L.A. Noir: The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy Page 11

  Lloyd was riveted, staring into Joanie Pratt’s pale blue eyes until she started to wave a hand in front of his face. “Come back to earth there, Sergeant. You look like you just took a trip to Mars.”

  Lloyd felt vague instincts clicking into place. He brushed Joanie’s hand away. “Go on.”

  “Okay, Mars Man. Anyway, Julia conducted her interviews and watched people fuck until she was blue in the face. She wrote out tons of notes and had the first draft of her book completed when her pad was burglarized and her manuscript and all her notes and files were stolen. She tol—”

  “What!” Lloyd screamed.

  Joanie leaped back, startled. “Whoa there, Sarge. Let me finish. This was about a month ago. The pad was ransacked. Her stereo and TV and a thousand dollars in cash were stolen. She . . .”

  Lloyd interrupted. “Did she report it to the police?”

  Joanie shook her head. “No, I told her not to. I told her she could always rewrite her book from memory and do some more interviews. I didn’t want any cops nosing around us. Cops are notorious moralists, and they might have gotten wind of my scam. But listen. About a week before she died, 88

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  Julia told me she had the feeling she was being followed. There was this man that she used to see in all these odd places—on the street, in restaurants, in the market. He never stared at her or anything like that, but she had this feeling he was stalking her.”

  Lloyd went cold all over. “Did she recognize the man from the parties?”

  “She said she couldn’t be sure.”

  Lloyd was silent for a long moment. “Do you have any of the letters Julia received?”

  Joanie shook her head. “No, just the ones I picked up today.”

  Lloyd stuck out his hand, and Joanie withdrew the letters from her purse. He stared at her, tapping the collection of envelopes against his leg. “When are you having your next party?”

  Joanie lowered her eyes. “Tonight.”

  Lloyd said, “Good. I’m going to attend. You’re going to be my date.”

  *

  *

  *

  The party was in a three-story A-frame nestled at the end of a cul-de-sac on the Valley side of the Hollywood Hills. Lloyd wore cuffed chino pants, penny loafers, a striped polo shirt, and a crew-neck sweater over his .38

  snubnose, prompting Joanie Pratt to exclaim, “Jesus, Sarge! This is a swing party, not a high school sock hop! Where’s my corsage?”

  “It’s in my pants,” he said.

  Joanie laughed, then ran hooded eyes over his body. “Nice. You gonna fuck tonight? You’ll get offers.”

  “No, I’m saving it for the senior prom. You want to show me around?”

  They walked through the house. All the furniture in the living room and dining room had been moved up against the walls, and the carpets had been rolled up and wadded ceiling high next to a row of low tables where cold cuts, hors d’oeuvres, and canned cocktails in bowls of ice were arrayed. Joanie said, “Buffet and dance floor. There’s a primo stereo system with a hook-up to speakers all over the house.” She pointed to lighting fixtures hung from the ceiling. “The stereo is hooked up to the lights, so the music and the lights work together. It’s wild.” She took his hand and led him upstairs. The two upper floors contained bedrooms and dens on either side of a winding hallway. Red lights blinked on and off above the open doors, and Lloyd could see that inside the entire floor space of each room was covered by mattresses with pink silk sheets.

  Joanie poked him in the ribs. “I hire these wetbacks from the slave market on Skid Row. They do all the heavy lifting. I give them ten bucks before

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  the party, then twenty bucks and a bottle of tequila when they move all the furniture back. What’s the matter, Sarge? You’re scowling.”

  “I don’t know,” Lloyd said, “but it’s funny. I’m here looking for a killer, this whole ‘party’ is probably against the law, and I think I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

  The celebrants started to arrive half an hour later. Lloyd briefed Joanie on what he wanted—she was to circulate, and point out any people she recognized as having been interviewed by or having seemed interested in Julia Niemeyer. She was to report to him all men who even mentioned Julia or her recent demise. She was also to report anything that seemed darkly incongruous, anything that violated her self-described party ethos of “Good music, good dope, good fucking”; no one was to know that he was a police officer.

  Lloyd stationed himself behind the two burly bouncers scrutinizing incoming guests and collecting their invitations. The partygoers, coupled off to insure an even ratio of partners, seemed to him to be the very microcosm of jaded money—the finest clothes in the latest styles over unfit, tensionridden bodies, the men middle-aged and afraid of it, the women looking hard, competitive, and brassy in the worst camped-out faggot manner. As the bouncers locked and bolted the door behind the last arrivals, Lloyd felt that he had just viewed a perfect impressionist representation of hell. His left knee was twitching in reaction to it, and when he walked back to the buffet he knew that he would need every ounce of the love in his Irish Protestant ethos to keep from hating them.

  He decided to play the jocular stud. As Joanie Pratt brushed by him, he whispered to her, “Make it look like we’re together.”

  Joanie closed her eyes. Lloyd bent in slow motion to kiss her, his hands reaching out and grasping her waist and lifting her so that her feet dangled inches above the floor. Their lips and tongues met and played in perfect unison. Whistling and good-natured jibes drowned out Lloyd’s furious heartbeat, and when he broke the kiss and lowered Joanie to the floor he felt he had conquered the jaded assembly with love.

  “That’s all, folks,” he said with a mock humble twang, patting Joanie on the shoulder. “You folks all have a good time. I have to go upstairs and rest.”

  Wild applause greeted this irony, and he ran for the staircase. Lloyd found a bedroom at the far end of the third-story hallway. He locked himself in, feeling proud of his performance, yet ashamed of its ease and dumbfounded by the fact that he was starting to like the revelers down-90

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  stairs. He sat down on the pink sheeted mattress and dug out the letters that Joanie had given him—the last correspondence delivered to P.O. Box 7512. He had planned to go over them later, aided by Joanie, but now he needed work to keep his almost heart-stricken ambivalence at bay. The first two envelopes contained underground junk mail, form letters advertising king-size electric dildos and bondage attire. The third envelope was hand-printed. Lloyd looked more closely and noticed that the letters in the address were perfectly squared off, obviously formed by pen and ruler. His mind clicked, and he held the envelope gently by the edges and slit it open with a deft thrust of his fingernail. It contained a poem, block ruler printed in maroon ink. Lloyd tilted the page sideways. Something about the ink bothered him. Letting the paper wobble in front of his eyes, he realized that the maroon ink was starting to flake, revealing a brighter shade underneath. He deliberately smudged a stanza, then smelled his finger and felt his mind click a second time: The poem was written in blood. Lloyd willed his mind to be still, using his method of deep breathing and forcing himself to concentrate on the vertical lines in the plaid quilt Penny had loomed for him two Christmases ago. When he had been blank for solid minutes, he began to read the blood-formed words:

  I took you from

  your grief;

  I stole you like

  a thief;

  I rent my heart

  to give you

  mercy;

  You begged me to end

  your strife

  And I gave you life.

  Your body was the

  ellipsis,

  Your heart my

  wife

  Your whorish studies

  my burden;

  Your death, my

  life.

 
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  I read your words,

  hell bound;

  Sorrowed to the

  core by the dirt

  you found—

  You grieved me more

  Than all the rest—

  You were the smartest,

  The kindest, the worst

  and best—

  And I faltered at the

  moment I put you

  to rest.

  Tribute in anonymous

  transit,

  Live life enclosed

  in a cancer

  cell,

  Only the love in my

  knife grants it;

  Reprieve from the gates

  of this blood-drenched

  hell.

  Lloyd read the poem three more times, memorizing it, letting the permutations of the words enter him and regulate his heartbeat and the flow of his blood and the thrust of his brainwaves. He walked over and sought his image in the mirror that completely covered the back wall. He couldn’t decide if he was an Irish Protestant knight or a gargoyle, and he didn’t care; he had been placed in the vortex of divinely evil compulsions and he knew, at long last, precisely why he had been granted genius.

  As the poem engulfed him further it began to assume musical dimensions, cadences of the corny signature tunes of all the old TV programs that Tom had made him . . .

  The cadences grew, and “Live life enclosed in a cancer cell” became an improvisation on the big band theme song of Texaco Star Theatre, and suddenly Milton Berle was there next to him, rotating a cigar against his wood-92

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  chuck teeth. Lloyd screamed and fell to his knees, his hands cupped to his ears.

  There was a screeching, and the music stopped. Lloyd tightened his grip on his ears. “Tell me a story rabbit down the hole,” he whimpered beatifically until he heard the crackle of static coming from a large speaker mounted on the bedroom wall. His dry sobs trailed into relieved laughter. It was the radio.

  Rational thoughts of combat entered Lloyd’s mind. He could trash the central source of the music by yanking a few wires and twisting a few dials; let the revelers fuck sans accompaniment, the whole scene was illegal anyway. Carefully placing the poem back in its envelope and securing it in his pocket, Lloyd walked downstairs, his hands clamped against his sides, twisted into his pants legs. He ignored the couples who were fornicating in standing positions in bedroom doorways and concentrated on the shimmering crimson lights that bathed the hallway. The lights were the reality, the benign antithesis of the music, and if he could let them guide him to the stereo system, he would be safe.

  The first floor was a massive swirl of nude bodies moving with the music, heeding and heedless of the beat, rhythmic and abandoned limbs flung wildly into the air, brushing flesh, lingering in the briefest of caresses before being yanked back in seizure-like movements. Lloyd threaded his way through the swirl, feeling arms and hands twist and prod and pluck at him. He saw the stereo system at the opposite end of the living room, Joanie Pratt standing beside it, scrutinizing a stack of record albums. Fully clothed, she looked like a fixed beacon light in a world of insane noise.

  “Joanie!”

  The alarm in his own voice startled him, jolting him away from the music, into bodies that retreated as he cut a path through them. He crashed through the kitchen, down strobe-lighted hallways and out into a pitch black yard that was enveloped by shuddering silence. Falling to his knees, he let the silent night air and the scent of eucalyptus embrace him.

  “Sarge?”

  Joanie Pratt knelt by his side. She stroked his back and said, “Jesus, are you okay? The look on your face on that dance floor . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.” Lloyd forced himself to laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I can’t stand loud noise or music. It’s old stuff.” Joanie pointed a finger at her head and twirled it. “You’ve got a few loose up there. You know that?”

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  “Don’t talk to me that way.”

  “I’m sorry. Wife and kids?”

  Lloyd nodded and got to his feet. Helping Joanie up, he said, “Seventeen years. Three daughters.”

  “Is it good?”

  “Things are changing. My daughters are wonderful. I tell them stories, and my wife hates me for it.”

  “Why? What kind of stories?”

  “Never mind. When I was eight years old my mother told me stories, and it saved my life.”

  “What kind of . . .”

  Lloyd shook his head. “No, let’s change the subject. Did you hear anything at the party? Did anyone mention Julia? Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “No, no, and no. Julia used a phony name when she interviewed people, and that was a bad photo of her on the news. I don’t think anyone even made the connection.”

  Lloyd considered this. “I buy it,” he said. “My instinct tells me that the killer wouldn’t come to a party like this; he’d consider it ugly. I want to cover all the angles, though. One of those letters you gave me contained a poem. It was written by the killer; I’m sure of that. The poem made a vague reference to other victims, so I’m certain that he’s killed more than one woman.” When Joanie responded with a blank face, he went on. “What I need from you is a list of your regular partygoers.”

  Joanie was already frantically shaking her head. Lloyd grabbed her shoulders and said softly, “Do you want this animal to kill again? What’s more important, saving innocent lives or the anonymity of a bunch of horny assholes?”

  Hysterical giggling from inside the house framed Joanie’s answer. “It’s not much of a choice, Sarge. Let’s go over to my place; I’ve got a Rolodex file on all my regulars.”

  “What about your party?”

  “The hell with it. I’ll have the bouncers lock up. Your car or mine?”

  “Mine. Is this an invitation?”

  “No, it’s a proposition.”

  *

  *

  *

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  Afterward, too full of each other to sleep, Lloyd played with Joanie’s breasts, cupping and pushing and probing them into different shapes and running soft fingers around the edges of the nipples. Joanie laughed and said sotto voce, “Do-wah, wah-wah, do-rann-rann.”

  Lloyd asked her what the strange sounds meant and she said, “I forgot; you never listen to music.

  “Okay. I came out here from Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1958. I was eighteen. I had it all figured out—I was gonna be the first female rock and roll star. I was blonde, I had tits, and I thought I could sing. I get off the bus at Fountain and Vine and walk north. I see the Capitol Records Tower north of the Boulevard, and I figure it’s gotta be a message, so I hotfoot it up there, lugging this cardboard suitcase, wearing a crinoline party dress and high heels on the coldest day of the year.

  “Anyway, I sit down in the waiting room, eyeballing all these gold records they’ve got on the walls. I’m thinking, ‘Someday’ . . . Anyway, this guy comes up to me and says, ‘I’m Pluto Maroon. I’m an agent. Capitol Records is not your gig. Let’s splitsville.’ I go, ‘Huh?’ and we splitsville—

  Pluto says a buddy-roo of his is making a movie-roo in Venice. We drive out there in this Cadillac soul wagon. Pluto’s buddy is Orson Welles. No shit, Sarge; Orson fucking Welles. He’s making Touch of Evil. Venice is doubling as this sleazy Mexican border town.

  “Right off the bat I can tell that Orson baby is condescending to Pluto—

  that he digs him strictly as a sycophant, kind of an amusing picaresque buffoon. Anyway, Orson tells Pluto to dig him up some extras, locals who’d be willing to hang around all day for a few scoots and a jug. So Pluto and I go walking down Ocean Front Walk. What a revelation! Innocent Joanie from St. Paul hobnobbing with beatniks, junkies, and geniuses!

  “Anyway, we go by this beatnik bookstore. A guy who looks like a werewolf is behind the counter. Pluto says, ‘You wanna dig Orson
Welles and make a five-spot?’ The guy says, ‘Crazy,’ and we splitsville on down the boardwalk, picking up this incredible low-life entourage on the way.

  “Anyway, the werewolf zeroes in on me. ‘I’m Marty Mason,’ he says, ‘I’m a singer.’ I think, ‘Wowie zowie!’ and I say, ‘I’m Joanie Pratt—I’m a singer, too.’ Marty says, ‘Sing “do-wah, wah-wah, do-rann-rann” ten times.’ I do it, and he says, ‘I’m playing a gig in San Berdoo tonight. Wanna be my backup?’ I said, ‘What do I have to do?’ Marty says, ‘Sing “do-wah, wahwah, do-rann-rann.” ’

  “So that was it. I did it. I sang ‘do-wah, wah-wah, do-rann-rann’ for ten

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  years. I married Marty, and he became Marty ‘Monster’ Mason and cut the

  ‘Monster Stomp,’ capitalizing on his werewolf resemblance, and we were biggg time for a couple of years, then Marty got strung out and we got divorced, and now I’m sort of a business woman and Marty is on Methadone Maintenance and working as a fry cook at a Burger King in the Valley, and it’s still ‘do-wah, wah-wah, do-rann-rann.’”

  Joanie sighed, lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings at Lloyd, who was tracing patterns on her thighs and thinking that he had just heard existentialism in a nutshell. Wanting Joanie’s interpretation, he asked, “What does it mean?”

  She said, “Whenever things are up in the air, or scary, or about to maybe get good, I sing ‘do-wah, wah-wah, do-rann-rann,’ and they seem to fall into place; or at least they’re not so scary.”

  Lloyd felt a little piece of his heart work its way loose and drift back to Venice in the winter of ’58. “Can I sleep with you again?” he asked. Joanie took his hand and kissed it. “Anytime, Sarge.”

  Lloyd got up and dressed, then picked up the Rolodex file and cradled it to his chest. “I’ll be very discreet about this,” he said. “I’ll have smart, competent officers do whatever questioning has to be done.”

  “I trust you,” Joanie said.

  Lloyd bent over and kissed her cheek. “I’ve memorized your phone number. I’ll call you.”