Authors: P. A. Brown
“It’s nothing, just Percs. It’ll help you sleep,” Des
said before climbing back into his silver Mercedes and leaving Chris alone.
Chris retreated to his media room, where he curled
up on the love seat with a glass of wine and watched an hour of inane talk
shows before drifting off to sleep. The wine on top of the Percodan might have
been a mistake.
His dreams were turbulent and disjointed. He was
cruising Boystown. The rainbow-hued streets were wall-to-wall men, each more
gorgeous than the last. Except for one familiar face. The acne scars made David
Laine’s skin look pitted and diseased in the gaudy lights of West Hollywood.
The cheap cut of his clothes looked even more frumpish as he kept appearing and
disappearing in the wandering crowd.
Abruptly the crowds vanished. The dark streets
were empty. Chris looked around for his SUV, but every time he found it, his
keys wouldn’t work, or they slipped from his fingers and disappeared into the
shadows pooled around his bare feet.
Someone else was there.
“David?”
Only he knew it wasn’t David.
He spotted the SUV, parked by itself down an empty
street, covered in graffiti. Hurrying toward it was like plowing through deep
water. When he reached it he pounded on the golden door panel, smearing red
paint all over his hands until it looked like they had been dipped in blood.
The door popped open. “About time,” he muttered
and jumped inside. The door slammed shut with a solid
thunk
.
Someone ran down the street toward him. In the
kaleidoscopic streetlights he recognized David. Chris jammed the key into the
ignition and the Lexus rumbled to life.
David shouted something, shaking his shaggy head
and waving for Chris to pull over. Instead Chris goosed the gas pedal and shot
out into the midnight black street. Odd, his headlights didn’t come on.
“Chris.”
The fingers that closed over the bare skin of his
shoulder were boneyard cold. In contrast the breath on his cheek was a furnace.
He turned and found himself staring into a smiley-face mask. The lipless chasm
of its mouth was open in a humorless grin. The oily barrel of the gun pressed
against his left eye. Chris heard an odd buzz as the trigger was depressed.
He woke with a scream buried in his throat. The
buzz came again.
He jerked upright; the issue of Linux he’d been
leafing through was slithering off his lap. Belatedly he realized the sound was
his doorbell.
Head woozy, heart trip-hammering in his chest, he
nearly tumbled to the floor, only catching himself at the last minute with a
painful bump to his shin on the granite coffee table.
He staggered to the front door, leaning forward to
peer through the mullioned window.
At first he confused the figure standing under his
porch light with the faceless killer in his dream. Then the figure turned into
the light.
He flung the door open. “Trevor?”
“I was cruising the area and saw your lights on.”
Trevor glanced back over his shoulder. “Did I wake you?”
“No—yes.” Chris rubbed his sore ankle on the back
on his leg and tried not to let his eyes dart around while he scanned the
shadows beyond his door. “Sort of, I guess. I think I was dreaming.”
“Nothing fun, from the looks of it.”
“No,” Chris said, remembering the sound the gun
had made as the masked man pulled the trigger. “Not fun.”
“Want some company? I picked up a bottle of Silver
Oak Cabernet the other day. You can tell me if it’s any good.”
“Silver Oak?” Chris glanced at the plastic bag in
Trevor’s hand. “What year? Ninety-eight?”
“Is there any other?”
“Come on in.” Chris closed and locked the door
behind him. When Trevor walked by he breathed in the scent of Yves Saint
Laurent and soap. He inhaled and began to think this evening might not turn out
so badly after all.
Chris briefly told him about his SUV while he led
him back into the media room, where a pair of talking heads filled the
sixty-inch screen. Chris grimaced as he overheard the last of the newscast.
“...another apparent victim of the so-called
Carpet Killer, who has been terrorizing the gay community of Los Angeles and
environs for weeks now.”
The image on the screen shifted. It was night, but
there was more than enough light to see the blue-garbed EMTs emerge from behind
a crumbling building with a sheet-draped gurney. Other people clustered around,
several of them cops. Chris leaned forward when he recognized Detective Laine
standing apart from the uniformed cops, taking notes in his notebook.
“A call from an unknown source tipped off police
to the body.”
Laine looked straight into the camera. He was too
far away for Chris to read his expression.
“No identity has been released at this time,” the
announcer stated. “Up next: Terror in a peaceful community.”
“Nasty stuff, isn’t it?” Trevor dropped into the
depression where Chris had been sleeping earlier. He held up the bag. “Why
don’t you round up some glasses and a corkscrew? I’ll find something more
interesting to watch.”
After pouring the Cabernet, Trevor flipped through
Chris’s DVD collection, pulling out one of the movies Bobby had given Chris.
Chris had almost forgotten them. Curious, he let Trevor put it on. The
startling blue of a clichéd kidney-shaped pool appeared on the screen as the
camera panned around.
Chris wasn’t a big porno fan but he watched without
protest as a trio of guys—two hot blonds and dark, sexy Bobby—moved away from
the pool and climbed a set of marble steps to a pool house, where they got down
to what was apparently the heart of the movie. The production quality was poor,
but there was some amateurish spark between the three actors that made up for
the bad lighting and rough sound.
“So that’s where he learned that,” Chris murmured.
“What?” Trevor’s pale blue eyes were already
hooded in passion. “Something wrong?”
“No, it’s just...I know that guy.”
“Who?”
“The dark-haired one.”
“Yeah?” Trevor leaned forward. “Didn’t know you
were a porn groupie. He an item?”
“No.”
“You mean not now?”
“I mean not ever.”
“Too bad.” Trevor sipped his wine and flicked his
tongue out over his full lips. So, tell me all about your deliciously kinky sex
life...”
“Hey!”
Trevor grinned and turned back to the video. Still
woozy from the wine and drugs, Chris dozed off with his head on Trevor’s
shoulder.
He awoke to find himself alone in his bed. Naked.
Blearily he saw the slip of paper taped to his dresser.
“Too bad it didn’t work out. Guess next time we’ll
stay away from the wine. Sorry about your truck.” It was signed with a loopy T
and a cell-phone number.
Chris wondered how far things had gone last night
after he passed out. He didn’t feel sore; they hadn’t fucked. He glanced at his
watch. It was barely six. Too early to call. Later. And he would stay away from
the booze and the pills. He had the feeling Trevor would be fun in bed. If they
ever managed to get there.
In the bathroom he grabbed his shaving gear and
turned the shower on. His bedside phone rang. He ran out of the bathroom and
scooped it up. Maybe Trevor was calling for a rematch. Only silence met his
initial greeting.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Christ, he hated wrong numbers who wouldn’t admit
their mistake. “Who is this—” The phone went dead.
He clicked recall but all he got was unknown name,
unknown number.
“Asshole.”
He dumped the phone back on his bedside table and
went in to take his shower.
Sunday,
3:15 am, North Mission Road, East Los Angeles
“PACK OF FUCKING jackals,”
Martinez snapped.
The uniformed officer who had been called in to
help with crowd control threw him a wary look. “Sir?”
“Just watch everybody, Schmidt,” David said to the
confused man. Personally he could never figure out where the crowds came from,
but no matter what time of day or what location, they always seemed to show up.
And they always managed to get in the way if you let them. “Keep them all clear
of the crime scene.”
“Sneaky bastard is what your average reporter is,”
Martinez added, as though someone might have missed his point. “Don’t ever
trust ’em, Schmidt. Them or lawyers. If any of those assholes so much as pokes
a nose-hair over that line, bust them.”
Schmidt smiled weakly. “Yes, sir.”
“What do they teach ’em these days?” Martinez
muttered after Schmidt left.
David crouched to examine an impression in the
stained and cracked pavement in the alley behind North Mission Road, where the
latest body had been found. “Same thing they taught us. Why?”
“So how come we’re so much smarter than them?”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed.
“What? You’re saying we’re not smarter?”
“Come on, Einstein.” David clapped Martinez on the
back. “Let’s have another go at your wit. See if we can wrap this up before
morning. I really don’t want to see what this place looks like in broad
daylight.” Two men loaded the body into the coroner’s wagon. The flashing
lights of the emergency vehicles strobed over the alley.
After making sure the vehicle got through the
growing mob, David slipped back between the two buildings. He watched where he
put his feet. Gelatinous puddles littered the alley; the odor of urine underlay
the stench of rotting garbage. SID had already been over the whole length,
photographing and sampling everything. Photos were taken of the crumbling walls
and cardboard boxes and even a discarded bicycle found behind one pile of
garbage.
He followed Martinez back to the dumpster where
the body had been found. A luckless scavenger had made the discovery while
looking for tin cans to exchange for a bottle of Thunderbird. The shivering man
now huddled under a broken lean-to that some inventive soul had erected using
discarded tin and rotting pallets.
Martinez had sent one of the uniforms to get
coffee for their witness. Now he hovered around while the man greedily sucked
back coffee and mumbled answers to Martinez’s questions. The witness, in a
cast-off overcoat two sizes too big, and Martinez, in a green jacket over a
paisley shirt and dark brown pants, made quite a pair. Fashion was not
Martinez’s strong suit.
“Any luck?” David asked.
Martinez shook his head. “Guy’s having trouble
giving me his name, at least one he can remember more than five minutes. He
does claim he found the body before it got completely dark. I checked with LAX,
sunset was at 19:25 tonight. Full dark would have come twenty, thirty minutes
later.”
The call hadn’t come into the switchboard until
nearly nine o’clock. Long after sunset. “Is he saying he hung around for nearly
an
hour
after he found the thing?”
“He won’t say. I think he took advantage of the
light that was left to collect more cans.”
“He hung around a body that Lopez thinks has been
dead at least three weeks looking for scrap?”
“Hey, SID got the cans away from him. A couple
even contained fluid from the body. At least one housed some wandering
maggots.”
David grimaced. “How’d he call it in?”
“Pay phone at the end of the alley. Good
Samaritan, huh?”
“Any chance your guy knew the victim?”
“He didn’t seem to think so. But then I’m not sure
at what level he’s actually thinking. Lopez seems to figure this victim’s
another young guy. Can’t see them running in the same circles, can you?”
“So, this is just another dumping ground.”
“Techs are still running luminol tests, but so far
there’s precious little blood.” The luminol spray reacted chemically to blood
and this released light.
“One thing I’ll give him, our doer’s tidy.”
“He’s not geographically impaired, either,”
Martinez said. “He likes to move around.”
“A mobile serial killer. Not exactly unique.”
David had seen the body after Lopez was done with
it. Maggot activity had been so far advanced there was no telling what
condition that body had been in when dumped. Still, he had to ask, “Raped?”
“You think Lopez would say? You know she keeps
things close to her chest. I figure we’re lucky to get her to speculate on his
age.”
“Your guy see anyone else hanging around?”
“I was working on that when the coffee got here.
I’m kinda hoping the stuff will wake up a few brain cells. Who knows, if he
hangs around here all the time, maybe he did see our doer. Wouldn’t that be a
nice break.”
Their witness watched them approach, clutching his
empty Styrofoam cup in one dirt-encrusted hand. David flashed his tin.
“Detective Laine. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s okay, Mr.—?”
“Dante!” The man shouted. “Circles of hell!”
“Your name, sir?” David asked.
“The elves did it.”
“The who did it?”
“The elves. The elves!”
The babbling man sprayed spittle, which David
wiped off his cheek. “Yes, sir.”
“The elf was golden.”
“Can you describe this... elf?” He glanced at
Martinez, who shrugged.
The elf man drew himself upright, wrapped in the
dignity of delusion. “The elves are golden, but cold.”
“Okay, we’ve got one golden elf,” David said. “Was
he alone?”
Martinez cut in. “Did you see this elf, or anyone,
put something in that dumpster?”
“A golden chariot,” he shouted.
“Great, did Charlton Heston bring a body to the
dumpster?” David muttered. “What did this guy look like, anyway?”
“I’m dry.” The elf man licked his lips, tugging at
the filth-encrusted beard covering his face. “Got a buck you can spare?”
“Tell me about the elf.”
“Will I get a buck then?”
“I’ll buy you a whole three-course meal. Who was
the elf, sir?”