SUICIDE HILL

477

specific charge or charges will have to do with a recent perjury I committed at a murder trial arraignment. I—”

Brewer jabbed the air with his pipe stem. “Why did you commit perjury?

Is this a common practice of yours?”

“I lied to protect a woman innocently involved in the case,” Lloyd said softy, “and I’ve lied previously only to circumvent probable-cause statutes in regard to hard felonies.”

“I see. By any chance were you intimately involved with this woman?”

Lloyd grasped the arms of his chair. “That’s none of your business, Counselor. Next question.”

“Very well. Let’s backtrack. Tell me about your career with the L.A.P.D.”

Lloyd said, “Nineteen years on the Job, fourteen as a detective-sergeant, eleven in Robbery/Homicide Division. I’ve got a master’s in criminology from Stanford, I’m considered the best homicide detective in the Department, I’ve earned more commendations than I can count, I’ve successfully investigated a number of highly publicized murder cases. My arrest record is legendary.”

Brewer lit his pipe, then blew smoke at the ceiling. “Impressive, but what’s more impressive is that someone with such an outstanding record should have incurred such departmental disfavor. I should think that one perjury slipup wouldn’t have been sufficient to jeopardize your career. I know the L.A.P.D. looks after their own.”

“There’s other stuff. Minor fuckups over the years. The high brass sent me to a shrink. I shot my mouth off about things I shouldn’t have.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to get rid of it! Because I never thought they’d try to do this to me!”

“Please calm down, Sergeant. There are ways to get around one psychiatrist’s report, usually by mitigating it with the report of a different analyst, one with a superior reputation.”

Lloyd gripped the sides of the desk until he felt his hands go numb.

“Counselor, this isn’t a trial in a court of law, this is a kangaroo cop trial, and academic credentials don’t mean shit. Saving my job is a long shot from the gate, and making a department employee look bad would only make the odds worse.”

Brewer slid back in his chair and stared past Lloyd at the far wall.

“Well . . . there are other approaches. You have a family?”

“Wife and three daughters. I’m separated from them.”

“But you remain cordial?”

478

L.A. NOIR

“Yes.” Lloyd stared at the attorney, who kept his eyes fixed on a point just above his head and said, “Then we can exploit them as character witnesses, gain sympathy for you that way. You yourself present an interesting picture, one that can be used to advantage. Are you aware that your clothes don’t fit? They’re at least two sizes too large. We can portray you in court as a victim of your own conscientiousness, a man driven to radical weight loss by overzealous dedication to duty! If you were to lose even more weight, that sympathy factor would be increased. With proper coaching your daughters would elicit the mo—”

“Look at me,” Lloyd hissed, holding down a picture of his hands around Brewer’s throat, squeezing until the lawyer’s averted eyes popped out of his skull. “Look at me, you cocksucker.”

Brewer closed his eyes. “Control your language, Sergeant. I want you to get used to wearing a penitent expression, one that wi—”

Lloyd stepped around the desk, grabbed Brewer by the arms and shoved him into a glass bookcase. The glass shattered; law texts spilled to the floor. Lloyd took hold of Brewer’s neck with his left hand, and balled his right hand into a fist and aimed it at the lawyer’s squeezed-shut eyes. Then he heard a scream, and his peripheral vision caught the receptionist with her hands clasped over her mouth. He pulled the punch at the last second, sending his fist through an unbroken pane of glass. Shoving Brewer aside, Lloyd held his bloody hand in front of him. “I . . . I’m sorry, goddamn you . . . I’m sorry.”

6

Duane Rice looked at Bobby “Boogaloo” Garcia and knew two things: that, ex-welterweight or not, he could take him out easy; and that the little taco bender was incorrigibly mean. After a jailhouse handshake, Rice looked around his living room, saw quality stuff and pegged him as a nondoper who gangsterized because he was too lazy to work and in love with the game. Thinking, so far so good, he threw out a line to test his smarts: “I think I saw you fight once. You knocked Little Red Lopez through the ropes at the Olympic about ten, twelve years ago.”