SUICIDE HILL

557

“Don’t act surprised,” Captain Fred Gaffaney said. “You know why I’m here.”

Lloyd reholstered his .38. “No, I don’t.”

“Address me as ‘sir.’ ”

Lloyd studied the witch-hunter. Gaffaney looked colder than his deep-freeze norm; drained of everything human. “What are you doing here, Captain?”

Gaffaney fingered his cross and flag lapel pin and said in the most emotionless voice Lloyd had ever heard, “My son, Officer Steven D. Gaffaney, was shot and killed in the line of duty this morning. He was twenty-two. I saw his body. I saw his brains all over the backseat of his patrol unit, and half of his scalp hanging off his head. I forced myself to look, so I wouldn’t back away from coming to you.”

Standing motionless in the doorway, Lloyd saw where Gaffaney was going. For a microsecond, it seemed like salvation, then he gasped against the thought and said, “I swear to you I’ll find them, and if it comes down to me or them, I’ll take them out. But you’re thinking execution, and I’m no killer.”

Gaffaney took a manila folder from his jacket pocket and laid it on the end table beside him. “Yes, you are. I know a great deal about you. In the summer of ’70, when you were on loan out to Venice Vice, you befriended a young rookie who had never been with a woman. One night you borrowed a drunk wagon from Central Division and rousted a half dozen Venice hookers and brought them to the rookie’s apartment. You made them a variety of offers: service the two of you, or suffer arrest for needle tracks, or outstanding warrants, or plain prostitution. They agreed to party, and you smoked marijuana with them, and fucked several of them, and the whores went away with a good deal of your money when you started feeling guilty. I have sworn depositions from three of those whores, Hopkins. I know you’re trying to reconcile with your family. Think of how they’ll feel when the Big Orange Insider runs the depositions on their front page.”

Feeling the old shame settle near his heart, Lloyd said, “I’ve made amends to my family, and that story is ancient history—just another cheap notch on my rep. It’s old stuff.”

Gaffaney tapped the folder, then tapped his lapel pin. “Here’s something you were probably too stoned to remember doing. After the whores left, you and that rookie had a long conversation about duty and courage. The young man doubted his own ability to kill in the line of duty, and you told him how in the Watts Riot you had killed an ‘evil’ fellow National Guardsman who had murdered a group of innocent blacks. I’ve checked your old unit’s 558

L.A. NOIR

records. Your squad leader, Staff Sergeant Richard Beller, was presumed to have been killed in the riot, but his body was never found, and he was not seen skirmishing with any rioters. He was, however, on scout patrol with you on the night he disappeared. That rookie is now a lieutenant in Devonshire Division. He’s a born-again Christian, and a protégé of mine. I have a sworn affidavit from him, detailing your activities that night in ’70, repeating your conversation almost verbatim. Lieutenant Dayton has a brilliant memory. What’s the matter, Hopkins? You’re looking weak.”

Transfixed by a nightmare flashback of Richard Beller’s corpse, Lloyd trembled and tried to speak. His tongue and palate and brain refused to connect, and he shook even harder.

“So you see the position you’re in,” Gaffaney said. “I despise you, but you are the finest detective the Department has ever produced, and I need you.”

He pointed toward the dining room. “On your table are copies of the existing reports on the Pico-Westholme homicides. I understand the robbery is connected to two others you were working with the feds on, so that gives you an edge. I’m throwing all my clout into getting you assigned to the investigation, on your own autonomy. I’m sure I’ll succeed. Whatever you need, from other reports to men for shit work, you’ll get—just call me. If you don’t comply, I can guarantee your crucifixion in the form of a murder indictment.”

Lloyd looked at his accuser and saw the faces of Richard Beller and the Hollywood Slaughterer superimposed over his mercilessly cold features. He tried to speak, but his brain was still jelly.

Gaffaney got up and walked past him to the front door. When his hand was on the latch, he said, “Get them and I’ll have mercy. But they are not to be arrested. Kill them or bring them to me.”

16

Now it was clockwork in a hurricane, staying icy in a heat wave determined to fry them to Cinder City. At 7:00, Rice gave the Garcias another check for survival balls. Bobby was quiet, sitting in a chair by the dresser, reading the Gideon Bible that came with the room. Joe was hanging drum-