Widespread Panic

I gargled Old Crow. “Go on, and tell me why you called Joan a ‘nutty broad.’ ”

Harry made the jack-off sign. “One, she married Ralphie Horvath, had two kids with him, and stuck with him. Two, she was overqualified for a low-life thief and punk like Ralphie. She had some big education, and was some kind of Russian-history scholar, but all she did was stay at home and tend to her snot-nosed kids.”

I lit a cigarette. “Here’s the big question. Did George Collier Akin do the job?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not so sure. Bill Parker’s convinced himself, he’s convinced the Hats, and you know what that means. Parker saw the hospital pix of that girl that Akin, Brown, and Dulange abducted, and now he’s running hot, with a thermometer so far up his ass that it hurts. He wants Akin dead, the Hats want to kill him, and it’s true that Akin broke with Brown and Dulange when they wouldn’t agree to snuff the girl. Okay, we can assume that Akin — who’s a hot-prowl man from way back — is off working solo, and most likely in L.A. city. So far, so good — but I go back to ’43 with this evil cocksucker — and the Horvath caper doesn’t look like his kind of deal.”

I stubbed out my cigarette. “How so?”

Harry said, “Okay. He’s got dark and coarse facial hair, so that matches. I checked his Quentin file, and he’s got AB-negative blood, so that matches, and it’s pretty rare. But I popped Akin for eight hot prowls in ’43, and he always wore a rubber red devil mask, cut down low on his neck, to protect him from scratching and gouging, and to further terrorize his victims — because he is the most sadistic son of a whore I’ve ever met — so if the Hats want to put him down, who am I to raise a stink?”

I gargled Old Crow. It rerouted my dexie surge, molto bene.

“He wanted to kill the cheerleader girl, but he’s never killed any women, prior to that, that you know of.”

Harry twirled his glass. “Never. He spent ’43 to ’51 in Quentin. He paroled out in November, hung up his parole, and went rogue. We’ve had six more hot-prowl/assaults possibly attributable to the Red Devil Bandit since then — all with grievous bodily harm short of murder. Then this fuck hooks up with Brown and Dulange, and it’s the BHPD’s grief from that point on.”

I said, “He split from Brown and Dulange two weeks ago. You ‘assume’ that he’s working solo, but you’re ‘implying’ that he’s not strictly adhering to his Red Devil Bandit MO, and you’ve got no reported hot prowls that you’re sure he’s good for.”

Harry sighed. “You nailed it. Never let it be known that the infamous Freddy O. drew a dumb breath.”

I chained cigarettes. “What else? Describe the crime scene.”

“The pad was ransacked. I think he was looking for something besides purse cash and whatever else he could carry away. There was over six grand of your penance money stashed in Joanie’s clothes closet, and he didn’t bother to find it or steal it. This whole deal reeks of personal animus. It’s an I-hate-you-and-I’m-going-to-kill-you job, and that spells revenge.”

I flashed my flash roll and rolled off five more C-notes. Harry snatched them up.

“You’re a white man, Freddy. I’ll have complete background paper on Joanie by tomorrow.”

I got noxiously nostalgic. “Harry,” “Ralphie,” “Joanie.” ’49 to ’54. A kid cop THEN. A Pervdog of the Nite NOW.

“I remember that day in the squadroom. You were younger and not quite so fat. ‘Hey, kid, you look bored. Go shag this Ralphie guy and kill him.’ ”

Harry went nix. “Can it, Freddy. You can’t pull the shit you pull in your everyday life and think that this jive crusade of yours will render you squeaky-clean.”