Glenfiddich, two glasses, and a new pocket Torah. I passed her the old one, as well as the few collectible treasures I'd picked up in '58. She'd put them in storage for me.
'Lose the brown suit,' she said. 'I bought you a new one, dark gray. It's in the closet. Already tailored. Read the file, there's some new information.' She reached for the bottle.
'Not this early, thanks.' I was already signing the envelope. The file had been accessed only three times in the last twelve years. Margaret twice, Georgia once. But it was significantly thicker.
This time there was a bundle of newspaper clippings. Not about Jeremy Weiss, but about a dozen others. I checked the dates first. June of '67 to September of 74. Georgia had typed up a chart. At least thirteen young men had disappeared. Jeremy Weiss was the third. The third that we knew about. I wasn't surprised. I'd had a hunch there was more.
We weren't obligated to investigate the disappearances of the others; Weiss was the only one we had a contract on. But if the disappearances were related… if they had a common author, then finding that author would not only save Weiss, but a dozen others as well. Preemptive action. But only if the disappearances were connected. We'd still have to monitor- save- Weiss. Just in case.
I read through the clippings, slowly, carefully. Three times. There was a depressing similarity. Georgia sent out for sandwiches. After lunch, she sat down next to me -she was wearing the Jasmine perfume again, or maybe still, or maybe for the first time -and walked me through the similarities she'd noticed. The youngest victim was fifteen, but big for his age; the oldest was twenty-three, but he looked eighteen.
Last item in the envelope was a map of West Los Angeles with a red X at the site of each vic's last known location; his apartment, his job, where his car was discovered, or the last person to see him alive. There were no X's north of Sunset, none south of Third. The farthest west was Doheny, the farthest east was just the other side of Vine Street. It was a pretty big target area, but at the same time fairly specific.
'I want you to notice something,' she said. She pointed to the map, tracing an area outlined by a yellow highlighter. All of the red X's were inside, or very close to the border of the yellow defined region, except for the one east of Vine. 'Look at this.' She tapped the paper with her fingernail. 'That's West Hollywood. Have you seen it?'
'Drove through it this morning.'
'Ever hear of Fanny Hill?'
'Isn't that a park in Boston?'
'Not funny. Don't quit your day job. It's a book, by John Cleland. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. It has redeeming social value. Now.'
'Sorry, I'm not following.'
'John Cleland was born in 1710. He worked for the East India Company, but he didn't make much money at it. He ended up in Fleet debtors' prison from 1748-1749. While there, he wrote or rewrote a book called Fanny Hill. It's written as a series of letters from Fanny to another woman, and it is generally considered the first work of pornography written in English, its literary impact derives from its elaborate sexual metaphor and euphemistic language.'
'And this is important because…?'
'Because last year-1966-the Supreme Court declared that it is not obscene.' She didn't wait for me to look puzzled. 'In 1957, in Roth versus the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press, neither under the first amendment, nor under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. They sustained the conviction of a bookseller for selling and mailing an obscene book and obscene circulars and advertising.
'In 1966, in Cleland versus Massachusetts, the court revisited their earlier decision to clarify the definition of obscenity. Since the Roth ruling, for a work of literature to be declared obscene, a censor has to demonstrate that the work appeals to prurient interest, is patently offensive, and has no redeeming social value. It's that last one that's important, because it could not be demonstrated to the court that Fanny Hill has no redeeming social value. The case can be made that the book is an historical document, presenting an exaggerated and often satirical view of the mores of eighteenth-century London, just as the Satyricon by Petronius presents an exaggerated and satirical view of ancient Rome; so a very strong case can be made that pornography represents a singular insight into the morality of its time. Thus, it has redeeming social value. Therefore, it cannot be prosecuted as obscene.'
'Redeeming social value…'
'Right.'
'Since the Fanny Hill ruling, pornography has become an industry. If a publisher can claim redeeming social value, the work is legal. A book of erotic pictures with a couple quotes from Shakespeare. A sex film with a preface by a doctor-or an actor playing a doctor. It's a legal fan dance-you don't go to the fan dance to see the fan. The pornographers will be testing the limits of the law for years. The fans are going to get a lot smaller.'
'Okay, so what does all this have to do with West Hollywood?'
'I'm getting to that. For the next decade, enforcement of obscenity laws will be left to local communities. There will be years of debate. Nothing will be clear or certain, because the definition of obscenity will be determined by local community standards. Until even that argument gets knocked down. At some point, the whole issue of redeeming social value becomes moot because it becomes unenforceable. How do you define it? And that'll be the end of antismut laws. But right now, today-it's all about local community standards.'
'And West Hollywood is a local community…?'
'It's an unincorporated community,' Georgia said. 'It's not part of Los Angeles. It's not a city. It's a big hole in the middle of the city. L.A.P.D. has no authority inside this yellow area. There's no police coverage. The only enforcement is the L.A. County Sheriff Department. So there's no community and there are no standards. It's the wild west.'
'Mm,' I said.
'Right,' she agreed. 'None of the city ordinances apply. Only the county ones. And the county is a lot less specific on pornography. So you get bookstores. And more. The county doesn't have specific zoning restrictions or statutes to regulate massage parlors, sex stores, and other adult-oriented businesses. The whole area is crawling with lowlifes and opportunists. Here - ' She pulled out another map. This one showing a corridor of red X's stretching the length of Santa Monica Boulevard, with a scattered few on Melrose.
'What's this?'
'A survey of sex businesses in West Hollywood. Red for hetero, purple for homo, green for the bookstores. You get clusters. Here, all the way from La Brea to La Cienega, this used to be a quiet little neighborhood where seniors could sit in the sun at Plummer Park and play pinochle. Now, there are male hustlers in hot pants, posing at the bus stops.
'Take a drive around the neighborhood. You'll see things like massage parlors advertising specific attention to love muscle stiffness -Greek, French, and English massage. Or sex therapists who will help you work out your inhibitions with sex fantasy role-playing. Here, here, and here, these are gay bars, this is a bath house, so is this. This place sells costumes, chains, things made of leather-and realistic pros-theses.'
'Prostheses -?' And then I got it. 'Never mind.'
'If you can imagine a sexual service, you'll find it here. This is the land of negotiable virtue. It's a sexual carnival, the fun zone, the zoo. This is the reservoir of licentiousness. This is where AIDS will start. You'll need to start carrying condoms. Anyway-' She stretched out the two maps side by side. 'Notice the congruence? I'm going to make a guess - '
'These kids are horny?'
'And gay.'
'Is that a hunch, or-?'
She didn't answer immediately. 'Okay 7 I might be wrong. But if I'm right, then the police will be useless to us. Ditto the sheriffs department. They don't care. Not here. They won't take this seriously. And we can't talk about this with any of the parents. And probably not even with the kids themselves. This is still the year of the closet… and will be until June of '69. Stonewall,' she explained.
'I know about Stonewall. We bid on a contract to videotape it. The problem will be getting cameras onsite.'
'Eakins is working on that. There's a thing called… never mind, I don't have time to explain it.' She tapped the table. 'Let's get back to this case. We've got six weeks until the first disappearance. This is as close as you can get
