through the little town. I was right—the building facades
'The king of beasts,' Doc muttered as we passed by. 'I'm king of the beasts,' Michael countered, walking next to me ahead of his father.
Diamond Jim's Saloon held a bloated elephant. It lay comatose on a cement floor covered with feces.
'Looks like a certain Republican I could name,' I said.
'Watch out!' Michael squealed. 'Dad's a Republican, and he can't take a joke!' Michael started to giggle and leaned into me. I put my arm around him and held him tightly.
Our last stop before the picnic area was 'Diamond Lil's Carny House and Social Hall,' no doubt a B-movie euphemism for 'whorehouse.' Diamond Lil and her girls were not in residence. Ugly, chattering, pink-faced baboons were there instead.
Michael tore free from my arm. He started to tremble as he had in the drive-in two days before. He pulled large hunks of dirt from the ground and hurled them full force at the baboons.
'Dirty fucking drunks!' he screamed. 'Dirty, filthy, goddamned, fucking drunks!' He let loose another barrage of dirt and started to scream again, but no words came out, and the jabbering of the creatures in the cage rose to a shrieking cacophony.
Michael was bending down to pick up more ammunition when I grabbed him around the shoulders. As he squirmed to free himself, I heard Doc say soothingly, 'Easy, fellow. Easy, Michael boy, it's going to be okay, easy . . .'
Michael slammed a bony elbow into my stomach. I let go of him and he tore off like an antelope in the direction of the rest area. I let him get a good lead, then followed. He was fast, and sprinting full out, and I knew in his condition he would run until he collapsed.
We ran through the wooded area into a miniature box canyon laced with scrub pines. Suddenly there was noplace left to run. Michael fell down at the base of a large pine tree and encircled it fiercely with his skinny arms, rocking on his knees. As I came up to him, I could hear a hoarse wail rise from his throat. I knelt beside him and placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and let him cry until he gradually surrendered his grip on the tree and placed his arms around me.
'What is it, Michael?' I asked softly, ruffling his hair. 'What is it?'
'Call me Mike,' he sobbed. 'I don't want to be called Michael anymore.'
'Mike, who killed your mother?'
'I don't know!'
'Have you ever heard of anyone named Eddie Engels?'
Mike shook his head and buried it deeper into my chest.
'Margaret Cadwallader?'
'No,' he sobbed.
'Mike, do you remember living on Hibiscus Canyon when you were five?'
Mike looked up at me. 'Y-yes,' he said.
'Do you remember the trip your mother took while you were living there?'
'Yes!'
'Ssssh. Where did she go?'
'I don't . . .'
I helped the boy to his feet and put my arm around him. 'Did she go to Wisconsin?'
'I think so. She brought back all this gooey cheese and this smelly sauerkraut. Fucking German squarehead bastards.'
I lifted the boy's chin off his chest. 'Who did you stay with while she was gone?'
Mike twisted away from me, looking at the ground at his feet.
'Tell me, Mike.'
'I stayed with these fly-by-night guys my mom was seeing.'
'Did they treat you all right?'
'Yeah. They were drunks and gamblers. They were nice to me, but . . .'
'But what, Mike?'
Mike screamed, 'They were nice to me because they wanted to fuck Marcella!' His tears had stopped and the hatred in his young face aged him by ten years.
'I don't know, Uncle Claude, Uncle Schmo, Uncle Fucko, I don't know!'
'Do you remember the place where you stayed?'
'Yeah, I remember; 6481 Scenic Avenue. Near Franklin and Gower. Dad said . . .'
'Said what, Mike?'
'That . . . that he was going to fuck up Marcella's boyfriends. I told him they were nice, but he still said it. Fred?'
'Yes?'
'Dad was telling stories last night. He told me this story about this guy who used to be a cop. Did you used to be a cop?'
'Yes. What—'
'Michael, Fred, where the hell are you?' It was Doc's voice, and it was nearby. A second later we saw him. Michael moved away from me when Doc came into view.
He walked toward us. When I saw his face up close I knew that all pretense was gone. His expression was a mask of hatred; the hard, handsome features were drawn inward to the point where each plane melded perfectly in a picture of absolute coldness.
'I think we should go back to L.A.,' Doc said.
No one said a word as we made our way back to Los Angeles via a labyrinthine network of freeways and surface streets. Mike sat in back, and Doc sat up front with me, his eyes glued straight ahead for the entire two hours.
When we finally pulled up to the house all three of us seemed to breathe for the first time. It was then that I smelled it, a musky, sweaty pungency that permeated the car even with the top down: the smell of fear.
Michael vaulted out of the backseat and ran without a word into his concrete backyard. Doc turned to face me. 'What now, Underhill?' he said.
'I don't know. I'm blowing town for a while.'
'And then?'
'And then I'll be back.'
Harris got out of the car. He looked down at me. He started to smile, but I didn't let his cold face get that far.
'Harris, if you harm that boy, I'll kill you,' I said, then drove off in the direction of Hollywood.
Scenic Avenue was a side street about a mile north of Hollywood Boulevard. Number 6481 was a small stone cottage on the south side. There was a small yard of weeds encircled by a white picket fence. It was deserted, as I knew it would be; all the front windows were broken and the flimsy wooden front door was half caved in.
I walked around the corner of the house. The backyard was the same as the front—same fencing, same high weeds. I found a circuit box next to the fence, attached to a phone pole, and wedged a long piece of scrap wood under the hinge, snapping the box open. I toyed with the switches for five minutes until the dusk-shrouded inside of 6481 was illuminated as bright as day.
I brazenly walked across the wooden service porch and through the back door. Then I walked quietly through the entire house, savoring each nuance of the evil I felt there.
It was just an ordinary one-family dwelling, bereft of furniture, bereft of all signs of habitation, bereft even of the winos who usually inhabited such places; but it was alive with an unspeakable aura of sickness and terror that permeated every wall, floorboard, and cobweb-knitted corner.
On the oak floor of the bedroom near an overturned mattress I found a large splotch of dried blood. It could
