BLOOD ON THE MOON

21

The older of the two cops nodded, then pointed south and said, “You guys with that artillery down near 102nd? The heavy-duty coon hunting?”

Lloyd and Beller looked at each other. Beller licked his lips to try to keep from laughing. “Yes,” they said in unison.

“Then get in the car. You ain’t lost no more.”

As they highballed it southbound without lights or siren, Lloyd told the cops he was flagged for the October class at the academy and that he wanted the riot to be his solo training ground. The younger cop whooped and said, “Then this riot is a preordained training ground for you. How tall are you, six-four? Six-five? With your size, you’re gonna get sent straight to 77th Street Division, Watts, these selfsame fucking streets we’re cruising right now. After the smoke clears and the fucking liberals run off at the mouth about the niggers being victims of poverty, there’s gonna be the job of maintaining order over some very agitated bad-ass niggers who’ve had a distinct taste of blood. What’s your name, kid?”

“Hopkins.”

“You ever kill anyone, Hopkins?”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir.’ You ain’t a cop yet, and I’m a plain old patrolman. Well, I killed lots of guys in Korea. Lots and lots, and it changed me. Things look different now. Real different. I’ve talked about it to other guys who’ve lost their cherry, and we all agree: You appreciate different things. You see innocent people, like little kids, and you want them to stay that way because you got no innocence yourself. Little things like little kids and their toys and pets get to you, ’cause you know they’re heading straight into this big fucking shitstorm and you don’t want them to. Then you see people who got no regard for gentle things, for decent things, and you gotta come down hard on them. You gotta protect what two cents’ worth of innocence there is in the world. That’s why I’m a cop. You look cherry to me, Hopkins. You look eager, too. You understand what I’m saying?”

Lloyd nodded, tingling with a pins and needles sensation. He smelled smoke through the open patrol car window, and the feeling began to numb as he realized the cop was talking instinctively about Lloyd’s Irish Protestant ethos. “I understand exactly what you’re saying,” he said.

“Good, kid. Then it starts tonight. Pull over, partner.”

The older cop braked and drew up to the curb.

“It’s all yours, kid,” the younger cop said, reaching over and banging 22

L.A. NOIR

Lloyd’s helmet. “We’ll take your buddy back to your outfit. You see if you can stir up anything on your own.”

Lloyd tumbled out of the patrol car so fast that he never got to thank his mentor. They hit the siren by way of farewell.

102nd and Central was a chaos of smoldering ruins, the hiss of fire hoses, the squeal of tires on the now wet pavement, all modulated by police helicopters that hovered overhead, casting broad searchlights into storefronts to give the firemen light to work by.

Lloyd walked into the maelstrom, grinning broadly, still suffused with the eloquent recapitulation of his philosophy. He watched an armored halftrack move slowly down the street, a fifty caliber machine gun mounted in its bed. A guardsman in the cab barked into a powerful bullhorn: “Curfew in five minutes! This area is under martial law! Anyone found on the streets after nine o’clock will be arrested. Anyone attempting to cross official police barriers will be shot. Repeat, curfew in five minutes!”

The words, clearly enunciated with force and malice, echoed loudly down the street, resulting in a flurry of activity. Within seconds Lloyd saw dozens of young men dart from burned-out buildings, running full speed in any direction not caught by the searchlights. He rubbed his eyes and squinted to see if the men were carrying pilfered merchandise, only to discover they had disappeared before he could yell out or train his M-14 on them. Lloyd shook his head and walked past a group of firemen milling around in front of a ravaged liquor store. They all noticed him, but no one seemed puzzled by the anomaly of a lone guardsman on foot patrol. Emboldened, Lloyd decided to check out life indoors.

He liked it. The darkness inside the burned-out store was soothing and Lloyd sensed that the shadow-shrouded silence was there to inform him with essential knowledge. He stopped and took a roll of friction tape from his fatigue jacket pocket and fixed his flashlight to the bottom edge of his bayonet. He swung his rifle in a figure eight arc and admired the results: wherever the M-14 pointed, there would be light.

Mounds of charred wood; piles of insulation stuffing; crushed booze bottles. Used condoms everywhere. Lloyd chuckled at the thought of subterranean liquor store coupling, then felt himself go dead cold as his chuckle was returned, followed by a hideous low moan.

He moved his M-14 around in a three hundred sixty degree arc, the muzzle at waist level. Once, then twice. On the third time around he was rewarded: an old man lay crumpled atop a mound of wadded up insulation