“A lead on a suspect—a tall, gray-haired man. The bartender saw him with Goines last night, walking toward a car parked on Central.”
Coleman Healy ran fingers down the keys of his sax. “I’ve seen Marty with a guy like that a couple of times. Tall, middle-aged, dignified looking.” He paused, then said, “Look, Upshaw, not to besmirch the dead, but can I give you an impression I got—on the QT?”
Danny slid his stool back, just enough to get a full-face reaction—Healy wired up, eager to help. “Go ahead, impressions help sometimes.”
“Well, I think Marty was fruit. The older guy looked like a nance to me, like a sugar daddy type. The two of them were playing footsie at a table, and when I noticed it, Marty pulled away from the guy—sort of like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.”
Danny tingled, thinking of the tags he eschewed because they were too coarse and antithetical to Vollmer and Maslick: PANSY SLASH. QUEER BASH. FRUIT SNUFF. HOMO PASSION JOB.
“Coleman, could you ID the older man?”
Healy played with his sax. “I don’t think so. The light here is strange, and the queer stuff is just an impression I got.”
“Have you seen the man before or since those times with Goines?”
“No. Never solo. And I was here all night, in case you think I did it.”
Danny shook his head. “Do you know if Goines was using narcotics?”
“Nix. He was too interested in booze to be a junk fiend.”
“What about other people who knew him? Other musicians around here?”
“Ixnay. We just gabbed a couple of times.”
Danny put out his hand; Healy turned it upside down, twisting it from a squarejohn to a jazzman shake. He said, “See you in church,” and headed for the stage.
Queer slash.
Fruit snuff.
Homo passion job.
Danny watched Coleman Healy mount the bandstand and exchange back slaps with the other musicians. Fat and cadaverous, pocked, oily and consumptive looking, they seemed wrong next to the sleek alto-like a crime scene photo with blurs that fucked up the symmetry and made you notice the wrong things. The music started: piano handing a jump melody to the trumpet, drums kicking in, Healy’s sax wailing, lilting, wailing, drifting off the base refrain into chord variations. The music digressed into noise; Danny spotted a bank of phone booths next to the powder room and rolled back to police work.
His first nickel got him the watch boss at the 77th Street Station. Danny explained that he was a Sheriff’s detective working a homicide—a jazz musician and possible dope addict slashed and dumped off the Sunset Strip. The victim was probably not currently using drugs—but he wanted a list of local H pushers anyway—the snuff might be tied to dope intrigue. The watch boss said, “How’s Mickey these days?,” added, “Submit a request through official channels,” and hung up.
Pissed, Danny dialed Doc Layman’s personal number at the City Morgue, one eye on the bandstand. The pathologist answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“Danny Upshaw, Doctor.”
Layman laughed. “Danny Upstart is more like it—I just autopsied the John Doe you tried to usurp.”
Danny drew in a breath, turning away from Coleman Healy gyrating with his sax. “Yes? And?”
“And a question first. Did you stick a tongue depressor in the corpse’s mouth?”
“Yes.”
“Deputy, never, ever, introduce foreign elements into interior cavities until after you have thoroughly spotted the exterior. The cadaver had cuts with imbedded wood slivers all over his back— pine—and you stuck a piece of pine into his mouth, leaving similar slivers. Do you see how you could have fouled up my assessment?”
“Yes, but it was obvious the victim was strangled by a towel or a sash—the terrycloth fibers were a dead giveaway.”
Layman sighed—long, exasperated. “The cause of death was a massive heroin overdose. The shot was administered into a vein by the spine, by the killer himself—the victim couldn’t have reached it. The towel was placed in the mouth to absorb blood when the heroin hit the victim’s heart and caused arteries to pop, Which means the killer had at least elementary anatomical knowledge.”
Danny said, “Jesus fuck.”
Layman said, “An appropriate blasphemy, but it gets worse. Here’s some incidentals first:
“One, no residual heroin in the bloodstream—Mr. Doe was not now addicted, although needle marks on his arms indicate he once was. Two, death occurred around 1:00 to 2:00 A.M., and the neck and genital bruises were both postmortem. The cuts on the back were postmortem, almost certainly made by razor blades attached to something like a pine slab or a 2 by 4. So far, brutal— but not past my ken. However…”
Layman stopped—his old classroom orator’s pause. Danny, sweating out his jolts of bonded, said, “Come on, Doc.”
“All right. The substance in the eye sockets was KY Jelly. The killer inserted his penis into the sockets and ejaculated—at least twice. I found six cubic centimeters of semen seeping back toward the cranial vault. O+ secretor—the most common blood type among white people.”
Danny opened the phone booth door; he heard wisps of bebop and saw Coleman Healy going down on one knee, sax raised to the rafters. “The bites on the torso?”
Layman said, “Not human is what I’m thinking. The wounds were too shredded to make casts from—there’s no way I could have lifted any kind of viable teeth marks. Also, the ME’s assistant who took over after you pulled your little number swabbed the affected area with alcohol, so I couldn’t test for saliva or gastric juices. The victim’s blood—AB+—was all I found there. You discovered the body when?”
“Shortly after 4:00 A.M.”
“Then scavenging animals down from the hills are unlikely. The wounds are too localized for that theory, anyway.”
“Doc, are you sure we’re dealing with teeth marks?”
“Absolutely. The inflammation around the wounds is from a mouth sucking. It’s too wide to be human—”
“Do you think—”
“Don’t interrupt. I’m thinking that—maybe—the killer spread blood bait on the affected area and let some kind of well-trained vicious dog at the victim. How many men are working this job, Danny?”
“Just me.”
“ID on the victim? Leads?”
“It’s going well, Doc.”
“Get him.”
“I will.”
Danny hung up and walked outside. Cold air edged the heat off his booze intake and let him collate evidence. He now had three solid leads:
The homosexual mutilations combined with Coleman Healy’s observation of Marty Goines being “fruit”; his “nance” “sugar daddy type”—who resembled the tall, gray-haired man the bartender saw with Goines, heading toward the stolen Buick last night—an hour or so before the estimated time of death; the heroin OD cause of death; the bartender’s description of Goines weaving in a junk nod—that jolt of dope a probable precursor to the shot that burst his heart; Goines’ previous addiction and recent dope cure. Putting the possible animal mutilations out of mind, he had one hard lead: the tall, gray-haired man—a sugar daddy capable of glomming heroin, hypodermic syringes and talking a reformed junkie into geezing up on the spot and ditching his New Year’s Eve gig.
And no LAPD cooperation—yet—on local horse pushers; a junkie squeeze was the only logical play.
Danny walked across the street to Tommy Tucker’s Playroom, found an empty booth and ordered coffee to kill the liquor in his system and keep him awake. The music/motif was ballads and zebra-striped upholstery, cheap jungle wallpaper offset by tiki torches licking flames up to the ceiling, another fire hazard, a blaze to burn the whole block to cinder city. The coffee was black and strong and made inroads on the bonded; the bop was soft— caresses for the couples in the booths: lovebirds holding hands and sipping rum drinks. The total package made him think of San Berdoo circa ‘39, him and Tim in a hot Olds ragger joy-riding to a hicktown prom, changing clothes at his place while the old lady hawked Watchtowers outside Coulter’s Department Store. Down to their skivvies, horseplay, jokes about substitutes for girls; Timmy with Roxanne Beausoleil outside the gym that night—the two of them bouncing the Olds almost off its suspension. Him the prom wallflower, declining seconds on Roxy, drinking spiked punch, getting mawkish with the slow grind numbers and the hurt.