The Choirboys (49 page)

Then Roscoe was on his ass so fast it didn't even surprise him anymore. Spermwhale Whalen, who had hurled him aside, was on the ground reaching inside Alexander Blaney's mouth, pulling the swallowed tongue free.

Then Spermwhale was sitting on the grass holding the boy like a baby, blowing his hot lusty lion's breath into the lad's mouth, pausing every so often to hammer on the thin chest and say, "Come on, boy! Come on, son! Breathe!"

Alexander Blaney had given up very easily. When death offered, the lonely boy accepted, and his life leaked away. Still Spermwhale stubbornly tried to force his brawny vigorous life into Alexander. Most of it bellowed into the chest of the boy, some foamed out the hole in his throat.

It was a full five minutes before Spermwhale Whalen looked up, his face and arms and hands smeared with blood, his balding head wet and shining, his white eyes glimmering in the moonlight. Had that indolent moon appeared when Sam Niles was clawing at the blackness, it might have shined in the window of the truck and reassured the drunk and panic stricken choirboy, bringing him to his senses.

As Spermwhale got to his feet, leaving the sprawling body, several choirboys started walking in circles babbling incoherently. A dozen plans were made while Spermwhale Whalen wiped the blood of Alexander Blaney, shining black in the moonlight, from his own face and hands.

But finally it was a strange and stern and determined Harold Bloomguard standing next to Sam Niles whose face was bleeding and lowered. Sam shivered and smoked silently and was content to let others think and do for him.

"I'm taking Sam to Wilhire dicks," Harold said evenly. "I'm telling them that we bought some booze and were on our way to my pad to have a few drinks when we decided to stop in the park and have a beer. While we were here we both got a little drunk. Sam dropped his gun. When he picked it up he fell on his face and broke his glasses."

"I'll sweep the broken glass outta the truck!" Roscoe jabbered frantically, "in case they."

"Shut up!" Spermwhale said "Go on, Harold."

"That's it. He fell and must've pulled the trigger and this boy was walking by and. that's it."

"That fucking gun was fired five times!" Calvin Potts said.

"I'm replacing four of the rounds," Harold said. "It's a dirty gun. It's been fired several times between cleaning."

"I dunno, Harold," Spencer said.

"The rest of you can go home," Harold said. "Only Sam and I are involved. Sam's career is finished. And I'm not staying on the job without him, so I've got nothing to lose anyway."

"I don't know, Harold," Father Willie said. "Maybe we should."

"No sense anybody else riding this beef," Harold said stubbornly. "Spermwhale, you've got almost twenty years to protect. It's too late for you to be involved in something like this."

Spermwhale Whalen sighed and the others waited for him. He walked over to Sam Niles and put his hand on Sam's shoulder without looking at him. He patted Sam's shoulder and walked wearily to his blanket to gather up his belongings. Choir practice was over.

Within ten minutes Roscoe was pushing the blue truck for all it was worth down Venice Boulevard.

Within fifteen minutes hasty plans were made after several violent arguments as to whether they should lie, but finally Harold Bloomguard replaced four of the empty shells in Sam's gun with four live rounds.

Within thirty minutes Sam Niles and Harold Bloomguard were sitting in the detective bureau at Wilshire Station and a homicide team was on the way, as was Captain Orobeck, as was a team of officers from Internal Affairs Division.

Since the killing was officer involved, the homicide team that showed up at Wilshire Station that night were strangers.

There was an old one with bifocals who was even more nearsighted than Sam Miles. There was a young one with a hair style longer than was permitted at Wilshire Station.

Harold Bloomguard had swabbed most of the blood from around the eyes of Sam Miles before they were separated. When the detectives entered the interrogation room Sam's right eye was puffy and cut at the corner. He squinted myopically at the detectives until they sat down in front of him.

"Lost your glasses, huh, Sam?" the older detective asked.

"Yes."

"Wanna talk about it now? Tell us how it happened."

"Yes. We went to the park just like Harold said. We drank some b-b-b-b-beer. W-w-w-we."

"Wanna smoke, Sam?"

"Th-th-th-thank you," Sam Niles said, accepting the cigarette from the detective.

"Internal Affairs will be here real soon," the younger detective said. "Let's get the story now before you have to tell the headhunters."

"Sure," said Sam Niles, looking blankly at both detectives. "W-w-w-well, I d-d-d-dropped my gun and p-p-p-p."

"You picked it up?"

"Sure," Sam nodded, looking from one face to the other.

He sat perfectly still, did not sweat, did not tremble, looked normal, except more earnest than laconic. It was only the stutter which was different.

"Did the gun go off, Sam?" the younger detective asked impatiently as the older detective sat back and studied the choirboy.

"Y-y-y-y."

"All right, that's enough for the moment," the older detective said.

As the two detectives started out the door Sam Niles made his last statement on the subject of the shooting at MacArthur Park. He said, "The h-h-h-head was all shot off. The b-b-b-lood was everywhere!"

"Whose?" the young detective asked as they turned in the doorway.

"Th-th-the Moaning Man!" cried Sam Niles. "He said, 'Mmmmmmmmmm. Uuuuuuuuuuh.'"

"Who?" the younger detective asked "Baxter! He said, 'Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Uuuuuuuuhhhhhh! I couldn't touch him! He was too. revolting! How could I take his hand? How could I?"

"Who?" the younger detective asked "Baxter Slate!" Sam Niles sobbed.

"Holy mother," said the younger detective.

"Okay, Sam," the older detective said "You just relax and finish your smoke. We're gonna let you go to bed soon."

The older detective came out of the interrogation room and walked straight to Sergeant Nick Yanov and said, "I want a radio car to take this boy to the Hospital Detail for immediate commitment to the psycho ward at General Hospital."

"But the headhunters're on the way," said Nick Yanov.

"It's my case and I'll take the responsibility," the old detective answered "This boy isn't fit to be interrogated by anyone, especially not the headhunters."

"They won't be able to get to him in the hospital," Nick Yanov said with a grim smile. "They're not gonna like it."

"Too goddamn bad," the old detective said, making a decision which would cost him a suspension and ten days' pay.

By the time the black and white arrived at Unit Three, Psychiatric Admitting, Sam Niles was described by a young intern as catatonic.

Chapter
FIFTEEN

Dr. Emil Moody
.

"Niles and Bloomguard!" said Lieutenant Elliott "Hardass" Grimsley, formerly of Wilshire nightwatch, now of Internal Affairs Division, when he was telephoned at home that morning by his investigators who could not break Harold Bloomguard's spurious story. Nor could they gain admission to General Hospital Psychiatric Ward to talk to Sam Niles, who by now could not even have told them his name.

"I remember them," Lieutenant Grimsley said. 'Troublemakers. Friends of that slob, Spermwhale Whalen. Listen, I heard rumors they used to go to choir practice with several other officers from the nightwatch. MacArthur Park? Maybe that's where they go. Get to Whalen's house. Roust the fat pig outta bed and bring him down to IAD. Let's sweat him."

At 9:00 A. M. the two headhunters sat with Spermwhale Whalen in an interrogation room on the fifth floor of the police building. They looked at his bristling red jowls and huge stomach and fierce little eyes filled with contempt and rebellion.

"You don't expect us to believe that you know nothing about this shooting?" the unsmiling investigator said. "We have reliable information that you were there."

Spermwhale Whalen looked at both young plainclothes sergeants and said, "You know so much, what're you fuckin with me for?"

"Listen, Whalen." The other plainclothes sergeant leaned over the table. "We found empty booze bottles not far from the body. You boys didn't clean up everything well enough. And we found tire tracks and casts've been made. One of you had a car parked there."

"I told you I went home after work last night. I don't know what this's all about and I resent the shit outta you two bringin me here."

The investigator who played bad guy stood up disgustedly and stormed out of the door so his partner could play good guy which of course Spermwhale wasn't buying.

"He say anything?" asked Lieutenant Grimsley who was waiting in the corridor outside with Commander Hector Moss and Deputy Chief Adrian Lynch who had spent the night in a motel with his passionate secretary, Theda Gunther, and predictably had his toupee twisted.

"Whalen's a good actor, Lieutenant," the investigator said. "Unless it's the truth. Maybe Bloomguard isn't lying. He's sticking to the original story right down the line."

"Bullshit!" Lieutenant Grimsley interrupted. "I know Bloomguard's lying. Those beer cans and bottles."

"We can't prove they put them there," the investigator said.

"How about that bra you found?" Lieutenant Grimsley asked.

"Looked like it'd been there several days. Covered with leaves and debris."

"What size was it?"

"Enormous. Forty-four, D cup."

"Any station groupies with tits that big?" pondered Lieutenant Grimsley, unconsciously glancing at the amorous deputy chief.

"What're you looking at me for, Lieutenant?"

"Oh. Sorry, sir," Hardass Grimsley blanched.

"Why don't you have a try at him, Lieutenant?" asked Commander Moss, and Lieutenant Grimsley smiled nervously as he visualized a scene with Spermwhale Whalen telling about the black woman from Philadelphia he had caught Grimsley going down on when he was the Wilshire watch commander.

"I don't like to interfere with my men's investigations," Lieutenant Grimsley said, hoping that Spermwhale Whalen wouldn't see him and wink and muss up his hair.

"Well I took the liberty of going through his personnel package in your office, Lieutenant," Chief Lynch said. "Do you mind if I have a try?"

"Not at all, sir," Lieutenant Grimsley said, enormously relieved. After all, you're an old IAD man."

And it was true that Chief Lynch was an old IAD man, it being pretty much agreed upon that Internal Affairs Division experience was the best springboard for promotion. Headhunters made rank consistently better than other investigators, the regular detective bureau being a dead end for the ambitious.

His three years as a headhunter were the most pleasurable in Chief Lynch's entire career. He understood certain things about policemen. He knew the polygraph worked extremely well on them because of their job-induced guilt feelings, whereas it was almost useless on guiltless sociopathic criminals. Also he knew that all men fear something and he guessed what a fifty-two year old patrol cop like Spermwhale Whalen probably feared most.

Five minutes later Deputy Chief Lynch was sitting across from Spermwhale, drinking coffee, offering Spermwhale none. Chief Lynch was smiling. "I'm not going to waste time on you, Whalen."

"That's good, Chief, because I got nothin to say and I don't know what this is all about."

"You're a goddamn liar!" Chief Lynch suddenly said and Spermwhale's little eyes narrowed. The furry eyebrows dipped dangerously and the Z-shaped scar showed very white through the eyebrow and across his red nose. Chief Lynch, despite himself, glanced anxiously toward the door and wished he'd have let one of the investigators sit with him here in the stark room, with the table and wooden chairs and tape machine hissing.

"I'm not going to try to fool an old veteran like you, Whalen," Chief Lynch said, continuing more amiably. "Of course we're going to tape your statement. I'm not going to try to fool you about anything."

"That's good," said Spermwhale, "because I got nothin."

"Quite a record you have," Chief Lynch interrupted. "You have quite a history of being insubordinate. I see why you've remained in uniform patrol for twenty years."

"I like uniform patrol," Spermwhale said, sitting motionless, his big hands on his knees, wishing for a cup of coffee, his mouth dry as ashes.

"Did I say twenty years? Well not quite. You only have nineteen and a half years, don't you? Less some bad time you have to make up. My, my, you were so close to that twenty year pension. Now you'll get nothing."

"Listen, Chief."

"You listen, Whalen," Chief Lynch snapped. "You listen good. Maybe Niles wasted that fruit practicing a quick draw. Or shooting at beer bottles. I don't know how he did it and I don't really care. But I'm going to get the truth from every man who was there. You can cooperate or I'll push for at least involuntary manslaughter against Niles and I guarantee you'll find your ass on trial as an accessory after the fact. Ever hear of the crime of harboring and concealing after a felony's been committed?"