Clandestine

by James Ellroy

  I went into the room adjoining the interrogation room and lay down on a saggy army cot that was a good half foot too short for me. I got up and walked to the bathroom. It was relatively clean; almost clean enough to use. I looked at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink. I needed a shave and hadn’t thought to bring a razor.

  I lay back down on my cot. Exhaustion grabbed me before I could remove my shoes or shoulder holster. I fought sleep for brief moments, managing to mutter, “Lorna, Lorna, Lorna” until sleep triumphed.

  * * *

  —

  I awoke to someone jostling me. I bolted upright and went for my gun. Dick Carlisle materialized and pinned my arms. The light from the overhead bulb was glinting off his steel-rimmed spectacles.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and suddenly realized that I didn’t like Carlisle. There was something sullen and animalistic about him. And he was plainly keyed up.

  “Look at this,” he said, digging into his coat pocket and pulling out Maggie Cadwallader’s diamond brooch.

  “Jesus!” I said. “Where the hell did you get that? Is it real?”

  “Dudley says so. He knows a lot about this kind of stuff, and he says it’s legit. I found it at Engels’s apartment hidden away in a tie rack.”

  “Jesus,” I said, feigning awe, my wheels turning. “Jesus. When I searched the Cadwallader dame’s apartment, I found a little photograph of her. She was wearing a brooch just like this one!”

  “Christ, Underhill! What did you do with it?”

  “I lost it when I had the newspaper photo reprinted.”

  “Shit. I’ll tell Dudley.”

  Carlisle disappeared through the door that connected the two rooms, and I busied myself throwing water on my face and combing my hair. When I entered the interrogation room Dick Carlisle was slapping Eddie Engels awake, and Dudley and Mike Breuning were huddled in conversation. Seeing me, Dudley waved me toward him.

  “Freddy, you’re sure you saw a brooch like this one in that photograph you found?” He held it up for me to see.

  “I’m positive, Dud.”

  “Grand, another confirmation. You sit back, lad. Remember your cue.”

  Carlisle went back to rousing Engels. “Wake up, wake up, you goddamned degenerate!” he shouted, then gave up in frustration, and stripped his belt from his trousers and lashed it across Eddie’s bare back.

  Engels, coming out of his doped stupor, curled himself into a fetal ball, his arms covering his face. “No, don’t hit me, you can have it. You can have it all, don’t hit me!” he shrieked.

  Carlisle shrieked back: “We want the truth, you homo! The truth!”

  “I’m not a homo!”

  “Prove it!” Carlisle flailed Engels again with his belt. The heavy brass buckle catch ripped shreds of flesh loose from his shoulder blades, and Eddie threw himself onto his back to protect himself.

  Dudley wrenched the belt from Carlisle and wrapped it around his broad right fist. “Ask Janet!” Eddie pleaded.

  “I did, lad. Shall I tell you what she said?”

  Engels faltered. “Tell me,” he whispered.

  Dudley Smith moved to the bed, picked up Engels under his arms and threw him across the room. He landed in a wild tangle of arms and legs and screamed. I gasped at the feat of strength. Dudley walked to Engels and jerked him to his feet with his left hand, then slammed a leather-encased right hand into his stomach. Engels screamed again, and doubled over, still held erect by the hand Dudley had dug into his shoulder.

  “Janet told me that you were a dirty, cock-sucking degenerate,” Dudley said, “who spurned her bed for the bed of a muscle-bound nancy boy. Is that true, Eddie?”

  “No!”

  “No?” Dudley dug his hand into Engels’s shoulder until little geysers of blood shot out. “No, Eddie?”

  Eddie Engels screamed, “No!”

  “No?”

  “No!”

  “No?” Blood was trickling down Engels’s chest, combining with his sweat. Dudley gritted his teeth and dug his hand in full force. “No?” he screeched, his brogue almost breaking. He released his hand and Engels fell to his knees, sobbing.

  “Yes,” he blubbered.

  “Good, lad. Now answer a few more questions for me. Do you pay income tax?”

  “No.”

  “Ahhh, yes. Do you take bets on the ponies?”

  “Yes.” Engels pawed at his shoulder. It was a giant purple swelling with deep puncture wounds.

  “Get to your feet, lad,” Dudley said. Engels managed to bring himself upright, and Dudley swung a huge roundhouse right at his midsection. Engels stifled a scream and fell to the floor, clutching his stomach. “More questions, lad. Janet told me you hit her. Is that true?”

  “No!” Engels elbowed his way toward the wall, drawing his arms protectively over his head. “No! No! No! No!” he shrieked, drawing himself tighter into a ball with each screaming repeat of the word.

  Dudley smiled menacingly. “No?”

  “Yes,” Engels said softly.

  “Ahhh, grand. Did you hit her often, lad?”

  “Yes.”

  “And other women?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You filthy scum-sucker!”

  “I…I…I don’t know!”

  “You…don’t…know.” Dudley tried the words on his palate like a connoisseur tasting a fine wine. “Tell me about the muscle boy, lad.”

  I looked around the room. Dick Carlisle was sipping a beer by the bathroom door, Mike Breuning was writing rapidly on his steno pad, and Dudley Smith was inching himself slowly toward the prostrate form of Eddie Engels. He squatted next to him and said softly, “Do you believe in God, lad?”

  Engels nodded his head. “Yes.”

  “Then don’t you think God wants you to be rid of your guilt, like a good believer?”

  “Yes…” Engels said, his voice surprisingly calm.

  “Good, lad. Tell me about the muscle boy.”

  “His name was Jerry. I met him at Larry’s Log Cabin. He was on dope. He needed help and I helped him.”

  “Did he like to hit women, too?”

  “No!”

  “Did the two of you prowl for lonely young women to beat up, then go home and commit sodomy with each other?”

  “No! Please God, no, please God!” Engels wailed.

  Dudley reached behind him and grabbed his arms and pulled him to his feet. Engels pliably submitted and stared at him impassively, until Dudley’s right hand crashed into his solar plexus. He vomited, spraying a gush of pink goo that smelled like gin onto Dudley’s shirtfront. Dudley’s face contorted and his whole body twitched, but he just stood there, staring down at the woman-killer he hated so much.

  There was complete silence in the room. Nobody moved. Engels remained perfectly still on the floor, arms wrapped around his devastated midsection. There was a straight-backed wooden chair directly behind him. Dudley lifted Engels into it. He pulled up another chair for himself and drew it up so that his knees almost touched Eddie’s.

  “Now, Eddie, we know that you like to hit women, don’t we?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “A handsome lad like yourself has no trouble finding young ladies, isn’t that true? You said you go to cocktail bars. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you pick up young ladies there?”

  “Uh…I…yes.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “What? To fuck. To sleep with. I’m no fag!”

  “Easy, lad. We know you like boys.”

  “No! No!”

  Dudley slapped him.

  “No, no, no, no!” he continued.

  Dudley slapped him again, this time harder. Blood was flowing out of his nose, dripping into his mouth.
He licked it off his lips and started to cry. Dudley sighed and handed Engels a handkerchief. “Maybe you aren’t queer, lad. Maybe you do like tail. After all, the inspector said he saw you at that place, what was the name of it? The Silver Star? That place is no homo hangout.”

  Engels started to shake his head, spraying Dudley with blood and sweat. “I’m no fag. I’ve had more tail than any cop in L.A.”

  “Tell me about it, Eddie,” Dudley said, lighting him a cigarette and placing it between his lips.

  The cocky ladies’ man came briefly to life, cutting through all his terror and fatigue. “They love me, they can’t leave me alone. I’m a virtuoso. I just snap my fingers. Every bartender in Hollywood knows me—”

  Dudley interrupted: “The barman at the Silver Star says you’re a sissy. He says you hate women. You hate them, so you fuck them to make them like you, then you hurt them, right, Eddie? Right, Eddie? Right, Eddie, right? Queer, cock-sucking Eddie, right…?”

  Engels threw himself on Dudley, knocking his chair over and falling on top of him, trying to smother him with his battered body. Breuning and Carlisle watched for stunned seconds, then ran over and grabbed Eddie by his flailing arms and legs and pinned him against the wall. Engels was screaming as Dick Carlisle began to slam him with both fists in the groin and rib cage. Breuning mashed his face into the wall until Engels bit into the palm of his hand. Breuning screamed and backed off, and Carlisle wrapped his hands around Engels’s neck and started to choke him. Engels relinquished Breuning’s hand and started to make gurgling sounds.

  I jumped up and grabbed Carlisle by the shoulders, flinging him backward onto the mattress. Breuning was trying to get at Engels with his good hand, holding his bitten one between his legs to stanch the pain. I flattened myself against Engels, trying to push the two of us through the wall to another reality. Breuning pulled at my shoulders.

  Finally Dudley screamed, “Stop it, all of you. Stop it. Stop it now!”

  Breuning let go of me. I moved away from Engels, who fell to the floor, unconscious.

  “You filthy traitor,” Carlisle hissed at me. I advanced toward him, my fists cocked.

  Dudley planted himself in front of me. “No, lad.”

  I flopped down into the chair that had held Engels. I was exhausted and shaking from head to foot. Breuning, Carlisle, Dudley, and I all stared at one another in ugly silence.

  Finally Dudley smiled. He drew a hypodermic needle and a little vial out of his pants pocket. He inserted the needle into the vial and drew out some clear liquid, then knelt beside the unconscious Engels, checked his pulse, nodded and stuck the needle into his arm just above the elbow. He pushed the plunger and held it in for a few seconds, then lifted Engels onto the mattress.

  “He’ll sleep,” Dudley said. “He needs it. You men do, too. We all do. So rest, lads. We’ll start over in the morning.”

  * * *

  —

  We did. Fueled by a night’s sleep—mine fitful, Engels’s drugged—we began at nine o’clock the following day. Dudley had roused me at seven thirty, presenting me with a razor and a fresh short-sleeved shirt. The ritual of shaving and bathing restored me somewhat.

  I was still shocked by what had happened. Dudley knew it, and assuaged my fears. “No more violence, lad. He can’t take much more. I’ve sent Dick Carlisle home; he might get carried away. We’ll play it kid gloves from here on in.” All I could do was nod dumbly. I couldn’t even try to play protégé to the insane Irishman—he was a loathsome object to me now.

  I walked down the street to a diner that served a boisterous, good-humored aircraft-worker clientele. The roughhewn camaraderie of the men who sat beside me at the counter restored me further. I ate a big breakfast of sausage, eggs, and potatoes, chased by about a gallon of coffee. I bought a triple order of poached eggs and two chocolate malts for Eddie Engels. Ordering it boxed “to go” made me sad and angry. This was beyond the bailiwick of wonder and justice, reaching toward some kind of knowledge of the human condition that for once I didn’t want to know.

  There was a pay phone at the back of the diner. I almost gave in to an impulse to call Lorna, but didn’t. I wanted it to be over first.

  When I got back to the room, Eddie Engels was still passed out on the filthy mattress, his face contorted in terror even in repose.

  Dudley, Breuning, and I watched him wake up. For long moments he didn’t seem to know where he was. Finally, his brain clicked into reality, and when his eyes focused on Dudley he began to twitch spastically, shutting his eyes and trying to scream. No sound came out.

  Dudley and I looked at each other. Mike Breuning fiddled with his steno pad, his eyes downcast, ashamed. I motioned to Dudley. He followed me into the adjoining room. “Let me have him,” I said. “He’s too terrified of you. Let me talk to him. Alone. I’ll bring him around.”

  “I want a confession, lad. Today.”

  “You’ll have it.”

  “I’ll give you two hours, lad. No more.”

  I led Engels gently into the other room. I told him he could take his time using the halfway clean bathroom. He did, closing the door behind him. I waited while Engels cleaned himself up. He came back out and sat down on the edge of one of the cots. His torso was badly bruised, and the welt on his shoulder where Dudley had dug in his fingers had swollen to the size of an orange.

  I lit him a cigarette and handed it to him. “Are you scared, Eddie?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I’m real scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of that Irish guy.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “What do you want? I’m just a small-time gambler.”

  “And an abuser of women.” He lowered his head. “Look at me, Eddie.” He raised his head and met my eyes. “Have you hurt a lot of women, Eddie?” He nodded. “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know!”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “A long time.”

  “Before you left Seattle?”

  “I…yes.”

  “Do your parents know about it?”

  “No! Leave them out of this!”

  “Sssshhh. Do you love your parents?”

  Engels snorted, then looked at me as if I were crazy. “Everyone loves their parents,” he said.

  “Everyone who knows them. I never knew mine. I grew up in an orphanage.”

  “That’s so sad. That’s really sad. Is that why you became a cop, so you could track them down?”

  “I never thought about it. You’re a lucky fellow, though, to have a nice family.”

  Engels nodded, his frightened features softening for a moment.

  “Are you close to your sister, Lillian?” I asked. Engels didn’t answer. “Are you?” Still no response. “Are you, Eddie?”

  Engels’s face went beet red. “I hate her!” he screamed. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!” He slammed his hands into the edge of the cot in frustration. The outburst was over as quickly as it had started, but Eddie’s personality had changed again. “I…hate…Lillian.” He said it very softly, with great finality, one word at a time.

  “Did she hit you, Eddie?” I asked.

  A shake of the head in answer.

  “Did she make fun of you?”

  No response.

  “Did she have power over you?”

  “Yes,” Engels whimpered. He bit his lip.

  “What did she do to you?” I said gently.

  Eddie Engels said, quite calmly: “She brought me out. She was lez and she didn’t want me to love any other girls but her.”

  “And?” I whispered.

  “And she dressed me up, and made me up…”

  “And?”

  “And…fixed me up, and made me do her in front of her girlfriend…” Engels’s sad vo
ice trailed off.

  I cleared my throat. My own voice sounded strange and disembodied. “And you hate her for it?”

  “And I hate her for what she made me, Officer. But I love her, too. And I’d rather be what I am than be what you are.”

  His words hung in the air, poisonous, like atomic fallout. I handed Engels the paper sack containing the eggs and malted milks. “Eat your breakfast,” I said. “Rest for a little while, and soon you’ll find out why we brought you here.”

  Making sure the windowless room was locked from the outside, I left Engels alone to contemplate my threat, then went and reported to Dudley Smith.

  “You should have been a headshrinker, lad,” was his only comment.

  * * *

  —

  At one thirty that afternoon we brought Eddie Engels back into the interrogation room. He was fed and rested, but looked weary and ready to accept anything. I sat him down on the mattress, and Dudley, Breuning, and I arranged our chairs, allowing him nothing to look at but three oversized cops. Dudley placed an ashtray, matches, and an open pack of Chesterfields on the mattress next to him. Engels helped himself, warily.

  Dudley kicked it off: “Of course you know what this is all about, don’t you, Engels?”

  Engels gulped and shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “Lad, were you living on Twenty-ninth and Pacific in Venice in March of 1948?”

  “Y-yes,” Engels said.

  “A young woman was found strangled to death two blocks from the house you shared with Janet Valupeyk. Did you kill her?”

  Engels went white and screamed, “No!”

  “Her name was Karen Waters. She was twenty-two.”

  “I said, no!”

  “Very well. I have here the names of two other young women, lonely young women who met untimely deaths by strangulation. Answer if the names ring a bell, will you, lad? Mary Peterson?”

  “No!”

  “Jane Macauley?”

  “I said, no!”

  Dudley sighed, feigning exasperated patience: “So you did,” he said. “Well, lad, Janet Valupeyk says otherwise. She positively identified all three of those dead women as conquests of yours. She remembers them well. She—”