Dogtown

By Mercedes Lambert

Whitney Logan, attorney-at-law, is broke. So when Monica Fullbright shows up with a thousand dollar retainer wanting to locate her missing housemaid, an illegal immigrant named Carmen, Whitney takes the job. She may not like playing sleuth, but she can't afford to be picky. Enlisting the aid of Lupe Ramos, a chicana prostitute who works the street below her office, she soon finds out that Monica is not all she seems. And when the two of them stumble on the housemaid's dead body, they quickly find themselves on a fetid trail of Latin politics, drug smuggling and misguided allegiances. Nothing is as it seems in Dogtown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stark House Press
• Release date: Aug 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310565731

Book preview

DOGTOWN

Whitney Logan, attorney-at-law, is broke. So when Monica Fullbright shows up with a thousand dollar retainer wanting to locate her missing housemaid, an illegal immigrant named Carmen, Whitney takes the job. She may not like playing sleuth, but she can’t afford to be picky. Enlisting the aid of Lupe Ramos, a chicana prostitute who works the street below her office, she soon finds out that Monica is not all she seems. And when the two of them stumble on the housemaid’s dead body, they quickly find themselves on a fetid trail of Latin politics, drug smuggling and misguided allegiances.

Nothing is as it seems in Dogtown.

DOGTOWN

Mercedes Lambert

Introduction by Ken Bruen

Stark House Press • Eureka California

DOGTOWN

Published by Stark House Press 4720 Herron Road

Eureka, CA 95503, USA

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www.StarkHousePress.com

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Exclusive trade distribution by SCB Distributors, Gardena, CA.

DOGTOWN

Originally published by Viking and Copyright 1991 by Mercedes Lambert

Reprinted by permission of the Author’s Estate.

"Break My Heart in Smithereens" Copyright 2007 by Ken Bruen

"Mercedes Lambert" Copyright 2007 by Lucas Crown

Cover design & book layout by Mark Shepard, www.ShepGraphics.com

The publisher would like to thank Lucas Crown for his persistence and assistance in making this book happen.

Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictionally, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

First Stark House Press Edition: March 2008

Table of Contents

BREAK MY HEART IN SMITHEREENS

DOGTOWN

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINTEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MERCEDES LAMBERT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MERCEDES LAMBERT BIBLIOGRAPHY

BREAK MY HEART IN SMITHEREENS

The Work of Mercedes Lambert

by Ken Bruen

I thought you had to be drunk to write, that’s what all my heroes did.

Is there a more heartbreaking line ever uttered?

Douglas Ann Munson, aka Mercedes Lambert.

I weep for her, for the wondrous talent she never realized she had, for the lost potential, for the sheer waste of a vulnerable human soul.

Here was talent writ huge.

Dogtown and Soultown................... just pure brilliant noir classics.

Look at this.

From SOULTOWN, she is listening to the oldies. Earth Angel, Only the Lonely and then goes

I’d started to wear makeup, and there was a line of black mascara smudged under my eyes.

I swore as I used spit to wipe off the mascara. It would fucking figure I’d nod after waiting all this time.

Tell me, isn’t that a killer and that is only the first page?

Soultown is stone classic.

Here’s the narrator.

Dressed in a tight red skirt and purple spandex bustier, LUPE RAMOS EMERGES FROM THE LA JAILHOUSE.................. ready to begin the first day of her life.

Lupe is looking for her son.

And with her friend WHITNEY, they begin and yeah, it’s not going to be pretty; with a sinking heart, they find among other items, a dead body and worse in the middle of an armed robbery.

The writing is so in your face............ you are truly there... you don’t want to be............ who would, and you know it’s going to get worse.

But the sheer quality of the writing, the lure of Lupe, you stay for the awful ride.

And on they go, into the very mouth of hell.

Defiant and mouthy all the way.

What’s not to love.

You read SOULTOWN AND................. gasp............... at the sheer cojones of this pure spirit of talent.

Then Dogtown........ where it all started.

What a Novel.

Whitney Logan, lawyer, vaguely successful, the rent is 2 months overdue but who’s counting.

And she is soon involved with beloved Lupe, the attorney and the hooker, allied and instead of any resolution, they find............... a dead body................. and to say all hell breaks loose is one of the great understatements.

And the cast of characters that come down the pike..............would restore your faith in the true underbelly of life in all it’s sordid and touching humanity. Few writers could convey real empathy, true hard won compassion like Mercedes.

Both of these books are among the finest noir, the best mystery you’ll ever read and move you to tears, laughter and the true sense like all her heroines has of................. bring it on.

They did.

And she did.

I don’t have too many regrets, but never having met Mercedes is one of the big ones.

And second............... that she never realized she was/is, one of the major players, not just in noir but in mystery.

She breaks my heart with her beautiful writing.

And smashes it with her life of not knowing.

These 2 books stand as witness to one of the truly greats.

I never knew her and I miss her so.

Ken Bruen

DOGTOWN

A Whitney Logan Mystery

by Mercedes Lambert

To Referee Robert Leventer

Serve the People

If it’s that delicate, I said, maybe you need a lady detective.

Goodness, I didn’t know there were any.... But I don’t think a lady detective would do at all. You see, Orrin was living in a very tough neighborhood, Mr. Marlowe.

—from The Little Sister, by Raymond Chandler

CHAPTER ONE

Harvey Kaplan looked like he’d been dead for twenty years. At least since Woodstock. I saw him standing at the top of the stairs screaming his head off, his face turning red. The last guy in Los Angeles with a ponytail, and he was having one hell of an argument with his guru. The skinny bearded little Indian was screaming too, waving his arms around, his white robe flapping like a loose spinnaker. It had been a long time since I’d seen Harvey on his feet. Usually he just sits in his office. Sometimes I hear him chanting or the tinkle of little bells. Mostly I smell pot and incense wafting out from under his door. I try to avoid Harvey Kaplan. He is my landlord, and right now I owe him $850.

I was tired, limping in my high heels, coming back from a disappointing day at the arraignment court on Bauchet Street. I had picked up only one case, a loony woman charged with creating a disturbance at an abortion clinic. She had snuck into the recovery area to shove plastic fetuses in the faces of women who were still crying and half drugged from the procedure.

The guru pushed past me, banging into my briefcase and muttering something about motherfuckers. I had enough on my mind what with worrying about where plastic fetuses came from.

Securing a smile of deliberate but vacant pleasantness, I made it up the stairs, sidestepped Harvey, who was still hyperventilating, and unlocked the old oak door to my office.

WHITNEY LOGAN

ATTORNEY AT LAW

It cost me thirty-five dollars to have that lettering done. Before my arrival eight months ago, there had been a bookkeeping service here. They had moved out fast, abandoning a scarred orangy pressed-wood desk and a battered black file cabinet. I gave the furniture a few coats of black paint and did the walls an off-white. The building had been constructed in 1936, solid and hopeful as a WPA project. The woodwork, which goes halfway up the walls, is all real; and, except for some rough spots where the former tenants had used brackets for bookshelves, it looks good. The glass light fixture in the ceiling is authentic. I’ve hung a couple of Dutch Masters reproductions from the art museum on the wall along with my law degree and certificate from the State Bar. Some pink cymbidiums made from silk are arranged in a black ceramic vase on top of the file cabinet. I sit here a lot and think how nice it all looks. That the bookkeeping service went out of business should have told me something.

The usual thing when you graduate from law school is to go to work for someone else, at least for a while. Become a public defender, or a city attorney, or join a firm. You get the regular paycheck, the group insurance policy, the paid vacation. I didn’t do it that way. The legal aid office where I wanted to work had closed down because their funds were cut. There was a freeze on hiring at the PD’s. Same thing at the ACLU. I didn’t have a mentor or any connections; I’ve always been a loner. This meant I was reduced to following the want ads in the Daily Journal.

My first interview was at the real estate development department of a large investment company on Wilshire Boulevard. They were under pressure to hire a woman attorney, and all that seemed to matter was that I had a pleasant attitude and a big bust. Rows of women at typewriters were lined up like a sweatshop. The typewriters sounded like machine guns. I fidgeted through the interview and never went back.

My next job interview the senior partner took me to lunch, offered me a job and told me he’d have my office redecorated. As I was floating out, heady with my own success, he called after me to announce we would have to go to San Diego for the weekend to firm up the deal.

The last interview was near downtown at a place specializing in personal injury. I was led down a long corridor through an impressive law library. Pausing to examine a book, I smashed my hand into the wall. It turned out that only one wall was books; the rest had been painted to resemble sets of the Federal Reporter. The partner who interviewed me had decorated his work space like the Oval Office. While he studied my resume, I studied the room. Right-wing plaques and homilies carved from wood adorned the walls. There were lots of photos of him in the embrace of local fascists and guys who looked like insurance executives. An eagle with a twisted neck stood watch behind his desk. I saw him frown when he got to the part that said I was a member of the National Lawyers Guild. He gestured around the room and asked why a nice girl wanted to work in such a dirty business. He laughed when he said this. I got up. I couldn’t think of a single reason why I would want to work for him.

Eight hundred and fifty dollars is two months’ rent. I dropped the briefcase into one of the matching black vinyl chairs in front of my desk. Those chairs are empty most of the time. I want to be a good trial lawyer. Serve the people. Defend the Bill of Rights. The work I get is what I’m able to hustle from court appointments and a few phone calls from an ad in the yellow pages. I do misdemeanors, drunk driving, a preliminary hearing if I get lucky.

I wrestled open the sticky window behind my desk. The August heat rushed in. Despite the roar of traffic, I could hear Harvey pacing around me as I stared out. Hollywood Boulevard, Tinseltown, U.S.A. There’s a drugstore on the corner, a Thai restaurant downstairs and a place across the street that rents porno videos in Spanish, Vietnamese and Armenian. I don’t know what I expected when I hung my shingle out here. I wanted to protect the downtrodden and make a modest and honest living doing it. Twenty-five years old, right out of law school, and the only advice anyone had bothered to give me was from my mother, who told me to keep my subscription to Town & Country magazine. I had two good suits, a strand of opera length pearls, and Harvey Kaplan breathing down my neck.

Look, Harvey, I just need till the end of the week, I heard myself saying. If things get real bad, I’ll take a divorce or a custody case. I haven’t done many of them. The money is good, but I hate the sniveling and whining that go along with it.

Whitney, you’re a nice lady. You got some good vibes, but I need to get paid. I’m giving you a terrific deal. The office. My library.

Harvey had a terrific library. Cal Reporter. Federal Reporter, Benders, Shepherds. Manny Washington, the process server who comes around sometimes to take papers for me, told me that Harvey used to be one number-one criminal lawyer. I don’t know what happened to him. He hardly ever leaves the office now. He’s gotten tied up with the guru people, and there’s a small but steady stream in and out of his office of these pasty-faced aesthetes who wear wooden beads and beam like a good shit was the secret of life. Harvey does their wills, little accident cases, and helps divest them of their property, which they give to their foundation. Manny Washington says it’s too much drugs.

Oh, my folks would help me if I asked them for money. They live in Maryland, and all it would take would be a phone call. Every time I get an idea like that, I hate myself. And my father. He always told me I’d never make it through law school, that I didn’t have the brains or the personality. I went through law school on a trust fund my grandaddy set up for me. It ended when I graduated, and I made it through the bar exam on what little I’d been able to save the last year. As soon as I passed the bar, it was my daughter the lawyer and you’d think he’d been there with me all along making cheese sandwiches and fixing coffee while I stayed up all night studying.

I turned to face Harvey. The end of the week. I promise. I did not have a dime. If it cost a nickel to take a trip around the world, I couldn’t get to Pasadena.

Harvey sighed, stroking his gray beard, studying me while considering this extravagant pledge. Friday, then, he said finally as he closed the door behind himself.

I will say this for Harvey: he is no lech.

Two days later I was puzzling out a discovery motion on the abortion clinic case with a couple of Harvey’s books propped in front of me and a half order of rice noodles from Sam’s downstairs when there was a knock at the door. I bent under the desk to find my shoes. When I looked up, there was a good-looking brunette standing in the doorway.

Whitney Logan? she asked as I stumbled to my feet, turning my ankle slightly while shoving one foot into a shoe. I thought you’d be a man.

Nope. Sorry.

I hope you’re not too busy. Her voice rose, making it into a question. I’m Monica Fullbright. I’m looking for a lawyer to help me with a little problem. A silly little thing. She shrugged to show just how silly it was and came across the room with her hand outstretched.

Monica Fullbright’s hand was baby smooth and tapered with about thirty dollars of porcelain nails, which were painted an expensive, tasteful red. She was tall, slender and well dressed in a beige gabardine pantsuit and a silk designer scarf with a horsey motif knotted around her neck. It was hard to tell how old she was. Not more than forty. She had on a good-sized diamond ring but no wedding band. Whatever kind of problem she had certainly didn’t look as if it was causing her any harm.

She gave a final firm pump to my hand before sinking gracefully into one of the chairs. Monica Fullbright smelled like money, and she sure didn’t look like any of the hookers I saw down at Bauchet Street. She looked the way my mother wanted me to look, like one of the women from Town & Country magazine. Pure Hancock Park. The class part of LA, the old money before Beverly Hills. Charge accounts at the wine store, the dry cleaners and the hairdresser on Larchmont. I felt the way I do around my mother’s friends when they come over to play bridge in their cashmere pullovers and expensive loafers. My arms feel too long for the sleeves of my shirt, which is buttoned too tightly around my neck. I feel twelve years old, gawky and unattractive, although I’m wearing a navy blue silk suit and a pair of black Charles Jourdan pumps. I felt a terrific urge to bustle around the office and clean up, but I had to content myself with moving the noodles out of the way, making room to place my elbows so I could lean toward her in a manner I hoped projected great confidentiality.

I’d love to help if I can. What’s the problem? Maybe she was rich but took little things from nice stores. Maybe she hit someone’s car in a parking lot. Whatever it was, I sure hoped it wasn’t a divorce.

Mind if I smoke? She looked around for an ashtray without waiting for me to answer. It was hidden under a stack of index cards with notes about discovery. She lit the cigarette. Well, I’m sure you’ll think this is pretty ridiculous, but I’ve lost my housekeeper.

A missing maid? Did she think this was an employment agency? That I was going to get up and put on an apron?

If a person’s missing, all you need to do is file a report with the police. Missing-person reports are common knowledge. You don’t have to be law review to figure it out. I tried to keep my voice neutral. Her helpless attitude really pushed my buttons. I’ve taken care of myself for years.

Monica Fullbright dropped her head slightly and shook it as though she were a schoolgirl being reprimanded. The expensive smell was Joy perfume.

I didn’t want to report it. She’s illegal. I’m not sure what the rules are, but I know I’m supposed to pay a tax or something. I was afraid if I reported her missing one of us might get into trouble. I don’t know what to do. Everyone hires these girls. Monica Fullbright raised her hand helplessly so that the big diamond winked across the desk at me.

I hate to hear women called girls. Particularly by other women. Either Monica Fullbright was a lot older than she looked or I was supposed to sympathize with her about how hard it was to get good help. Other than that, I couldn’t figure out what she wanted me to do. I could fill out a missing-person report, but then so could she. I must have had a pretty blank look on my face, because she kept talking fast at me.

She’s worked for me nearly three years. My kids are crazy about her. I know it would be easy to find someone else—those girls are a dime a dozen—but it’s so hard when you’ve already taught them how you want things done.

She was probably paying a lousy eighty-five dollars a week and working the woman like a dog. Watching the refrigerator to see how much she ate.

When I was divorced a couple of years ago, I had to go out and get a job. I’m the manager of Crystal’s. Carmen gets the kids their dinner, takes care of them when they get home from school. I can’t function without her.

You read all the time about these latchkey kids who come home to an empty house and have to lock themselves inside until their mothers get home. Sometimes a fire starts and they burn to death. But that only happens in the ghetto. It does not happen to women who are managers of one of the most exclusive clothing stores in Beverly Hills.

Carmen’s from Guatemala. Every year or so she goes down there to see her family.

How, if she’s not legal? Wouldn’t she know more about this since they had been living in the same house for years? Didn’t they talk to each other?

Monica Fullbright banished the beginning of a frown. I don’t know how she does it. She has a Guatemalan passport she showed me. All I know is that two times before, she’s gone and come back. I’m afraid something has happened to her this time.

What is it you want me to do? Did she want me to call the police? To bust down kitchen doors in Beverly Hills to find out if the woman had gone to work for someone else?

Go to Immigration, find out if they’ve got her. There must be a way to bail people out.

I know nothing about immigration law. I never even took the class in law school. There could be a lot of business in this neighborhood, melting pot that it is, but I always assumed they went to people who had some connection with their community or at least spoke their language. I barely know enough Spanish to get a glass of water in a Mexican restaurant. It made me wonder why Monica Fullbright had really come to see me. I was about to ask her when she stubbed out her cigarette and pulled a Gucci wallet out of her purse. She laid ten crisp one hundred dollar bills on the desk.

I’m afraid if I go down there to look for her they’ll know I’ve been hiring her illegally. I don’t want my ex-husband to find out she’s gone because he’ll give me hell about the kids being alone. He knows Carmen and he thinks she does a great job. If I don’t get her back, he might take me to court to change custody. He’s got a new girlfriend living with him now. Maybe he thinks she’d do a better job than I have. I don’t know. I just don’t want to have any problems. I told you you’d think it was silly. Monica Fullbright sighed and shook her head the naughty schoolgirl way again.

Damn it. Custody cases are ugly. The clients are always hysterical. But at the hundred dollars an hour I was going to charge, who’s to complain? I opened my legal pad to a clean piece of yellow paper.

How long has she been gone?

By the time Monica Fullbright left half an hour later, the ashtray was overflowing and I had learned a lot about her. That she lived near the Rancho Tennis Club with her two children, Mikey, who was five, and Luke, who was almost seven. That her ex-husband was a hot-tempered TV producer with an Italian last name, and he was paying a grand a month in child support. Despite all the details she gave me about the household and the good-natured ministrations of the loyal Carmen, the only thing I managed to write down was the name—Carmen Luzano.

She had left LA on July 21 and was due back on the sixth of August. That was three days ago. I didn’t bother to jot down the description Monica Fullbright gave me. Dark skin, five feet tall, shoulder-length black hair. It would be hard to guess how many women in this town fit that description. There had to be at least half a million of them. Mexico. Guatemala. Two hundred thousand at a conservative estimate had fled the bloody civil war in El Salvador.

After Monica Fullbright left, the air smelled like smoke and expensive perfume, and what I was left with was a feeling that was hard to grasp. It was the feeling that I had not been told the right story. Still, the money was on the desk, and it never hurts to learn something new. I glanced at the retainer agreement I had her sign. I sketched on the yellow pad for a few minutes before I realized that I had forgotten to ask for the one thing I needed if I was going to identify the woman at Immigration. A picture of Carmen Luzano.

Although I hurried down the stairs and out to the street, she was nowhere in sight. There was only the usual motley crew—an elderly black wino on the broken green bus stop bench, a bottle of Tokay in a paper bag trailing from his limp hand; two teenage Vietnamese boys on their way to the video arcades on Western; a hooker standing in the shade of a pepper tree on the corner. I have nothing against prostitution. It should be legalized. But not on my doorstep. Wasn’t I having a hard enough time making a go of it without it looking like I was working out of a house of ill repute? The ridiculous day-trippers. Purple satin hot pants. Ankle strap shoes. Bad wigs. I’d seen this one before. She was young and latin, with long curly hair. She glanced my way without any apparent interest as I walked toward her.

You been here long? I asked her.

You a cop? Her gaze swept past me out into the street, where a line of cars was approaching from downtown.

I was looking for a woman.

She readjusted the purse that swung from her right shoulder. I’m not into that scene.

It had been a long time since I’d been to bed with anyone. Never with a woman. Nearly three months since I broke up with Ed Harrison, the monosyllabic commodities broker I met at a bar in the Marina. Once when I was a freshman in college I did wake up in the middle of the night in bed with one of my sorority sisters. It was after a big football game where we beat the University of Virginia. I was still drunk and didn’t remember much that happened after we left the party at the Sigma Chi house. I’m sure nothing happened. Nevertheless, I could feel myself blushing and I could hear my voice getting frosty.

Neither am I. I’m looking for a woman who just came out of the building. She must have come right past you. Nice-looking woman in a beige pantsuit.

Beige was obviously not in her vocabulary. She had on a black leather miniskirt, a screaming pink stretch top that bared her midriff, several large rhinestone bracelets and a pair of white go-go boots. I myself am the dress for success type. Gray suits, navy blue skirts, sensible shoes. I’ve never worried about looking like I was in corporate drag because I’ve got a nice face and great hair. My hair is blond and wavy, and I have it cut

Reviews for Dogtown

[James Ward · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love this book read it many years ago and it stands up very well. Have since moved to L.A. and recognize many areas albeit somewhat changed. Whitney and Lupe are wonderfully drawn. I'll miss Ms Lambert