danger. He was not yet allowed visitors, but the doctor felt that if we dropped by about eight p.m., it would be all right to talk to him for a few minutes.
I told him we’d be there.
* * * *
8:11 p.m. Frank and I drove over to County Hospital and talked to the victim. He was a well-built young man with a handsome, narrow-jawed face and long sideburns, which showed beneath the bandage covering his head. The nurse said we could have five minutes with him.
After identifying ourselves as police officers, I said, “How do you feel, son?”
“Headache,” he said in a weak voice, gingerly touching the bandage.
“Won’t bother you long,” I said. “Just want verification of what happened last night.”
He looked up at me inquiringly. “Didn’t Wilma tell you?”
“Like to hear it from you,” I said.
“Oh? Well, it was just a stickup. We was parked out on Laurel Canyon Road, and this joker come along and poked a gun at us. Told us to get out of the car. He looked easy, so I tried to take him. That was a mistake.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“He wasn’t. Easy, I mean. Never saw a guy move so fast. Batted my brains out before I knew what happened.”
Frank said, “Get a good look at him?”
“Yeah. There was a pretty bright moon. Somewhere between forty and fifty. Not too tall—five seven to nine, maybe—but well built. Round, friendly face and rimless glasses. Looked the kind of guy would be afraid to talk back to his wife. Surprised the devil out of me when he batted me.”
I said, “How much money did he get from your wallet?”
He grinned a little mockingly. “Three singles. Some deal, huh? Take a busted head trying to defend three bucks.”
I asked, “Where do you work, son?”
“Me?” he asked, surprised. “Who works?”
“In school?”
He snorted. “Naw. Quit at sixteen.”
“Live with your parents, huh?”
He gave me a sardonic smile. “My parents are a couple of drunks. I got an apartment over in Crescent Heights.”
I looked at him for a minute. “Independent income?”
He grinned again, a weak grin, but a man-to-man one. “Might call it that. Wilma picks up the tab.”
The nurse stuck her head in the door and said our time was up.
CHAPTER III
Two nights later the lovers’ lane bandit struck again. He held up a couple in a parked car on Benedict Canyon Drive and robbed them of seventy-four dollars. There was no violence in this case, but the suspect’s description and MO were the same. The victims particularly stressed the bandit’s politeness and unassuming manner. The male victim stated that he had seriously considered attempting to grab the suspect’s gun, and felt that he could have succeeded in disarming him, but had decided not to take the risk.
The following week the suspect struck three more times, in each case using the same MO. He would approach a parked car on foot, rob the victims at gunpoint, warn them not to make any outcry, then walk away. In each case he picked couples parked out of sight of any other parked car, and a short distance from a curve. He would disappear after each, robbery by walking around the curve. None of the victims saw him enter a car.
Robbery Division kept us informed of these incidents, but as there was no further violence, the case was gradually being taken over entirely by Robbery. As Harold Green was now reported out of danger, the case became of less and less concern to Homicide Division. With Marty Wynn and Vance Brasher working on it, there was no point in tying up a Homicide team also. Frank and I became involved in a couple of murder cases and virtually forgot the bandit.
Friday, June 28th, Frank and I checked in at 4:30 p.m. Frank checked the message book while I looked in my mail box. There was nothing there but a couple of bills. “Anything?” I asked Frank.
“Captain wants to see us.”
I stuck the bills in my pocket, and we crossed the anteroom to Captain Hertel’s office. He looked up from the report he was reading and said, “Friday, Smith. Come in.”
Frank said, “Hi, Captain,” and I said, “What’s up, Skipper?” He pointed at chairs, and we seated ourselves. Captain Hertel is a solidly built man with a square, calm face and stubby gray hair cut close to his head. He waited until we had cigarettes going, then said, “About this lovers’ lane bandit. Not doing much on it, are you?”
I said, “Well, Robbery’s got a team doing all it can. The guy hasn’t killed anybody, and the boy he pistol-whipped is well on the way to recovery. Doesn’t seem much point in duplicating Robbery’s effort.”
“Yeah, I know,” the captain said. “But I had a talk with Chief Brown today. He’s concerned about this joker, and wants an all-out effort to get him.”
I hiked my eyebrows. “What’s so important about a minor stickup man?”
“You’ve questioned some of the victims,” Captain Hertel said. “And have seen Wynn’s reports on the others. What’s the one characteristic that stands out in all of them?”
I thought this over, finally said, “Well, they all describe him as polite and unassuming. He doesn’t scare anybody much.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Captain Hertel said. “Every male victim so far has stated that the guy impressed him so little, he was seriously tempted to try taking him. Remember what happened to the only one who did try it?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “He got a cracked skull for his trouble.”
The captain nodded. “Somebody’s going to get brave again one of these nights. The guy’s appearance and manner seem to invite resistance. I think Chief Brown’s right in his prophecy of what’s going to happen if we don’t net him fast.”
“What prophecy’s that?”
“That he’s going to kill somebody.”
* * * *
5:02 p.m. We got together with Sergeant Marty Wynn and Vance Brasher of Robbery in order to outline the strategy of an all-out effort to take the lovers’ lane bandit. Chief Brown had passed down the word that we could call for whatever extra help we needed.
We were going to need a lot of it. The suspect had struck over a wide area of the Santa Monica Mountain district. Twice he had hit couples parked on Mulholland Drive, which starts west of Cahuenga Pass in the Hollywood district and follows the rim of the mountains past Beverly Hills clear to Ventura Boulevard, and the two robberies had been nearly ten miles apart. The other three robberies had each been along a different canyon road crossing Mulholland Drive.
The area of
