coin-op newspaper dispensers lined the sidewalk. Three were empty; one
of them was vandalized and graffitied. The last one was fully stocked
with a tabloid promising SAFE SEX, RAUNCHY GIRLS, AND DIRN FUN.
I went back into the lounge. The channel had been switched to an old
western. Square jaws, roping dogies, and long shots of scrubland. The
barflies stared up at the screen, entranced. As if it hadn’t been
filmed just over the hill, in Burbank.
Thirty-six minutes later Milo appeared, waving me over as he strode
past the bar, toward the restaurant section. I took my beer and caught
up with him. His jacket was over his shoulder and his tie was tucked
into his waistband. The band was crushed by the weight of his belly.
A couple of the lushes looked up and watched him, dulled, but still
wary. He never noticed. But I knew he would’ve been pleased to see
how much cop-scent he still gave off.
The main dining room was empty except for a busboy running a manual
carpet-sweeper over a corner. A stringy old waiter appeared-American
Gothic on a crash diet-bearing soft rolls, Milo’s ale, and a plate of
cherry peppers and stuffed olives.
“Him, too, Irv,” said Milo.
“Certainly, Mr. Sturgis.”
When the waiter left, Milo touched my beer glass and said, “You’re
replacing that with dark draft, lad. From the weariness in your eyes,
I’d say you’ve earned it.”
“Gee, thanks, Dad. Can I have a two-wheeler without training wheels
too?”
He grinned, tugged his tie lower, then loosened the knot completely and
pulled it off. Running his hand over his face, he sat back in the
booth and snorted.
“How’d you find out about Herbert’s murder?” he said.
“From her former landlords.” I summarized my talk with Bobby and Ben
Murtaugh.
“They seem on the level?”
I nodded. “They’re still pretty shaken.”
“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing new on the case. She’s on file as a
Central Division open. The overall picture is a sadistic-psycho
thing.
Very little physical evidence.”
Another low-probability one?”
“Uh-huh. Best bet on these wacko ones is the bad guy does it again and
gets caught. Nasty one, too. She was hit over the head, had her
throat cut and something wooden shoved up her vagina coroner found
splinters. That’s about all they’ve got physically. It happened near
a punk club operating out of a garment contractor’s place in the Union
District. Not far from the Convention Center.”
“The Moody Mayan,” I said.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“The Murtaughs.”
“They got it half right,” he said. “It was the Mayan Mortgage.
Place went out of business a couple of weeks later.”
“Because of the murder?”
“Hell, no. If anything, that would have helped business. We’re
talking the night-crawler scene, Alex. Spoiled kids from Brentwood and
Beverly Hills putting on Rocky Horror Show duds and playing Look, Mom,
no common sense. Blood and entrails-someone else’s would be just what
they’re looking for.”
“That fits with what the Murtaughs said about Herbert. Grad student by
day, but she used to punk herself up at night. Used the kind of hair
dye that washes out the next morning.”
“L.A. shuffle,” he said. “Nothing’s what it seems. . . . Anyway, the
place probably closed down because that crowd gets bored easily-the
whole kick is to move from place to place. Kind of a metaphor for life
itself, huh?”
I did a finger~down-the-throat pantomime.
He laughed.
I said, “Do you know this particular club?”
“No, but they’re all the same-fly-by-night setups, no occupancy
permits, no liquor licenses. Sometimes they take over an abandoned
building and don’t bother to pay rent. By the time the landlord
catches on or the fire department gets around to shutting them down,
they’re gone. What’ll change it is a couple hundred clowns getting
roasted.”
He raised his glass and buried his upper lip in foam. He wiped it and
said, According to Central, one of the bartenders saw Herbert leave the
club shortly before two A.M. with a guy. He recognized her because
she’d been dancing at the club and was one of the few heavyset girls
they let in. But he couldn’t give any specifics on the guy other than