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Da
Two more shots; warm wisps edging out the gloom. He had a friend with rank and juice—if he could make up for blowing his decoy job, he could still ride Considine’s coattails. A last shot; HIM again, HIM pure and abstract, like there was never a time when he didn’t exist, even though they’d been together only a few weeks. He thought of HIM free of Reynolds Loftis and last night with Claire, taking it back chronologically, stopping at Augie Duarte dead on a stainless steel slab.
The facial cuts. Jump forward to last night’s file work. His instinct: the killer knew Marty Goines’ pal—the youth with the bandaged face—and drew sexual inspiration from him. Jump to Thomas Cormier, whose wolverines were overfed—worshiped?— during the summer of ‘42, Sleepy Lagoon summer, when zoot sticks were most in use. Cormier’s interpretation: a neighborhood kid. Jump to Joredco. They hired youths, maybe youths out of skid row day labor, where they didn’t keep records. The burn boy was white; all the high school referrals were Mex and Jap, except for the non-play retard. Maybe the workers he talked to never met the kid because he only worked there briefly, maybe they forgot about him, maybe they just didn’t notice him. Jump forward to now. The burned-face boy was a burglar—Listerine Chester Brown tagged him as burglarizing with Goines circa ‘43 to ‘44, his face bandaged. If he was the one who stole Thomas Cormier’s wolverine some eighteen months after his summer of ‘42 worship, and he was a local kid, he might have committed other burglaries in the Bunker Hill area during that time period.
Da
The boxes were marked according to year; Da
He sca
Next was dates.
Da
Trinkets, family portraits, costume jewelry, cash out of purses and wallets. A deco wall clock. A cedar cigar humidor. A collection of glass figurines. A stuffed ringneck pheasant, a stuffed bobcat mounted on rosewood.
More HIM, more not Loftis HIM. It had to be.
Da
The killer was ID’d as middle-aged; he had to be co
The cards were filled out slapdash: all had the name, race and date of birth of the interrogee; only half had home addresses listed—in most cases downtown hotels. Five of the men would now be middle-aged and possibles for HIM; the other three were youths who could be the burned-face boy pre-burns—or—if he was tangential to the case—Thomas Cormier’s neighborhood kid wolverine lover.
Da
“It’s me. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, except I’m getting the fisheye from every City bull in the place, like all of a sudden I’m worse than worse than poison. What have you got?”
“Names, maybe a hot one right in the middle. I talked to that Cormier guy and hit Joredco, and I couldn’t put them straight together, but I’m damn sure our guy got kissing close to Cormier’s wolverines. You remember that old burglary accomplice of Marty Goines I told you about?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I’ve got a line on him, and I just about think he plays. There was a bunch of unsolved burglaries on Bunker Hill, May to August of ‘42. Mickey Mouse stuff clouted, right near Cormier and Joredco. LAPD was enforcing curfew then, and I picked out eight possible FI cards from the area—May through August. I’ve got a hunch the killings stem from then—the Sleepy Lagoon killing and the SLDC time—and I need you to do eliminations—current address, blood type, dental tech background, criminal record and the rest.”
“Go, I’m writing it down.”
Da