No Cure for Love

by Peter Robinson

  Arvo and Maria found themselves in the bar area. Modeled closely on the Star Trek: The Next Generation Ten Forward, but darker and bigger, it featured molded plastic, futuristic tables and chairs, and even a starscape backdrop on screens that were supposed to represent the large windows of the starship. Galaxies whirled by, the stars all a little blurred. Must be traveling at warp speed, Arvo thought.

  It was also a hell of a lot noisier than the TV bar. Hot, too. Kids milled around, some of them looking hardly any older than the ones the doorman had sent away, and waitresses dressed in tight-fitting Trekkie-character costumes held trays of drinks aloft. One of them looked like Deanna Troi, another like Tasha Yar. Conversation competed with loud music, all of it merging in a deafening wall of noise.

  The music itself was hard to describe. Part raw rock, part disco beat, part synthesizer funk, it seemed to exist solely for the sake of the dancers, who jumped, bobbed, weaved and swayed on the vast floor under yet more swirling galaxies. Arvo noticed a few glazed eyes. Drugs. Ecstasy, probably.

  The clientele was an odd mix of cyberpunk—all studded leather and torn T-shirts, shaved or spiky hair, tight black pants or leggings, with a lot of earrings and a more than average percentage of nose-rings—and an occasional computer nerd looking to get laid, badly dressed, with greasy hair, acne and glasses.

  It was almost impossible to spot any single individual in such a heaving, throbbing mass of people. Arvo pushed his way to the bar and asked the bartender if he knew where Mitch Cameron was. The bartender just shook his head and went to serve a customer. Either he hadn’t heard through the noise or he didn’t know any Mitch Cameron. Most likely he just didn’t care.

  Arvo and Maria were already drawing strange looks from some of the kids, a few of whom quite wisely slunk away from them, maybe to sell their illegal substances elsewhere or flush them down the toilet. No matter what Joe had said, in this crowd they did look like cops.

  Had Mitch Cameron been the same size as the man on the door, it would have been easy to spot him, but according to all Arvo’s information he was of average height and rather stocky, muscular. Just because he had had a dyed blond brush-cut a year ago, it didn’t mean he had one now, though dyed blond hairs had been found at the scene of Jack Marillo’s murder.

  Arvo and Maria stood by the bar looking over the dancers. The music changed, though not much, and the overhead galaxy started spinning the other way. Searchlights danced over the crowd. A Federation starship passed by on an overhead screen and some of the dancers stopped and cheered.

  Then Arvo noticed, over to his left at the far side of the dance floor, a couple of kids facing off. Others were moving away, clearing a space around them. They looked to be fighting over a girl who was standing with them. She seemed to be exhorting one of the kids to mop up the floor with the other, and the more she yelled—though Arvo couldn’t hear what she said over the music and general din—the closer the guys came to throwing punches. Before they got that far, however, the bouncer appeared.

  Arvo nudged Maria, who had been scanning the other side of the club.

  “That Cameron?” Maria yelled in his ear.

  “Could be. Let’s go ask him.”

  The bouncer was too busy keeping the two kids apart to notice Arvo and Maria heading toward him. He was about the right size, Arvo estimated, and his hair could have been blond, though it seemed to be plastered down with some kind of gel that made it look darker. He wore it combed straight back, with a greasy ponytail hanging down over his collar.

  When they reached him, Maria grasped his elbow and said, “Mitch Cameron?”

  Cameron shook her hand off. “Yeah, I’m Cameron,” he yelled without turning around. “Just back off a minute, bitch. Can’t you see I’m busy right now?”

  But the tension between the two kids had dwindled away by now. They’d passed the flare-up point and hadn’t caught fire. The girl looked disappointed.

  Maria pulled out her wallet and flipped her badge right in front of Cameron’s face. “I think these kids can manage without you for a while, Mitch. Detective Maria Hernandez, LAPD. And my colleague here, Detective Arvo Hughes. We’d like to talk to you.”

  Before either Maria or Arvo could see what was coming, Cameron sucker-punched Maria and she went down on her knees with blood pouring down her chin. That drew a gasp from the crowd. Then Cameron took off over the dance floor with the galaxies swirling over him and a couple of Romulan warships casting their shadows across his path. He cut a swathe through the dancers, pushing people aside left and right. Arvo bent to see if Maria was okay and she waved him away. He headed after Cameron.

  Cameron was fast, but the crowd between him and the door was thick and it slowed him down. By the time Arvo took after him, he had already cleared a path between the dancers, some of whom were still picking themselves up off the floor looking confused. The music throbbed all around them and the lights went on spinning. Arvo could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead and neck. It was beginning to sting his eyes and he rubbed it from his eyebrows as he ran. He glanced back and saw Maria was behind him now, not more than twenty feet away. She gestured for him to keep chasing.

  Cameron broke through the last cluster of dancers and skidded across the few feet of empty space to the door. He was heading for the front exit. Arvo was only about fifteen feet behind him now, Maria maybe thirty.

  Cameron collided with a couple of kids walking into the club, but he regained his balance immediately and pushed the front door open. Arvo could almost reach out and grab a fistful of his T-shirt by now, but the heavy door swung back hard and blocked his path for a moment.

  Cameron shot out into the street, right into the doorman with the shaved head. The man hardly flinched, and when Arvo and Maria came out a split-second later, panting for breath, he held Cameron up by the ponytail and said, “Take him, why don’t you. I never did like the slimy little cocksucker.” Cameron’s mouth was bloody, and Arvo saw him spit a tooth-fragment on the sidewalk. The bouncer shrugged, raised his eyebrows and spread his hands, dropping Cameron at their feet.

  Joe came out of the front door, gun out. “What the fuck’s going on?” he asked. “Couple of kids came running out the back door saying there was some real heavy shit going down inside.” Arvo told him what had happened.

  Maria leaned against the car holding a white handkerchief to her mouth. It was already stained red with blood. Joe cuffed Cameron and bundled him into the back of the car. Arvo and Maria got in the front. Arvo put his hand on her shoulder. “Okay?”

  She nodded, took the handkerchief away and looked at it. “I’m fine. Bastard split my lip is all. More mess than damage.”

  Cameron, who sat twisted forward because of the cuffs, said nothing as they drove to Parker Center. He just kept on staring straight ahead at the taillights on Wilshire, with a creepy smile on his face, and only God knew what he was thinking or seeing.

  44

  ON FIRST IMPRESSION, ARVO THOUGHT, MITCH Cameron wasn’t much different from the white trash he’d arrested any number of times back in Detroit. He had the look of someone who knew how to handle being pushed around. And whatever you said or did to him, it didn’t touch him emotionally because it was nothing in comparison to what he had suffered growing up.

  However well he had been treated at the foster home in Eureka, you didn’t have to be told to know that Cameron had endured a deprived and abusive childhood before that. It was in his every sullen, obedient movement, the way he bent with the flow; it was in the smug, cynical smile he wore on his face. Cameron wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t even angry. The habit of abuse had inured him to such feelings of weakness.

  No matter what indignities the system piled on him, much worse had been done. And he had done worse himself. Out on the streets, he would be every bit as cruel and vicious as whoever had abused him as a child, yet in captivity he took to the handcuffs, the punches and the shoves just as naturally and as meekly as he would take to the shackles and prison routi
ne. You couldn’t touch him; he could no longer feel a thing. In a way, it gave him power. And it made him a supreme manipulator.

  It also made him arrogant as hell, which is how they hoped to get him to talk without a lawyer present telling him to shut up every time he opened his mouth. That and the felony rap hanging over his head for assaulting a police officer. But Arvo sensed he wasn’t the type to respond to threats and plea-bargains. No, if it was going to happen, it was going to happen because Cameron wouldn’t be able to contain himself, because he wouldn’t be able to resist showing off.

  He looked relaxed and comfortable in the molded orange plastic chair: legs crossed, hands clasped loosely on his lap, mouth cleaned up. Too comfortable, Arvo thought.

  The interview room had no windows; the walls were drab olive, not repainted in about five years; and the only furniture consisted of one table, bolted to the floor, and several chairs. The door was closed and the place was stuffy. Arvo leaned against the wall; Maria stood beside him, arms folded across her chest. Their turn would come later.

  Joe started. “Mitch,” he said. “You don’t mind if I call you Mitch, do you?”

  “Call me what you want, man.”

  “Do you prefer Mitchell?”

  “Mitch is fine. Mind if I smoke?”

  “Sorry,” said Joe. “This building’s a smoke-free environment. Want a toothpick to chew on? I find it helps.”

  Cameron laughed and took a toothpick. “Shit. The whole of California’s a fucking smoke-free environment.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said Joe, with a smile. “Never mind, you’ll have plenty of time to smoke in San Quentin, Mitch.”

  Cameron ignored the jibe and glanced at his watch. “Look, boys and girls, can we cut the crapola and just get on with it, huh? When this is over, I’ve got to go and see if I’ve still got a job left after that stunt you guys pulled at the club.”

  “Ever heard of a kid called John Heimar?”

  “Nope.”

  “He worked the Boulevard.”

  “Not my scene, man.”

  “You trying to tell me you’re not gay, Mitch?”

  Cameron leaned forward. His eyes hardened. “If I was gay, I can’t see that it would be any of your business. A little homophobic, are we, Detective? It’s not politically correct, you know.” He sat back and examined his fingernails. “Besides, an attitude like yours usually indicates latent homosexual desires, did you know that? Is that your problem, Detective? Not been sucking enough cock lately? Or been sucking too much?”

  “Cut the amateur psychology, Mitch. I’m not impressed. John Heimar and what happened to him is my business.”

  Cameron rested his hands on the table, palms down, and sat up straight, his eyes fixed on Joe. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t know who these other two cops are, but you told me you’re a big shot from Robbery-Homicide. So let me guess: this kid was robbed and killed? Right? And I’m supposed to have done it, right? But you haven’t got enough evidence to charge me with it yet, so you come up with some bullshit felony rap and hope to drag a confession out of me? Am I on the right track, Detective? This is why you’ve probably lost me my job?”

  “Where were you on the evening of December 19?”

  Cameron slouched back in his chair and looked down at the table. “How the fuck would I know? Probably at work. How do you expect me to remember that far back? Where were you?”

  “Did you go down to Santa Monica Boulevard that evening? Did you pick up a kid called John Heimar? Did you kill him, dismember his body and bury it on the beach near Pacific Palisades?”

  “No. No. And no. What is this?”

  “Where were you over Christmas?”

  He shrugged. “At work. At home. Visiting friends.”

  “What about your family?”

  “I don’t have any family. Well, only Mark, my brother.”

  “You were with him over Christmas?”

  “Some of the time. We don’t see a lot of each other.”

  “And the rest of the time?”

  “Work doesn’t stop just because it’s Christmas, you know. The club’s busy. People like to party.”

  “What about your sister, Marianne?”

  “How’d you know about her?”

  “Did you see her?”

  “No. She lives in Boston. Besides, we don’t get along.”

  “Do you own a hammer, Mitch?”

  “A hammer? I guess so. In the toolbox. I don’t—”

  “Ever heard of Jack Marillo?”

  “Yeah. The TV guy who got killed.” He laughed. “Don’t tell me, you’re going to pin that one on me, too, right? Just pick on old Mitchell Cameron. This is absurd. Tell me, why would I want to kill a TV star I’ve never met?”

  “How about last night, Mitch? Where were you then? That’s a bit more recent. Maybe you can remember what you were doing then?”

  “Working. At the club.”

  “Ten Forward?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Sure you weren’t up in Brentwood?”

  “Brentwood? What the fuck would I be doing in Brentwood? Who do you think I am, man? Member of the country-club set, maybe playing a few holes of golf in Bel Air? Don’t talk stupid.”

  They would check his alibi, of course. But Cameron was good, Arvo thought. Even denied cigarettes, he wasn’t showing any of the traditional signs of stress or of lying. Occasionally, he would probe his broken tooth with his tongue, but that was a normal enough reaction to pressure—and to a broken tooth.

  He didn’t sweat, fidget or chew his lips, and for the most part, his eyes remained calm and steady, fixed on Joe. They were very expressive eyes, though, Arvo noticed. Most of the time they showed only amused, cynical detachment, but they could turn hard. Arvo also thought he saw a kind of cruel hunger in them, a hunger for power over people, dominance for its own sake. A manipulator.

  The absence of guilty body language proved nothing in itself. If Cameron were the man who had terrorized Sarah Broughton, killed John Heimar and Jack Marillo and stabbed Stuart Kleigman, then he could hardly be expected to react in a normal way to interrogation.

  On the other hand, he was showing no outward signs of schizophrenia or manic depression. Perhaps he had learned to hide the symptoms; or perhaps his problem lay elsewhere. A serious delusional disorder might not be so obvious to an outsider. As planned, Arvo let Joe carry on asking Cameron about the murders. His turn would come soon. Cameron did seem to be getting a little confused now and then, and maybe that would give them the edge they needed to crack him. He certainly did like to talk.

  “Why did you run when we came to question you?” Joe asked.

  “You know why I ran. I’ve got a record. You guys come and roust me, you’re looking for an arrest. I mean, if you look at what’s happening right now, it’s point proven. Pretty soon you’ll have me down for every unsolved murder on your books.”

  “We don’t work like that, Mitch.”

  “Bullshit you don’t.”

  “What have you got to hide, Mitch?”

  “Nothing. I told you. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  It was there, Arvo noticed. A chink in the armor. Gone almost the moment he saw it, but there: a slight twitch, no more than a tic, at the corner of one eye. In someone as controlled as Mitchell Cameron, it was a sure sign he was lying.

  Joe had noticed it, too. “Come on, Mitch, you can’t expect me to believe that old line.”

  “I don’t care what you believe.”

  “Sure you do. You want us to believe you’re innocent.”

  “I am innocent.”

  “So tell the truth.”

  “I did.”

  “Why did you run, Mitch?”

  Arvo could see Mitch thinking, weighing up the pros and cons of making up another story.

  “Why did you run, Mitch?”

  “I owe some men some money, that’s all.”

  “Which men?”

  “Just men, okay. Loan sharks. Th
e kind who don’t necessarily do things the legal way.”

  “What do you owe them for?”

  “Money. I borrowed some money for a new guitar.”

  Joe paused, then leaned forward and spoke softly. “But the two officers who came to talk to you at Ten Forward identified themselves as police officers, Mitch.” He turned to face Maria and pointed. Her lower lip was swollen and red. “Yet you punched Detective Hernandez here in the face. That’s a serious matter. Did you think she was lying, showing phony ID?”

  Cameron shifted a little uneasily in his chair. “Maybe. It wouldn’t surprise me, man.”

  “And because of that you hit a woman?”

  “Can’t trust nobody these days, man. Women, they can be just as mean as men.” He looked at Maria and bared his teeth in an ugly grin. “Meaner, sometimes.”

  “You can do better than that,” said Joe.

  “Maybe the guys I borrowed the money from got cops in their pockets.”

  “You into conspiracy theories, Mitch? Is that what you’re trying to sell us? I mean, I thought you must be a few cards short of a full deck, but conspiracy theories? Come on, I still think you can do better than that.”

  “Oh, yeah? What if I give you names?”

  “Cops?”

  “Uh-huh. Hollywood Division.”

  “Then we’d check them out.”

  Cameron gave him two names. Arvo didn’t recognize either of them. Then Joe gave Arvo the signal to ease into his chair and take over questioning. Maria sat beside him, at a sharp angle to Cameron, so he would have to turn his head to look at her. She and Arvo had arranged a signal system for if and when he wanted her to ask the questions.

  Arvo took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. Then he loosened his tie.

  “You knew Gary Knox, didn’t you, Mitch?” Arvo began.

  Cameron hardly reacted at all to the change of questioners; he merely flicked his disdainful eyes in Arvo’s direction, as if he were looking at some sort of lower life form.

  “Sure I did,” he said. “Gary and I were close. He liked my songs. If he hadn’t died . . .”

  “What if he hadn’t died, Mitch?”