BLOOD ON THE MOON

155

He walked to the balcony and looked out at the silent jetstream of cars on the Sunset Strip. He wondered briefly where all the people were going, then walked back to his twenty-third beloved and picked up her severed arms and legs. He carried them to the edge of the balcony and flung them to the world, watching as they disappeared, weighted down with his power. Now only the head and torso remained. He let the torso lie and wrapped the head in newspaper and placed it in the supermarket bag. Sighing, he walked out the door of the apartment and through the silent security building and into the street. At curbside he slid out Peggy Morton’s dress and removed her wig and straw hat and dumped them in the gutter, knowing that he had met the equivalent of all of mankind’s wars and had emerged the victor.

He took his trophy out of the shopping bag and walked along the sidewalk. At the corner he saw a beautiful, pristine white Cadillac. He placed Peggy Morton’s head on the hood. It was a declaration of war. Warrior slogans passed through his mind. “To the victor belong the spoils” caught and stuck. He got his car and went looking for spartan revelry. Benevolent voices propelled him down Santa Monica Boulevard. He drove slowly in the right lane, the tight rubber gloves numbing his hands on the wheel. There was little traffic, so the absence of street noise left him free to listen; to hear the thoughts of the young men lounging against stop signs and bus benches. Keeping eye contact was hard, and it would be even harder to make up his mind based on looks alone, so he stared straight ahead, throwing his encounter open to the voice of fate. Near Plummer Park, crude hustler catcalls and importunings assailed him. He kept going; better nothing than someone nasty. He crossed Fairfax, moving out of Boy’s Town, frightened and relieved that his gauntlet was ending. Then he hit the red light at Crescent Heights and voices came down on him like shrapnel: “Good weed, Birdy. You carry dime bags for your johns and you’ll clean up.”

“I already cleaned up, what do you think I am, a fucking janitor?”

“It might not be a bad idea, beauty. Janitors get social security, jockers get the clap.”

All three voices dissolved into laughter. He looked over. Two young blondes and the lackey. He gripped the wheel so hard that his numb hands came to life and twisted in spastic tremors, hitting the horn by accident. The voices stopped at the noise. He could feel their gazes zeroing in. The light turned green, the color reminding him of tape slithering through 156

L.A. NOIR

bloody apertures. He stood his ground; to run now would be cowardice. Cancer cells started to crawl over his windshield, and then a soft voice was at his passenger window.

“You looking for company?”

It was the lackey. Staring at the green light, he ran through a mental litany of his twenty-three beloveds. Their images calmed him; they wanted him to do it.

“I said, ‘You want some company?’ ”

He nodded in return. The cancer cells vanished at the act of courage. He forced himself to look over and open the door and smile. The lackey smiled back, no recognition in his eyes. “The silent type, huh? Go ahead, stare. I know I’m gorgeous. I’ve got a pad down near La Cienega. Five minutes and Larry the Bird flies you straight to heaven.”

The five minutes stretched into twenty-three eternities; twenty-three female voices saying “Yes.” He nodded each time and felt himself go warm all over.

They pulled into the motel parking lot, Larry leading the way up to his room and closing the door behind them, whispering, “It’s fifty. In advance.”

The poet reached into his jumpsuit and extracted two twenties and a ten. He handed them to Larry, who put them in a cigar box on the nightstand and said, “What’ll it be?”

“Greek,” the man said.

Larry laughed. “You’ll love it, doll. You ain’t been fucked till you been fucked by Larry the Bird.”

The man shook his head. “No. You’ve got it mixed up. I want to fuck you.”

Larry breathed out angrily. “Buddy, you got it all wrong. I don’t take it up the ass, I give it up the ass. I been rippin’ off butthole since high school. I’m Larry Bir—”

The first shot caught Larry in the groin. He crashed into the dresser, then slid to the floor. The man stood over him and sang, “On, o’ noble Marshall, roll right down that field; with your banner flying o’er us, we will never yield.” Larry’s eyes came alive. He opened his mouth, and the man stuck the silencer-fitted barrel into it and squeezed off six shots. The back of Larry’s head and the dresser behind it exploded. He removed the spent clip and reloaded, then rolled the dead hustler onto his back and pulled off his pants and jockey shorts. He spread Larry’s legs and wedged the gun barrel into his rectum and pulled the trigger seven times. The last two shots ricocheted off