BLOOD ON THE MOON

159

blown to hell with a .32 automatic. Identical spent casings at both scenes. The woman was dismembered, probably with a saw. Her arms and legs were found in the swimming pool of the adjoining apartment building. Her head was wrapped up in a newspaper and placed on the hood of a car directly outside her apartment house. A nice girl, twenty-eight years old. The second victim was a fruit hustler. Worked out of a motel a few blocks from here. The killer stuck the .32 in his mouth and up his ass and blew him to shit. The night manager, who lives directly below, didn’t hear a thing. She called us when blood started dripping down through her ceiling.”

Lloyd, stunned beyond thought at the news of the male victim, watched Magruder reach into his desk drawer and pull out a fifth of bourbon. He poured a large shot into a coffee cup and downed it in one gulp.

“Jesus, Hopkins,” he said. “Holy Jesus Christ.”

Lloyd declined the bottle. “Where were the prints found?” he asked.

“The fruit hustler’s motel room,” Magruder said. “On the telephone and the nightstand and next to some writing in blood on the walls.”

“No sexual assault?”

“No way to tell. The guy’s rectum was obliterated. The M.E. told me he’d never seen—”

Lloyd raised a hand in interruption. “Do the papers know about it yet?”

“I think so . . . but we haven’t released any information. What have you got on the Niemeyer killing? Any leads you can give my men?”

“I’ve got nothing!” Lloyd screamed. Lowering his voice, he said, “Tell me about the fruit hustler.”

“His name was Lawrence Craigie, a.k.a. Larry “The Bird,” a.k.a. “Birdman.” Middle thirties, blonde, muscles. I think he used to hustle off the street down near Plummer Park.”

Lloyd’s mind exploded, then coalesced around an incredible series of connections: Craigie, the witness at the 6/10/80 suicide; the “Bird” in Whitey Haines’s bugged apartment. It all connected.

“You think?” Lloyd shouted. “What about his rap sheet?”

Magruder stammered, “We . . . We’ve run a make on him. All we got was unpaid traffic warrants. We—”

“And this guy was a known male prostitute? With no record at all?”

“Well . . . maybe he paid a lawyer to get his misdemeanors wiped.”

Lloyd shook his head. “What about your vice files? What do your vice officers say about him?”

Magruder poured himself another drink and knocked it back. “The Vice 160

L.A. NOIR

Squad doesn’t come on duty until nightwatch,” he said, “but I’ve already checked their files. There’s nothing on Craigie.”

Lloyd felt widening connections breathing down his neck. “The Tropicana Motel?” he asked.

“Yes.” Magruder said. “How did you know?”

“Body removed? Premises sealed?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going over. You’ve got officers stationed there?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Call the motel and tell them I’m coming.”

Lloyd stilled his mental tremors and ran out of Magruder’s office. He drove the three blocks to the Tropicana Motel, expecting rare glimpses of hell and his own destiny.

He found an upholstered slaughterhouse, reeking of blood and shattered flesh. The young deputy who guarded the door contributed gory details.

“You think this is bad, Sergeant? You shoulda been here earlier. The guy’s brains were all over that dresser over there. The coroner had to scoop them into a plastic bag. They couldn’t even mark the outline of the stiff with chalk, they had to use tape. Jesus.”

Lloyd walked over to the dresser. The light blue carpet next to it was still sopping wet with blood. In the middle of the dark red expanse was the metallic tape outline of a spread-eagled dead man. He ran his eyes over the rest of the room: a large bed with purple velour coverlet, muscle boy statuettes, a cardboard box filled with chains, whips, and dildos. Surveying the room again, Lloyd noticed that a large part of the wall above the bed had been covered with brown wrapping paper. He called to the deputy, “What’s with this paper on the wall?”

The deputy said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. There’s some writing underneath. In blood. The dicks covered it up so the TV and newspaper guys wouldn’t see it. They think maybe it’s a clue.”

Lloyd grabbed a corner of the wrapping paper and pulled it free. “I Am Not Kathy’s Klown” stared down at him in bold, blood-formed letters. For one brief second, his computer jammed, whirled, and screeched. Then all the fuses blew out and the words blurred and metamorphosed into noise, followed by perfect silence.

Kathleen McCarthy and her court—“We had a following of equally bookish, lonely boys. Kathy’s Klowns they were called.” Dead women who