At the car, before I could even bring myself to examine my loot, I had an eerie moment of clarity. I knew I had to do it again and again, and unless my criminal profits made the risk worthwhile, I would die from submission to that desire. I thought of the jewelry and credit cards hidden in my closet at home, and of the names and hangouts of fences Walt Borchard had mentioned in his many beery monologues. I drove home, picked up my stash and went out to carve another notch on my professionalism. En route I felt sated; gently calm but determined. Loving.
My calmness turned to apprehension as I parked on Cahuenga and Franklin, a half block from the Omnibus — infamous “O.B.’s,” the place Walt Borchard called “a pus pocket even by Hollywood standards, a real carnival of lowlife; fences, bikers, hookers, dope dealers, junkies and fruits.” Even before I walked in the door I could see his appraisal validated. There were a half-dozen motorcycles parked on the sidewalk in front of the low cement building, and a group of rough-looking men in leather jackets were passing around a bottle of whiskey. Pushing through the swinging doors, I saw that the inside was a grand tour of things I had never seen.
There was a bandstand at the front of the large, smoky room. Shirtless Negro men were pounding conga drums on top of it, and a white man in back of them was swinging a colored arc light in the direction of the horseshoe-shaped dance floor. There was a line of youths, both male and female, standing at the periphery of the gyrating throng of dancers, and every few seconds one of them would move toward a door I could glimpse in back of the bandstand.
Walking into the lowlife maelstrom, I fingered the loot in my windbreaker pockets for luck and courage. Joining the line of hippies, I got a clear look at the dance floor. Men were dancing with men, and women with women. I caught the scent of a ripe, musky substance and knew it had to be marijuana. Then I felt an elbow in my side, and a marijuana stick was in my face. “Toke,” a girl with stringy red hair said. “It’s Acapulco Gold. You’ll fly.”
I thought of Shroud Shifter and psychic invisibility, then said, “No thanks. Not my scene.”
The girl narrowed her eyes at me and took a “toke” herself Exhaling, she said, “Are you a nark?”
“No, I came here to do business.”
“Buying or selling?”
“Selling.”
“Groovy. Grass? Speed? Acid?”
S.S. was whispering “when in Rome” in my ear. Impulsively I said “toke,” and grabbed the joint. I put it between my lips and dragged deeply. The smoke burned, but I held it in until it felt like a hot poker was singeing my lungs. Then I belched the smoke out and gasped, “Jewelry, watches, credit cards.”
The girl toked and said, “I’m Lovechild. Are you a criminal or something?” She handed me back the joint, and as I sucked in the smoke I could see Shroud Shifter and Lucretia doing a slow grind together on the dance floor. Other dancers bumped into them, and Lucretia snapped at their necks until they backed off. Within seconds the dancers were on their knees, and S.S. and Lucretia were naked and coiled together in a serpentlike mass of arms and Legs. I toked again, and heard music oozing from the bandstand: “I gotta get high, and fry on the sky! geez some china white in a purple haze thigh! Don’t ask why!”
Lovechild shoved herself against me and pouted, “Don’t Bogart! Don’t Bogart! It’s expensive!” With my eyes still on Shroud Shifter and Lucretia, I reached into my right wind-breaker pocket for a lady’s Rolex to keep her calmed down. My hand closed on metal, and I pulled what I was grasping out. Then someone shouted, “He’s got a gun!”
The line of hippies parted, and Shroud Shifter and Lucretia vanished. I heard the jabbered syllables “fuzz,” “heat” and “pig” over and over. Reality clicked in, and I forced my marijuana-addled brain to come up with the name of the “boss fence” that Walt Borchard said worked out of O.B.’s. I trained my unloaded .38 at Lovechild and hissed, “Cosmo Veitch. Get him.”
The crowd was getting itchy; I could feel them sizing me up. I had my height and square clothes going for me, but aside from that I was bone-skinny and only twenty years old. If someone decided to turn on normal indoor lights, I would be exposed as a non-cop imposter.
Old brain-movies and memories came to my aid; I felt my features congeal into my “don’t fuck with me, I’m psycho” stare. Shroud Shifter was whispering words of encouragement and pointing at his diaphragm; I knew he wanted me to speak in a deep, tough guy’s voice. “Ease back, citizens,” I said. “This isn’t a bust, this is just between me and Cosmo.”
The remark seemed to nullify the crowd. I could see tense faces unclench in relief, and the dancers immediately in front of me backed off onto the floor and resumed gyrating. I saw that I was still holding my .38 at waist level, and that the line of hippies had dispersed. I was concentrating on keeping my face in darkness when I heard a male voice in back of me. “Yes, Officer?”
I swiveled slowly and smiled at the voice. It belonged to a boy-man with hard eyes, a hard, short body, granny glasses and a ponytail hairdo. I said, “Someplace quiet,” and pointed my gun toward the back of the bandstand. Cosmo walked ahead, and led me to a small room filled with bar stools and disconnected jukeboxes. The light was bright and harsh, and I kept my whole being concentrated on looking and sounding older than my years. “I’m Shifter,” I said. “I’ve been working Daywatch Burglary out in the Valley and I’ve heard good things about you.” With my gun pointed to the floor, I emptied the contents of both my windbreaker pockets onto a bar stool. Cosmo whistled at the accumulation of jewelry, watches and credit cards. S.S. was making “be cool” gestures, and I sighed and said, “Name a figure, I haven’t got all night.”
Cosmo fondled the two Rolexes, then poked through the jewelry, holding several red stones up to the light. “Five hundred,” he said.
I felt another jolt of the marijuana. “Cash, not trash.” Shroud Shifter’s “be cool” motions got more emphatic, and I added, “Six hundred.”
Cosmo took a roll from his pocket. He peeled off six hundred-dollar bills and handed them to me, then pointed to a back door. I stuck my gun in my pocket, bowed and exited like a great actor leaving the stage after curtain calls for a bravura performance. I had conquered sex and achieved psychic invisibility on the same day. I was inviolate; I was golden.
9
Watching.
Stealing.
Watching and stealing.
I spent a feverish twenty-four hours trying to reconcile the dual logistics. The homes of young married couples? No, too risky.
Surveillance of attractive young women with sleep-over boyfriends? No, too hit-or-miss. Finally an idea dawned, and I walked down the hall and knocked on Uncle Walt Borchard’s door.
“Friend or foe?” Uncle Walt called out.
“Foe!” I called back.
“Enter, foe!”
I opened the door. Uncle Walt was sitting on the living-room couch, wolfing his usual dinner of pizza and beer, a newspaper spread on the floor to catch cheese drip. “I... I need to talk,” I said in a mock-sheepish voice.
“Sounds serious. Sit down and have a slice.”
I took a chair across from Borchard and declined the pizza he pointed to. “Have you ever worked Vice?” I asked.
Borchard chewed and laughed at the same time — as complex a feat as he was capable of. Swallowing, he said, “That does sound serious. You okay, Marty?”