Clandestine

"Why? Well, Maggie was living here in L.A., unknown to all us sailor-boys. Her mother wrote to her about Johnny being sliced in Milwaukee. She ran into Eddie, accidentally someplace, and started shooting off her mouth. Eddie told Doc, and Doc told him to sweet-talk her and fuck her and keep an eye on her. Then Doc started getting nervous. He borrowed Eddie's car one night and went to Maggie's apartment and choked her. It was a setup—Doc knew he could always trust me, but he wasn't sure about Eddie. He knew Eddie was insane about anyone knowing he was gay; that he'd rather die than have his family find out, so he showed Eddie the pictures of him and the councilman and that sealed it. Either the cops would never find out who choked Maggie, which would be hunky-dory, or Eddie would buy the ticket. Which he did, baby, and you were the ticket taker." I was jolted back to that night in '51 when I had first tailed Engels—he had had a violent confrontation with an older man in a homosexual bar in West Hollywood. My faulty memory sprang back to life—that man had been Doc Harris. Feeling self-revulsion start to creep in like a cancer, I changed the subject. "Did Marcella Harris know Maggie? Know that Doc was going to kill her?"

"I think she knew. I think she guessed. She had always liked Maggie—and she knew that Maggie was really Michael's mother. Doc told Marcella to stay away from Maggie. Doc and Marcella were divorced, but still friendly. Marcella took off on a trip somewhere; she left Michael with some boyfriends of hers. See, baby, she always knew Doc was a little cold. When she found out Maggie was dead, she knew how cold, but it wasn't until later that year that she found out Doc was the night train to Cold City."

"What are you talking about? Didn't she know Doc killed Johnny?"

Brubaker shook his head and gave me an ironic hipster's smile. "Negative, baby. If she'd known, she would have killed him or herself. That woman loved that crazy brother of hers, and did she have a will! I was Doc's alibi, baby. He was with me on a three-day poker-drunk when he was really in Milwaukee slicing Big John."

I shuddered because I already had an idea about the answer to my next question. "Then what did Marcella find out later that year?"

"Well, baby, to give old iceberg Doc his due, he does love his 'moral heir,' as he calls him. When Marcella went gallivanting all over hell in '51 and left Michael with her partying pals, Doc was frantic, not knowing where his boy was. When he and Michael got together, and Michael told him he was with some nice fellas in Hollywood, Doc got real upset. He went up there with a butcher knife and did some cutting. He got three of them. It was in all the papers, but you probably didn't read about it—you was recently on the headlines yourself and probably hiding out. What's the matter, baby? You're a little bit pale."

Brubaker went to the sink and drew me a glass of water. He handed it to me and I sipped, then realized what I was doing and hurled it at the wall.

"Easy, baby," Brubaker said. "You're learning things you don't want to?"

I almost choked on the words, but I got them out, in part: "Why did Doc . . ."

"Kill Marcella? For the boy, baby. He knew Marcella knew of all the shit that had hit the fan; maybe she even suspected he killed Johnny. But if she ever went to the cops she knew she'd never see her little boy. That ate at her. She started hitting the juice and popping pills harder than ever. She started sleeping around harder than ever. Doc had this sleazy private detective checking her out. He told Doc that Marcella had more rubber burned in her than the Pomona Freeway. That private eye disappeared shortly thereafter, baby. So did Marcella."

Brubaker drew a silent finger across his throat, indicating the end of Marcella's potentially splendid life. I was outraged beyond outrage, but not at Brubaker.

"But Michael was with Doc when Marcella was strangled," I said calmly.

"That's correct," Brubaker said, equally calmly. "He was. Doc drove out to El Monte. He knew that Marcella usually stumbled home from Hank's Hot Spot down Peck Road by the high school. He knew she never took her car. He was parked by the school. He picked her up and talked to her for a couple of hours, then strangled her. Michael was asleep in the backseat. Doc had fed him three Seconals. When he woke up at home the next day he never knew where he spent the night. Ain't parental love a kick, baby?"

I jumped up, and with a trembling hand held my gun inches from Brubaker's smiling face, the hammer cocked, my finger on the trigger.

"Shoot me, man," Brubaker said. "I don't care, it ain't gonna hurt for long. Shoot me."

I held my ground.

"Shoot me, goddamnit! Ain't you got the guts? You afraid of a nigger queer? Shoot me!"