L.A. Noir: The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy Page 15
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Lloyd’s face lit up at the possibilities for exploration. “I was trying to follow the rabbit down the hole,” he said. “I was trying to light a fire under the world’s ass. I wanted to be considered a tough guy so that Ginny Skakel would give me a hand job. I wanted to breathe pure white light. Good answer?”
Kathleen smiled and gave Lloyd a sedate round of applause. “Good answer, Sergeant. Why did you quit?”
“Two boys got killed. They were riding on one sled. A ’53 Packard Caribbean smashed them to pieces. One of the boys was decapitated. My mother asked me to quit. She told me that there were safer ways to express courage. She told me stories to take the edge off my grief.”
“Your grief? You mean you wanted to continue playing that insane game?”
Lloyd savored Kathleen’s incredulous look and said, “Of course. Teenage romanticism dies hard. Turnabout, Kathleen?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Are you a romantic?”
“Yes . . . In all the deepest essentials . . . I . . .”
Lloyd cut her off. “Good. May I see you tomorrow night?”
“What did you have in mind? Dinner?”
“Not really.”
“A concert?”
“Very amusing. Actually, I thought we might be-bop around L.A. and check out urban romanticism.”
“Is that a pass?”
“Absolutely not. I think we should do something that neither of us has ever done before, and that rules out that. You in?”
Kathleen took Lloyd’s outstretched hand. “I’m in. Here at seven o’clock?”
Lloyd brought the hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ll be here,” he said, walking out the door before anything could happen to defuse the power of the moment.
*
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*
When Lloyd wasn’t home by six o’clock, Janice went about preparing for her evening, feeling relief on all fronts. She was relieved that Lloyd’s absences were becoming more frequent and predictable, relieved that the girls were so engrossed in their hobbies and social life that they didn’t seem to mind their missing father, relieved that her own loving detachment seemed to be growing to the point where some time soon she would be able to tell her husband, “You have been the love of my life, but it is over. I cannot get 120
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through to you. I cannot stand any more of your obsessive behavior. It is over.”
As Janice dressed for her night of dancing she recalled the episode that had first given her the impetus to consider leaving her husband forever. It was two weeks ago. Lloyd had been gone for three days. She missed him and wanted him physically, and was even ready to make concessions about his stories. She had gone to bed nude and had left her bedside candle burning, hoping to be awakened by Lloyd’s hands on her breasts. When she finally did awaken, it was to the sight of Lloyd hovering above her in the nude, gently spreading her legs. She held back a scream as he entered her, her eyes transfixed by his hellishly contorted features. When he came and his limbs contracted spastically, she held him very tight and knew that she had finally been given the power to forge a new life.
Janice dressed in a silver lamé pantsuit, an outfit that would brilliantly reflect the swirling lights at Studio One. She felt little twinges of slavish loyalty, and reflexively defined her husband in coldly clinical terms: He is a disturbed, driven man. An anachronistic man. He is incapable of change, a man who never listened.
Janice rounded up her daughters and drove them over to George’s apartment in Ocean Park. His lover Rob would look after them while she and George discoed the night away. He would tell them kind, gentle stories and cook them up a big vegetarian feast.
*
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*
Studio One was crowded, bursting to the rafters with stylish men undulating toward and away from each other under the benevolent distortions of stereo-synched strobe lights. Janice and George tooted some coke in the parking lot and imagined their entrance as one of the grandest, most closely scrutinized promenades in history. The only woman on the dance floor, Janice knew that she was the most desired body under the lights—desired not in lust but in desperate yearning for transference—tall, regal, tanned, and graceful, every man there wanted to be her.
*
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*
When she returned home late that night, Lloyd was waiting in bed for her. He was especially tender, and she returned his caresses with great sorrow. Her mind ran disconnected images together to keep her from succumbing to his love. She thought of many things, but never came close to guessing that he had made love to another woman just two hours earlier; a woman who considered herself “something of a businesswoman” and who
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once sang unintelligible rock and roll lyrics; and that with her, as well as now with his wife, his thoughts were of an Irish girl from the old neighborhood. That night Kathleen wrote in her diary:
Today I met a man; a man whom I think fate put in my path for a reason. To me he represents a paradox and possibilities that I cannot begin to access; such is his incongruous force. Enormous physically, fiercely bright—yet of all things, a man content to go through life as a policeman! I know that he wants me (when we met I noticed him wearing a wedding band. Later, as his attraction to me grew more obvious, I saw that he had slipped it off—a roundabout and very endearing subterfuge). I think that he has a rapacious ego and will—ones to match his size and self-proclaimed brilliance. And I sense—I know—
that he wants to change me, that he sees in me a kindred soul, one to touch deeply but also one to manipulate. I must watch my dialogue and my actions with this man. For the benefit of my growth, there must be a give and take. But I must keep my purest inner soul apart from him; my heart must remain inviolate.
9
Lloyd spent the morning at Parker Center, putting in a ritual appearance to appease Lieutenant Gaffaney and any other superior officers who might have noted his prolonged absence. Dutch Peltz called early; he had already initiated informal inquiries on old homosexual assault cases, delegating two desk officers the job of phoning the entire list of retired Juvenile detectives in the L.A.P.D.’s “private” retired personnel file. Dutch would be telephoning current Juvenile dicks with over twenty years on the job himself, and would call back as soon as he had gleaned a solid pile of information for evaluation. With Kathleen McCarthy checking out the bookstore angle, there was nothing Lloyd could do but chase paper—read the suicide files 122
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over and over again until something previously missed or overlooked or misunderstood jumped out at him.
It took two hours and digestion of thousands of words to make a connection, and when the number 408 appeared in the same context in two different files, Lloyd didn’t know if it was a lead or a mere coincidence. The body of Angela Stimka was discovered by her neighbor, L.A. County Deputy Sheriff Delbert Haines, badge #408, other neighbors having summoned the off-duty deputy when they smelled gas coming from the woman’s apartment. A year to the day later, officers T. Rains, #408, and W. Vandervort, #691, were called to the scene of the Laurette Powell “suicide.” Rains, Haines—a stupid spelling blunder; the identical badge numbers obviously denoted the same deputy. Lloyd read over the file of the third West Hollywood “suicide”—Carla Castleberry, D.O.D. 6/10/80, the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard. Entirely different officers had filed this death report, and the names of residents of the motel who were interviewed at the scene—
Duane Tucker, Lawrence Craigie, and Janet Mandarano—did not appear at all in any of the other files.
Lloyd picked up his phone and dialed the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Substation. A bored voice answered. “Sheriff’s. May I help you?”
Lloyd was brusque. “This is Detective Sergeant Hopkins, L.A.P.D. Do you have a Deputy Haines or Rains, badge 408, working out of your station?” The
bored officer muttered, “Yessir, Big Whitey Haines. Day watch patrol.”
“Is he on duty today?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Contact him on his radio. Tell him to meet me at the pizza joint on Fountain and La Cienega in one hour. It’s urgent. You got that?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. Do it now.” Lloyd hung up. It was probably nothing—but at least it was movement.
*
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*
Lloyd arrived at the restaurant early, ordering coffee and taking a booth with a view of the parking lot, the better to get a visual fix on Haines before their interview. Five minutes later a sheriff’s black-and-white pulled in and a uniformed deputy got out, squinting myopically against the sunlight. Lloyd sized the man up—big, blonde, a strong body going to flab. Middle thirties. Ridicu-
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lously sculpted hair, the sideburns too long for a fat face; the uniform encasing his musclebound upper torso and soft stomach like a sausage skin. Lloyd watched him don aviator sunglasses and hitch up his gunbelt. Not intelligent, but probably street-smart; play him easy. The deputy walked directly to Lloyd’s booth. “Sergeant?” he said, extending his hand. Lloyd took the hand, squeezed it, and pointed across the table, waiting for the man to take off his sunglasses. When he sat down without removing them and picked nervously at an acne cluster on his chin, Lloyd thought: Speed. Play him hard.
Haines fidgeted under Lloyd’s stare. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.
“How long have you been with the Sheriff’s, Haines?”
“Nine years,” Haines said.
“How long at the West Hollywood Station?”
“Eight years.”
“You live on Larrabee?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m surprised. West Hollywood is a faggot sewer.”
Haines flinched. “I think a good cop should live on his beat.”
Lloyd smiled. “So do I. What do your friends call you? Delbert? Del?”
Haines tried to smile, involuntarily biting his lip. “Whitey. Wh-wh-what do you—”
“What am I here for? I’ll tell you in a moment. Does your beat include Westbourne Drive?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Have you worked the same car plan your whole time at the station?”
“S-sure. Except for some loan-out time to Vice. What’s this all—”
Lloyd slammed the table top. Haines jolted backward in his seat, reaching up and straightening his sunglasses with both hands. The muscles around his eyes twitched and tics started at the corners of his mouth. Lloyd smiled. “Ever work Narco?”
Haines went flush and whispered “No” hoarsely, a network of veins throbbing in his neck. Lloyd said, “Just checking. Basically, I’m here to question you about a stiff you found back in ’78. A wrist slash job. A woman on Westbourne. You remember that?”
Haines’s whole body went lax. Lloyd watched his muscles unclench into an almost stuporous posture of relief. “Yeah. My partner and I got an un-124
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known trouble squeal from the desk. The old bag who lived next door called in about the stiff’s record player blasting. We found this good lookin’
babe all bl—”
Lloyd cut him off. “You found another suicide in your own building the year before, didn’t you, Whitey?”
“Yeah,” Haines said, “I sure did. I got wasted from the gas, they had to detox me at the hospital. I got a commendation and my picture on the honor board at the station.”
Leaning back and stretching out his legs beneath the table, Lloyd said,
“Both those women killed themselves on June 10th. Don’t you think that’s a strange coincidence?”
Haines shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”
Lloyd laughed. “I don’t know, either. That’s all, Haines. You can go.”
*
*
*
After Haines had left, Lloyd drank coffee and thought. A transparently stupid cop strung out on speed. No guilty knowledge of the two murdersuicides, but undoubtedly involved in so much penny-ante illegality that a questioning on old homicides was like being spared the guillotine—he never asked why the interview was taking place. Coincidence that he discovered both bodies? He lived and patrolled the same area. Logically, it fit. But instinctively it was somehow out of kilter. Lloyd weighed the pros and cons of a daylight breaking and entering. The pros won. He drove to 1167 Larrabee Avenue.
*
*
*
The mauve-colored apartment building was perfectly still, the doors of the ten units closed, no activity on the walkway leading back to the carport. Lloyd scanned the mailboxes at the front of the building. Haines lived in apartment 5. Running his eyes over the numbers embossed on the first-story doorways, he spotted his target—the rear apartment. No screen door, no heavy brass hardware indicating security locks. Working a short bladed penknife and a plastic credit card in unison, Lloyd snapped the locking mechanism and pushed the door open. Flicking on a wall light, he shut the door and surveyed the tasteless living room he had expected to find: cheap Naugahyde couch and chairs, a Formica coffee table, a ratty “deep-pile” carpet going threadbare. The walls boasted velveteen landscape prints and the built-in bookcases held no books—
only a pile of skin magazines.
He walked into the kitchen. Mildew on the chipped linoleum floor,
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dirty dishes in the sink, a thick layer of grease on the cabinets and ceiling. The bathroom was dirtier still—shaving gear scattered on a sidebar near the sink, congealed shaving cream on the walls and mirror, a clothes hamper spilling soiled uniforms. In the bedroom, Lloyd found his first indicators pointing to character traits other than aesthetic bankruptcy and sloth. Above the unkempt bed was a glass-fronted mahogany gunrack holding a half dozen shotguns—one of them an illegal double barreled sawed-off. Lifting the mattress, he discovered a Browning .9 millimeter automatic and a rusted bayonet with a tag affixed to its handle: “Genuine Viet Cong Execution Sword! Guaranteed Authentic!” The drawers beside the bed yielded a large plastic baggie filled with marijuana and a bottle of Dexedrine.
After going through the closets and dressers and finding nothing except dirty civilian clothes, Lloyd walked back into the living room, relieved that his instincts about Haines had been validated, yet still troubled that nothing more had spoken to him. With a blank mind, he sat down on the couch and let his eyes circuit the room, trawling for anything that would perk his mental juices. One circuit; two circuits; three. Floor to ceiling, along the walls and back again.
On his fourth circuit, Lloyd noted an inconsistency in the color and shape of the wainscoting at the juncture of the two walls directly over the couch. He stood up on a chair and examined the area. The paint had been thinned, and some sort of quarter-dollar size circular object had been stuck to the wood, then lightly painted over. He squinted, and felt himself go cold all over. There were tiny perforations in the object, which was the exact size of a high-powered condenser microphone. Running a finger along the bottom ridge of the wainscoting, Lloyd felt the wire. The living room was bugged.
Standing on his tiptoes, he traced the wire along the walls to the front door, down the doorjamb and through a bored-out floor runner to a bush immediately adjacent to the steps of the apartment. Once outside, the wire was covered with a mauve-colored stucco spackling identical in hue to the whole building. Reaching behind the bush, Lloyd found the wire’s terminus, an innocuous-looking metal box attached to the wall at just about ground level. He grabbed at the box with both hands, and wrenched with all his strength. The cover snapped off. Lloyd crouched, then looked down the walkway for witnesses. None. He held the bush and metal cover to one side and looked at his prize.
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The box contained a state-of-the-art tape recor
der. The tape spool was not running, which meant that whoever was doing the bugging had to turn the machine on himself or, more likely, there was a triggering device at work, probably one that Whitey Haines unconsciously activated himself. Lloyd looked at the door, a scant three paces from where he stood. It had to be the trigger.
He walked to the door, unlocked it from the inside, then closed it again, and walked back to the recorder. No movement of the spools. He repeated the procedure, this time opening the door from the outside, then closing it. Squatting by the bush, he admired the results. A red light was glowing, and the tape spools spun silently. Whitey Haines worked day watch. Whoever was interested in his activities knew this and wanted his evenings recorded—the front-door-opening-inward trigger was proof of that. Lloyd locked the door. Take the recorder with him, or stake out the apartment and wait for the bugger to come and pick up the tape? Was any of this even connected to his case? Again scanning the walkway for witnesses, Lloyd tried to make up his mind. When curiosity prickled up his spine and bludgeoned all his other considerations to death, he cut the wire with his penknife, picked up the tape machine, and ran for his car.
*
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*
Back at Parker Center, Lloyd donned surgical thin rubber gloves and examined the tape recorder. The machine was identical to a prototype he had seen at an F.B.I. seminar on electronic surveillance equipment—a
“deep dish” model that featured four separate twin spools stationed on either side of self-cleaning heads that snapped into place automatically as each eight-hour increment of tape was used up, making it possible to record for as long as thirty-two hours without coming near the machine. Probing inside the recorder, Lloyd saw that the primary spools and the three auxiliary spools all held tape, and that the tape on the primary spool was half on the blank side and half on the recorded side, meaning that there was no more than approximately four hours of recorded material contained in the machine. Wanting to be certain of this, he checked the compartment that stored the finished spools. It was empty. Lloyd removed the auxiliary tapes and placed them inside his top desk drawer, thinking that the small amount of “live” tape was a mixed blessing—there would probably be very little information to be gleaned from four hours of bugging time, but assuming that the bugger had a good fix on Whitey Haines’s habits and some kind of shut-off device secreted inside his