Write me a Letter

Annie O’Brien, I’m in the same sort of line as Frank. I saw them last night, they put me on to you.”
    ”They OK?”
    I allowed they seemed to be in tolerable shape, considering. ”Frank making a buck?”
    ”Getting by,” I said.
    ”Good,” he said. ”Glad someone is. I should’ve gone in with him when I had the chance. So I made detective, big deal, I’m stuck at this goddamned desk and I’m gonna be stuck at this goddamned desk the rest of my goddamned miserable life.”
    ”Maybe I can put a little color into your cheeks,” I said. I explained briefly about the Lubinskis and D. Gresham the Third, who might just be acting as an inside man when he wasn’t riffing his way through ”O Mein Papa.” I mentioned I was aware that it was standard practice for the rich to be extremely wary about letting photographs of their mansion interiors appear in newspapers or glossy magazines as it was obviously asking for trouble, so some inside information could be very helpful to the criminal element among us. I said I had a list of names and addresses that, if checked out, might throw a little more light on the subject.
    ”Better come on down,” he said wearily. ”Let’s have a look. Anytime, I’ll be here. If I’m not here, I’ll either be in the canteen or the nearest nut house.”
    He hung up. So did I. Then, just for the fun of it, I called up the Lew Lewellens again and, adopting a thick Teutonic accent, asked if I could speak with Lew.
    ”Sorry, Mr. Daniel, they’re still out of town,” said the senorita at the other end. So much for the master of disguises.
    I then locked up, with my customary caution, climbed into my classic and made my way downtown via the Ventura and Hollywood freeways with my customary caution, keeping to the inside along with the other geriatrics, old maids, Sunday drivers, and those with a modicum of common sense.
    ”I’m gonna get a wino to decorate our home,” sang some guy on the radio. Then Emmy Lou Harris said she really had a ball last night, held all the pretty boys tight. Sometimes I wish I was a pretty boy, like the twerp’s big pash. Sometimes I don’t, but those times I’ve had so much to drink I’m convinced I really am a pretty boy. Such is life in the slow lane.
    I talked my way into the For Officials Only parking lot out back of the old courthouse building downtown, announced myself to the lady cop receptionist, who checked my ID, then checked with Jasper, then watched me all the way to the elevators. Jasper I tracked down in a small office on the fifth floor that contained three desks, two of them unoccupied, and wall-to-wall battered green filing cabinets. Detective J. Johnson was not, apparently, one to beat about the bush.
    ”Daniel? Johnson. What’ve you got?” he said, without bothering to get up or shake hands or make small talk about the Dodger’s chances. I gave him what I had, the pages torn out of Evonne’s address book.
    ”Herein are listed thirty-two private functions at which a group called Ron’s Rhythm Kings played,” I said. ”Do not ask me how I obtained them, it is a professional secret. Now, no one is going to be stupid enough to knock over a joint a day or two after their inside man tootled the flute there, the connection might be a little obvious, so my skilled assistant and I only began listing dates roughly three months old and going back from there. So I thought if you could kindly run this list through your user-friendly police computer and then run all major robberies during the last nine months or so, who knows, we might get a match or two. If we’re lucky. If D. Gresham really is an inside man instead of just some pothead having trouble finding the loo.”
    ”Yeah, if,” said Jasper, scowling at the list.
    ”You being a trained detective yourself, you will without doubt have figured out by now the cryptic letters after each name refer to parts of this loveable, madcap town of ours.”
    ”Really?” said Jasper. ”I thought they was blood types.” He got to his feet, rubbing his red hair in a harassed manner, then brushed ineffectually at the jacket of his rumpled gray suit. ”C’mon. Let’s go find a user-friendly computer outlet and someone who can work the goddamned thing.”
    ”Not a computer man yourself, then?” I asked delicately. ”Not yet,” he growled. ”But I soon will be, goddamn it. I start next month—can you believe me going back to goddamned school at my age?”
    ”When you go,