Goldenboy (28 page)

“What’s up?” he
asked.

*****

“I’ll do it,” Josh
said, simply, after Freeman and Cresly finished their pitch. We were sitting
around the kitchen table again. The ashtray had filled with butts as the
afternoon wore on.

“No,” I said,
quietly. “You won’t.”

“I want to help,”
Josh said, looking at me with his dark, serious eyes.

I shook my head in
response. The others were silent.

“I owe it to Jim,”
Josh said.

“Getting yourself
killed won’t be doing him any favors,” I replied.

Cresly said, “No
one’s gonna get killed here.”

I turned on him. “We’re
dealing with a guy who’s already killed three people.”

Cresly lit a
cigarette. The smoke curled upward into the frosty winter light. “We don’t know
that he killed anyone yet,” he said. “Anyway, he don’t kill his dates. And we’ll
be there.”

“How?” I demanded. “You
can’t wire Josh.”

“We’ll wire the car
Zane rents,” Cresly said, exhaling a snaky stream of smoke. “As soon as they
get out of the car, we’ll be there.”

“See, Henry,” Josh
said.

“Bullshit.”

Freeman said to
Cresly, “Let’s go for a walk, Phil. Let them talk.”

Cresly smirked, but
got up from the table. “Yeah, you guys talk,” he said, “but let me give you
something else to think about, Rios. Something washed up on Venice Beach last
night. It used to be Sandy Blenheim.”

He stalked out of
the room.

“We’ll be back in a
while,” Freeman said, following him out.

“You can’t do this,
Josh,” I said. “Cresly’s using you. I don’t trust him.”

“How else are they
going to catch Zane?”

“There are other
ways,” I insisted.

“Like how?” he
asked, lighting a cigarette.

“The warrant.”

He smiled, wanly. “Cresly
says they might never find it.”

“Cresly could tell
me the sun was going to set tonight and I’d still want a second opinion.”

“Why do you hate
him?” Josh asked, flicking a bit of ash from the sleeve of his sweater. “‘Cause
he’s a homophobe? The world’s full of them,” he continued, and added, “I was
one. I called Jim Pears a faggot, just like the other guys at the restaurant.”
He looked at me, his lips a tight line. “I owe him.”

“Not that much,
Josh.”

“If they had asked
you, you’d do it. Wouldn’t you?”

I didn’t have to
say anything because we both knew the answer.

Two nights after New Year’s, I was
sitting in an unmarked police car on Santa Monica Boulevard with Cresly,
Freeman, and an officer named Daniels. The strip of the Boulevard between
Highland and La Brea, usually packed with hustlers, was almost empty, the
result of an earlier sweep by the L.A.P.D. The only hustlers left were actually
cops with one exception . . . Josh. He stood at the same corner where Robert
had stood, wearing tight jeans, a polo shirt and the black vinyl jacket that
Robert had left behind. He ran a hand through his hair and shifted his weight
from one foot to the other.

A flat male voice
described Zane’s progress from Hollywood Boulevard, where he had just rented a Chevette
rigged for sound. We and three other cars in the area would be able to monitor
what went on in the car within a four block radius. Now there was nothing to do
but wait.

‘He looks real good
out there,” Cresly said, referring to

Josh.

The radio crackled.
“Subject is approaching on Sycamore. You should have him in sight momentarily.”

Daniels said, “There.”

I looked to where
he was pointing. The Chevette turned right and started, slowly, toward La Brea.
Cresly fiddled with the monitoring device and the next thing we heard was a
rock song.

“What’s that?”
Freeman asked.

I listened. “Talking
Heads.”

Freeman looked at
me blankly. Zane made three passes on the boulevard between Highland and La
Brea, coming in and out of the range of the radio. Each time he seemed to slow
a little when he passed Josh. The fourth time he signaled a turn onto the side
street where Josh stood, turned, and pulled up at the curb. I watched Josh walk
over to the car, just as Robert had, and stick his head into the window.

Josh said, “Hi. How’s
it going?”

“Can’t complain,”
Zane replied, his voice watery from drinking. “You waiting for someone?”

There was silence.

Zane spoke again. “You
wanna go for a ride? I’ve got some grass here.”

“Sure,” Josh said.
My stomach clenched. I looked up and watched as he climbed into Zane’s car. We
heard the engine start up and then the Chevette drifted lazily down the street.

A match was struck.
We heard someone sucking in air and then, in a tight voice, Zane said, “Take
it.”

More sucking
noises. Cresly said to Daniels, “Follow them.”

We pulled a turn
across four lanes of traffic and drove down the street where the Chevette had
gone. The only noises we heard were of the joint being smoked. A moment later,
we got the Chevette in sight. It pulled over to the curb. We passed it. I
resisted the temptation to glance over at Josh.

“So,” we heard Zane
say, “what’s your name?”

Josh said, “Josh.
What’s yours?”

“Charlie,” Zane
said. “What are you into, Josh?”

We turned up the
first street and headed back to Santa Monica, then turned back, making a
circle, toward the Chevette. Cresly instructed Daniels to park just before we
got to the street where the Chevette was parked.

Josh was saying, “Whatever,
you know. Anything you want.”

Cresly glanced at
me without expression.

There was a
movement in the Chevette. Josh laughed. “That tickles,” he said.

Zane said, “Does
this tickle?”

There was
squeaking, rapid breathing, silence, then a slow breath and a sigh.

Daniels asked, “What’s
going on in there?”

“They’re making
out,” I said. Daniels stared at me.

“Gross,” he
muttered.

Zane said, “That
was nice. How come I haven’t seen you around before?”

“I just got into
town,” Josh replied.

“I know someplace
around here we can go,” Zane said. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you let me
— “ A sudden wave of static drowned out the rest of his sentence.

“Okay,” Josh said.

We heard the engine
start up. Cresly told Daniels, “Go around again.”

We edged up to the
intersection of the street where the Chevette was parked. Just as we turned,
and the Chevette started moving, a black-and-white appeared from still another
street.

“What the fuck,”
Cresly said, and yanked the transmitter from the radio, trying to signal the
black-and-white It passed beneath a streetlight as it slowly approached the Chevette.
It wasn’t L.A.P.D. but the county sheriffs who had, apparently, drifted across
the county line into the city. A flashlight flared from within the
black-and-white as it pulled up beside the Chevette.

Zane said, “Shit.”
He gunned the motor and made a run for Highland. The black-and-white’s red
lights flashed and we heard it order Zane to pull over.

We pulled out
behind the sheriffs. Cresly was screaming into the radio trying to stop them
from giving chase.

“Clear out!” Cresly
was yelling. Abruptly, the black-and- white stopped. Over the radio, someone
was asking for clarification. The Chevette, however, was gone.

We came up beside
the sheriffs. Cresly rolled the window down and continued screaming at the
driver. A couple of minutes later he slumped into the seat, breathing hard. He
picked up the transmitter and canvassed the other L.A.P.D. cars in the area.
Finally, he turned to me and said, “We lost them.”

“What!”

“I said we lost
them, goddammit. Put out an APB,” he snapped at Daniels.

I listened as Daniels
gave an urgent description of the Chevette and its passengers.

Cresly looked at me
again. “Where would he go, Rios? Home?”

“Not likely
if
his wife is there,” I replied, trying to keep my panic in check. ‘Maybe he’ll
just drop Josh off and call it a night. You might have someone watching the car
rental place.”

“That’s covered,”
he said. “Anywhere else you can think of?”

“He has a place in
Malibu,” I said, finally.

“What’s the
address?”

“I don’t know. His
wife, she would know. I think I could get us in the neighborhood, though.”

Cresly’s mouth
twitched. “All right,” he said. “You tell us how to get there. I’ll send a car
to his wife and get the address to alert the sheriffs in Malibu. Can you think
of anywhere else he might go?”

I shook my head.

Cresly ordered a
car to go to Zane’s house and get the Malibu address from Irene Gentry.
Freeman, who had been stone silent, said, “I’m sorry, Henry.”

“Let’s hope you don’t
have anything to be sorry about.”

“Where do we go?”
Cresly asked.

“Out Sunset to the
Coast Highway,” I said, “then go north into Malibu.”

“You heard the man,”
Cresly snapped at Daniels. He reached to the floor and came up with a siren
which he stuck to the top of the car. We shot into the darkness, the siren
whining and utter silence between us.

*****

We sped through the
city, its lights exploding around us like landmines. As we passed through UCLA,
the radio crackled. I could not make out what was being said but a moment
later, Cresly looked at me over his shoulder.

“We got an address
from Zane’s wife,” he said. “Twenty- eight hundred Sweetwater Canyon Road. That
sound right?”

“I never knew the
address,” I replied, “but I should be able to recognize the house.”

Cresly relayed the
address to the sheriffs in Malibu, who had already been alerted to what was
happening.

“They’ll probably
beat us to him,” Daniels, the other cop, said. He sounded disappointed.

I sat back in the
seat. Freeman lit a cigarette. We passed a row of luxury condominium buildings
lit up against the darkness of the January sky like ocean liners. A helicopter
swept through the red skies. Traffic yielded in our wake and soon we were at
the end of Sunset, facing the dark ocean at the end of the land. We turned onto
the Coast Highway.

I considered the
possibilities. If we found them at Malibu and Josh was unharmed, then there
would be no reason to arrest Zane and no chance to link him to the murders he
had committed. But if Josh was hurt — I stopped myself. If they were there at
all. They could be anywhere in this catacomb of a city and anything could be
happening. My body grew cold.

I looked out the
window to the ocean. The last time I had been out here, the sea was alive with
light. Now it swagged against the shore illuminated only by car headlights as
they flickered, briefly, across the ocean’s oily darkness. I thought of Sandy
Blenheim, who had been disgorged by the sea only a few days earlier, and it was
with relief that I turned away from the water as the highway twisted inland.
Soon, the honky-tonk business district of Malibu sprang up around us. We passed
the bar where I had stopped to call Freeman. The woman who had flipped me off
might be there now, getting herself comfortably drunk.

Without warning, a
seismic shiver worked its way up my spine. When it passed I found myself balling
my hands into fists.

Freeman, sitting
beside me, asked, “You okay?”

We skidded across
an intersection. There was a Texaco station at the southwest corner and a road
beside it that led off into darkness. Suddenly, I knew that that was the road
that led to Zane’s place.

“We’re going the
wrong way,” I said.

Cresly said, “What?”

“The road where
Zane lives. We just passed it.”

“Sweetwater Canyon’s
up a ways,” Daniels said tentatively.

“Don’t you
understand?” I said impatiently. “She lied to us.”

“You sure?” Cresly
asked, skeptically.

“I remember the gas
station back there. That’s where I turned.”

There was silence
in the front seat.

“We’re wasting
time,” I snapped. “Cresly...”

Almost at that
instant, the radio flared up. This time I could hear what was being said.
Twenty-eight hundred Sweetwater Canyon Road was a vacant lot next to a trailer
park.

“Turn around,”
Cresly said.

Daniels pulled a
U-tum in a flurry of lights, squealing brakes and horns. Two minutes later we
were back at the road by the gas station.

Cresly looked over
his shoulder. “Where to?”

“It’s not far,” I
said. “Kill the siren. You don’t want him to panic.”

“Right.”

The dark trees
swayed like ghosts along the road as the sea wind ripped through them. Out
beyond the lights of Malibu, it was dark as a tomb. The landscape passed as if
in a dream and yet I could feel we were coming to the place. The house behind
the cypress. The ginger-colored cat. The charred wood in the fireplace. The
trees came into view.

“There,” I said. “There’s
a house behind those trees.”

Daniels pulled into
the driveway and we came to a lurching stop, just missing the white Mercedes
that blocked the Chevette ahead of it.

“Someone beat us to
him,” Freeman said.

“That’s his wife’s
car,” I replied.

Our headlights
caught a dark-coated figure at the door. It was Rennie.

“That’s her,” I
said. Daniels killed the lights and we were in total darkness but for a faint
orange light coming from behind the curtain of one of the windows at the front
of the house. The curtain seemed to sway a bit as if the window were open.

As we got out of
the car, Cresly said to Freeman, “You armed?”

Freeman grunted an
assent.

To Daniels, he
said, “Radio Malibu. Tell them where we are. Is there a back way out, Rios?”

“Yeah,” I said,
opening my door.