“We’re famous, Dwight.”
Kay was standing in the hallway. I laughed; my bad knuckles throbbed. “Notorious, maybe. Where’s Lee?”
“I don’t know. He left yesterday afternoon.”
“You know he’s in trouble, don’t you?”
“I know you beat him up.”
I walked over. Kay’s breath reeked of cigarettes, her face was mottled from crying. I held her; she held me back and said, “I don’t blame you for it.”
I nuzzled her hair. “De Witt’s probably in LA by now. If Lee isn’t back by tonight, I’ll come and stay with you.”
Kay pulled away. “Don’t come unless you want to sleep with me.”
I said, “Kay, I can’t.”
“Why? Because of that neighbor girl you’re seeing?”
I remembered my lie to Lee. “Yes . . . no, not that. It’s just that . . .”
“It’s just _what_, Dwight?”
I grabbed Kay so she wouldn’t be able to look in my eyes and know that half of what I was saying made me a child, half made me a liar. “It’s just that you and Lee are my family, and Lee’s my partner, and until we get this trouble he’s in settled and see if we’re still partners then you and me together is just no damn good. The girl I’ve been seeing is nothing. She doesn’t really mean a thing to me.”
Kay said, “You’re just frightened of anything that doesn’t involve fighting and cops and guns and all that,” and tightened her grip. I let myself be held, knowing she’d nailed me clean. Then I broke it off and drove downtown to “All That.”
o o o
The clock in Thad Green’s waiting room hit 6:00, and there was no Lee; at 6:01 Green’s secretary opened his door and ushered me in. The Chief of Detectives looked up from his desk. “Where’s Blanchard? He’s the one I really wanted to see.”
I said, “I don’t know, sir,” and stood at parade rest; Green pointed me to a chair. I sat down, and the COD fixed me with a hard stare. “You’ve got fifty words or less to explain your partner’s behavior Monday night. Go.”
I said, “Sir, Lee’s little sister was murdered when he was a kid, and the Dahlia case is what you might call an obsession with him. Bobby De Witt, the man he sent up on the Boulevard-Citizens job, got out yesterday, and a week ago we killed those four hoods. The stag film was the capper. It set Lee off, and he pulled that stunt at the dyke bar because he thought he could get a lead on the guy who made the film.”
Green quit nodding along. “You sound like a shyster trying to justify his client’s actions. In my police department, a man checks his emotional baggage when he pins on his badge, or he checks out. But just to let you know that I’m not entirely unsympathetic, I’ll tell you this. I’m suspending Blanchard for a trial board, but not for his Monday night tantrums. I’m suspending him for a memo he submitted stating that Junior Nash blew our jurisdiction. I think it was a phony. What do you think, Officer?”
I felt my legs fluttering. “I believed it, sir.”
“Then you’re not as intelligent as your Academy scores led me to believe. When you see Blanchard, tell him to turn in his gun and badge. You stay on the Short investigation, and kindly refrain from fisticuffs on city property. Good night, Officer.”
I stood up, saluted and about-faced out of the office, maintaining my military gait until I was down the hall in the muster room. Grabbing a desk phone, I called the house, University squadroom and the El Nido Hotel–all with zero results. Then a dark thought crossed my mind, and I dialed the number of the County Parole office.
A man answered: “Los Angeles County Parole, may I help you?”
“This is Officer Bleichert, LAPD. I need the disposition on a recent parolee.”
“Shoot, Officer.”
“Robert ‘Bobby’ De Witt. Came out of Quentin yesterday.”
“That’s easy. He hasn’t reported to his PO yet. We called the bus depot at Santa Rosa, and found out that De Witt didn’t buy a ticket for LA, he bought one for San Diego, with a transfer to Tijuana. We haven’t issued an absconder warrant yet. De Witt’s PO figured he might have gone down to TJ to get laid. He’s giving him until tomorrow morning to show up.”