by James Ellroy
Goff opened the door on the first knock. He was stripped to the waist, his torso oozing sweat. Havilland stepped inside and felt the chill of an air-conditioner on full blast. He looked at Goff. His extremities were tensed as if to contain earthquakes and his eyes were a feverish yellow. Doing a quick hypothetical run-through based on observation and carefully studied case histories, he gave his pawn a month to live.
When the door closed on his diagnosis, the Doctor took Goff by the arm and led him to the couch. The two cardboard suitcases rested by the coffee table, unopened. Goff smiled through his tremors and pointed to them. “We’re on our way, Doctor John.”
Havilland smiled in return and opened his leather bag. He withdrew a fresh syringe and a morphine bottle, poking the needle through the porous rubber top, extracting just enough dope for an enticing mainline. Goff wet his lips and said, “It’s the worst it’s ever been. I’ve been doing some more reading on migraines. They get worse in a person’s thirties. I think I’m really scared.”
The Doctor took a bead on a large pulsating vein behind Goff’s left ear. He formed a tourniquet with the flat of his hand, placing it just above Goff’s collarbone. Whispering, “Easy, Thomas, easy,” he inserted the needle square into the vein and depressed the stopper. A sharp jet of blood squirted out as the morphine entered. Goff’s features unclenched in relief and Havilland smiled and amended his death sentence: A small dose still brought comfort. Sixty days.
Goff’s limbs went languorous and the veins in his forehead receded to their normal dimensions. Havilland studied his patient and devised a spur of the moment contingency plan: If the pain began again within the next half hour, give Goff thirty days of maintenance doses, risk him on one more security-file run, then take him out of L.A. to terminate, and go solo on the remaining runs. If the pain remains abated, give him sixty days of tether for two more runs. Play the truth game with him to explain the tension with the jigaboo. The problem was covered.
Goff closed his eyes and drifted off into a dope/exhaustion cloudbank. Havilland got up and walked around the living room, purposely averting his eyes from the suitcases. The low ceiling was painted black and the walls were painted a military brown. Goff’s therapy-controlled brightness phobia had driven him to turn a cheery dwelling place into a neuroses decompression chamber. Every time he visited the apartment, the Doctor looked for splotches of color, indicators that he had at long last instigated a total failure of memory, thereby giving Goff some peace of mind to go with his total acquiescence. But everything that could be purchased or rendered dark remained that way, room carpeting to cabinet hardware.
The Doctor surveyed the decompression chamber from a possible farewell standpoint. Various shades of darkness hit his senses, producing a pleasant vertigo that resurrected a childhood memory of a ferris wheel at a Bronx amusement park. The wheel was about to grab him when a burst of non-sequitur pink threw a wrench into its gears.
Snapping back to the present, Havilland saw that it was a pink slip of paper on the end table near the bedroom door, partially covered by a black ceramic ashtray. He picked it up and felt the room reel. It was an L.A.P.D. release slip, issued to Thomas Goff upon the presentation of sixty-five dollars bail money. The charge was 673.1—Failure to appear in traffic court. The Doctor read the heavily abbreviated type at the bottom and crumpled the paper in his hand. His executive officer had been arrested for non-payment of jaywalking citations.
The ferris wheel stopped at the top of its circuit, then plummeted to earth, dropping him into a land of treason. He looked over at Goff, who stirred in his stupor, kneading his shoulders into the couch.
The Doctor felt a wave of rage and loathing hit him like a one-two punch in the solar plexus. To combat it he breathed in-out, in-out until the counterproductive emotions leveled off into professional calm. When he was certain he could maintain his decorum he arrayed the tools of his truth kit on the coffee table, filling one syringe with morphine and another with sodium Pentothal. As Goff’s stirrings became more violent, he reached over and pinched his nostrils shut and counted slowly to ten. At nine Goff jerked fully awake and screamed. Havilland took his hand from his nostrils and clamped it over his mouth, pinning his head to the wall. Whispering, “Easy, Thomas, easy,” he took the morphine syringe and skin-popped Goff in his left arm and left pectoral muscle. Seeing that Goff’s relief was instantaneous, he released his hand and said, “You didn’t tell me that you were arrested last month.”
Goff shook his head until his body shook with it all the way down to his toes. “I haven’t been in the slam since Attica, you know that, Doc.”
It was the hoarse rasp of a terrified man speaking the perfect truth. Havilland smiled and whispered, “Your left forearm, Thomas.” When Goff obeyed, he jammed a 30 c.c. jolt of sodium Pentothal into the largest vein at the crook of his elbow. Goff gasped and began to giggle. Havilland withdrew the needle and leaned back on the couch. “Tell me about the Junior Miss file transaction,” he said.
Goff giggled and fixed his glazed eyes on the far wall. “I scoped out the security bimbos from the bar across from the parking lot,” he slurred. “All white trash and niggers. The niggers looked too shifty, so I settled on this Okie type. I asked some of the regulars about him, casual like. They said he was a coke fiend, but controlled, and a closed-mouthed type. He sounded like prime meat, so I brought him out slowly and closed the deal yesterday. I met him a couple of hours ago. Those two suitcases are the files.”
Havilland felt his mind buzz, like someone had stuck a live wire into his brain. Goff was so far gone that he was now immune even to massive doses of hypnotic drugs. Time was running out for his executive officer—he had two weeks to live. At best.
Thomas Goff continued to squeal with laughter, his hands dancing over his body. Havilland examined the pink release slip. No vehicle license plate mentioned. Goff had obviously been stopped for questioning while on foot, a routine warrant check turning up his old jaywalking tickets. He waved the slip in front of Goff’s eyes. Goff ignored the flash of brightness and laughed even harder.
Havilland got to his feet and swung a roundhouse open hand at Goff’s face. Goff screeched, “No please,” as the blow made contact, then wrapped his head in his hands and curled into a fetal ball on the couch. The Doctor squatted beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You need a rest, Thomas,” he said. “The migraines are sapping your strength. We’re going to take a little vacation together. I’m going to confer with some specialists about your headaches, then treat you myself. I want you to stay home and rest, then call me in forty-eight hours. All right?”
Goff twisted to look at the Doctor. He wiped a trickle of blood from his nose and whimpered, “Yes, but what about the next grouping? We were going to plan it, remember?”
“We’ll have to postpone it. The important thing now is to deal with your migraines.”
Thomas Goff’s eyes clouded with tears. The Doctor extracted a bottle of tetracyline-morphine mixture from his bag and prepped a syringe. “Antibiotics,” he said. “In case your migraines have gone viral.” Goff nodded as Havilland found a vein in his wrist and inserted the needle. His tears spilled over at the act of mercy, and by the time the doctor withdrew the syringe he was asleep.
Dr. John Havilland picked up the two suitcases, surprised to find that he wasn’t thinking of the merciless information inside. As he turned off the light and shut the door behind him, he was thinking of a black vinyl Vietnam body bag he had won as a joke prize at a med school beer bust and of dogs exploding into red behind a barbed wire fence.
8
LLOYD awoke in his den, already calculating hours before he was fully conscious. Thirty-six since Dutch’s ultimatum and no new leads—report Herzog missing. Well over a hundred hours since the liquor store slaughter—all leads deadended. Start cross-checking the three hundred thousand yellow Jap cars and begin hauling in known armed robbers, leaning on them hard, squeezing all known and suspected pressure points in hope of
securing information. Shit work all the way down the line.
Lloyd stretched and rolled off the convertible bed in one motion, then walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, letting the cold air bring him to full consciousness. When goose bumps formed beneath his T-shirt and boxer shorts he shivered and dug out a half consumed container of cottage cheese, eating with the spoon that was still stuck inside. Almost gagging on the sticky blandness, he looked round the three small rooms he had allotted himself in his family’s absence: den to sleep, think and study in; kitchen for the preparing of such gourmet fare as cottage cheese and cold chili from the can; the downstairs bathroom for hygiene. When he started doing calculations as to the number of hours since Janice and the girls had left, his mental calculator quit in midtransaction. If you start running tabs you’ll go crazy and do something crazy to get them back. Let it be. If you stalk them, they’ll know you haven’t changed. It’s a penance waiting game.
Finishing his breakfast, Lloyd showered hot and cold, then dressed in a day old button-down shirt and his only clean suit, an unseasonable summer pinstripe. Murmuring “Now or never,” he sat down at his desk, dug out a spiral notebook and wrote:
4/28/84
To: Chief of Detectives
From: Det. Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, Rob/Hom. Div.
Sir:
Four days ago I was contacted by my friend, Captain Arthur Peltz, the commander of Hollywood Division. He told me that Officer Jacob Herzog, a Personnel Records clerk at Parker Center who was working on a sub-rosa loan-out to Hollywood Vice, had been missing for nearly a month. Captain Peltz asked me to investigate, and in doing so I discovered that Herzog’s (intact) apartment had been professionally wiped of fingerprints. I questioned Herzog’s best friend, former L.A.P.D. Sergeant Martin Bergen, who told me that he hadn’t seen Herzog in over a month and that Herzog had been “moody” at the time of their last meeting. An interview with Herzog’s girlfriend confirms his month long absence and “moody” behavior. My opinion is that Herzog is the victim of a well-planned homicide and that his disappearance should be immediately and fully investigated. I realize that I should have reported this earlier, but my sole purpose in not reporting was to first establish evidence (however circumstantial) of wrongdoing. Captain Peltz ordered me to report to you immediately, but I violated that order.
Respectfully, Lloyd Hopkins, #1114
Lloyd read over his words, strangely satisfied at having taken the bulk of the risk in incurring high brass wrath. He ripped the page out of the notebook and put it in his inside jacket pocket, then clipped on his .38 and handcuffs and made for the front door. He had his hand on the doorknob when the phone rang.
He let it ring ten times before answering—only Penny pursued a phone call that persistently.
“Speak, it’s your dime.”
Penny’s giggle came over the wire. “No, it’s not, Daddy! It’s my dollar-forty.”
Lloyd laughed. “Excuse me. I forgot inflation. What’s the scoop, Penguin?”
“The same old same old. What about you? Are you getting any?”
Lloyd feigned shock. “Penny Hopkins, I’m surprised at you!”
“No, you’re not. You told me I was jaded in my crib. You didn’t answer my question, Daddy.”
“Very well, in answer to your question, I am not getting any.”
Penny’s giggle went up an octave. “Good. Mom read me that first letter of yours, you know. We were talking about it the other night. She said it was excessive, that you were excessive, and even when you were admitting to be being a sleazy womanizer your admissions were excessive. But I could tell she was impressed.”
“I’m glad. Is Roger still staying with you?”
“Yes. Mom sleeps with Roger, but she talks about you. One of these nights I’m going to get her stoned and get her to admit you’re her main love. I’ll report her words to you verbatim.”
Lloyd felt a little piece of his heart work itself loose and drift up to San Francisco. “I want all of you back, Penguin.”
“I know. I want to come back, and so does Anne. That’s two votes for you. Mom and Caroline want to stay in Frisco. Dead heat.”
“Annie and Caroline are okay?”
“Anne is big into vegetarianism and Eastern thought and Caroline is in love with this punk rock fool next door. He’s a high school dropout. Gross.”
Lloyd laughed. “Par for the teen age course. Let me hit you with something. Doctor John the Night Tripper. Ring any bells?”
“Ancient ones, Daddy. The ‘sixties. He was this wild rock and roller. Caroline has one of his records—‘Bad Boogaloo.’”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“A case I’m on. Dutch is on it, too. It’s probably nothing.”
Penny’s voice went low and shrewd. “Daddy, when are you going to tell me about what happened right after the breakup? I’m no dummy, I know you were shot. Uncle Dutch practically admitted it to Mom.
Lloyd sighed as their conversation came to its usual conclusion. “Give it another couple of years, babe. When you’re a world-weary fifteen I’ll spill my guts. Right now all it means is that I owe a lot of people.”
“Owe what, Daddy?”
“I don’t know, babe. That’s the tricky part.”
“Will you tell me when you figure it out?”
“You’ll be the first to know. I love you, Penny.”
“I love you, too.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“So do I. Love love love.”
“Likewise.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
With “Owe what, Daddy?” trailing in his mind, Lloyd drove downtown to Parker Center. His memo to the Chief of Detectives rested like a hot coal in his jacket pocket. Deciding to check his incoming basket before dropping it with the Chief’s secretary, he took the elevator to the sixth floor and strode down the hall to his cubicle, seeing the note affixed to his door immediately: “Hopkins—call Det. Dentinger, B.H.P.D., re: gun query.”
Lloyd grabbed his phone and dialed the seven familiar digits of the Beverly Hills Police Department, saying, “Detective Dentinger,” when the switchboard operator came on the line. There was the sound of the call being transferred, then a man’s perfunctory voice: “Dentinger. Talk.”
Lloyd was brusque. “Detective Sergeant Hopkins, L.A.P.D. What have you got on my gun query?”
Dentinger muttered “shit” to himself, then said into the mouthpiece, “We got a burglary from two weeks ago. Unsolved, no prints. A forty-one-caliber revolver was listed on the report of missing items. The reason you didn’t get a quicker response on this is because the burglary dicks who originally investigated think that the report was padded, you know, for insurance purposes. A bunch of shit was reported stolen, but the burglar’s access was this little basement window. He couldn’t have hauled all the shit out—it wouldn’t have fit. I’ve been assigned to investigate the deal, see if we should file on this joker for submitting a false crime report. I’ll give you the sp—”
Lloyd cut in. “Do you think there was a burglary?”
Dentinger sighed. “I’ll give you my scenario. Yes, there was a burglary. Small items were stolen, like the jewelry on the report, the gun, and probably some shit the victim didn’t report, like cocaine—I’ve got him figured for a stone snowbird, really whacked out. You know the clincher? The guy owns two of these antique guns, mounted in presentation cases, with original ammo from the Civil War, but he only reports one stolen. I don’t doubt that the fucker was stolen, but any intelligent insurance padder would stash the other gun and report it stolen too, am I right?”
Lloyd said, “Right. Give me the information on the victim.”
“Okay,” Dentinger said. “Morris Epstein, age forty-four, eight-one-six-seven Elevado. He calls himself a literary agent, but he’s got that Hollywood big bucks fly-by-night-look. You know, live high on credit and bullshit, never know where your next buck is coming from. Per
sonally, I think these—”
Lloyd didn’t wait for Dentinger to finish his spiel. He hung up the phone and ran for the elevator.
8167 Elevado was a salmon pink Spanish-style house in the Beverly Hills residential district. Lloyd sat in his car at the curb and saw Dentinger’s “big bucks fly-by-night” label confirmed: The lawn needed mowing, the hedges needed trimming, and the chocolate brown Mercedes in the driveway needed a bath.
He walked up and knocked on the door. Moments later a small middle-aged man with finely sculpted salt-and-pepper hair threw the door open. When he saw Lloyd, he reached for the zipper at the front of his jumpsuit and zipped up his chest. “You’re not from Roll Your Own Productions, are you?” he asked.
Lloyd flashed his badge and I.D. card. “I’m from the L.A.P.D. Are you Morris Epstein?”
The man shuffled back into his entrance foyer. Lloyd followed him. “Isn’t this out of your jurisdiction?” the man said.
Lloyd closed the door behind them. “I’ll make it easy on you, Epstein. I have reason to believe that the forty-one revolver you reported stolen might have been used in a triple homicide. I want to borrow your other forty-one for comparison tests. Cooperate, and I’ll tell the Beverly Hills cops that your insurance report was exaggerated, not padded. You dig?”
Morris Epstein went livid. Spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. He flung an angry arm in the direction of the door and hissed, “Leave this house before I have you sued for police harassment. I have friends in the A.C.L.U. They’ll fix your wagon for real, flatfoot.”
Lloyd pushed past Epstein’s arm into an art-deco living room festooned with framed movie posters and outsized gilt-edged mirrors. A glass coffee table held a single-edged razor blade and traces of white powder. There was a large cabinet against the wall by the fireplace. Lloyd opened and shut drawers until he found the glassine bag filled with powder. He turned to see Epstein standing beside him with the telephone in his hand. When he held the bag in front of Epstein’s eyes, the little man said, “You can’t bluff me. This is illegal search and seizure. I’m personal friends with Jerry Brown. I’ve got clout. One phone call and you are adios, motherfucker.”
