'Don't ignore your fear, Edmund. That's weakness. White and his friend Stensland behaved with despicable disregard for departmental bylaws, and they're both obvious thugs. Are you prepared for your interview?'
'Yes.'
'They'll be brutal.'
'I know, Father.'
'They'll stress your inability to keep order and the fact that you let those officers steal your keys.'
Ed flushed. 'It was getting chaotic, and fighting those men would have created more chaos.'
'Don't raise your voice and don't justify yourseW. Not with me, not with the I.A. men. It makes you appear--'
A breaking voice. 'Don't say 'weak,' Father. Don't draw any sort of parallel with Thomas. And don't assume that I can't handle this situation.'
Preston picked up the phone. 'I know you're capable of holding your own. But are you capable of seizing Bill Parker's gratitude before he displays it?'
'Father, you told me once that Thomas was your heir as a natural and I was your heir as an opportunist. What does that tell you?'
Preston smiled, dialed a number. 'Bill? Hello, it's Preston Exley . . . Yes, fine, thank you . . . No, I wouldn't have called your personal line for that . . . No, Bill, it's about my son Edmund. He was on duty at Central Station Christmas Eve, and I think he has valuable information for you . . . Yes, tonight? Certainly, he'll be there . . . Yes, and my regards to Helen . . . Yes, goodbye, Bill.'
Ed felt his heart slamming. Preston said, 'Meet Chief Parker at the Pacific Dining Car tonight at eight. He'll arrange for a private room where you can talk.'
'Which one of the depositions do I show him?'
Preston handed the paperwork back. 'Opportunities like this don't come very often. I had the Atherton case, you had a little taste with Guadalcanal. Read the family scrapbook and _remember those precedents_.'
'Yes, but which deposition?'
'You figure it out. And have a good meal at the Dining Car. The supper invitation is a good sign, and Bill doesn't like finicky eaters.'
o o o
Ed drove to his apartment, read, remembered. The scrapbook held clippings arranged in chronological order; what the newspapers didn't tell him he'd burned into his memory.
1934--the Atherton case.
Children: Mexican, Negro, Oriental--three male, two female--are found dismembered, the trunks of their bodies discovered in L.A. area storm drains. The arms and legs have been severed; the internal organs removed. The press dubs the killer 'Dr. Frankenstein.' Inspector Preston Exley heads the investigation.
He deems the Frankenstein tag appropriate: tennis racket strings were found at all five crime scenes, the third victim had darning-needle holes in his armpits. Exley concludes that the fiend is recreating children with stitching and a knife; he begins hauling in deviates, cranks, loony bin parolees. He wonders what the killer will do for a face--and learns a week later.
Wee Willie Wennerholm, child star in Raymond Dieterling's stable, is kidnapped from a studio tutorial school. The following day his body is found on the Glendale railroad tracks-- decapitated.
Then a break: administrators from the Glenhaven State Mental Hospital call the LAPD--Loren Atherton, a child molester with a vampire fixation, was paroled to Los Angeles two months before--and has not yet reported to his parole officer.
Exley locates Atherton on skid row: he has a job washing bottles at a blood bank. Surveillance reveals that he steals blood, mixes it with cheap wine and drinks it. Exley's men arrest Atherton at a downtown theater-- masturbating during a horror movie. Exley raids his hotel room, finds a set of keys--the keys to an abandoned storage garage. He goes there--and finds Hell.
A prototype child packed in dry ice: male Negro arms, male Mexican legs, a male Chinese torso with spliced-in female genitalia and Wee Willie Wennerhoim's head. Wings cut from birds stitched to the child's back. Accoutrements rest nearby: horror movie reels, gutted tennis rackets, diagrams for creating hybrid children. Photographs of children in various stages of dismemberment, a closet/darkroom filled with developing supplies.
Hell.
Atherton confesses to the killings; he is tried, convicted, hanged at San Quentin. Preston Exley keeps copies of the death photos; he shows them to his policemen sons--so that they will know the brutality of crimes that require absolute justice.
Ed flipped pages: past his mother's obit, Thomas' death. Outside of his father's triumphs, the only time the Exleys made the papers was when, somebody died. He made the _Examiner_: an article on the sons of famous men fighting World War II. Like Bloody Christmas, there was more than one version.
The _Examiner_ ran the version that won him his DSC: Corporal Ed Exley, sole survivor of a platoon wiped out in hand-to-hand combat, takes down three trenches filled with Jap infantry, twenty-nine dead total, if there were an officer present to witness the act he would have won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Version two: Ed Exley seizes the opportunity to make a scout run when a Jap bayonet charge is imminent, dawdles, comes back to find his platoon obliterated and a Jap patrol approaching. He hides under Sergeant Peters and Pfc Wasnicki, feels them buckle when the Japs strafe bodies; he bites into Wasnicki's arm, chews his wristwatch strap clean off. He waits for dusk, sobbing, covered by dead men, a tiny passage between bodies feeding him air. Then a terror nm for battalion HQ--halted when he sees another slaughter scene.
A little Shinto shrine, tucked into a clearing covered with camouflage netting. Dead Japs on pallets, jaundice green, emaciated. Every man ripped stomach to ribcage; ornately carved swords, blood-caked, stacked neatly. Mass suicide--soldiers too proud to risk capture or die from malaria.
Three trenches cut into the ground behind the temple; weaponry nearby--rifles and pistols rusted out from heavy rain. A flamethrower wrapped in camouflage cloth--in working order.
He held it, knowing just one thing: he would not survive Guadalcanal. He'd be assigned to a new platoon; his scout run dawdlings wouldn't wash. He could not request an HQ assignment--his father would deem the act cowardice. He would have to live with contempt--fellow LAPD men wounded, awarded medals.
'Medals' led to 'Bond Tours' led to crime scene reconstructions. He saw his opportunity.
He found a Jap machine gun. He hauled the hara-kiri men to the trenches, put useless weapons in their hands, arranged them facing an opening in the clearing. He dropped the machine gun there, pointed toward the opening, three rounds left in the feeder belt. He got the flamethrower, torched the Japs and the shrine past forensic recognition. He got his story straight, made it back to battalion HQ.
Recon patrols confirmed the story: fighting Ed Exley, armed with Jap ordnance, french-fried twenty-nine of the little fuckers.
The Distinguished Service Cross--the second highest medal his country could bestow. A stateside bond tour, a hero's welcome, back to the LAPD a champion.
Some kind of wary respect from Preston Exley.
'Read the family scrapbook. Remember those precedents.'
Ed put the book away, still not sure how he'd play Bloody Christmas--but certain what the man meant.
Opportunities fall easy--you pay for them later.
Father, I've known it since I picked up that flamethrower.
CHAPTER NINE
'If it goes to the grand jury, you won't swing. And the D.A. and I will try to keep it from going there.'
Jack counted favors on deposit. Sixteen G's to Loew's slush fund--Miller Stanton helped him lube the _Badge of Honor_ gang. He tweaked Brett Chase himself, a concise little threat--a _Hush-Hush_ expose on his queerness. Max Peltz coughed up large--Loew frosted out a tax audit. A Cupid favor--tonight the man meets pouty Joan Morrow. 'Ellis, I don't even want to testify. I'm talking to some lAD goons tomorrow, and it is going to the grand jury. So fix it.'
Loew played with his Phi Beta chain. 'Jack, a prisoner assaulted you, and you responded in kind. You're clean. You're also somewhat of a public figure and the preliminary depositions that we've received from the plaintiff's attorneys state that four of the beating victims recognized you. You'll testify, Jack. But you won't
