The lead detective peeled off the margin of another box of cigarettes and lit a tall stick with an American Eagle lighter. His meaty, dripping hands shook around the flame like virgins on the make, and kept right on shaking as he picked up a stack of photographs and smudged the margins.
"Come on, Degler. Stop jerkin' us around," he said, glancing up behind spindly glasses Dick wanted to invert.
"Sweet girl like this don't get hit." He paused and took another nervous drag, wiping the grease of his forehead with his other paw. "Raped on the outbound, maybe. Mugged in Griffith Park. But no one bothers to take a hit out on a sweet girl like this."
His partner, a young guy who'd made it clear the chip on his shoulder fit Dick's description, leaned on him from behind. Weighting the back. Kid stuff.
"You know Degler," he said, breathing hot and salty on the neck like an amateur, "this is a big case. These bastards shot up the whole neighbor in broad daylight. Someone's gotta go down for it. And if you don't start talking fast, that someone's gonna start looking like you real quick."
"Don't exaggerate," Dick answered, cool and steely eyed.
"Excuse me?" The asshole was practically mounting him now. Dick grabbed a cigarette from the fat one, Captain Huntington, who was kind enough to light it for him.
"I said don't exaggerate, kid. You're not dealing with some street slime off Mexiville. Those bastards didn't shoot up the neighborhood. They shot up, probably shut up, the redhead there," he gestured to the photos, "professional. Easy. They weren't looking to miss. And they didn't. "
"Don't smart off to me, Degler. I still have my badge."
"Fuck off. I'm telling you, you start lying to a suspect who knows better he isn't going to think twice before lying back."
The young guy, LT. Forrester, dropped off him and rounded to the other side, taking a rest against the far wall. Real cocky, real smooth. Kind of smirk Dick wouldn't mind putting four knuckles through. Or four nuts.
"Who said you were a suspect?"
"You did. This isn't a witness tank. Better let pops here take over, son. This one's a little heavy for you."
That set Forrester off. He came back around and got real close to Dick's ear, sticking his piece between two ribs.
"I've read your file Degler. You're one messed up prick, and under normal circumstances I'd be all right with that. Hell, I'd be kind of amused to blow an afternoon on a booze sodden, flash tempered ex-cop who put two slugs in his own partner's back, if he was up for a parking violation or shitting on the mayor's lawn."
"Sounds like just the case for you, LT."
"Funny. But you're not here for doubling up on a one way or defecating on public property. You got a lot of bad business back east. You got Mafia trouble, money trouble, trouble with most of the boys from your old precinct, the way I hear it. Lot of folks think you're a dirt bag who should be snooping around between a couple of iron bars. The rest think you belong in the ground."
He paused to push the muzzle up to the bone.
"Now this young lady gets riddled with holes right in front of you, Mafia style, right after you get done fucking her, and you expect us to believe that she was just your Friday Night Girl? That her death, her tragic, senseless death, has nothing to do with you?"
Dick waited a beat and leaned back, so that the pistol began to splay his ribs, and gritted his teeth in Forrester's ear.
"That's right."
The other man didn't move for several, choreographed seconds. One, two, three, four, five. Hot damn. Six. Flying high.
"I should've shot you Degler," he said, backing off and taking a chair.
"Likewise."
"That'll do it," said Huntington, smiling the smile of an Iowan county sheriff. "Listen, Mr. Degler, we're not suggestin' you had nothin' to do with it. Our boys in forensics tell us your story checks out, on where people was standin'. And your gun's been fired today. Hell, maybe you're even tellin' the truth about puttin' it all on the line to save that sweet girl, maybe you even hit one of the shooters like you say. I don't know and I don't much care. Fact is, that sweet girl is dead and you're walkin' around, and I ain't gonna believe she was the one they was gunnin' for."
"Damn shame. Damn shame. A swell good cop all the way, except that you're supposed to give me a reason to open up, supposed to give me a way out," Dick said, flicking the butt to the corner.
"Now that's the fourth time you've called the redhead here..."
"Ms. Baker."
"Ms. Baker here, a sweet girl. You're taking a lot from a grainy, black and white police photo. Best as I've been able to remember, she told me she was an actress. But what's a bright-eyed kid with cloudy dreams she spins out to the men she wants to sleep with doing with a kitchen full of documents and envelopes and empty cabinets?"
The room was still. He could feel them fidgeting. Questions they should've asked, but didn't. Amateurs.
"And why didn't that automatic take a spray at me? You've got the crime scene report, you've got the witness statements. Shell casings match the chronology. I was out there for a good minute before she even opened the door. Why her and not me?"
Dick could tell the kid was still unconvinced. Back-alley murder mysteries do more for your career when they're solved. And this wasn't going to get it solved.
"Look, I'd be happy to tell you it was Jimmy Shits or Sparky's old pals from the 1-8. If I thought it was possible I'd be out on the other coast, splitting heads right now. I don't know who'd want the red... Ms. Baker, dead. But the answer's stacked to her ceiling gathering dust. Not in this shit hole."
It took another hour of beating it to get out of there, but he gave them enough of what they wanted to make the door without a juiced up warning about leaving town.
But not everything. They weren't going to solve this. Dumb fucks. He was going to have to stick around LA for a while, figure it out himself.
Could be only a matter of time, though, before he imagined he'd be in a colder, drearier place, overcoat and all. The most crucial piece of the whole damn rigmarole was the one he didn't give them.
One that hadn't occurred to him, hungover as he was, until after the shooting stopped. All those stacks of paper were carbon bound and bundled like fucking matters of state.
And most of them were written in German.
