The only other interesting thing in the room was the stereo equipment with two large speakers and compact discs piled haphazardly on the floor. Some of the small, thin discs were out of their jewel-boxes, scattered on the floor. Well, the manufacturers did say you could eat pizza off them or use them as Frisbees.
The kitchen held nothing it shouldn’t; in fact, it was missing many things that should be there — like plates, pots and pans. Cameron mostly ate out or ordered in, by the look of things, and he favored Mexican and Chinese, going by the empty cartons in the garbage. Next to the kitchen was a small dining area with a Formica-topped table and four matching chairs.
Another door led off the living room, this one locked. Arvo bent his head and put his ear to the wood, but no sound came from within. With Joe and Maria covering him, he kicked the door open and stood back while Joe knelt in front of him, sweeping the room with his gun. Nothing. Arvo switched on the light. The three of them stood around the entrance.
“Jesus Christ,” breathed Joe. “A shrine. It’s a fucking shrine.”
From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered with pictures of Sarah Broughton. Some looked like stills from her movies and television series, others like studio publicity shots; some were head and shoulders, others full length; in some she was clothed, in others naked. Many of the pictures looked like collages, bits and pieces of Sarah pasted together in impossible combinations.
When he was able to take his eyes off the walls, Arvo noticed the computer equipment. Maria was already checking it out and whistling between her teeth. It took up about a quarter of the whole room, set up around one of the corners. Not only was there a state-of-the-art Macintosh computer and a color laser printer, there was also a digital camera, a 35-mm Film Scanner, a 14,400 bps modem and a double-speed CD-ROM set-up. Two VCRs and a monitor were hooked up to the computer.
On the bookshelves above stood mostly software for graphics, desktop publishing and image-enhancement. Expensive stuff for a club bouncer and wannabe rock star, Arvo thought, wondering what else Cameron might be into. Drugs? Computer theft? Or maybe he just had a lucrative sideline in desktop publishing.
Maria picked up a stack of printouts from the desk and passed them to Arvo. More pictures of Sarah. This time Cameron had been editing them, playing with the images on screen, cutting off her head and sticking it on a little girl’s naked body, separating arms, legs, head and torso and mixing them up again in increasingly bizarre combinations. Maria raised her eyebrows. Arvo handed the pictures to Joe, who shook his head slowly.
“I suppose you guys see lots of this weird shit?” he said.
Maria shrugged. “It’s not uncommon.”
Joe put the printouts down and gave a little shudder. “Give me a dead crack dealer any day.”
Another shelf revealed three back issues of a desktop-published fanzine called, simply, SARAH. Written solely by Cameron, Arvo guessed, it featured more of the same collage-type nudes, bits of Sarah and bits of women from porno magazines. One showed what Arvo took to be a close-up of one of Sarah’s eyes with a spread beaver shot superimposed.
All the text said was, “Sarah Sally Sarah Sally Sarah Sally Sarah... ” over and over again in a variety of fonts. Pretty unimaginative, Arvo thought. You’d think the bastard could at least have written her a poem or two. Wasn’t he supposed to be creative? When Arvo put the magazine down he felt like washing his hands.
“Come and have a look at this, Arvo,” Maria said, and he walked over to join her in the other corner.
It was an altar. At least that was what it looked like to Arvo, and he had seen such things before. Cameron had erected his homage to Sarah, including his favorite framed photograph. Sarah was looking over her naked shoulder, butterfly tattoo in clear sight, directly into the camera, an enigmatic expression on her face. Cameron had surrounded the photograph with red candles, most of them half burned.
Lying on the square of black velvet beside the photograph were a wallet and a small spoon. Trophies, most likely. Carefully, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he flipped the wallet open. John Heimar. He put it back for the crime-scene experts to deal with. There was nothing else in the room except a single bed with a red quilt and a bedside table. The sooner they got out of the place and sealed it, Arvo thought, the less likely they would be to spoil any evidence. Besides, the room was starting to give him the creeps.
Back in the living room, Joe bent over the coffee table. Next to the ashtray stood a yogurt carton full of matchbooks. All of them were from a club called Ten Forward, on Melrose.
“What do you think?” Joe asked, holding up one of the books so Arvo and Maria could see.
“Make it so,” said Arvo.
43
La Cienega seemed to take forever. Every light a red one. Still, Arvo told himself, Sarah Broughton was safe at the hotel, and if Cameron were working at the club, he’d be there until the early hours. There was no hurry. They certainly didn’t want to announce their arrival in a blaze of lights and cacophony of sirens, any more than they had at the house. But still he felt anxious. It wouldn’t be over until they had Mitchell Cameron in custody.
Between Pico and Olympic, Arvo radioed in to arrange for patrol cars to secure the area around the club, then he used the car phone to call Sarah. She sounded bored and irritable but said she was okay. Arvo told her to hang in there and keep her fingers crossed, they were getting close.
On Melrose, Arvo pulled up by the curb right outside Ten Forward, ignoring the No Parking signs. A group of kids hung around the entrance, arguing with a tall man with a shaved head and a black T-shirt who towered head and shoulders over them. The T-shirt must have been XXXL, if such a size existed, Arvo thought, and it was still tight over his biceps and pecs. He wouldn’t have stood there arguing with the guy. But kids always do think they’re immortal, and with the designer drugs they take these days, they think they’re omnipotent, too.
Finally, the doorman managed to shoo the teenagers away. When he saw Arvo, Joe and Maria approach, he made a disgusted sound and said, in an unexpectedly high-pitched and raspy voice, “Fucking kids, huh. Underage. Cops?”
“That obvious?” said Joe.
The man grinned, showing a gaping black hole in an otherwise seamless band of white where one of his upper front teeth was missing. “I don’t want no trouble,” he said.
“Hey, man, you won’t get any from us,” said Joe. “Guy named Mitchell Cameron work here?”
“Mitch Cameron? Sure.”
“He inside now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Since when?”
“Started at nine.”
“Back entrance?”
“Uh-huh. Round the alley.”
“And no one gets past you, right?”
“You’re the boss.”
“Okay. We’re going in.”
The man gave a little bow and extended his arm toward the door. “Be my guests.”
Joe said he would take the rear entrance while Arvo and Maria went into the club to smoke Cameron out. They might look a bit less like cops than he did, he added with a grin. At about six-four, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and low-key tie, he was probably right.
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.