The Glitter Dome

by Joseph Wambaugh

  But Martin Welborn was dead wrong. And Elliott Robles was just dead.

  Al Mackey used the desk phone and talked a few moments to Hal Dickey while Martin Welborn was upstairs in the squadroom. After he hung up, Al Mackey started pacing the corridor of Hollywood Station, showing more tension than Griswold Weils. He didn’t know whether to go upstairs and tell Marty there or wait for him to come down. He thought about not telling him at all. That was crazy. Marty would find out soon enough. He thought about how to tell him.

  Elliott Robles was a snitch. Not a very good snitch, but a snitch nonetheless. He was a former heroin addict whom they cured at an addiction center by introducing him to methadone. Now he was a meth head, totally addicted to that drug.

  He was a comical little twenty-seven-year-old Mexican with an Anglo name. He loved being the only Chicano in Hollywood with such an unlikely name: Elliott. He probably dreamed up the name the first time he was booked and it stayed in the computer as his “key name.” Al Mackey never bothered to find out. He was a snitch and gave them information leading to the clearance of two gang killings, so they didn’t want to know too much about him for fear he’d be burned as a material witness at a murder trial. Know as little as possible and one can truthfully say “I don’t know” to the relentless questions of defense counsel who want to identify and impeach one’s “anonymous” informants.

  They’d paid Elliott Robles no more than two hundred dollars in the six months they’d known him. He’d showed them his tattoos. The Virgin of Guadalupe on one inner arm, The Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other. Both were covered with old and new scar tissue from his thousands of drug injections. He said he’d decided to become a paid informant to get enough money to have skin grafts. He’d converted, and was now a Jehovah’s Witness, and didn’t like the tattoos anymore. Al Mackey had promised to introduce him to some Feds in case Elliott came up with some big-time narcotics dealer he could turn for enough money to get the skin grafts. But Elliott Robles never came up with a big-time anything. Even his death was very small-time, and Al Mackey didn’t know how to tell Martin Welborn.

  When Elliott Robles snitched off the trigger man in a lowrider, drive-by gang shooting, Martin Welborn had interrogated the killer, Chuey Verdugo, while Al Mackey booked the .22-caliber rifle that the young man had used to shoot down a sixteen-year-old paperboy making an early morning delivery on the wrong gang turf during wartime. (Any blood will avenge the honor, just so it’s spilled in the right place.) Elliott Robles, in his zeal to earn some money for turning the shooter, had told everything he knew and everything he’d heard about the shooter, hoping to impress the cops to the tune of a hundred scoots, at least. Among other things, he told Martin Welborn that the shooter was wanted for a hit-and-run killing in Tucson, where he ran over some dude who raped his girlfriend.

  And Martin Welborn, perhaps because that was the week prior to Paula’s leaving, perhaps because they’d been working forty-two hours without sleep on the drive-by shootings, perhaps because he just got sloppy during the interrogation, ran a very careless bluff and said to the shooter: “Now let’s talk about the guy you ran down in Tucson. Did you know the cops there have information about you?”

  And the shooter looked at him quizzically for a moment. And took off his black woolen watch cap and wiped the sweat from his face with it, and drew very deeply on the cigarette Martin Welborn had given him, and began to think. And it came to him. Chuey Verdugo scratched his scraggly goatee and smoothed his Fu Manchu and dropped his head and started to shake.

  It took a few seconds for Martin Welborn to realize that he wasn’t shaking from fear. It was laughter. It began like heavy breathing, and grew into a chuckle, and finally the young man, who had just fired a shot through the head of a paperboy who happened to be on the wrong side of an imaginary line in East Hollywood, was roaring, and Al Mackey ran into the interrogation room.

  “You gotta tell me that one, Marty,” Al Mackey said. “Is it the one about the whore and the peanut?”

  Martin Welborn shrugged, and both detectives waited until the shooter settled down and wiped the tears from his eyes with the watch cap, and when he was finished he said, “I never ran over nobody in Tucson. I never even drove a car in Tucson. But one night when I was talking to this Mexican with the funny name a Elliott, I told him I ran over a dude in Tucson. He was passing out joints in the poolroom and wanted to hear some bad talk, so I made some up.” Chuey Verdugo wet his chops and laughed again and said, “Now I know who told you I shot the paperboy.”

  And for several months, whenever the subject arose, Al Mackey would try to reassure Martin Welborn that anyone could make a mistake during an interrogation, and that if he’d been in that room he would’ve said the same thing, and the shooter was going to be in jail for a long time in any case, and Elliott Robles had been warned that Martin Welborn had made the mistake.

  Elliott Robles was burned. Al Mackey told him that he should think about moving out of town. But the Mexican with the funny name had just looked at Martin Welborn and said, “You took my business out on the street, Sergeant! Where would I go? How far is El Monte?”

  “About twenty miles,” Martin Welborn told him.

  “I never been further away from my barrio than twenty miles,” Elliott Robles said.

  And that was it. Elliott Robles quite understandably went out of the snitch business and contented himself with stealing car stereos, although that was getting tough in his part of town, what with everyone taking their stereos out of their cars at night. And finally he got nailed on a daytime residential burglary and did ninety days in the county jail, where he was safe enough. But eventually Elliott got out, and received the biggest surprise of his life when he learned that Chuey Verdugo had won an appeal and had been ordered released from custody on his own recognizance when his mother pleaded to the court that she desperately needed the boy to support her and the other eight children, which, of course, he’d never done even before he went to the California Youth Authority penal camp.

  Chuey Verdugo, two days after his release, shot Elliott Robles nineteen times at about the same moment Martin Welborn was watching the champagne skater gliding through her floor exercises. Sgt. Hal Dickey of Wilshire Detectives already had the shooter in jail and wanted to inform Al Mackey and Martin Welborn. Chuey Verdugo had used a .22-caliber revolver. It took quite a bit of time to reload enough rounds to fire nineteen slugs into the corpse, and the noise and the loss of time led to his capture by a passing radio car. The shooter said it was worth it.

  Martin Welborn didn’t react at all when Al Mackey told him in the parking lot. He simply said he’d like to walk for a while.

  “How about coming for a drink at The Glitter Dome?” Al Mackey urged afterwards.

  “I don’t think so,” Martin Welborn said.

  “How about going anywhere for a drink?” Al Mackey said.

  “I’m a little tired. It’s been a very long day.”

  “How about coming to my place and having a drink?” a very worried Al Mackey said.

  “Elliott was a nice goofy kid, wasn’t he?” Martin Welborn said.

  “Marty, it is not your fault.”

  “See you Monday, Al.”

  “Anybody could’ve asked the same question during that interrogation, Marty.”

  “That’s kind of an unforgivable mistake, though,” Martin Welborn said. “At least as far as Elliott was concerned.”

  “We told Elliott about it as soon as it happened, Marty. Elliott knew the risk. We told him to get out of town. He knew the risk.”

  “How many times did you say, Al?”

  “How many times what?”

  “How many times did Chuey Verdugo shoot him?”

  “What difference does it make, Marty?”

  “No difference. Good night, Al.”

  “Want me to come to your place for a drink, Marty?” Al Mackey said to Martin Welborn, who was walking into the darkness.

  “See you Monday, Al,” Mar
tin Welborn said, without looking back.

  10

  Tuna Can Tommy

  The Weasel and the Ferret were going after Tuna Can Tommy. It wasn’t their idea of course. Every time those lazy pricks on the vice detail couldn’t catch some minor pain in the ass they’d paint a portrait of the pain in the ass as a dope dealer and turn it over to narcotics. Probably Tuna Can Tommy smoked a couple of lids a week. If they iced down everybody who smoked a couple of lids a week they’d have half of Hollywood in the cooler and the other half waiting their turn. Many are chilled, but few are frozen, the two narcs always said.

  They’d thought that Captain Woofer would still be tickled to death with the way they brought down Just Plain Bill. But no, a short weekend to recuperate and they get handed some other guy’s problem. (The Ferret had night sweats on Friday and Saturday from dreams where the Asian Assassin was chasing him.) Thirteen more years for their pensions. Why in hell did guys like poor old Cal Greenberg hang around so long?

  It seemed that Tuna Can Tommy made lewd telephone calls to Hollywood housewives. And he occasionally left Polaroids of himself on the windshields of cars parked near the Hollywood Ranch Market. In the photographs he wore a cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a Lone Ranger mask and nothing else. He apparently staked out the area and usually selected cars belonging to women reasonably young and attractive, although sometimes he wasn’t so particular. At least one massive momma came wallumping into the Hollywood vice office bitching about a Tuna Can Tommy Polaroid she found on her windshield. She weighed in at two hundred pounds and was surging out of her shorts and tube top, yelling loud enough to scare Gladys Bruckmeyer clear up in the detective squadroom.

  Gladys Bruckmeyer was back to duty after her encounter with caterpillars who conquer the kingdom, but was still spooky when it came to sudden changes in decibel level. The detectives pretended not to notice that Gladys Bruckmeyer would cry out every time Captain Woofer called her name. He’d call, “Gladys!” and she’d scream and hit the tab bar which sent the carriage flying, ringing the margin bell.

  It was, “Gladys!” ding! “Gladys!” ding! Which was driving everybody crazy until poor old Cal Greenberg sabotaged the typewriter bell when Gladys took one of her frequent trips down the hall to gobble some Miltowns.

  So the Weasel and the Ferret were ordered by Captain Woofer to quit basking in celebrity for capturing Just Plain Bill, and get out there and rid the Hollywood citizens of Tuna Can Tommy. All theirs because the squirrel is suddenly transformed into a dope dealer by an “anonymous informant” who talked with the vice sergeant. Times are pretty goddamn bad, the Weasel complained, when cops started using the same lame lies to each other that they should save for the real Enemies in the judiciary. But the Weasel and the Ferret had to spend most of Monday morning in a fruitless stakeout near the Hollywood Ranch Market for a fruitcake with Polaroids who signed each photograph “Love from Tommy,” and who ended his lewd phone calls with, “Love ya! It’s Tommy!”

  “In the first place, what’s he doing so bad in leaving his own personal valentine on these cars?” the Weasel whined, during the second hour of their stakeout.

  “Guy doesn’t ask for nothing,” the Ferrett moaned. “Just to show these broads how he looks naked in his Lone Ranger mask and boots. What the hell. How many strangers you run into these days who leave an I love ya! on your car?”

  “Most people just say, ‘have a nice day,’” the Weasel agreed.

  “Those lazy pricks on the vice detail,” the Ferret groused.

  “They probably couldn’t catch him if he left his last name,” the Weasel bitched. “We’ll have to pick up a Polaroid. See what his chubby body looks like.”

  “Vice couldn’t catch him if he left his telephone number and address,” the Ferret said. “I’ll be so glad when this loan-out is over. I wanna get back downtown and away from Woofer.”

  “Wonder why vice calls the squirrel Tuna Can Tommy?” the Weasel mused. “And I wonder how we got picked for this whole Hollywood assignment in the first place?”

  The way the Weasel and Ferret were picked was elementary. Captain Woofer simply begged Deputy Chief Francis to loan him a team of narcs to help mollify the merchants and politicians constantly harping about Hollywood becoming a slum. And when Fuzznuts Francis asked what kind of narcs he wanted, Captain Woofer said to send him a pair of grungy, ugly, filthy, hairy, disgusting, creepy scumbags who would fit in with the run-of-the-mill Hollywood street folks.

  The scumbags were sitting in their battered Toyota by the Hollywood Ranch Market, sharing these woes, when they received the radio call which would plunge them yet deeper into the Nigel St. Claire murder case. The radio call was to phone the station. The Ferret went to a telephone booth and after a few minutes came hurrying back to the Weasel with a happy smile in his beard.

  “Huzzah!” the Ferret cried. “We may wrap up Tuna Can Tommy even faster than Just Plain Bill!”

  “He give himself up?”

  “He made another lewd phone call last night, only this victim says she thinks she recognizes the voice!”

  “Yeah?” The Weasel was already firing up the Toyota. “Where we going?”

  Rita Roundtree was reading Daily Variety when the two narcs entered the fast-food famous-name restaurant, and took their seats at the counter. She glanced at the two hairballs in leather jackets and took her time finishing the column about a 25-million-dollar movie that was boffo in six openings. Then she looked at the extravagant ads that some talent agencies took for their clients and wondered why she’d hooked up with such a low-rent agent, and no wonder she hadn’t had a job since four months ago when she had one line in a pizza commercial. It was so discouraging she let out a big sigh.

  Her sigh took her high-riding 38D cups even higher than the hairballs’ hopes. They of course knew who she was from her telephone call to the vice unit. When she finally decided the two leather-covered creepos wouldn’t go away she moved sluggishly down the counter, one of an army of Hollywood waitresses seduced not by dreams of streets paved with gold but of sidewalks paved with stars in solid brass.

  “What can I get you?” she asked lethargically.

  “You Rita Roundtree?” The Weasel grinned.

  “How’d you know?” She was suspicious.

  “We’re from Hollywood Station,” the Ferret said.

  “You’re cops!”

  They were used to it. The Ferret slipped his badge from under the shoulder of his leather jacket, showed it to her, and put it back. He didn’t bother with the identification card. She’d never recognize the clean-cut young kisser on that old card anyway.

  “It’s just like in the movies,” the Ferret said. “When does Tommy come in here?”

  “I don’t know his name’s Tommy,” Rita Roundtree said, disappointed that the cops they sent didn’t look like Starsky and Hutch.

  “He calls himself Tommy, right? You told the lieutenant you recognized his voice?”

  “He comes in here for breakfast, maybe four, five times a week. He was trying to disguise his voice but I know it was him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Same thing every one a those heavy breathers says when they get on the line.”

  “Specifically,” the Ferret said, looking at those high risers.

  She caught him ogling. “Would you like me to whisper all the dirty words in your ear, Officer?” she said, and it was clear the Ferret was not her type.

  Which let the Weasel know they might as well forget the fantasies and get down to business. “We’ll have you make a crime report if we get him,” the Weasel said. “We have to know the exact words so we can make a case in court.”

  “He said he hoped I wore bikini panties cause he’d like to get a mouthful of the crotch and suck them right off my cunt like spaghetti off a spoon, is what he said, if you gotta know.”

  “Yeah?” cried the Weasel, pretty damned impressed with this Tuna Can Tommy.

  “Really?” cried the Ferret, deciding it wa
s a neat idea if you think about it.

  “He’s a goofy fat guy,” Rita Roundtree said, pouring them coffee. “Got these tufts a red hair growing out his ears and nose. Yuk! I hate tufts a hair growing out ears and noses.”

  The Weasel and Ferret immediately looked at each other’s ears and noses, but they both had such long hair and bushy beards it was impossible to tell.

  “How come the lieutenant told us you wanted to see us right away, if he comes in for breakfast?” the Ferret asked.

  “He eats his breakfast at noon, that’s why,” Rita Roundtree answered. “Same thing every time. Two over easy, hashbrowns, bacon, ham and steak. A real geeky porker.”

  They only had to wait twenty minutes for the porker. Several other noontime customers had entered but the clump of red hair on the head of the fat man told them even without her nod. Tuna Can Tommy made a little small talk with Rita Roundtree, and eyed her ass when she gave his order to the fry cook. Of course so did every other man at the lunch counter, except for two body builders who were holding hands and sharing a chocolate malt.

  Tuna Can Tommy drank three cups of coffee after breakfast and left Rita Roundtree a two-dollar tip which made her somewhat regret calling the cops. With all the cheap fucks around here, a lewd phone call from a big tipper who wants to suck your drawers off isn’t too high a price.

  The Ferret went for the Toyota and the Weasel tailed Tuna Can Tommy on foot. It was a piece of cake. A big-time Hollywood dope dealer? Those lazy pricks on the vice squad.

  They tailed Tuna Can Tommy to an apartment building just two blocks from the famous Chinese Theater. The throngs of tourists nosing around the concrete footprints (John Wayne’s look so small, they invariably cried) made it that much easier to do the surveillance on foot. The Weasel found it so simple, he practically walked into the apartment building and up to the third floor with the fat man. He spotted the apartment number, returned to the mailbox, and saw that Tuna Can Tommy’s real name was Dudley Small. He rejoined the Ferret, who had parked the nark ark and was hotfooting it toward the apartment house, wiping his ever-sensitive smog-filled eyes.