Dietrich stubbed out his cigarette. “What’s your next move?”
“Captain, this is a fag killing. The better of my two eyewitnesses pegged Goines as a deviant, and the mutilations back it up. Goines was killed with a heroin OD. I want to run mugshots of known homos by Otis Jackson and other local pushers. I want–”
Dietrich was already shaking his head. “No, you cannot go back to City territory and question the man you pistol-whipped, and LAPD Narco will never cooperate with a list of local pushers–thanks to your escapades.” He picked a copy of the Herald off his desk, folded it over and pointed to a one-column piece: “Vagrant’s Body Found Dumped Off Sunset Strip New Year’s Eve.” “Let’s keep it at this–low-key, no name on the victim. We’ve got great duty here at this division, we thrive on tourism, and I don’t want it bollixed up because some queer slashed another queer hophead trombone player. Comprende?”
Danny twisted his fingers together behind his back, then shot his CO a Vollmer maxim. “Uniform codes of investigation are the moral foundation of criminology.”
Captain Al Dietrich said, “Human garbage is human garbage. Go to work, Deputy Upshaw.”
o o o
Danny went back to the squadroom and brainstormed in his cubicle, partition walls bracketing him, the station’s other three detectives–all at least ten years his senior–typing and jabbering into phones, the noise coming at him like gangbusters, then subsiding into a lull that was like no sound at all.
A mug blowup of Harlan “Buddy” Jastrow, Kern County axe murderer and the jolt that made him a cop, glared from the wall above his desk; some deputy who’d heard about his all-point want on the man had drawn a Hitler mustache on him, a speech balloon extending from his mouth: “Hi! I’m Deputy Upshaw’s nemesis! He wants to fry my ass, but he won’t tell anybody why! Watch out for Upshaw! He’s a college boy prima donna and he thinks his shit don’t stink!” Captain Dietrich had discovered the artwork; he suggested that Danny leave it there as a reminder to hold on to his temper and not high-hat the other men. Danny agreed; word got back to him that his fellow detectives liked the touch–it made them think he had a sense of humor that he didn’t have–and it made him angry and somehow able to brainstorm better.
So far, two and a half days in, he had the basics covered. The Central Avenue jazz strip had been canvassed around the clock; every bartender, bouncer, musician and general hepcat on the block had been braced–ditto the area where the body was dumped. Karen Hiltscher had called San Quentin and Lexington State Hospital for information on Goines and his buddies, if any, there; they were waiting the results of those queries. Rousting H pushers inside City confines was out for the time being, but he could put in a memo to Sheriff’s Narco for a list of dinks dealing in the County, press on that and see if he got any crossover leads back to LAPD turf. Goines’ musicians’ union would be reopening after the holiday this morning, and for now he had nothing but his instincts–what was true, what wasn’t true, what was too farfetched to be true and so horrible that it had to be true. Going eyeball to eyeball with Buddy Jastrow, Danny reconstructed the crime.
The killer meets Goines somewhere on the jazz block and talks him into geezing up–despite Marty’s recent dope cure. He’s got the Buick already staked out, door jimmied open or unlocked, wires unhooked and ready to be juiced together for a quick start. They drive someplace quiet, someplace equidistant from darktown and the Sunset Strip. The killer jacks enough horse into a vein near Goines’ spine to pop his heart arteries, a terrycloth towel right there to shove into his mouth and keep blood from drenching him. Figure, by the Zombie barman’s estimate, that the killer and Goines left Central Avenue around 12:15 to 12:45 A.M., took a half hour to drive to the destination, ten minutes to set the snuff up and accomplish it.
1:00 to 1:30 A.M.
The killer throttles his victim postmortem; fondles his genitals until they bruise, slashes his backside with the razor blade device, pulls out his eyes, screws him in the sockets at least twice, bites–or has an animal bite–through his stomach to the intestines, then cleans him up and drives him to Allegro Street, a rainy night, no moisture atop the body, the rain having stopped shortly after 3:00, the stiff discovered at 4:00 A.M.