said.
“Now,” Randy said. “Before, it was always Herman.”
“Before what? Odum misses him. Where is he?”
“Dead. Herman Ludwig. Some kind of refugee from behind the Iron Curtain.” Randy winced. “That expression always makes my teeth hurt. He was supposed to have been famous in Europe. Once upon a time.” Randy gazed out at the curvetting boats, the gleaming water. He blew away smoke. “He was shot. On the parking lot in back of the studio. Late at night. Those two days usually stretch their full twenty-four hours. Spence was setting up. Herman went out to bring back coffee. And somebody blew his head off with a shotgun.”
“Who?” Dave said. “When?”
“Nobody knows who. They just shot him and drove off. We didn’t hear it. The place is soundproof. The sheriff found out later that neighbors heard it but nobody phoned in. I got sent out to find him when he didn’t come back. I stumbled across him. Dear God.” Unsteadily Randy gulped down all that remained of his mai tai. “Talk about your hair turning white in one night!”
“When?” Dave said again.
“Oh—what? Ten days ago? Spence really misses him.”
11
L IEUTENANT KEN BARKER OF the LAPD said, “The Strip’s not even city, you know that. It’s county. You have to see the sheriff.” He sat behind a green steel desk strewn with file folders, report forms, photographs. It was in a room partitioned off by glass and green steel from a wide glass-and-green-steel room where telephones jangled, typewriters rattled, men laughed, coughed, grumbled. Barker’s nose was broken. His shoulders strained the seams of his shirt. His collar was open, tie dragged down, cuffs turned back. He was sweating. He drank from a waxed-paper cup printed with orange swirls. Shaved ice rattled in the cup. He set it down. “Christ, is this weather ever going to let up?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Dave said.
“Two murders a night? It’s damn near normal. You tell me how they could be more different—a broken neck in Hillcrest, a shotgun blast away out west in a parking lot.”
“There’s a connection,” Dave said. “Spence Odum rents his lights and cameras and recorders from the company Dawson was a partner in.”
“Don’t a lot of people?” Barker said. “How many outfits like that are there? From what you tell me about Odum’s operation, they sure as hell couldn’t keep solvent if he was their only customer.”
“He was their only customer who had a cameraman murdered the same night as Dawson,” Dave said. “And that’s not all. Dawson was sleeping with a teenage hooker called Charleen something, who told people on the Strip she was about to get into the movies, and who had a poster from a Spence Odum picture on her wall, and who disappeared the same night as Dawson and Ludwig died.”
“They go off,” Barker said. “The prowl cars see them every night, like matches in the dark. And then they don’t see them anymore. Some middle-aged account executive with holes in his superego takes them on a expense-account jet ride to Vegas, some John, right? And strands them there. So they sit in some casino with a dead drink in one hand and a silver dollar in the other till the next John offers them twenty bucks, bed, and breakfast—and the next, and the next.”
“Till they meet some crazy,” Dave said, “who carves them up and puts them in a plastic bag with your name and address on it. I thought of that.”
Barker’s eyes were gunmetal color, about the same gray as his hair. They regarded Dave for a few seconds. “You are a terrible man,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“You’ve got one now,” Dave said.
Barker stood up, chair backing to deepen a dent in file cabinets behind him. “Skinny little blond. We’ve had her for a week. No ID.”
The body didn’t make much of a rise in the sheet that covered it. It didn’t take up much room on the long steel slab the attendant in the green smock pulled on silent
“Now,” Randy said. “Before, it was always Herman.”
“Before what? Odum misses him. Where is he?”
“Dead. Herman Ludwig. Some kind of refugee from behind the Iron Curtain.” Randy winced. “That expression always makes my teeth hurt. He was supposed to have been famous in Europe. Once upon a time.” Randy gazed out at the curvetting boats, the gleaming water. He blew away smoke. “He was shot. On the parking lot in back of the studio. Late at night. Those two days usually stretch their full twenty-four hours. Spence was setting up. Herman went out to bring back coffee. And somebody blew his head off with a shotgun.”
“Who?” Dave said. “When?”
“Nobody knows who. They just shot him and drove off. We didn’t hear it. The place is soundproof. The sheriff found out later that neighbors heard it but nobody phoned in. I got sent out to find him when he didn’t come back. I stumbled across him. Dear God.” Unsteadily Randy gulped down all that remained of his mai tai. “Talk about your hair turning white in one night!”
“When?” Dave said again.
“Oh—what? Ten days ago? Spence really misses him.”
11
L IEUTENANT KEN BARKER OF the LAPD said, “The Strip’s not even city, you know that. It’s county. You have to see the sheriff.” He sat behind a green steel desk strewn with file folders, report forms, photographs. It was in a room partitioned off by glass and green steel from a wide glass-and-green-steel room where telephones jangled, typewriters rattled, men laughed, coughed, grumbled. Barker’s nose was broken. His shoulders strained the seams of his shirt. His collar was open, tie dragged down, cuffs turned back. He was sweating. He drank from a waxed-paper cup printed with orange swirls. Shaved ice rattled in the cup. He set it down. “Christ, is this weather ever going to let up?”
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Dave said.
“Two murders a night? It’s damn near normal. You tell me how they could be more different—a broken neck in Hillcrest, a shotgun blast away out west in a parking lot.”
“There’s a connection,” Dave said. “Spence Odum rents his lights and cameras and recorders from the company Dawson was a partner in.”
“Don’t a lot of people?” Barker said. “How many outfits like that are there? From what you tell me about Odum’s operation, they sure as hell couldn’t keep solvent if he was their only customer.”
“He was their only customer who had a cameraman murdered the same night as Dawson,” Dave said. “And that’s not all. Dawson was sleeping with a teenage hooker called Charleen something, who told people on the Strip she was about to get into the movies, and who had a poster from a Spence Odum picture on her wall, and who disappeared the same night as Dawson and Ludwig died.”
“They go off,” Barker said. “The prowl cars see them every night, like matches in the dark. And then they don’t see them anymore. Some middle-aged account executive with holes in his superego takes them on a expense-account jet ride to Vegas, some John, right? And strands them there. So they sit in some casino with a dead drink in one hand and a silver dollar in the other till the next John offers them twenty bucks, bed, and breakfast—and the next, and the next.”
“Till they meet some crazy,” Dave said, “who carves them up and puts them in a plastic bag with your name and address on it. I thought of that.”
Barker’s eyes were gunmetal color, about the same gray as his hair. They regarded Dave for a few seconds. “You are a terrible man,” he said. “Did you know that?”
“You’ve got one now,” Dave said.
Barker stood up, chair backing to deepen a dent in file cabinets behind him. “Skinny little blond. We’ve had her for a week. No ID.”
The body didn’t make much of a rise in the sheet that covered it. It didn’t take up much room on the long steel slab the attendant in the green smock pulled on silent
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