Blood on the Moon

by James Ellroy

  Dutch cut in, “Miss McCarthy, please be calm. Lloyd is in a bit of a crisis within the department, and I’m sure he’s behaving erratically.”

  “But you don’t understand! He’s talking about killing people!”

  Peltz laughed. “Policemen talk about such things. Please have him call me. Tell him it’s important. And don’t worry.”

  When she heard the receiver click, Kathleen steeled herself for the next call, then dialed. After six rings a soft tenor voice said: “Teddy’s Silverlake Camera, may I help you?”

  “Y…Yes…Is this Teddy Verplanck?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Thank God! Look, you probably don’t remember me, but my name is Kathleen McCarthy, and I…”

  The soft voice went softer. “I remember you well.”

  “Good…Look, you may not believe this, but there’s a crazy policeman out to get you. I—”

  The soft voice interrupted. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Lloyd Hopkins. He’s about forty, and very big and tall. He drives a tan unmarked police car. He wants to hurt you.”

  The soft voice said, “I know that. But I won’t let him. No one can hurt me. Thank you, Kathleen. I remember you very fondly. Goodbye.”

  “G…Goodbye.”

  Kathleen put down the phone and sat on the bed, surprised to find that she was still nude. She walked into the bathroom and stared at her body in the full-length mirror. It looked the same, but she knew that somehow it had changed and would never be completely hers again.

  15

  Running red lights and using his siren, Lloyd drove downtown. He left the car in an alley and ran the four blocks to Parker Center, taking a service elevator to the third floor S.I.D. offices, sending up silent prayers that Artie Cranfield would be the only data analyst on duty. Opening a door marked “Data Indentification,” he saw his prayers rewarded–Cranfield was alone in his office, hunched over a microscope.

  The technician looked up when Lloyd closed the door behind him. “You’re in trouble, Lloyd,” he said. “Two I.A.D. bulls were here this morning. They said you were talking about becoming a TV star. They wanted to know if you had processed any evidence lately.”

  “What did you tell them?” Lloyd asked.

  Artie laughed. “That you still owe me ten scoots on last year’s World Series pool. It’s true, you know.”

  Lloyd forced himself to laugh back. “I can do better than that. How’d you like your very own Watanabe A.F.Z. 999?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Nagler from Fingerprints has it. He’s at his father’s house in San Berdoo. Call the San Berdoo P.D., they’ll give you the phone number.”

  “What do you want, Lloyd?”

  “I want you to outfit me with a body wire, and I want six .38 caliber blank slugs.”

  Artie’s face darkened. “When, Lloyd?” he asked.

  “Right now.” Lloyd said.

  The outfitting took half an hour. When he was satisfied with the concealment and feedback check, Artie said, “You look scared, Lloyd.”

  This time Lloyd’s laughter was genuine. “I am scared.” he said.

  Lloyd drove to West Hollywood. The body recorder constricted his chest, and each of his raging heartbeats felt like it was bringing him closer to a short-circuit suffocation.

  There were no lights on in Whitey Haines’s apartment. Lloyd checked his watch as he picked the lock with a credit card. 5:10. Daywatch ended at 5:00, and if Haines came home directly after getting off duty, he should arrive within half an hour.

  The apartment was unchanged since his previous entry. Lloyd chased three Benzedrine tablets with sink water and stationed himself beside the door, accustoming himself to the darkness. After a few minutes the speed kicked in and went straight for his head, obliterating the smothering feeling in his chest. If it didn’t take him too high, he would have enough juice for days of manhunting.

  Lloyd’s calm deepened, then shattered when he heard a key inserted into the lock. The door swung open a split second later, and blinding light caused him to reach up to shield his eyes. Before he could move, a flat handed karate chop glanced off his neck, long fingernails gouging his collarbone. Lloyd dropped to his knees as Whitey Haines shrieked and swung his billy club at his head. The club smashed into the wall and stuck, and as Haines tried to jerk it free Lloyd rolled onto his back and kicked out with both feet at Haines’s groin, catching him full force and knocking him to the floor.

  Haines retched for breath and went for his holstered revolver, wrenching it free just as Lloyd managed to get to his feet. He pointed the gun upward as Lloyd sidestepped, yanked the billy club out of the wall, and slammed it into his chest. Haines screamed and dropped the gun. Lloyd kicked it out of the way and drew his own .38 from his waistband. He leveled it at Haines’s nose and gasped, “On your feet. Up against the wall and walk it back. Do it real slow.”

  Haines drew himself slowly upright, massaging his chest, then spread-eagling against the wall, his hands above his head. Lloyd nudged the .38 on the floor over to where he could pick it up without relinquishing his bead on him. When the gun was safely in his waistband he ran his free hand over Haines’s uniformed body. He found what he was looking for in the lining of his Eisenhower jacket–a plain manila folder stuffed with paper, Craigie, Lawrence D., A.K.A. Bird, Birdy, Birdman, 1/29/46, typed on the front.

  Haines started to blubber as he sensed Lloyd’s eyes boring into the folder. “I…I…I didn’t kill him. It…It…was probably some crazy faggot. You gotta listen to me. You got—”

  Lloyd kicked Haines’s legs out from under him. Haines crashed to the floor and stifled a scream. Lloyd squatted beside him and said, “Don’t fuck with me, Haines. I’ll eat you up. I want you to sit on your couch while I do some reading. Then we’re going to talk about the good old days in Silverlake. I’m a Silverlake homeboy myself, and I know you’re going to love walking down memory lane with me. On your feet.”

  Haines stumbled over to his naugahyde sofa and sat down, clenching and unclenching his fists and staring at the gleaming toes of his boots. Lloyd took a chair across from him, the manila folder in one hand, his .38 in the other. With one eye on Haines, he read through the pages of the Vice files.

  The notations went back ten years. In the early 70s, Lawrence Craigie had been arrested regularly for soliciting homosexual acts and had been frequently questioned when found loitering in the vicinity of public restrooms. Those early reports carried the signatures of the entire eight-man Vice Squad. After 1976, all entries pertaining to Lawrence Craigie were filed by Deputy Delbert W. Haines, #408. The reports were ridiculously repetitive, and dubious question marks covered the later ones. When he saw the report dated 6/29/78, Lloyd laughed aloud. “Today I employed Lawrence Craigie as my vice finger man. I have told the men on the squad not to bust him. He is a good snitch. Respectfully–Delbert W. Haines, #408.”

  Lloyd laughed; booming stage laughter to cover the sound of his pushing the activator button on his body recorder. When he felt mild electric tendrils encircle his chest, he said, “An L.A. County Deputy Sheriff running dope and male prostitutes, getting kickbacks from fruit hustlers all over Boy’s Town. What are you going to do with the Birdman dead? You’ll have to find yourself a new sewer, and when the Sheriffs dicks link you to Craigie you’ll have to find a new career.”

  Whitey Haines stared at his feet. “I’m clean all the way down the line,” he said. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t know nothing about Craigie’s murder or any of that other shit. This is some kind of outlaw shit you’re pulling on me or you would have brought another cop with you. You’re a punk cop who likes to hassle other cops. I had your number the other day when you asked me about them suicides I reported. You wanna bust me for ripping off that vice folder, then bust on, homeboy, ’cause that’s all you got on me.”

  Lloyd leaned forward. “Look at me, Haines. Look at me real close.”

  Haines took
his eyes from the floor. Lloyd looked into them and said, “Tonight you pay your dues! One way or the other you are going to answer my questions.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Whitey Haines said.

  Lloyd smiled, then held up his .38 snub nose and opened the chamber. He emptied five of the six rounds into his hand, then snapped the chamber shut and spun it. He cocked the hammer and placed the barrel on Haines’s nose. “Teddy Verplanck.” he said.

  Whitey Haines’s florid face went pale. His clenched hands mashed together so hard that Lloyd could hear tendons cracking. A network of veins pulsated in his neck, jerking his head away from the gun barrel. A thick layer of dry spittle coated his lips as he stammered, “J–just–a g–guy from high school.”

  Lloyd shook his head. “Not good enough, Whitey. Verplanck is a mass murderer. He killed Craigie and God knows how many women. He sends your old classmate Kathy McCarthy flowers each time he kills. He had your apartment bugged; that’s how I connected you to Craigie. Teddy Verplanck was obsessed with you, and you’re going to tell me why.”

  Haines fingered the badge pinned above his heart. “I–I don’t know nothing.”

  Lloyd spun the chamber again. “You’ve got five chances. Whitey.”

  “You haven’t got the guts,” Haines whispered hoarsely.

  Lloyd aimed between Haines’s eyes and squeezed the trigger. The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Haines started to dry sob. His twitching hands grabbed at the sofa and ripped out hunks of naugahyde and foam.

  “Four chances,” Lloyd said. “I’ll give you a little help. Verplanck was in love with Kathy McCarthy. He was a Kathy Klown. Remember the Kathy Kourt and the Kathy Klowns? Does the date June 10th, 1964 mean anything to you? That was the day that Verplanck first contacted Kathy McCarthy. He sent her a poem about blood and tears and hatred being spent on him. You and Verplanck and the Birdman were all at Marshall High then. Did you and Craigie hurt Verplanck, Haines? Did you hate him and bleed him and—”

  “No! No! No!” Haines screamed, wrapping his arms a-round himself and banging his head on the couch. “No! No!”

  Lloyd stood up. He looked at Haines and felt the last piece of the puzzle slip into place, fusing Christmas of 1950 and a score of June lOths into a door that unlocked the inner sanctum of hell. He put his gun to Haines’s head and pulled the trigger two times. At the first hammer click Haines shrieked; at the second he clasped his hands and began murmuring prayers. Lloyd knelt beside him. “It’s over, Whitey. For you, for Teddy, maybe even for me. Tell me why you and Craigie raped him.”

  Lloyd listened to Haines’s prayers wind down, catching the tail end of the rosary in Latin. When he finished, Haines smoothed his sweat drenched khaki shirt and adjusted his badge. His voice was perfectly calm as he said, “I always figured that someone knew, that God would tell someone to hurt me for it. I’ve been seeing priests in my dreams for years. I always figured God would tell a priest to get me. I never figured he’d send a cop.”

  Lloyd sat down facing Haines, watching his features soften in his prelude to confession.

  “Teddy Verplanck was weird,” Whitey Haines said. “He didn’t fit in and he didn’t care. He wasn’t a sosh and he wasn’t an athlete and he wasn’t a bad ass. He wasn’t a loner, he was just different. He didn’t have to prove himself by doing crazy shit, he just walked around school in his fruity ivy league clothes, and every time he looked at you you knew he thought you were scum. He printed up this poetry newspaper and stuffed it into every locker on the fucking campus. He made fun of me and Birdy and the Surfers and Vatos and nobody would futk with him because he had this weird kind of juice, like he could read your mind, and if you fucked with him he’d put it in his newspaper and everyone would know.

  “There were these love poems that he used to put in his paper. My sister was real smart; she figured out all the big words and the symbolic shit and told me that the poems were ripoffs of the great poets and dedicated to that snooty bitch Kathleen McCarthy. Sis sat next to her in Home Ec, she told me that the McCarthy cunt lived in this fantasy world where she thought that half the guys at Marshall had the hots for her and the other stuck-up bitches she hung out with. ‘Cathy’s Clown’ was a big hit song then, and the McCarthy bitch told Sis that she had a hundred personal ‘Cathy Clowns.’ But Verplanck was the only clown, and he was afraid to hit up on McCarthy and she didn’t even know he had the hots for her.

  “Then Verplanck printed these poems attacking the Bird and me. People started giving us the fisheye in the quad. I was cracking jokes when Kennedy got knocked off, and Verplanck stared me down. It was like he was ripping off my juice for himself. I waited for a long time, until just before graduation in ’64. Then I figured it out. I had my sister write this fake note from Kathy McCarthy to Verplanck, telling him to meet her in the bell tower room after school. Birdy and I were there. We were only going to hurt him. We kicked his ass good, but even when he was all beat up he still had more juice than we did. That’s why I did it. Birdy just followed me like he always did.”

  Haines hesitated. Lloyd watched him grope for words to conclude his story. When nothing came, he said, “Do you feel shame, Haines? Pity? Do you feel anything?”

  Whitey Haines pulled his features into a rock hard mask that brooked no mercy. “I’m glad I told you,” he said, “but I don’t think I feel nothing. I feel bad about the Birdman, but he was born to die freaky. I’ve been revenging myself all my life. I was born to live hard. Varplanck was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got what he paid for. I say tough shit. I say I’ve paid my dues all the way down the line. I say fuck ’em all and save six for the pallbearers.” It was the most eloquent moment of his life. Haines looked at Lloyd and said, “Well, Sergeant. What now?”

  “You have no right to be a policeman,” Lloyd said, opening his shirt and showing Haines the tape recorder hook up. “You deserve to die, but I’m not equipped for cold-blooded killing. This tape will be on Captain Magruder’s desk in the morning. You’ll be through as a Deputy Sheriff.”

  Haines breathed out slowly as his sentence was passed. “What are you going to do with Verplanck?” he asked.

  Lloyd smiled. “Save him or kill him. Whatever it takes.”

  Haines smiled back. “Right on, homeboy. Right on.”

  Lloyd took out a handkerchief and wiped the door knob, the arms of the chair and the grips of Haines’s service revolver. “It’ll only take a second, Whitey,” he said.

  Haines nodded. “I know.”

  “You won’t feel much.”

  “I know.”

  Lloyd walked to the door. Haines said, “Those were blanks in your gun, right?” Lloyd raised a hand in farewell. It felt like a giving of absolution. “Yeah. Take care, homeboy.”

  When the door closed, Whitey Haines walked into the bedroom and unlocked his gunrack. He reached up and took out his favorite possession–a sawed off .10 gauge double barrelled shotgun, the weapon he was saving for the close quarters apocalypse that he knew would one day come his way. After slipping shells into the chambers, Whitey let his mind drift back to Marshall High and the good old days. When the memories started to hurt he jammed the barrels into his mouth and tripped both triggers.

  Lloyd was unlocking his car when he heard the explosion. He sent up a plea for mercy and drove to Silverlake.

  16

  Teddy Verplanck was parked across the street from his camera store sanctuary, waiting for the arrival of a tan unmarked police car. Within minutes of the incredible phone call he had thrown his entire set of consummation tools into a canvas duffle bag and had run for his safeguard unregistered car and the one-on-one combat that would decide his fate. Somehow, through chance or divine intervention, he had been given the opportunity to fight for the very soul of his beloved Kathy. He had been passed the torch by Kathy herself, and an eighteen-year-old covenant was about to be fulfilled. He thought of the armaments now resting in his trunk: silencer-fitted .32, .30 caliber M-l carbine, two-edged fire axe
, custom-made six-shot Derringer, spiked, lead-filled baseball bat. He had the technology and the love to make it work.

  Two hours after the call, the car pulled up. Teddy watched a very tall man get out and survey the front of the shop, walking the length of its facade, peering into the windows. The big man seemed to be savoring the moment, collating instinctive information for use against him. Teddy was beginning to enjoy his first glimpse of his foe when the big man bolted for his car, hung a U-turn and headed south on Alvarado.

  Teddy took deep breaths and decided to pursue. He waited ten seconds and followed, catching the tan car at Alvarado and Temple and keeping a discreet distance behind as it led him to the Hollywood Freeway westbound. When it hit the on-ramp, the Matador accelerated full force into the middle lane. Teddy followed suit; certain that the policeman was so lost in thought that he would never notice the headlights behind him.

  Ten minutes later the Matador exited at the Cahuenga Pass. Teddy let two cars get between them, keeping one eye on the road and the other on his foe’s long radio antenna. They drove into the hills surrounding the Hollywood Bowl. Teddy saw the tan car come to an abrupt halt in front of a small thatch-covered house. He pulled to the curb several doors down and quietly squeezed out the passenger side, watching his policeman-adversary walk up the steps and knock on the door.

  Moments later a woman opened the door and exclaimed, “Sarge! What brings you here?!”

  The voice that answered her was hoarse and tight. “You won’t believe what’s been happening. I don’t know if I believe it myself.”

  “Tell me about it,” the woman said, closing the door behind them.

  Teddy walked back to his car and settled in to wait, weighing the dark practicalities of his situation. He knew that it had to be a vendetta waged by one man–Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins–or he would have been deluged with policemen before this. It had to be that Hopkins wanted Kathy for himself and was willing to forego due process to get her.