True Confessions (9 page)

Tom Spellacy gathered the pictures in a pile, put them in an envelope and locked them in a desk drawer.

“It’s been a while since they had a werewolf, the zoo tells me, Howard.”

“You think it was a fiend, then.”

“Eliminate the Cardinal, a fiend’s a good bet.”

“You’ve definitely eliminated the Cardinal as a suspect, then?”

“It was only a figure of speech, Howard.”

“Your brother carries a lot of weight with His Eminence, they tell me,” Howard Terkel said. “You might mention to him it would be a wonderful story if His Eminence was to say the funeral mass. Let me know what he says, your brother, and I can arrange it so His Eminence gets an exclusive on what it all means, the death of this cunt.”

“We don’t have an ID yet, Howard,” Tom Spellacy said. “So we don’t even know she’s a Catholic cunt or not.”

“We can work that out later,” Howard Terkel said.

Tom Spellacy stood up. “It’ll be a factor, Howard. A definite factor.”

Crotty’s office was on the other side of the bullpen. As watch commander, his wall partition ran all the way to the ceiling. There was a middle-aged couple sitting in the office. They looked worn and tear-stained. The man had not shaved and there was a hole in the woman’s hair net. The man was holding a dog-eared graduation photograph of a young girl in a white cap and gown.

“Mr. and Mrs. Constantine,” Crotty said.

“Konstanty,” the man said.

“Let’s eat Mexican,” Crotty said.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Tom Spellacy said.

“Casa del Sol,” Crotty said.

The father handed the photograph to Tom Spellacy. “She wore braces until she was seventeen.”

“She loved Bing Crosby,” the mother said.

“And a retainer after that,” the father said.

“Gee, I wish the press would stop predicting trouble between Bing and Dixie,” the mother said.

“Only at night, the retainer, never on dates,” the father said. “Ten o’clock she had to be home on date nights, and then she’d pop the retainer in.”

“We want Bing and Dixie to stay together,” the mother said. She started to cry. “That’s what my baby wanted, too.”

“Your baby ever been tattooed?” Crotty said.

“
Dos cervezas”
Crotty said to the waiter. “The oysters good?”

“
Si, senor
.”

“I had a dozen in here the other night and only one of them worked.”

The restaurant was crowded. Once La Casa del Sol had been a Mexican bar with live mariachi music. The narcotics squad had kept it under close surveillance but no arrests were ever made. Now it was populated by policemen and politicians and assistant water commissioners and deputy tax inspectors all kneeing their secretaries under the tables. Crotty and Tom Spellacy sat against the wall under a bullfight poster. Crotty tucked a napkin under his chin and drank half a glass of Carta Blanca.

“This used to be a swell place when I was in Narcotics,” he said. “I was making a buy in here one time from this pretty little
chiquita
, and she says to me, ‘Why don’t we take a fuck before we do it?’ And I says to her, I didn’t want to lose the collar and I had to think fast, I says, ‘I’d love to,
querida
, but I got a bad dose of the clap.’ And she says to me, ‘That’s okay,
muchacho
, so do I.’ “ He laughed until he began to choke and people at the adjoining tables turned to stare. “Isn’t that a bastard of a story, Tom?”

Crotty’s laughter was interrupted by a hand that gripped his shoulder like a vise.

“Monsignor McGrath,” Crotty said.

“I missed you at the seven last Sunday, Frank.”

“I went to the ten at Immaculate, Monsignor.”

“Is that so, Frank?”

“A big investigation, Monsignor. It went late.”

“And you slept in?”

“I’ll be at the seven next Sunday, Monsignor.”

“That’s grand, Frank. I heard you speaking Mexican. You speak it, do you?”

“I do, Monsignor.”

“Then I wonder if you’d ask the waiter to send over some buns. I don’t speak the lingo and I’m over there with Supervisor McDonough and we’d like a few buns.”

“
Muchacho, un poco de pan para el padre.”

Monsignor McGrath clapped Crotty on the shoulder and went back to his table with Sonny McDonough.

“Of all the fucking nerve,” Crotty said.

“You should’ve told him you were investigating Father Dicky Donohue’s drunk-driving charge, is the reason you missed mass,” Tom Spellacy said.

“I bet he’s hitting up Sonny there for a new car,” Crotty said. “You should’ve seen him last year, his fiftieth birthday party in the parish hall. A trip to Hawaii he got. A set of matched luggage. A year’s free haircuts. A bagful of golf sticks. A season’s pass to Santa Anita. And he was mad. He had his heart set on an Olds-mobile. A Hydra-matic. I thought he was going to excommunicate Jack Walker, the car dealer.”

Sonny McDonough broke a piece of bread. He was wearing a dark suit and a black tie with a pearl stickpin.

“You know Sonny’s on the Select Commission picking the new chief?” Crotty said.

Tom Spellacy nodded. The selection of the new chief was a subject he did not wish to consider. The last chief had gone before the grand jury and shortly after that he was indicted and then John Dempsey, the chief of detectives and Fuqua’s predecessor, had blown out his brains and the whole period brought back memories of Wilshire Vice.

“Who do you think it’s going to be, it’s not Fuqua?” Crotty said.

String Frank along. He wondered sometimes why he had never been indicted. He could make an educated guess that Des being his brother had something to do with it. The Cardinal carried a lot of weight downtown.

“Kenny Meyer, I suppose,” Tom Spellacy said. The deputy chief for administration. Gray and colorless.

“You seen him lately?” Crotty said. “He looks two hundred, Kenny, and he can’t be more than forty-nine. It’s the wife. Two tits she’s lost already, and a kidney’s coming out next week. The liver’s not too sharp either, is what I hear. It ages a guy, looking for spare parts like that. They don’t have Father Time in mind, I think, the commissioners.”

“Harvey Zim, then,” Tom Spellacy said. He really didn’t care which of the front runners or dark horses replaced the former chief.

“J-E-W,” Crotty said. “Nothing wrong with being a Jew, you like wearing a beanie, but hot fudge sundaes in the gas chamber, that’s a better bet than putting your money on a Hebe.”

So much for Harvey Zim, chief inspector, uniform police. Anyway, he thought, the last chief had beaten the rap. The indictment didn’t stick.

“He’s got a place in Balboa now, I hear, the last guy.”

“And one in Ensenada,” Crotty said. “He come out of it all right. Two houses and he beats the rap. Tears the shit out of being chief, though, getting indicted like that, even you beat it.”

The waiter brought two more Carta Blancas. Crotty ordered chiles rellenos and enchiladas verdes for the two of them. When the waiter left, he leaned across the table and said softly, almost as if he were afraid of being heard, “What do you think of Morty Davis’s chances?”

He thinks I’m afraid Morty’s going to get rid of me, Tom Spellacy thought suddenly. He doesn’t know it’s no worse than Des saving my ass.

“He’s a saint, actually,” Tom Spellacy said. “Twenty-two cents he’s got in the bank, Morty, and a hole in his shoes. He’s either dumb or honest, he’s so poor, and honest is the one I’d pick. And he never looked the other way when the last guy had both his dukes in the tambourine.”

Crotty leaned back and smiled. That reassuring conspiratorial smile. That you’ve-got-nothing-to-worry-about-Morty-Davis smile.

“Not a chance. He blew the whistle on the last guy. The last time they rewarded a guy for blowing the whistle, they had white blackbirds. The sun rose in the west that day, too. Sure they want somebody honest, but they want somebody knows how to play ball, too, the commissioners.”

He knew that Crotty was right. Morty Davis never looked the other way. That could be dangerous. He was suddenly angry. The last guy indicted, poor John Dempsey’s brains splashed all over a wall, Morty Davis out in the cold because he was honest. And not a finger laid on Jack Amsterdam. The paymaster. Now the civic benefactor. And Des Spellacy’s golf partner. Not a man to point the finger at. There were just too many layers between Jack and the street. And there was always Brenda to take the fall for him.

“So that’s why I’m putting my money on Fuqua,” Crotty said. He mixed the rice and the refried beans together with his fork and lowered his voice, as if what he had to say embarrassed him. “Don’t give him any static, Tom.” He kept stirring the food, avoiding Tom Spellacy’s eyes. “Keep your trap shut. I got enough trouble with my Chinamen without worrying about you giving Fuqua shit. I just don’t want my life complicated.”

Tom Spellacy nodded, but he was not listening. Maybe I’m dreaming, he thought. Maybe Des didn’t have anything to do with it after all. Maybe once the chief was indicted and John Dempsey put his service revolver in his mouth, maybe then the grand jury said enough’s enough, we made our point, the department’s as clean as a whistle. He signaled for two more beers.

Anything to change the subject.

“Those glasses under her tits,” he said. “SID checked them out with an optical house.” He took the SID report from his pocket. “Standard frame, stock lenses, didn’t have to be ground to order. The owner is probably a man,’” he read, “ ‘with a small volleyball-shaped head. His eyes are far apart, his left ear is approximately
¹
/
₄
-to-
¹
/
₂
inch higher than his right and he is extremely myopic’ “

“Did they belong to our guy?”

“Probably not.” Tom Spellacy watched Sonny McDonough prepare to leave the restaurant. Bills disappeared into the hands of waiters. Sonny McDonough shook hands at every table. The two-handed shake. Along with the sincere smile reserved for the loved ones of the faithfully departed. “SID says the way the screws are rusted, the glasses probably been there for a long time.”

“No reason you got to mention that,” Crotty said. He raised the napkin to his lips and burped. “We should give it to the papers, that report, except the last part. Make them think we’re on top of things. Nothing Howard Terkel would like better than looking for a guy with a volleyball-shaped head. Put an ad in the
Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Monthly
, let Howard check out the replies.”

Sonny McDonough stood over the table. He grasped Crotty’s hand, but Tom Spellacy kept his under the table.

Sonny McDonough slapped Tom Spellacy on the back. “I got a grand story for your brother,” Sonny McDonough said. “I was telling Charley Moylan last week, I said, ‘Ben Hogan’s helping Des Spellacy with his golf swing, did you know that, Charley?’ Pulling his leg, you know, you can appreciate that, a well-known leg puller like yourself.” Tom Spellacy wondered where Sonny McDonough had ever dreamed up the notion that he was a well-known leg puller. “And Charley says to me, ‘He a Catholic, Ben?’ And I said to him, ‘Never heard of any Jew Hogans, Charley.’ And Charley says, ‘I knew a Methodist named Hogan once.’ And I said to him, ‘He must’ve fallen away from the Church.’” Sonny McDonough pounded him on the back again. “Isn’t that a swell story? You got to tell it to Des.”

“I can’t wait,” Tom Spellacy said.

Tom Spellacy dreamed
.

He was stealing a car. Pry open the window with a screwdriver. Pull up the lock with a coat hanger. Hot-wire the ignition and drive off. Simple.

He awoke.

The portable radio was playing softly on the bedside table. From the mountains to the desert, from the desert to the sea, here’s the news, all the news. Washington. Elliot Roosevelt. Johnny Pick-Up-The-Check Meyer. Chicago. Pickle packers puzzle picking name for pickle. Locally. Police still sifting clues brutal slaying unidentified victim. Search for man with volleyball-shaped head.

Rain beat against the window.

He knew why he had been dreaming of stealing cars. It was raining. His ass always hurt when it rained. Ever since a dog took a chunk out of it when he was stealing a car in 1933.

He dug the sleep from his eyes.

He had stolen 319 cars in 1933. Legally. Five dollars a car. Less expenses. There were rules. Never break into a locked garage, even if there was a car inside. That was B & E and a one-to-three pop if you got caught. Never break into a garage attached to a house. That made the garage part of the house and the owner could shoot you. Otherwise his kind of car theft was legitimate. He did it for a finance company. Repossession was the fancy word for it. The finance company looked at it this way: the guy who wasn’t making the payments on his car was stealing it from the bank. If you took him to court, it would cost you money, even if you could find him, which wasn’t easy, because guys who didn’t keep up their loan payments generally moved around a lot. Proving they were good at ducking out on their rent, too. And if you did find the guy and slap a piece of paper on him, he would probably tell you to go fuck yourself. After he worked you over. Because a guy who was out of a job didn’t usually like some fairy in a coat and tie telling him he had to show up in court a week from next Tuesday. So the finance company hired someone to steal the car from the guy who was stealing the car from the bank which hired the finance company to steal the car back. Because Mr. Giannini at the Bank of America didn’t want to get in the hot-car racket, legal though it was.

He rubbed his ass.

The dog who bit him in 1933 was named Wolf and Wolf had taken thirty-seven stitches worth out of his ass when he was trying to lift a black Packard with nine thousand miles on it. Crotty was the cop on the beat and when Tom Spellacy screamed, Crotty showed up and drilled Wolf with one shot. You dumb fuck, Tom Spellacy had said, you could’ve got me. Not a chance, Crotty had said. He blasted Wolf once more for good measure. You ought to think about joining the department, Crotty said. It beats hot cars and you can shoot the fucking dogs. It was the first time he had ever laid eyes on Crotty.

Tom Spellacy lit a cigarette.

Corinne was singing in the bathroom. Mary Margaret always called the bathroom “the toilet.” 6:30 A.M. The voice speaking on the radio seemed familiar. Oh, shit. “If you have any information on this case, call this special .number and ask for me, Detective Captain Fred Fuqua, that’s F-U-Q-U-A, Fuqua.”

The bathroom door opened.

“That’s all you need, a special number,” Corinne said. “You’re going to hear from a lot of swell people you might’ve missed otherwise.”

She had a towel wrapped around her wet hair, otherwise she was naked.

“That asshole,” Tom Spellacy said. He tried not to look at her breasts. Don’t point them at me, he thought, they might go off. “He wants to be chief.”

“Everyone in town doesn’t like his brother-in-law’s going to get in touch with you.”

“Not with me. With F-U-Q-U-A. Serve that fuckhead right.”

She stood by the radio, legs astraddle, hands on hips, belligerent. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had seen Mary Margaret naked. Always the locked door when she took a bath. Always the darkened bedroom and the fumbling under the rough flannel nightgown. It could be a hundred degrees with a hot dry wind off the desert and still she would wear the flannel, and the only light in the bedroom would be the flickering votive candle on the dresser in front of the statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Corinne sat on the bed and began to paint her toenails.

“There was a guy called yesterday, wanted to know if she was having her period.”

“He was belting it, I bet. And saying ooohhh and ahhhhhh on the telephone.”

Mary Margaret had never talked about his work. Meat loaf, she talked about, and whether it was too expensive to put a strip of bacon on top for flavor. Or whether she should put the skim milk in the macaroni and cheese. Or whether his socks needed darning or whether Father Plunkett would hear confessions Saturday with Father Sheed in the hospital with cancer of the bowels. It was useless telling her that Johnny Kinsella got seven-to-ten. Sand dabs is good for Fridays, she would say. Or that Brian Manners who used to be an altar boy over to Saint Anatole’s was shot in the head by the Jew fag he was living with. Kev got a C in catechism, she would say. It’s Sister Felita teaching catechism this year and she’s a much tougher teacher than Sister Geraldine. They call it Christian Doctrine in the sixth grade, not catechism. CD is the nickname for it, all the kids use.

The radio announcer said that hundreds of suspects were being questioned.

“Fuck her,” Tom Spellacy said suddenly. “She’s not worth worrying about.”

Corinne stopped working on her toenails. “What do you mean, Tuck her?’”

He swung his legs out of the bed. Change the subject fast. “You’ve got nice tits, Corinne.”

“Don’t talk about my tits. Tell me what you mean, Tuck her.’”

“Your tits are nice to talk about.”

“My tits are for later.”

Tits. Ass. Belly button. He moved his eyes away. He wished he had never brought up the girl. Maybe it was better talking about Sister Geraldine. Or sand dabs.

“Why Fuck her?’” she repeated. “Come on, I’m interested. The only thing she did wrong was get hacked up.”

“She fucked the world, Corinne.” He knew that was his second mistake. He headed toward the bathroom. Buddy Clark was singing “It’s A Big, Wide Wonderful World” on the portable radio.

“So that’s it. She was in a state of mortal sin and it offends all you harp cops cheating on your wives.” He stopped in his tracks. “Look at me,” she said. “Somebody hacks me up, you going to say, Tuck her, she fucked the world?’ “

He tried to imagine having this conversation with Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret who was probably even now having breakfast with Saint Barnabas of Luca.

“You haven’t.”

“That’s right. Nothing much past the county line.”

He tried not to look at her breasts.

“Jesus Christ, Corinne, you know what I mean. You think you can swim in shit and come out smelling like chocolate ice cream.”

“How about the guy who nailed her? What’s he swimming in?”

“You sure it’s a guy? How about a girl? A girl friend, maybe?”

“She a dyke?” Corinne asked quickly.

“It makes a difference then?”

“No.”

She returned to her toenails. Lesbians made her uncomfortable.
He had saved her life once by suggesting she might be a lesbian and she had never really forgiven him for it. He knew he was in control now.

“That’s a mortal sin you’re not too crazy about.”

“Was she?”

He suddenly felt very tired. It was a stupid argument, made more so when conducted stark naked. “We don’t even know her name yet, Corinne. It’s just something we’ve got to consider, is all.”

“That’s really swell. How about dogs? You considering dogs, too?”

“It’s cold, Corinne. I’m going to freeze it off, standing here.”

“You might as well freeze it, all the use it gets,” Corinne said.

He closed the bathroom door. Buddy Clark was still singing. “... A Nero, Apollo, the Wizard of Oz.” Her cosmetics were lined up on the sink. Her diaphragm was in its pouch, neatly dusted with cornstarch. She never seemed to wear it anymore. He wondered if she had left it out on purpose. As a reminder. He remembered that night six months ago when he had first come to this apartment, searching the medicine cabinet for a diaphragm or contraceptive jelly. It embarrassed him to admit it, but looking for things like that made him horny. And he had never expected to meet her again, not after telling Turd Turner she was butch.

It was funny how much he liked Turd Turner. He was strictly bush league, Turd. He couldn’t even stick up a candy store without fucking up. Eighteen years in the joint, eighteen months outside since he was seventeen years old. When he got a contract, he hit the wrong guy. When he ran a string of girls, he got the syph. Turd’s luck. When he got drunk, he pulled a kidnap. And ended up in the gas chamber.

Tom Spellacy lathered his face. He tried not to catch his eye in the mirror. All the use it gets, Corinne had said. She was like Brenda in that one way. She used her box as if it were a weapon.

Better to think of Turd Turner.

It wasn’t as if Turd were a Bruno Hauptmann, pulling a kidnap for the potatoes. He was just dumb and lonely was the reason he did it. It was V-J Night and everyone was celebrating in the streets and getting laid and Turd was two weeks out of the can and broke and only wanted to be a part of the celebration. So he stuck up a liquor store and got drunk and feeling good and when he ran out of booze he decided to stick up a bar-and-grill, even though he still had the money from the first job. Thinking never was Turd’s long suit, especially when he was on the juice. But something went wrong in the bar-and-grill and he had to take a customer hostage and he holed up in an apartment on Bunker Hill with three guns and two bottles of rye and a broad who was scared out of her skin. The mayor was there and the chief of police and Fuqua and searchlights and Crowd Control and enough hardware to invade Japan.

Tom Spellacy couldn’t quite remember a scene like it.

“Why the fuck are all these people here?” he had said when he arrived.

“They think it’s a hell of a way to end the war,” Crotty had said. Tom Spellacy could not ever recall seeing Crotty rattled. Whatever happened, it was always one big joke to Frank. “You seen the mayor yet? He’s wearing his National Guard uniform. ‘Let’s go in and take him, boys,’ he says. I swear to Christ, Tom, he said that.”

“I’d like to send that fuck in first,” Tom Spellacy had said. “I know Turd. I collared him twice. He’s not going back inside. He’ll shoot it out.”

“You can bet your sweet ass he will with a 207,” Crotty said. “That’s a gas-chamber bounce.”

Just like Turd. No luck. Never. Not even with his nickname. He had picked it up at Joliet when he was seventeen and in for armed robbery. His first time inside. Cherry. (“Except for one time with my sister,” he had told Tom Spellacy once. “My half-sister, so it was okay.”) He was Horace Turner then, with a fourth-grade education and an IQ of 86. An old bull, a lifer, had tried to ram him in the ass and Horace Turner was so scared he crapped all over the lifer’s pecker. He had been Turd ever since.

“Who’s the hostage?” Tom Spellacy had said.

“Her name is Corinne Morris,” Crotty said. “Works in the County Courthouse. Assistant Jury Commissioner. War widow. Her old man was killed at Pearl Harbor.” Crotty lowered his voice so the reporters gathered at the barricade could not hear. “She fucks like a bunny rabbit, they tell me.”

“Is the mayor getting any?”

“Not that I heard.”

“Why’s he so steamed up then? The Turd’s a loser.”

“The shit he’s in, the mayor, he’s looking for all the ink he can get. Anything to make him look good. The chief, too.”

Tom Spellacy shook his head in disgust. “There a phone in there?”

“Madison 5244.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

He pushed his way through the crowd until he found a public telephone booth at the foot of Bunker Hill. A sailor was passed out inside the booth. Tom Spellacy hauled him outside and dropped him on the sidewalk. Then he fished a nickel from the sailor’s jumper and dialed Madison 5244. The telephone rang six times.

“Turd, Tom Spellacy, how they hanging?”

“You’re going to have to come in and get me, Tom. I’m not going back inside.”

“Listen, I understand, it’s no country club, the joint.”

“All I want’s a car and enough gas to get across the border.”

“Jesus, that’s a tough one, Turd. We got the mayor here, and the chief. And with all that grand jury shit about corruption in the department, they want to hang you out to dry, get their names in the paper.”

“I got the girl.”

“They don’t give a shit about the girl,” Tom Spellacy said. His voice was matter-of-fact. “She’s a dyke.”

“What do you mean, she’s a dyke?”

“Been sniffing pussy for years.”

“You kidding me, Tom?”

“We got a yellow sheet on her, Turd.”

“Jesus, one thing I could never stand, it’s a dyke. All those years in the joint, dreaming about pussy, and I got to snatch a les. It’s unnatural, being a dyke.”

Tom Spellacy wondered if Mrs. Morris of the Jury Commission was listening to the conversation. He hoped she would keep her mouth shut. Her one real chance was to go along with the story. Keep Turd talking, that was what he had to do.