by James Ellroy
528
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Christine’s face mask stiffened to the point where Lloyd thought her features would crack. “You’re the assailant. Peeping at windows. Get out!”
Lloyd leaned against the door and wondered what to do, watching Christine Confrey hold her ground in front of him, her feet dug like a frightened animal poised to attack. Strategies to cajole, retreat and press were roiling up in his brain, then blanking out as the violated woman held eye contact. Finally she did attack, rearing back her head and spitting. Lloyd wiped the wad of mucus from his shirt front and returned with an ice-voiced salvo:
“Your way, huh? Okay, let’s try this: unless we get these scumbags, this is going to happen over and over again. Your feelings and Eggers’s job and marriage don’t count. So you’re going to look at mug shots of your sexy savior. I know he’s a handsome fellow with his groovy beard and all th—”
Lloyd stopped when Christine’s face registered befuddlement. A light flicked on in his head. The beard and mustache that Hawley and Eggers had described was a fake—one reason why Hawley hadn’t been able to I.D. any of the mugs he viewed. Assuming it was only a three-man team, the white partner had probably called the Mexicans to inform them of his success with Eggers, and had gotten either a no answer or word of the impending molestation from the “soft-spoken” man. Panicking, the white robber had driven to the hostage pad, and had entered without his disguise. Still staring at Christine, Lloyd said, “Get dressed. I’m taking you into custody as a material witness.”
Christine Confrey broke the stare by spitting at Lloyd’s feet, then walking toward the back of the house. When she returned to the living room five minutes later, she was wearing light makeup and a fresh skirt and blouse. As she locked the door, she said, “Don’t touch me.”
They drove in silence to the Van Nuys Station, Christine chain-smoking and staring out the window, Lloyd steering the cruiser in a circuitous route to give himself time to think. One train of thought dominated: since the L.A.P.D. and F.B.I. both kept their mug shots cross-filed according to M.O. and physical stats, Robert Hawley was probably only shown photographs of convicted armed robbers and men matching his “beard and mustache” description. Both Eggers and Confrey would have to view the entire white male age 25–40 file at Parker Center, but he now had less than two hours before he was to meet Kapek, and if Chrissy Confrey was to be tapped for maximum info during that time, he would have to shove mugs at her while the white robber’s face was still fresh in her mind and let Kapek and the feds worry about her statement and known associates.
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Thrilled with a solid lead all his own, Lloyd pulled into the station lot. Christine got out of the car without being directed, and walked ahead of him through the station’s front doors, eyes downcast. Lloyd caught up with her and pointed her into the detectives’ squad room; a plainclothes cop approached with a quizzical look. Lloyd said, “Please have a seat, Miss Confrey,” then whispered to the plainclothesman, “Hopkins, Robbery/
Homicide. The woman is an eyeball witness. I want to show her some mug books: white males with nonviolent felony convictions. It’s a hunch I’m playing. Can you do that for me?”
The cop nodded and walked into the records booth adjoining the squad room. Lloyd saw that Christine had sat down in the assistant squad commander’s chair and was helping herself to his cigarettes. He checked his watch, rankling that he had to have her out before Kapek arrived—kowtowing to a punk G-man ten years his junior. When the whole thing started to rankle, he walked over and said, “Are you going to cooperate?”
Christine blew smoke rings at him. “Of course, Officer.”
The plainclothes cop came back with a stack of loose-leaf binders and placed them on the desk in front of Christine. Lloyd opened the top one and saw that the books displayed one man per page, with one close-up head shot, one full-body frontal and one full-body side shot. Below the blackand-white photos, the man’s name, date of birth, arrest date and charge were typed, along with a five-digit file number.
Lloyd took a pencil from his pocket and poised it over the first sheet of mugs. “Study the pictures carefully,” he said. “If you positively identify the man, tell me. I’ll be studying you, and marking the ones you react to, so if you don’t make an I.D., we can work up a composite from similar-looking men.”
Christine put out her cigarette and lit another. “I only saw him for a second, and I only said he was sexy to hurt John.”
“I realize that. Just look at the pictures carefully.”
“And the papers and TV won’t find out about John and me?”
Lloyd smiled and lied through his teeth. “That’s right.”
For an hour Christine smoked and looked at snapshots of white male felons. Lloyd sat beside her, reading her face for flashes of recognition. Twice she said, “Sort of, but not him”; three more times she held the binder up and gave it an extra close scrutiny, then shook her head. Lloyd marked the pages that drew her strongest reactions, and when Christine was finished with the last mug book, he wrote down the names and file numbers of the felons and 530
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went to the records booth to check their files on the off-chance that there might be some sort of connection to perk his mental juices. He gave the five files cursory read-throughs, looking for the felons’ current dispositions, known associates and brothers with criminal records, learning that George James Turney had been stabbed to death in a San Quentin race war six months previous and had two older brothers in their forties; that Thomas Lemuel Tucker was on federal parole in Alaska, and an orphan; that Alexander “Ramo” Ramondelli had a sister and was dying of cancer at Vacaville Prison Hospital; that Duane Richard Rice was an only child and was serving a year in the county jail for grand theft auto; that Paul Prescott Orchard had a mentally retarded younger brother and was a state parole absconder. The “known associates” were complete washouts—no familiar names, no sparks. It was time to write up a report to mollify Kapek, goose the media, chase snitch feedback and let the feds run with the ball. Lloyd put the file numbers in a note to the squad lieutenant supervising the Issler assault, telling him to have a police artist utilize them with the assistance of a new eyeball witness the feds had. After dropping the memo off with the desk officer, he walked back to Christine and said, “Let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”
They were walking out the door when Lloyd saw Peter Kapek striding up the steps toward them. He checked his watch: 5:30. The junior G-man had outfoxed him with an early arrival.
Kapek looked at Christine suspiciously; suddenly Lloyd felt sad for the bank manager’s mistress. When Kapek started to fume silently for an explanation, Lloyd pulled him out of Christine’s earshot. “I had to move fast or lose her. Call me at home and I’ll tell you about it. If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself and get me detached. She’s your witness, but be good to her.”
Kapek’s fuming rendered him beet red. Lloyd nodded to Christine, then walked back into the station. The desk officer handed him a piece of paper.
“Just got the call, from the switchboard at Parker Center. They didn’t say who it’s from. Sounds like a snitch to me.”
Lloyd looked at the message. It said: Luis Calderon dealing army .45s. (Reliable info—call me for details.)
12
The restaurant was cool and dark; the Mexican music soft and harmless; the wraparound booth big and cushiony—a good, private place to talk crime plans. Sipping iced tea and waiting for the Garcias, Duane Rice felt his twenty-four hours of nonstop movement lose its frenzied edge. It was all going to happen; what he’d done since splitting Stan Klein’s place proved he could do anything.
After trashing the pad for info on the “video shoot” Vandy and Klein were on, and getting zilch, he knew it was either tend to business or go gonzo, so he’d driven by the Pico-Westholme bank and memorized the floor plan, then cruised the side streets surrounding it for getaway vehicles. Aroun
d the corner on Graystone, he noticed an ’81 Chevy Caprice parked in the driveway of a house whose screen door was spilling over with rubberband-wrapped newspapers. He’d walked up and checked the name on the mailbox—Latham—then waited for the paper boy and handed him a spiel about being a friend of the Lathams’, and by the way, when were they getting back? The kid said next Friday. Bingo. One vehicle down, one to go. Then it was think or go gonzo, and he forced himself to remember small details all the way back to his kick-out from the slam. It took half an hour of brain-frying concentration, but finally he got it. At the Burger King down the street from the Bowl Motel there was a fat slob security guard who bragged to the customers about his sixteen-hour shifts and all the money he was making, and how he was spending most of it on his
’78 Malibu with a 327 and a B&M Hydrostick. It was never in the lot, but it had to be parked nearby. After a final recon of the Pico-Westholme area, he drove up to Hollywood and found the Malibu parked on De Longpre a half block from the Burger King. Two vehicles down—only the keys to go. He drove to an art supply store and bought a large piece of molding wax, 532
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then cruised by the repo lot on South Western. It was closed up at nine o’clock, and there was no nightwatchman. A simple chisel pry, and he was inside the salesman’s hut. There was an oversupply of master keys for all latemodel Chevys, so he forgot about making wax impressions and glommed the keys outright. The two getaway vehicles were as good as his. Next he called Rhonda, catching her on her way out the door to her weekend at “The Springs.” She told him she didn’t know where the video shoot that Vandy and Klein were on was, and that she didn’t know whether Vandy performed in any of Klein’s X-rated videos. She said she would talk to people in “The Springs” and leave a message if she got any hard info. She mentioned money several times, and he promised to call Silver Foxes Monday night to set up a meet. Then came the tough part—manipulate the Garcia brothers: both of them for the Pico-Westholme heist; Joe for a watchdog. The heaviest gaming would be groveling to Bobby. Even though it was the right thing to do, it felt all wrong, and he was relieved when he called and got no answer. Which left him at midnight with nothing to do and no one to do it with, and nowhere near sleep. The Holiday Inn was now total skunk city, so he moved back to the same room at the Bowl Motel, where the same grease spots and lines of dust greeted him, but did not ease him into sleep. Since he now had to stay awake to talk to Joe Garcia, it was either move or go gonzo. So he moved, driving the Trans Am like a meek old man, going a weird kind of gonzo, where the superior type English he knew from police reports filled his head with thoughts he didn’t want to say or even think out loud: Unlike Stan Klein, Gordon Meyers is not a known associate. In the course of his career as Module 2700 night jailer, he incurred only mild resentment from the thousands of inmates he supervised, all of whom were mentally disturbed misdemeanants incapable of perpetrating armed robbery and murder; Said unknown perpetrators were obviously seasoned bank robbers, most likely San Quentin or Folsom parolees, institutionalized and subconsciously desirous of committing felony acts in hopes of receiving ten-to-life habitual offender sentences.
The parole officer/cop/shrink rap kept eating at him; finally he started thinking of Vandy to hold it down. He thought of known associate Stan Klein, whom he couldn’t touch, and got very calm, even cocky. Deciding to check out Stan Man’s new scam, he started asking night clerks at “adult” motels if they had any good “fuck music.” The first three clerks took his ten spot and
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said no; the fourth said yes and offered him a special “short timer” rate for private listening. Steeling himself, he accepted the offer. The six cassettes stacked atop the V.C.R. in front of the sweat-stained bed all bore the “Stan Man” name and P.O. box. He loaded them into the machine and turned off the lights. Tremors and a flash thought hit him along with the “Stan Man” logo; he didn’t want it to be Vandy, but if it was Vandy, he wouldn’t be so god-awful alone. Cursing himself, he turned up the volume and watched the show.
A disco beat, then a haggard woman was gobbling a donkey-sized dick while Donna Summer belted, “She Works Hard for the Money.” Fade-out, logo, then Rhonda the Fox was taking on four guys at once, the Beach Boys wailing for her to help them. Blank frames, blurred logo, “This Land Is Your Land” on the sound track, Mondale and Ferraro doing a handshaking tour on the screen, intercut with a girl in a red, white and blue negligee giving head to a jig in an Uncle Sam costume.
No Vandy.
If you fuck whores, then all women start looking like whores. If you love a woman, then all women start looking like her. Rice kicked over the V.C.R. and ran out of the room and across Sunset to a phone booth. He dialed the Garcias’ number; Joe answered on the first ring. All he got out was “Hello?” before Duane the Brain took over in force:
“You want to come to New York, get away from your batshit brother and work a real musician gig?
“You and Bobby want two-thirds of a hundred K foolproof, in and out on Monday morning in six minutes?
“You want to be a fucking pachuco for the rest of your life, or do you want out?
“You get your brother to come with you to La Talpa tomorrow at noon. Tell him I’ll apologize; tell him I need him.”
The words stuck in his throat. Joe’s final answer would always stick in his brain: “I’m your man, Duane. And don’t worry about Bobby. He likes getting hit. In fact, he said you remind him of this priest he used to know.”
*
*
*
“Thanks for sparing my face, Duane-o. The old Sharkman owes you for that. I lit a candle for you last night. Figured you was Protestant, but what the fuck.”
Rice looked up to see Bobby Garcia sliding into the booth, his right hand held out. He shook it, glad that the restaurant was dark, so the greasy piece of sharkshit couldn’t read the contempt on his face. Thinking, Ice City, he said, “Sorry, Bobby. I flipped out.”
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Bobby sat down across from him and dug into the bowl of nachos and salsa on the table. Between wolfish mouthfuls, he said, “No strain, no gain, no pain. Little brother’s coming in a minute. You got another score?”
“Yeah. Straight in and out bank job.”
Bobby whistled. “Righteous. Little Bro said a hundred big ones. That true?”
“If I’m lyin’, I’m flyin’.”
Bobby giggled and slithered a shark hand over the bowl of nachos. “Then you gotta have wings somewhere, ’cause your first two righteous big-time scores netted me and Little Bro about a dollar eighty-nine, and I’m startin’
to feel like the bottom man in a Mongolian cluster fuck.”
Rice took in a deep breath, hoping his voice would come out just right, giving Sharkshit the perfect amount of slack. “That was secondhand information I acted on. I was crazy to trust it. But we’ve hit twice. We’re on a roll, and this one is all mine. I’ve had it in mind for a long time, I was just waiting for the right partners.”
Bobby smirked. “I hope it ain’t a roll into the gutter. I been there twice, and I ain’t goin’ for sloppy thirds.”
“You’ll like this one—it’s you. ”
“Yeah? Me? Tall, dark and handsome? Hung like a mule?”
“No. Nasty, simple and out front. Easy to understand, so I know you’ll eat it up.”
Bobby giggled. “You said the magic word—eat. You know how to pick up chicks without saying a word? Sit at the bar and part your hair with your tongue.”
“It’s you, Bobby. So simple and low class that it’s got class.”
A waitress came up to the booth with menus; Rice grabbed them and said, “We’ll order in a few minutes.” When she walked away, Bobby said,
“We shoulda hit a smorgasbord. The furburger buffet: all you can eat for sixty-nine clams.” Rice felt a tide of slime wash over him. Then Joe Garcia was there, saying, “Duane, how’s it hanging?”
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Rice looked straight at the Garcias, knowing they’d go for the plan: bullshit, truth, the whole enchilada.
“Nifty little Cal Federal on Pico near the West L.A. freeway crisscross. One camera—we shoot it out. One plainclothes security man—a juicehead. Big payroll payouts on the twelfth and twenty-sixth of the month, so we hit the twelfth, this Monday. I’ve got one car pegged for the approach, another for the getaway—a family car right around the corner from the bank. The people are away on vacation, and I’ve got a master key for the doors and ignition. We go in wearing suits and beard-mustache disguises, carrying briefcases. Six tellers stations, two to a man. I know an abandoned garage in Hollyweird where we can stash the getaway sled. In, out, on the freeway by the time the fuzz show up. Three-way equal split. I’ve been casing this score for a long time, but I didn’t know how stand-up you guys were. Are you with me? ”
Bobby chugalugged his beer, reached into the bowl and crumbled the remains of the nachos, then placed his hands palms up on the table. Rice placed his right hand on top of them; Joe sealed the partnership agreement with both of his. Rice said, “You know how to dress and what to bring. Meet me at Melrose and Highland Monday morning at ten.”
The partners withdrew their hands and stood up. Bobby squeezed out of the booth, walked over to the waitress and began a soft rendition of the Jaws theme. Joe looked at Rice, swallowed and said, “Was that for real about New York and the music gig?”
