He’d also learned the police view of the world: All humanity is divided into three parts — cops, scumbags and civilians. He hadn’t yet adopted an attitude of contempt toward civilians. They were the people he was supposed to protect, and perhaps because he was not a career policeman (although Burbank didn’t know that) he could take his job seriously. The civilians paid him. One day he would be one of them.
He’d learned to curse the judicial system, while keeping enough literary objectivity to admit that he didn’t know what to replace it with. There were people who could be “rehabilitated.” Not many. Most scumbags were just that, and the best thing to do with them would be to take them out to San Nicholas Island and put them ashore. Let them victimize each other. The trouble was, you couldn’t always tell which ones should be put away forever and which could fit back into the real world. He often got into arguments with his partners over that. His buddies on the force called him “Professor” and kidded his literary ambitions, and the diary he kept; but Eric got along with nearly everyone, and his sergeant had recommended him for promotion to Investigator.
The comet fascinated Eric, and he’d read all he could about it. Now it dominated the skies above. Tomorrow it would be past. Eric drove with his partner through strangely active Burbank streets. People were moving about, piling goods into trailers, doing things inside their houses. There was a lot of traffic.
“Be glad when that thing’s past,” his partner said. Investigator Harris was all cop. The brilliant light show in the skies above was only another problem to him. If it was a pretty show, he’d look at films of it after it was past. Right now it was a pain in the arse.
“Car forty-six. See the woman at eight-nine-seven-six Alamont. Reports screaming in the apartment above her. Handle Code Three.”
“Ten-four,” Eric told the microphone. Harris had already sent the cruiser around a tight curve.
“That’s not a family-fight house,” Harris said. “Singles apartments. Probably some guy can’t take no for an answer.”
The cruiser pulled up in front of the apartment building. It was a large, fancy place, swimming pool and sauna. Rubber trees grew on both sides of the entrance. The girl standing behind the glass lobby doors wore a thin robe over a blue silk nightgown. She seemed scared. “It’s in three-fourteen,” she said. “It was horrible! She was screaming for help…”
Investigator Harris stopped just long enough to look on the mailbox for 314. “Colleen Darcy.” He led the way up the stairs, his nightstick drawn.
The even-numbered apartments on the third floor faced onto an interior hallway. Eric thought he remembered seeing the building from the other side. It had little private balconies, screened from the street. Probably good places for girls to sunbathe. The hall was freshly painted, and the impression was of a nice building, a good place to live for young singles. Of course the best apartments would be on the other side, overlooking the pool.
The hall was quiet. They couldn’t hear anything through the door of 314. “Now what?” Eric asked.
Harris shrugged, then knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again. “Police,” he said. “Miz Darcy?”
There was no answer. The lady who’d called them was coming up the stairs behind them. “You sure she’s in there?” Eric asked.
“Yes! She was screaming.”
“Where’s the manager?”
“Not here. I called him, but there wasn’t anyone there.”
Eric and his partner exchanged glances.
“She was screaming for help!” the lady said indignantly.
“We’ll probably catch hell for this,” Harris muttered. He stood to one side and gestured to Eric. Then he drew his service revolver.
Eric stepped back, raised his foot and smashed it at the locked door. Once. Then again. The door burst open and Eric darted inside, moving quickly to one side the way he’d been taught.
There was only one room. There was something on the bed. Later Eric remembered thinking just that: “Something.” It looked so little like a girl in her twenties…
There was blood on the bed and on the floor beside it. The room smelled of bright copper and expensive perfume.
The girl was nude. Eric saw long blonde hair, arranged carefully on the pillow. The hair was spattered with blood. One of her teats was gone. Blood oozed from punctures below the missing breast. Someone had drawn figures in the blood, tracing an arrow down to point to her dark pubic hair. There was more blood there.
Eric doubled over, struggling with himself, holding his breath. His partner came in.
Harris took one look at the bed, then looked away. He sent his eyes searching the room, saw no one, then looked for doors. There was a door across the room, and Harris moved toward it. As he did, the closet door opened behind him and a man darted out, breaking for the opening to the hallway. He was past Joe Harris, running toward the screaming lady who’d called the police.
Eric breathed deeply, got control of himself and moved to intercept the man. The man had a knife. A bloody knife. He raised it high, point toward Eric. Eric brought up his pistol and leveled it at the man’s chest. His finger tightened on the trigger.
The man threw up his arms. The knife dropped from his hand. Then he fell to his knees. He still said nothing.
Eric’s pistol followed the man. His finger tightened again. A half-ounce more… No! I am a police officer, not a judge and jury.
The man held his hands in supplication, almost as if in prayer. When Eric moved closer, he saw the man’s eyes. They did not hold terror, or even hatred. The man had a curious expression, of troth resignation and satisfaction. It did not change when he looked past Eric Larsen at the dead girl.
Later, after the detectives and the coroner had come, Eric Larsen and Joe Harris took their prisoner to the Burbank City Jail.
“You’ll get him there alive.” The voice was a whine. It belonged to a lawyer who lived in the apartment building. He’d come while they were still questioning the suspect, and shouted that the police had no right to keep after the man. He advised the man to keep silent. The man had laughed.
Eric and Harris took their prisoner to the patrol car and put him inside. He would be turned over to the L.A. County Jail the next day.
During the whole time the man had said nothing. They knew his name from his wallet: Fred Lauren. They’d also heard his record from R I. Three previous sex offenses, two with violence. Probation, probation, then parole after psychiatric treatment.
When they reached the station, Eric hauled Lauren roughly out of the car.
“That hurts,” the man said.
“That hurts. You son of a bitch!” Harris moved close to Lauren. His arm jerked, sending his elbow into the pit of the prisoner’s stomach. He did it again. “Nothing that ever happens to you will hurt the way you…” Harris couldn’t say anything else.
“Joe.” Eric moved between his partner and the prisoner. “He’s not worth it.”
“I’ll report you!” Lauren screamed. Then he giggled. “No. What’s the point? No.”
“Now he’s scared,” Eric said. “Not when he was arrested.” And not now, Eric saw: As soon as Harris moved away and they began walking Lauren into the station, the fear vanished, replaced by the look of resignation. “Okay, tell me,” Eric said. “You think the judge will give you probation again? You’ll be on the street in a week?”
The man giggled. “There won’t be any streets in a week. There won’t be anything!”
“Hammer Fever,” Eric muttered. He’d seen it before: Why not commit a crime? The end of the world was coming. The papers had a lot of stories about that. But none like this, and none in Burbank before.