by Ron Renauld
“I think he’s crazy,” Bart said warily.
Richie was amused. He hefted the gun in his hand and looked at Hopalong.
“You want to go a round?”
“Draw!” the cowboy ordered.
Smirking, Richie swung up his gun and fired off a cap, giving off a light pop and the smell of sulphur.
The figure matched his draw but did not pull the trigger.
“Start dancin’, cowboy,” he finally drawled, firing a .45 caliber bullet into the pavement near Richie’s feet. The shot reverberated like thunder in the passageway.
Richie dropped his gun and stumbled backward, stupefied. “Hey, come on, man! What are you doing?”
“Come on, Richie!” Bart shouted, breaking into a run away from the shadowed figure. “He’s crazy!”
“Hey man!” Richie continued to plead, facing the cowboy.
“Richie!” Bart called out once more before running out of sight.
“What are you, nuts, man?” Richie blurted at the gunman, staying in place, eyes fixed on the bore of the Colt.
“Say your prayers, pardner,” the cowboy said, taking a step forward.
“Hey, come on, wait a minute! What are you doing, man?” Richie entreated, a whine shaving the edge off his domineering tone. “Take it easy, would you?”
“On your knees!” the figure shouted, thrusting his gun forward so Richie could see down the barrel.
Richie dropped to one knee as if genuflecting, continuing to plead.
“Both knees!”
“Why are you doing this?” Richie cried. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Down!” the voice barked, “Down!”
Richie complied. An absolute fear had stripped him of his cocky bravado, leaving him helpless and broken.
The figure loomed over Richie, panting heavily until Eric’s voice came out, taunting, “How does it feel now, Richie?”
The hardness came into Richie’s voice long enough for him to call out, “Binf—”
Eric answered with five more blasts from his Colt, ripping wide holes in Richie’s chest, filling the alley with echoes that sounded long past the last shot. His face torn with an expression of profound confusion, Richie was propelled backward by the force of the gunfire. He landed in a limp sprawl on the pavement.
Eric stared down at the corpse, his head bent at a curious angle, like that of a puppy accosting a strange sound. His eyes were damp behind the mask, and he sobbed quietly. He slowly slipped his revolver back into his holster. Pivoting like an automaton, he walked off into the fog and shadow beyond the reach of the light.
CHAPTER • 20
Several days later, Eric and Bart left the Venice precinct station together. Bart was still shaken, but Eric seemed calm, in control.
“You think the cops suspect me of killing Richie?” Bart asked Eric. “You know I was his best friend!”
Eric shook his head solicitously.
“Cops are paid to suspect everybody and catch no one. Gallagher’s just another flatfoot.”
They started down the walk toward the curb, where Bart’s dune buggy was parked.
“What about that Moriarty character and his tests?” Bart went on.
Eric snorted, “Just a bunch of stupid questions.”
“They even had Mr. Berger in here last week and he’s a nervous wreck!” Bart sniveled. “And he’s got to go into the hospital next week for his operation.”
“What operation?”
“Bypass,” Bart said. “His heart’s worse, man!”
“I didn’t think he had one,” Eric said, smiling thinly.
“How are they gonna find Richie’s killer?” Bart demanded, his voice on the verge of hysteria.
“Bart,” Eric said nonchalantly, stopping to face him. “If you can’t identify him, who can?”
Bart paused, letting it sink in. His face was flushed and he was tired from a long string of restless nights. He was still torn between a guilt at having run after the first shot and an overpowering fear that the murderer was after him to make sure he didn’t talk. As he walked to his car, he scanned the street and rows of parked cars for suspicious figures. No one seemed to be watching him but Eric, who grinned and drew his hand slowly from his side like a handgun, making a popping sound with his mouth as he pulled on an imaginary trigger.
“That’s not funny, goddamn you, Binford!” Bart shouted. “You just don’t give a shit what happened to Richie.”
“Aw, quit your squealing,” Eric called back, imitating Richie. Bart stared at him a moment, then got into his car and drove off. Eric watched him off, then laughed like Tommy Udo.
You know what I do to squealers? he said to himself, reciting the lines from Kiss of Death. I let ’em have it in the belly, so they can roll around for a long time, thinking it over.
Getting on the Vespa, Eric started back to work, but then detoured when he came to Rose Avenue, parking his bike near Pioneer Bakery and walking the rest of the way to Marilyn’s.
Across the street, he went into the liquor store and stood by the magazine rack, where he could keep an eye on the house through the front window. He wasn’t wearing his Hopalong Cassidy watch anymore, so he checked the wall clock. It was twelve-thirty. Marilyn worked only part-time, starting at one o’clock.
Eric picked up a newspaper. The front page headlines dealt with a new, major lead in the Freeway Sniper case. He had to turn a few pages until he found any mention of developments in what was now being called the search for the “B-Thriller Killer.” There were, in fact, no new developments, and the bulk of the space was given to the assertion by law enforcement officials that the two movie-inspired killings were unrelated to those of the Freeway Sniper. On the same page was an article on the previous night’s meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association, which had drafted a resolution calling for more stringent controls on the depiction of violence in television programming.
At a quarter to one, Eric saw Marilyn leave her house, accompanied by a man in his early thirties, tanned and muscular, wearing a Gold’s Gym T-shirt. Marilyn stopped on the porch long enough to place a letter in the mailbox, sticking the end out for it to be picked up, then took the man’s extended hand and walked with him out the front gate.
Eric waited until they had turned the corner and headed in the direction of the beach, then bought a copy of Film Comment and left the liquor store.
He crossed the street calmly, checking the neighborhood. He saw a postal truck parked down at the opposite end of the street, but no sign of a mailman. Letting himself in through the front gate, Eric walked up to Marilyn’s front door and knocked. He counted to himself, then turned and whisked up the letter, slipping it inside his magazine as he left the house.
He waited until he was back at his bike before he checked the letter. It was addressed to a Sylvia Shaughquil in Melbourne, Australia.
Eric was tempted to drive home and steam the letter open over the tea kettle. But he had to get back to work. Mr. Berger had only given the employees half the day off to go to the police station for questioning in the Richie murder. Eric finally ripped the letter open. They get lost in the mail all the time, he rationalized.
“Sylly,” the letter read. “This is, I think, the eighth time I’ve tried to write you this month. Let’s cross our fingers and hope this time I make it all the way through.
“I have to start out with my most exciting news. I just started dating a lifeguard. I know what you’re thinking—tsk, tsk, how typically Californian, Marilyn. But there’s more. Get ready for this. I met him at this really strange bar I finally let Stacey talk me into going to. He works there nights . . . as a dancer! Can you believe it? I mean, I thought I would never go into a place like that, much less enjoy myself.
“To understand my frame of mind at the time, I’ve enclosed one of the letters I wrote to you a week or so ago (in case you wonder why it’s so wrinkled from being wadded up). I was depressed and decided I could use a good laugh.
“The first guys Stacey and I saw
up on stage were just gross, I thought. They reminded me of the Village People, and you know how disgusting they are! But this guy, his name is David, was different. First of all, I recognized him, because he’s a lifeguard at the beach where I hide out under an umbrella while Stacey gets her tan (I can still only burn in this California sun!). He was sexy when he danced, and the funny thing was, he wore more clothes than any of the others (Yes, they strip on stage, Sylly, just like women . . . if you tell anyone there how I met him I’ll never talk to you again, okay?). Well, I could go on and on, but basically what happened is the next day I went to the beach and got up the nerve to go talk with him. He was embarrassed at first that I knew his secret life, but he ended up asking me out to dinner. Where? At L’Orangerie, which is only the best restaurant in Los Angeles. We had such a good time, and afterwards . . . well, I’ll just leave that to your imagination!
“Right now, I’m waiting for him to come by and drive me to work. He lives just a few blocks from me and . . . oh, there he is! I have to go, but I’m sending this to you pronto so I don’t read it over and change my mind like the other times. I’ll write back real soon, too, because I still haven’t told you about the night I was attacked by a vampire (!!!!!!!)
“Love and kisses, Marilyn.
“P.S.—Still get in touch with Yolanda, would you? I’m not sure what’ll happen with me and David, but I still want to get into pictures whether it’s here or there. Write back soon, okay?”
By the time he finished reading the letter, Eric’s hands were trembling.
“Nothing about me?” he said to himself, “You bitch! What about me? Fucking lifeguard . . . jerkoff dancer . . . Bitch! Bitch, bitch, bitch!”
Weeping, Eric tore at the letter, ripping it to shreds and scattering them to the wind.
CHAPTER • 21
Anne watched on as Moriarty paced his office, tapping a pencil into his open palm. He had the computer tests on his desk, ready to be taken to UCLA for programming and analysis. But he already had some ideas of his own, having observed the people as they took the test.
“You know, that Binford kid was a little strange.”
Anne shrugged her shoulders.
“He seemed harmless enough.”
“I don’t know . . .”
Captain Gallagher stormed into the office, bristling with anger, his fingers gripped around the plastic bag containing the Colt pistol found near Richie’s body the night of his murder.
“Moriarty! What the hell are you trying to pull? We questioned all those CFS employees very carefully. Normal police procedure. Who the hell gave you the authority to test them?”
Moriarty looked away from Gallagher, sighing as he picked up the computer sheets.
“I put together this questionnaire to help flush out a suspect.”
“Flush” Gallagher repeated angrily. “That’s exactly what I’d like to do with you and all this claptrap you’ve been handing out around here!” He waved the gun in Moriarty’s face. “For your information, this is the only real fucking piece of evidence we have!”
“I don’t agree,” Moriarty answered calmly.
“Captain Gallagher,” Anne said. “Moriarty’s really got something here.”
Trying to restrain his own temper, Moriarty shook his head and walked over to his chalkboard, where he had printed out a list of names.
“Three of them tilted red,” he explained. “Eric Binford, Maria Valdez, Herman Ba—”
“Maria Valdez?” Gallagher interrupted. “That broad in the shipping department is the killer? That’s terrific! Thank you very much, Sherlock!”
“Damn it, Gallagher!” Moriarty shot back. “There’s a murderer out there that’s killed two people that we know of, and there’s no reason to think he’s going to stop at that. The usual pattern in cases like this is for the killer to go on until he’s caught or killed himself. Now, we have got to do whatever we can to—”
“We?” Gallagher bawled. “We? When the hell did you join the police department?”
Moriarty set the tests back on the desk along with the pencil.
“Just trying to help out, captain.”
“Now listen,” Gallagher told him heatedly. “I don’t need any of your psycho-tests to help me find a killer! And just in case you didn’t notice, no one’s asking for your help. So knock it off!”
“Captain, I know the human mind,” Moriarty insisted. “Especially the sick ones.”
Gallagher stopped on his way out of the office and looked back at Moriarty, grinning savagely.
“I could say something about that if I was in the mood, but I’m not. Fuck the mind,” he warned. “Keep your nose out of police business!”
Gallagher’s footsteps could be heard after he was out of sight, then the office was silent except for the rattling in the overhead pipes after someone upstairs flushed a toilet.
“What is wrong with that man?” Moriarty wondered out loud. “I swear, if I brought the killer to him on a silver platter, he’d still climb all over my ass for interfering.”
Anne came up behind Moriarty and massaged his shoulders.
“It’s all the publicity you’ve been getting,” Anne told him. “I think he’s jealous. The other day, after that segment on “Real People” about what you’re doing with Franco, my partner made some crack during roll call about you putting us out of business. I swear, Gallagher practically slammed his fist through his desk, he was so pissed.”
“I just wish he’d quit acting like we’re on opposite sides,” Moriarty said. “I know I can help on this case. Damn it, I know it!”
“Do you really think those tests will turn up anything?”
Moriarty shrugged under her touch.
“I doubt it, actually. It’s easy enough to lie on the answers to make yourself look anyway you want. There’s only so much you can come up with using that multiple-choice format. I was actually more interested in just watching them take it. There’s usually more clues in the way they fill the form out than there is in their answers.”
“But what I really don’t understand is why you’re so hell-bent on solving this case. I mean, Gallagher’s right in a sense. These murders don’t have all that much to do with what you’re working on.”
“Do you really want to know?” Moriarty asked, stepping away from Anne’s touch and turning around to face her.
“Of course. Why?”
“How about over dinner?”
“Love to,” she answered.
After work, they went to the Old Venice Noodle Company, a rustic Italian restaurant on Main Street. Jerry and Anne shared portions of lasagna and vegetarian spaghetti, tactfully avoiding the subject at hand until they were into their dessert, scoops of spumoni ice cream, and cups of coffee.
“What’s on file about my brother?” Moriarty finally asked.
Anne paused. “Do you really want to talk about it? I mean, if you don’t, I won’t—”
“Please, Anne.”
She took a sip of coffee, then added more cream, stirring it as she talked.
“There’s really not much. Just the news-clippings on the murders he committed in New York . . . how he was killed by police while resisting arrest.”
Moriarty nodded his head slowly, to himself.
“And do you remember when that was?” he asked.
“Seventy, seventy-one, I’m not sure wh . . . oh, God, Jerry. How stupid of me,” she said, heartsick.
“It was seventy,” Moriarty said. His voice was emotionless as he dredged up the memories. “That was during the height of everything that was happening with me in Berkeley. All my time was tied up with playing in bars, getting laid, and hanging out at the protests. Blake was only eighteen at the time, just a kid trying to be the next Dylan along with a few thousand other vagrants in Greenwich Village. It wasn’t going well, and he kept writing me, telling me he had all these problems he wanted to work out . . . asking me if I could put him up for a few months, just talk with him. I . . . I never answered
the letters . . . too caught up in my scene, you know? Besides, we’d never been that close. He finally called, woke me up in the middle of the night. He was crying. The folks weren’t going to help him out, so it was all up to me. He had just enough money to make bus fare cross country, and he begged me to help him. I gave him hell, lectured him about how if I could make it on my own then so could he . . . how I wasn’t going to give up my precious time to wet-nurse him . . .”
Moriarty’s voice dropped off. A tear stole out of the corner of his eye, rolled down his cheek and vanished in his moustache.
Anne reached across the table, resting her hand on his.
Moriarty sighed, busying himself with adding sugar to his coffee. “So anyway, it happened the next day. I’d gone off on some frolic up in Marin, and I didn’t hear about it until four days later, when he was already buried.”
Anne pressed his hand in hers.
“I’m sorry, Jerry.”
“So that’s the missing link,” Moriarty finished.
Anne blinked away a few tears of her own.
“I feel like such a fool,” she said. “If I would have stopped to think, I could have seen it, but the only thing I paid attention to in the file was the fact that you were a womanizer. I saw your picture and decided I’d add myself to your list. Jerry, I feel so cheap just thinking about it.”
“Then don’t,” Moriarty said gently, looking over the bill and leaving a twenty-dollar bill on the tray. “You couldn’t have known the whole story. I just wanted you to understand. No point dwelling on it, though. I learned that a long time ago.”
They sat across from each other for several long, awkward minutes, mutually speechless.
“What do you say we go somewhere,” he finally suggested. “Forget about all this for a few hours.”
“Let’s go to your place,” she said. “No television, no music, no fights. Just open the windows so we can hear the waves.”
Moriarty smiled. “So you’re a romantic after all.”
“I’m willing to try,” she said. “I’d just like to be with you.”
“That makes it unanimous.”