by Michael Nava
This was one Victorian whose rooms fulfilled the promise of its beautifully restored facade. Our walls were papered in deep green with marbled swirls of pink and blue, as if abstracted from a peacock’s feathers. The period furniture was comfortably arranged around the oval of the room. High above us in the dusky region of the ceiling, embossed brass caught the glint of the fire and lamplight. Our window looked out upon downtown’s brilliant spires and a distant prospect of the Golden Gate.
From the bathroom Josh said, “Henry, look at this bathtub.”
I went in. The big porcelain tub was supported by clawed feet. The faucet, set into the wall, was a golden lion’s head.
“Let’s try it out,” I said, putting my hands on his shoulders as he knelt inspecting the lion.
He looked up, smiling a little lewdly, and nodded.
We lit the bathroom with candles ordered up from downstairs and stuck them in the sink, on the toilet, at the edges of the tub. Josh lay with his back against me, dividing the water with his fingers. I kissed his bare shoulder, lay my hands lightly on his groin and felt the jerky movements of his penis. From downstairs we heard singing.
“I guess we missed the carols,” I said later.
“And the eggnog.” He pressed more deeply against me. “Thank you, Henry.”
“The water’s getting cold,” I observed.
“Do we have to get out?” he asked.
“There’s still the bed,” I said.
“You’re right,” he replied, and pulled the plug to let the water drain.
While he was still in the bathroom, I pulled the package from beneath the bed and put it on the comforter. He emerged from the bathroom, drying himself, pushed his glasses up his nose and, with a half-smile, inspected the brightly wrapped box.
“More?” he asked.
“One more,” I replied, sitting in a wing chair, drawing my robe around me. “Open it.”
He tore into the package. “That’s why you went back into the store,” he said, holding up the leather jacket that I had most admired him in. “It’s beautiful, but Henry, it cost so much.”
“Indulge me.”
He slipped the jacket on. The deep brown caught the fading firelight and shone against his skin. But I wasn’t really looking at the coat.
“It looks great on you.” I said. My voice sounded unfamiliar to me.
He took the jacket off and carefully laid it across a chair. “I have a present for you, too,” he said.
“What?”
He got his wallet out of his pants pocket and extracted a package from it. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
I took the package and laughed. It was a pack of condoms decorated with a picture of Santa Claus.
*****
I was awakened by the phone. I groped for it, picked up the receiver and mumbled a groggy hello.
It was Freeman Vidor. I listened to him for a few minutes, and then sat up in bed. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m sure. You better come down.”
Josh reached out and stroked my leg. “Henry, who is it?”
“Shh,” I said. “Not today, Freeman. Give me until tomorrow. Have you told Cresly?”
“I don’t know if he’d buy it,” Freeman replied.
“We need the cops,” I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “We’ll need all the help we can get.”
He spoke for another couple of minutes and then, wishing me a Merry Christmas, hung up.
Josh was wide awake. “What’s wrong? Is it Larry?”
“No,” I replied. “It’s about Jim. We have to get back to L.A.”
25
Although I could not see his face, I knew that the man coming out of the men’s room at the Texaco station had different color eyes than when he had gone in. In the front seat, Freeman nudged Cresly who was pressing the side of his face against the window, eyes closed. Sitting in the back, I watched Tom Zane get into his Fiat. A moment later, the Fiat’s headlights flashed on and he slipped into the traffic on Highland Boulevard, heading north. Freeman started his car and we got in behind Zane.
Freeman said something to Cresly that I missed.
Cresly replied, “Yeah, let’s bust him for using the toilet without buying gas.” He lit a thin brown cigarette and rolled down the window. “Ain’t this like old times,” he said to no one in particular.
“You and Freeman were partners?” I asked, as we squealed to a stop just below Sunset.
“That’s right,” he said, “and even then Vidor got these hunches and dragged my ass all over town. Right, Freeman?”
“Hey, you’re here, aren’t you,” Freeman replied, as we accelerated forward.
“Maybe,” he said, “depending on what happens. If nothing happens, I was never here. This isn’t police business yet.”
The night sky was a dull red and there wasn’t a flicker of natural light to be found in the heavens. Though New Year’s Eve was four nights away, it was warm and gritty. We turned east on Hollywood Boulevard, a couple of cars behind the Fiat which now turned onto a side street and into the parking lot for the
Chinese Theater. Freeman followed but went past the lot, pulled up to the curb and parked. A couple of minutes later, Zane emerged from the lot and walked back toward the boulevard.
“You’re sure he’ll be coming this way?” I asked.
Freeman said, “He did before.”
He switched on the radio to a classical music station. Cresly tossed his cigarette out the window and whistled beneath his breath. The dark, palm-lined street was deserted. The city looked like a gigantic backlot for Day of the Locusts. All that was needed was for someone to say “Action.”
Headlights appeared in the rear-view mirror as a car crossed Hollywood Boulevard. When it passed, I saw it was an Escort bearing the sticker of a car rental agency on its back window.
“That’s him,” Freeman said, cutting off the last movement of Brahms’s Third Symphony.
Cresly, who had been whistling the melody, sat up. “What are you waiting for?”
“This ain’t a parade, Phil,” Freeman replied.
Cresly spat out the window and muttered, “Feets don’t fail me now.”
When the Escort crossed the first intersection, Freeman started after it. At Santa Monica Boulevard, we turned right. Santa Monica was brightly lit and there was heavy traffic on the sidewalks, young men and boys standing on either side of the street, at bus stops and in doorways, watching the passing traffic. The Escort took a left at La Brea. Freeman let a couple of cars pass before he followed.
Our next turn was left onto Willoughby, a big street about four blocks south of Santa Monica. There were houses on the south side of Willoughby, but on the north side were the gloomy backs of industrial buildings.
“What’s in there?” I asked, pointing at them.
“Office buildings,” Freeman said. “Warehouses. Lots of dark places and no one around. That’s where Zane takes his pick-ups.”
“We’re in West Hollywood now,” Cresly said.
“This is a crazy place,” I replied. “One minute you’re in L.A. and then you cross the street and you’re in West Hollywood, but if you jog north you’re back in L.A.”
“L.A. surrounds West Hollywood,” Cresly said, “and it’s the sheriffs’ turf.”
At Highland, the Escort turned left, back up toward Santa Monica Boulevard, and, at Santa Monica, took another left back toward La Brea.
“He’s going in circles,” Cresly said.
“He’s cruising,” Freeman replied. He pulled off Santa Monica at Orange, the last cross-street before La Brea, and parked.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
“No point in getting him suspicious,” Freeman answered. “He’ll go around again, to get a good look at what’s available, then he’ll make his move.”
I looked out the window. Two boys in tank tops sat on the bottom step of the entrance to a bank. Their collective age didn’t add up to mine. One
of them looked back at me, then at Freeman and Cresly. He nudged the other kid. They talked, got up and started moving away.
I pointed them out to Cresly. “They must think we’re cops,” I said.
“Probably they just think we’re trouble,” he replied. “Shitty life they got.”
“Yeah,” I said. “If Zane’s been out here beating people up, wouldn’t word spread?”
Freeman glanced at me over his shoulder. “He uses a different car. And he knows how to disguise himself.”
“Anyway,” Cresly added, “these kids come in by the busload every day, it seems. There’s always some poor fucker willing to take a chance.”
“There he is,” Freeman said. I looked out the window to the other side of the street. The Escort was coming to a stop at the corner across from us. A dark-haired boy in tight jeans and a black jacket paced in front of a recording studio. He wasn’t wearing a shirt beneath the jacket and when the Escort stopped, he flexed his arms, exposing his torso. He was a nice-looking kid. His dark hair made me think of Josh.
The boy stuck his head into the window of the Escort. A minute later, he straightened himself, opened the door and got in. Zane signaled a right turn onto Orange. When he completed it, Freeman turned his key in the ignition. The engine whined, sputtered and died.
“Jumping Jesus,” Cresly said.
I looked across the street. The rear lights of the Escort were just visible as Zane signaled a left turn into the warehouse district. Freeman grunted and turned the key again. There was a low roar and then nothing. The third time he tried the key, all we heard was a click.
“You flooded the goddam thing,” Cresly snapped. He swung his head around to me. “Come on, Rios, let’s go.” He opened the door. “You,” he barked at Freeman, “try to get this coon-mobile working.”
“Fuck you,” Freeman shouted as we got out of the car. When there was a lull in the traffic we ran across the boulevard to the corner where Zane had picked up the hustler. We ran down Orange.
“He turned right at the first street,” I said. A yellow junkyard dog sprang out of the shadows from behind a wire fence and chased us, barking and snarling. We reached the intersection and stopped. The street was empty.
We were surrounded by low, dark buildings, fenced-in yards filled with machines, trucks, and stacks of wooden pallets, deserted parking lots and narrow alleys. Scattered streetlamps drizzled yellow light into the darkness. As we stood there, the loudest noise I heard was Cresly’s labored breathing. He was in pretty bad shape for a thin man.
“Let’s split up,” he sputtered, and started walking down the street we had come to. I started off in the opposite direction. I glanced at my watch. It was a little after midnight.
Ten minutes later I was walking through an alley, checking the dumpsters and piles of lumber for the kid’s body. Out of the darkness beside me, I heard a car start up. I looked toward the direction of the noise and saw a covered garage, open at either end, running the length of a brick building. At the far end of the garage the headlights of a car flashed on and it rolled toward me. I threw myself against the wall into the shadows and watched the car roar into the alley, skid a turn and race out. It was the Escort. There was one person in it. Zane.
When the Escort turned out of the alley I ran down the garage to where the car had been parked and found another dark street. Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned, my hands clenched into fists. It was Cresly.
“You hear a car?” he called, running toward me.
“Yeah, it was parked here.”
We stood on the spot and looked around. There was an ivy- covered wall in front of the photo processing lab across the street. The iron gate set into the wall was slightly ajar. I glanced over at Cresly. He was also staring at the gate.
“Over there,” he said in a soft voice.
We crossed the street to the gate and pushed it open. Between the wall and the building behind it, there was a grassy courtyard centered around an elm tree. A body lay beneath the tree, a male body, clad only in a black coat. As we approached him, a strong chemical odor drifted toward us. I had smelled the same odor, though fainter, in Tony Good’s bedroom. I’d been wrong. It wasn’t amyl nitrite.
“Smell that,” I said to Cresly.
“Yeah,” he replied, sniffing the air. “Ether.”
The boy lay on his stomach. Cresly extracted a pen light from his pocket and flashed it as we knelt down beside the kid. Blood and semen trickled from his anus down his thigh. Cresly pressed his thumb into the front of the boy’s neck.
“He’s alive,” he said, “just knocked out. Let’s turn him over.”
We rolled him over and Cresly focused the light on the boy’s face. Close up, he had a faint resemblance to Josh. His lips were bloody and a slight discoloration was beginning to show beneath his right eye. A shallow gash bisected his chest below his nipples. Cresly opened the boy’s jacket and with unexpected delicacy pressed his fingers along the boy’s sides.
“No broken bones,” he grunted and stood up. “Shit, what a mess.”
“We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” I said, also standing.
Cresly switched off the pen light.
“Did you hear me?” I said.
“Yeah, I heard.” Cresly looked around and walked away, returning with the boy’s pants and shoes. He set them on the grass beside the boy. “Help me get his pants on him.”
We struggled with the jeans until we got the boy dressed. Cresly unbuttoned the flannel shirt he was wearing, took it off, and told me to help him get the boy into it. When we finished, Cresly said, “If we go to a hospital I’ll have to flash my badge around to get him admitted.”
I looked at him, shivering in his undershirt. “So?”
“I want to know there’s been a crime before I do that.”
I stared at him, slack jawed. “Rape?” I suggested. “Battery? ADW?”
“The kid’s a whore.”
“Goddammit, are you telling me that this is just an occupational hazard?”
“I’m telling you,” he said, “that I’m not about to accuse the star of a fucking cop show of anything until I talk to the kid.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.
“You don’t have to like it,” Cresly said. “That’s the way it is.”
“You want to just leave him here, then?” I demanded.
Cresly shook his head. “Your buddy lives around here, doesn’t he?”
“Josh? Yeah “
“Let’s take the kid there. I’ll get a statement and then decide about a hospital”
“He needs a doctor now.”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of that.” He dusted off the knees of his trousers. “You stay here. I’ll go see if Vidor got that car started.” He started out the gate. “Trust me,” he said.
“Sure,” I muttered.
*****
The boy’s name was Robert and he claimed to be twenty, but I would have staked my bar card that he was no more than seventeen. We got him into bed at Josh’s apartment where he was examined by an unshaved and slightly inebriated coroner — the only medical type to whom Cresly had ready access — who pronounced him alive and, except for superficial wounds and bruises, in good shape.
Robert said that after Zane picked him up “we drove around and smoked some grass. Then he parked and started getting all lovey, you know. Deep-kiss, that shit. I didn’t go for that ‘cause I’m not a queer but he said it was his money, so...” He sipped some water. “Then he goes, there’s a place around here where we can go. We went to that place where you found me. He tells me to take down my pants ‘cause he wants to suck me off. But he wants them all the way off. I’m getting kinda nervous ‘cause this guy’s way too good-looking to be a trick. I’m thinking he’s a cop or something so I tell him, let’s just forget it, man. Then he punches me, real hard, and knocks me on my ass. Next thing I know he’s sitting on top of me with this switchblade, big mother, too.”
&nbs
p; Robert’s hands trembled as he lifted the water glass to his lips and then set the glass down again. “He goes, shut your fucking mouth or I’ll kill you Sure, I go, just don’t hurt me. Then he cuts me here,” the boy touched the scar across his chest. “He says, take off your pants. I take them off, still lying there on the ground. Then he goes, turn over. The next thing I know he’s fucking me, not using any lube or nothin’, just sticking it in. Jesus, that hurt, but if I scream or something he stops and pushes the knife into my neck, so I just bite my lip.” The boy bit his bruised lips, flinched, and then continued. “He’s really hurting me. It’s like he’s just fucking me to hurt me, not to get off or anything. I guess he came or something ‘cause he was lying there on top of me. Then he starts saying these crazy things like, I’m going to cut off your balls, and, I’m going to shove this knife up your ass. Shit like that. But it sounds like he’s gonna do it, really. So I start crying.” Robert stopped and looked at us. “He turned me over, still sitting on me and he’s got the knife and I’m telling him, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.”
I heard Josh’s quick breathing beside me. “He reaches into his pockets and pulls out this smelly rag. Next thing, he shoves it on my face and it’s all wet and cold and then...” He broke off and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I woke up in your car.”
The boy lay his head back into the pillows. “I’m real tired,” he said. “Are you guys the cops?”
Cresly nodded. A few minutes later, Robert was asleep.
26
We were at the kitchen table. Cresly and Freeman were deep into a six-pack of Bud while I drank coffee. Josh sat with his back against the wall, quietly watching us. The little apartment was still except for the ticking of the clock above the stove and, from the bedroom, the faint, ragged noise of Robert’s breathing.
Cresly said, “If the kid sticks to his story, we got an ADW.” He rubbed his icy eyes. “You tell me how we turn that into Tony Good’s murder.”
