White Jazz Part 24

Miciak:" 'Cause Harold John's the only daddy-o in L.A. man enough to mess with Mr. Hughes and this cop who thinks he's so tough."

Around to the dining room window. Curtain gaps--look: Glenda edging backward; Miciak pressing up, grinding his hips.

Slow walking--both of them--a knife rack behind Glenda.

I tried the window--no give.

Glenda: "How do I know there's just you?"

Glenda: one hand reaching back, one hand out come hither.

Glenda: "I think we'd be good together."

Around the back, a side door--I shoulder-popped it and ran in.

The hallway, the kitchen, there-- A clinch: his hands groping, hers grabbing knives.

Slow-motion numb--I _couldn't_ move. Shock-still frozen, look: Knives down--in his back, in his neck--twisted in hilt-deep. Bone cracks--Glenda dug in--two hands blood-wet. Miciak thras.h.i.+ng AT HER-- Two more knives snagged--Glenda stabbing blind.

Miciak clawing the rack, up with a cleaver.

I stumbled in close--numb legs--smell the blood-- He stabbed, missed, lurched into the knife rack. She stabbed--his back, his face--blade jabs ripped his cheeks out.

Gurgles/screeches/whines--Miciak dying loud. Knife handles sticking out at odd angles--I threw him down, twisted them, killed him.

Glenda--no screams, this look: SLOW, I've been here before.

SLOW: We killed the lights and waited ten minutes--no outside response. Plans then--soft whispers holding each other b.l.o.o.d.y.

No dining room carpet--luck. We showered and swapped clothes-- Hughes kept a male/female stash. We bagged our own stuff, washed the floor, the rack, the knives.

Blankets in a closet--we wrapped Miciak up and locked him in his car trunk. 1:50 A.M.--out, back--no witnesses. Out and back again--our cars tucked below Mulholland.

A plan, a fall guy: the Wino Will-o-the-Wisp, L.A.'s favorite at-large killer.

Out to Topanga Canyon solo--I drove Miciak's car. Hillhaven Kiddieland Kamp--defunct, wino turf. I flashlight-checked all six cabins--no b.u.ms residing.

I stashed the car out of sight.

I wiped it.

Kougar Kub Kabin--dump the body.

I throttled the corpse per the Wisp MO.

I rolled it through sawdust to stuff up the stab wounds. Forensic logic: impacted wounds made knife casting impossible. Hope logic: Howard Hughes, publicity shy--he might not push to find his man's killer.

I walked back to Pacific Coast Highway. SLOW fear speeding up-- Sporadic tails d.o.g.g.i.ng me.

A tail tonight meant grief forever.

Glenda picked me up at PCH. Back to Mulholland, two cars to my place, bed just to talk.

_Small_ talk--her will held. CinemaScope/Technicolor knife work--I pushed to know she didn't like it.

I hit the pillow by her face.

I s.h.i.+ned the bed light in her eyes.

I told her: My father shot a dog/I torched his toolshed/he hit my sister/I shot him, the gun jammed/these Two Tony f.u.c.ks hurt my sister/I killed them/I killed five other men/I took money--what gives you the right to play it so stylish-- Hit the pillow, make her talk--no style, no tears: She was floating, carhopping, this pretend actress. She was sleeping around for rent money--a guy told Dwight Gilette. He propositioned her: turn tricks for a fifty-fifty split. She agreed, she did it--sad sacks mostly. Georgie Ainge once--no rough stuff from him--but regular beatings from Gilette.

She got mad. She got this pretend-actress idea. buy a gun off Georgie and scare Dwight. Pretend actress with a prop now: a real pistol.

Dwight made her drive his "nieces" to his "brother's" place in Oxnard. It was fun--cute colored toddlers--their pictures on TV a week later.

Two four-year-olds starved, tortured and raped--found dead in an Oxnard sewer.

Pretend actress, errand girl. This real-actress idea: Kill Gilette--be fore he sends any more kids out to be snuffed.

She did it.

She didn't like it.

You don't skate from things like that--you crawl stylish.

I held her.

I talked a Kafesjian blue streak Champ Dineen lulled us to sleep.

I woke up early. I heard Glenda in the bathroom, sobbing.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Harris Dulange--fifty, bad teeth: "Since me and the magazine are as clean as a cat's s.n.a.t.c.h, I will tell you how _Transom_ works. First, we hire hookers or aspiring actresses down on their luck for the photos. The written stuff is by yours truly, the editor-in-chief, or it's scribed by college kids who write out their fantasies in exchange for free issues. It's what _Hush-Hush_ calls 'Sinuendo.' We tack those movie-star initials onto our stories so that our admittedly feeble-minded readers will think, 'Wow, is that really Marilyn Monroe?'"

Tired--I made an early Bureau run for Pinker's sketch. Exley said no all-points distribution--last night left me too fried to fight him.

"Lieutenant, are you daydreaming? I know this isn't the nicest office in the world, but..."

I pulled the June '58 issue out. "Who wrote this father-daughter story?"

"I don't even have to look. If it's plump brunettes hot for some daddy surrogate, it's Champ Dineen."

"_What?_ Do you know who Champ Dineen is?"

"_Was_, because he died some time back. I knew the guy was using a pseudonym."

I flashed Pinker's sketch. Dulange deadpanned it: "Who's this?"

"Odds are it's the man who wrote those stories. Haven't you seen him?"

"No. We only talked on the phone. Nice-looking picture, though. Surprising. I figured the guy would be a troll."

"Did he say his real name was Richie? That might be a lead on his ID."

"No. We only talked on the phone once. He said his name was Champ Dineen, and I thought, 'Copacetic, and only in L.A.' Lieutenant, let me ask you. Does the Champster have a voyeur fetish?"

"Yes."

Dulange--nodding, stretching: "Say eleven months ago, around Christmas, this pseudo-Champ guy calls me up out of the blue. He says he's got access to some good _Transom_-type stuff, something like a wh.o.r.ehouse peek. I said, 'Swell, send me a few samples, maybe we can do business.' So... he sent me two stories. There was a P0-box return address, and I thought, 'What? He's on the lam or he lives in a post office box?'"

"Go on."

"So the stuff was good. _Cash good_--and I rarely pay for text, just pictures. Anyway, it was two girlie-daddy stories, and the dialogue introductions were realistic, like he eavesdropped on this sick game stuff. The accompanying stories weren't so hot, but I sent him a C-note off the books and a note: 'Keep the fires stoked, I like your stuff.'"

"Did he send the stories in handwritten?"

"Yes."

"Did you keep them?"

"No, I typed them over, then tossed them."

"You did that every time he sent stories in?"

"That's right. Four issues featuring the Champ, four times I typed the stuff up and tossed it. That was June '58 you showed me, plus the Champ also made it in February '58, May '58 and September '58. You want copies? I can have the warehouse send them to you, maybe take a week."

"No sooner?"

"The wetbacks they got working there? For them a week's Speedy Gonzales."

I laid a card down. "Send them to my office."

"Okay, but you'll be disappointed."

"Why?"

"The Champ's a one-trick jockey. It's all quasi-incest stuff featuring plump brunettes. I think I'll start editing him and change things around. Rita Hayworth looking to bang father surrogates is spicier, don't you think?"

"Sure. Now, what about a contributors' file?"

He tapped his head. "Right here. We're cramped for s.p.a.ce in the plush offices of _Transom_ magazine."

Itchy--thinking Glenda. "Do you pay the man by check?"

"No, always cash. When we talked on the phone he said cash only. Lieutenant, you're getting antsy, so I'll tell you. Check P0 box 5841 at the main downtown post office. That's where I send the gelt. It's always cash, and if you're thinking of finking me to the IRS, don't--because the Champ man is covered under various petty-cash clauses."

Hot--the A.M. sweats. "How did he sound that one time you talked to him?"

"Like a square punk who always wanted to be a hepcat jazz musician. Say, did you know that my kid brother was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case?"

PO box stakeout?--too time-consuming. Glom a writ to bag the contents?--ditto. Bust the box open?--yes----call Jack Woods.

Phone dimes: Jack--no answer. Meg--tap our property account for ten grand cash. Okay, no "Why?", news: She and Jack were an item again. I resisted a cheap laugh: give _him_ the ten--he's killing Junior for me.

Shot/s.h.i.+vved/bludgeoned--picture it--Junior dead.

Pincus.h.i.+on Miciak--seeing it/_feeling_ it: knife blades snagged on his spine.

More calls: Mike Breuning and d.i.c.k Carlisle--77th, the Bureau--no luck. Picture Lester Lake scared s.h.i.+tless--cops out to frame him.

Picture Glenda: "s.h.i.+t, David, you caught me crying."

I drove down to Darktown--a name-tossing run. Bars and early-open jazz clubs--go.

Names: Tommy Kafesjian, Richie--an old Tommy friend? Tilly Hopewell-- consort--Tommy and the late Wardell Knox. My wild card: Johnny Duhamel--ex-fighter cop.

Names tossed to: B-girls, hopheads, loafers, juice friends, bartenders. My tossbacks: Richie--straight deadpans. White Peeping Toms--c.l.i.tto. Tilly Hopewell-- junkie talk--she was an ex-hype off a recent hospital cure. Wardell Knox--"He dead and I don't know who did it." Schoolboy Johnny-- boxing IDs only.

My peeper sketch: zero IDs.