True Confessions (4 page)

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“We’ll get the bagel to take a few pictures. Then all we got to do is find the car to match the tire marks to.”

“You’re going to miss a few ball games on this one,” Tom Spellacy said.

“You know Phil Spitalny?”

“The All-Girl Orchestra Guy.”

“He was at the ball game last night, Phil,” Crotty said. “And I says to him, I says, he was in the press box there, I says, ‘Phil, you tell that Evelyn she can play my magic violin anytime.’ He nearly pissed his pants, Phil, he laughed so hard.”

“She’s got two left tits, Evelyn, is what I hear.”

“Two left tits,” Crotty said. “Jesus, Tom, I got to tell Phil

that, next time I see him. He’ll roar.” And then Crotty began to

sing again:

He took getting used to, Frank, but Tom Spellacy liked the chat. Black, white, young, old, male, female, tall, short, fat, skinny, always the constant chatter from Crotty. It made a stiff just another stiff, Crotty’s steady chat. Even a stiff like this one, stuck under two different bushes, maybe fifty feet apart, with the toenails painted brown and the face worked into pulp and the candle in the twat and the nice little rose tattooed over her pussy.

“You better talk to Bingo and the other one,” Crotty said. “I hate to say it, Tom, but the other one is the one with the brains. He was standing in the back of the church, Bingo, the day they was handing out the smarts. He must’ve thought it was the ten o’clock mass down to Saint Luke’s there.”

Bingo Mclnerney and Lorenzo Jones. You don’t see many stiffs cut in two when you’re riding around in a prowl car, so the first thing Bingo did when he saw the body was chuck his Wheaties. He was a little green after throwing up, Bingo, but Tom Spellacy was certain that what bothered him most was that Lorenzo Jones had kept his breakfast. You couldn’t be around the locker room without hearing how Bingo felt about Lorenzo. It wasn’t bad enough Bingo was stuck riding with some jungle bunny. The department wanted to experiment, that was okay with Bingo, he said so himself. But a jungle bunny going to law school at night, that was too much. One thing Bingo didn’t want to depend on was an uppity dinge. Lorenzo called Bingo “Bingo,” but Bingo was goddamned he was ever going to call Lorenzo “Lorenzo,” no matter how long he rode with him. In fact, Bingo had never known how to address a colored. “Hey,” he would say sometime, or “Hey, you,” if he was pissed off, or “Boy,” when he was busting one. Sometimes all three when he was busting one: “Hey, hey, you, boy, don’t give me no shit.” None of the three would work with Lorenzo. So when Bingo had something to say to him, he would touch him on the shoulder. More than a touch actually, but not quite a jab. Forefinger into the shoulder: “Hang a right on Al-hambra there.” Into the arm: “There’s a place up here we can get some coffee and tacos.” Sharp into the shoulder again: “Listen, you hear how the Mexicans won the Battle of the Alamo? They thought it was the welfare office and it was the first of the month.” Fucking coon never laughs, Bingo was always saying.

Bingo was standing next to his black-and-white, pulling rapidly on a cigarette. His fingers were stained yellow with nicotine. Lorenzo Jones leaned against the car, hands in his pockets. Bingo ignored him.

Tom Spellacy took his notebook and a pencil from his shirt pocket. The point on his pencil was broken.

“Use mine,” Lorenzo Jones said. “I always use a Scripto.”

Tom Spellacy nodded and took the pencil. I bet he has extra lead, too, he thought.

“Keep it,” Lorenzo Jones said. “I have an extra.”

Bingo Mclnerney stirred himself. “He’s always got lead in his pencil,” he smirked at Tom Spellacy. “One of them, anyway. Get it, Champ?”

Bingo had once seen Tom Spellacy fight at Legion Stadium, and when he thought he could get away with being familiar, called him Champ. Tom Spellacy stared coolly at Bingo until the latter averted his eyes.

“What happened?”

“It must’ve been 6:30 we got the call—” Bingo said.

“6:43,” Lorenzo said, checking his clipboard.

“We were over on Western,” Bingo said.

“Normandie,” Lorenzo said.

“Five minutes it took us to get here, at the most,” Bingo said.

“Seven minutes exactly,” Lorenzo said.

He must drive Bingo nuts, Tom Spellacy thought. But at least you could trust him. Lorenzo had nothing to add to what was already known. The woman who found the body was hysterical. The nearest bungalow was half a block away. The bungalow was uninhabited. There were no known witnesses. No one in the neighborhood had noticed anything out of the ordinary during the night. No loiterers. No noises. No strange cars.

“Anything unusual the rest of your tour?” Tom Spellacy said.

“Nothing like this, Champ . . . Lieutenant,” Bingo said. “All my years in the department, I ain’t never seen anything like this. Somebody must’ve really got pissed off at her, is what I think. Lipping off is probably what she was doing. They do that, broads . . .”

“We had a 902,” Lorenzo said. “Fatal.”

“Whyn’t you learn to speak fucking English?” Bingo said. “A 9-0-fucking-2. Guy pisses in a sink, you’ll say it’s a 219, something like that.”

Lorenzo looked at his partner for a moment and then said quietly, “That’d be a 415. Disturbance of the peace.”

“Yeah, well, this one here, it still takes the cake,” Bingo said. “The other guy, the 902, he wants to call it that, Tom, he runs into a telephone pole over on Vermont there.”

“Hoover,” Lorenzo said.

“Jesus Fucking Christ, will you stop correcting me like that,” Bingo said. “A guy can
gQt
sick and tired of that. Like you’re the only one ever went to night school, correcting all the time like that. A real pain in the ass you can be, you know that?”

“Knock it off,” Tom Spellacy said.

“Northbound on Hoover,” Lorenzo said, reading from his notebook.

“. . . the fuck cares, northbound or southbound?” Bingo said. “You know what’s eastbound, Lieutenant? Africa’s eastbound is what they tell me.”

“5:07, the call comes in,” Lorenzo said. He never raised his voice. It was as if Bingo were not even there and he was making a report into a dictaphone. “A 902, the call said, 2600 block on Hoover. 5:13. We arrive on the scene.”

“Think the lieutenant cares some juiced-up clown runs his Plymouth into a pole?” Bingo said.

“1936 Ford V-8,” Lorenzo said. “Totaled. Driver appeared to be deceased.”

“ ‘Driver appeared to be deceased,’ “ Bingo mimicked. “Halfway through the fucking windshield, don’t have to go to some night school, know he was dead. Right, Lieutenant?”

Tom Spellacy ignored his wink.

“Dispatched the coroner,” Lorenzo said. You could light matches under the balls of his feet, Tom Spellacy thought, and he’d finish the report before stamping them out. With all the proper codings from the dispatcher’s code. His voice droned on, oblivious to an argument in the background between the medical examiner and the ambulance crew over whether to put the body on one stretcher or two.

Crotty came up. He was holding the empty matchbook from McGovern’s Bar & Grill in his hand.

“Lorenzo Jones,” Crotty said. “How’s your wife, Belle, Lorenzo?”

“Oh, shit, that’s rich,” Bingo Mclnerney said.

“You guys can go now,” Crotty said to Bingo and Lorenzo. “Something just came over the radio. Possible 187, Avalon and 43rd Place. Across from Wrigley Field there.”

“187’s a homicide,” Lorenzo said to Bingo. The toneless sarcasm escaped Bingo. Or maybe Lorenzo’s just trying to help him out, Tom Spellacy thought. As you would your moron kid brother.

“Colored lady whacked out her husband,” Crotty said. “Dropped a fifty-pound watermelon on his head, I bet.”

“Oh, shit, that’s rich,” Bingo said.

“ That’s rich,
Lieutenant,’
“ Crotty said.

Bingo flushed. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

“You know McGovern’s?” Crotty said.

A chance to recover for Bingo. A knowing grin. “The Pope a ginney?”

“Matches must be yours then,” Crotty said, handing the empty matchbook to Bingo. “Not enough you puked on the victim, like you never seen a pair of Charlies before, but you drop your fucking matches, too. Ten days I could’ve spent checking these out, I didn’t know McGovern’s was where all the dumb harps hang out. Only one of which is in the vicinity. Keep your hands in your fucking pockets, the scene of a crime. Like your buddy, Lorenzo, here.”

The rebuke drained the color from Bingo Mclnerney’s face. Tom Spellacy thought he was going to get sick again. Lorenzo Jones moved discreetly out of range.

“Let’s go,” Crotty said to Tom Spellacy.

They drove to Chinatown. It was always the same after Crotty saw a stiff. Day or night, the upstairs room at Wo Fat’s was always open for Crotty after he saw a stiff. Some egg rolls, a little cashew chicken, a plate of sweet-and-sour pork, a dish of steamed Chaio-Tzu and Crotty began to feel better. He ate and rolled dice and read the comics. He was always wondering if anyone was getting into Ella Cinders, Frank. It gave him time to collect his thoughts and not have to worry about Fuqua and his definite patterns. The obituaries, too. A page of death by natural causes had a soothing effect on Crotty.

“Chet Hanrahan’s funeral’s tomorrow,” Crotty said.

Tom Spellacy nodded. His mind was elsewhere. The girl must have been brought to 39th and Norton from somewhere else. Where there’s an awful mess, he thought. Unless she was sliced up in a bathtub. Which meant the house had to have running water. A house, not an apartment. The screams would have attracted attention in an apartment. And the house must have been in a remote area for the same reason. The remote-area approach, Fuqua would call it.

“The monsignor going to be on the altar?” Crotty said.

“I would guess,” Tom Spellacy said, forcing himself back to Wo Fat’s. He knew it was impossible to rush Crotty. Yes, Des would be on the altar. Chet Hanrahan was, or had been, chairman of the Building Fund for the archdiocese. Des never missed the important funerals.

“A grand man, the monsignor,” Crotty said. Tom Spellacy smiled to himself. Crotty always called Des “the monsignor.” And referred to all priests by their titles. The Monsignor. His Excellency. His Eminence. Father. You went to confession to Father. You heard Father say mass. You never argued with Father. And you never bothered Father with your business dealings in Culver City with a bunch of Chinamen. Father was for sins. Nothing else.

“I asked the grand Chester Hanrahan to put money into my motel,” Crotty said. “All I got out of him was a lot of mumbo jumbo about inflation and rising unemployment and the high cost of building materials. Well, he’ll be saying no to the worms from now on, is who he’ll be saying no to, the pious harp bastard. Doing business with the likes of Jack Amsterdam and not with me. He must’ve had a full-time job looking the other way, the way Jack was steal—”

Crotty stopped in mid-sentence. He avoided Tom Spellacy’s eye and poured them both some green tea.

Jack Amsterdam.

The name hung there between them.

Jack Amsterdam.

Jack A.

Chief construction contractor for the archdiocese and pillar of the community. Building gymnasiums and giving new altars to the Church. Invited to civic dinners for visiting Mexican dignitaries. Recipient of autographed photographs from the governor of Baja California and the archbishop of Vera Cruz. Friend of the Right Reverend Monsignor Desmond Spellacy. It troubled Tom Spellacy that he never knew how much Des knew. About Jack A. and himself. And Wilshire Vice. He was sure Jack A. still had a piece of Wilshire Vice. It was probably what he donated to the Building Fund. Brenda had worked for Jack A. There were those in the department who thought the eleven hundred he had in his wallet the night he shot Lenny Lewis had come from Jack A. He supposed a strict definition of that eleven hundred made him a bagman. The word made him wince.

“Down to business,” Crotty said. A good way to change the subject, Tom Spellacy thought. That was one nice thing about Frank. He was a good cop, but he didn’t believe in strict definitions. “What do you think?”

“Offhand I’d say a nut,” Tom Spellacy said.

“You sound like fucking Mary Worth in the funny papers,” Crotty said. “When Jim is banging Susan and his wife Alice is home crying with the kids. ‘Offhand I think Jim is jumping Susan,’ is what Mary is telling Alice. Like Alice is a dummy or something. Of course it’s a nut.”

Jack Amsterdam had been dispelled.

“No ID, no clothes,” Tom Spellacy said. “The way her face is worked over, it’s going to be tough to get a make on her teeth.”

“It’s the no blood anyplace that bothers me,” Crotty said. “Which means someone had to bring her there.”

“Which means she was dead six, seven hours when that someone dumped her.”

“The skid marks are our best bet,” Crotty said.

“Which means we don’t have much.”

“Which means we got nothing,” Crotty said.