BECAUSE THE NIGHT

325

“Yes. I’ll call Stan baby and set up a date, hopefully for tonight. Call me around one A.M., and don’t worry, I’ll be very cool.”

Lloyd’s conspiratorial smile felt like a blush. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure. You were right, you know. I did enter therapy for a reason.”

“What was it?”

“I want to quit the Life.”

“Then I was right on two counts.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you you were no hooker.”

Lloyd got up and walked out of the apartment, letting his exit line linger.

*

*

*

With the Stanley Rudolph angle covered, Lloyd remembered an investigatory approach so rudimentary that he knew its very simplicity was the reason he had forgotten to explore it. Cursing himself for his oversight, he drove to a pay phone and called Dutch Peltz at the Hollywood Station, asking him to go across the street to the Hollywood Municipal Court and secure a subpoena for Jack Herzog’s bank records. Dutch agreed to the errand, on the proviso that Lloyd fill him in at length on the case when he came by the station to pick up the paperwork. Lloyd agreed in return and drove to Herzog’s apartment house in the Valley, thinking of Linda Wilhite all the way.

At Herzog’s building, Lloyd went straight to the manager’s apartment, flashed his badge, and asked him what bank the missing officer’s rent checks were drawn on. Without hesitation, the frail old man said, “SecurityPacific, Encino branch,” then launched into a spiel on how other officers had been by the previous day and had sealed the nice Mr. Herzog’s nice apartment.

After thanking the manager, Lloyd drove back over the Cahuenga Pass to the Hollywood Station. He found Dutch Peltz in his office, muttering,

“Yes, yes,” into the telephone. Dutch looked up, drew a finger across his throat and whispered, “I.A.D.” Lloyd took a chair across from him and put his feet up on the desk. Dutch muttered, “Yes, Fred, I’ll tell him,” and hung up. He turned to Lloyd and said, “Good news and bad news. Which would you prefer first?”

“Take your pick,” Lloyd said.

Dutch smiled and poked Lloyd’s crossed ankles with a pencil. “The good news is that Judge Bitowf issued your subpoena with no questions asked. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

326

L.A. NOIR

Lloyd took in Dutch’s grin and raised his feet as if to kick his precious quartz bookend off the desk. “Tell me what Fred Gaffaney had to say. Omit nothing.”

“More good news and bad news,” Dutch said. “The good news is that I am your official liaison to I.A.D. on all matters pertaining to the GoffHerzog case. The bad news is that Gaffaney just reiterated in the strongest possible language that you are to go nowhere near the officers working the moonlight gigs or go near the firms themselves. Gaffaney is preparing an approach strategy, and he and his top men will be conducting interviews within a few days. I will be given Xeroxes of their reports, you can get copies from me. Gaffaney also stated that if you violate these orders, you will be suspended immediately and given a trial board. You like it?”

Lloyd reached over and patted the bookend. “No, I don’t like it. But you do.”

Dutch flashed a shark grin. “I like anything that keeps you reasonably restrained and thereby a continued member of the Los Angeles Police Department. I would hate to see you get shitcanned and go on welfare. You’d be drinking T-bird and sleeping in the weeds within six months.”

Lloyd stood up and grabbed the subpoena off Dutch’s desk. He laid the notebook containing the names from Stanley Rudolph’s address book in its place and said, “I know why you’re acting so sardonic, Dutchman. You had a martini with your lunch. You have one drink a year, and your low tolerance gets you plowed. I’m a detective. You can’t fool me.”

Dutch laughed. “Fuck you. What’s with this notebook and where do you think you’re going? You were going to fill me in on the case, remember?”

Lloyd took a playful jab at the bookend. “Fuck you twice. I don’t confide in alcoholics. Have one of your minions run those names through R&I, will you?”

“I’ll think about it. Hey Lloydy, how come you took my bad news so easy?

I expected you to throw something.”

Lloyd tried to imitate Dutch’s shark grin, but knew immediately that it came out a blush. “I think I’m in love,” he said.

*

*

*

Lloyd drove back to the Valley, highballing it northbound on the Ventura Freeway in order to hit the Encino branch of the Security-Pacific Bank before closing time, making it with two minutes to spare. He showed his I.D. and the subpoena to the manager, a middle-aged Japanese man who led him to the privacy of a safe deposit box examination room, returning five min-