They Thirst Part 4

"What was he wearing?" Reece asked, his voice powerful and gravelly. When he was a kid at Duke Ellington High School, he'd carried the ba.s.s line in the choir and made the auditorium floor vibrate.

"Uh ... a blue windbreaker. Light-colored pants."

"Any monograms on the windbreaker? Company emblem?"

"No, I don't think so." She looked back at Palatazin and shivered inwardly. Being so close to cops unnerved her; Lynn and Patty had told her she was a fool to go walking into Parker Center, to offer information to the cops because, after all, what had they ever done for her except bust her twice on soliciting charges? But she thought that maybe, if they ever busted her again, this sad-looking cop in charge might remember her and make things easy. The m.u.f.fled noise of ringing telephones and clattering typewriters outside the office was beginning to grate on her nerves because she'd had to force herself to stay straight-no c.o.ke, no hash, no pills-when she came to see the heat. Now she was so nervous she could hardly stand it.

"All right, Amy," Palatazin said softly, sensing her uneasiness. She was beginning to look like a deer who'd caught a whiff of gunmetal. "What about the car? What kind was it?"

"A Volkswagen bug. Gray or greenish gray, I think." He wrote both colors on his pad. "What happened next to ... uh ... your friend?"

"This guy opened the door and leaned out and said 'Are you selling?'" She shrugged nervously. "You know."

"He was trying to proposition your friend?"

"Yeah. And he flashed a fifty, too. Then he said something that sounded like 'Wally's got something for you . . .'"

"Wally?" Reece leaned forward slightly in his chair, his high-cheekboned face glowing like burnished mahogany in the sunlight that streamed through the open blinds behind Palatazin. "You're sure that was the name?"

"No, not sure. Listen, all this happened to my friend Sheila. How am I supposed to know anything for sure, man?"

Palatazin wrote WALLY? And below that, WALTER? "And then?" he said.

"He said, 'You won't have to do much. Just get in and we'll talk.'" She paused, staring at the buildings of L.A. through the window behind him. "She almost went. A fifty is a fifty, right?"

"Right," Palatazin said. He looked into her troubled eyes and thought, Child, how do you survive out there? If she was over sixteen years old, he'd dance the csardas for the entire homicide squad. "Go on, please."

"She almost went, but when she started to get into the car, she smelled some thing . . . funny. It smelled like medicine, like the stuff... uh ... Sheila's dad used to wash his hands with. He's a doctor."

Palatazin wrote DOCTOR? and followed it with HOSPITAL STAFF?

"So then Sheila got spooked, and she got out of the car and walked away. When she looked back, the dude was driving off. That's all."

"When did your friend start thinking this dude might be the Roach?" Reece asked.

"I've been keeping up with the papers. Everybody has, I mean. Everybody on the boulevard talks about it'all the time, so I thought you cops should know."

"If this happened on Tuesday, why did you wait so long before reporting it?" She shrugged and bit a thumbnail. "I was scared. Sheila was scared. The more I thought about it being him, the more scared I got."

"Did your friend happen to see the license plate number?" Palatazin asked, pen poised. "Anything else about the car that stood out?" She shook her head. "No, it happened too fast." She looked up into the placid gray eyes of this heavyset cop who reminded her so much of the juvenile officer back in Holt, Idaho. Except this cop had a funny accent, he was almost bald, and he had a coffee stain on his loud red tie with the blue dots. "It couldn't have really been him, do you think ?"

Palatazin leaned back in his swivel chair, tendrils of blue smoke wafting around him. This young prost.i.tualt was like any one of dozens who'd been interviewed in the past few weeks: jaded and frightened, with enough street sense to stay alive but not enough to break out of The Life. They all seemed to carry the same expression in their eyes-a sharp glimmer of contempt that masked a sad weariness somewhere deep and close to the soul. Over the last weeks he'd had to hold back in his impulse to shake some of these street survivors and shout, "Don't you know what's waiting for you out there? The murderer, the rapist, the s.a.d.i.s.t . . . and worse. Things you never dared think about for fear that they would drive you mad; things that lurk in the shadows of humanity, that wait on the nightmare fringe for their chance to strike. Things of the basest evil that must spread evil and consume evil in order to survive . . ."

Enough, he told himself. He was knotted inside and realized he was stepping too close to the edge. "Yes," he told Amy. "It might have been."

"Oh Christ," she said, the blood draining out of her face until she looked like a Kewpie doll, all paint and no insides. "I mean, I... I've had some dates with weird dudes before, but n.o.body's ever tried to . . ." She touched her throat, seeing in her mind's eye the way that creepy dude had grinned when she'd slid into his car.

"Amy," Palatazin said quietly, dropping the pretense, "we have an artist here who can put together a composite picture of the man who tried to pick you up. Now, I'm not saying that this man was the Roach, only that there's a possibility. I'd like for you to go with Detective Reece and give a description to our artist. Anything you can remember-his hair, eyes, nose, mouth. All right?" He rose to his feet, and Reece stood behind the girl. "Also I want you to think about that car. I want you to see it in your mind and remember as much as you can about it.

Especially think about the license plate. You may have seen it and gotten a number inside your head without realizing it. Thank you for coming in to talk to us, Amy. Sully, will you take her up to see Mack?"

"Sure. Come on with me, Miss Hulsett." He opened the office door for her, and the noises of the homicide-robbery squad room tumbled in-shrill telephones, a couple of typewriters being beaten mercilessly, file cabinets being opened and closed, the monotone chattering of a Telex machine. The girl stopped on the threshold and turned back to Palatazin. "Something else I do remember," she said. "His hands. They were . . . really large, you know? I could see them where they were gripped around the steering wheel."

"Was he wearing any rings?"

"I ,. . no, I don't think so."

"All right, fine. Sully, as soon as you get that composite bring it down to me, will you?" Sully nodded and led her off across the wide linoleum-floored room jammed with file cabinets and desks. Palatazin, the heartbeat of hope pounding at his temples, worked his way through the maze of desks to where Detective Brasher sat waiting for an informant's return call. Brasher, a young man with sandy-brown hair and deep-set green eyes that were already becoming hard, had met his match in this morning's Times crossword puzzle. He shoved it aside quickly when he saw the captain moving toward him.

"Brasher," Palatazin said, "you don't look too busy. I need some files collected. Anyone we've been talking to in connection with the Roach killings who owns a Volkswagen, also anyone who goes by the name 'Wally' or 'Walter' or uses that nickname or alias. I want you to go through the rape and a.s.sault files, looking for the same thing. Follow those back about three months."

"Yes, sir." He scribbled down the information on a notepad and rose from his desk. "I was waiting for a call from a pimp I've been talking to."

"Have Hayden answer your phone." Palatazin motioned to the man at the nearest desk. "I need those files as soon as you can get them." He turned away from Brasher in time to see Gayle Clarke come striding into the squad room; he felt a quick surge of anger and irritation. She was over an hour late, and right now he didn't feel like putting up with her inane questions. On the couple of occasions he'd refused to see her and had sent her down to Press Relations, the Tattler had then run cheap-shot editorials about how Captain Andrew Palatazin was dragging his feet on the Roach investigation. He wouldn't have minded at any other time, but right now all the city papers were pressuring the mayor, who in turn pressured the police commissioner, who jumped with both feet on Chief Garnette, who came to Palatazin chewing a toothpick and demanding to know why this thing wasn't cracked yet. Palatazin could only chew Turns and hulk around the squad room like an injured, dangerous bear; he knew his men were working as hard as they could, but the politicians in high places were getting nervous. So there had been a firm directive from the commissioner: Cooperate with the press.

It's not enough to be a policeman, Palatazin thought sourly as he moved toward Gayle Clarke. Now you have to be social worker, psychologist, politician, and mind reader all rolled up into one! "You're late," he told her tersely. "What do you want?"

"Sorry," she said, but her expression didn't show it. "I was held up for a while. Can we talk in your office?"

"Where else? But please make this fast. I have work to do." He ushered her in, closed the door, and sat down at his desk. The name "Wally" buzzed in his brain like a hornet. "I'll tell you what I told the Times and the Ledger this morning: we're still without a prime suspect, but we do have several people under surveillance. And no, I'm not aware of any similarities between the Roach and Jack the Ripper. We've boosted the number of decoys on the streets, but I wish you'd keep that off the record. Will you?"

"Should I?" She raised an eyebrow, taking a Flair pen out of her purse.

"Miss Clarke," Palatazin said quietly, shoving aside his pipe and folding his hands together atop his desk. Take it easy, he told himself. Don't let her bait you, she's good at that. "In the past few weeks you and I have had the misfortune of having to work in close proximity. I know you don't like me, and I couldn't care less. I have nothing but the lowest regard for your newspaper." He turned and rummaged through a stack of papers; when he found last week's Tattler, he pushed it across the desk toward her. The front-pa^e headline in bloodred type screamed, WHERE IS THE ROACH? WHO WILL BE NEXT TO DIE? Her thin smile wavered a fraction but held.

"You'll recall that I told you two weeks ago I was putting decoy policewomen on the streets to act as prost.i.tutes. I told every newspaper in this city the same thing and asked all of them to keep that information off the record. You'll recall I asked you to do the same. Why was it then that on opening your paper to read your story my eye was caught by a headline that read, 'Policewomen May Trap the Roach?' He hasn't struck since that information was made public. Although I'm not a.s.suming that he is sick enough to be a reader of your paper, I am a.s.suming that he has found out about the decoys and has decided to go into hiding. It may be months before he surfaces again, and by then his trail may be very cold indeed."

"I tried to keep that out of the story," Gayle said. "My managing editor said it was news and should go in."

"Oh. Then perhaps your managing editor should have my job since he knows so much about police procedure?" He rummaged again, found another Tattler, and pushed it toward Gayle like a piece of rotten meat. The headline blared Ma.s.sMURDER RAMPAGE. There was a picture in gory detail of Charlene McKay being picked up by the men from the morgue. Other headlines tried to scream each other out: HAVE UFOs LANDED NEAR L.A.? NEVER GROW OLD-THE AMAZING SEAWEED DIET; HOW TO MARRY A ROCK STAR. Palatazin snorted with disgust. "Do people actually subscribe to this thing?"

"Three hundred thousand by last year's figures," she told him coolly. "I would tell you I was sorry about that decoy thing getting in, but I don't think it would do any good."

"You're right, because I have the feeling that if we were to do it all over again, nothing would change. Don't you realize how much harm these wild stories about the Roach do? They frighten people; they make people suspicious of each other, afraid to even go out at night. And they don't help our investigation very much either." He picked up his pipe and clamped it between his teeth, almost biting through the stem. "I thought I could trust in your professionalism. I see I was wrong."

"d.a.m.n it!" she said suddenly and so forcefully Palatazin thought she was going to leap over the desk at him. She leaned forward, her eyes fierce with anger.

"The stories I wrote are good! d.a.m.ned good! I can't help what the headlines say, and I can't tell my managing editor what's right or wrong to print! Okay, I know the Tattler's milking this thing for all it's worth, but so is every other paper in town! The bottom line is cash, captain, selling papers, and anybody who says differently is either a liar or a fool. But if you read my stories, you'll see I'm a d.a.m.ned good writer, and I've told people the truth as I see it!"

Palatazin was silent for a moment. He lit his pipe and regarded her through a haze of smoke. "Why do you waste your time with the Tattler?" he asked her finally. "It's beneath you. Couldn't you work somewhere else?"

"I'm making a name for myself," she said, the redness slowly subsiding from her face. "It's a living. Most women two years out of the UCLA School of Journalism are sitting on their a.s.ses doing rewrites, or editing somebody else's copy, or going down to the corner for coffee and ham sandwiches for the real reporters.

Working for the Tattler may not be a dream job, but at least I'm gathering a following who buy papers to read my copy."

"Some following. The kind of people who like to stare at traffic accidents."

"Their money's as good as anyone else's. Better than most. And don't downgrade them, captain; they're the great American middle cla.s.s. The people who pay your salary, by the way."

Palatazin nodded thoughtfully. Gayle's dark brown eyes still held a hint of anger, glittering like deep pools of water disturbed by the casual throw of a stone. "Well," he said, "I'd better get to work and earn that salary. Just what is it you wanted to see me about?"

"Never mind. You answered my questions already. I was going to ask you why you thought Roach had gone into hiding." She capped her Flair and dropped it back into her purse. "You might be interested to know that he won't be the lead story next week."

"I'm relieved."

She stood up from her chair and slung the purse over her shoulder. "Okay," she said. "Off the record. Are you any closer to catching him than you were last week?"

"Off the record? No. But we may have some new leads."

"Such as?"

"Too premature yet. We'll have to wait and see." She smiled thinly. "Don't trust me anymore, do you?"

"Partly that. Also partly that we're working on some information that came off the street today, and you of all people should know how reliable that can be." He stood up and went with her toward the door.

She stopped with her hand on the k.n.o.b. "I ... I didn't mean to lose my cool. But I got involved in something that was pretty hairy today. Something weird. You must think I'm pushing pretty hard, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

"That's because I don't want to stay on the Tattler all my life. I have to be there when you get him, captain, because riding this story to the ground is the only way I'm ever going to move up. Okay, I'm ambitious and opportunistic as h.e.l.l, but I'm a realist, too. Something as big as this comes along for a journalist only once in a blue moon. I'm going to see that I take advantage of it."

"We may never find him."

"Can I quote you on that?"

His eyes widened slightly; he couldn't tell if she was kidding or not because her expression was serious, her gaze sharp and piercing. "I don't think so," he said, and opened the door for her. "I'm sure we'll be talking again. By the way, what knocked Roach off the front page? Something about a little old lady who found Howard Hughes's will in her attic?"

"No." A chill pa.s.sed through her; she could still smell the rot of those corpses in the cemetery as if her clothes were full of it. "Grave robbers over at Hollywood Memorial. That's why I was late; I had to call the story in and talk to the Hollywood cops."

"Grave robbers?" Palatazin said softly.

"Yeah. Or rather coffin robbers. Whoever it was ripped about twenty caskets out of the ground and left . . . everything else lying around." Palatazin took the pipe out of his mouth and stood staring at her, a dull pulse beating at the base of his neck. "What?" he said in a strange, hoa.r.s.e voice that sounded more like the croak of a frog.

"Yeah. It's weird." She started out the door, but suddenly Palatazin's hand was gripping her arm just short of painfully. She looked at him and blinked. His face had gone waxen, his lips moving but making no sound.

"What do you mean?" he said with an effort. "What are you talking about? When did this happen?"

"Sometime during the night, I guess. Hey, listen . . . you're . . . you're hurting."

He looked down at his hand and instantly released her. "I'm sorry. Hollywood Memorial? Who was first on the scene?"

"I was. And a photographer from the Tattler-Jack Kidd. Why are you so interested? Vandalism isn't your detail, is it?"

"No, but. .." He looked wan and confused, as if he might suddenly collapse on the floor in a limp heap. The set of his eyes with their glazed intensity frightened Gayle so much she felt a quick shiver ripple up her spine. "Are you all right?" she asked him tentatively, and for a moment he didn't reply.

"Yes," he said finally, nodding. "Yes, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'd like for you to go now, Miss Clarke, I have work to do." He held the door open, and she stepped out into the squad room. She turned toward him, intending to ask him to keep her in mind if and when they did get a solid lead on Roach. The door closed in her face. She thought, s.h.i.t! What's his problem? Maybe what I've been hearing is true. Maybe the pressure is starting to crack him wide open. If so, that would make for a juicy human interest story. She turned away and left the squad room.

And behind that closed door, Palatazin was gripping his telephone with a white-knuckled hand. The police operator answered. "This is Palatazin," he said.

"Get me Lieutenant Kirkland, Hollywood Division." His voice was urgent and full of terror.

FOUR.

The sun reached its zenith and instantly began to fall, deepening the shadows that clung like a precious autumn chill to the eastern facades of the ma.s.sive stone and gla.s.s buildings at the center of Los Angeles. In the slow decay of hours and light, the sun shone red on the smooth lakes of MacArthur Park; clear, golden beams wafted through the windows of shops and boutiques on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills; dust stirred lazily in the air among the cramped, boxy tenement buildings of East L.A., and clothes strung on lines from window to window caught bits of flying grit; the Pacific surf that rolled up to the edge of the Venice Beach boardwalk, where the kids darted and spun on roller skates like human tops, slowly turned orange, then red deepening toward purple; lights began to glimmer like hot jewels along Sunset and Hollywood boulevards; the San Gabriel Mountains were jumbled piles of light and darkness, the western face of stone glowing red, the eastern exposures almost black. And above the whole metropolis with its eight million separate lives and destinies sat the Kronsteen castle on a throne of rock. It was a huge, sprawling edifice of black weather-beaten stone with high turrets, arched Gothic roofs, broken gargoyles leering from towers or contemplating the patchwork of humanity in the valley below. Many of the windows had been shattered and replaced with boards, but some of the windows at the higher elevations had survived vandalism, and those that were of stained gla.s.s glowed red and blue and purple in the strong, hard light of the setting sun. A chill gathered in the darkening air and began to grow vicious. The wind hissed and whispered around stone battlements like a human voice through broken teeth. And many in the city below thought for just a cold, eerie instant that they heard their names called from behind the falling curtain of night. FIVE Rico Esteban's brain was scorched with hot neon. Around him there was the thunder of engines, the crisp notes of electric music rippling through the air.

He thought he should say something to the dark-haired girl who sat pressed against the other side of the car, but he could think of only one thing and saying it wouldn't be right-Holy s.h.i.t. Beyond that crude summation of his feelings, his brain buzzed with overloaded circuits.

He thought, Prenado? Did she say she was pregnant? Only a few minutes before, he'd pulled his fire-engine-red Chevy lowrider in front of Merida Santos's apartment building on Dos Terros Street in the dark tenement barrio of East Los Angeles. Almost immediately she'd come running out of the hallway, where a single dim light bulb exposed a shaky set of stairs and walls layered with spray-painted graffiti, and slid into his car. As he kissed her, he'd thought that something was wrong; her eyes looked funny, they were a little sad, and there were the beginnings of dark circles underneath them. He'd started the Chevy, filling Dos Terros Street with a rumble that shook windowpanes and brought a couple of shouted complaints from the old folks, and then had screeched off toward Whittier Boulevard. Merida, her long black hair cascading in waves around her shoulders, sat away from him and stared at her hands. She was wearing a blue dress and the silver crucifix on a chain that Rico had bought for her birthday the week before.

"Hey," he'd said, and leaned over to tilt her face up with a forefinger beneath her chin. "What's wrong? You been crying? That crazy perra been beating on you?"

"No," she'd replied, her soft voice trembling slightly. She was still more little girl than woman. At sixteen her flesh was smooth and tawny, her body as tight and lean as a colt's. Usually her eyes sparkled with shy, laughing innocence, but tonight something was different, and Rico couldn't figure it out.

If her crazy old mother hadn't been beating on her again, then what was wrong?

"Did Luis run away from home again?" he asked her. She shook her head. He leaned back, cushioned in the cup of his red bucket seat, and brushed a lock of thick black hair off his forehead. "That Luis better watch out," he said quietly, swerving around a couple of drunks who were dancing together in the middle of the street. He hit the horn, and one of them shot him the finger.

"The kid's too young to be running with the Homicides. I told him once, I told him a hundred times not to get mixed up with those ladrones. They're going to get him in trouble. Where you want to eat tonight?"

"It don't matter," Merida said. Rico shrugged and turned onto the boulevard, where a gaudy carnival of neon pulsated over p.o.r.no movie houses, bars, discos, and liquor stores. Though it was just past six-thirty, the lowriders were already jostling for position, chugging like streamlined locomotives. They were painted every color of the rainbow from electric blue to Day-Glo orange and outfitted with zebra-striped tops or leopard-skin upholstery or radio antennae that seemed as tall as towers. The ma.s.s of cars moved at a crawl, bouncing and swaying like wild bucking horses along the boulevard, which was lined with hordes of Chicano teenagers looking for fun on a Sat.u.r.day night. Music from transistor and car radios blared at each other, the tumultuous frenzy of rock and disco overpowered only by the thundering ba.s.s lines that prowled out through the open doors of the bars. The air, sweet and hot with exhaust, cheap perfume, and marijuana, crackled with tinny voices. Rico reached over and turned his own radio up loud, his brown face split by a grin. The growl of KALA's Tiger Eddie became a hypnotic chant-". . . gonna TEAR this town tonight, gonna lay it to WASTE, 'cause we're the BEST, beatin' all the REST on a SAT-UR-DAY night! Mighty KALA, comin' at you with The Wolves annnnddddd 'Born to Be Bad'!"

Merida had turned the radio off. The Wolves wailed on anyway from a dozen other sets of speakers. "Rico," she'd said, and now she was looking him straight in the eyes, and her lower lip trembled. "I found out I'm pregnant." He thought, Holy s.h.i.t! Pregnant? Did she say pregnant? He'd almost said "Who did it?" but stopped himself cold. He knew she'd been sleeping only with him for the past three months, even after he'd gotten his apartment down on the low, poor end of Sunset Boulevard. She was a decent, good, loyal woman. Woman?

he thought.

Barely sixteen. A girl, yes, but a woman in many ways, too. Rico was too stunned to speak. The waves of lowriders before him seemed to undulate, an ocean of metal. He'd used rubbers most every time and thought he'd been careful, but now . . . What am I going to do? he asked himself. Your big macho p.r.i.c.k has gotten this woman in trouble, and now what do you do?

"You sure?" he said finally. "I mean . . . how do you know?"

"I ... didn't have my time. I went to the clinic, and the doctor told me."

"Couldn't he be wrong?" He was trying to think-When did I not use protection?

When we were drinking wine that night, or when we were in a hurry . . .?

"No," she said, the finality in her voice starting a dull throbbing in the pit of his stomach.

"Does your mama know? She'll kill me. She hates my guts anyway. She said if I saw you again she was going to shoot me or call the cops . . ."

"She don' know," Merida said softly. "n.o.body else knows." She made a little choking sound like a rabbit being strangled.

"Don't cry!" he said too loudly and too sharply, and then realized that she was already crying, her head bent and the tears rolling down her cheeks in large drops. He felt protective of her, more like a big brother than a lover. Do I love Merida? he asked himself; the question, so simply stated, baffled him. He wasn't sure he knew what love would feel like. Did it feel like good s.e.x? Or was it like knowing somebody was there to talk easy to you? Or did it feel awesome and silent, like sitting in church?