'Where'd you hear that?'
'The Murtaughs.'
'They got it half right,' he said. 'It was the Mayan Mortgage.
Place went out of business a couple of weeks later.'
'Because of the murder?'
'Hell, no. If anything, that would have helped business. We're talking the night-crawler scene, Alex. Spoiled kids from Brentwood and Beverly Hills putting on Rocky Horror Show duds and playing Look, Mom, no common sense. Blood and entrails-someone else's would be just what they're looking for.'
'That fits with what the Murtaughs said about Herbert. Grad student by day, but she used to punk herself up at night. Used the kind of hair dye that washes out the next morning.'
'L.A. shuffle,' he said. 'Nothing's what it seems.... Anyway, the place probably closed down because that crowd gets bored easily-the whole kick is to move from place to place. Kind of a metaphor for life itself, huh?'
I did a finger~down-the-throat pantomime.
He laughed.
I said, 'Do you know this particular club?'
'No, but they're all the same-fly-by-night setups, no occupancy permits, no liquor licenses. Sometimes they take over an abandoned building and don't bother to pay rent. By the time the landlord catches on or the fire department gets around to shutting them down, they're gone. What'll change it is a couple hundred clowns getting roasted.'
He raised his glass and buried his upper lip in foam. He wiped it and said, According to Central, one of the bartenders saw Herbert leave the club shortly before two A.M. with a guy. He recognized her because she'd been dancing at the club and was one of the few heavyset girls they let in. But he couldn't give any specifics on the guy other than that he was straight-looking and older than her. The time frame fits with the coroner's ETD of between two and four. The coroner also found cocaine and booze in her system.
A lot?'
'Enough to dull her judgment. If she had any in the first place-which is doubtful, seeing as she was traipsing around the Union District in the wee hours, all alone.'
'The landlords said she was smart-Ph.D. student in biomath.'
'Yeah. Well, there's smart and there's smart. The actual killing took place on a side street a couple of blocks away from the club. In that little Mazda of hers. The keys were still in the ignition.'
'She was killed in the car?'
'Right in the driver's seat, judging from the spatter pattern.
Afterward, she slumped across both seats. The body was found just after sunrise by a couple of garment workers arriving for the early shift. Blood had seeped through the door and into the street. The slant of the street made it run down into the curb and pool. It was the pool they noticed.'
The waiter brought my ale, a bowl of soup oysters, and Milo's pea soup.
He waited while Milo tasted. Milo said, 'Perfect, Irv' and the old man nodded and disappeared.
Milo took a couple more spoonfuls, licked his lips, and spoke through the steam. 'The Mazda's convertible top was up but there was no blood on the headliner, so the coroner's certain the top was down when it happened. The spatter pattern also indicates that whoever did it was outside the car, standing on the driver's side.
Standing over her, maybe a foot or two behind her. He hit her on the head. From the skull damage it must've knocked her out, may even have killed her. Then he used some kind of blade to sever her jugular and her windpipe. Once that was done, he did the mechanical rape, so maybe we've got ourselves a necrophile.'
'Sounds like overkill,' I said. 'Some kind of frenzy.'
'Or thoroughness,' he said, sipping soup. 'He was cool enough to raise the top.'
'Was she seen dancing with anyone in the club?'
