Over the Edge (23 page)

'Real workaholic, huh?'

'Dickie-poo? Oh, yeah. I don't know if you ever heard about it, but a couple of years ago Beverly Hills PD had this federally funded project to bust the coke dealers who were supplying the movie stars. Cash pulled undercover on that. They bought him a wardrobe from Giorgio, leased him an Excalibur and a place up in Trousdale, handed him a fat expense account, and set him up as King Shit, the independent producer. For six months he went to parties, balled starlets, and bought blow. At the end of if they busted a couple of small-timers, and even that was dismissed due to entrapment. A real triumph for law enforcement. When it was over, Cash got to keep the clothes, but everything else went. Coming back down to earth was traumatic. He'd had this taste of something sweet, and now it was yanked out of his mouth. Real work started to seem like a life sentence, so he dealt with it by becoming a goldbrick. Half the time the guy isn't even on the job. Supposedly he's interviewing sources, developing leads, but he always comes back a shade darker with the car full of sand, so we know about that, right? Even when he does show up, all he talks about is this screenplay he's working on - real-life detective stuff. Warren Beatty loves it, you see, but they're just waiting for their agents to get together to cut a deal, blah-blah-blah.'

'Sounds like the L.A. blues.'

'You got it.'

He was talking clearly and seemed alert, so I started the car and headed back south. Talking about Cash had triggered an association to the bloodstained room he'd shown me this morning.

'Can we talk about the case?' I asked.

He was surprised by the abrupt turn in the conversation but collected himself quickly. Finishing the last of the coffee, he crumpled the cup and tossed it from hand to hand.

'Like I said before, no investigative details. Besides, what's there to talk about?'

'Open-and-shut, huh?'

'Close enough to it to answer my prayers.'

'Doesn't that bother you?'

'What success? Sure, but I'm learning how to cope with it.'

'I'm serious, Milo. Half a dozen homicides that have baffled the police for a year suddenly solve themselves. Don't you find that strange?'

'It happens.'

'Not very often and not in serial murders. Isn't a big part of the kick for serial killers hide-and-seek, playing ego games with authorities? They may throw out hints and tease the police, but they go out of their way to avoid detection. And plenty of them -Jack the Ripper, Zodiac, the Green River Strangler - kill for years and never get caught.'

'But plenty of 'em do, pal.'

'Sure, through bad luck or carelessness - like Bianchi and the Yorkshire Ripper. But they don't just sit there holding the knife and wait to get picked up. It doesn't make sense.'

'Slicing people into cold cuts doesn't make sense, either, but it happens - more often than you'd like to know. Now, can we change the subject?'

'There's something else that bothers me. Nothing in Jamey's history indicates sadism or psychopathy. He's profoundly psychotic, much too muddled to plan and carry out those slashings.'

'You're getting abstract again,' he said. 'I don't give a damn how you diagnose him; the bottom line's the evidence.'

'Let me ask you one more thing. Before you arrested him, did you have any other leads on the slashings?'

'You've gotta be kidding.'

'Did you?'

'What's the difference if we had four hundred leads? The case is solved.'

'Humour me. What were they?'

'Forget it, Alex. That's exactly the kind of stuff I don't wanna get into.'

'The defence has access to investigative records. I can get it from Souza, but I'd rather hear it from you.'

'Oh, yeah? Why's that?'

'Because I trust you.'

'I'm flattered,' he growled.

We drove in silence.

'You're a persistent bastard,' he said finally, 'but you

don't try to change me, so I won't try to change you. If I tell you, will you drop it?'

'Sure.'

'All right. No, we didn't have any leads to speak of. In a case like this you get plenty of information - people turning in their neighbours or ex-lovers. All of it dead-ended. The closest we got to anything of value was that three of the victims were seen going off with biker types before they disappeared. Now don't get excited. I said closest only because we cross-referenced everything and bikers came up three separate times. But if you know Boystown, you know that's no big deal; leather freaks abound, and the chickens pull ten, fifteen tricks a night, so they're bound to interact with some tough-guy types. Nevertheless, being dutiful public servants, we hit the pavement, checked out all the leather bars, and came up empty. Satisfied?'

'What kinds of bikers?'

'Bikers. Slobs on choppers. No names, no colours, no club ID, no physical description. It came to zilch because the parties responsible weren't cruising around all night on Harleys, Alex. They were hacking and choking pretty boys in the privacy of a big white house in Beverly Hills. All right?'

'All right.'

We arrived back at the Golden Eagle just before midnight.

'What are you driving?'

'The Porsche. It's over there.'

The bone white 928 was sandwiched between two Japanese compacts in a far corner of the lot, gleaming like a slice of moonlight. A young couple was admiring it, and when I coasted to a stop at the rear bumper, they looked up.

'Nice wheels,' said the man.

'Yeah,' said Milo, leaning out the window, 'crime pays.'

The couple looked at each other and hurried away.

'It's not nice to frighten the citizens,' I said.

'Gotta protect Dr. Rick's bitchin' wheels.'

'Think of it as a positive sign,' I said. 'You don't leave

fifty grand worth of car with someone you're not planning on seeing again.'

He considered that.

'Collateral on the relationship, huh?'

'Sure.'

He put his hand on the door handle.

'It was good seeing you, Milo,' I said.

'Ditto. Thanks for the shoulder and keep out of trouble.'

We shook hands, and he stepped out of the Seville, hitched up his jeans, and searched through jangling pockets for the car keys. Retrieving a gold-plated set, he looked back at the Porsche and smiled.

'Or at the very least, alimony.'

IT WAS twelve-twenty when I got home, but Robin was still up, wearing a T-shirt over nothing and reading in bed.

'After you left, I went back to the shop,' she explained. 'Rockin' Billy phoned from New York; he's coming into town and wants another custom guitar.'

I kissed the top of her head, undressed, and slipped in beside her.

'More fruit? What was it last time - a mango?'

'A six-stringed papaya.' She laughed. 'For the Tropical Dreams LP. No, this time he's gone high-tech. He's releasing a song next week called "Buck Rogers Boogie" and he wants a solid body shaped like a ray gun to take on tour - chrome paint, LED readouts, synthesizer interface, the works.'

'Ah, art!'

'It's antiart, which is even more fun. Sometimes when I'm in the middle of one of his jobs and I start to feel silly, I pretend Marcel Duchamp is sitting in a corner of the shop, nodding approvingly.'

It was my turn to laugh.

'I'd like to see the thing when it's done,' I said, 'risk my life and blast off a few chords.'

'Come by when Billy picks it up. You might enjoy meeting him. Despite his looks, he's not your typical burned-out rocker. More of a long-haired businessman really.'

'Maybe I should meet the guy. You spend enough time with him.'

'Don't worry, darling, he's not my type. Too skinny.' She grew serious. 'How's Milo?'

I told her.

'Poor man,' she said. 'Down deep he's such a softy. Isn't there something we could be doing for him?'

'He knows he can come to us, but I think he's going to go the loner route for a while. And besides, getting together is awkward as long as we're working opposite sides of the Cadmus case.'

'That's awful. How much longer will you have to be involved with it?'

'I don't know.'

The noncommittal answer raised her eyebrows. She looked at me and let it ride.

'Speaking of which,' she said, 'a call came in on the service from Horace Souza. He insisted on leaving the message personally, so I took it. He's a charming old goat, isn't he?'

'I've never seen him in that light.'

'Oh, but he is, honey. Very courtly, very old-world. Like a benevolent uncle. Some women go for that type.'

'To me he's just manipulative and calculating. Everything he does is framed in terms of strategy, of winning the game.'

'Yes, I could see that,' she said. 'But wouldn't you want someone like that defending you if you were in trouble?'

'I guess so,' I said grumpily. 'What did he want?'

'Dr. Mainwaring can see you tomorrow at ten. If he doesn't hear from you, he'll assume it's on.'

'Okay, thanks.'

She propped herself up and looked into my eyes. Soft, fragrant curls brushed across my cheek.

'Poor Milo,' she said again.

I was silent.

'Are you cranky, Alex?'

'No. Just tired.'

'Not too tired, I hope.' The tip of her tongue grazed my lower lip. A jolt of pleasure coursed through my body.

'Never too tired,' I said, and wrapped my arms around her.

In the daylight the high concrete walls of Canyon Oaks Hospital were a sickbed grey that had been rendered white by the mercy of darkness. They rose, like tombstones, out of the verdant hills.

Mainwaring wasn't in his office at ten, and his secretary implied that his absence was premeditated. She led me to a small reading room down the hall and handed me Jamey's chart.

'Doctor said to read this first. He'll be ready for you by the time you're through.'

The room was pale and windowless, furnished with a tufted black vinyl sofa, an ersatz-wood end table, and an aluminium pole lamp. An ashtray on the table was filled with cold butts. I sat down and opened the chart.

Mainwaring's notes for the night of Jamey's initial admission to Canyon Oaks were detailed and punctilious. The patient was described as agitated, confused, physically assaultive, and unresponsive to the psychiatrist's mental status evaluation. Note was made of the fact that he'd been transported by an emergency ambulance and accompanied by the police. Mainwaring had conducted a gross neurological exam that had revealed no evidence of brain tumours or other organic abnormalities, though he'd included an addendum emphasising that the patient's lack of cooperation had made a comprehensive evaluation impossible. Plans for a CAT scan and an EEG were charted. Analyses for drug ingestion had ruled out the presence of LSD, PCP, amphetamines, cocaine, or opiates.

Psychiatric and medical histories had been taken from Mr. Dwight Cadmus and Mrs. Heather Cadmus, legal guardians, in the presence of Horace Souza, attorney-at-law. The medical history was unremarkable. The psychiatric history documented a pattern of progressive mental deterioration including delusions of persecution and probable auditory hallucinations combined with evidence of a premorbid schizoid or borderline personality type. The working diagnosis was 'schizophrenic disorder with mixed features (paranoid type, DSM#295.3x, possibly evolving to undifferentiated type, DSM#295.6x)' for which Mainwaring prescribed hospitalisation and an initial regimen of chlorpromazine - the generic name for Thorazine - a hundred milligrams orally, four times a day.

Appended to the intake report were copies of the police report and court documents validating the hospital's right to hold the boy involuntarily for seventy-two hours and the subsequent long-term commitment, as well as a CAT scan conducted two days after admission by a consulting neuro-radiologist, which confirmed the absence of organic pathology. The radiologist recounted - with barely disguised irritation - how difficult it had been to administer the scan because of the patient's assaultive behaviour and stated that conducting an EEG wouldn't be advisable until the patient grew more cooperative. The brain wave test was unlikely to yield much of value, he added, because the patient was clearly psychotic and EEG tracings on psychotics were inconclusive. Furthermore, the patient had already been medicated; that would invalidate the exam completely. He thanked Mainwaring for the referral and signed off the case. In the note that followed, Mainwaring thanked the radiologist for his consultation, concurred with his findings and recommendations, and noted that the severity of the patient's psychosis had 'dictated prompt chemotherapeutic treatment prior to encephalographic monitoring'.

Past that point, the notes thinned considerably. Mainwaring had visited Jamey once or twice daily, but the contents
 
of those contacts hadn't been
 
recorded.
 
The

psychiatrist's remarks were brief and descriptive - 'patient stable, no change' or 'increased hallucinatory activity' -followed by orders to adjust drug dosages. As I read on, it became clear that Jamey's response to medication had been uneven and that adjustments had been frequent.

For a brief period following admission, he'd appeared to be reacting favourably to the Thorazine. The psychotic symptoms lessened in both frequency and severity, and twice Mainwaring recorded that 'brief conversation with the patient' was possible, although he didn't specify what he and Jamey had spoken about. Soon after, however, there was an acute relapse, with Jamey growing highly agitated and lashing out physically. Mainwaring upped the dosage and, when the boy got worse instead of improving, kept increasing it steadily, searching for an 'optimal maintenance dose.'

At fourteen hundred milligrams daily there followed another period of improvement, although at this level of medication the patient was numbed and sleepy and progress was judged by the absence of unpredictable behaviours rather than by coherence. Then came another sudden relapse; the hallucinations this time were more 'florid' than ever before, the patient so assaultive that full-time restraints were ordered. Mainwaring dropped the Thorazine and switched to other phenothiazine tranquillisers - haloperidol, thioridazine, fluphenazine. With each drug the fluctuating pattern repeated itself. Initially Jamey had appeared to grow sedate, the quiescent periods ranging from a few days to one or two weeks at a time. Then, without warning, he'd become intractably agitated, paranoid, and confused. Toward the end of the notes, repetitive movements of the lips, tongue, and trunk had begun to appear - symptoms of tardive dyskinesia similar to the ones I'd noticed at the jail. In addition to not responding favourably to the drugs, he was developing toxic reactions to them.