Clandestine

"You be careful, Freddy. That's all I'm gonna say. Some bimbo gets choked in El Monte, and well . . . Freddy, it's got nothing to do with the other. That's dead history, man."

"Probably."

"You be careful. You ain't a cop no more."

"Thanks, Rube," I said, and hung up.

The following morning I got up early, put on a summer suit and drove out to El Monte, taking the Santa Monica Freeway to the Pomona, headed east.

I went from smog-shrouded L.A. past picturesque, seedy Boyle Heights and a succession of dreary semi-impoverished suburbs, growing more expectant as each new postwar boom community flew by. This was new territory for me, well within the confines of L.A. County, yet somehow otherworldly. The residential streets I glimpsed from my elevated vantage point seemed sullen in their sameness, the big boom in postwar disappointment and malaise.

El Monte was smack in the middle of the San Gabriel Valley, enclosed by freeways in all directions. The San Gabriel Mountains, awash in smog, bordered the northern perimeter.

I got off at the Valley Boulevard exit and cruised west until I found Hank's Hot Spot, described by the papers as a "convivial watering hole." It didn't look like that; it looked like what it more probably was: a meeting place for lonely juiceheads.

I pulled up to the curb. The place was open at eight-thirty in the morning. That was encouraging. It went along with the scenario. I was composing in my mind: Maggie Cadwallader and Marcella Harris, lonely juiceheads. I kiboshed the thought: don't think, Underhill, I said to myself as I locked the car, or this thing—which is probably only coincidence—will eat you up.

I hastily prepared a cover story as I took a seat at the narrow, imitation-wood bar. The place was deserted, and a lone bartender who was polishing glasses as I entered approached me guardedly. He nodded at me as he placed a napkin on the bar.

"Draft beer," I said.

He nodded again and brought it to me. I sipped it. It tasted bitter; I wasn't cut out to be a morning drinker.

I decided not to waste time with small talk. "I'm a reporter," I said. "I write crime stuff laced with the human interest angle. There's a double sawbuck in it for anybody who can give me some interesting lowdown on this Marcella Harris dame who got croaked last weekend." I pulled out my billfold, packed with twenties, and fanned the cash in the bartender's face. He looked impressed. "The real lowdown," I added, waggling my eyebrows at him. "The barfly tidbits that make bartending such an interesting profession."

The barman swallowed, his Adam's apple rotating nervously in his wiry neck. "I already told the cops everything I know about that night," he said.

"Tell me," I said, taking a twenty out of my billfold and placing it under my cocktail napkin.

"Well," the barman said, "the Harris dame came in around seven-thirty that night. She ordered a double Early Times old-fashioned. She practically chugalugged it. She ordered another. She sat here at the bar by herself. She played some show tunes on the jukebox. Around eight-thirty this greasy-lookin' guy and this blond dame with a ponytail come in. They get in some kind of conversation with the Harris dame and they all go to a booth together. The guy drinks red wine and the ponytail drinks Seven-Up. The Harris dame left before them, around eleven. The greasy guy and the ponytail left together around midnight. That's it."

I fingered an inch or so of the twenty out from its hiding place. "Do you think Marcella Harris already knew these people, or do you think they just met one another?"

The barman shook his head. "The cops asked me the same thing, buddy, and it beats me."

I tried another tack: "Was Marcella Harris a regular here?"

"Not really. She came in once in a while."

"Was she a pickup? Did she leave with a lot of different men?"

"Not that I ever noticed."

"Okay. Was she a talker?"

"Not really."

"Did you ever talk with her at length?"

"Sometimes. I don't know, once or twice."

"I see. What did you discuss?"

"Just small talk. You know . . ."

"Besides that."

"Well . . . once she asks me if I've got kids. I say yes. She asks me if I ever have trouble with 'em, and I say yeah, the usual stuff. Then she starts tellin' me about this wild kid she's got, how she don't know how to handle him, that she's read all these books and still don't know what to do."

"What was the problem with the kid?" I asked.

The bartender swallowed and shuffled his feet in a little dance of embarrassment. "Aw, come on, mister," he said.

"No, you come on." I stuffed the twenty into his shirt pocket.

"Well," he said, "she said the kid was gettin' into fights, and talkin' dirty . . . and . . . exposing himself to all the other little kids."

"Is that it?"

"Yeah."

"Did you tell the police about this?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because they never asked me."

"That's a good reason," I said, then thanked the man and walked back outside to my car.