Wayne said, “I’ll do it.”

Carlos said, “Daddy won’t see you coming.”

Wayne stood up too fast. His mock-Roman world swirled. Carlos stood up. His shirt was spattered working on soaked.

“I’ll see that you’re covered on it.”

Janice kept a mock-casbah suite at the Dunes. Wayne supplied round-the-clock nurses. Janice stuck to the hotel now.

The p.m.-shift nurse was on the terrace, smoking. The view was half light show, half desert haze. Janice was bundled up in bed, with the air conditioner blasting. Her system was schizy. She either half-froze or half-broiled.

Wayne sat with her. “There’s some golf on TV.”

“I think I’ve had all the golf I can take for a while.”

Wayne smiled. “Touchй.”

“The Hughes meeting. Isn’t that coming up?”

“In a few days.”

“He’ll hire you. He’ll figure you’re a Mormon, and that your father taught you some things.”

“Well, he did.”

Janice smiled. “Who are you meeting with? The Hughes man, I mean.”

“His name’s Farlan Brown.”

“I know him. His wife was the club champ at the Frontier, but I closed her out nine and eight the one time I played her.”

Wayne laughed. “Anything else?”

Janice laughed. It made her cough and sweat. She tossed off her covers. Her nightgown flew up. Wayne saw new slack spots and hollows.

He wiped her brow with his shirtsleeve. She nuzzled his arm and play-bit it. Wayne made a play Ouch! face.

“I was about to say that he drinks and chases women, like all good Mormons. There’s a trinity for men like that. Showgirls, cocktail waitresses and stews.”

The room was ice-cold. Simple talk had Janice soaked. She bit her lip. Her temples pulsed. She touched her stomach. Wayne tracked the circuit of pain.

Janice said, “Shit.”

Wayne opened his briefcase and prepped a spike. Janice held her arm out. Wayne found a vein, swabbed it and made a hand tourniquet. Needle and plunger, there now.

In one beat-

She tensed and lulled. Her eyelids fluttered. One yawn and out.

Wayne took her pulse. It tapped light and ran steady. Her arm weighed almost nil.

The LA. Times was open on the nightstand. It showed a photo triptych: JFK, RFK, Dr. King. Wayne folded them out of sight and watched Janice sleep.

Don Crutchfield

(Los Angeles, 6/15/68)

WOMEN:

Two bevies walked by the lot. The first group looked like shop girls. They wore Ivy League threads and modified bouffants. The second group was pure hippie. They wore patched-up jeans, peacenik shit and long straight hair that swirled.

They came and went. The wheelmen waved. The shop girls waved back. The hippie chicks flipped off the wheelmen. The wheelmen wolf-called.

The Shell Station lot, Beverly and Hayworth. Four pumps and a service bay/office. Three wheelmen sprawled in their sleds.

Bobby Gallard had a Rocket Olds. Phil Irwin had a 409 Chevy. Crutch had a ‘65 GTO. He was the rookie wheelman. He had the boss ride: 390, Hurst 4-speed, coon maroon paint.

Bobby and Phil were midday-blitzed on high-test vodka. Crutch was residual torqued on the girl show. He scanned the street for more walk-bys. Ziltch-just some old hebes loping to shul.

Back to the paper. Yawn-more jive on James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan. Snore-”America Grieves”/”Accused Assassin’s Lair.” Ray vibed pencilneck. Sirhan vibed towelhead. Hey, America, I got your grief swingin’.

Crutch flipped pages. He hit flyweights at the Forum and a grabber- Life magazine offers million scoots for Howard Hughes pix! A redhead walked by. Crutch waved at her. She scowled like he was a dog turd. Wheelmen emitted baaaad vibes. They were low-rent and indigenously fucked-up. They perched in the lot. They waited for work from skank private eyes and divorce lawyers. They tailed cheating spouses, kicked in doors and took photos of the fools balling. It was a high-risk, high-yuks job with female-skin potential. Crutch was new to it. He wanted to groove the job forever.

The paper called Howard Hughes a “billionaire recluse.” Crutch got a brainstorm. He could starve himself down to bones and shimmy up a heat shaft. Snap-one Polaroid and vamoose.

The lot dozed. Bobby Gallard skimmed beaver mags and slurped Smirnoff 100. Phil Irwin wiped his 409 with a chamois cloth. Phil worked tail jobs and stooge gigs for Freddy Otash. Freddy O. was a shakedown artist and freelance strongarm. He was ex-LAPD. He lost his PI’s license behind some horse-doping caper. Phil was his pet wheelman/lapdog.

The lot dozed. No work, no walk-by cooze, gas station ennui.

It was hot and humid. Crutch yawned and aimed the AC vent at his balls. It perked him up and got him head-tripping. Gas station blahs, adieu.

He was twenty-three. He got expelled from Hollywood High for candid-camera stunts in the girls gym. His old man lived in a Goodwill box outside Santa Anita. Crutch Senior panhandled, bet all day and ate pastrami burritos exclusive. His mom vanished on 6/18/55. Crutch was ten. She up and split and never returned. She sent him a Christmas card and a five-spot every year, different postmarks, no return address. He built his own missing person file. It filled up four big boxes. He killed time with it. He called around the country and ran PD checks, hospital checks, obit checks. He kicked off the quest in junior high school.

Nothing-Margaret Woodard Crutchfield was still stone gone.

The wheelman gig fell on his head. It happened like this:

He kept up with his high-school pal Buzz Duber. Buzz shared his passion for pad prowls. Soft prowls, like this:

Hancock Park. Big dark houses. Preppy girls’ lairs. Knock, knock. Nobody’s home? Good.

You enter undetectably, you carry a penlight, you dig some plush cribs. You walk through girls’ bedrooms and exit with lingerie sets.

He did it a few times with Buzz. He did it a lot by himself. Buzz’s dad was Clyde Duber. Clyde was a big-time PI. He did divorce jobs and got celebs out of the shit. He installed college kids in left-wing groups and got them to rat out subversion. The fuzz popped Crutch on a panty prowl. They snagged him with some black lace undies and a sandwich he glommed from Sally Compton’s fridge. Clyde bailed him out and got his record expunged. Clyde got him wheelman and chump surveillance gigs. Clyde said window-peeping was kosher, but nixed B amp;E. Clyde said, “Kid, I’ll pay you to peep.”

The lot dozed. Bobby Gallard spray-painted an iron cross on his Olds. Phil Irwin popped some yellow jackets with an Old Crow chaser. Crutch daydreamed per Howard Hughes. Brainstorm: assault his swank penthouse! Gain entry by grappling hook!

An unmarked cruiser pulled in. The lot revitalized. Crutch caught a flash of a red tartan tie and smelled pizza.

Beeline-Crutch followed Bobby and Phil. Scotty Bennett got out of the car and kicked blood in his legs. He was six-five. He weighed 230. He worked LAPD Robbery. His tie had 18’s stitched in the weave.

The backseat was stuffed with six-packs and pizza. Bobby and Phil jumped in and helped themselves. Crutch looked in the car and checked the dashboard. Still there: the crime-scene photos, all taped up and yellowed.

Scotty’s fixation: that big armored-car job. Winter ‘64. Still unsolved. Dead guards and scorched heist men-still unidentified. Looted cash bags and emeralds.

Scotty pointed to the photos. “Lest I forget.”

Crutch gulped. Scotty always loomed. He carried two.45’s and a beaver-tail sap on a thong. Bobby and Phil guzzled beer and snarfed pizza. They turned the backseat into a zoo trough. Crutch pointed to Scotty’s tie.