The Glitter Dome (17 page)

Like three quarters of recidivist sociopaths who live most of their lives behind stone walls and barbed wire, Wilfred James Boyle needed his own kind of Perfect Order. Which prison provided. And when he was on the streets during his “leaves of absence”—that is, between convictions—he needed
action
. And it was as simple and as complicated as that: Take my liberty or give me … action. A high. A rush. A kick.

Schultz and Simon believed that initially he had never intended to shoot Samuel Billings. He probably had just come in from changing three tires, giving four lube jobs, helping with a minor tune-up, and said fuck it, his own motor was out of tune. He had to get his head straight.

He probably just took a look at Samuel Billings' own .38 revolver, which he stupidly kept locked in the office cabinet where they stashed the oil filters and spark plugs. Stupid, because even though Samuel Billings had been a quartermaster on Guam during the big war and was a loyal Legionnaire who attended most of the meetings and all the conventions, he would probably just have gotten himself killed sooner if he'd tried shooting it out with the gentle junkie who had robbed him on the other occasion.

So Schultz and Simon figured that Samuel Billings, splattered with crank-case oil, thinking of the meat loaf and mashed potatoes he was going to stuff in that ample belly, just couldn't believe it when he found Wilfred James Boyle about to clean out his safe and say bye-bye Billings.

Samuel Billings had probably tried to reason with the younger man, and even if Wilfred James Boyle had been able to articulate his feelings about institutional life, and action, it's doubtful that Samuel Billings would have been able to believe that his faithful employee, his protégé, his friend, would ever hurt him. Since Wilfred James Boyle had been a student in eleven schools of very hard knocks, he wasn't about to ever reveal to the cops what did happen. But perhaps when Samuel Billings saw that persuasion was useless he made a grab for his own gun in the young man's hand. Probably not to save the three thousand dollars, but to save the young man.

When Schultz and Simon arrived on the scene, the money and Wilfred James Boyle were well on their way to Tijuana, where Wilfred James Boyle discovered in two weeks that when Mexicans catch you robbing somebody they throw you in prisons that make Folsom look like the Bel-Air Hotel. And if you blow away the Mexican counterpart of Samuel Billings, they offer you a cigarette and a blindfold. So Wilfred James Boyle crossed back into San Diego, robbed another gas station, got caught by the C.H.P., and ended up in the frustrated paws of Schultz and Simon.

The gun that had been left next to Samuel Billings' dying body by Wilfred James Boyle was picked up by the first policeman on the scene, who, out of curiosity, opened the cylinder and closed it again. Which wouldn't have been a calamity except that since Samuel Billings expired thirty minutes into surgery, Wilfred James Boyle, being the only living witness, claimed he was just planning to rob his employer. The boss grabbed the gun and he tussled with Samuel Billings and one shot was fired accidentally into Samuel Billings' belly. What Wilfred James Boyle forgot in the excitement was that the old ammunition
misfired
. There were two misfires and one round fired. However, since the first bluecoat on the scene had opened and closed that cylinder, obscuring the firing order, Schultz and Simon could never prove that on some other occasion Samuel Billings hadn't tried to pop a couple of caps at a cat or a rat (the hypothesis of the defense), leaving two misfires in the gun. Thus the defense destroyed Schultz and Simon's contention that Wilfred James Boyle ruthlessly pulled the trigger
three
times, and three times is
no
accident, Wilfred baby.

But as juries are wont to do, they bought Wilfred James Boyle's story, and he was acquitted of the murder of Samuel Billings. And he plea-bargained his robbery down to a grand theft after the judge, who had only gotten senile in the last few years, agreed that the revolver might easily have been used by Samuel Billings on a prior occasion to shoot at rats on Cole Avenue, even though Schultz got on the stand and pleaded with the jury to believe that the rats hanging around Cole Avenue that time of night didn't necessarily have whiskers and big ears, almost causing the judge to declare a mistrial on the spot.

And this was the same judge that Schultz used to admire so much. In fact, many's the time he fondly remembered a day when the judge slapped a thousand-dollar fine on a Sunset Boulevard player just for kicking the crap out of his main momma, even though she appeared in court and told the judge she kind of liked it once in a while to keep her in line. The pimp grinned that day and shuffled around on his platforms and pulled open that plum velvet vest and reached inside to the pocket on that $150 Gianni Versace linen shirt, saying, “Shee-it, Judge. I got that much in my puck-it!”

And the judge grinned back at him and said: “Now reach in that other puck-it and give me thirty days!”

But now the judge was senile and another of Schultz's heroes had bitten the dust. The thing that Schultz took away from the Billings case, and which even Simon thought of from time to time, was Samuel Billings lying on the floor of the gas station. Maybe knowing him from the first robbery made it … different. He was bleeding from the mouth and turning gray, but he kept looking at that little hole in that big belly with fear and grief in his eyes. And then he'd look at Schultz with The Question unspoken.

Schultz knew that bullet had kicked around and done severe damage, with all that blood coming out of Samuel Billings' mouth, but he kept patting him on the shoulder and answering The Question with a lie: “You got nothing to worry about, Sam. Hell, you're gonna be on your feet tomorrow morning. Just a scratch. Yes, sir.”

The thing that Schultz seemed unable to let go of was the look on Samuel Billings' face just before he faded into the coma. The look that said: You're a liar.

“I don't wanna try to explain to Mrs. Billings why Wilfred James Boyle only got convicted of grand theft,” Shultz said. “I'm too tired.”

Simon glanced quickly at his partner and he
did
seem tired. His crewcut was growing out and he was losing his militant look.

“You'll feel better after you get a couple drinks down at The Glitter Dome after work,” said Simon, driving off the freeway ramp in moderate afternoon smog.

“I also been feeling bad lately that we couldn't a done better on the Nigel St. Claire case. I hated having a case taken away from us like that.”

“I don't feel bad about nothing,” said Simon. “Nothing. I still get my paycheck twice a month. You just need …”

“I need a pension,” Schultz said. “I wish I had my twenty in. I don't know if I can wait two more years.”

“You gotta get your head straightened out, boy.”

“Know what I saw in today's paper?” Schultz said, his voice flat and empty. “The Alphabet Bomber is defending himself at his trial. He had a minister on the stand. Him and the minister got in a
theological
discussion, the paper said. Nothing makes sense no more. The minister was one a the guys had his leg blown off by the bomber.”

“So?”

“So what
difference
does it make if Wilfred James Boyle got three years for offing Sam Billings? I ain't got nothing to say to Mrs. Billings.”

“Then don't
say
nothing,” Simon scowled. “I'm getting sick a all this sob-sister shit anyway. You gotta get your head straightened out. You keep up this crybaby crap you're gonna be a fruitcake like Gloria. I'm warning ya, boy.”

So Schultz decided to keep the confusion and crybaby crap to himself, and suggested to Simon that they spend the last three hours of their duty tour in The Glitter Dome. Hell, they deserved it after the arduous extradition of Gloria La Marr.

And so they did. And they were
six
hours overtime when they checked in that night. Five minutes after they entered the empty squadroom a reporter at the Parker Center pressroom received a rather incoherent telephone call from someone identifying himself as Sgt. Schultz of Hollywood Detectives. The caller reported sighting an unidentified flying object hovering three hundred feet over the famous Hollywood sign on the hill.

When a young reporter came bitching to Captain Woofer the next morning about his wild-goose chase in the Hollywood hills, a bleary-eyed Schultz denied any knowledge of the phone call and threatened to sue the newspaper for libel.

The Weasel shrugged and said, “Shit, this ain't no biggy. Schultz sees a UFO
every
time he leaves The Glitter Dome. What's the press gonna say when they find
that
out?”

9

Mr. Wheels

The roller rink on Friday night was even more garish than The Glitter Dome. Al Mackey got a headache the second they walked in the door. Someone kept alternating the stereo volume until you couldn't tell Kool and the Gang from the B-52's, and Al Mackey wished they'd just let it all out. The decibel fluctuation was more unbearable than the shattering level they eventually settled on.

The strobe lights were dumb and the fragmented mirrors were predictable, but what wasn't predictable was the skill of the skaters. They skated alone, they skated in pairs: boys with girls, girls with girls, boys with boys. They skated in trios and foursomes, same mixture. They skated in sinewy queues, and snake dances, and even cracked the whip like skaters of yore. But McCartney and Wings or Ambrosia kept everything frantic. The skaters had to stay electric or perish in the crush, so they got rewired every thirty minutes. The carpeted lobby was littered with fallen rainbows, dexis, bennies, ludes, speed, even some dust, though it had a bad rep these days, what with cops claiming that every dude they blew away was loaded on angel dust. It was getting so the people on the boulevard were saying when life gets too tough and you want to check out, just do a little dust and go out on the street—some cop'll obligingly shoot you.

And of course the smell of pot was everywhere. Al Mackey was getting high just sitting next to a skater who had been smoking joints nonstop since they arrived. But he wasn't about to change seats in the gallery. She wore velour shorts and a yellow tank top that was cut off about an inch below the natural drop of her breasts when standing. Now she was sitting. Al Mackey wasn't
about
to change seats.

Martin Welborn was roaming around the rink. Of course, he and Al Mackey looked like cops, being the only two men in business suits among the hundreds of skaters and spectators. But nobody seemed to mind. If they were narcs they
wouldn't
look like detectives, they'd look like the Weasel and Ferret, everyone knew that. And since most of the roller disco gang only did dope, they had no fear of the two detectives who were maybe Feds looking for somebody special.

It was hard to say how special he would be. When Martin Welborn had announced yesterday that he thought he knew of someone who might have seen Nigel St. Claire in the bowling alley parking lot the night he expired, Al Mackey thought Marty had really pulled a good one from the old clues closet. It had made a lot of sense at the moment, but like so many good ideas it seemed to have outlived its time now that he sat here and saw at least a hundred skaters who could easily be their man.

According to the skaters at the bowling alley, the parking lot at night was a fabulous place to skate after ten o'clock when the lot emptied of cars. Even with poor lighting from the street, the new asphalt surface let you fly. And they said no one flew faster or later at night than
Mr. Wheels
. He was a fearless skater (no knee pads, no elbow pads, no wrist braces) who would come wheeling through that lot backwards, his radio going full-out, singing loud enough with Boz Scaggs to draw frequent complaints from neighbors. And causing police cars to come by and make him tone it down. The field interrogation cards and moniker file had already been checked by Al Mackey and Martin Welborn for the nickname Mr. Wheels. There were three “Mr. Wheels,” none of them even close to the description of
their
Mr. Wheels, who was about fifty-five years old, skinhead bald on top, and thinner than Al Mackey. Which meant that apparently none of the cops who got the complaints from residents near the bowling alley (and warned
their
Mr. Wheels to keep the noise down) ever bothered to fill out an F.I. card on the midnight flash. The lazy pricks!

Of course Al Mackey and Marty could get on the horn at the rink and ask all the flyers to take off their wigs and hats, Al Mackey thought, and that would have been just about everybody in the place. If there was ever a wig and hat heaven, it was Hollywood, U.S.A., especially in a place as unisex as a rocking-out roller rink.

Just then the skater next to him turned to her left and passed a joint to a skater sitting in the seat behind her. She stayed twisted until he finished his second hit, and her
entire
right tit wobbled out the bottom of her tank top. Al Mackey decided Marty could roam around the rink all night.

Whether it was the air or what, Al Mackey started appreciating the flying circus. One slovenly skater in 1960s lowlife funk came blazing by doing flips right before his eyes. Others in Rodeo Drive pastel silks with coordinated knee pads and mint leather boots made incredible throws, catching their partners in mid-flight, somehow avoiding a trio of black hot dogs in black-on-black with black boots unlaced and turned down, letting their ankles move as though on ball bearings. They grooved and jived and danced through the others, hot-dogging at speeds that would have produced maiming or death if they had collided. It was absolutely amazing to Al Mackey. Nobody even got bumped by the black lightning bolts. They skated, flipped, twirled, leaped, spun, zigged in, zagged out, so close the satin sizzled when they flew by and almost sucked the old turtles into their jet stream.

And there were old turtles, all right. Some of them broke Al Mackey's heart. Middle-aged novices with lots of gold chains and slave bracelets, five years out of date, maybe recently divorced like Al Mackey, maybe from the San Fernando Valley like Al Mackey, maybe with a sex life as sad as Al Mackey's (though he doubted that), down here trying to beat the clock. Martin Welborn always said he didn't get frustrated with Latino witnesses like other detectives did when the witnesses screwed up court cases because of a cultural inability to grasp the concept of time. Martin Welborn said he envied Latinos their stubborn refusal to be
intimidated
by time.