L.A. Rotten (15 page)

“Done freaking out so soon? I thought it would be at least another week,” she says by way of hello.

“Shit. I'll call you back,” I say, and toss the phone onto the passenger seat.

Red and blue lights are flashing behind me as the cop lays on his intercom. “Pull over. Pull the vehicle to the side of the road.”

Dutifully I do as he commands and shut off the engine, placing my wrists at the eleven-and-one position on my steering wheel, clearly in sight. The officer pulls in behind me, stepping out and up to my side window, hand on his holster. “License, registration, and proof of insurance, sir.”

“What seems to be the trouble, Officer?” I ask innocently of the young blond cop.

“The trouble, Mr. Tanner, is,” he says, before I've even handed him my information, “talking on your cell phone while driving is illegal. Now, that law probably went into effect while you were still in jail, but ignorance is no defense. Also, the light over your license plate is out.” He takes my papers and license and scrutinizes them closely, hoping to find some inconsistency. Finally, he hands back the registration and insurance, but keeps the license and goes to retrieve his ticket pad from the patrol car.

When he comes back, he wordlessly hands the pad in for my signature, which I give. The officer tears off a ticket for the cell phone as well as the plate light and hands it in to me. “Compliments of Detective Stack.”

“Does he have all you guys all over the city on lookout for me?”

“He's even got us following you in shifts. I'm watching you till seven-thirty, then the night guy takes over. Make it easy on yourself—turn yourself in, huh, cop killer?”

“I'll consider that,” I say, and wait for the cop to move back before I pull away so he can't claim I tried to run him over. Instead of heading home or calling Ivy back, I turn left at the end of the block and head for the library. Behind me, the cop dutifully does the same. At the library, I gather every book I can find pertaining to serial killers and pile them in a stack beside me as I nest in at a table to read. Evidently, the police officer has elected to stay in his car. It's for the best; I don't need him to see what I'm researching. I've got to relate to A. Guy enough to make sure he trusts me, though. Flipping to the pages about Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, I begin my education.

Between the two men, they'd managed to rack up several murders—twelve of which they'd been officially tied to, but the book alludes to between twenty-five and, potentially, as many as forty victims. It had been tough for the police to give an exact number because many of the bodies had been incinerated beyond recognition on the duo's property in Northern California. Forty-five pounds of charred bone fragments and ash were collected from the homestead, as well as videotapes of them brutalizing and raping their female victims. Lake and Ng had even built a reinforced bunker into the hillside with secret rooms where they'd imprisoned their victims until they were bored with them. Men, women, even children had been killed by the two until they were found out in 1985. Leonard Lake killed himself with a hidden cyanide capsule before the police ever knew the caliber of person they had in custody. Charles Ng fled to Canada and almost got away with it until the Canadian police agreed to extradite him. I couldn't help but wonder how close A. Guy intended us to mirror these men. They'd only been caught because of a stupid shoplifting mishap. Other than that, they'd appeared to do everything just right—so to speak.

On my way home, still tailed by a police presence, I stop by an auto parts store and buy a light bulb to replace the one above my license plate. It will give the officers one less excuse to hassle me. As I install the bulb in the parking lot, careful not to even litter, I raise a hand to acknowledge my night guard, a bespectacled black man who does not wave back.

This time, I park my car outside my apartment and hoof it back down to the Mexican bar with the officer driving slowly up the block behind me, forcing cars to stack up behind him.

The bar is full now of day laborers in festive shirts, quaffing cervezas and carrying on. I am forced to cover the phone receiver with my free hand so I can hear. Still, it is better than the alternative—a quiet place where everyone can hear everything.

“Tom, how nice of you to call again.”

“I did my homework.”

“And?”

“It could be done better.”

“How?”

“No shoplifting for one.”

“That's obvious.”

“Their method of burning the bodies was really smart—the cops could only charge them with the bodies they didn't burn.”

“So?”

“Burn all the bodies, for starters. Don't record our crimes. Don't leave clues to our identity.”

“Believe me, I'm learning as I go,” A. Guy admits.

“This could really work, you know? Between us, we're smart enough to avoid the pitfalls.” Even as I say it I know I don't mean it, and yet, it is all truth. If I were depraved enough and more motivated, I could put a hell of a scare into this town, with or without him. “No more motel jobs, though.”

“Tom, I promise. That was something of a jumping-off point—I had to start somewhere, you know?”

“But why there? Why on the second floor? It seems like an easy way to get caught.”

“True…and you proved as much, which is how come I'm not doing it anymore. When I first came out to Los Angeles trying to make it on my own, I stayed at the Offramp Inn for a while—”

“Room 236?”

“Exactly. And all I did my first week was lay there in that room, awake all night, just praying that some crazed lunatic wouldn't kick open the door and attack me. My first purchase in Los Angeles was a knife. Before anything else, I bought a knife. And I would just lie there all night, gripping that knife, listening to people trying to open my door because they thought it was their room, or knocking on my window asking if I was holding. I about went mad from that. Then I got to thinking, ‘I have a knife. Fuck them. Let them come in.' And, I started leaving my door ajar at night.”

“Did any of them come in?”

“One. Guy had a Marine tattoo on his forearm, snuck into my room just after two in the morning, real jittery. I wasn't terrified, though, staring at that tattoo through the slits in my eyes, pretending to be asleep. Like a spider, I was waiting. By that point, I too was a warrior. He checked all around the dresser and everything, not knowing that I kept all my possessions with me, in the bed. And I'm just not stirring at all, right? So he grows bolder and decides that there must be something of value beneath the bed. I can feel him staring at me, just staring, and I've got the knife tight in my hand—half my brain is screaming for me to attack, the other half is telling me to wait it out. Well, finally, he gets all the way down on his belly and scoots beneath the bed, his arms extended, just searching out anything. And at that moment, I struck. I rolled over and jammed that knife down as hard as I could right into his back, between the shoulders. He didn't last long and he didn't scream but a little bit. He died with his head and arms still beneath the bed, never knowing what hit him. I felt so tough and so scared, I kept waiting for the police or someone to come, but no one did. Finally, I dragged the body out of the room and down into the L.A. River—what a joke that thing is. I left him out there and went back to the room. I told the front desk the next day that I'd spilled fruit punch on the floor—they charged me fifty dollars for someone to come in and change out the carpeting. That was it. I got away with it. I never heard about the Marine again, and the whole murder cost me fifty bucks. It was pathetically easy. And so it went.”

“What about the Bible/condom thing? You religious?”

“God no. That was a bit of my own twisted humor. I got carried away. It seemed so poetic at the time, but now when you bring it up, I just feel like a dork. I—I shoulda just stuck with the smiley faces.”

“Yeah, because those were so much less lame.”

“I told ya, I'm still learning.”

“Before we can do anything together, we've got to get this cop presence off of me.”

“Forget the cops—if they were bright, they wouldn't be cops. They won't keep after you forever; they're fickle. You can lose 'em.”

“Then where should we meet up?” I try to present the notion in a nonchalant, casual manner, as if it doesn't really matter whether we do or not, but in the silence that follows, I realize I've overplayed my hand again.

“Not so fast, Dr. Tom—just because I can't spell for shit doesn't mean I'm as dumb as a cop. I've earned some trust; now you've got to earn some of your own.

“You still there?” he asks after I don't answer.

“What have you got in mind?”

“Well, as it just so happens, I've already decided on your first task.”

“Out of how many?”

“Baby steps, Tom. Baby steps. We don't meet until I decide it is time we meet, so just enjoy the ride. I don't partner up with just anybody, you know.”

“How silly of me.”

“That's alright, you're eager. I'll give you extra points for that.”

“What do I gotta do?”

“Like I said, the first one is easy. I'm going to do the killing, but I want you to choose the weapon I do it with. Do they suffer, or is it over quickly? Do I use a gun or a hatchet or a knife or a weed whacker or a candlestick? Whatever. Creativity counts here, so go nuts. Call me back when you've decided. And try to keep the calls to normal business hours—I've got shit to do at night. In the meantime, I put a package in that locker for you, just to tide you over. Can't have an unfocused mind when there is work to be done, can we?”

“No one else can die around me—they'll send me back to prison.”

“Tommy, you've got to take a chill pill, man. Somehow, someway, we have got to file that nervous edge off of you; it's bad for business.” A click on the other line announces that he's hung up.

“Choose ‘time'—you know, old age. Outsmart him,” Ivy decides, and I can see she is proud of herself for the thought.

“That's just it—it's as much about me choosing the weapon as it is about him doing the deed. Too easy and I'm a pussy, too impractical and he'll never agree to meet up. It's a double-edged sword that way.”

“Why not choose a double-edged sword then?”

“Jesus. First you don't want him to kill the person, then you want him to kill them in the most medieval way possible?”

“Well…jeez.” She's wounded here. “I was only kidding—I don't want anyone to die—it's bad karma. I'm a live-and-let-live kind of girl…mostly. Remember: I wanted to go to the cops with all this.
But since that's not an option, and since it's between you and some
stranger
, and they've got to die anyway, what's it matter? I don't think there is a nice way to kill someone.”

A customer in the bikini bar looks over at that, so I shush Ivy with a subtle wave of the hand. “I'm not protesting it, I'm just saying you've covered a pretty broad spectrum. No, a double-edged sword is an interesting idea—poetic even. Right now, it's king of the mountain.”

“What about a chainsaw?”

“Damn, you just don't stop, do you?”

“You've got to wow him, right? To get close, you've got to make him realize you've got the cojones to play his games, right? A chainsaw will
soooo
do that. Besides, your goal is to stop him before he pulls this off, right? So you've just got to say ‘chainsaw' to get his attention, and then don't let him actually use it.”

“Doesn't mean I'm going to risk looking like an asshole by suggesting it.”

She shrugs, already out of ideas.

“I think I've got it,” I say, watching two younger guys down the bar attempt to ignite a shot of whiskey with a Bic lighter. “Remember that awful dream of yours?”

“Jesus, Tom…not that!” Ivy protests, but the idea is already fixed in my mind.

“You said it yourself—it would be the worst way to die.”

“So why the fuck would you choose it then?”

“Instant respect. We'll one-up Lake and Ng. A. Guy will love it—he won't just burn the body, he'll burn the person.”

It takes everything in my power to pull the plungers from the twin syringes of heroin and dump their contents into my toilet. The next few days will be rough. I'm already feeling the itch something fierce, and the knowledge that no relief is coming only amplifies the sensation.

I'm right, of course, and, more importantly, A. Guy agrees. “Fire's mean,” he chuckles when I tell him. “You've got a sadistic streak in you, Dr. Tom. Maybe you're the Leonard Lake?”

“Nah, I'm just taking my cues from you,” I say, stoking his ego through the payphone. “You're the crazy one.” I can tell he likes that. Killing like he does, he is probably all bottled up, just looking for a forum to brag. I give him that release, and his dam suddenly seems to split.

“Fuck Leonard Lake,” he agrees, boisterous. “And Charles Ng. We're Tom and Andy, and we're going to be fucking infamous!”

Somehow the silence that follows seems loud, like a vibrator rattling on a hardwood floor. And then he—Andy—is desperate to fill in the conversational blank, as if refusing to acknowledge that he fucked up. “So you're going to need to supply me with the tools for this little operation. I'm thinking what we need is a five-gallon gas can—full, obviously, and a good lighter.”

“Is this my next task?”

“No, this is still part of the first one. I don't just have an extra gas can and Zippo lying around, and I'll be damned if I shell out the money for them when I have you, who are so eager to kiss my ass.”

“What should I do with these?”

“Glad you asked. A little before four-thirty on Tuesday, go down to the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. Find the ‘Saint Ann's' section. Near marker number 156, you'll find the grave of Holly Kelly.” I can detect his smirk through the phone. “Leave the gas can and lighter on the grave, and then get back in your car and drive away. I'll be able to see if you are watching, so don't try and get clever. And knock this payphone bullshit off. I don't like having to be on your terms. Man up and take my calls from your cell phone. You're not exactly public enemy number one or anything. If I'm not afraid of being tracked down, you shouldn't be.” I'd never thought about what the Kellys had done with little Holly's remains, whether she'd been buried or cremated or even frozen like Walt Disney. Apparently she'd been buried in Culver City. It is strange: I've driven by that cemetery at least a few times before and never for a moment considered that Holly might have been inside. Apparently “Andy” had made that consideration, though.

By Tuesday, I am sick. Full-on withdrawal symptoms have hit to the point where I need Ivy to drive me out to the cemetery. She offers to just go it alone, but I don't want to take the chance that Andy thinks we're up to something.

The patrolman on watch fires up his car when I exit the building, and though it annoys me to do so, I give him a friendly wave. It's the hardass—the one who gave me a ticket. Losing him is going to be a challenge. I pass Ivy's blue Tercel, parked just behind my Charger on the street. She's smart enough to not look up as I pass, and when I'm sure the officer can't see my hand, I discreetly drop my car keys into the gutter beside her back tire. Stuffing my hands into the pocket of my sweatshirt, I continue on, as if I'm out for a pleasant midafternoon stroll about the neighborhood. Reaching the corner, I turn left and head up the block toward the Quik-time Laundromat. Without looking, I know he is right with me. I walk slowly now, giving Ivy time. At the door to the laundromat, I look upward at the sign, studying it, as if casually curious about just what the fuck is the nature of such a business. The cop double-parks in the street, still idling, and stares at me, suspicious, but I pay him no heed and finally enter. He doesn't follow me inside, and I am counting on this as I head straight through the building and out the back door, into the alley where Ivy is waiting for me in the Charger, right on schedule. Ideally, the policeman waits another twenty minutes before he gets off his ass to come inside and find out I burned him. It is an easy gag, and I must concede that Andy is right about the intelligence level of beat cops. Of course, I don't fool myself that the trick will work more than once. The gas can, currently in my trunk, is an old army-green metal affair that I got from the back of a wrecked Jeep in a salvage yard off San Fernando Road. The Zippo in my pocket is plain, polished steel with no frills—both are filled to capacity. Ivy drives while I rest my head on the windowsill, my sweatshirt hood pulled low over my eyes to keep the sun out. The heroin was fun while it lasted, but sobering is a bitch. I feel the car make a series of tight turns as Ivy pulls through the gates and over to the grotto that separates us from the Saint Ann section. “We'll have to do some walking,” she says, and parks at a curb in the large cemetery.

I carry both the gas can and the Zippo, hunched over and dripping sweat. It's a good thing there are no spectators at the moment, because I look like an extra from
Night of the Living Dead
. We take a stone path past the shaded grotto and its trickling waterfall, and this leads us to a grouping of flat earth markers, offset from the rest of the cemetery. Ivy, excited, moves ahead, eagerly scanning plaques in search of the little dead girl. “It's here!” she exclaims finally, stopping at a gray marker level with the earth around it.

“ ‘Holly Ann Kelly, Beloved Daughter.' Pretty generic. There's not even a death date,” Ivy gripes.

I cut across several graves, laboring with the heavy can as the pungent liquid inside sloshes back and forth.

“The grave marker next to hers is blank,” Ivy continues. “Do you think—”

“Yes. I do.” I set the can down heavily on top of the plaque and then place the Zippo on top of that. Both get a quick wipe to ensure they're free of my fingerprints. I look down at the grave plate, flush with the surrounding grass, unwilling to read the words myself. “Let's get out of here.”

“Don't you want to…I don't know…reflect? Or at least see if we can find some celebrities?”

“I just want to lay down and die.”

“Well, you're in the right place,” she kids, catching up as I walk away.

We go back to my place and the same cop is waiting for me, parked directly in front of the apartment building. I make Ivy walk far behind me so the officer doesn't know we're together. This time, I delight in giving him a friendly wave. Agitated, he points a finger gun in my direction and blows me away.

Inside the apartment with Ivy, I insist that we screw because we haven't in a while and I think it will maybe take my mind off heroin. I can't get hard, though, even with her sucking on my cock, and so we lie there, naked, both covered in my sweat.

I don't know if I should explain that it's not her fault, so I don't. Fortunately, my phone buzzes, just once, but it gives me the excuse to slide out from the silence between us. “There's no way you can deal with a crime scene right now,” Ivy orders, maternal. “Tell your boss to do it himself.”

“That'll be the day.” I wince and fish the phone from the pocket of my pants. It's a text message. I open it and find only the address to a home in Hawthorne. It takes me a second, but then I realize. “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.” I toss the phone onto my nightstand, out of her immediate reach.
Fucking inconvenient bastards.

“Is it him?” she persists.

“No—really, it's nothing.”

Ivy can handle this new quiet for about three seconds. “Is it another girl?”

“I fucking wish,” I say, and slowly lie back on the bed, anticipating another migraine. Ivy is right, of course. There is no way I can complete the work that is expected of me now, not by myself, and especially not with a constant police presence.

“You're pretty into me, right?” I ask finally.

“Why?”

“There's something going on that would turn you off of me, and I don't know how to deal with it.”

“Stop being cryptic and level with me, how's that for a start?”

“I've got this side gig…cutting up bodies for a street gang. For money.”

“And that was them?”

“Yeah.”

“And you can't do it alone?”

“Yeah.”

“And you want me to help you?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“So…then, what?”

“I don't fucking know. You don't seem surprised.”

“I'm not. You got this thing with death that kinda creeps me out, but I've managed so far, and I'll keep managing, I suppose, because you're right: I am into you.”

“So what happens next?”

“Is this something we have to deal with right now?” she asks, serious now, realizing.

“I think it is.”

“Okay, so first things first. We've got to get rid of the police. Do you think he'll fall for the laundromat thing again?”

“No.”

“Okay, so we've got to come up with something else. Any ideas?”

My mind flashes to the supplies in the basement. “I think I've got one.”

I exit the apartment building just as night is settling on the city and bringing with it a soft breeze that does wonders against the heat. The cop sits in his car exactly where I left him, with the engine running and the air conditioner blasting full steam. His window is down, though, and I can hear his engine working overtime. “That's not good for the car,” I tell him coolly, eating up time, not moving from my spot in front of the building.

“You think you're pretty clever, don't you, killer?” he retorts.

“Nah, not really,” I say with a shrug. “I just don't like to see my taxes go to waste.” He's got a goofy mustache that matches his blond hair, and it's the only thing that keeps him from looking like a kid.

“Turn yourself in then. You're the one wasting taxpayer money.”

“I'm going to head up to the store, you need anything?” I can sense Ivy on the roof above me, and make sure I'm standing a safe distance from the car.

“I'll be right up your ass from here on out, so don't think—” Before he can finish, five gallons' worth of industrial wall paint splashes down beautifully onto the side windows and roof of the police cruiser. It's a dismal color and it doesn't do the cruiser any more justice than it does the hallways of my apartment complex. Now it is all about reaction.

“Holy shit,” I exclaim, and look skyward, happy to see that Ivy is nowhere in sight. The officer, whose arm and left side have taken on a large amount of the splatter, is screaming and fumbling to exit the vehicle. “Fucking teenagers,” I add, not smiling.

“Aghh…” is all the cop can say, shaking in apoplectic rage, not sure at all what to do. He looks up at the roof, across the street, and then at me, who stands innocent and splatter-free. “Did you see who did this?”

“No…but like I said, there are a couple punks living in the building—they pull this shit all the time.”

“Goddamnit!” The officer swipes the paint off himself onto any clean surface he can find. A middle-aged Asian lady exits the apartment with a small portable grocery cart. “Did you do this?” the cop yells at her, but she just hurries off, unsettled. “Stay right where you fucking are,” the cop tells me, catching the door to the building. “Fucking Christ.”

The moment he is gone, I move quickly up the block to the Charger, where I settle into the passenger seat and wait. Ivy emerges from the building a minute later, smiling broadly herself. “That felt so, so fucking good.” She climbs behind the wheel.

“Did you see him?” I ask, pleased as well.

“No,” Ivy admits. “I took the elevator, he took the stairs. But I could hear him—the whole building could.” She pulls my car out into the street. “Now, where are we headed?”