Doing it the Ferret’s way entailed the Toyota being parked on Wilton Place, with all further action on foot.
They operated without flashlights and it was risky climbing the ten-foot fence surrounding the film-processing plant next to the restaurant. Chain-link fences often meant guard dogs, but there was no dog shit close by so they risked it. The problem would be going back over that fence and doing it quickly after they were through with step one. Especially if some Hollywood radio car just happened by and saw two leather-covered thugs climbing fences in the darkness, and let go a couple of rounds from the Ithaca, leaving their bodies draped over the top of the fence. Very few of the Hollywood patrol officers knew the two narcs and there would be no time to get acquainted if they were spotted fleeing at night. But it was all part of it. Even the Weasel, after he resigned himself to the Ferret’s dopy plot, was starting to get stoked up.
They crept down the walkway between Flameout Farrell’s little restaurant and the film-processing plant. They jumped back into shadows when an old woman in a baseball cap passed by on a bicycle with a raucous white duck riding passenger in the basket. The Ferret looked at the Weasel. The duck wore a yellow sweater. Hollywood.
When the Weasel got near the sidewalk he glanced inside Flameout Farrell’s Fancy Eatery and saw a sad pensioner gagging back a fat-laden ham sandwich while a faded little guy in a T-shirt, presumably Flameout himself, was counting the day’s take from the cash register. A cigarette with an ash longer than the butt hung from his lower lip and accounted for the argument he’d had with the pensioner when he gave him his ham on white.
“I didn’t ask for no pepper on my ham.”
“You didn’t get no pepper on your ham.”
The Weasel looked at his watch and whispered, “Tuna Can Tommy said he closes about now.”
“Just our luck he gets a late customer,” the Ferret whispered as they retreated down the alleyway.
“Wonder how long the old guy’s gonna suck on that slimy sandwich?”
“Let’s just do it anyways,” the Ferret said. “Might even make it more realistic, there’s a customer in there.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the Weasel said. “Uh uh. Bad.”
They crept back up to the corner of the building, waited for a stream of traffic to pass, watched for pedestrians, and peeked around the corner again. “The old bastard just ordered another cup a coffee!”
“Fuck it,” the Weasel said. “I’m too bummed to be hanging around here like an alley cat. Let’s do it, get it over with.”
“After you, weaselly one.” The Ferret grinned.
The Weasel reached inside the deep pocket of his motorcycle jacket and removed an ordinary building brick. He started wiping the brick on the leg of his jeans until the Ferret said, “They can’t get lifts off a freaking brick! You been watching Kojak reruns or something?”
So the Weasel looked both ways, emerged from the darkness, and nodded to the Ferret, who removed a hefty brick from his jacket. Then both narcs stood on the sidewalk, and after a ready, set, hut one, hut two, hauled off and heaved both bricks through the front of Flameout Farrell’s glass windows. It sounded like a symphony of cymbals.
Both narcs were darting down the walkway and hitting the first fence before Flameout Farrell even got off the floor. The customer was running around the restaurant in total panic, still holding his ham sandwich, yelling, “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
And Flameout Farrell, believing it was indeed an eight point sixer, crawled under a table as advised in the civil defense warnings.
“This is the biggy they predicted!” the pensioner screamed. “California’s going to Tahiti!”
Then, when there was no shaking or ominous rumbling and the old man stopped yelling and confusing him, Flameout Farrell, who had bitten his cigarette in two, started spitting tobacco and crawled cautiously out from under the table.
“Somebody threw a brick through my windows!” he said, seeing the shattered missile on the floor. “Somebody threw two bricks through my windows!” he said, examining the wreck of a restaurant. Arizona wouldn’t get the beach-front bonanza after all. Somebody busted his fucking glass!
The Weasel and Ferret sat two blocks down Hollywood Boulevard and cursed. It took the radio car twelve minutes to get there. Lazy pricks.
“The citizens deserve better protection from assholes who destroy your property,” the Ferret said indignantly.
The uniformed cops obviously had other fish to fry and took the world’s fastest crime report. They were gone before Flameout Farrell even started sweeping up the glass, trying to decide how he was going to get the place boarded up at this time of night. He was thinking about looking in the phone book for midnight lumber yards when the narcs knocked at the door, holding up police badges. Formalities over with, they entered the little lunch counter by stepping through the ten-by-twelve opening that used to be windows.
“We were sent from downtown as soon as we heard,” the Ferret said.
“Yeah? I din’t expect no detectives till tomorrow or the next day,” Flameout Farrell said. At first he looked white and washed out, his dirty blond hair going to gray. In the light his hair gave his sallowness a translucence.
“We work intelligence,” the Weasel said. “Undercover.”
“You the vice squad?” Flameout Farrell asked.
“We was the vice squad we’d a busted your ass a month ago, Flameout,” the Ferret said. “We know you’re taking horse action here.”
Flameout Farrell’s mouth dropped open and he got more washed out. In fact he blanched white as dry ice. “Me? Me? Me?”
“Knock off the fucking arias, Flameout,” the Weasel said. “Me me me, my nuts! Siddown!”
Flameout Farrell would have sat without being commanded. His legs had turned to licorice.
“There’s only one reason we’re bothering with you tonight, Flameout,” the Ferret began.
“Why’s that?” Flameout Farrell looked from one narc to the other. “I never bought no hot typewriters from boulevard junkies! I never …”
“We’re here to save your life,” the Ferret said.
“My life!”
“We ain’t interested in you. We’re interested in Carlo Andrutti.”
“Who’s Carlo Andrutti?”
“You really are small-time, Flameout,” the Ferret said disgustedly. “Carlo Andrutti only owns every back office from here to Malibu, is all he owns! And it just so happens that about the time you got conned into operating a little phone spot in your kitchen …”
“That’s right!” Flameout Farrell agreed, “I was conned into it. I ain’t really interested in horses, and …”
“… about the time you got into it, a guy, oh, maybe a hundred notches higher in the organization than the guy you deal with …”
“And we all know who that is.” The Weasel nodded.
“About that time Carlo Andrutti notices little poverty palaces like this springing up in Hollywood and he doesn’t run a retirement fund for fry cooks, and he … doesn’t … like it!”
“I don’t know nothing! Nothing!”
“And since we work on organized crime we gotta figure ways to keep guys like you from wearing cinderblocks tied to your underwear and ending up scaring the surfers at the Santa Monica Pier when you come bobbing up a month from now taken off at the balls by sharks. And that’s what we’re doing here, Flameout.”
“So who … who …”
“Flameout, you are a freaking idiot,” the Weasel said, tugging at the gold stud he wore in one ear.
“We were tailing some a Carlo Andrutti’s gunsels for two days. They busted out the windows of every phone spot and cash room in town that isn’t owned by Carlo Andrutti.”
“They’re trying to tell you something, Flameout.”
“They’re hoping you get the message, Flameout.”
“And all we’re trying to do is stop the button men from hitting the mattresses.” The Ferret liked that. Matt
resses. Button men. Just like all those dumb gangster movies they dreamed up over lunch at The Rangoon Racquet Club.
“What can I do? I didn’t know about Mister Andrutti!” Flameout Farrell exclaimed. “I’ll give it up if somebody’s gonna get mad at me!”
“First of all, anything we tell you has to remain confidential. This is police business, Flameout.”
“I won’t say nothing.”
“And anything you tell us, which we can use to save your ass from these hoods, will likewise remain confidential.”
“Okay,” the Ferret began, “first thing is, there’s a guy comes in here to get some action down. Drives a black Bentley. Let’s start with him.”
“I don’t know nobody like that,” Flameout Farrell said.
“Fuck him. Let’s go,” the Weasel said. “Carlo Andrutti’s gonna hang him upside down and drain his blood like a rabbi with a chicken.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! Okay, I know him!” Flameout Farrell cried. “You gotta protect me till Mister Andrutti knows I’m outa the bookmaking business!”
“The guy in the Bentley’s a problem, Flameout,” the Weasel said. “I’m not at liberty to tell you how or why, but he’s a problem for us. Let’s start with his name.”
“Lloyd.”
“We know that. His last name?”
“I dunno.”
“Where’s he live?”
“I dunno. He’s a customer. I mean, he got a little action down maybe once, twice, is all. He talks like some kinda player, but he never spent more than a hundred bucks with me.”
“Uh huh. And how did you meet him?” the Ferret asked.
“He knows … he, uh, he … knows somebody I know.”
“You want us to walk right outa your miserable life right this minute?” the Weasel asked.
“No! He, uh, he knows … my daughter,” Flameout Farrell said softly.
“Who’s your daughter?”
“Her name’s Peggy. She’s only seventeen. She’s …”
And then both narcs were utterly astonished to see Flameout Farrell, the inadequate entrepreneur and failed bookie, look up with eyes overflowing. He put his face in his hands and sobbed like a widow at a wake.
The narcs gave each other puzzled shrugs and waited. The Weasel finally offered Flameout Farrell a cigarette, which he accepted. The Ferret lit it.
“He … he … he said he’s trying to … help Peggy,” Flameout Farrell sobbed. “She … she ran away thirteen months … months ago. She’s into … into drugs and … and maybe … other things.”
“Prostitution?” the Ferret asked.
Flameout Farrell nodded and looked at the floor. “He … this guy, Lloyd … he came in here one night with Peggy. She said … she said she wanted to get some things belonged to her mom. Her mom went off a long time ago. Some rings and … stuff. I didn’t … didn’t want no rings. I just … I just wanted my Peggy to stay!”
“And where did she go?”
“I don’t know and neither does Lloyd. He left her on a street corner,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Lloyd came back two, three times since. Peggy told him about my sideline. He said he came back to get some action down, but he ain’t no horseplayer. He sits. He talks to some a the other players that come in. He waits a few minutes. I think he was waiting for my Peggy to come back.”
“What’s he talk about?” the Ferret asked.
“He asks about her. Who her friends are. All the things I don’t know. He swore to me he never, you know, never took advantage a her. He swore he felt sorry for her and wanted … wanted to help her.”
Flameout Farrell saw the two cops exchange glances. “I woulda believed anybody, he said he’d help make my Peggy come home!” Flameout Farrell said, breaking into tears again.
“You put your home address and phone number on that police report?” the Weasel asked.
Flameout Farrell nodded and wiped his eyes on the greasy sleeve of his T-shirt. His skin had an ivory cast. He was an odd-looking little man. His flesh was like old china.
“When this guy Lloyd comes back, I want you to find out something about him. Where he lives. A last name. Where he hangs out. And get his license number,” the Ferret said.
“I’ll try.” Flameout Farrell nodded.
“What’s he look like?” the Ferret asked. “How old?”
“Maybe thirty-two or thirty-five.”
“Color hair?”
“Dark. Dark eyes. No, blue eyes I think. Shit, I dunno what color eyes. He’s maybe six feet. Well-built.”
“Like a body builder?”
“Not that well built. He looks like all these outa-work guys come around and eat two doughnuts and call themselves actors. Nice clothes. A disco-looking guy.”
“Next time you see him, tell him you know where he might find Peggy,” the Weasel said. “And that you can get in touch with her. Then you make a date for Lloyd to come back, and you call us.” The Weasel gave his police business card to Flameout Farrell.
“What’s this got to do with Mr. Andrutti?” Flameout Farrell asked pathetically.
“It’s gonna save your ass, believe me,” the Weasel said.
As the narcs were stepping through the yawning hole they had made, Flameout Farrell said, “He don’t call her Peggy.”
“What?” The Ferret turned.
“He calls her Jill. I guess that’s her street name. Jill.” Then Flameout Farrell put his face back in his hands and sobbed desperately.
While the Ferret and Weasel were finishing up what had been a very long day, Al Mackey and Martin Welborn were sitting in the detective car off the Sunset Strip. They were parked in the lot of a service station that was closed for the evening, tucked away behind four other cars. The stripped-down detective cars were not meant for undercover work and were as recognizable to the street folks as a black-and-white, minus the Mickey Mouse ears.
“I don’t know why I let you run my life, Marty,” Al Mackey said, his head resting on the doorpost while Martin Welborn sat behind the wheel and watched The Red Valentine Massage Parlor through binoculars.
“I’m saving you from The Glitter Dome. Look at it that way, my son.”
“Glitter Dome. The Angels are on TV tonight. I was gonna curl up with a beer and a turkey sandwich and watch the home boys get the crap knocked out of them again. And for extra excitement there’s always the challenge of waking up and kicking that sneaky cat out of my bed soon as I fall asleep. God, I hate that cat.”
Martin Welborn did not lower the binoculars for an instant. There was quite a bit of foot traffic going in and out at this time of night. There were also four whores hustling motorists on the corner. One was a white girl, but it wasn’t “Jill.” She was a brunette. He wondered if she could be wearing a wig. “Turkey sandwich, eh?” Martin Welborn said finally. “Learning to cook this time around as a bachelor?”
“You kidding? I wouldn’t even touch anything in my filthy kitchen, let alone eat. Reason I feed the cat there, I hope he’ll get ptomaine and die. I pick up sandwiches from the deli. Stays open late enough to accommodate all the losers of the world.”
“You should learn to cook,” Martin Welborn said. “It makes living alone ever so much more … acceptable.” Then he lowered the binoculars and looked at his partner and Al Mackey saw the eyes drop at the corners and knew he was thinking of Paula Welborn.
But Martin Welborn wasn’t thinking about Paula. She flashed through his mind for an instant. Then she was gone. The talk of loneliness triggered more fearful images. They had buried Elliott Robles today. He had thought about going to the funeral. He had thought about sending a mass card. But just because Elliott was Mexican didn’t necessarily mean that his family was Catholic. There weren’t many Catholics named Elliott. There weren’t any Mexicans named Elliott. Except that funny little junkie, Elliott Robles.
“You took my business out on the street,” Elliott Robles had said to him when Martin Welborn made the fatal mistake during the interrogation of Chuey
Verdugo. Elliott had terrible fear in his eyes when he said it. And then, after a while, he looked resigned. Was it because of all the drugs he shot? All the stealing he had to do to get the drugs? Perhaps it was acceptance that Martin Welborn saw. Perhaps he didn’t hate the detective for his unforgivable, fatal blunder. Perhaps. It was comforting to think so. To make believe.
Martin Welborn thought of another gang member who once told him, “You take my guns away and get me wasted, I’ll come back to haunt you.” Would Elliott Robles come back to haunt him? To haunt him as Danny Meadows had done?
They had arrived at the Meadows’ house that day before the radio car. The screaming woman stood in front and never said an intelligible word. She didn’t even gesture or point. She just looked at the house and screamed.
“Screamed,” Martin Welborn muttered.
“What?” Al Mackey said. He had been dozing. “You see something?”
“See something?”
Martin Welborn was trembling. Like the afternoon in the captain’s office when they were given the Nigel St. Claire case, when Marty’s eyes went in and out of focus so strangely. Al Mackey couldn’t see those long brown eyes in the darkness of the detective car. Marty had the sweats. The eyes.
“You okay, Marty?”
“Okay?”
“You, uh, think maybe we worked long enough for one day? I think we worked long enough for two days. I don’t think we’re gonna find a little blond whore named Jill if we sit here for a week.”
Martin Welborn unfolded his handkerchief, wiped his brow, folded it neatly, and put it back in his pocket. “Must be getting hot flashes.” He grinned. “Happens in our midforties, they say. Got to get used to it. It’s hell growing old, eh, my boy?”
“Yeah, hell,” Al Mackey said, looking at his partner closely. Whatever it was had passed. The only reason he was going along with Marty in this silly stakeout for a whore who was given a phone number that probably had nothing to do with their murder victim was that the Nigel St. Claire case had given Marty some fresh juice. For the first time since Paula Welborn left.
“I think we could sit here for a week and not find a blond whore named Jill.”
The Glitter Dome Page 19
