The Everborn (20 page)

“The bar may not serve booze after two a.m., but that doesn’t mean the owner can’t party with a few personal friends after closing up shop. They closed up shop all right, but I wasn’t one of the personal friends. My big mouth just drew attention to the interested bastards who took it from there and shut the door in my face.”

“You think they know more than us?” Max questioned.

“It’s government now, like all this sorta bullshit usually gets to be...excuses and coverups...you should know that. You’ve always been civilian and in the public norm to them. But they’re digging up shit from ‘68 and related files that’ve been confidential even to me. I’m telling you, the bastards don’t know black from white. They know enough but can’t translate it, don’t know after all these years where it’s taking them. They won’t cooperate with me and someone higher won’t cooperate with them without a good enough blow job. Now...follow me, there’s something further I’d like to show you....”

They ditched their smokes, Max motioning an obedient Rod and the two proceeded to venture across to the cement walkway of the motel corridor, bending beneath crime scene tape and furthering their approach towards the crime scene itself, where a half-dozen uniformed officers awaited them before an opened doorway.

Max shot an observing gaze about him and to the array of on-lookers gathered along the parking lot outskirts. A doleful, dark-toned gentleman nervously fondled a beaded necklace adorning bell-bottomed attire found only in thrift stores and the late seventies, as he beheld his own dismal fortunes reflected from beneath the rainswept skies and come to pass around him. A display of several city and county squad cars littered the lot, mingling amongst the parked vehicles of leftover motel patrons who spied from the discreetly parted curtains of their rooms. An ambulance rested not far from the corridor’s hedged cobblestone walkway leading in from the lot, its rear double doors gaping while a medic team patiently awaited the go-ahead to unload a gurney.

The uniformed officers, one at a time, caught sight of the lieutenant and the accompanying stranger until the two halted in their midst.

“Gentlemen,” McGregor commenced a hurried introduction, “this is Maxwell Polito, a one-of-a-kind private wonder-dick who’ll be joining me at this point of the investigation. Max, these guys are top-notch motherfucking street centurions. But even after a hard day of criminal kick-ass, they’re just like the sweethearts they bring flowers home to every goddamn night. Ain’t that right, guys?”

They snickered as though they had to.

Max nodded a greeting, after which he added, “Officers.” He then followed Matt through the doorway of room number “0”, according to the “0” hanging loosely upon the front of the door. He eyed a fallen, cast iron “6” at his feet as he then entered and stepped upon carpet, his next steps treading past a massive terrain of thick stagnant blood flow, dried and black and rank beneath the staleness of the room’s confining quarters. A square wooden table near the kitchenette beyond rested overturned upon its side facing the wall, flanked by two toppled chairs; its outstretched table legs reached toward and above a body bag stuffed and sealed and sprawled limply like a black plastic Hefty bag readied for the garbage man to haul away on Monday.

A woman gripping a clipboard stumbled into Max’s elbow on her way to exit, nearly losing her glasses. Two men in yellow rain jackets knelt and measured and conversed beside the body bag, their backs turned, a camera case dangling over the shoulder of one of them. Past an undisturbed queen-sized bed. In front of a sink counter and wall mirror in the rear portion of the room stood two other men in business suits, whispering to themselves below the crackling static of holstered radios. Max and McGregor caught their adverse attentions, just as the clipboard woman re-entered the room and brushed past Max on her way to the far end, joining the suited officials in their whispered banter.

“Listen, Max,” McGregor turned and spoke sternly but softly, “I need your insight on this.”

“That makes it ditto,” Max said. McGregor’s urgent summons had brought him here with unanswered questions and Max had been calm and observant so far. But any accumulated speculations were just as equally doubtful and hopeful as before he’d arrived, though of this new apparent homicide he entertained certain notions...after all, Matt would never have brought him here unless there were
certain notions
....

McGregor continued, unexpectedly sentimental, although ever so slightly this way as if to avoid an embarrassing bonding moment between them, “Maxy, you know we were destined to know each other....”

“You sound like my wife,” Max said.

“....because you’ve been on this thing for so many years now, this thing that happened to me so long ago, this thing you walked in on because of me and despite a career taking you through more demanding affairs, you’ve been on this thing all your life since.”

Max shook his head as if to shake free a confusion which suddenly came at him from all of this and when he looked back up and into Matt’s observing features, he responded by asking, “What
happened
here?”

They both were interrupted by one of the men in business suits, who now appeared at McGregor’s side. He plainly had more than ten years on Matt, yet answered to him with a respect underscored with a mildly irritable hostility. . . the kind of guy who always seemed pissed off at something unspoken and over everyone’s heads, a cop who still called bodies
stiffs
. “Lieutenant, let’s wrap this up at the office. We’re ready to bail, throw this to the other bloodhounds. It’s Forensics’ show now.” Then, looking at Max, “Who’s this, the goddamn media already?”

McGregor made a prompt introduction. “Hugh, this is Maxwell Polito, a private detective and close friend of mine for many years. So for chrissake, be nice to him.”

The man gripped Maxwell’s hand cordially but skeptically. “Hugh Updike, Detective of Homicide.”

McGregor continued, “Mister Polito has been involved in a private case for quite a while now and in effort to further his investigations he sent a shadow to observe the subjects of his case at
The Crow Job
last Friday night. Hugh, please tell Mister Polito what Friday night has in common with the unholy shithole gore-fest we’re standing in today. The condensed version, if you will. Please.”

Max pulled out a micro recorder from his outside jacket pocket, clicked it on and returned his attention to Detective Updike with an apologetic nod.

Hugh sighed impatiently, undid the front button of his suit coat and anchored his hands about his waist. He began, “Two young adults we were eventually able to identify attended the event at the club Friday night and were seen leaving before the place closed. They proceeded to this motel and to their prepaid room, this room, to go fuck or whatever. At some point after or during their arrival inside this room, they were assaulted by an unidentified male Caucasian. There was a struggle, brief but as you can see violent....” A quick finger snap brought the clipboard woman to his side and he seized her clipboard.

Scanning the first of an orderly assortment of forms and papers, he continued, “...resulting in the slaying of Benjamin Norquist, age twenty-two, victim of multiple lacerations and stab wounds and a fatal cut across the jugular. It is assumed that the unidentified intruder then had his way with Benjamin’s gal-pal before making off with her at some point soon afterwards, locking up before leaving, and no one saw nothing. A few low-lifes thought they heard loud voices, things being thrown, but nothing substantial in a dive like this. We got cream-o-the-crop evidence here, hair follicles, torn clothing, semen traces, shoe and finger prints.

“Maid service skipped the room yesterday. The weekend night attendant wrote it as a stayover to insure himself a free room in case he sold out, to sneak in a little private romance with some chubby chick after he finished his reports. Their plans got screwed early this morning when they walked in on this mess. We got a positive on the girl...Alice Bradshaw of Lawndale. You heard of Jacob Bradshaw, the reverend guy?”

“Yeah,” Matt nodded. “I’ve already been informed. He’s with the Church on or of The Rock in Lawndale, the one with the homeless program that actually works.” Matt turned to Max, “Alice is the reverend’s daughter I mentioned over the phone.”

The homicide detective glanced at his watch, then at Max and Max’s tape machine, then at McGregor. “I trust your good friend won’t fuck this case up, Lieutenant. Anyone with the same name as that wacko UFO science guy I hear about and who takes down what you say is just like goddamn media to me.”

And together with Mrs. Clipboard, he stepped past them and out the doorway.

“Nice guy.” Max shut off the recorder and returned it to his pocket. “I still don’t get it, Matt. I get
some
of it, but where’s it leading to?”

“Let’s step outside.”

Max followed his friend once again and emerged from the room, greatly wondering, thinking, and brewing over Hugh Updike’s parting words.

....
wacko UFO science guy...

***

“Simon BoLeve.”

“Of course.” Max knew this name. He found himself stunned with his own absent anticipation of the mention of it. Simon was by far the most elusive and dangerous of all the suspected non-humans Max focused on; it made sense to expect he played a role here. Scenarios and possibilities of where this was all leading to began to surface within Max’s mind. But he desperately needed to understand more, even more desperately than before.

Max and McGregor both faced one another at the perimeter of the parking lot, both enjoying a new smoke. The amount of spectators around them had dwindled considerably. The paramedic crew lifted the Hefty-bagged body and its gurney into the ambulance, signaling a random chorus of motor-hum from police vehicles readying to leave.

“Does Mel know you’ve taken up the habit again?” Matt remarked.

Max shrugged and flicked his ashes.

McGregor said next, “The nature of this morning’s slaying, the condition of the victim...is identical in every relevant way to the condition exhibited by Nigel’s body when it was found, excluding of course the supernatural elements. And this time we have a missing young female. With that said, there’re a few things I need to be sure of. You sent Melony to Ralston Cooper’s gig at
The Crow Job
to stake it out for familiar faces; Bradshaw and her boy-toy happened to be there, but Mel didn’t know them from Adam and Eve. Someone else knew them though...and knew what he wanted to do with them. Max, did Melony see Simon BoLeve that night? I’m sure he still looks just as handsome as ever....”

Max cleared his throat. “Simon BoLeve has unfailingly proven to be the most crucial link between Erlandson and the outstanding phenomena surrounding his life and Cooper’s, and played a role in a majority of unexplained murder cases involving the bizarre sightings of beings like the one you saw when we met. But I’ve been nothing but shit-out-of-luck in trailing him, everyone who tried has, and he would pop up when you’d least expect it.”

“Like Mr. McGee with
The Incredible Hulk
and David Banner.”

An officer interrupted them and McGregor excused himself and accompanied the cop back to the building, telling Max he’d only be but a minute.

Melony didn’t see him
, Max whispered to himself, turned to face the direction of where he parked and then back again. But
they were all supposed to have been there. All three of them.

An added thought:

BoLeve
had
been there.

Max had been right.

And then:
Church On The Rock, Lawndale. Homeless program....

By the time it occurred to Matt McGregor that Max had up and left him, he had yet to realize the urgency which sent the UFO detective away, nor what Max had set out alone to do before anyone could dissuade him.

“Awe shit, Maxy....”

17.

Scratch and the Church on the Rock

If one were to drive west from Andrew’s neighborhood, preferably down the Redondo Beach Freeway until it narrows to form Artesia Boulevard, he would soon find himself on the borders of the cities of Hawthorne and Redondo Beach. Taking the Inglewood off ramp and hanging a right towards LAX through a sliver of the city of Lawndale, one would eventually come across a chalky-white stucco building that could inadvertently be mistaken for an auto service center with its oblong characteristics. In fact, the building at one time had been just that.

These days, one would not expect to find grease monkey mechanics laboring under the hoods of indisposed Fords. Instead, the mechanics here were feverishly laboring under the hoods of lost and ailing souls.

The
Church on the Rock
was founded five years ago by the Reverend Jacob W. Bradshaw under the authority of the Assemblies of Christ Foundation. Not more than several months afterwards, the church broke away from the Foundation unexpectedly due to major disagreements concerning Bible philosophy and the needs of the poor, thus becoming non-denominational. The
Church on the Rock
, consequently, grew to become a renown haven where the needy and homeless could seek spiritual solace and material support. Eventually, additional rooms were constructed to the auto center building’s rear and the sanctuary was extended from one side. Congregational funding and contributions abroad made possible the purchase of a handful of surrounding homes previously evacuated for demolition; run-down homes hence reconstructed as Bible classrooms and temporary homeless shelters.