Smut brushed shoulders with the Nite Owl.
Ed thought back.
The Englekling brothers, Duke Cathcart, Mickey Cohen. Smut dismissed as a viable Nite Owl lead-three dead Negroes, case closed.
Ed read the file again. Years of padded reports, one assignment bereft of paper. Vincennes returned to Narco in July '53-he went back to his old ways, continued them straight through to the end of his duty with Surveillance.
Big-time anomaly.
Coinciding with the Nite Owl.
Spring '53, another connection: Sid Hudgens was murdered then-unsolved. Ed hit the intercom.
'Yes, Captain?'
'Susan, find out who besides Sergeant John Vincennes was assigned to the Fourth Squad at Administrative Vice in April of 1953. Do that, then locate them.'
A half hour for results. Sergeant George Henderson, Officer Thomas Kifka retired; Sergeant Lewis Stathis working Bunco. Ed called his C.O.; Stathis walked in ten minutes later.
A burly man-tall, stooped. Nervous-an I.A. bracing out of nowhere was a spooker. Ed pointed him to a chair. Stathis said, 'Sir, this is about…'
'Sergeant, this has nothing to do with you. This has to do with an officer you worked Ad Vice with.'
'Captain, my Ad Vice tour was years ago.'
'I know, late '51 through the summer of '53. You transferred out just as I rotated in on my floater assignment. Sergeant, how closely did you work with Jack Vincennes?'
Stathis smiled. Ed said, 'Why are you grinning?'
'Well, I read in the paper that Vincennes juked these two heist guys, and talk around the Bureau has it that he bugged out on the scene unannounced. That's a big infraction, so I was smiling 'cause it figured he'd be the Ad Vice guy you'd be interested in.'
'I see. And did you work closely with him?'
Stathis shook his head. 'Jack was strictly the single-o type. You know, the beat of a different drummer. Sometimes we worked the same general assignments, but that was it.'
'Your squad worked a pornography investigation in the spring of'53, do you recall that?'
'Yeah, it was a colossal waste of time. Dirty skin books, a waste of time.'
'You yourself reported no leads.'
'Yeah, and neither did Trashcan or the other guys. Russ Millard got co-opted to that Nite Owl thing, and the skin book caper fell through.'
'Do you recall Vincennes acting strangely during that time?'
'Not really. I remember he only showed up at the squadroom at odd times and that him and Russ Millard didn't like each other. Like I said, Vincennes was a loner. He didn't pal around with the guys on the squad.'
'Do you recall Millard making specific queries of the squad when two printshop operators came forward with smut information?'
Stathis nodded. 'Yeah, something to do with the Nite Owl that didn't pan out. We all told old Russ that those skin books could not be traced hell or high water.'
One hunch going dry. 'Sergeant, the Department was running a fever with the Nite Owl back then. Can you recall how Vincennes reacted to it? Any little thing out of the ordinary?'
Stathis said, 'Sir, can I be blunt?'
'Of course.'
'Well, then I'll tell you that I always figured Vincennes was a cheap-shot cop on the take somehow. Put that aside, I remember he was sort of nervous around the time of the skin book job. On the Nite Owl, I'd say he was bored with it. He was in on the arrest of those colored guys, he was there when our guys found the car and the shotguns, and he still seemed bored by it.'
Coming on again-no facts, just instincts. 'Sergeant, think. Vincennes' behavior around the time of the Nite Owl and the pornography investigation. Anything out of the ordinary with him. «Think».'
Stathis shrugged. 'Maybe one thing, but I don't think it amounts to-'
'Tell me anyway.'
'Well, back then Vincennes had the cubicle next to mine, and sometimes I could hear him pretty good. I was at my desk and heard part of a conversation, him and Dudley Smith.'
'And?'
'And Smith asked Vincennes to put a tail on Bud White. He said White'd gotten personally involved in a hooker homicide and he didn't want him doing nothing rash.'
Skin pricldes. 'What else did you hear?'
'I heard Vincennes agree, and the rest of it was garbled.'
'This was during the Nite Owl investigation?'
'Yes, sir. Right in the middle of it.'
'Sergeant, do you remember Sid Hudgens, the scandal sheet man, being killed around that time?'
'Yeah, an unsolved.'
'Do you recall Vincennes talking about it?'
'No, but the rumor was that him and Hudgens were buddies.'
Ed smiled. 'Sergeant, thank you. This was off the record, but I don't want you to repeat our conversation. Do you understand?'
Stathis got up. 'I won't, but I feel bad about Vincennes. I heard he's topping out his twenty in a few months. Maybe he vamoosed 'cause shooting those heist guys got to him.'
Ed said, 'Good day, Sergeant.'
Something old, wrong.
Ed sat with his door open. Gold-braided flags just outside- opportunities knocked.
Vmcennes might have dirt on Bud White.
Instincts: Trash running scared in the spring of '53.
Connect the 'skin-book caper' to the Nite Owl.
Inez Soto's indictment-he killed three innocent men.
If he cut Vincennes a break on his l.A. investigation-
Ed hit the intercom. 'Susan, get me District Attorney Loew.'
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Mickey Cohen said, 'I got my own problems to worry about. The fershtunkener Nite Owl case and fershtunkener dirty books I don't know from the Bible, another book I never read. That rebop bored me five years ago, now it is an even further distance from hunger. I got my own problems, such as look at my poor baby.'
Bud looked. A raggedy-assed bulldog by the Mickster's fireplace-wheezing, his tail in a splint. Cohen said, 'That is Mickey Cohen, Jr., my heir who is not long for this canine world. A bomb attempt in November he survived, though a goodly number of my Sy Devore suits did not. His poor tail has remained steadily infected and his appetite is dyspeptic. Cops resurrecting old grief is not good for his health.'
'Mr. Cohen-'
'I like a man who addresses me with proper decorum. What did you say your name was again?'
'Sergeant White.'
'Sergeant White then, I will tell you there is no end to the grief in my life. I am like Jesus your goy savior carrying the weight of the world on his back. Back in prison these fershtunkener goons attack me and my man Davey Goldman, Davey gets his brains scrambled, gets paroled and starts walking around in public with his shlong hanging out, it's big, I don't blame him for advertising, but the Beverly Hills cops ain't so enlightened and now he's doing ninety days observation at the Camarillo nut bin. As if that is not enough grief for your yiddisher Jesus to undergo, then feature that while I was in prison some colleagues looking after my interests were bumped off by persons unknown. And now my old boys won't form back together with me. My God, Kikey T., Lee Vachss, Johnny Stompanato-'
Kill the tirade. 'I know Johnny Stomp.'
Cohen hit the roof. 'Ferstunkener Johnny, Judas from the best-selling Bible is his middle name! Lana Turner is his Jezebel and not his Mary Magdalene, his cock leads him to grovel for her like a dowsing rod. Granted, he is even better hung than Davey G., but my blessed Jesus I took him away from being a two-bit extortionist and made him my bodyguard, and now he refuses to re-enlist, he'd rather nosh grease at Kikey's fucking deli and hobnob with Deuce Perkins, who I have it on good authority plays hide the salami with members of the canine persuasion. Did you say your name was White?'
'That's right, Mr. Cohen.'
'Wendell White? «Bud» White?'
'That's me.'
'Boychik, why didn't you tell me?'
Cohen Junior pissed in the fireplace. Bud said, 'I didn't think you'd heard of me.'
'Heard, shmeard, word gets out. Word is you're Dudley Smith's lad. Word is you and the Dudster and a couple of his other hard boys been keeping L.A. safe for democracy while this so-called crime drought's been going on. A motel in Gardena, a little blackjack work to the kidneys, va va va voom. Maybe now, maybe if I can get my old guys to quit noshing grease and associating with dog fuckers, I can get business going again. I should be nice to you so's you and the Dudster reciprocate. So what's with this Nite Owl rehash?'
His pitch-canned. 'I heard how the Englekling brothers visited you up at McNeil, how they talked up Duke Cathcart's deal. I was thinking that you or Davey Goldman might have talked it up on the yard and word got out that way.'
Mickey said, 'Nix. Not possible, 'cause I never told Davey. True, I am well known for my cell business confabs, but not a soul on this earth did I tell. I told that guy Exley that when we sbmoozed on the topic years ago. And here's a bonus insight from the Mickster. It is my considered opinion that dirty books are a high-profit item worth killing innocent bystanders over only if an established high- profit market already exists. Give the fucking Nite Owl up, those shvartzes the hero kid bumped took the ticket and probably did the job anyway.'
Bud said, 'I don't think Duke Cathcart was killed at the Nite Owl. I think it was a guy impersonating him. I think the guy killed Cathcart, took over his identity and wound up at the Nite Owl. I was
