Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (59 page)

Jesus Christ!

I had a wild urge to take out my badge and shove it in every face in
sight. I enjoyed my mental image of the panic it would create. But I
didn't do it. I forced my arms down, pushed the clutching hands away,
closed my pants, and got the hell out of there.

When I went into the locker room about eleven thirty, Carnehan already had
his uniform on, sitting there reading a copy of the
Advocate
and
eating an apple. He looked up when I rattled my locker.

"Hey, Lou! You missed a great dinner."

"It couldn't be helped, Carnehan."

"Don't forget about Wednesday."

"I won't."

I took off my shirt and remembered my wallet was still in the pocket. I
put it on the shelf and took off my pants. I grabbed a towel and headed
for the shower. I felt clammy. I must have sweated off a pound in that
damn bar. Those groping bodies can generate a lot of heat.

Carnehan laughed out loud. He came toward me waving the newspaper. "Hey,
Lou! Did you see this cartoon in the
Advocate?
"

"Why in hell would I be reading the
Advocate?
"

"Look, there's these two cops standing before a judge with a handcuffed
fag and a hooker. One of the cops is saying, 'But Your Honor, you can get
hurt
chasing robbers and murderers.' Isn't that a scream?"

"Ha ha," I said and went on to the showers. He started rushing around the
room showing it to everyone else.

I was almost finished when Cunningham came in. He turned on the water and
stood under it, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and a sappy
grin on his face.

"You look like the cat that swallowed the aviary," I said.

He sighed. "I am
exhausted!
"

"Let me guess from what."

"I met the most fan
tas
tic girl! A waitress at the Hamburger Hamlet
on the Strip. I'm gonna give it two weeks and, if I'm
still
alive,
I'm gonna propose." He rubbed his hand between his legs. "I tell you,
Rankin, I didn't know I had it in me. Boy, I'd like to see Wharton try to
convince
her
I'm a repressed homosexual."

I laughed dutifully. He began soaping and glanced down at me.

"You look a little shriveled up yourself. Have a big night?" He grinned
good-naturedly, wanting to share his sexual excitement.

"Yeah. Some women are just as happy with size as they are with technique."

He looked a little wistful for a moment, then the grin returned. "Shit! If
I had your size and my technique, I'd quit the force, put an ad in the
Free
Press,
and open a screwing service."

And I wondered about
him
again. With that face and that body, did
he worry about size and technique? How did women react to him? Were they
intimidated by his beauty? Was he as beautiful in bed?

I saw him going into the Vogue Record Shop on the Boulevard. This time
there was no mistake. I told Carnehan to park the car and meet me at the
entrance. When I went through the turnstiles, I saw him leaning against
the end of the counter. I walked into the book department and watched him
from behind a rack of paperbacks.

He had his back to me and it took me a moment to figure out what he was
doing. The cashier was playing the
Symphonie Fantastique—
it
was the passage where the two shepherds are calling to each other on their
flutes and, at the end, one doesn't answer—and he was standing there
listening to the music. Then he turned slightly and I could see his face.

I could feel the skin crawling on the back of my neck.

It wasn't the same one!

It was all there: the red hair, the magnificent body, the neutral beauty
of the bland face. But the features were different. He had to be the other
one's brother, they were so alike.

The lights in the store were very bright. No one else was in the place but
the cashier and she had her nose in a paperback volume of Toynbee. His
clothes were clean and neatly pressed, but they were old and hadn't cost
much when they were new. His hair was neat and not very long. His face was
so smooth I doubted that he shaved. And his eyes were gray—just as
beautiful and as neutral as the rest of him.

Finally the record ended and he left. I glanced at the book I had been
holding. The cover was a photograph of Burt Reynolds standing with his
back to the camera looking over his shoulder. He was wearing nothing but a
football jersey, with his bare ass hanging out. I closed the book, put it
back on the rack, and for some reason thought of Betty Grable.

The cashier never even looked up when he went out. Carnehan, standing on
the sidewalk looking confused, never glanced at him as he walked by. The
girl was watching me. She smiled but her eyes were guarded.

"Did you know the man who just went out?" I asked, trying to sound casual.

She glanced out the door, but he had turned left toward Las Palmas. She
looked back at me. "I don't think so, officer. Did he do something?"

"No. I just thought I'd seen him before. Maybe in the movies or on
television."

She shrugged. "Movie stars come in here all the time. Jo Anne Worley was
in yesterday. Wendell Burton comes in every once in a while."

"Thanks." I left before she could give me a complete catalogue of the
celebrities she'd seen. She raised her voice as I went out the door.

"Chad Everett was in a couple of weeks ago, but I was off that day."

I looked down the Boulevard but didn't see him. I told Carnehan to wait
for me and went after him. At Las Palmas I looked in every direction, but
there was no sign of him. The hustlers standing around the Gold Cup
pretended to ignore me, but a couple of drag queens gave me defiant looks.

There was another bad one that night on the off-ramp at Western. Four cars
were scattered half a block. There were seven dead and two others who
probably wouldn't see morning. And there were two of
them
in the
crowd. Two different ones.

I motioned Carnehan over.

"Yeah, Lou?"

"Carnehan. See those two guys over there, the ones with red hair?"

He looked confused. "Where?"

"You see the black dame in the yellow dress? The one with pigtails all
over her head that make her look like an upside-down johnny brush?"

He snickered. "Sure."

"One of them is standing right beside her. On her left. You see him?"

Slowly: "Yeah."

"What does he look like?"

He looked up at me. "What d'ya mean?"

"No! Keep looking at him!" He looked back. "You still see him?"

"Yeah."

"Describe him to me."

He thought for a moment. "Don't forget. Tomorrow's Wednesday. Margaret's
expecting you for dinner."

"
Carnehan!
Concentrate on the redheaded guy. Don't think about
anything else. What does he look like?"

"I don't know. He's just a guy."

"How old is he?"

"It's hard to tell. The light's not too good."

"Is he under thirty?"

He considered. "Yeah."

"Under twenty-five?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so."

"Under twenty?"

He was silent for a moment. Good old Carnehan. His little pea brain was
doing its best. "Maybe … but probably not."

"What about his face?"

"What about it?"

"Is it an ugly face?"

"No."

"Is it a handsome face?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"How handsome?"

"Golly, Lou."

"Very handsome?"

"Yeah."

"Better-looking than Cunningham?"

"Yeah." His voice suddenly got excited. "Hey, Lou, is that a movie star or
something?"

We went through the whole thing again with the other one. Carnehan finally
saw them the same way I did, but he couldn't remember the one at the
record shop. Later I asked him if he remembered the two good-looking
redheaded guys.

"Sure. How could you forget somebody who looks like that? Especially when
there's two of 'em. Hey, you suppose they're twins?"

"Are they still there?"

"Naw. They musta left," he said, looking right at them. "Don't forget
about dinner Wednesday night."

Then they both turned and looked at me with their expressionless eyes. Or
were they expressionless? I thought I saw recognition and speculation, but
I wasn't sure. Carnehan was right. The light
was
bad.

They kept us hopping the rest of the night. We'd barely get through with
one before we were sent to another.

An old hotel on Vermont burned to the ground. Half the department was
there, keeping the curious out from underfoot, rerouting traffic. My eyes
were burning and watery from the smoke, but it didn't keep me from seeing
them.

I counted seven. Seven beautiful redheaded young men with perfect bodies.

I leaned against my locker in pure exhaustion, wondering if I should take
a shower. I was grimy from smoke and dust, but I was so tired I only
wanted to go to bed. Cunningham came in, looking as beat as I felt.

He looked at me and sighed, shaking his head.

"What are you doing in uniform?" I asked, not really caring. "You off the
Pansy Patrol?"

He started undressing. "Yeah. They called us in about three. What got into
people last night, anyway? Seems like everybody was trying to get
themselves killed."

The same thought had crossed my mind, but not seriously. I had other
things to think about.

Margaret called herself the next afternoon to remind me about dinner. But
I'd already laid out my plan of action.

"I'm sorry, Margaret. I was just about to call you. I'm leaving for Texas
in about two hours. My father is very ill, and I've taken a leave of
absence from the department."

"Oh, Lou, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

"No, thank you, Margaret. Everything's taken care of."

"At least let me drive you to the airport."

"I'm not flying. I'll need my car when I get there."

"How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know. My father isn't expected to live …" I let my voice
break a little. "Say so long to Carnehan for me."

"Of course, Lou. You're sure there's nothing I can do?"

"No. Nothing. Good-bye, Margaret."

"'Bye, Lou, dear."

Well, it wasn't
all
a lie. My father had taken three months to die
seventeen years ago when I was in high school, but nobody out here knew
that. The lieutenant hadn't much liked the idea of giving me an indefinite
leave of absence, but what could he do? I packed enough supplies in the
Dart to last two people six weeks, paid my landlady two months in advance,
drove up La Brea to the Boulevard, and put my car in the underground
garage near Graumann's Chinese. I walked down to the Vogue and caught a
double feature.

It was dark when I came out. I could hear sirens in several directions. I
got in the car and drove to David's for something to eat. All I had to do
was get in one place and wait, no driving around, no taking extra chances
of being seen.

I had almost finished eating when I heard the sirens. I didn't pay much
attention because there would be plenty of time and plenty of sirens, if
tonight was anything like last night. When I came out of the restaurant
there were little bunches of people standing on the corners looking south
down La Brea. I walked over and saw a crowd around the Gordon, standing in
that tense way they do when somebody's had it. This was going to be a lot
easier than I'd thought.

I crossed over Melrose past the camera store and eased my way through the
press of bodies. The colored neon of the marquee made the blood look
black. The guy was under a blanket, flat on his back on the sidewalk, one
brown hand poking out from under the edge. The hand had blood on it, and a
spot had soaked through the blanket. More of it was smeared around on the
concrete.

One of the cops talking to a couple of people was named Henderson. I only
knew him vaguely, so he probably wouldn't know I was supposed to be on my
way to Texas. I began sorting through a number of excuses for my delay
just in case.

He saw me and waved. The patrol car was behind him at the curb, the
flashers turning hypnotically but losing out to the bright marquee. A
young Chicano sat in the back seat looking dazed and surly. He wiped at
his mouth with the back of his hand and I saw the glint of cuffs. A girl
was hunched in the front seat weeping.

Henderson finished with his witnesses and started toward me. "Hello,
Rankin. Don't you get enough of this on duty?"

"Just passing by. What happened?"

He groaned and shook his head. "Couple of kids in a knife fight over a señorita.
Wonder if she was worth it."

"The way she's carrying on, the wrong one musta lost."

"Yeah." Another siren approached. "Here's the ambulance. See you around,
Rankin." He walked away, being very official, moving the onlookers back
another inch.

I looked over the crowd and saw him almost immediately. He was about
twelve feet from me, his eyes on the blanket. As usual no one was paying
him the slightest attention. I edged toward him as they put the body in
the ambulance. The crowd began drifting away, but I kept my eyes on that
beautiful boy. I wasn't sure if I had seen him before, they all looked so
much alike.

He turned and walked north on La Brea. I followed him across Melrose. A
few people were still milling around the intersection, but I couldn't let
him get too far away from my car.

I overtook him, touched his arm, and said, "Excuse me." I had my badge in
my hand when he turned with a startled look.

My face was only a foot from his. I saw the clear, healthy skin and the
bewildered gray eyes that looked at me with recognition. All the artists
for the last thousand years have been trying to paint that face on angels,
but their poor, fumbling attempts never came close. It was only for an
instant, but I had to look away or be overwhelmed.