BLOOD ON THE MOON

107

within the L.A.P.D. or other department that lend credence to your mass murder theory?”

“No,” Lloyd said.

“How many of these sixteen investigations are still open?”

“None.”

“Are there any other officers within the L.A.P.D. who corroborate your hypothesis?”

“No.”

“Other departments?”

“No.”

Gaffaney slammed his desk top with two flattened palms, then fingered his lapel pin. “No. I won’t trust you on this. It’s too old, too vague, too costly, and too potentially embarrassing to the department. I trust you as a troubleshooter, as a very fine detective with a superb record—”

“With the best fucking arrest record in the department!” Lloyd shouted. Gaffaney shouted back, “I trust your record, but I don’t trust you! You’re a showboat glory-hound womanizer, and you’ve got a wild hair up your ass about murdered women!” Lowering his voice, he added, “If you really care about God, ask him for help with your personal life. God will answer your prayers, and you won’t be so disturbed by things out of your control. Look at how you’re shaking. Forget this thing, Hopkins. Spend some time with your family; I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”

Lloyd got to his feet, trembling, and walked to the door. His peripheral vision throbbed with red. He turned to look at Gaffaney, who smiled and said, “If you go to the media, I’ll crucify you. I’ll have you back in uniform rousting piss bums on skid row.”

Lloyd smiled back and felt a strangely serene bravado course through him. “I’m going to get this animal, and I’m going to stick your words up your ass,” he said.

Lloyd packed the sixteen homicide files into the trunk of his car and drove to the Hollywood Station, hoping to catch Dutch Peltz before he went off duty. He was in luck; Dutch was changing back into civilian clothes in the senior officers’ locker room, knotting his necktie and staring at himself abstractedly in a full-length wall mirror. Lloyd walked over, clearing his throat. Without taking his eyes from the mirror, Dutch said, “Fred Gaffaney called me. He told me that he figured you’d be coming my way. I saved your ass; he was going to blow the whistle on you to one of his born-again high brass buddies, but I told him not to. 108

L.A. NOIR

He owes me favors, so he agreed. You’re a sergeant, Lloyd. That means you can only act like an asshole with sergeants and below. Lieutenants and up are verboten. Comprende, brain-boy?”

Dutch turned around, and Lloyd saw that his abstracted look was glazed over with fear. “Did Gaffaney tell you all of it?” Lloyd asked. Dutch nodded. “How sure are you?”

“All the way.”

“Sixteen women?”

“At least that many.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Flush him out, somehow. Probably by myself. The department will never authorize an investigation; it makes them look too inept. I was stupid to go to Gaffaney in the first place. If I go over his head and make a stink, I’ll get yanked off the Niemeyer case and detached to some bumfuck robbery assignment. You know what this feels like, Dutchman?”

Dutch looked up at his huge genius-mentor, then turned away when he felt tears of pride welling in his eyes. “No, Lloyd.”

“It feels like I was made for this one,” Lloyd said, keeping eye contact with his own mirror image. “That I won’t know what I am or what I can be until I get this bastard and find out why he’s destroyed so much innocence.”

Dutch put a hand on Lloyd’s arm. “I’ll help you,” he said. “I can’t give you any officers, but I’ll help you myself, we can . . .” Dutch stopped when he saw that Lloyd wasn’t listening; that he was transfixed by the light in his own eyes or some distant vision of redemption.

Dutch withdrew his hand. Lloyd stirred, jerked his gaze from the mirror and said, “When I had two years on the job, I got assigned to the junior high school lecture circuit. Telling the kids picaresque cop stories and warning them about dope and accepting rides from strangers. I loved the assignment, because I love children. One day a teacher told me about a seventh grade girl—she was twelve—who used to give blow jobs for a pack of cigarettes. The teacher asked me if I’d talk to her.

“I looked her up one day after school. She was a pretty little girl. Blonde. She had a black eye. I asked her how she got it. She wouldn’t tell me. I checked out her home situation. It was typical—alcoholic mother on welfare, father doing three-to-five at Quentin. No money, no hope, no chance. But the little girl liked to read. I took her down to a bookstore on Sixth and Western and introduced her to the owner. I gave the owner a hundred bucks and told him that the little girl had that much credit there. I did the