too,” Mario Villalobos sighed. “We’re from the same pueblo but I took a Berlit-z course in English. Now can we get back to Missy Moonbeam? Did she ever bring a trick home with her? Trust me, Oliver. I don’t work vice. I catch people who kill people. I don’t care who turns tricks on my beat. I don’t care who books horses or does dope and I don’t even much care who steals hubcaps as long as they’re not mine. I only care about catching people who kill people. And then only if they do it on my beat. See where I’m coming from? Don’t lie to me, because your hotel happens to be on my beat and somebody pushed somebody off the roof. Don’t tell me any lies or I’ll get really mad at you, Oliver.”
Oliver Rigby looked at the deep lines around the mouth of the detective and at his hair too gray for his age and at brown eyes that for sure had seen most of it. He knew who he could screw with and of course he knew from an unhappy life on the streets who not to screw with. He said, “She took a few tricks upstairs. Onl y a few, you understand.”
Mario Villalobos knew of course that Oliver Rigby would know exactly how many tricks Missy Moonbeam took to her room because the Oliver Rigbys of this world demand a piece of the action from the Missy Moonbeams of this world for letting them take tricks to their rooms, and keeping it quiet, and even warning them if someone who looked like a vice cop should get on that elevator and go up to the fifth floor where she lived.
“Did she take a trick up to her room on Saturday night, Oliver? Sometime between nine o’clock and when she did her header off the roof? Think carefully, Oliver. And don’t make a mistake that causes me to do extra work.”
“I swear to God she din’t,” Oliver Rigby said. “There was just this guy, this tall guy, came down a few minutes after I heard the scream and the cars slammin on their brakes out on the street. Look, I don’t want no problems. I wish I din’t even mention the guy in the pinstripes to the cops that came out Saturday night. I bet Missy tossed her own self off the fuckin roof is what I think. We had two other girls toss theirselves off the roof over the years. It ain’t no big thing.”
And that, Mario Villalobos had to agree, was a fitting epitaph for all the Thelma Bernbaums who ended up on a steel table in the coroner’s by way of the streets of Hollywood: it ain’t no big thing.
But there was one problem with the suicide theory of Oliver Rigby. A big problem which kept them from closing the book on Missy Moonbeam and calling her a jumper, which of course Mario Villalobos would like to have done. The first police on the scene Saturday night found one of Missy Moonbeam’s shoes in the hallway leading to the roof. They found a piece of her panty hose torn from her leg and hanging from the air-conditioner on the roof. They found two of Missy Moonbeam’s false fingernails on the step by the door to the roof. Unfortunately for Mario Villalobos, Missy Moonbeam was probably dragged from her room on the fifth floor, out to the roof, ending up dead under the cutlasses of swashbucklers who wanted to watch Days of Our Lives.
The room of Missy Moonbeam had been gone over pretty well by the detectives who got the call Saturday night. There were no readable latent prints that showed promise. There were no signs of a fight inside the room. It was probable that the killer overpowered her while she was standing outside the door or in the doorway. The door was unlocked and the keys were still in her purse, so it was possible that the killer was known to Missy Moonbeam.
It would have been very natural in these unnatural situations to have assumed that the killer was someone she had picked up as a trick. But she was fully clothed when she hit the roof of the panel truck from five stories up. There was no money in her purse or tucked inside her panty hose or bra. The bed was neatly made, so the possibility of a deadly customer was
Oliver Rigby looked at the deep lines around the mouth of the detective and at his hair too gray for his age and at brown eyes that for sure had seen most of it. He knew who he could screw with and of course he knew from an unhappy life on the streets who not to screw with. He said, “She took a few tricks upstairs. Onl y a few, you understand.”
Mario Villalobos knew of course that Oliver Rigby would know exactly how many tricks Missy Moonbeam took to her room because the Oliver Rigbys of this world demand a piece of the action from the Missy Moonbeams of this world for letting them take tricks to their rooms, and keeping it quiet, and even warning them if someone who looked like a vice cop should get on that elevator and go up to the fifth floor where she lived.
“Did she take a trick up to her room on Saturday night, Oliver? Sometime between nine o’clock and when she did her header off the roof? Think carefully, Oliver. And don’t make a mistake that causes me to do extra work.”
“I swear to God she din’t,” Oliver Rigby said. “There was just this guy, this tall guy, came down a few minutes after I heard the scream and the cars slammin on their brakes out on the street. Look, I don’t want no problems. I wish I din’t even mention the guy in the pinstripes to the cops that came out Saturday night. I bet Missy tossed her own self off the fuckin roof is what I think. We had two other girls toss theirselves off the roof over the years. It ain’t no big thing.”
And that, Mario Villalobos had to agree, was a fitting epitaph for all the Thelma Bernbaums who ended up on a steel table in the coroner’s by way of the streets of Hollywood: it ain’t no big thing.
But there was one problem with the suicide theory of Oliver Rigby. A big problem which kept them from closing the book on Missy Moonbeam and calling her a jumper, which of course Mario Villalobos would like to have done. The first police on the scene Saturday night found one of Missy Moonbeam’s shoes in the hallway leading to the roof. They found a piece of her panty hose torn from her leg and hanging from the air-conditioner on the roof. They found two of Missy Moonbeam’s false fingernails on the step by the door to the roof. Unfortunately for Mario Villalobos, Missy Moonbeam was probably dragged from her room on the fifth floor, out to the roof, ending up dead under the cutlasses of swashbucklers who wanted to watch Days of Our Lives.
The room of Missy Moonbeam had been gone over pretty well by the detectives who got the call Saturday night. There were no readable latent prints that showed promise. There were no signs of a fight inside the room. It was probable that the killer overpowered her while she was standing outside the door or in the doorway. The door was unlocked and the keys were still in her purse, so it was possible that the killer was known to Missy Moonbeam.
It would have been very natural in these unnatural situations to have assumed that the killer was someone she had picked up as a trick. But she was fully clothed when she hit the roof of the panel truck from five stories up. There was no money in her purse or tucked inside her panty hose or bra. The bed was neatly made, so the possibility of a deadly customer was
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