Knights of the Blood

eventhorizonpg.com

LOS ANGELES, 1972

JACK SPRAGUE
surveyed the crime scene before returning to the body. The alley showed signs of a struggle, and judging from all the blood between the trash cans and the dumpster, that was probably where the murder took place. It was Sprague’s guess that after killing their victim, the assailants had placed the body in the dumpster, where it had been found by the driver of the refuse collection truck at approximately four—thirty that morning.

It was now five forty—five, and Sprague was developing a headache from too much coffee, too little sleep, and a lot of pressure from Parker Center to “keep it out of the papers.” He walked back to the dumpster, where his partner stood talking to the driver of the garbage truck.

“Jack”–Demitter sounded as tired as Sprague–“I don’t think we’ll get much more out of Mr. Fuentes here.” He gestured toward the fat man in greasy overalls and Angels baseball cap. “Think we oughta cut him loose?”

“Sure.” Sprague was looking at the body again.

“Let him go.” The victim was a white male, early twenties, blond, and well—built.

“Looks like half the surfers at Zuma,” Demitter commented.

“Yeah,” said Sprague, “except that none of them have wooden stakes pounded through their hearts.”

“I dunno, Kingfish. The last three we’ve met were all dressed that way.” Demitter shook his head. “Stark naked, except for the stake.”

Sprague ran a coffee—colored hand across the pepper—and—salt frizz on the top of his head. Demitter was the only person in the LAPD to call him “Kingfish” to his face, which was probably why Sprague refused to work with any other partner.

“Come on, Brother Andy, let’s head back to the station.”

Demitter grinned at his partner from under a thinning thatch of carrot red hair. “Yassum, boss.”

Back at the station, the two police detectives reviewed their files for the umpteenth time.

“Okay,” Demitter began. “Let’s go over all of this again.”

“Right,” said Sprague, walking over to the chalkboard set up against one wall of their cramped office. “Here’s what we’ve got.”

He reached across to his desk and picked up an envelope marked “Los Angeles County Coroner,” pulling out photos of the three victims, which he taped across the top of the chalkboard. Demitter fumbled in one of his coat pockets and produced a Polaroid photo of the most recent victim, taken earlier that morning at the crime scene. He tossed the Polaroid to Sprague.

“Here, might as well make the collection complete.” Sprague looked at the photo for a minute or so, then taped it up next to the glossy morgue shots.

“All right. Now we have
four
victims, all killed in the same manner, and all found in the same neighborhood.” Sprague fiddled with a piece of chalk. He and Demitter had gone through this procedure with each of the previous killings, and would continue to do it until the murderer was caught. Somewhere there had to be a clue, a lead that would point them in the direction of the killers. “What else have we got?”

“Age. All in their late teens or early twenties.” Demitter leaned back at his desk and looked at the ceiling. “All about the same size, between five foot ten and six feet tall. Same weight, 160 to 175 pounds.”

While Demitter recited the vital statistics of the group, Sprague’s precise printing made neat columns of facts under the four photos.

“And,” Demitter continued, “no one has come forward to claim the bodies, and Missing Persons doesn’t have anything on any of them.”

Sprague turned to his partner. “That’s almost as weird as the killings. These aren’t street kids. They’re in too good shape for that. But no one’s looking for them. We hear back from the Army yet?”

Demitter rummaged through some papers on his desk. “Yeah. And the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, too. I don’t know about Number Four there, but the first three aren’t AWOL.”

Sprague was staring at the photo of Number Four. It had been taken by the crime scene boys, and showed the head and upper torso of the body as found in the dumpster. The face was contorted in a horrible grimace of pain, and the left arm was bent back, with the hand’ behind the head. As Sprague looked at the Polaroid for the hundredth time that morning, he saw something that he ‘hadn’t noticed before. Inside the left arm, up high near the arm pit, was a small tattoo.

“Hey, Amos. There anything in those coroner’s reports about any of the bodies having tattoos?” Sprague asked, pulling down the photo for a closer look.

Demitter picked up another batch of files and· quickly sifted through them. “Naw. Although Number Two had scars that were similar to those inflicted by shrapnel. Why?”

Sprague flipped him the photo of Number Four. “Inside of his left arm. What’s it look like to you?”

Demitter squinted, and then went back to the morgue photos in the coroner’s reports. “Here, look at Number Three.”

Sprague took the photo from Demitter’s outstretched hand. Staring up at him from the eight—by—ten glossy morgue shot, Number Three was stretched out naked on the dissecting table, with an ugly black hole the size of a fist in his chest. Like the others, he was well—muscled, although he didn’t look much over sixteen or seventeen.

Sprague slipped on his glasses and brought the photo close to his dark face. Peering intently at the inside of Number Three’s exposed left arm, he could just make out what might have been part of a crude tattoo.

“Call Yamaguchi’s boys and have them check these dudes for tattoos.” He set the photo down and turned to Demitter. “I think we’ve found our link.”

That afternoon, the county coroner’s office confirmed that all four corpses were similarly tattooed under their left arms. Photos of the tattoos were sent to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s forensic services lab, who identified the tattoos and forwarded their report back to Sprague at LAPD’s Hollenbeck Division. When Sprague walked into his office the next morning, Demitter was already there.

“Heil Hitler!”
Demitter snapped to attention, his arm upraised in a Nazi salute, a comb held under his nose in imitation of the Führer’s moustache.

“I don’t get it, Demitter. What’s the joke?” Sprague removed his holster and gun and tossed them onto the back of his desk before plopping into his chair.

“Ze rrreports have just in—gecomming from der coroner’s office, meine Kingfish!” Demitter clicked his heels. “Und guess vass?”

Sprague just shook his head.

“All of our dead surfers have Nazi army tattoos.” Demitter dropped his phoney German accent. “To be precise, the guys in the Sheriff’s Department have identified the marks as SS tattoos.”

Sprague took the report from Demitter’s desk and quickly scanned through it.

“I don’t get it. What would a bunch of surfers be doing with Nazi tattoos?”

“How the hell should I know?” Demitter got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. “These surfers wear Iron Crosses and German army helmets .... You see ‘em at the beach all the time. Maybe these guys are involved with the neo—Nazis out in EI Monte. Who knows?”

Sprague was intently studying the chalkboard. “Let’s go visit the Master Race.”

A light rain was falling as they drove out to EI Monte, turning the Pasadena Freeway into a slippery ribbon of concrete that snaked its way from downtown Los Angeles out toward the San Gabriel Valley. The dark blue unmarked police car turned east past EI Monte Legion Stadium and headed out toward the bean fields and ramshackle houses that marked the boundary between the Anglo and Chicano neighborhoods in less than affluent East L.A.

The faded yellow house stood back from the street, about halfway down the block. Parked in front was an ex—Highway Patrol car, one of the black and white “freeway flyers,” its doors crudely spray—canned black. In the drive was an old army command car, anchored to the driveway by spiderwebs and four flat tires.

Demitter drove past, made a U—turn, and parked across the street. “This is it.”

Sprague grinned in anticipation of the coming confrontation. “The paperwork says the house number is 16421. This is 22006.”

“These guys aren’t exactly rocket scientists. We’re parked across the street in front of 16422, and the only other houses on that side of the street are 16417 and 16429.” Demitter shook his head. “Dumb shits. Real dumb shits.”

The bell didn’t work, so Sprague used his fist. Muffled voices answered the knock at the door, and Demitter eased his gun out of his holster. Sprague knocked again, and the door was opened by one of the Master Race.

The kid was skinny, about six feet tall with pimples and dirty, greasy—blond hair. His brown shirt was sweat—stained and grubby, and above the red—and—black arm band could be seen the stitch marks where an army corporal’s stripes had been removed. The shirt was loosely tucked into a pair of filthy Levis buttoned only at the waist, the legs wadded into a pair of scuffed—up motorcycle boots. The voice was adenoidal, revealing broken yellow teeth when he spoke.

“Yeah. What do you want?”

Sprague nearly recoiled from the breath. “Police. We’d like to speak with Commandant Steele.” He held his badge up for the superman to see.

“Yeah? Wait here.” The door closed. “Fuckin’ nigger.”

Demitter and Sprague looked at each other, and Demitter holstered his gun. A march started playing inside, and the young Nazi returned to the door, this time with his fly buttoned.

“This way. The commandant will see you.”

Shabby doesn’t begin to describe this place, Sprague thought. It’s more like pathetic.

Even in the dim light screened by the tattered curtains, Sprague and Demitter could tell the place was filthy. On the wall was a large Nazi flag, and next to it was a photograph of Hitler. There were also framed photos of other Nazi big—wigs, along with snapshots of neo—Nazis armed with a variety of surplus army junk. Busted up furniture lined the walls, and a stained and torn carpet covered the linoleum—clad floor.

They followed along down a short hall, and Demitter held back just enough to get a quick look into two more rooms before they entered the “commandant’s” office.

Steele was sitting behind a large desk, and stood up as the two policemen were ushered in by the pimply—faced storm trooper. Against one wall, a rack held two dozen cheap surplus rifles—Carcanos like the one Lee Harvey Oswald used to kill Kennedy. There was a large bronze bust of Hitler behind Steele’s chair, flanked on either side by an American and Nazi flag, A collection of Nazi daggers hung on one of the dark green walls next to a diploma from UCLA, and two wooden captain’s chairs were drawn up in front of the desk. Unlike the squalor of the rest of the house, Steele’s office was the very model of military spit and polish, as was Steele himself.

The commandant’s uniform was as crisp as a new dollar bill. His black tie was neatly tucked into the front of his military creased shirt between the second and third buttons, and the brass buckles on his Sam Browne belt shone like gold against the deep russet of the leather. He was wearing a pair of old fashioned cavalry—twill riding britches that slid smoothly into the tops of his glossy brown field boots. An SA leader’s dagger hung at his left hip, and a red—and—black arm band encircled his left arm precisely two inches above the elbow. Three rows of military ribbons were centered above the left pocket of his heavily—starched khaki shirt, and below these, in the middle of the pocket, was a Nazi Party Leader’s badge: a gold wreath surrounding the red—and—white roundel with the black swastika set spiderlike in its center.

Stopping just inside the door of Steele’s office, the young Nazi stood at attention, giving Steele the stiff—armed Nazi salute.

“Two policemen to see you,
Herr Kommandant,”
He remained at the salute until it had been returned.

“Thank you, Trooper. Show them in.”

Awkwardly he pointed Demitter and Sprague to the chairs in front of the desk, then saluted once agam,

“Heil Hitler!”

Steele perfunctorily returned the Nazi salute.
“Heil.”

Sprague had seen combat in ‘Nam with his army reserve unit, and quickly ran a soldier’s eye over the ribbons on Steele’s chest: Purple Heart, Silver and Bronze Stars, Soldier’s Medal, and the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry in action. Steele had won these the hard way in Korea, fighting at Inchon, Pusang, and the Yalu River. He might be a looney, but there was no questioning his personal bravery.

Before they were seated, Steele leaned slightly across the desk and extended his hand to the two officers.

“How do you do? I’m Commandant Steele.”

“Detective Sergeant Demitter, and this is Detective Sergeant Sprague,” Demitter said, shaking the offered hand. Sprague also reached out, expecting Steele to withdraw his hand rather than touch a black man, but to his surprise, Steele grasped his hand in a firm grip and shook hands with him like he meant it.

The formalities over, Steele settled back into his chair and surveyed the two officers before speaking.

“Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” His voice had the same casual formality of a loan officer at a bank.