Eno wasn’t paying attention to any of that. His eyes were to the left of the pool. Something different.
A super-stretch Town Car, white, one of those prom specials.
Eno had ridden in one when he was nineteen. Invited by his friends when they graduated high school even though he’d dropped out in tenth.
First, he’d said, Nah.
They’d said, Hey, E-man, fuck graduation, you can still party!
So he went. And had a pretty good time, until the girl he was fingering gave him a funny smile then barfed all over him. Everyone, including the girl, laughing. Eno knew right then and there that he wasn’t fitting in, would never. So he left and walked four miles home. Aunt Audrey was up, watching Discovery ID. Wrinkling her nose and saying, “Whoo, someone stinks like a pig with the runs.”
Laughing but also pissed off at Eno. Not letting him use the bathroom to clean up, he had to go outside and shiver naked while he hosed himself off.
So fuck proms and stretch white Town Cars. Fuck this job, he was definitely gonna mask-and-hoodie and take the next step.
But meanwhile, maybe something shiny in the limo.
Then he thought: What was a car doing here? Someone still inside? A stoned-out loser sleeping it off? Bunch of losers? After an orgy?
Maybe he’d get to roust some naked chicks, get looks at their tits as they panicked to get dressed.
Smiling, he left the wheelie in place and strutted toward the limo. Tried to peer through the windows. Tinted too dark.
“Hey,” he said, not as loud as he’d meant to be.
No answer.
“Hey.”
Nothing.
“Dude. Party’s over, you need to leave.”
Still no answer.
Stoned out? Or just shining him on.
Like he wasn’t there.
That made Eno’s face feel hot, same feeling as before his assault beef, some loser in a Bakersfield bar saying he was a fag and getting razored across the face down to the bone.
“Hey!” Shouting, now.
Feeling his body tighten in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time but liked, Eno flung open the driver’s door.
Saw what he saw and felt his stomach go nuts. Like he was going to barf.
He trembled, mouth-breathed, felt his heart racing. Turned to look at the back of the limo but a sliding black glass panel blocked his view.
He backed away. Frozen.
Then — he couldn’t explain it but he just did it. Opened the rear door and looked inside.
Oh, shit, bad idea. Now his stomach felt like it was shooting totally out of his mouth like all his insides were coming loose.
Oh, shit, this was different this was bad-different.
He slammed both doors shut, felt what was left of his breakfast burrito shoot up and out and miss the limo’s spotless white paint and land on the dirt.
What to do now? He’d seen lots of things but he’d never seen anything like this, what to do?
Reaching into his jean pocket, he pulled out the phone he’d just bought from a homeless guy on Grand Street. Piece of shit, ten bucks, thirty-three minutes left.
Use the time to call the company? Nah, no one was in the office this early.
What would they say, anyway?
So 911 here we come.
Eno’s day to be a solid citizen.
Chapter 2
When it comes to murder, nighttime’s the right time. So when Milo calls me, I often find myself driving to crime scenes on dark L.A. streets.
This time, the phone rang just after nine a.m. Lovely Sunday in May. Robin and I and Blanche, our little French bulldog, had taken a leisurely two-mile walk followed by a pancake breakfast.
Robin was washing, I was drying, Blanche’s sausage body was prone on the kitchen floor as she snored and let out periodic dream squeaks. My phone, on vibrate, bounced on the kitchen counter. Milo’s number on the screen.
I said, “What’s up, Big Guy?”
Detective II Moses Reed said, “Actually it’s me, Doc. He asked me to phone you.”
“Busy, huh?”
“We’re all busy. This is utterly horrible.”
Reed’s a terse young man; it takes a lot to get him using adverbs.
I sat down and listened as he explained, images tumbling into my brain. Robin turned from the sink, pretty eyebrows arching. I shook my head and mouthed Sorry, and said, “Where, Moe?”
“Private road called Ascot Lane, off Benedict Canyon. Easy to miss, kind of like your street, but this one’s more like a big driveway, only goes to one house.”
He sighed. “Half mile north of the Beverly Hills border.”
But for a couple thousand feet, someone else’s problem.
I said, “Give me half an hour.”
“Whenever you get here, Doc. No one’s leaving for a while.”
In the movies when detectives encounter terrible things they frequently banter and tell tasteless jokes. That may be because screenwriters or the people who pay them are emotionally shallow. Or the scribes haven’t taken the time to hang out with real detectives.
I’ve found that the men and women who work homicide tend to be thoughtful, analytic, and sensitive. Despite a certain gruffness, that certainly applies to Milo.
My best friend has closed over three hundred fifty murders and he’s never lost his empathy or his sense of outrage. Notifying families still rips at him. He eats too much, sleeps poorly, and often neglects himself while working two, three days in a row.
Once you stop caring, you’re useless.
Milo leads by example so the same approach is taken by the three younger D’s who work with him when he can pry them away from other assignments.
When he can’t, it’s just him. And sometimes me. Rules are often bent. Milo was a gay soldier when gay soldiers didn’t exist, a gay cop when LAPD was still raiding gay bars. Things have changed but he continues to disdain stupid regulations and often overlooks social niceties in a paramilitary organization that prizes conformity.
Murder solve rates have dropped but his rate remains the highest in the department so the brass looks the other way.
This morning the sense of anxious gloom I’ve seen so many times at murders — stiff posture, tight faces, sharp but defeated eyes — extended to the two halfback-sized uniformed officers blocking the entrance to Ascot Lane from Benedict Canyon.
They’d been given my personal info and the Seville’s tags but checked my I.D. anyway, before the bigger one said, “Go on in, Doctor,” in a defeated voice.
To get to them, I’d nosed past half a dozen journalists stationed on Benedict as they tried to rush the Seville before being shooed by another pair of cops.
Different emotional climate for members of the press: a heightened energy bordering on ebullience. Misfortune is the mother’s milk of journalism but with the exception of war correspondents, those who suckle the teats of tragedy are rarely forced to confront evil directly.
I’d kept the Seville’s windows open and as I climbed the road, a bee-swarm of words followed me.
“Who’s he?”
“Vintage Caddy?”
“Are you the owner?”
“Sir! Sir! Do you rent out your house for parties? How much do you get? In view of this, was it worth it? He the owner, Officers? Yes? No? Aw, c’mon, the public has a right to know — if he’s not the owner, how come he gets in?”