BLOOD ON THE MOON

91

I read your words,

hell bound;

Sorrowed to the

core by the dirt

you found—

You grieved me more

Than all the rest—

You were the smartest,

The kindest, the worst

and best—

And I faltered at the

moment I put you

to rest.

Tribute in anonymous

transit,

Live life enclosed

in a cancer

cell,

Only the love in my

knife grants it;

Reprieve from the gates

of this blood-drenched

hell.

Lloyd read the poem three more times, memorizing it, letting the permutations of the words enter him and regulate his heartbeat and the flow of his blood and the thrust of his brainwaves. He walked over and sought his image in the mirror that completely covered the back wall. He couldn’t decide if he was an Irish Protestant knight or a gargoyle, and he didn’t care; he had been placed in the vortex of divinely evil compulsions and he knew, at long last, precisely why he had been granted genius.

As the poem engulfed him further it began to assume musical dimensions, cadences of the corny signature tunes of all the old TV programs that Tom had made him . . .

The cadences grew, and “Live life enclosed in a cancer cell” became an improvisation on the big band theme song of Texaco Star Theatre, and suddenly Milton Berle was there next to him, rotating a cigar against his wood-92

L.A. NOIR

chuck teeth. Lloyd screamed and fell to his knees, his hands cupped to his ears.

There was a screeching, and the music stopped. Lloyd tightened his grip on his ears. “Tell me a story rabbit down the hole,” he whimpered beatifically until he heard the crackle of static coming from a large speaker mounted on the bedroom wall. His dry sobs trailed into relieved laughter. It was the radio.

Rational thoughts of combat entered Lloyd’s mind. He could trash the central source of the music by yanking a few wires and twisting a few dials; let the revelers fuck sans accompaniment, the whole scene was illegal anyway. Carefully placing the poem back in its envelope and securing it in his pocket, Lloyd walked downstairs, his hands clamped against his sides, twisted into his pants legs. He ignored the couples who were fornicating in standing positions in bedroom doorways and concentrated on the shimmering crimson lights that bathed the hallway. The lights were the reality, the benign antithesis of the music, and if he could let them guide him to the stereo system, he would be safe.

The first floor was a massive swirl of nude bodies moving with the music, heeding and heedless of the beat, rhythmic and abandoned limbs flung wildly into the air, brushing flesh, lingering in the briefest of caresses before being yanked back in seizure-like movements. Lloyd threaded his way through the swirl, feeling arms and hands twist and prod and pluck at him. He saw the stereo system at the opposite end of the living room, Joanie Pratt standing beside it, scrutinizing a stack of record albums. Fully clothed, she looked like a fixed beacon light in a world of insane noise.

“Joanie!”

The alarm in his own voice startled him, jolting him away from the music, into bodies that retreated as he cut a path through them. He crashed through the kitchen, down strobe-lighted hallways and out into a pitch black yard that was enveloped by shuddering silence. Falling to his knees, he let the silent night air and the scent of eucalyptus embrace him.

“Sarge?”

Joanie Pratt knelt by his side. She stroked his back and said, “Jesus, are you okay? The look on your face on that dance floor . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.” Lloyd forced himself to laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I can’t stand loud noise or music. It’s old stuff.” Joanie pointed a finger at her head and twirled it. “You’ve got a few loose up there. You know that?”