Tierney’s pale face was working toward beet red. “Fritzie, I am the commander of Central Detectives, not Mr. Loew. Sergeant Blanchard and Officer Bleichert work for Mr. Loew, you and Sergeant Koenig do not. So drop what you’re doing for Mr. Loew, leave the pickpockets alone and bring in Coleman Walter Maynard before he rapes any more little boys, would you please? There’s a memo on his known associates on the squadroom bulletin board, and I suggest all officers acquaint themselves with it. Maynard a lamster now, and he might be holing up with one of them.”
I saw Lee Blanchard leave the muster room by a side exit. Tierney leafed through some papers on the lectern and said, “Here’s one that Chief Green thinks you should know about. Over the past three weeks someone’s been tossing chopped-up dead cats into the cemeteries off Santa Monica and Gower. Hollywood Division’s taken a half dozen reports on it. According to Lieutenant Davis at 77th Street, that’s a calling card of nigger youth gangs. Most of the cats have been dumped on Thursday nights, and the Hollywood roller rink’s open to shines on Thursdays, so maybe there’s something to that. Ask around, talk to your informants and relay anything pertinent to Sergeant Hollander at Hollywood dicks. Now the homicides. Russ?”
A tall, gray-haired man in an immaculate double-breasted suit took the podium; Captain Jack plopped into the nearest available chair. The tall man carried himself with an authority that was more like a judge or hotshot lawyer than a cop; he reminded me of the smooth Lutheran preacher who palled around with the old man until the Bund went on the subversive list. The officer sitting next to me whispered, “Lieutenenat Millard. Number two in Homicide, but the real boss. A real piece of velvet.” I nodded and listened to the lieutenant speak in a velvet-smooth voice:
“. . . and the coroner ruled the Russo-Nickerson job murder-suicide. The Bureau is handling the hit-and-run on Pico and Figueroa on 11/10, and we located the vehicle, a ’39 La Salle sedan, abandoned. It’s registered to a male Mexican named Luis Cruz, age 42, of 1349 Alta Loma Vista in South Pasadena. Cruz is a two-time loser with a Folsom jacket–both falls Robbery One. He’s long gone, and his wife claims the La Salle was stolen in September. She says it was snatched by Cruz’s cousin Armando Villareal, age 39, who’s also missing. Harry Sears and I took the initial squeal on this one, and eyeball witnesses said there were two male Mexicans in the car. Have you got anything else, Harry?”
A squat, disheveled man stood up, turned around and faced the room. He swallowed a few times, then stammered, “C-C-C-Cruz’s wife is sc-screwing the c-c-c-cousin. The c-c-c-car was never reported st-stolen, and the neighbors s-say the wife wants the c-cousin’s parole violated so C-C-Cruz won’t find out about them.”
Harry Sears sat down abruptly. Millard smiled at him and said, “Thanks, partner. Gentlemen, Cruz and Villareal are now state parole absconders and priority fugitives. APBs and absconder warrants have been issued. And here’s the punch line: both of these guys are boozehounds, with over a hundred plain drunks between them. Hit-and-run drunks are a damn menace, so let’s get them. Captain?”
Tierney stood up and shouted, “Dismissed!” Cops swarmed me, offering hands and back slaps and chucks under the chin. I soaked it in until the muster room cleared and Ellis Loew approached, fiddling with the Phi Beta Kappa key dangling from his vest.
“You shouldn’t have slugged with him,” he said, twirling the key. “You were ahead on all three cards.”
I held the DA’s stare. “Proposition 5 passed, Mr. Loew.”
“Yes, it did. But some patrons of yours lost money. Play it smarter here, Officer. Don’t blow this opportunity like you did the fight.”
“You ready, canvasback?”
Blanchard’s voice saved me. I went with him before I did something to blow it then and there.
o o o
We headed south in Blanchard’s civilian car, a ’40 Ford coupe with a contraband two-way under the dashboard. Lee rambled on about the job while I looked out at the downtown LA street scene.