Clandestine

Engels sipped his gin, wincing slightly at the full-strength bitterness. "Sure, sure, I was a happy kid. A good sport. An ace gent. I had a dog, I had a treehouse, I had a bike. Dad was a good guy. He never hit me. He was a pharmacist. He never sent Ma or me to the doctor. He fixed us up with this stuff from the pharmacy. Sometimes it had dope in it. Once Ma took some and had these religious hallucinations. She said she saw Jesus walking Miffy—that's another dog we had who got run over. She said Miffy could talk and wanted her to become a Catholic and work at this pet cemetery outside of town. Dad never gave Ma any more of the stuff after that; he hated Catholics. Dad was an ace guy with me but he was tough as nails with my sister, Lillian. He wouldn't let her date guys, he was always prowling around this flower shop where she worked to make sure no mashers were trying to date her. Dad was an old-fashioned Kraut. He hated guys who chased tail. He didn't want me to chase tail, he wanted me to marry some Kraut bimbo and go to pharmacist school."

Engels paused and downed the rest of his gin. His body shook and I could see that he was getting drunk, smiling crookedly, his face glazing over with sentiment. Dudley refilled his cup.

"But you wanted to chase tail, right, Eddie?" I said.

Engels laughed and guzzled gin. "Right," he slurred, "and I wanted out of that fucking dead-dog town, Seattle. Nothing but rain and dead dogs and pharmacies and ugly tail. U-u-u-gly! Woo! I had the best tail Seattle had to offer and it was worse than the lowest piece of Hollywood ass. U-u-ugly!"

"So you moved to L.A.?" Mike interjected.

"Fuck, no! The fucking Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and I got drafted. The navy. Dad said I looked like Donald Duck in my uniform. I said he looked like Mickey Mouse in that smock he wore at the pharmacy. He didn't want me to go. He tried to fix it so I could stay in Seattle. He tried to hand the appeals board this hardship caper, but it didn't work. But Dad got poetic justice. They made me a pharmacist's mate. He called me Doctor Duck."

Eddie Engels doubled over with laughter on the mattress, then jolted up and vomited on the floor, his head between his knees, his hands hanging limply by his sides. He had knocked over his glass of gin, and when he looked up he banged a drunken hand all over the mattress looking for it. He found the glass on the floor in a pool of vomit, picked it up and waved it at Dudley.

"Gimme a refill, Lieutenant. Pharmacist's Mate Engels, 416-8395 requests a fucking drink on the double!"

Dudley gladly obliged him, this time filling the glass half-full. Engels grabbed it and bolted the liquid, falling back onto the mattress and muttering, "Lotsa tail, lotsa tail," before he passed out.

Eddie Engels woke up some six hours later, panicked and dehydrated to the bone. His eyes were feverish and his voice tremulous and raspy.

Dudley had outlined his plan while Engels was passed out: good guy-bad guy, with modifications. He had gotten a list of known bookmakers, homosexuals, and fences from the dicks at Hollywood Division, figuring Engels would have to know some of them. Throwing these names at Eddie would keep him from guessing why he was really in custody. It sounded like a good, if time-consuming, plan. I had rested during the afternoon and was up for it. But I wanted it to be over, and fast: I wanted to be with Lorna.

As Engels came awake, Mike Breuning was just returning with two big paper bags stuffed with hamburgers, French fries, and coffee in paper cups. We dug in and ignored our prisoner on the mattress.

"I have to go to the bathroom," he said meekly. No one answered him. He tried again. "I have to go to the bathroom." We ignored him again. "I said I have to go to the bathroom!" This time his panicked voice intoned upward sharply.

"Then go to the bathroom, for Christ's sake!" Dudley bellowed.

Engels got up from his resting place and wobbled into the filthy lavatory. We could hear the sound of him vomiting into the toilet bowl, then running water and urinating. He came came back a moment later, having discarded his vomit-soaked pajama top. His lean, muscular torso had been given a quick washing. He shivered in the late afternoon heat of the smelly little room.

"I'm ready to answer your questions, officers," he said. "Please let me answer them so I can go home."

"Shut up, Engels," Dudley said. "We'll get to you when we're damn good and ready."

"Ease off, Lieutenant," I said. "Don't worry, Mr. Engels, we'll be right with you. Would you like a hamburger?" Engels shook his head and stared at us.

We finished our dinner. Dick Carlisle announced that he was going for a walk, and got up and left the room. Mike, Dudley, and I arranged three chairs around the mattress. Engels had backed himself up against the wall. He sat Indian-style, with his hands jammed under his knees to control their trembling. We took our seats facing him and stared at him for a long moment before Dudley spoke: "Your name?"