Lloyd Hopkins 3 - Suicide Hill

by James Ellroy

  He carried the wino’s message; took comfort in its call to duty. He studied the Bible and prayed, and found fellow officers who believed as he did. They followed him, and when he passed the captain’s exam and was flagged for the I.A.D. exec position, he knew that nothing could stop him from achieving a spellbinding selfhood preordained by God and a martyred madman twenty years dead.

  Then Hopkins took out the “Hollywood Slaughterer.” The boldness of his measures inspired awe among the men of the born-again officer corps, and had Hopkins walked into one of their prayer meetings, they would have genuflected before him as if the sex-crazed lunatic were Christ himself. His solving of the Havilland/Goff homicides a year later again brought the men to their figurative knees. He became a rival spiritual patriarch who was dangerous precisely because he did not covet spiritual power, and the means to his destruction had to be divinely sought and given.

  Hours and hours were spent praying. He spoke to God of his hatred for Hopkins, and got small comfort. His strategy to upgrade his son’s school records and gain his admission to the Academy worked, and Steven graduated and was assigned to West L.A. Division. Prayer and the appointment of a second-generation Gaffaney to the Department helped diffuse Hopkins’ hold on his mind, as did the building up of the interdepartmental dirt files. Then his prayers were rewarded, and promptly backfired.

  Lamar Dayton, a Devonshire Division lieutenant and longtime born-again, joined the corps and told him of whoremaster Hopkins and his Watts baptism of fire. Circumstantial verification of National Guard records made the final message ring clear: Hopkins, not himself, was the divinely gifted policeman/warrior, and what drove him was not God, but awful self-willed needs and desires—all mortal in nature.

  Gaffaney stood up and looked at the clock above his desk. His stay of execution ruminations had consumed an hour, and were still not one hundred percent conclusive. He thought of things to be grateful for: he and Steven had been close in the days before his death, and Steve had confided that he had resisted the retired deputy’s fencing imprecations, turning over a new leaf. That was comforting, as was the fact that he had not compounded his self-hatred by letting Hopkins perform the execution.

  “Hopkins” and “Execution” filled in the missing percentage points, and extended the stay of sentence to the indeterminate near future. Gaffaney looked at the magnum and suddenly knew why he had stolen his death weapon from an L.A.P.D. source. Only Lloyd Hopkins would be crazy enough and bold enough to follow the gun to its source and back to him, regardless of the consequences and devil take the hindmost. He had taken the magnum from a Wilshire Division evidence room in full view of a half dozen officers because he wanted to sacrifice himself to the man he most admired and envied.

  Thinking of “Suicide Hill ’61” and mercy, Gaffaney carried his three armfuls of files into the bathroom and dumped them in the tub, then walked downstairs and grabbed a bottle of bourbon off the bar. Returning upstairs with it, he doused the pile of paper and dropped a match on top. His hold on scores of men went up in flames, and he waited until all the data was obliterated before turning on the shower. The fire hissed, sizzled and died, and Gaffaney walked back to the den to wait for his executioner.

  34

  Awakening from eighteen hours of dreamless sleep, Lloyd rolled off the dusty bed and walked to the window to see if it was night or day.

  Creeping sunlight from the eastern horizon told him it was dawn, and the paperboy hurling the Times at the front door told him that it was neither survival nor oblivion, simply time to get on with it. After shaving, showering and dressing in his favorite sport coat/slacks combo, Lloyd sat at the dining room table and wrote out a declaration that two weeks before he would have considered incomprehensible.

  Gentlemen:

  This letter constitutes my formal resignation from the Los Angeles Police Department. It is tendered with regret, but not under a state of emotional duress. The reasons for my resignation are threefold: I wish to devote a good deal of time to my family; I have incurred the enmity of several high-ranking officers; and events of the recent past have convinced me that my effectiveness as a homicide investigator is drastically diminished. It is my wish to be assigned to either clerking or nonfield supervisory duties until my twenty-year anniversary comes up next October. I am grateful for the Department’s offer of early retirement with full pension, but feel it would be dishonorable to accept it without serving the required twenty years.

  Respectfully, Lloyd W. Hopkins

  Bracing himself for the outside world, Lloyd put the resignation letter in his pocket and walked to the door, hoping the Times would carry news of one man’s death and another man’s safe passage. Throwing the door open, the headline beamed up at him: “ ‘Suicide Hill’ Suicide Ends Four-Day Murder Spree.”

  Leaning into the doorway, Lloyd let the subheading of “Cop Killer-Robber Takes Own Life at Fabled Youth Gang Meeting Ground” sink in. Then, with his brain screaming first “Gaffaney,” then “No!” he read the entire account:

  Los Angeles, December 15

  The Los Angeles Police Department announced today that the greatest manhunt in L.A. history has ended with the suicide of multiple murderer Duane Richard Rice, the mastermind behind Monday’s West Los Angeles bank robbery that left four dead.

  Rice, twenty-eight, a career criminal with convictions for vehicular manslaughter and grand theft auto, is believed also to be responsible for Tuesday night’s hit-and-run murder of L.A.P.D. officer Edward Qualter and the fatal shootings of the gang’s two other members, Robert Garcia and Stanley Klein, bringing the total of his victims to seven.

  At a late night press conference at Parker Center, L.A.P.D. Chief of Detectives Thad Braverton explained how the cooperation of an anonymous associate of the gang gave police the means to reconstruct the reign of terror:

  “It was a classic case of a falling out among thieves,” the Chief said. “Rice, Garcia and Klein were the perpetrators of two well-planned robbery/hostage forays in the Valley the week preceding the Pico-Westholme bank robbery, which we view now as having been undertaken by Rice partially out of a desire for revenge—one of the bank employees, Gordon Meyers, a former Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, was his jailer during a recent incarceration.”

  Braverton went on: “We do not know precisely why Rice wanted revenge, but that he did is a safe assumption. Our witness in custody is the man who sold the robbery gang their guns, and he, a long-term associate of the three men, states that distrust ran deep among them. The other men also possess criminal records—Garcia for burglary, Klein for possession of narcotics. Klein was also heavily involved in video pornography. Circumstantially, we believe that Rice shot and killed both Garcia and Klein, his motive being a desire to keep their share of the money from the Pico-Westholme robbery. There is also an evidential corroboration for this—our chief ballistics officer, Arthur Cranfield, has examined the .45-caliber slugs taken from the bodies of Garcia, Klein and Rice, and he states conclusively that they came from the Colt army-issue .45 found in Duane Rice’s hand when patrolmen discovered his body lying in the Sepulveda Wash.”

  Lloyd scanned the rest of the article, a hyperbolic spiel about tragedy, law and order, and the forthcoming L.A.P.D. funerals. The total picture bombarded him as a patchwork of victory and defeat, survival and denial. His report to Dutch, the forensic subterfuge at Stan Klein’s pad and Louie Calde ron’s testimony had been, if not actually believed, accepted in the spirit of letting sleeping dogs lie. But the Duane Rice “suicide” was preposterous. On Tuesday night Dutch had said that two .45s were recovered at the Bowl Motel, while his own gun had supplied the Stan Klein “death” shots. If Rice had been killed with his own piece, which was doubtful, because he never would have relinquished it—he didn’t pull the trigger himself.

  Lloyd felt a queasy rage overtake him. Rice had deserved to die; he had contemplated his cold-blooded murder himself. And the man who most likely killed him held a death sentence over his own he
ad. Running red lights and siren to Parker Center, he couldn’t believe he was crazy enough to take the both of them out in one fell swoop.

  The Central Crime Lab was bustling with technicians. Lloyd found Artie Cranfield in his usual workday posture, hunched over a double-plated ballistics microscope. Knowing that nothing short of an air raid would force Artie’s head up, he said, “Tell me the real dope on Klein and Rice. What’s Braverton stonewalling?”

  Artie came up smiling. “Hello, Lloyd. Would you repeat that?”

  Lloyd smiled and cleared his throat; Artie said, “Not here,” and pointed to his office. Lloyd walked in, and five minutes later Artie joined him. Shutting the door, he said, “Straight business?”

  Nodding affirmatively, Lloyd said, “A bunch of fixes are in. I found Klein’s body, D.O.A. knifing. I fired three shots from my .45 into his stiff, so I know that ‘same gun’ stuff in the papers is bullshit. Did you process the evidence on Rice?”

  Artie gave his four walls a furtive look, then said, “I was there at the autopsy. The M.E. handed me three spent .357s, dug them out of Rice’s chest. The rear of the jackets were nicked, right where the firing pin would make contact. Very distinctive, and very familiar. I checked ballistics bulletins going back eighteen months. Bingo! Matchup to an old unsolved in Wilshire Division, street shooting, gun found and held by the Wilshire Dicks, you know, to lean on possible shooters with.”

  Taking the stats in, Lloyd got the feel of a wild card or big wrong move. “Your conclusions, Artie?”

  “Do I look dumb? One of our guys zapped the cop-killing cocksucker. Anyway, I called John McManus and told him what I found, and he said, ‘Keep it zipped, Officer.’ A half hour later Big Thad shows up, hands me three .45 spents and says, ‘Garcia, Klein, Rice, case closed. Capice?’ Since I intend to collect my pension, I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ So you keep it zipped. Capice, Lloydy?”

  A Technicolor movie of Louie Calderon guzzling beer and Joe Garcia strumming a guitar surrounded by hula girls passed through Lloyd’s mind’s eye. He resisted an impulse to grab Artie in a bear hug, then said, “Do I look dumb?”

  “No,” Artie said, “just slaphappy.”

  “Well put. I need a favor.”

  “You always need favors.”

  “Well put. I’ve got a long stakeout coming up. Processed any speed lately?”

  “Black beauties?”

  “Music to my ears. I’ve got a phone call to make. I’ll see you in five minutes.”

  While Artie made the speed run, Lloyd called Wilshire Detectives. His old friend Pete Ehrlich’s answer to his question made wild card/big wrong move a big understatement:

  At 9:30 Wednesday morning, Captain Fred Gaffaney appeared in the Wilshire squad room, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He cracked several uncharacteristic dirty jokes with officers on duty there, then demanded the key to the evidence room, got it, and rummaged through the lockers until he found a .357 Python, sealed in an evidence bag that also contained a dozen loose shells. Offering no explanation for his actions, he spurned Ehrlich’s condolences for the loss of his son and walked out of the squad room, shaking from head to foot.

  When Artie returned with five biphetamine capsules, Lloyd had gotten his shaking under control. After dropping his resignation letter off with Thad Braverton’s secretary, he drove to Temple and Beaudry. Finding an ace stakeout spot across from the guitar shop, he swallowed a black beauty and settled in to await his hand-picked survivor. Soon an amphetamine symphony was ringing in his head:

  Gaffaney.

  Hopkins.

  Two killers doing the doomsday tango.

  35

  “Unfucking real!”

  Joe balled up the newspaper, took a bead on the bright blue sky and hurled the missile of good news straight at the sun. Street passersby turned to stare at him, and he shouted, “I got a fucking guardian angel!” and let the ball fall into his hands. Running with it like a halfback with a hot short pass, he headed straight for the motel and Anne.

  She was sitting up in bed, smoking, when he came through the door and smoothed the headline out on the sheet in front of her. “Read it,” he said. “Bad news and good news, but mostly righteously good!”

  Anne put out her cigarette and read the front page; Joe sat on the edge of the bed, wondering how the fuzz had got it so wrong and why Rice offed himself there. Watching Anne read, his old song obsession did a brief boogie reprise: “ … and death was a thrill on Suicide Hill.”

  Anne turned to the second page, and Joe got curious about how she’d react to the story on her old boyfriend and his death. He’d had her on decreasing coke use for two days now, and she was probably as close to being a indent woman as she ever would be. Would she have the soul to grieve for the crazy motherfucker?

  Putting down the newspaper, Anne lit another cigarette and said, “Wow, I thought Duane was just a car thief. I think that stuff about Stan being a bank robber is phony, though. I think we were together on Monday when that bank was robbed.”

  Joe couldn’t tell if she was being cagey or straight. “You were probably stoned,” he said. “He probably split for the heist, then came back.”

  Anne shrugged and blew smoke rings, then said, “Wrong, baby, but who cares? Also, the paper says Duane shot Stan. That’s wrong. I was there. Duane stabbed him.”

  Joe tingled at her mistaken certainty—it meant he could ditch her with a free mind. “Cops screw up sometimes,” he said. “Or they work things around to fit the evidence they got. Sweetie, what do you want to do?”

  “You mean in general? And about us?”

  “Right.”

  Anne blew a string of perfect rings and said, “I like you as a boyfriend, but you’re too uptight about dope, and too macho. When we first got together, you weren’t so bad, but the more I get to know you, the more stern you get, like you think violence and manhood are synonymous or something. But basically, I want to be with you, and I want to get back into music. I think we’re a wave. We last as long as we last.”

  Joe bent over and cupped her breasts. “What about Rice? He righteously loved you.”

  Anne caressed the hands caressing her. “He was a stone loser. And you know what’s sad? Karmacally he betrayed himself, because he said suicide was for cowards. That’s sad. How much of Mel’s money have we got left?”

  Thinking R.I.P. Duane Rice, Joe said, “We’re almost broke, but I’ve got a buddy holding a guitar of mine, and we can get at least three bills for it. So let’s move.”

  “Is it okay to be out on the streets?”

  “I think so. We got some kind of weird guardian angel, and I want to see if the old neighborhood still looks the same.”

  36

  At twilight, just when the long stint of surveillance was starting to drive him batshit, his survivor walked up to the guitar shop window, a skinny blond woman in tow. From a distance they looked like a down-at-the-heels couple—modest dreamers in rumpled clothes peering into the glass in search of a dream fix. Letting them enter the shop, Lloyd hoped they wouldn’t do anything to blow the impression.

  When they walked back out a minute later, he was there on the sidewalk, waiting. Joe Garcia looked into his eyes and knew; Anne Atwater Vanderlinden looked at Joe and got the picture secondhand. Lloyd stepped back toward the curb and put up his hands in surrender. “Peace, homeboy,” he said. “I’m on your side.”

  Anne moved to Joe’s side as he stared at Lloyd; the tense three-way silence stretched until Lloyd put down his hands, and Joe said, “What do you want?”

  “People keep asking me that,” Lloyd said, “and it’s getting old. You read the papers today?”

  Joe put an arm around Anne. She nuzzled into his chest and said, “Maybe he’s the guard—”

  “He’s a fucking cop!” Joe blurted. Seeing a woman pushing a baby carriage past them, he lowered his voice. “Crazy Lloyd Hopkins, big fucking deal. You don’t scare me, man.”

  Lloyd smiled. Garcia looked like a thirty-year-old
teenager trying to impress a high school chick and get a date for the Junior Prom. Given what he’d been through in the past two weeks, the impression was astounding.

  The silence hit again, broken this time by Joe’s broad smirk. Smirking back, Lloyd hooked a finger at the strangest armed robber he’d ever seen. Joe walked over, and Lloyd draped an arm around his shoulders and whispered, “Don’t be a dumb taco bender. Let Klein take the fall and get the fuck out of L.A. before something goes wrong. And don’t ask me what I want again, or I may have to kick your ass.”

  Joe twisted free. “I killed Stan Klein, man. I righteously killed him.”

  The proud statement hit Lloyd between the eyes as truth, and he started sensing juice behind the ancient teenager’s bravado. “1 believe you. Tell your old lady we’re going for a little ride.”

  The last of the mechanics were leaving when they pulled up across the street from Likable Louie’s One-Stop Pit Stop. Lloyd let them finish locking up and gave them time to get down to Sunset, then took a crowbar from the trunk, ran over and pried the garage door open. Flicking on the overhead lights, the first thing he saw was low-rider perfection.

  It was a mint-condition ’54 Chevy ragger, candy-apple sapphire blue, canary yellow top, continental kit, tuck-and-roll upholstery. Lloyd checked the dashboard and grinned. The key was in the ignition.

  “Bonaroo, man! Fine as fucking wine!”

  Lloyd turned around and saw Joe stroking the Chevy’s rear fender skirts. Anne Vanderlinden stood behind him, smoking a cigarette and eyeing a tool bin loaded with portable TVs. Tapping Joe’s shoulder, Lloyd said, “Are you legit with the greaser act, or are you just trying to impress me?”

  Joe started polishing the car with his sleeve. “I don’t know. I righteously don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”