I turned left on Lincoln then right on Venice Boulevard, headed for the beach and my first real interrogation. Dudley Smith smoked and stared out the window in abstracted silence. "Pull up to the curb at Windward and Main," he said finally as we came in view of the ocean. "We'll walk to the bar, give us time to talk."
I pulled up and parked in the lot of an American Legion meeting hall, got out, stretched my legs and gulped in the bracing sea air. Dudley got out and clapped me on the back.
"Now listen, lad. I've been checking the files for unsolved murders of women that fit handsome Eddie's MO. I found three, lad, all choke jobs, as far back as March, 1948. One was found three blocks from here, strangled and beaten to death in an alley off Twenty-seventh and Pacific. She was twenty-two, lad. Keep that in mind when we brace this degenerate Brubaker."
Dudley Smith smiled slowly, a blank-faced, emotionless carnivore smile, and I knew that this was the real man, devoid of all his actor's conceit. I nodded. "Right, partner," I said, feeling myself go cold all over.
Larry's Little Log Cabin was a block from the beach, a pink stucco building with phony redwood swinging doors and a sign over them posting its hours—6:00 A.M, to 2:00 A.M., the maximum allowed by law.
Dudley nudged me as we entered. "It's only a queer joint at night, lad. In the daytime it's strictly a hangout for local riffraff. Follow my lead, lad, and don't upset the locals."
The room was very narrow, and very dimly lit. There were hunting scenes on the walls and sawdust on the floor. Dudley nudged me again. "Brubaker changes the decor at night, lad, muscle-boy paintings all over the walls. A sergeant from Venice Vice told me."
There were a half-dozen elderly juiceheads sitting at the logshaped bar, slopping up brew. They looked dejected and meditative at the same time. The bartender was dozing behind the counter. He looked like countermen everywhere—jaded even in sleep. Dudley walked over to the bar and slammed two huge hands down on the wooden surface. The bar reverberated and the early morning drinkers snapped out of their reverie. The bartender's head jerked back abruptly and he started to stutter: "Y-y-yess, s-s-s-sir?"
"Good morning!" Dudley bellowed musically. "Could you direct me to the proprietor of this fine establishment, Mr. Lawrence Brubaker?"
The barkeep began a stuttering sentence, then thought better of it and pointed to a doorway at the back of the bar. Dudley bowed to the bartender, then propelled me before him in that direction, whispering, "We're cop antagonists, lad. I'm the pragmatist, you're the idealist. Brubaker's a homo and you're a fine-looking young man. He'll go for you. If I have to get rough with him, you touch him gently. We have to go about this in a roundabout way. We can't let him know this is a murder investigation."
I nodded my head and twisted free of Dudley's grasp. I felt myself getting very keyed up.
Dudley knocked softly on the door and spoke in an effete American voice, the last syllables strained and upward intoned. "Larry, open up, baby!" A moment later the door was opened by an almost totally bald, blue-eyed, very skinny mulatto who stood there staring at us for a brief instant before cowering backward almost reflexively.
"Knock, knock," Dudley bellowed in his brogue. "Who's there? Dudley Smith, so queers beware. Ha-ha-ha! Police officers, Brubaker, here to assure our constituency that we are on the job, ever vigilant!"
Lawrence Brubaker stood in the middle of the office, his thin body trembling.
"What's the matter, man?!" Dudley screamed. "Have you nothing to say?"
I took my cue. "Leave the gentleman alone, Dud. He's no queer, he's a property owner." I slapped Dudley on the back, hard. "I think that Vice sergeant had it wrong. This is no homo hangout, is it, Mr. Brubaker?"
"I don't ask my customers for their sexual preferences, Officer," Brubaker said. His voice was light.
"Well put. Why should you?" I said. "I'm Detective Underhill and this is my partner Detective Smith." I clapped Dudley's broad back again, this time even harder. Dudley winced, but his brown eyes twinkled at me in silent conspiracy. I pointed to a sofa at the back of the little office. "Let's all sit down, shall we?"
Brubaker shrugged his frail shoulders and took the chair facing the sofa, while Dudley sat on his desk, dangling one leg over the edge and banging his heel against the wastebasket. I sat on the couch and stretched out my long legs until they were almost touching Brubaker's feet.
"How long have you owned this bar, Mr. Brubaker?" I asked, taking out a pen and notepad.
"Since 1946," he said sullenly, his eyes moving from Dudley to me.
"I see," I went on. "Mr. Brubaker, we've had numerous complaints about your bar being used as a pickup place for bookmakers. Plainclothes officers have told us this is a hangout for known gamblers."
"And a homo den of iniquity!" Dudley bellowed. "What was the name of that flashy-dressing gambler we rousted, Freddy?"
"Eddie Engels, wasn't it?" I asked innocently.
"That's the pervert!" Dudley exclaimed. "He was taking bets at every queer joint in Hollywood."
Brubaker's eyes went alive with recognition when I mentioned Engels's name, but no more. He was holding his ground stoically.
"Do you know Eddie Engels, Mr. Brubaker?" I asked.
"Yes, I know Eddie."
"Does he frequent your bar?"
"Not really, not for a while."
"But he did in the past?"
"Yes,"
"When?"
"The first few years I owned the Cabin."
"Why did he quit coming here?"
"I don't know. He moved out of the area. He broke up with the woman he was living with. She used to come here frequently, and when they broke up Eddie stopped coming around."
"Eddie Engels used to live here in Venice?" I asked mildly.
"Yes, he and Janet lived in a house near the canals, around Twenty-ninth and Pacific."
I let my breath out slowly. "When was this?"
"The late forties. From sometime in '47 to early '49, as I recall. Why all this interest in Eddie?" Brubaker inched his feet closer to my outstretched legs so that they touched my ankles. I felt a queasy sort of revulsion come up, but I didn't move.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dudley swivel his neck. "Enough horseshit!" he bellowed. "Brubaker, are you and Eddie Engels lovers?"
"What the world, are you—" Brubaker exclaimed.
"Shut up, you goddamned degenerate! Yes or no?"
"I don't have to—"
"The hell you say. This is an official police investigation, and you will answer our questions!"
Dudley got up and advanced toward Brubaker, who fell over in his chair, got up and backed himself into the wall, trembling.
I came between them as Dudley closed his hands into fists. "Easy, Dud," I said, pushing him gently at the shoulders. "Mr. Brubaker is cooperating, and we're investigating bookmaking, not homosexuality."
"The hell you say, Freddy, I want to get a handle on this degenerate Engels. I want to know what makes him tick."
I sighed, and released Dudley. Then I sighed again. I took Brubaker by the arm and led him to the couch. He sat down and I sat down beside him, letting our knees touch lightly. "Mr. Brubaker, I apologize for my partner, but he has a point. Could you tell us about your association with Eddie Engels?"
Brubaker nodded assent. "Eddie and I go back to the war. We were stationed together down at Long Beach. We became friends. We went to the races together. We stayed friends after the war. Eddie is a very popular guy at the racetrack, and he brought lots of people here to the Cabin. Lots of beautiful women, gay and straight. I introduced him to Janet, Janet Valupeyk, and they moved in together, here in Venice. He still comes by here once in a while, but not so much since he broke it off with Janet. We're still friends. That's about it."