again.
Millard says Duke Cathcart was involved in some scheme to push _his_ smut.
Bud White visits Lynn Bracken, one of the lookalike whores. He stays inside two hours; the whore walks him out. He tails White home, starts thinking evidence: White knows Bracken, she knows Pierce Patchett, he knows Hudgens. Sid knows about the Malibu Rendezvous, Dudley Smith probably knows. Big Dud's reason for the tail job: White bent out of shape on a _hooker_ snuff.
Pulsing beer signs: neon monsters. Brass knucks in the car, the Sidster might fold, kick loose with his file--
Jack bolted: Hudgens' place, no lights on, Sid's Packard at the curb. The door--brass knucks for a knocker.
Thirty seconds--nothing. Jack tried the door--no give-- shouldered the jamb. The door popped open.
That smell.
Slow motion: handkerchief out, gun out, elbow to the wall-- the switch, no prints. Switch down, lights on.
Sid Hudgens hacked up on the floor--a rug soaked black, the floor a blood slick.
Arms and legs severed, out at weird angles off his torso.
Split open crotch to neck, bones showing white through red.
Cabinets upended behind him--folders dumped on a clean patch of rug.
Jack bit his arms to kill screams.
No blood tracks, say the killer got out the back door. Hudgens naked, coated red-black. Limbs off his torso, strands of gore at the cut points, swirls like his inked-in fuck books--
Jack bolted.
Around the house, down the driveway. The back door: ajar, spilling light. Inside: a water-slick floor--no blood prints, tracks covered. He walked in, found grocery bags under the sink. Shaky steps to the living room. File cabinet dirt: folders, folders, folders--one, two, three, four, five bags--two trips to his car.
A quiet L.A. street at 2:20 A.M., calm down mumbo jumbo.
Fifty trillion people had motives. Nobody knew he'd seen the inked-in books. The mutilations would get written off--just psycho stuff.
_He had to find his file_.
Jack doused lights, sawed the front door with his handcuffs-- let them think it's a burglar. He took off, no destination, just driving.
o o o
Just driving wore thin. He found a motel strip, a hot-sheet flop: Oscar's Sleepytime Lodge.
He paid a week's rent, hauled his bags in, took a shower and put his stale clothes back on. A cockroach palace: bugs, grease on the wall above the bed. He smelled himseffi stale working on foul. He locked the door, prowled dirt.
_Hush-Hush_ back issues, clippings, pilfered police documents. Files: Montgomery Clift as the smallest dick in Hollywood, Errol Flynn as a Nazi agent. A hot item: Flynn and some homo writer named Truman Capote. Commies, Commie sympathizers, celebrity spook fuckers ranging from Joan Crawford to former D.A. Bill McPherson. Hopheads galore: shit on Charlie Parker, Anita O'Day, Art Pepper, Tom Neal, Barbara Payton, Gail Russell. Intact _Hush-Hush_ articles: 'Mafia Ties to the Vatican!!!,' 'Lavender Liturgy: Is 'Rock' Hudson Really 'Rockette'?,' 'Grasshopper Alert: Beware of Hollywood's Tea Bag Babies.' Complete files, too tame to be Hudgens' secret stash--Commies, queers, lezbos, dopesters, satyrs, nymphos, misogynists, mobbought politicos.
Nothing on Sergeant Jack Vincennes.
Nothing on _Badge of Honor_--a big Hudgens fixation--he knew Sid had a file on Brett Chase.
Strange.
More strange: _Hush-Hush_ ran a smear on Max Peltz--there was nothing on him.
Nothing on Pierce Patchett, Lynn Bracken, Lamar Hinton, Fleur-de-Lis.
Jack measured his filth pile. Big--make the killer a file thief, if he got any files it wasn't many--his pile looked like it would jam the cabinets to bursting.
ALIBI.
Jack stuffed his files in the closet. 'Do Not Disturb' on the door, back to his apartment.
5:10 A.M.
Under the knocker: 'Jack--remember our date Thurs.' 'Jack sweetie--are you hibernating? XXXX--K.' He walked in, grabbed the phone, dialed 888.
'Police Emergency.'
A hepcat drawl. 'Man, I want to report a murder. If I'm lyin', I'm flyin'.'
'Sir, is this legitimate?'
'Yeah, if I'm--'
''What is your address, sir?'
'My address is nowhere, but I was gonna burglarize this house, then I saw this body.'
'Sir--'
'421 South Alexandria, got that?'
'Sir, where are--'
Jack hung up, stripped, lay down on the bed. Figure twenty minutes for the bluesmts, ten to ID Hudgens. They putz around, make it as a big case, call Homicide. The desk man thinks brass, shakes a boss case man out of bed. Thad Green, Russ Millard, Dudley S.--they'd all think Big V pronto--his phone would ring in a hot hour.
Jack lay there--sweating up a clean set of sheets. Ring ring--at 6:58.
Jack, yawning. 'Yeah?'
'Vincennes, it's Russ Millard.'
'Yeah, Cap. What time is it? What's--'
'Never mind. Do you know where Sid Hudgens lives?'
'Yeah, Chapman Park somewhere. Cap, what's--'
'421 South Alexandria. _Now_, Vincennes.'
o o o
Shave, shower, clothes that stayed dry. Forty minutes to the scene--a fuckload of cop cars on Sid Hudgens' lawn. Morgue men hefting plastic bags: blood, body parts.
Jack parked on the lawn. An attendant wheeled out a gurney: gore wrapped in sheets. Russ Millard by the door; two comers-- Don Kleckner, Duane Fisk--down the driveway. Patrolmen shooed away spectators; reporters crowded the sidewalk. Jack walked up to Millard. 'Hudgens ?'--not too much shock, a pro.
'Yes, your buddy. A bit chewed up, I'm afraid. A burglar called it in. He was about to tap the house, then he saw the body. Pry marks on the doorjamb, so I buy it. Don't look inside if you've eaten.'
Jack looked. Dried blood, white tape outlines: arms, legs, torso-the severing points marked. Millard said, 'Somebody _hated_ him. You see those drawers over there? I think the killer snuffed him for his files. I had Kieckner call the _Hush-Hush_ publisher. He's going to open up the office and give us copies of the recent stuff Hudgens was working on.'
Old Russ wanted a comment. Jack crossed himself: his first time since the orphanage, where the fuck did it come from.
'Vincennes, you were his friend. What do you think?'
'I think he was scum! Everybody hated him! You've got all L.A. for suspects!'
'Easy, now, _easy_. I know you've leaked information to Hudgens, I know you two did business. If we don't wrap this in a few days, I'm going to want a statement.'
Duane Fisk spieling Morty Bendish--make book on a _Mirror_ scoop. Jack said, 'I'll kick loose. What am I going to do, impede the progress of an official investigation?'
'Your sense of duty is admirable. Now, let's talk about Hudgens. Girls, boys, what did he like?'
Jack lit a cigarette. 'He liked dirt. He was a goddamned degenerate. Maybe he pulled his pud while he looked at his own goddamn shitrag, I don't know.'
Don Kleckner walked up, a copy of _Hush-Hush_ spread open: 'TV Mogul Loves to Ogle--And Then Some!!! And Teen Queens Are His Scene!!!' 'Captain, I bought this at that newsstand on the corner. And the publisher told
