“In the mood for some fresh air?”
“Keep talking.”
“Linda Martin was spotted last night out in Encino, trying to get served at a couple of bars. You and Blanchard go out to the Valley and look for her. Start at the twenty-thousand block of Victory Boulevard and work west. I’ll be sending some other men as soon as they report in.”
“When?”
Millard checked his watch. “Immediately, if not sooner.”
I eyeballed for Lee and didn’t see him, nodded assent and reached for the phone on my desk. I called the house, the City Hall Warrants office and Information for the number of the El Nido Hotel. I got a no answer for the first call and two no Blanchards for the others. Then Millard came back, with Fritz Vogel and–amazingly–Johnny Vogel in plainclothes.
I stood up. “I can’t find Lee, Skipper.”
Millard said, “Go with Fritzie and John. Take an unmarked radio car so you can keep in touch with the other men out there.”
The fat Vogel boys stared at me, then at each other. The look they exchanged said my unkempt state was a Class B Felony. “Thanks, Russ,” I said.
o o o
We drove to the Valley, the Vogels in the front seat, me in the back. I tried to doze, but Fritzie’s monologue on hooers and woman killers made it impossible. Johnny nodded along; every time his father paused for breath, he said, “Right, Dad.” Going over the Cahuenga Pass, Fritzie ran out of verbal steam; Johnny’s yes-man act fell silent. I closed my eyes and leaned against the window. Madeleine was doing a slow striptease in concert with motor hum when I heard the Vogels whispering.
“. . . he’s alseep, Daddy.”
“Don’t call me ‘Daddy’ on the job, I’ve told you a million goddamn times. It makes you sound like a nancy boy.”
“I proved I’m not no nancy boy. Homos couldn’t do what I did. I’m not cherry no more, so don’t say nancy boy.”
“Be still, damn you.”
“Daddy, I mean Dad–”
“I said be still, Johnny.”
The fat braggart cop reduced to a child grabbed my interest; I faked a snore-wheeze so the two would keep it up. Johnny whispered, “See, Dad, he’s asleep. And he’s the nance, not me. I proved it. Buck-tooth bastard. I could take him, Dad. You know I could. Job-stealing bastard, I had Warrants in the bag until–”
“John Charles Vogel, you hush this instant or I’ll take a strap to you, twenty-four-year-old policeman or not.”
The radio started barking then; I faked a big yawn. Johnny turned around and smiled. He said, “Catch up on your beauty sleep?” wafting his legendary halitosis.
My first instinct was to call him on his crack about taking me–then my sense of squadroom politics took over. “Yeah, I had a late night.”
Johnny winked ineffectually. “I’m a quiff hound myself. I go a week without it, I’m climbing the walls.”
The dispatcher droned, “. . . repeat, 10-A-94, roger your location.”
Fritzie grabbed the mike. “10-A-94, rogering at Victory and Saticoy.”
The dispatcher replied, “See the barman at the Caledonia Lounge, Victory and Valley View. Warrantee Linda Martin reported there now. Code three.”
Fritzie hit the siren and punched the gas. Cars pulled to the curb; we shot forward in the middle lane. I sent one up to the Calvinist God I believed in as a kid: don’t let the Martin girl mention Madeleine Sprague. Valley View Avenue appeared in the windshield; Fritzie hung a hard right turn, killing the siren in front of a mock-bamboo hut.
The bar’s mock-bamboo door burst open; Linda Martin/Lorna Martilkova, looking as fresh-scrubbed as her picture, burst out. I tumbled from the car and hit the sidewalk running, Vogel and Vogel huffing and puffing behind me. Linda/Lorna ran like an antelope, clutching an oversized purse to her chest; I closed the distance between us by sprinting flat-out. The girl reached a busy side street and darted into traffic; cars swerved to avoid hitting her. She looked over her shoulder then; I dodged a beer truck and motorcycle on a collision course, sucked wind and _hauled_. The girl stumbled over the opposite curb, her purse went flying, I made a final leap and grabbed her.