Bullets had Clarence Cromwell cornered at the burglary table when Valnikov got himself a cup of tea. Bullets was saying, “… so I take this broad home. You know her, Clarence?”
“Yeah, yeah, she works the D.A.’s office,” Clarence sighed. All these young kids got woman troubles and who do they bring them to? Clarence Cromwell, that’s who. “Bullets, do I look like the fuckin Ann Landers of Hollywood Detectives, or somethin?”
“But, Clarence, listen! She’s a sicko. Some kinda fruitcake or somethin. She plays with her own clit when I’m lovin her up. Can you believe it? Then … get this … she starts suckin on her own big tit! I says to this freako, I says, ‘Hey. Whadda you need me for?’ She says, ‘Come to think of it, dummy, I don’t.’”
“Yeah, this is very interestin, Bullets. I mean, there ain’t nothin I’d rather do than talk about your sex life but …”
“Then I done it!”
Suddenly the scowling black detective stiffened and said, “You done what, Bullets?”
“Nothin much. I just got mad. I just threw her in the swimmin pool, is all.”
“Jesus! You had me scared for a minute. I can’t be coverin for you anymore, Bullets!”
“I know, Clarence, and I just wanted you to know how it was.”
“I don’t think she can bitch too much, you just threw her in a swimmin pool.”
“Thanks for bein so understandin, Clarence,” Bullets breathed.
“Nothing but whackos in Hollywood anyway,” said Montezuma Montez, overhearing Bullets’ problems. “Over in East L.A. you pick up a Mexican chick, you buy a six-pack a beer and have a great old time in a drive-in movie. In Hollywood you pick up a broad you gotta spend thirty bucks on dinner. Then to satisfy her you gotta go down to Western Costume and rent a werewolf mask and spend the night whopping each other over the head with live kitty cats. I wanna transfer back to Hollenbeck,” said Montezuma Montez.
But Bullets was ready for trouble. “Yeah, that’s just like a spic to say that,” Bullets sneered. “You get the wrong hole with those Mexican broads you end up with a blister on your joint, all the chili seeds they eat. I’ll take a Hollywood girl any old time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Montezuma said. “Well lemme tell you about this Hollywood lady I picked up the other night. Said her folks were from Venice. Not Venice, California. Venice, Italy. Had her little two-year-old spumoni sucker in the car when I picked her up at the tennis court,” said Montezuma.
“That’s a filthy lie,” said Bullets Bambarella, and Clarence Cromwell finally said, “Will you two please shut up!”
“It’s gotta be a lie, Clarence,” Bullets argued. “You think a spic can play tennis?”
“Better than any dago I ever seen,” said Montezuma Montez.
Then Bullets turned to Montezuma and said, “I never played tennis in my life and I could probably beat you.”
“I could beat you left-handed,” said Montezuma Montez.
“Gotcha covered, dummy!” Bullets yelled in triumph and suddenly Montezuma Montez was looking down at forty borrowed dollars, thinking he may have gone too far.
Then money was flying all over the squad room and Lieutenant Mockett was whining to no avail about illegal gambling, and four cars full of detectives went speeding to Hollywood High School for a bizarre one-set tennis match in stocking feet, suits, and ties, between two clumsy buffaloes, one of whom was playing with the wrong hand.
Natalie Zimmerman, wearing a new side-pleated skirt and matching cardigan jacket, came to work five minutes late, and was almost knocked to the floor by the thundering herd charging out of the station to the tennis match.
She was relieved to see that Hipless Hooker was also late. She was not going to fail today. She was going to grab him by the goddamn throat if she had to, the minute he came in the door. And then she was going to walk him into the office and put a chair in front of the door to keep out Clarence Cromwell. Then they were going to talk about Valnikov.
The reason she was late was that she had only gotten three hours’ sleep, what with Captain Jack Packerton jumping on her every two hours or so to prove he still had it even though he’d just turned forty. She felt like telling him it would be the last all-nighter until he accepted impending middle age. And all the time he didn’t know that Natalie Zimmerman had much the same fear because she had failed at orgasm the last five times.
What the hell, Jack, let’s just live together. I’ve been divorced twice now and … Live together? Natalie, I’m a captain! Have you read the latest memorandum from Chief Digby Bates about moral rearmament? Do you know what would happen if a captain was found living in sin? Christ, I’d rather risk another divorce than face the alternative! Do you know that I stand a very good chance of being a deputy chief someday? What’re you trying to do to my career? Live together? Without benefit of clergy? I WANNA BE A DEPUTY CHIEF!
And all she wanted to be was an Investigator III who wasn’t lonely and who could have an occasional orgasm. Yet she was an Investigator II, and hadn’t had one lately, and was working with a closet madman, and there was no help on the horizon.
She was telling all this silendy to her Friz when Valnikov set a cup of coffee in front of her. He was looking all spruced up today for some reason. Just her luck. The day she vowed to expose him is the day he picks to get all gussied up and comb his hair. Well, it didn’t matter whether he looked like a madman or not. He couldn’t fool anybody if they just pushed the right buttons. Tell me about your dream, Valnikov. Is it Bugs Bunny? Peter Cottontail? Tell me about a rabbit that makes you cry. Jesus, he was smiling that big goofy kid smile.
“We have a real case to work on, Natalie,” he said. “Would you care for a little cream or sugar?”
“No.”
“I just finished telling Clarence about it.”
And hearing his name, Clarence Cromwell came over and sat on Valnikov’s table. “Mockett wants to know if you’re putting in overtime for last night.”
“No,” said Valnikov.
“Okay, that’ll keep him happy. I’m gonna have Max Haffenkamp handle your cases for today and maybe tomorrow. I might go out and help him. But that’s it. We can’t be makin no major crime outta this extortion.”
“Extortion?” said Natalie.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Valnikov said. “It’s a pretty big one. Eighty-five thousand dollars.”
“Yeah, but it’s over a dog, Val. Keep that in mind. It’s only a gud-damn pampered dog.”
“I appreciate your handling my regular workload, Clarence,” Valnikov said, and Natalie was shocked to see that even his blue eyes were clear this morning.
“One thing you gotta do first, Val,” said Clarence. “Mockett says you make sure that dead dog is the one from the Brown Derby. Go to the pet mortuary and see if they haven’t disposed of it yet. Have that broad from Trousdale … what’s her name?”
“Millie Gharoujian.”
“Yeah, you have her or somebody identify that dead dog. If it ain’t from the Brown Derby, you turn the whole thing over to Southwest Detectives or Pasadena P.D. Them’s orders from Mockett. First order he gave this month. We gotta humor him.”
“Okay, Clarence,” Valnikov said. “Let’s go, Natalie.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, brushing her Friz out of her eyes. “Clarence, where’s the captain? I have to talk to him and I’m not going anywhere until I do!”
“Gud-damn, Natalie!” Clarence sneered, standing up and putting his fists on his hips, the twin magnums dangling impotently beside his barrel chest.
“Gud-damn, what!” she sneered right back. A black General Patton!
“Is it that same thing you been complainin about the last three days, Natalie?”
“Yes it is,” she said, looking involuntarily at Valnikov, who busied himself with a follow-up report, too polite to pry.
“Well, this is a hell of a time,” Clarence snorted. “You got an extortion to work on and you wanna go runnin to …”
He
was interrupted when Natalie jumped to her feet. She jumped because Hipless Hooker came flying through the door and ran across the squad room. He was holding his stomach and was followed by a young woman in a yellow pantsuit, walking like a robot, wearing a neck brace.
“Clarence!” Hipless Hooker cried, but Natalie Zimmerman beat Clarence to the captain’s office.
“I just gotta talk to you today, Captain!” Natalie cried.
“Not now, Natalie,” Hooker whimpered. “Clarence, this lady was waiting for me at the desk when I came in. She claims she was out on a date with Bullets Bambarella last night. She works for the district attorney’s office. She wants to sue us for half a million dollars!”
“Let’s all go in and quiet down,” said Clarence, smiling at the woman in the neck brace.
“Bullets told me about it, miss,” Clarence said placatingly, “but I didn’t know he hurt you. He said he just pushed you into a swimmin pool.”
“He did!” Hooker cried. “But her apartment was two floors up!”
“I got a whiplash,” the young woman said, “and Bullets is not gonna get away with it.”
“Oooooooooohhhhh, my stomach,” Hooker suddenly moaned.
“And I was wearing a good wristwatch and my contact lenses at the time,” the girl said, sitting down gingerly.
“Yeah, well I think we can clear this up,” Clarence said as he closed the door in Natalie’s face. “You see, Bullets really cares about you a lot. He told me.”
It was starting to seem like a dream to Natalie Zimmerman. Destiny and Bullets Bambarella were conspiring to save Valnikov from his fate. And here they were driving up the hill, high to the top of Trousdale Estates, overlooking Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Natalie Zimmerman was starting to believe she would never be rid of the man next to her, driving all of fifteen miles per hour.
“It’s beautiful up here on top of the smog, isn’t it?” he said amiably, as she sat and smoked and thought about sex without orgasm. And the black marble.
“Yeah, beautiful.”
“Mrs. Gharoujian must be very rich.”
“Jesus!” said Natalie, coming out of her funk when she saw the contemporary home of Millie Muldoon Gharoujian on the cul-de-sac overlooking all of Baghdad. There was a Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce in the driveway, and a chauffeur in a black cap. He was nineteen years old and had shoulder-length blond hair hanging from under his cap. He got out of the car when they pulled up to the gate.
Valnikov held his badge out the window and the chauffeur nodded and opened the gate. There was a granite fountain in the center of the circular drive. On it was a plaster sculpture of David. With an erection. A stream of water flowed from the erection. In the fountain, a boa constrictor writhed and rubbed his scales against the granite bowl and got a suntan, compliments of Millie Muldoon Gharoujian.
When Natalie pushed the doorbell, the chime played a chorus of “Roll Out the Barrel.” Then the door was opened by a horseboy with a 29 waist and 19-inch arms. The horseboy was eighteen years old and was a runner-up in a Mr. California contest.
“Mrs. Gharoujian is expecting you,” he said, admitting them into the living room overlooking the cantilever, clover-shaped swimming pool.
The living room was white. White sofas filled seventy square yards of room. White wall-to-wall carpet buried Natalie’s heels. White slump-stone fireplace. White baby grand ingeniously built so that it could play as well as any upright player piano when Millie wasn’t too tired to pump the white enamel foot pedals.
The white walls of the living room were covered with gilded antique mirrors and paintings of nudes, men and women. Over the fireplace was an enormous painting of a reclining Millie Gharoujian when she was thirty years old and still looked like Harlow. The painting was done in 1932.
Then the east wall, which was all mirrors, opened. Millie came briskly through the mirrored door. She had had five face lifts over the past twenty-five years, and in a huge silk kimono barely covering the breasts which hung like twin punching bags, she looked not a day over seventy-two. She was perspiring and red-faced and petulant.
“Sergeant, I told you on the phone, I already reported that schnauzer to my insurance company. It’s a closed incident, far as I’m concerned. I appreciate you’re a good cop and all that, but why don’t you gimme a break? I got something in there hung like …”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Valnikov cried, not wanting Natalie to hear about Michelangelo penises. “But, Mrs. Gharoujian, if you could just come with us. The pet mortuary is only twenty minutes from here and we’d bring you right home as soon as you say if it’s your Tutu or not. And …”
“Leave here? Now? Sergeant, you gotta be kidding! With what I got waiting for me on that water bed in there?”
“Uh, yes, I understand, ma’am,” Valnikov said quickly, as Natalie moved a few feet to her left to try to see what Millie had on her water bed.
“Damn, you’re a tough man, Sergeant,” Millie sighed. Then she picked up a cigarette, put it into a ruby-studded holder, and said, “You married, Sergeant?”
“No, ma’am,” Valnikov said.
“Hmmm,” said Millie. “Well, some other time maybe. Right now, I gotta get back to business.”
“Is there anyone else here …”
“Anyone else here! You kidding! I got two kids in there with …”
“Yes, I mean anyone who could come with us and look at the dead schnauzer,” said Valnikov. “It might save everyone a lot of trouble.”
“Hey, Twinkles!” Millie ye’led, and the houseboy returned from the kitchen with a plastic mixer full of banana daiquiris.
“Yes, Millie?”
She patted his buttocks and sighed, “If only you were Japanese, sweetie. Maybe we could get your eyes fixed. Listen, go with these cops, will ya? Have Buttons drive you in the Rolls. Look at this dead dog they wanna show you and see if it’s Tutu or not. Then get your ass right back here. These two in the bedroom are already tired out.” Then to Valnikov, “The youth of America ain’t what it used to be, Sergeant. The President’s Council on Physical Fitness oughtta listen to me, sometime. I could tell em.”
“Yes, ma’am, and thank you,” said Valnikov as he and Natalie followed Twinkles out the front door, getting a fair glimpse into Millie’s boudoir. There was a huge hairy creature lying on the floor. Alive!
“There’s a goat in there, Valnikov!” Natalie cried when they were outside.
“It’s a baby llama,” Twinkles said. “Millie’s keeping it for a friend. And I’m getting sick and tired of cleaning llama shit all day, I can tell you.” Twinkles peeled off his waistcoat and revealed a torso that actually split the shoulder seams of his starched white dress shirt. He rolled up the sleeves over bulging forearms with tendons like pencils. “We’ll follow you in the Rolls,” he said. “If it’s Tutu, I’ll know her.”
There was a wake going on when they arrived at the pet mortuary. Three women and two men were weeping inconsolably and saying adieu to a raccoon who lay in state in a little walnut baby coffin. It had a fawn satin lining with black ruffles to match the tail stripe and mask on the eyes of the dead animal. The coffin had a double lid and the lower half was closed, revealing only the head and torso of the deceased. There was soft music drifting over the intercom, instrumental strings playing “My Buddy.” The deceased had never looked better. His fur was brushed with lanolin. His black raccoon mask was touched up with shoe dye. His little raccoon hands were folded on his chest, as though in prayer, artfully kept in that position by driving a cobbler’s needle clear through his chest and sewing them in place. In this prayerful pose the raccoon looked anything but dead. The raccoon could have been playing possum.
They were greeted by a balding man in a somber gray suit with a white carnation in his lapel.
“May I be of service?” he asked.
“Mr. Limpwood?”
“No, he’s conducting a graveside service at the moment.”
“I called him. I’m Sergeant Valnikov from the poli
ce department.”
“Yes, he said to show you to the cemetery. He’ll be finished shortly. It’s a private graveside service for the immediate family.”
Valnikov and Natalie walked outside and saw Mr. Limpwood consoling a tearful couple. He tried in vain to scratch the arched backs of the immediate family of Siamese cats. Then he walked jauntily along the cobbled path among tombstones and granite sculpture of all sizes and description which said things like: “Our beloved Duchess, lest we forget!” and “Farewell, Happy Oliver! Till we meet in the Great Beyond!”
He was dressed similarly to the other mortician, but was much shorter and more bald. He wore a white carnation. “May I be of service?”
Valnikov showed his badge and Mr. Limpwood registered disappointment. It was the best week since he’d been in business: fourteen dogs, ten cats, a chimpanzee, two ocelots, a piranha from Pomona (Not all freak’s lived in Hollywood.) and a raccoon. There was a rumor that they might get an Arabian gelding, which had them all excited. (Eleven plots of ground to bury that baby. Eleven! And the embalming cost!) But these were just cops not customers.
“You know, Sergeant, I tried to call you this morning but you’d just left. I’m terribly sorry, but the deceased was buried last night. I thought we still had her set for burial this morning, but as you know, there was no bereaved, only dear Mrs. Whitfield, who kindly arranged for the burial, bless her heart.”
“Where’s she buried? Let’s dig her up,” said Valnikov.
“Dig her up? Sergeant! Exhume the body? I’ve never been asked …”
“I think that only applies to people bodies,” said Valnikov. “Is it that fresh grave over there? By the shovel?”
“Yes, but I don’t know! I don’t want to be sued, Sergeant! In the event the deceased’s next of kin is determined!”
“We can’t determine anything until we look at the body,” said Valnikov.
“Millie wants me back on time and she means business,” said Twinkles suddenly, and Valnikov didn’t doubt that at all. Then the giant kid strode over to the half-filled grave, stripped off his dress shirt, showing a black silk body shirt that Millie had bought him, and started swooping up earth like a steam shovel. He had the shallow grave uncovered in fifteen minutes.
The Black Marble Page 25
