When the bad moment passed-the one where I wondered if it was my last-the guy who almost puked picked up my suit coat and tossed it at me while the other latched onto my right arm and they marched me out into sunshine and to their car, where they threw me in back.
Not thugs. Worse.
One guy was a rangy redhead with blue eyes and the other had pockmarks and actor teeth.
LAPD intel.
CHAPTER 18
We rode in an unmarked car, of course, with both intel boys in front, and me in back like a perp, but no handcuffs. I asked no questions and made no comments, wise-ass or otherwise, not inquiring about my rights or was I under arrest or even what the fuck time is it.
For their part, they had said only one thing-the redhead, anyway, who early on glanced back from the passenger seat to offer: “The captain wants to see you.”
Since I’d just assaulted two police officers, however unintentionally, the professional tone and demeanor of the ride did encourage me. Still, it was an inherently unsettling journey.
They could have been taking me anywhere-the Intelligence Division was not known for standing on ceremony-and even in this enlightened age, I might find myself beaten in a basement somewhere.
I’ll spare you the interminable trip, and instead provide a touch of background about my least favorite division of the LAPD. Intel consisted of something like forty officers dedicated to keeping out-of-town mobsters out of town. Both Parker and Hamilton made proud public statements about the extra-legal nature of the division’s activities. Like the three-man squad who’d memorized every nasty La Cosa Nostra face in their files, and worked the airport full- time, just watching, ready to refuse entry into Parker’s closed city.
Intel’s files weren’t just filled with mob guys. Potential Commies were in there, too, since Chief Parker frequently went on public record about his desire to “protect the American philosophy of life,” particularly from the Russians. Parker’s man Hamilton and the boys and girls of the Intelligence Division went after such subversives as labor leaders and reporters who’d failed to genuflect before the chief. My favorite was when they gathered intel on mayoral candidate Norris Poulson, trying to prevent his election.
But when Poulson did win the election, and the new mayor failed to fire Hamilton and disband the intel division, there were those who scratched their heads. Why would Poulson hold on to Hamilton and the division that had just tried to smear him? Others understood that the big bad files kept in the captain’s big fat safe made changes of administration irrelevant in LA.
There’d been a time when a ride downtown meant City Hall and a dank cellar cell where the likes of Hamilton and his crew would beat out a rubber-hose rhumba on the likes of yours truly. But times had changed. My chauffeurs were hauling me underground, all right-they were driving through a crowded lot toward an underground parking garage.
The seven-story very modern Police Administration Building sat like a big derailed boxcar pointing at nearby City Hall and other Civic Center buildings. Of course, hardly anybody called the facility by its actual name-to cop and crook alike, this was the Glass House, though that moniker had never prevented any stone-throwing, figurative or otherwise.
We took the elevator up to the fourth floor and they paraded me down a narrow, high-ceilinged, fluorescent- lit green hall through a door where a small black sign with white letters said INTELLIGENCE DIVISION, right across from ROBBERY HOMICIDE. The redhead took the lead, with me following, and the pockmarked dick behind me. In case I made a break for it.
The intel bullpen might have been a classroom: pale green walls, blonde-wood desks, white file cabinets and green ones, too, framed maps of the city and sections thereof. The office labeled (white on black) CAPTAIN JAMES HAMILTON had no receptionist.
The redhead knocked, didn’t wait for a reply, and stuck his head in. I could hear his muffled: “Got ’im, Cap.”
“Send his ass in,” Hamilton said. Not so muffled.
The redhead closed the door and came over to me and his partner.
“We’ll keep the scuffle to ourselves,” he said quietly. “You don’t want the captain knowing you swung on his officers, and I don’t wanna waste time confirming or denying havin’ to pull a gun on you.”
I nodded. “Deal.”
Behind me, the pockmarked guy said, “I didn’t agree to this crap.”
He was the one who’d taken the brunt of it, an elbow in the face, which had given him a welt, and my shoe in his gut.
The redhead said, “Let it go, Larry. Sometimes when you make an omelet, the yolk’s on you.”
Har de har har, as Ralph Kramden used to say. Still, kind of nice having one cop crack wise at the other cop, and save me the trouble. And risk.
Anyway, Larry let it go, and the redhead opened the door for me and made an after-you gesture and winked. Smart-ass. Being one, I didn’t much care for the rest of the breed.
The chair waiting for me in front of Hamilton’s desk was metal with a padded green vinyl seat. The captain was occupied with a file, so I got my bearings.
Not a big office, though not as sterile as some in the Glass House, Hamilton displaying numerous awards, citations, and even framed newspaper clippings on his walls. A big old iron safe-a relic from earlier, grittier days- squatted against the wall at my right, between metal filing cabinets. The fabled repository of the dirt that Chief Parker and his favorite police dog had dug out and assembled on one and sundry. And were continuing to do so.
The safe was not my favorite decorating touch, however-right above it hung a large framed photographic portrait of Chief William H. Parker, one of those pastel hand-tinted jobs that always made its subjects look slightly unreal and the men somewhat feminine. It was like Hamilton was displaying a portrait of his best girl.
I chose not to share this observation with Hamilton, who looked no less big sitting behind a big blonde desk that was arrayed with files, mug shots and circulars, standing family photos, a multi-line phone, and a much-used ash tray. His craggy face had a naturally sorrowful cast, but the small hard eyes seemed strangers to pity.
He tossed aside the report like a wadded napkin and said in his distinctive husky baritone, “I think I made a mistake the other day.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” I said.
“I threw you out over at the Monroe house. I should have been… more polite. We should have had a talk.”
“I’m here now. Your men asked politely. So I came, even though I don’t believe I’m under arrest… am I? Not a material witness, or-”
“No. This is voluntary.” He smiled. It did nothing to improve the rolling prairie of his face. “I’m sure the fellas made that clear.”
“Yeah. They were nice.”
He studied me. I don’t know how to fully drain the sarcasm out of me, but I can drain it out of my voice, which makes it hard for the recipient to tell, sometimes.
He found a pack of Chesterfields on his desk, offered me a smoke. I declined and he lighted one up, shrugging. “We don’t like each other. You don’t like me. I don’t like you.”
“See, you are a detective.” Didn’t bother disguising that one. He’d asked for it. And anyway, this office, with tinted-cheeked Parker looking on, was no place to conduct a beating.
“We had a run-in or two,” he said, sighed smoke, brushed it away from his face, “and I am not naturally enamored of people in your business. It’s a shady trade. Sleazy.”
“Tacky, too,” I contributed. “But it can pay well.”
He made a noise that might have been a laugh. “Hell of a lot better than a real cop’s pay. But I digress. Fact is, you and I… we have a common basis in friendship and cooperation, if we just care to admit it.”
“Sure. What?”
