Clandestine

feverish in his excitement and praise of Dudley: 'I told you old Dud thought of everything, didn't I? Look at this place,' he said, leading me in through a narrow walkway to a one-story L-shaped collection of tiny connected motel rooms, all painted a faded puke green. 'This is great, isn't it? The place went under during the war, and the guy who owns it won't sell. He's waiting for the value to go up. It's perfect.'

It was perfect. Chills briefly overtook me. A perfect impressionist representation of hell: the L-shaped wings fronted by dead brown grass covered with empty short-dog bottles and condom wrappers. 'Keep Out' signs painted over with obscenities posted every six feet. Dog shit everywhere. A dead, towering palm tree standing sentry, keeping the parking lot of an aircraft plant across the street at bay.

'Yeah, it's perfect,' I said to Mike. 'Does it have a name?'

'The Victory Motel. You like it?'

'It does have a ring to it.'

Mike pointed me toward room number 6. He unlocked the door, and a large rat scurried out. 'Here we are,' he said.

I surveyed our place of interrogation: a small, perfectly square, putrid-smelling room with a rusted bedstead holding a filthy mattress on bare springs. A desk and two chairs. A cheap oil painting of a clown, unframed, above the bed. A magazine photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt pinned to a doorway leading into a bathroom where the bathtub and fixtures were covered with rodent droppings. Someone had drawn a Hitler mustache on F.D.R. Mike Breuning pointed to it and giggled.

'Go get our suspect, will you, Mike?' I said. I wanted to be alone, if only for a moment, if only in a hovel like this.

Dudley, Breuning, and Carlisle entered the tiny room a minute later, propelling our pajama-clad suspect in front of them. Carlisle threw Engels down on the bed and handcuffed his hands in front of him. He was trembling and starting to sweat, but I thought I noted the slightest trace of indignation come into his manner as he squirmed to find a comfortable posture on the urine-stained mattress.

He looked up at his four captors hovering over him and said, 'I want to call a lawyer.'

'That's an admission of guilt, Engels,' Carlisle said. 'You haven't been charged with anything yet, so don't fret about a shyster until we book you.'

'If we book him,' I interjected, assuming my role of 'good guy' without being told.

'That's right,' Mike Breuning said. 'Maybe the guy ain't guilty.'

'Guilty of what?' Eddie Engels cried out, his voice almost breaking. 'I haven't done a goddamned thing!'

'Hush now, son,' Dudley said in a fatherly tone. 'Just hush. We're here to see to justice. You tell the truth and you'll serve justice—and yourself. You've got nothing to fear, so just hush.'

Dudley's softly modulated brogue seemed to have a calming effect on Engels. His whole body seemed to slump in acceptance. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress. 'Can I smoke?' he asked.

'Sure,' Dudley said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a handcuff key. 'Freddy, unlock Mr. Engels, will you?'

'Sure, Dud.'

I unlocked the bracelets, and Engels smiled at me gratefully. Playing my unassigned role, I smiled back. Dudley tossed him a pack of Chesterfields and a book of matches. Engels's hands shook too badly to get a light going, so I lit his cigarette for him, smiling as I did it. He wolfed in the smoke and smiled back at me.

'Dick, Freddy,' Dudley said, 'I want you lads to make the run to the liquor store. Eddie, lad, what's your poison?'

Engels looked bewildered. 'You mean booze? I'm not much of a drinker.'

'Are you not, lad? Barhopper like yourself?'

'I don't mind gin and Coke once in a while.'

'Ahhh, grand. Freddy, Dick, you heard the man's order. Hop to it; there's a liquor store down the street.'

When we were outside, Carlisle outlined the plan for me. 'Dudley says the key word is 'circuitous.' He says it means 'roundabout.' First off we're going to get Engels drunk, get him to talk openly about himself. You're supposed to be with the feds, which means you're an attorney. You and Dudley are going to good guy-bad guy the shit out of him. We'll keep him up all night, stretch him thin. We've got the room next door all cleaned up. We can take naps there. And don't worry: Dudley's got pals on the Gardena force—they'll leave us alone.'

I smiled, again warming to Dudley Smith as a pragmatic wonder broker. 'What are you and Mike going to do?'

'Mike's going to take it all down in shorthand, then edit it after Engels confesses. He's a whiz. I'm going to play bad guy along with Dudley.'

'What if he doesn't confess?'

'He'll confess,' Carlisle said, taking off his glasses and polishing them with his necktie.

When we returned from the liquor store with a quart of cheap gin, three bottles of Coke, and a dozen paper cups, Dudley was regaling Eddie Engels with stories of his life in Ireland around the time of World War I, and Mike Breuning was in the room next door, making sandwiches and brewing coffee.

Mike came into the interrogation room bearing a half-dozen stenographic pads and a fat handful of sharp pencils. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and smiled at Engels. Engels's eyes went back and forth from Mike's affable blond face to his .38 in its shoulder holster. Eddie was putting up a brave front, but he was scared. And curious about how much we knew, of that I was sure. He had killed at least one woman, but was obviously involved in so much illegal activity that he didn't know why we had busted him. But he didn't act like a trapped killer—there was an effete arrogance that cut through even his fear. He had sailed on his good looks and charm for some thirty years and obviously considered himself a naturally superior being. His self-sufficient masquerade was about to end, and I wondered if he knew.

Dudley got the proceedings started, banging his huge hands on the little wooden table that held Mike's stenographic pads.

'Mr. Engels,' he said, 'you are probably wondering exactly who we are, and why we brought you here.' He paused and poured gin and Coca-Cola, mixed half and half, into a paper cup and handed it to Engels, who took it and sipped dutifully, dark intelligent eyes glancing around at the four of us.

Dudley cleared his throat and continued. 'Let me introduce my colleagues,' he said, 'Mr. Carlisle, Los Angeles Police Department; Mr. Breuning, of the district attorney's office; I am Lieutenant Dudley Smith of the L.A.P.D.; and this gentleman'—he paused and inclined his head toward me—'is Inspector Underhill of the F.B.I.' I almost laughed at my big new promotion, but kept a straight face. 'If you have any legal questions, you ask the inspector. He's an attorney, he'll be glad to answer them.'

I butted in, somehow wanting to calm Engels before the onslaught of brutality I knew would be coming. 'Mr. Engels, you may not know it, but you are acquainted with some people who exist on the edges of the L.A. crime world. We want to question you about these people. Our methods are roundabout, but they work. Just answer our questions and I assure you everything will be all right.'

It was a well-informed, ambiguous stab in the dark, and it hit home. Engels believed me. His features relaxed and he gulped the rest of his drink in relief. Dudley poured him another immediately, this one a good two-thirds gin.

Eddie took two healthy slugs of it and when he spoke, his voice had gone down considerably, almost to the baritone range. 'What do you want to know?' he asked.

'Tell us about yourself, lad,' Dudley said.

'What about me?'

'Your life, lad, past and present.'

'Exactly what do you mean, Lieutenant?'

'I mean everything, lad.'

Engels seemed to consider this. He seemed to draw into his memory, and guzzled his gin and Coke to speed his thought processes.

I looked at my watch. It was 7:00 and already getting hot in the sordid little room. I took off my suit coat and