Destination (26 page)

7.

Bel-Air bid us. We winged to the Wino Weinberger Walpurgisnacht.

Tim toted a shotgun. I brought my Browning .9 and a big Beretta. Donna brought brains and a wild will to whip Wino with.

Dave did backup. He ripped R&I and glommed a Wino mug shot. He made up a four-man mug card—the sixty-plus Wino and four similar sixtyish cops. The plan: Work the West L.A. libraries. Engage an e-mail alert. Track the panty postulant. Confirm Wino as the panty punk
and
hot-prowl hump.

We ran up Roscomere. We bombed up Bellagio. We pulled into the club parking lot. We tripped into a traffic jam—a cop-car kaleidoscope.

Black-and-whites, unmarkeds, coroner's canoes—all snared up snout to snout.

We ran. We cut through the caddy shack. We caught the cart cottage. We gonifed a golf cart and coursed out on the course. We followed fleet-foot figures. We traipsed after truck tracks. We hit a big barnlike maintenance shack.

Bluesuits blocked the entrance. I badged them and bullied us through. I saw Bill Dumais, West L.A. dicks. I saw a starched stiff and junkyard Jesus.

It's Gary Getchell. He's crucifix-crisp. He's stiff on a stack of manure sacks.

He's nicked with neck notches—tough torture cuts. He's blood-blistered and mutilated maroon. He's wearing golf togs. He's pincushion-pricked with two dozen trank darts.

Dumais saw Tim and me. Golfers and gofers and coroner's cats saw Donna. They dug her more than the dead man. They dunned her for autographs.

Dumais dipped over. The big barn vibrated with voice overlap. I orbed outside. I saw fractious factions fixated on the action inside.

Eyes right—there's two Narco cops. Eyes left—there's Captain Cal Eggers. Loop left again—there's Leotis Lauter. He's looking
coon
cerned and
coon
temptuous. He's boogie bodyguarded. He's couched with four cool coon commandos.

Dumais said, “It looks like we've got two scenarios. The torture shit looks a couple of days old, but the coroner says he caught the trank shots within the past few hours. The maintenance boss says Getchell hung out and wrote his scandal shit here. I figure the killer found him alone, darted him, and walked off the course unseen.”

Tim walked over. “You think he was tortured for file information?”

Dumais looked around. Eyes right—Narco cops. Eyes left— Leotis and his
coon
vocation.

“I figure it's Leotis or some rogue Narco guys, and they're both pissed off at that shit at the ashram and Linus's suicide.”

Tim said, “They tortured Getchell for file skinny, before they learned that Linus offed himself.”

I agreed. Dumais agreed. I tiptoed tall. I eyeball-orbed. Caddies/connections/convergence. Where's the Wino man?

The crowd crammed up to the barn. Bluesuits barricaded them out. Donna signed autographs. I saw a cat with a “Caddy Master” name tag. I cornered him.

He said, “Some scene, huh?”

I said, “Where's Wino Weinberger? We're old friends.”

The caddy master cackled. “Try Skid Row. I heard Wino's on a toot down there.”

Autograph hounds hurtled by—six blissful bluesuits. Their autographed field forms read, “Brave new fucking world
again—
Love, Donna D.”

WINO:

Let's find him. Let's fuck him. Let's stomp him for Stephanie.

Let's scour Skid Row.

The caddy master kicked loose his address: The Viceroy Hotel, East 5th Street. It was skanky and scummy and scurvy down there. We slipped east and slid into slumland.

Sidewalk cities. Hophead Hoovervilles. Crackheads camped out in cardboard-box billets. Loonies looped on Listerine. Wiggling wineheads and jake-legged juicers made mad by Muscatel.

We hit the hotel. The lobby was lice-laced linoleum. Wine stains and bloodstains blistered the cracks. Palsied pensioners toked Tokay shored in short-dog bottles. We shook them down. They jitter-jumped and Tokay-toked and palsy-punked-out. They gave up Wino—room 218.

We walked up. Horror hallways hooked ahead. We crunched crack pipes and shattered short dogs. We sidled through Syringe City and Hypodermic Hell. Floor debris flew. Our shoes caught needles coated with virus-vapped blood.

There's 218. The lock looks loose. Let's let ourselves in.

Donna ditzed the doorknob. I jiggled the jamb. The door swung in.

No Wino. Nobody. Sicko City socked in 12 by 12.

A sink. A made-up Murphy bed. A lice-lined linoleum floor. Crabs hopping head-high and Wino-Walpurgisnachted walls.

Craaaazy crime fotos. Filched archival shots. Major-case madness, all glossy-glared.

Mesmerized Mansonites. Bleary Black Dahlia pix. Stark Stephen Nash shots.

Photo-fucked fiends. Demonic Donald Keith Bashor. Sirhan Sirhan surrounded by Sheriff's deputies. Freaky Fred Stroble, ax-assassin of a little girl, gassed circa '53. Our Stephanie, strapped to a gurney, all shorn up in a sheet.

Crime—Weegeeish and Wino-warped. Infernally interspersed with quixotically quantified SKIN.

Actresses—all alive in 8-by-10 fotos. Bikini babes and halter-hot honeys. Red-headed Rita Hayworth. Red-tinted and divinely deigned Donna Donahue. Freckle-fraught Nicole Kidman. Titian-topped Julianne Moore.

Random redheads right below—costars culled and cultivated off TV. Riotous red hair—august auburn straight to strawberry. Strict strumpet-type women. Fortyish foxes. Choice chignontressed aristocrats.

Donna said, “Holy shit.” That nexus nudged me. Pile on the panties—I need some sniffs.

Footfalls fell behind us. I whipped and wheeled around. Wino walked in.

He saw us. He stood startled. He started to run.

I chased him. I tackled him. I laid him out on linoleum. He sheared his shins on shattered glass. He gave up then.

WE RACKED HIM to his room radiator. My handcuffs hitched him up firm. He beady-eye-bored into Donna. Her presence pronged him.

He panted. He salivated. He drooled Draculean. His trouser trout jumped in his jeans.

I found a phone book. Donna dug out my beavertail. We stood stern over him.

Donna said, “You sent me notes, didn't you? On and off for years.”

Wino wiggled. The cuffs cut his wrists.

“You got it, baby. I'm a note man and a breather. I tried to get your phone number, but no fucking soap. You'd have got a real taste of me then.”

I said, “What about e-mails? Some sicko was e-mailing Ms. Donahue. He was asking her to send him her panties.”

Wino went outraged. “I don't feature that panty shit! I'm a note man and a breather! I don't fuck with no computers. Give me a pay phone any day.”

Donna bent the beavertail. The lead weight whipped within.

“What about ladies' rooms? You dig that action, don't you?”

Wino snorted and snickered. “I like to sniff toilet seats once in a blue moon, I'll give you that. But basically I'm a specialist. I'm a note man and a breather. I'm a fucking virtuoso, and I'm fucking proud of it.”

I said, “What's with the redheads? All Donna's got is a little tint.”

Wino winked. “Dig this. My mom was a redhead, and I never got over it. I got a thing for red gash, and that is no fucking shit. Donna looks like my mom. You don't got to be fucking Sigmund Freud to figure out this shit.”

I fingered my phone book. The pages rolled and riffed.

“Have you been hot-prowling lately? There's been some jobs in West L.A.”

Wino rolled his wrists. He got ratchet-ripped.

“I ain't pull no 459s since the '70s. I found my calling then. I'm a note man and a breather, and I'm fucking proud of it.”

I said, “You admit those notes to Ms. Donahue?”

“Yeah, you know I do. I'm a note man of long standing, and I'm fucking proud of—”

“You did some time at Chino, right? You sent Ms. Donahue a note from there.”

“That's right. I'm a note man, the best in the west.”

“Were you in for burglary?”

“Fuck, no. I was pushing yellow jackets to high-school kids, out of the Mar Vista Bowl. I quit that burglary shit in the '70s.”

Donna said, “And you deny sending me e-mails?”

Wino snickered, sneered, and stuck out his tongue. Wino licked his lips loathsome and leered.

“I'm a note man and a breather. That's my twenty-year MO. Don't try to hang no other shit on me, because I ain't buying it.”

I said, “You quit sending Ms. Donahue notes. Why?”

“She's stale bread, that's why! She never shows no more skin! I'm a skin man! I go squirrel shit if I don't get no skin!”

Donna looked at me. I saw her nip toward the nexus. Her hazel eyes hit me and
hurt.

She sapped Wino. She beavertail-bashed him. The weight whipped and leather lashed skin. She hooked him a new hairline. The cut dug deep. Blood blew down to his chin.

Wino went wild. “Baby, I dig it! You're turning me on, 'cause I've got this guilt thing! Ask all the old cops! I confessed to the best in the west!”

I caught a cue. “You said you killed a girl once. You put it in one of the notes you sent Ms. Donahue.”

Wino hooked his head. The hairline cut coursed backward. He tongue-torqued lizardlike and licked the blood off his lips.

“I never killed no girl. I said it to get back at the bitch. I wanted to scare her. She wasn't giving me no skin. I'm a skin man. I need my skin!”

I fingered my phone book. I fought the urge to fuck him up
faaaast.

“What's with the confessing? Tell us about that.”

Wino wrist-rolled. The radiator rocked.

“I go back to the Dahlia. I was 9 then. I copped to all the big snuffs. You name it, I copped to it. Bashor, the Stephen Nash jobs, the Manson shit, all of that. It was my thing back in the old days, before I got this boner for skin.”

I looked at him. His boner bounced. He grimaced and jizzed up his jeans.

Donna said, “Ugh.” Wino exhaled ecstatic. It cued me in for the kill.

“Did you murder Stephanie Gorman?”

Wino laffed. Wino leered. Wino said, “What if I did?”

I said it slow.
“Did you kill Stephanie Gorman?”

Wino wiggled. Wino winked. Wino said, “What if I did?”

I hit him. I beat him binding-side-outward. I hit him heavy. I rammed him repeated. I pounded and popped him and pulled back abrupt. He pissed his pants and poured out postnasal drip.

“Did you kill—”

“No! I did some yard work for her old man! I copped to the snuff,
but I couldn't milk it for three hots and a cot, and the fuzz cut me
loose!”

I looked at Donna. She said, “
Rick, no more, please.
”

Wino rolled his wrists. The radiator ripped free. Pipes popped loose. Steam stung me.

I checked the closet. Clothes—but no trank gun, no tranquilizers, no benzodiazepines. I slid out my cell phone. I dialed Dave Slatkin.

He picked up. “Slatkin.”

I said, “The mug runs. What did you get?”

Dave coughed. Dogs barked in the background. I heard Pancho panting. I heard bull mastiffs bay.

“No hits on Wino, and that's at all six libraries. I had some mugs in with Wino, and a couple of librarians said Cal Eggers looked most like the guy. Is that a fucking hoot?”

I laffed. I looked at Donna. Wino whipped his head. Blood blipped onto her blouse and skirt. Blood skimmed her skin.

Wino said, “I'm a skin man. I'm a note man and a breather. I dig red gash, and so fucking what?”

I pulled up a chair. It was straight-backed and slatted. I sat down. I flexed my forearms. I snapped the slats off.

Wino rolled his wrists and resoiled himself. I said it sotto voce
:
“Did you kill Stephanie?”

Wino went calm. Wino said, “I caddied at Hillcrest that day. It was a big tournament. They'll have records. I was on the course when the Gorman kid got it.”

Donna dug out her cell phone. I heard her hit Information. I heard her ask for Hillcrest. I heard her hit the listing and get the first tee.

She whispered. “Weinberger” and “August 5th, '65” wound back to me. Wino watched me. I laid out a lapsed Lutheran prayer: LET IT BE HIM.

Time ticked by. Donna said, “He's checking records.” I shut my eyes and saw Stephanie. Tick, tick, tick—two minutes topped.

Donna said, “Thanks.” The phone fizzed off. I opened my eyes. I still saw Stephanie.

“It's not him, Rick. He was on the golf course from 1:10 to 6:20.”

Auf Wiedersehen, adieu, adios—shalom,
Stephanie.

I uncuffed Wino. Donna perused her purse and took out two twenties. Cut-rate reparation—she tossed them on the bed.

We walked out. We crunched crack-pipe glass and short-dog shards. Wino screamed, “I'm a skin man, and I need my skin!”

8.

The stink, the stain, the malevolent malodor—wash Wino off of us.

Donna's house had a huge hot tub. We boiled out his badness and talked our terror tactics through. Donna copped to faux-feminist rectitude and rage. Whipping-boy Wino—the genus of genderized crime. I copped to venal violence vetted by Stephanie. I skirted the skin-madness issue. It hit home hard. Panties paralyzed me. I memorialized
my
mom.
She
was a righteous redhead, too.

Dave called. I told him Wino went south. The old note man/the e-mail hot-prowler—served up as two separate freaks. Dave said he'd reinstate the rolling stakeouts. He said he made Leotis Lauter for the Gary Getchell snuff. The dart death—deep diversion—let's hurl heat on hot-prowl now.

Plus:

The West L.A. dicks dug up some eyeball wits. Leotis Lauter loitered outside Gary Getchell's pad three days ago. Two rasty-assed Rastafarians reconnoitered with him. The pad: pored through and randomly ransacked. Odds on no files found. Found today: torched paper files in Leotis L.'s fireplace.

I debated Dave. Leotis Lauter—dope dealer—not a deep diverter. The hot-prowl hump—good for Gary.

We argued. We agreed—I had two days off—call it downtime to dally with Donna.

We dallied. We hearth-hid. We made love and feasted on fireplace food. We cooked kabobs and flame-fried burgers. Reggie Ridgeback scrounged scraps.

We dallied. We did ourselves up as a dog pack. We slipped into slumber. We
dozzzzed.

Wino witch-hunted me. I Oedipaled awful. Titian-tressed trespassers trudged and traipsed through. My mom materialized. She mumbled rebukes. I'm lost in her lingerie drawer.

I heard something. It rang wrong. My reverie—wrecked.

I opened my eyes. There's Cal Eggers. Cal's got a trank gun. The hearth flames flare—Cal's caught in the light.

My synapses snapped. The libraries. The mug runs. Cal's coincidental pics.
He's the hump they ID'd.

He fired. I rolled onto Reggie. I disturbed Donna. My weight whipped her awake.

The dart popped onto a pillow. Reggie reared up. I rolled right and picked up a poker. It ran red with heat.

Donna rolled. Donna ran. Donna dug through couch cushions. Reggie rammed Cal's crotch and tore in with his teeth.

Cal screamed. I poker-popped and brand-broiled him. I nailed his neck. I scalded skin. He dropped his trank gun and pulled a
real
piece.

Big bore. A nasty nickel-plated piece.

He screamed at me. He fired. I lurched left and made him miss. Reggie bit through his balls and castrated him. I saw his sac sawed through and his scrotum scrunched up in dog teeth.

Cal screamed. Cal ran toward Donna. She tossed couch cushions. She threw up a throw rug. She made the Magnum. She found the fat .45.

Cal fired. He missed Donna. Bullets ripped the Renoir and mowed down the Monet. Both paintings dropped off the wall. Reggie mewed through a mouthful of mangled balls. Donna two-handed aimed.

She caught Cal low. She laid down leg shots. Four hit hard. Cal caromed off a couch edge and careened.

He fell flat. He dropped his gun. I rolled right and ran up to him.

His leg wounds coursed copious. His pelvic wound pulsated and poured blood. He was close to the clouds. He was staring at the River Styx. I said, “
Dying declaration.
Give it up,
please.
”

He coughed. Bloody phlegm flew. He found a firm voice. He spoke to Donna, not me.

“You . . . were the one. I had this thing for you since '83. I was working Rampart then. I was working up to get you . . . but I didn't know if I could do it . . . I always had a hot-prowl jones . . . I tried to buy out of the obsession . . . e-mails, panties . . . I took my cue from Megan More . . . Oh, Donna, at least I didn't rape you . . . oh, Donna . . . oh, shit.”

The fuck was fading fast. I said, “There's more, Cal. Come on, all of it.”

Donna knelt beside me. She sent scents of sandalwood soap and gunshot residue. Reggie regurgitated. Male genitalia flew.

Cal coughed. “I was in with Gary G., independent of Megan. I . . . fed him Narco dope, more than Danny G. did . . . I wanted to take over the division when Linus Lauter got moved out . . . Gary knew I had this thing for you, Donna. I was the ‘avenging angel' . . . Leotis and his niggers tortured Gary . . . I was afraid he'd rat me if they fucked him up again . . . so I snuffed him.”

Reggie bayed. Cal coughed. His eyes said, “Oh, you kid.” He coughed blood, blanched, and died.

Donna kicked the corpse. “You fucking loser. I'm not that big a deal.”

Happy holidays. Christmas for crucifixion-heads, Hanukkah
for hebes, Kwanzaa for spooks simmering for secession. Ho,
ho, ho—holiday cheer at Hillsboro and Sawyer.

Donna and me. Let's dig on our dead. Let's honor ourselves.
Let's celebrate our cessation.

We had two months together. It was goooood. We got
singed by circumstance. We got rigorously reawakened.

The media made good. The “Suicide Season” survived and
moved into myth. Cool Cal caught the outside edge. Joe Tierney toted him up to terminal cancer. The pain pounded him.
Cal couldn't take it. He opted for self-immolation.

A viable verdict. No castration by canine, no death by
Donna D.

Call it cosmetic. Cal killed himself. His Hot-Prowl Hell
died with him. Leotis Lauter got memorably murdered. It was
rap-music related.

Monster Mack-Mack was making time with Leotis's lady.
It was one trippy triangle. It was baaaad jig juju. Leotis
caught Mack-Mack at Mohammad's Mosque #6. Mack-Mack pulled a machine gun. Mack-Mack mowed him down.
Leotis leeched up 26 rounds and rang off to Allah. He's currently couched with Khalid Khareem.

Daisy Delgado made him for the Gary Getchell snuff. She
filed Murder One postmortem.

It's all tied up. There's a dozen declared dead in Hot-Prowl
Heaven or Hell.

I had two months with Donna. Prosaics pried us apart. I
caught some Cold Case murders. She caught a mid-season
series. She played a Homicide cop.

We sat in my Saturn sedan. We traded gifts. We stared at
Stephanie's house. She gave me a cashmere coat. I gave her
Monster Mack-Mack's machine gun, moved from an evidence
vault.

The house held us. Time tripped us up. Then to now and
patterns past. Stephanie unavenged. A dead daughter older
than us. Our finite future.

We talked. We tossed some tears. We said I-love-yous. I got
lonely and Donnafied with Donna right there. Unbreachable
crimes, unreachable women—and me.