Suicide Hill (28 page)

Bobby stopped when he heard the priest chanting Hail Marys. Slamming the partition with his palms, he shouted, “You listen to me, motherfucker! This is my fucking confession, not yours!”

Silence answered the outburst. Then the priest said, “Finish your confession and I'll tell you your penance.”

The sternness in the kiddie-confessor's voice gave Bobby the juice to say
it
, the big stuff he finally figured out. “I got a brother,” he said. “Younger than me. He's weak 'cause I made him weak. I committed a heinous mortal sin with him when we was kids, and I been trying to atone for it by looking after him ever since, when what I should have done was cut him loose years ago, so he could get balls on his own. I always felt guilty about hating him, 'cause I knew that riding herd on his ass was killin'
me
, too. See, I always figured that he
knew
what I did, but he was afraid to say it, 'cause of what it would make us. Then, dig, tonight I figured out that he just didn't remember, 'cause it was so long ago, which means that all this time I sp—”

The priest interrupted, his voice impatient and severe, like a confessor's voice should be. “Don't interpret. Tell me the sin.”

Bobby said
it
, sounding to himself like an old TV judge handing down a life sentence. “When we was kids, I used to tie Little Bro up so I could go out and play. I came back one day and saw that he'd wet himself 'cause he couldn't get up. The whole bed was wet, and I got righteously turned on and pulled down his pants and touched him.”

“And that is your heinous mortal sin? After all the other acts you confessed?”

Now Bobby heard
disgust.
“Don't
you
interpret, Father. They're my sins.
Mine.
”

“Say the act of contrition and I'll give you your penance,” the priest whispered.

Bobby bowed his head and forced the second part of his sentence out in an Anglo accent, like the old Irish sisters had taught him. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pain of hell. But most of all because I have offended thee, O God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of thy grace to confess my sins, do penance and amend my life. Amen. Well, Father?”

“I grant you absolution,” the priest said. “Your penance is good deeds for the rest of your life. Begin soon, you have much to atone for. Go and sin no more.”

Bobby heard his confessor slide through the curtains and walk out of the church. He gave him enough time to make it back to the rectory, then got to his feet and picked up the shopping bag, smiling at the weight. “Begin soon” rang in his ears. On wobbly legs, he obeyed.

The poor box was on the side wall near the rear pews, ironclad, but too small to hold sixteen K in penance bucks. Bobby started shoving cash in the slot anyway, big fistfuls of c-notes and twenties. Bills slipped out of his hands as he worked, and he was wondering whether to leave the whole bag by the altar when he heard strained breathing behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Duane Rice standing just outside the door. His high school yearbook prophecy crossed his mind: “
Most likely not to survive
,” and suddenly Duane-o looked more like a priest than the
puto
with the alligator fag shirt.

Bobby dropped the bag and fell to his knees; Rice screwed the silencer onto his .45 and walked over. He picked up the bag and placed the gun to the Sharkman's temple; Bobby knew that
defiant
was the way to go splitsville. He got in a righteous giggle and “Duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn” before Rice blew his brains out.

26

J
oe sat in a booth in Ben Frank's Coffee Shop, forcing himself to eat a cheeseburger platter. Through the tinted plate-glass window he watched Anne talk into a pay phone in the parking lot. He tried to read her lips, but she was too far away, and distant siren blare from the east kept distracting him. The food that he figured would calm him down didn't; the ‘Vette, ditched on a side street two blocks away, had his prints all over the wheel and dashboard. The copter lights and sirens made the Hollywood/Strip border area feel like a war zone. The thrill of mastering the stick shift in a stolen car was dead, and Anne had now fed a dozen quarters to the phone, trying to connect with her “good music friends” who would “help them out.” The black pimps at the next table were talking about a shootout on Gardner and barricades and cops with shotguns up by the Hollywood Bowl. One of them kept repeating, “Righteous fucking heat,” and Joe knew he was digging it because the heat wasn't directed at him. Every word, every bit of noise, from the war sounds to waitresses clanking dishes, brought back Stan Klein's face just as he stuck in the knife. That was bad, but he knew it was only a delayed reaction, something like shock. What made it terrible was his music turning on him, “And death was a thrill on Suicide Hill” bopping in his brain along with pictures of the man he killed.

Joe felt his insides start to turn over. He jumped up, bumping the table, knocking his food on the floor. The pimps laughed when french fries flew onto a passing customer's legs, and Joe ran to the bathroom and vomited his meal into the sink. Holding the wall with one hand, he turned on the faucet and doused his head with cold water. His stomach heaved, and his chest expanded and contracted with short blasts of breath. He looked at himself in the mirror, then turned away when he saw Bobby just like
he
always looked after getting his ass kicked at the Olympic. Standing upright, he gave himself another dousing, then wiped his face with a paper towel and walked back into the restaurant.

A busboy was cleaning up the spillage by his table; the pimps snickered at him. Joe sidestepped the mess and ran out the door, the cashier yelling, “What about your check!” On the sidewalk, he looked for Anne. She wasn't by the pay phone, and she wasn't in the parking lot. Then he saw her across the street, upstaging a group of hookers with a pelvis-grinding boogie aimed at passing cars.

Joe started to jaywalk across Sunset; a Mercedes stretch limo pulled up in front of Anne, and she got in. The stretch hung an immediate right turn, and Joe ran, rounding the corner just in time to see it park halfway down the block. Walking over, he heard male sex grunts shooting out of the backseat. Then a disco tune smothered the groans, and the chauffeur got out and stood by the car, trying to look cool about the whole thing. With anger blotting out all traces of Stan Klein's death mask, Joe retreated to a dark front lawn to play watchdog.

The limo wobbled on its suspension for half an hour, the musical accompaniment going from disco to reggae. Joe moved back and forth between pins-and-needles alertness and nodding-out sleepiness. Total exhaustion was dropping over him when a door slammed, and Anne began skipping up to the Strip. When she passed him, Joe said, “You really rocked that stretch. Any bitch that can rock a Benz fender to fender has got to be a pro.”

Anne squinted into the darkness. When Joe walked up to her, she said, “I told you I could give sex and not sacrifice my karma, and if you give sex for money you might as well do a good job. And I wasn't leaving you; I was coming back to B.F.'s.”

Joe snickered, imitating the pimps at the coffee shop. “That's because you need a man to tell you what to do. Okay, I'll tell you what we're gonna do. How much did that scumbag in the Benz give you?”

“A c-note.”

“Groovy. We're gonna use about seventy of it to check into that motel next to B.F.'s. You check us in, I'll follow you back. Dig?”

Anne did a nervous foot dance. “Now you're starting to
talk
like a tough guy—”

“People change.”

“All right, but that trick just told me about this all-night open-house party at an exec producer's place. I used to trick regularly with the guy when I worked outcall. He's a video heavy, and he really liked me. I can get some money there, I know I can.”

Joe shook his head. “First we're getting a flop. Come on.”

Without a word, Anne led the way back to the Strip. Joe saw that she looked dejected, but was secretly glad he'd taken charge. From the rear of the Ben Frank's parking lot he watched her hit the motel office, pay the night clerk and glom a key, then walk around to the street and into the courtyard. When the clerk sighed and returned to his paperback, he followed.

She was waiting for him in the doorway of a downstairs unit, one hip cocked, one elbow resting on the doorjamb, looking like an evil little girl born to fuck. She smiled and shifted her weight; her preppy shirt fell away and revealed huge dark hollows across her stomach. Joe moved toward her to smash the pose and make her real.

Anne resisted the soft kisses on her neck and the softer hands that tried to stop her hips from gyrating. Holding herself rock still, she said, “Whores don't respond to kindness, whores rut.”

Joe said, “Hush,” slid his hands under her shirt and traced soft circles on her back. Anne sighed, then caught herself and said. “Whores don't make love, whores do the dirty dog deed.” Her own wordplay made her giggle and press her hands to her mouth, and Joe bit at her neck until she started to squeal uncontrollably. An upstairs voice called out, “Go, lovebirds, go!” and Anne began to cry. Joe didn't know what the tears meant, so he picked her up and carried her to the bed. Applause and catcalls rained down as he shut and bolted the door. When he turned around, Anne was naked and he was crying himself.

27

T
he smell of decomposing flesh hit him the second he walked in the door.

Lloyd turned to Rhonda Morrell and said, “Wait here,” then shot a look at an arched entrance hall crowded with video equipment. Drawing his .45, he walked in the direction of the stench.

It was a dead man who matched Rhonda's description of Stan Klein. He was lying in the middle of a large living room filled with electrical equipment—V.C.R.s, TVs, computer terminals and video games. His corpse was drained of blood, the handle of a switchblade was extending from his stomach, and the carpet beneath him was caked thick with dried blood. A small caliber automatic was in his right hand. The knife wound spelled death by stabbing; the smell and body drainage indicated that the murder had taken place at least twenty-four hours prior. Lloyd held a handkerchief to his face and knew that this night would never be over.

He walked to Rhonda, still standing by the door. “Go identify the body. Try not to get hysterical.”

“Is that what that awful smell is?”

“Smart girl.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“I'm holding you as a material witness. Give me shit and I'll fabricate a felony to keep you off your back for years. You almost got me killed. Be grateful that I'm a sensitive cop.”

Rhonda gave Lloyd a slow once-over. “You look spooky. Really weirded out. When can I go home?”

“Later. Go identify the stiff.”

Rhonda walked into the living room and let out a ladylike shriek; Lloyd found a phone in the entrance hall and dialed Hollywood Station. Dutch Peltz answered, “L.A.P.D.,” and Lloyd could tell from his hollow tone that he was scared.

“It's Lloyd, Dutch. What is it?”

“
It's
fucking all coming down crazy,” Dutch said. “There was a Shootout on Sunset and Gardner. Both perpetrators got away, and one of them commandeered a car, then ran down one of my men with it. He died at Central Receiving. The killer escaped on foot, and the man whose car he commandeered I.D.'d him from the eyewitness sketch of the white bank robber. Two of my men raided his pad half an hour ago—the Bowl Motel on Highland. No one was there, but they found two .45 autos. Then, and I still can't believe it, there was a body found
inside a fucking church
three blocks from the motel and a half mile from the spot where the officer was hit and run. He was twenty-six, Lloyd. He had a wife and four kids and he's fucking dead!”

The news of the two dead men and Dutch's grief squeezed out Lloyd's last remaining calm. The night came down on him from all sides, and he started to weave on his feet, death stench assailing him from the living room, mass insanity over the phone line. Finally Dutch's “Lloyd! Lloyd! Lloyd, goddammit, are you there!” registered, and he was able to answer: “I don't know where the fuck I am. Listen, have any A.P.B.s been issued?”

“No. The white man signed into the motel under an obvious alias—John Smith.”

Lloyd marshaled his thoughts, deciding not to add Stan Klein to the list of the night's dead. “Dutch, Fred Gaffaney and at least two of his Metro freaks are in this big, which is why no A.P.B.s have hit the air. They know, and I know, the names of the three robbers. They—”

“What!”

“Just listen, goddammit! I was one of the perps at the shootout on Gardner. I thought I could take out the white man myself. I blew it, and he got away.”

“What!”

“Don't grief me on that, goddamn you! It was the only way to do it. Have you I.D.'d the stiff at the church?”

His voice more hollow than Lloyd had ever heard it, Dutch said, “Everywhere you go there's nothing but shit. The dead man is Robert Ramon Garcia, male Mexican, age thirty-four. Is he one of the three?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the two other names.”

Lloyd signed his own murder indictment. “The white man is Duane Richard Rice, D.O.B. 8/16/56. The other Mexican is Joe Garcia, the dead man's brother. It's crazy out here, Dutch.”

“I know it is. Largely due to you. Every single one of my men is on the streets, along with half the Rampart and Wil shire nightwatches. I've got two reservists running the station with me.”

“You feel like helping me, or you feel like pouting?”

“I'll forget you said that. What do you need?”