Sirens, p.58
Sirens, page 58
inconceivable to him. ello, Bobby! he boys bring you?' I asked them to.
I have something for you.' She waited a ent. ' don't want Andrews to get
into trouble! Don't worry about it! His eyes dropped to the cloth
coverthe thing on the stretcher, an edge of which he was clutching his
right hand. ' something here that might interest .'He began to draw away
the cloth. Are you being funny?' is hand paused in midair. '?
No. I'm quite serious.' ith a flick of his wrist, he uncovered the
corpse. ' red! Daina had been determined not to look but curiosity got
the er of her. She gazed down on a face that was in every way ectly
ordinary: eyes not too large, not too small, a nose was just a nose, an
unremarkable mouth. It was, in short, 507 a face one would never look
at twice or possibly remember. He was one of the crowd and had stepped
out only because he was a psychopathic murderer. His skin was white and
he looked as if he were sleeping he peaceful slumber of the innocent.
Then she saw that down below, where the cloth still covered him, it was
turning red in three or four places. She put her hand out to steady
herself and Bonesteel took it. ' happened?' ''s get away from here,' he
said, ' I'll tell you.' He took her down the highway, to the beach. She
took off her sandals but he kept his shoes on as they went across the
sand. To one side perhaps a dozen bronzed kids were playing volleyball.
Behind them, on the steaming asphalt, girls and boys in bathing suits
and hot pants were roller-skating to disco music, as thick as the
stalled traffic along Ocean Avenue. They were nearer Venice than they
were to the Pacific Palisades. ' shrinks were right about one thing when
it came to Modred,' Bonesteel said against the background of the music.
' wanted to be caught.' He put his hands in his pockets.
"He left us clues but either they were too warped or we were too stupid.
Either way we never got close. So he called us and set up this meeting.
We knew it was hiny because he told us some things over the phone ...
details we hadn't given out, that only the killer would know.' He gave a
grim laugh. ' he wasn't shy. Not at this stage. He told us everything.'
Bonesteel sighed, looked away from her, into the haze.
"Christ,' he said disgustedly. ' knew he was dangerous and still I let
him get two of my men.' ', how could you know?' ' could I know?
How could I know?' he echoed ironically. ' captain said the same thing.
He's being very goddamned decent about it. "Look here, Bonesteel," he
said to me. "There's the other side of the coin. This maniac's gone for
good. We're going to make hay of this. I've already been on the line
with the publicity people. Your men went down in the line of duty.
They're heroes." ' Bonesteel ran a hand through his hair.
"Heroes,' he snorted. ' died because of stupidity.' 508 because they
were brave?' were too young to be brave. They just didn't know But he
looked at her finally and nodded. ',' he were brave.' they were your
men.' She looked at him. ' you urself.' y were under my command!' you do
everything you could to protect them?' Id've known that psycho would
carry a hidden gun. is hands up. I told Forrager and Keyes to go out and
He was grinning, crazy as a bedbug. One moment his e empty, the next he
had a derringer. It mustve g-loaded up his sleeve.' His state-grey eyes
clouded memory. ' and Keyes were very close. I ink they even knew what
happened, I heard the first ordered the snipers to fire. They blew him
back six by that time my men were down.' He brushed his hand his face
and she thought he had wiped away a stray tear. protected them,' Daina
said. ' happened was ble.' you sound like my captain again.' aps it's
because we're both a bit more objective than won't have to visit the
widows, either: I won't,' she said. ' that's part of the job, isn't it?
isn't one without the other.' t's why I'm getting out after this last
case. I caet take a coward.' ing fed up isn't the same as being a
coward.' wind ruffled the bottom of his jacket, exposing the "That's
what I am, you know.' shrugged. ' you're just feeling sorry for
yourself.' what I think.' come on, Bobby. I'm tired of True Confessions.
Can on with a ..., o,' she said with a soft kind of finality. ' had our
e. Now that's over and I see it's better this way.' turned abruptly away
from her and she watched him 509 walk down the beach. Girls glanced
clandestinely at h*1 lusting in their own way, for his bulk. He was a
very desirable man. But he isn't for me, she thought. Once upon a time
btlt_@ no more. She walked up the beach to the sandy concrete steps to
the. parking lot. She went to his dark green Ford, got in to waft for
him. In time he reappeared. He leaned on the side of the car," put his
head through the open window. ' did some checking on your story. About
Maggie.' ' thought you didn't believe me.' ''s just say I was
sceptical.' ' happened to change your mind?' ' put in an order to get
the body exhumed and got nowhere., He opened the door and got in behind
the wheel. It was stifling inside and he rolled up the windows, put on
the ak conditioning. When it had cooled down, he said, ' also did some
further checking on our friend Nigel Ash.' He turned to look at her, his
voice back to its old neutral self.
"Did you know he was half Irish?' ' whatv Daina tried to hide her
astonishment. ' Catholic. His mother was bom in Andytown, a hotbed of
IRA activity in Belfast"
". know. How did she get to marry an Englishman, of au things?' '
English,' Bonesteel said. '. But, according to neighbours, it was the
cause of their fights.' ' see you've been busy.' ''s more,' he said. ''s
got a sister." "I've never heard her mentioned.' ' wouldn't. I
understand he never speaks of her.' ' mean they don't get along.' '
didn't say that, exactly,' Bonesteel said. ' it's because she lives in
Belfast." "Are you telling me she's a member of the IRAP ' I said that,
I'd be lying. Our British cousins can be awfully close-mouthed when they
want to. I haven@t heard a yes or a no but they gave me her address.
It's in the Falls.' It was where Sean Toomey was from. ' you got for
me?" ulled out the glassine envelope. ',' she said, lab to do a chemical
analysis on the contents! y he took it from her, held it up to the
light. '?' she said. ' that's all! ed the envelope into an inside pocket
after first .'Where's this come from?' d him what had happened in New
York and about thought the powder could contain. I shook his head. ''s a
very outside chance. Junkies, they get beat on street shit every hour of
the day. ways cut. The question is with what. If it's a benign
substance, well then the potency's cut and that's it. it's something
else, you can wind up dead on the bathoor. He was lucky you were around!
you do it?' And when he didn't answer, she said, ' thing. Is street
stuff ever cut with strychnine?' that I've ever heard of. Not unless
it's on purpose.' d at her, touched the outside of his jacket where the
envelope lay. ' it done! He got out his keys, engine. don't we,' Daina
said nonchalantly, ' a ride out to ys Boulevard?' was coming down and in
the lowering light it was just e to ignore the dust lying soft along the
edges of the lining the highway.
Nuys?' Bonesteel said. ' the hell dwe want to go re for?' a showed him
the slip of paper Meyer had given her. o is Charlie Wup ne,' Daina said,
' might know who killed esteel eyed her suspiciously but he turned on to
the ing of the Santa Monica Freeway. ''d you get n't you take anything
at face value?' she said annoyedly. I did,' he said, "I'd be one helluva
lousy cop.' But he then. ', okay, we've all got our secrets. You keep
one! t West Los Angeles, he made the long sweeping turn to the 510 511
left, got on to the San Diego Freeway heading north iowards the valley.
' did some job keeping Chris alive,' he said and she could hear the note
of genuine admiration in his voice. he now?" "Oh, fine. He's still in
the studio. It's taken him a bit longet than he thought to finish up
this first solo album of his. _Fhere was a fire a couple of weeks ago
and one of the master tapes went up, He had to start three songs over
from scratch. lie,, mixing the last of them now.' ' by Oscar time, huh?
You'll be an even bigger deal then.' The traffic was atrocious and
Bonesteel swerved to the right, got off at Mulholland, going west until
he hit Beverly Glen Boulevard into Sherman Oaks. The valley was coming
lip and as soon as they crested the rise, Daina knew, she would see the
valley choked before the coming of night with the tilthy brown smog that
hovered for weeks on end. A heat inversion, the weather forecasters
called it. And if it kept on long enough that industrial slime would
begin to seep through the Santa Monica Mountains to inundate Beverly
Hills and Hollywood. Already she could see the rosy glow of the valley
reflected high overhead as if they'were approarching a city in the
heavens. ' d'you care?' she said. ''m already too big a deal for You.)
He laughed bitterly. ' just weren't made for each other. Let's leave it
at that.' But Daina knew neither of them would.
Tliey'd probe at each other until one or the other gave in. It was in
their nattire. It was a very fragile truce they had here, she realized.
"How are you ever going to be a successful writer?' she said. ''re still
a cop at heart. You always will be.' ' time you take a chance,' he said
slowly, ' steps right on your face.' The dying light showed her his eyes
fierce and cold and just a little bit sad.
There were no oak now but plenty of cottonwood and scrub brush as they
headed down off the mountains. Ahead of thern, glowing like the neon
heart of some monstrous robot of the future, lay Van Nuys. After a
moment, they hit Ventura 512 then through the underpass over which
thudded the blurred traffic along the Ventura Freeway. em. ran the
culvert for the Los Angeles River. Imy they hit the other side, they
were on Van Nuys rd. one time two decades ago, the Sunset Strip had been
y at night, so now this boulevard had turned into a nighttime dreams. It
was here that the youthful surfers far away as Laguna Beach came to
strut their stuff; the young dragsters, in the process of winning their
spurs, rambled in nonchalant array; where kids from schools at Hollywood
and Van Nuys hung out, getting d getting laid while thinking shallow
shadowy thoughts nature of evil. en-haired girls in luminescent cir6 hot
pants and brief ued halters as gaudy as Christmas trees, their faces
more y made up than any three women on Rodeo Drive, -skated between the
endless, six-laned caravans of Chevy Camaros and Trans Ams. Amber fog
lights from the lines of traffic threw odd articulated shadows across
the vard and the buildings, in the doorways of which young leaned like
brilliantined lounge lizards. c air was thick with light beams and
Rolling Stones eat throbbing from ten thousand radios, the ragged ine
melodies seeming peculiarly appropriate to this time, lace. The rock and
roll was a spice in the air, heady with defiance, and as she breathed
the night air in, it seemed gle her nostrils as if it were ozone. was a
brittle, brutal world, glossy and seamless, filled a fearful kind of
restlessness: like a nightmare or a r film given life, there was the
flicker of flight in those ing amber lights, the sickening stench of a
fear ungovernbecause it could not be faced. Daina understood such a just
as she recognized this stark, brooding, hedonistic ground. The passing
shadows of fantasy were not so very from her own time of flight. And
again she thought, There thing to fear. It all remains the same. hey
joined the unhurried caravan heading north towards orama City, which
would, long before that, turn around 513 to head back south the way it
had come. Clouds of e ., rose as greasily thick as hoards of mosquitoes
from the of the boulevard, enigmatic smoke signals from a primit- I I*
tribal society. just in front of them a plum-coloured van came to a alt
Along one side, a Hawaiian beachfront was painted in a dizzying array of
brilliant colours. Palms swayed to one side but the scene was of course
dominated by the ubiquitous hero of southern California: the bronzed
surfer, carrying his board about to plunge into the high surf to
challenge the Bonzali Pipeline. A girl, as lithe as a wood nymph, her
long streaked hair flying out behind her in a thick ponytail, detached
herself f rom the darkness of a shallow doorway. She wore a pair of
Shorts so white they dazzled the eye and a fire-red tube top. She seemed
to have no breasts at all, to be almost entirely composed of spectacular
copper leg. The curbside door of the plum van opened and she climbed in.
It jerked forward, bcgan to accelerate to catch up to the car ahead of
it and, as it did so, Daina could make out the sticker on its rear
bumper: ')on't Laugh - Your Daughter's in Here!
Perhaps a half mile farther on, Bonesteel nosed the I:rd into a parking
space quite neat the ornate front of a large, heavily trafficked bar. It
seemed a schizoid place. Tic architecture could not make up its mind
whether to be mockspanish or mock-Moroccan. There were a pair of
half-moon arches, rising from white corkscrew pillars textured to look
like sandstone but that were, in all probability, nothing m(re than
concrete heavily dolloped with sand. Above the archn, bougainvillea
twined, phosphorescent in the light, surmount.,d in turn by the
establishment's name, spelled out in an arch of violent vermilion neon
script: Cherries. In the dense sea of sound and motion, a blue pickup
cruis slowly by. In its flatbed back two boys sat cross-legged smoking
out of a tall glass bliang. ' there's plenty of grass around here,"
Daina. said. Bonesteel glanced at the back of the receding truck,
grunted. ' there is. Kilos of it. But those two ain't smoking any.
That's Quaaludes going up in smoke there! I? t know you could smoke
them.' "imed. ''s a new wrinkle coming up every day re. They're so
inventive.' He took his hands off the wheel, kept a watch out on the
entrance to Cherries. the densely packed boulevard she could see a Bob's
and, just beyond, the red, white, and blue revolving a Chevron station.
Horns hooted in time to the music ctively seemed to flow out of the
night. ,.know anything about this place?' Bonesteel asked, his thumb at
the arching gateways of the bar. heard of it, certainly. Who hasn'O But
I've never been that's all you know?' His eyes were alive, dartine back
rth among the clouds of kids moving easily in and out place. His face
seemed livid in the wash of Coloured neon 9. huh.' thought there might
be something else forthcoming but s silent. He shook out an unfiltered
Camel, lit up. He the smoke out his window and she thought, Even the
have images to live up to here. Immediately she recognized as being
unfair and did not mind a bit. e entrance to Cherries was choked with
lank-haired boys eeveless sweatshirts and bleached jeans, their exposed
s gleaming in the amber light as if they had been rubbed oil: girls with
deep tans, clouds of freckles across the ct bridges of their perfect
noses, painted with dark lip turning their mouths into pouting fruit,
their eye sockets iridescent slices of snakeskin. The girls' flowered
print ses seemed incongruous and anachronistic and the sleek hire and
ruby arsenal of Spandex clothing of their peers, aring much more like
undergarments found on a bordello's r than they did street clothes.
These girls, in contrast, soft and vulnerable, much more like children
who had vertently wandered away from the safety of their parents' S.
Amid the ebb and flow, a still pond of four boys stood in semi-shadows.
The ends of long palm fronds brushed them every few seconds, the amber
fog lights picked them out, 514 slid by them in an unhurried wash. One
boy was obviously the leader. His hair was so blond it appeared to have
been splin from platinum. He had light eyes, deep-set, widely spaced, a
thin nose and a rather pouty mouth. He was talking to a lol1g, waisted
girl on a skateboard while his fellows looked on with hooded eyes. One
of them bit his nails, another took a swia from a bottle of beer he held
