Джеймс Эллрой - The Big Nowhere

“You’re the only one who calls me.”

Dietrich snorted. “Anyone ever call you an ascetic?”

“Yeah, you.”

Dietrich laughed. “I like your luck. One night as acting watch commander and you get floods, two accident deaths and a homicide. Want to fill me in on that?”

Danny thought of the corpse: bite marks, the missing eyes. “It’s as bad as anything I’ve seen. Did you talk to Henderson and Deffry?”

“They left canvassing reports — nothing hot. Bad, huh?”

“The worst I’ve seen.”

Dietrich sighed. “Danny, you’re a rookie squadroom dick, and you’ve never worked a job like this. You’ve only seen it in your books — in black and white.”

Kathy Hudgens’ mouth and arm were superimposed against the ceiling — in Technicolor. Danny held on to his temper. “Right, Skipper. It was bad, though. I went down to the morgue and... watched the prep. It got worse. Then I went back to help Deffry and Hender—”

“They told me. They also said you got bossy. Shitcan that, or you’ll get a rep as a prima donna.”

Danny swallowed dry. “Right, Captain. Any ID on the body?”

“Not yet, but I think we’ve got the car it was transported in. It’s a ’47 Buick Super, green, abandoned a half block up from the building site. White upholstery with what looks like bloodstains. It was reported stolen at ten this morning, clouted outside a jazz club on South Central. The owner was still drunk when he called in — you call him for details.”

“Print man dusting it?”

“Being done now.”

“Is SID going over the lot?”

“No. The print man was all I could wangle downtown.”

“Shit. Captain, I want this one.”

“You can have it. No publicity, though. I don’t want another Black Dahlia mess.”

“What about another man to work with me?”

Dietrich sighed — long and slow. “If the victim warrants it. For now, it’s just you. We’ve only got four detectives, Danny. If this John Doe was trash, I don’t want to waste another man.”

Danny said, “A homicide is a homicide, sir.”

Dietrich said, “You’re smarter than that, Deputy.”

Danny said, “Yes, sir,” hung up, and rolled.

The day had turned cool and cloudy. Danny played the radio on the ride to Allegro; the weatherman was predicting more rain, maybe flooding in the canyons — and there was no news of the horrific John Doe. Passing the building site, he saw kids playing touch football in the mud and rubberneckers pointing out the scene of last night’s spectacle — an SID prowl of the lot would now yield zero.

The print wagon and abandoned Buick were up at the end of the block. Danny noticed that the sedan was perfectly parked, aligned with the curb six inches or so out, the tires pointed inward to prevent the vehicle from sliding downhill. A psych lead: the killer had just brutally snuffed his victim and transported the body from fuck knows where, yet he still had the calm to coolly dispose of his car — by the dump scene — which meant that there were probably no witnesses to the snatch.

Danny hooked his Chevy around the print car and parked, catching sight of the tech’s legs dangling out the driver’s side of the Buick. Walking over, he heard the voice the legs belonged to: “Glove prints on the wheel and dashboard, Deputy. Fresh caked blood on the back seat and some white sticky stuff on the side headliner.”

Danny looked in, saw an old plainclothesman dusting the glove compartment and a thin patch of dried blood dotted with white terrycloth on the rear seat cushion. The seat rests immediately behind the driver were matted with crisscross strips of blood — the terrycloth imbedded deeper into the caking. The velveteen sideboard by the window was streaked with the gelatinous substance he’d tagged at the morgue. Danny sniffed the goo, got the same mint/medicinal scent, clenched and unclenched his fists as he ran a spot reconstruction:

The killer drove his victim to the building site like a chauffeur, the stiff propped up in his white terry robe, eyeless head lolling against the sideboard, oozing the salve or ointment. The criss-cross strips on the seat rests were the razorlike cuts on his back soaking through; the blood patch on the cushion was the corpse flopping over sideways when the killer made a sharp right turn.

“Hey! Deputy!”

The print man was sitting up, obviously pissed that he was taking liberties. “Look, I have to dust the back now. Do you mind...”

Danny looked at the rear-view mirror, saw that it was set strangely and got in behind the wheel. Another reconstruction: the mirror held a perfect view of the back seat, blood strips and goo-streaked sideboard. The killer had adjusted it in order to steal glances at his victim as he drove.

“What’s your name, son?”

Now the old tech was really ticked. Danny said, “It’s Deputy Upshaw, and don’t bother with the back seat — this guy’s too smart.”

“Do you feel like telling me how you know that?”

The two-way in the print wagon crackled; the old-timer got out of the Buick, shaking his head. Danny memorized the registration card laminated to the steering column: Nestor J. Albanese, 1236 S. St. Andrews, LA, Dunkirk-4619. He thought of Albanese as the killer — a phony car theft reported — and nixed the idea as far-fetched; he thought of the rage it took to butcher the victim, the ice it took to drive him around LA in New Year’s Eve traffic. Why ?

The tech called out, “For you, Upshaw.”

Danny walked over to the print car and grabbed the mike. “Yeah?”

A female voice, static-filtered, answered. “Karen, Danny.”

Karen Hiltscher, the clerk/dispatcher at the station; his errand girl — occasional sweet talk for her favors. She hadn’t figured out that he wasn’t interested and persisted in using first names over the County air. Danny pushed the talk button. “Yeah, Karen.”

“There’s an ID on your 187. Martin Mitchell Goines, male Caucasian, DOB 11/9/16. Two convictions for marijuana possession, two years County for the first, three to five State for the other. Paroled from San Quentin after three and a half, August of ’48. His last known address was a halfway house on 8th and Alvarado. He was a State parole absconder, bench warrant issued. Under employment he’s listed as a musician, registered with Union Local 3126 in Hollywood.”

Danny thought of the Buick stolen outside a darktown jazz club. “Have you got mugs?”

“Just came in.”

He put on his sugar voice. “Help me with paperwork, sweet? Some phone calls?”

Karen’s voice came out whiny and catty — even over the static. “Sure, Danny. You’ll pick up the mugshots?”

“Twenty minutes.” Danny looked around and saw that the print tech was back at work. He added, “You’re a doll,” hoping the girl bought it.

Danny called Nestor J. Albanese from a pay phone on Allegro and Sunset. The man had the raspy voice and skewed speech of a hangover sufferer; he told a booze-addled version of his New Year’s Eve doings, going through it three times before Danny got the chronology straight.

He was club-hopping in darktown from 9:00 or so on, the bop joints around Slauson and Central — the Zombie, Bido Lito’s, Tommy Tucker’s Playroom, Malloy’s Nest. Leaving the Nest around 1:00 A.M., he walked over to where he thought he left his Buick. It wasn’t there, so he retraced his steps, drunk, figuring he’d ditched the car on a side street. The rain was drenching him, he was woozy from mai tais and champagne, he took a cab home and woke up — still smashed — at 8:30. He took another cab back to South Central, searched for the Buick for a solid hour, didn’t find it and called the police to report it stolen. He then hailed another taxi and returned home again, to be contacted by the watch sergeant at the West Hollywood substation, who told him his pride and joy was a likely transport vehicle in a homicide case, and now, at 3:45 P.M. New Year’s Day, he wanted his baby back — and that was that.