There was nothing we could do but cruise the area on the chance that Nash was still around and put out the word to Lee’s stoolies. We decided on a long Leimert Park tour and took off.
The district’s main drag was Crenshaw Boulevard. Broad, running north all the way to Wilshire and south to Baldwin Hills, it spelled “postwar boom” like a neon sign. Every block from Jefferson to Leimert was lined with dilapidated, once grand houses being torn down, their facades replaced by giant billboards advertising department stores, jumbo shopping centers, kiddie parks and movie theaters. Completion dates ranging from Christmas ’47 to early ’49 were promised, and it hit me that by 1950 this part of LA would be unrecognizable. Driving east, we passed vacant lot after vacant lot that would probably soon spawn houses, then block after block of prewar adobe bungalows distinguished only by their color and the condition of their front lawns. Southbound, old wood frame houses took over, getting more and more unkempt.
And no one resembling Junior Nash was on the street; and every late model white sedan we saw was either driven by a woman or squarejohn type.
Nearing Santa Barbara and Vermont, Lee broke our long silence. “This grand tour stuff is the shits. I’m calling in some favors.”
He pulled into a filling station, got out and hit the pay phone; I listened to calls on the two-way. I was at it for ten minutes or so when Lee came back, pale and sweating. “I got a tip. A snitch of mine says Nash is shacking with some poon in a crib near Slauson and Hoover.”
I shut the radio off. “It’s all colored down there. You think–”
“I think we fucking roll.”
We took Vermont to Slauson, then headed east, passing storefront churches and hair-straightening parlors, vacant lots and liquor stores with no names–only neon signs blinking L-I-Q-U-O-R at one in the afternoon. Hanging a right turn on Hoover, Lee slowed the car and started scanning tenement stoops. We passed a group of three Negro men and an older white guy lounging on the steps of a particularly seedy dump; I saw the four make us as cops. Lee said, “Hopheads. Nash is supposed to run with jigs, so let’s shake them. If they’re dirty we’ll squeeze for an address on him.”
I nodded; Lee ground the car to a halt in the middle of the street. We got out and walked over; the four stuck their hands in their pockets and shuffled their feet, the dance routine of rousted hoodlums everywhere. I said, “Police. Kiss the wall nice and slow.” They moved into a search position, hands above their heads, palms on the building wall, feet back, legs spread.
Lee took the two on the right; the white guy muttered, “What the–Blanchard?”
Lee said, “Shut it, shitbird,” and started frisking him. I patted down the Negro in the middle first, running my hands along the arms of his suit coat, then dipping into his pockets. My left hand pulled out a pack of Luckys and a Zippo lighter; my right a bunch of marijuana cigarettes. I said, “Reefers” and dropped them to the pavement, then gave Lee a quick sidelong glance. The zoot suit Negro beside him reached toward his waistband; light gleamed on metal as his hand came away. I shouted, “Partner!” and pulled my .38.
The white man swung around; Lee shot him twice in the face point blank. The zooter got a shiv free just as I extended my gun. I fired, he dropped the knife, grabbed his neck and slammed into the wall. Wheeling, I saw the jig at the end fumbling at the front of his trousers and shot him three times. He flew backward; I heard “_Bucky duck!_” Hitting the cement, I got a topsy-turvy view of Lee and the last Negro drawing on each other from a couple of feet apart. Lee’s three shots cut him down just as he managed to aim a tiny derringer. He fell dead, half his skull blown off.
I stood up, looked at the four bodies and blood-covered sidewalk, stumbled to the curb and vomited into the gutter until my chest ached. I heard sirens approaching, pinned my badge to my jacket front, then turned around. Lee was pulling out the stiffs’ pockets, tossing shivs and reefers onto the sidewalk, away from the pools of blood. He walked over, and I was hoping he’d have a wisecrack to calm me down. He didn’t; he was bawling like a baby.