, balconies topped by sun-weathered awnings. Walkways led up to the individual doors; Russ was standing by the one on the far right.
I left the car in a red zone and trotted over. A man in a disheveled suit and paper party hat strutted down the walkway, a slap-happy grin on his face. He slurred, “Next shift, huh? Twosies on onesies, ooh la la!”
Russ led me up the steps. I rapped on the door; a not-young blonde with mussed hair and smeared makeup threw it open, spat, “What did you forget this time?,” then, “Oh, shit.”
Russ held out his badge. “LAPD. Are you Sally Stinson?”
“No, I’m Eleanor Roosevelt. Listen, I put out for the sheriff’s more ways than one lately, so I’m tapped in the cash department. You want the other?”
I started to elbow my way inside; Russ grabbed my arm. “Miss Stinson, it’s about Liz Short and Charlie Issler, and it’s here or the women’s jail.”
Sally Stinson clutched the front of her robe and pressed it to her bodice. She said, “Listen, I told the other guy,” then stopped and hugged herself. She looked like the floozy victim confronting the monster in old horror movies; I knew exactly who her monster was. “We’re not with him. We just want to talk to you about Betty Short.”
Sally appraised us. “And he ain’t gonna know?”