Cold Shoulder

by Lynda La Plante

  “Our first hammer killing comes in 1986, the next 1987, then 1988, 1991, which was Maria Valez, and the last two, Helen Murphy and Angela Hollow, plus Hastings, are all within months, if not days of each other. We’ve got a gap between 1988 and 1991, unless more come to light. Let’s hope to God they don’t—and let’s give this all we’ve got.”

  One young, eager-faced officer asked where they were going to start and Rooney, unsure himself, snapped that as the victims were hookers, they should start by asking on the streets, in the brothels. To begin with, he wanted it kept low-key, and until they had more evidence, he wanted the press kept out for as long as possible.

  Rooney returned to his office feeling worn out and hungry. Bean got there ahead of him, and was waiting, his hands stuffed into his pockets, staring from the window down to the Plaza Mall. He jumped when Rooney barked out, “You feel like some Jap food?”

  Bean didn’t, but agreed to accompany Rooney, because he wanted to tell him he didn’t think they should keep it from the press.

  As they got into the car, Rooney gave him a sidelong look. “What’s the problem?”

  “Well, I don’t think we should keep this quiet. We could have a multiple killer on the loose! Those gaps between the murders, what if our man was in prison?”

  “Whoever the fuck he is, he’s on the loose now.”

  “That’s my point, Captain. He killed Norman Hastings, Helen Murphy, Angela Hollow within weeks of each other. Even if it’s just hookers he’s taking out, the street girls should be warned. I mean, they’re not all from Pasadena.”

  As Bean expected, Rooney dismissed this. “We get the fuckin’ press in on this, they’ll blow it up all out of proportion. This way it’s giving us time to make some headway, because we have fuck all, but—”

  “A pretty tight description. Somebody somewhere knows a guy with a fucking bite out of his neck.”

  Rooney started the engine. “That we never put out, else we’ll have Dracula and his uncle wastin’ our time.… The guys on the street can put the word out to the whores, but you know as well as me, nothin’ stops them. They’ll keep on trading no matter who we say is out there.” He turned the car and prepared to drive out of the police parking lot.

  “Who do you think is out there, Captain?” Bean ran his finger around the neck of his tight-fitting shirt collar.

  “Someone with a hatred of tall, skinny, blond whores—how the fuck do I know? You got his description, what do you think?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Right, you don’t know, nobody knows. They may give us all the psychological profiles from so-called professors, why he kills, what he gets out of it. But when you say: ‘Okay, where do I find the guy?’ they don’t fuckin’ know. The truth is, Lieutenant, they can pinpoint or direct us to a psycho, because he’s obvious. But our man, he’s not obvious; he’s cool. It looks like he’s been getting away with it for years. It don’t even run to a pattern because of Norman Hastings, who was a straight, decent guy.”

  They drove out of the lot in silence. Then Bean sighed. “Killer obviously has a thing about hookers.…”

  Rooney snorted. “So maybe his mother or his wife was one. Then you can say he’s killing her. Bullshit. I hated my mother but that don’t make me want to kill every square-faced, red-haired tyrant, now does it?”

  He drew up outside the Kwoks Kwok and switched off the engine. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t asked Bean along. “That means he’s just taking out his hammer whenever he feels like it. Now shut up, I’m hungry and I don’t wanna talk about it.” Rooney got out, locked the car, and caught sight of Art’s Gallery. “Christ, how did that spring up? It was an old real estate agency yesterday.”

  He wandered over to look: inside were a lot of people rapping and drinking, arty types, not his sort. A cab drew up and more guests began heading inside. A good-looking coiffured man in a pale blue denim outfit paid off the driver, adjusted his shades, and followed his two tanned friends into the gallery as Rooney walked into his favorite restaurant. Art screamed out a welcome to his friend Craig Lyall and drew him into the throng.

  Some time later, Jake arrived with Rosie and Lorraine. They pulled up and parked behind Rooney’s car. Jake was wearing a cheap suit with a nylon shirt and wide flowered tie, Rosie a tent-type dress that accentuated rather than hid her bulk, various bead necklaces that clicked as she walked, and a pair of leather sandals. Lorraine had on the same fawn skirt, now pressed, her black crepe blouse, and the safari-style jacket draped around her shoulders. This evening she wore sling-back high heels, and appeared even taller and thinner than usual. Her makeup was as sparse as ever, and, as Rosie had refused to let her borrow the pearl studs, she had no jewelry. Art made a great fuss over her when she walked in, telling her she looked simply wonderful, and that her friends were more than welcome.

  An attractive gay young man was drifting around with a tray of wine. Lorraine was about to accept a glass when Jake asked loudly for mineral water and she quickly withdrew her hand. The three of them stood a little self-consciously at the doorway to the main room, which was crowded with guests.

  “Do you want to see the paintings?” asked Lorraine.

  “Are there any?” Rosie couldn’t see a single canvas as they edged farther inside.

  Nula beckoned Lorraine and took hold of her hand. “Didi remembered where we’d seen you—at a meeting!”

  Lorraine was puzzled, then she understood. She looked at her glass of water, noting that Nula had one, too. She asked about Didi and Nula told her about the twisted ankle. Nula was as outrageously dressed as when they had first met, and her perfume was overpowering.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, after all her hard work, too. Have many pictures been sold?”

  Nula shrugged. “I hope so. Art is broke, but then, aren’t we all?”

  Lorraine looked across at Rosie and Jake standing exactly where she had left them. “Come and meet my friends?”

  Jake was polite, but Rosie stared, looking up at Nula with such obvious fascination that Lorraine felt uncomfortable, but Nula didn’t seem to mind. She chatted on about the gallery, how much work she and Didi had done, and how marvelous Lorraine had been. “Were you an actress?” she asked Lorraine suddenly.

  Lorraine smiled. “No, I wasn’t.”

  “What do you do?” asked Rosie bluntly.

  Nula cocked her head to one side and smiled. “Anyone who hires me, dear.”

  Rosie wasn’t sure what she meant and didn’t care, she was hot and her feet hurt. She caught Jake’s eye. “Look, I don’t think this was such a good idea, why don’t we leave?”

  Jake looked at Lorraine. “Okay by me. Lorraine?”

  They were about to walk out when Art caught Lorraine’s hand and drew her toward some of his friends. Rosie and Jake waited for ten minutes beside the car before Lorraine appeared. “You two go on, I’ll stay for a while longer. Art needs me to help out a little.”

  Jake opened the driver’s door and was about to get into the car when a big potbellied man walked out of the Japanese restaurant, accompanied by a fresh-faced younger man with a crew cut and glasses. The older man was deep in conversation while searching in his pockets for his car keys, yet he couldn’t help but see Lorraine, who was only yards ahead of him. Jake saw the way Rooney looked, then looked again. He stopped talking in midsentence, as if surprised, or shocked. Jake couldn’t make out which.

  “Lorraine?” Rooney called out loudly.

  She half turned and took a sharp involuntary step back, bumping into Rosie.

  “It is you, Lorraine, isn’t it?” Rooney stepped closer.

  Jake noticed the way she straightened her shoulders, clenched her fists.

  “Lorraine,” Rooney repeated again. He couldn’t stop staring—it was like seeing a ghost. Was it her? Or was he mistaken? Then she tilted her head, gave that sidelong look, and he knew for sure. He said emphatically, but flatly, “It’s Lorraine Page.” She gave a barely detectable nod and hurried back inside
the gallery. Rooney watched her go, then stared directly at Jake and Rosie. “Evening.”

  Rosie heaved herself into the car. Jake slammed his door, still observing Rooney as he walked around to his own car.

  “What was that all about?” Rosie asked.

  Jake shrugged as Rooney drove away. “He’s a cop, so is the guy with him. The big fat guy is Bill Rooney, a real mean shit.”

  Rosie was astonished. “My, I have never heard you talk like that!”

  “Well, maybe there’s a lot about me you don’t know. I guess there is about your roommate, too. That fat prick busted me, maybe he arrested her, too. Looked like he knew Lorraine from someplace she didn’t want to be remembered bein’ in.”

  He drove a few yards, then stopped. “Maybe I should go back, see if she’s okay. She looked kinda shook up.” He was about to reverse when Lorraine walked out of the gallery with Nula as a taxi drew up.

  Jake set off again. “You know any more about her? She ever mention some money she had? Remember that night she came back, when she said she’d fallen? She had a lot of money on her then.”

  Rosie looked out of the window. “She told me she sold off some things a friend was keeping for her, somebody called Sonja. Jake, I think I’m gonna ask her to leave. There’s something about her—I dunno, but she’s …”

  “Tough?” said Jake.

  “Yes, with a selfish streak, too. I mean, I kind of admire the way she’s getting herself together, but I know as much about her now as I did when I first met her. Sometimes I get the feeling she doesn’t want anyone to know her.”

  “That cop knew her. He knew her very well.”

  Rooney turned off the ignition outside Bean’s apartment. “She was picked up for prostitution. Last time they put her in a straitjacket, she was that crazy.”

  Bean had his hand on the door handle. “She looked straightened out tonight.”

  Rooney nodded. “Yeah, she sure as hell did. Tonight I didn’t get that close a view, but she was one hell of a looker back then—never fooled around, well, not that I knew of. I think she even had a couple of kids, married to a lawyer, but whatever she was, she blew it. That lady sure as hell hit the skids.”

  Bean opened the door. He was barely interested in ex-Lieutenant Lorraine Page, but Rooney seemed eager to continue. “Killed an unarmed kid.” He shook his head. “Six bullets, emptied the fucking thirty-eight into him—and you know what sickened me? She was laughing, no kidding, meant fuck all to her. She was pissed—she was a lush. I kinda thought she must be dead by now …”

  “Good night,” said Bean, stepping out of the car. He wished he’d stuck to his guns and refused the raw fish Rooney had plied him with. He felt sick and it was either the fish or that weird Japanese beer he’d swilled it down with.

  Rooney remained deep in thought. He could still picture her curled up on the washroom floor, skirt up around her thighs. That was the last time he’d seen her, so drunk she couldn’t even stand. That half smile on her face had been the same half smile she had given him tonight.

  Lorraine looked around Nula’s strange apartment with its outrageously theatrical living room. She knew this old building. When she was on the force, it used to have some drug dealers living there. Now it had been cleaned up and was, she remembered, more of an artist’s colony—Nula and Didi’s taste certainly suited it. There were drapes and frills, mock leopard skin sofa and chairs, fur rugs, and huge paintings of nude female couples with male genitals displayed in provocative poses. Just as she was wondering idly if Nula and Didi had been totally transformed or if they still had their cocks, Nula came out of the bedroom. “Something terrible happened to a friend of ours.”

  A limping, sniffling Didi appeared, wearing dark glasses, dressed in a scarlet silk kimono, a clutch of tissues in her hand. She wore a tight turban wrapped around her head and no makeup. “She was a friend, only seventeen. They found her locked in the trunk of a car. She’d been hammered to death, not a feature left intact.… Now what pig-shit bastard could do a thing like that?”

  Nula suddenly started sobbing loudly. “We saw her last night—I was standing an’ talking to her. Holly was so cute, so nice …”

  Lorraine listened as they wept and wailed. She didn’t know who they were talking about. She tried twice to interject and ask if they’d like her to leave, but they seemed unaware she was in the apartment. Of the two Didi seemed more upset, and it was Nula who eventually turned to Lorraine. “I’m glad you’re here, help take our minds off it, she was only a kid.… Didi, we gotta keep busy. Let’s feed this babe—come on, get that apron on.”

  Didi nodded, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes without removing the glasses. “I must look terrible, I feel terrible, I feel naked without my hair on, but I just couldn’t do a thing.”

  Didi scurried into the kitchen and Nula sniffed loudly. Her mascara had run and she spat on a tissue to wipe beneath her eyes. “I’m sorry, you must think we’re crazies. But you know, it was the shock, knowing her and …”

  Nula looked toward the kitchen. She leaned forward, tapping Lorraine’s knee with her fingertip. “She’ll be okay now. She’s really upset, but I can always cheer her up. We’re very old friends, been together for years—we met in a show. It’s always good to have one good friend, know what I mean?”

  Lorraine wasn’t so sure. Nula’s deep, gravel voice was sometimes hard to listen to, even more so now that she’d removed her wig like she’d done the first time they’d met. She was remarkably unself-conscious about the thinning hairline. Lorraine wondered if she knew how masculine she looked without her tresses as she watched Nula make trips back and forth from the kitchen to talk to Didi. Twice Nula came back and pulled a face at Lorraine, taking some more tissues in to Didi who was obviously still very tearful.

  Didi cooked a delicious dinner and set a table with candles. Lorraine noticed she was the domestic one in the couple, fussing over which glasses they should use, which napkins and place mats, as slowly the initial shock of Holly’s death subsided. Their conversation turned to their friend Art: the fact that he was a genius photographer, his boyfriends, his bankruptcy, his inability to stay in business.

  Nula gestured to their apartment. “This was his, then he made a stack of bread and he gave this to us and even when he’s been broke and desperate, he has never asked us to leave.”

  Lorraine nodded. The place was a nightmare, but that was just her taste, and she was enjoying the outrageousness of the pair, swapping stories, jokes about old times when they’d been dancers. They didn’t speak of the present, but out came albums and old programs. Eventually they seemed to talk themselves into silence. The subtle music, playing throughout, was switched off, and Lorraine took her cue to leave. She stood up, smiling her thanks.

  “How long have you been dry?” asked Nula, the question coming out of the blue.

  “ ’Bout two and a half months.”

  Nula laughed and told Lorraine that she had been dry eight years, Didi four. She looked at Didi, and then pursed her lips. They constantly interacted, exchanging sly looks, often picking up on each other’s sentences. Didi shrugged and Nula cocked her head to one side.

  “I suppose we should tell you we’re whores—you’ve probably put two and two together anyway. We both drank to get the balls, if you’ll excuse the pun—it takes a lot of guts to do what we do, and to do it in drag, and with a ‘fuck you’ attitude, know what I mean?”

  Lorraine didn’t but she nodded as they linked arms. Nula, head and shoulders taller than Didi, seemed to be almost protecting her. Didi gave a watery smile.

  “It’s just that we’d prefer you to hear it from us rather than anyone else—and we’d like to see you again. What we’re trying to tell you is don’t be shy about anythin’. We all been drunks, right? And we think we’ve got your number.”

  Lorraine was taken aback when Nula released her arm from Didi and crossed to stand close, too close, slipping an arm around her shoulders. She was wearing the same heavy
scent Lorraine had noticed in Art’s gallery and, close to, it was overpowering.

  “Listen, I got contacts who could put some work your way, straight, decent Johns, all you gotta do is ask.”

  Lorraine did a neat sidestep, saying that she had some work lined up, and thanked them again. They insisted she take a cab home and Didi limped over to the phone and called for one to pick her up outside the apartment. She hadn’t meant to sound so cool, be so distant, but they were touching on that hazy part of her life that remained unreal, the part she hadn’t yet faced up to. At the same time, she couldn’t help but feel angry that they seemed to know she’d been a hooker. Somehow she had felt that no one could or would suspect that.

  Nula kissed her cheeks. “You come by any time, and keep it in mind, if you need cash to tide you over, we can always get you a few clients. Don’t you be all shy, you just come out with it, you can be our friend, right, Didi?”

  Didi nodded her head. “Yeah, and we got a lot of contacts.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Lorraine was relieved to get away from them, from the cloying perfume. Yet they had, unknowingly, helped her over a hurdle she had dreaded. Seeing Bill Rooney again had been like a punch in the stomach, so totally unexpected that she had been unable to speak, or even acknowledge him. The humiliation of the meeting made her feel physically sick. The cab fare took the last of her earnings from the gallery but she didn’t care. One thing she knew for certain, she couldn’t turn tricks again. There’d been a lot of times in the past when she’d ended up looking like Didi after a night with a rough John.

  Each step up to Rosie’s apartment was an effort, and the last person she wanted to be confronted by was Rosie sitting like a Buddha watching a mind-numbing game show. Lorraine shut the door and headed for the bathroom. The television was clicked off, ominously.