“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. The 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?”
“Well, I’d probably be famous, wouldn’t I? A star. He was gonna have me in his band for the next album, record some of my songs.”
“You met him in San Francisco, is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“In a bar.”
“Right. Look, if you know all this, why are you asking me?”
“Just want to get it straight, Mitch, that’s all. Do you remember Jim Lasardi, the bass player?”
“Sure.” A guarded look had come into his eyes now, and he shifted in his chair again. He still wasn’t sweating, though, and it was hot in the room.
“Do you remember an incident in Santa Barbara, where you broke Jim Lasardi’s nose and hit a hotel manager?”
“Yes, I remember. Lasardi was ragging me. Had been all evening. The guy was an asshole. A has-been. He couldn’t stand to see the new talent coming in. I could’ve had his job if Gary hadn’t OD’d, you know that?”
“You play bass?”
“Sure. Bass. Lead. Rhythm. You name it.”
“But that’s not the way I heard the story, Mitch. I heard that Lasardi made some joke about you writing your autobiography on the back of a postage stamp, and you sat and drank and sulked and brooded over it all night, then you hit him.”
“I told you, the man was insulting me, insulting my background and my talent.”
“What talent?”
Cameron snorted. “What the fuck do you know about music?”
“But don’t you think that’s a bit strange, Mitch? A little bit odd? Sitting and brooding all evening over some petty remark? Isn’t it a bit of an overreaction? Maybe a bit obsessive?”
Cameron probed his broken tooth and said nothing.
“Do that a lot, do you?” Arvo asked.
“Do what?”
“Brood. Sit and think about things, get ideas in your head. Ideas you can’t seem to shake, things you just have to follow through on.”
“Are you trying to say I’m some kind of a crazy? And that’s why I killed these people? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Ever suffered from mental illness, Mitch? Ever been treated for schizophrenia?”
“No. What the fuck is this?”
Arvo paused to write some notes on his pad, just for effect, then raised his eyes and asked, “Do you remember Sarah Broughton?”
“Sarah who?”
“Sarah Broughton. The actress. She was Gary’s girlfriend at the time of the tour. You came down to LA with them, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Sure I remember her now. Sal. She wasn’t called Sarah then. I remember Sal.”
“What was your relationship with her?”
“What do you mean? I didn’t have a relationship with her. She was Gary’s girl.”
“Were you friends?”
“Friendly. I wouldn’t exactly say friends.”
“Did you hold doors open for her?”
“If I did, I was just acting like a gentleman, which is more than I—”
“Did you have pet names for her?”
“I mean, shit, is it a crime to act like a gentleman these days? What you mean, pet names?”
“Did you call her ‘My Lady,’ ‘Princess’?”
“Maybe I did, just for a joke. What’s this—”
“‘Little Star’?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you call her ‘Little Star’?”
“It’s the kids’ song. Don’t you know it?” He sang, “‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’ Sometimes, you know, she seemed about as far away as a star.”
“So you called her ‘Little Star’?”
“I said maybe I did. Where are you going with this? I’m not admitting anything till you tell me what this is all about. First you’re trying to pin murders on me, now you’re talking about Sal. I don’t get it. What’s the connection?”
“Did you address the letters to ‘Little Star’?”
“What letters? What are you talking about?”
Arvo gave a discreet signal to Maria, who slipped a file from her briefcase, opened it and started to read. “‘As I labor to prove myself to you, you will remember me and you will come to me. Then, my love, will we lie together and I will bite your Nipples till the Blood and Milk flow down my chin. We will hack and eat away the Corrupting Flesh, the Rank Pollution of Tissue and Sinew, and go in Moonlight shedding our Skin and spilling our Blood on the Sand through the Mirrors of the Sea where all is Peace and Silence and no one can harm us or tear us apart ever again Forever and Forever.’”
Cameron seemed confused to hear a woman’s voice reading the letter. He frowned at Maria, then looked toward Arvo again.
“I’d call that rather flowery, poetic, if a little overwritten, wouldn’t you?” Arvo said. “Sort of Hallmark gothic. Sounds like just your style to me. Did you write that, Mitch?”
“Fuck, no.”
“How about this?”
Arvo looked toward Maria, who turned to the next sheet of paper and read softly, as if it were a love poem. “‘The boy wanted Death. Every night he cruised the Boulevard looking for Death, for someone who would deliver him to his Destiny. The Boulevard of Death. I put him to sleep like a kind Anesthetist before I performed my Operation. My Knives were sharp. I spent hours sharpening them. I was gentle when I bent over him. He didn’t feel a thing. Please believe me.