BLOOD ON THE MOON
195
in tight with Craigie. Robbery/Homicide downtown is handling the Pratt case, which leaves you guys the job of rousting every pervert, burglar, dope addict, and all-purpose scumbag known to use violence in the Hollywood area. Utilize your snitches, your parolee files, your brains, and the feedback of the guys from patrol. Use whatever force you deem necessary.”
The men got up and headed for the door. Noticing Dutch, Perkins called out, “Hey skipper, where the fuck is Lloyd Hopkins now that we really need him?”
*
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*
Kathleen pulled up in front of the red brick building on Alvarado. She noticed a “Closed Due to Illness” sign on the front door and peered through the plate-glass window. Seeing nothing but shadow-covered countertops and stacks of boxes, she walked to the parking lot, immediately spotting a long yellow van with a license plate reading “P-O-E-T.” She had her hand on the rear-door latch when darkness reached out and smothered her.
*
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*
Lloyd waited for darkness in the park-playground a half mile below the Silverlake Power Plant. His car was hidden from street view behind the maintenance shed, the 30.06 and .44 magnum in the trunk, loaded and waiting. Sitting on a child’s swing that shuddered under his weight, he compiled a list of the people he loved. His mother and Janice and Dutch headed the list, followed by his daughters and the many women who had brought him joy and laughter. Casting out hooks of memory to sustain the loving moments, he reeled in fellow cops and engaging criminals and even passersby he had glimpsed on the street. The more obscure the people became, the deeper the feeling of love touched him, and when twilight came and went Lloyd knew that if he died at midnight he would somehow live on in the vestiges of innocence that he saved from Teddy Verplanck.
*
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Kathleen came out of the darkness with her eyes open, chemical stench and a glaze of tears her prelude to vision. She tried to blink to adjust her focus, but her eyelids wouldn’t move. When squinting with all her might brought nothing but a flood of burning teardrops, she opened her mouth to scream. Some unseen closure rendered her mute, and she twisted her arms and kicked out with her legs, gouging the air for sound. Her arms remained fixed while her feet scraped an invisible surface, and as she flailed and heaved with every inch of her sense-blunted body she heard “sssh, sssh,”
196
L.A. NOIR
and then there was a soft blackness daubing at her eyes, followed by bright light. I am not blind and deaf, but I am dead, she thought. Kathleen’s vision centered in on a low wooden table. When squinting brought her greater clarity she saw that it was only a few feet in front of her. As if in answer, the table, with a scraping sound, moved up to where she could touch it. She twisted her arms again, pain cutting through her numbness. I am dead, but I am not cut in pieces. Willing all her senses into her eyes, Kathleen stared at the table. Gradually a room came into view behind it, and then the soft blackness was on and off her like the clicking of a camera shutter, and when the light returned the table was in her face, covered with naked plastic dolls with pins stuck into their crotches and huge heads made out of black-and-white photographs. I am in hell and these are my fellow exiles. Sensing familiarity in the photograph heads, Kathleen forced her mind to function. I am dead, but I can think. She knew that the heads were somehow of her, somehow close to her, somehow—
Kathleen’s senses snapped. Her arms contracted and her legs jerked upward, sending her chair to the floor. I am alive and those are the girls from my court and the policeman was right and Teddy from high school is going to kill me. Invisible hands picked up the chair and turned it around. Kathleen squirmed and dug her heels into a soft white carpet. My eyelids are forced open and my mouth is taped shut, but I am alive. Kathleen rolled her eyes to the far edges of the periphery, memorizing the wall in front of her in hopes of combining sight and thought into something more. When she assimilated all that she saw she began to sob, and tears once again turned her blind. Blood, rose branches, desecrated photographs and excrement. The stench assaulted her. I am going to die. There was a whirring sound. Kathleen followed it with her mind and what remained of her vision. She saw a tape recorder on a nightstand. She tried to scream, and felt the tape across her mouth begin to give. If I can scream, I—
A soft sighing came over the tape machine. Kathleen breathed in through her nose and blew out with all her strength. The tape strained against her mouth and came loose along her lower lip. The soft sighing became a soft singsong voice:
“I am only worthy to love you in verse,
To spread my love on the wings of a curse;