'Packing houses,' he said. 'East L.A. all the way down to Vernon, but the sound carries. When I first came on the force I drove a cruiser down here, on the night watch. Sometimes they slaughtered the hogs at night. You could hear them howling, smashing into things, and rattling their chains. Nowadays I think they tranquilize them- Here, turn right, then immediately left. Go a block and park anywhere you can.'
The maze ended on a skinny block-long straightaway bounded on both sides by cyclone fencing. No sidewalks. Weeds erupted through the tar like hairs on a well. Cars lined both sides of the street, pushed up close to the fence.
I pulled into the first space I saw, behind an old BMW with a KROQ window sticker and a rear deck piled high with trash. We got out of the Seville. The air had cooled but the slaughterhouse smell remained-dribs and drabs of stench, rather than a constant assault.
Changing wind, probably, though I couldn't sense it. The machine scrape was gone, replaced by music- electric organ elf-squeaks and a murky bass, middle-range tones that might have come from guitars.
If there was a beat, I couldn't sense that either.
'Party time,' I said. 'What's the dance of the week?'
'Felony lambada,' said Milo. 'Sidle up against your partner and rifle through hislher pockets.' He shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched forward.
We began walking up the street. It dead-ended at a tall, windowless building. Pale-painted brick walls that a couple of red lights turned pink. Three stories-a trio of successively smaller cubes stacked atop one another. Flat roof, steel doors asymmetrically placed under a random assortment of shuttered windows. A tangle of fire-escape ladders hugged the facade like cast-iron ivy. As we got closer I saw huge, faded letters painted above the dock: BAKER FERTILIZER AND POTASH CO.
The music got louder. Heavy, slow, keyboard solo. Voices became audible in between notes. As we got closer, I saw a line of people 5-curved in front of one of the doors-a fifty-foot ant-trail that dipped into the street and clogged it.
We began passing the line. Faces turned toward us sequentially, like animated dominoes. Black duds were the uniform, sullen pouts the mask.
Boot chains, cigarettes-legal and otherwise-mumbles and shuffles and sneers, an amphetamine jerk here and there. Flashes of bare flesh, whiter than the moonlight. A rude comment harmonized with the organ and somebody laughed.
The age range was eighteen to twenty-five, skewed toward the lower end.
I heard a cat snarl at my back, then more laughter. Prom from Hell.
The door that had drawn the crowd was a rust-colored sheetmetal rectangle blocked by a slide bolt. A big man wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck, green-flowered surfing shorts, and highlaced boots stood in front of it. He was in his early twenties, had clotted features, dreamy eyes, and skin that would have been florid even without the red bulb above his head. His black hair was trimmed to a buzz on top and engraved with lightning bolts of scalp on both sides.
I noticed a couple of thin spots that hadn't been barbered-downy patches, as if he was recovering from chemotherapy. But his body was huge and inflated. The hair at the back of his head was long and knotted in a tight, oiled queue that hung over one shoulder. The shoulder and its mate were graveled with acne.
Steroid rash-that explained the hair loss.
The kids at the head of the line were talking to him. He wasn't answering, didn't notice our approach or chose to ignore it.
Milo walked up to him and said, 'Evening, champ.'
The bouncer kept looking the other way.
Milo repeated himself. The bouncer jerked his head around and growled.
If not for his size, it would have been comical. The people at the head of the line were impressed.
Someone said, 'Yo, kung-fu.' The bouncer smiled, looked away again, cracked his knuckles and yawned.
Milo moved quickly, stepping up nose to nose with him while shoving his badge in the meaty face. I hadn't seen him remove it from his pocket.
The bouncer growled again but the rest of him was acquiescent.
I looked over my shoulder. A girl with hair the color of deoxygenated blood stuck her tongue out at me and
