Bloodthirsty Read online

  Bloodthirsty

  a Lomax & Biggs Mystery Novel by MARSHALL KARP

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-59692-925-8

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  via United Kingdom

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: [email protected]

  Originally published by:

  MacAdam Cage Publishing

  155 Sansome Street, Suite 550

  San Francisco, California 94104

  www.MacAdamCage.com

  Copyright © 2007 by Mesa Films, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Karp, Marshall.

  Bloodthirsty : a Lomax and Biggs mystery / Marshall Karp.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59692-209-9 (alk. paper)

  1. Police—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 2. Gangs—Fiction.

  3. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3561.A684B58 2007

  813’.54—dc22

  2006103276

  Book and jacket design by Dorothy Carico Smith.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For my blood:

  Mom, Dad, Jody, Harold, Pearl, Icky,

  Dennis, Matthew, Cori, Adam, Sarah, and Zach

  It’s a bloodthirsty town, Hollywood is. No matter how popular you are, there’s always someone who’d be happier if you were dead. And in some cases, you can be so despised, that everyone would be happier if you were dead.

  BLOODTHIRSTY

  A NOVEL BY MARSHALL KARP

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  THANK YOU

  CHAPTER ONE

  Roger and Aggie held hands as they watched the kid bleed out. He was on his back, head flopped to the left. The gurgling in his windpipe had stopped, and now there was just a silent stream, as if Roger had left the tap open.

  “Practice makes perfect,” Aggie said.

  Roger accepted the compliment by giving her hand a gentle squeeze. He was definitely not the type to slit somebody’s throat without doing some serious prep work. So he had practiced. On pigs. He tracked down a copy of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Pig at the Texas A&M library. After that it was just a matter of working on his technique.

  “Did you know that swine have the same basic characteristics as people?” he had said to Aggie. “That’s why they use ’em in biomedical research. You could live for years with a pig heart in you.”

  “I think Ermaline Hofsteader’s already got one in her,” Aggie said. “You see how that girl eats?”

  Roger slaughtered four hogs in all. By the third one he got the hang of it, but he did one more for insurance.

  “You sure you can’t switch over to cows or chickens?” Aggie said one night at dinner. “I’m getting pretty damn sick of pork.”

  Four pigs, one Mexican, Roger thought, looking down at the kid. The only difference was that the kid’s blood wasn’t bright red like the pigs’. In the murky light under the freeway it looked more like Hershey’s syrup.

  The pool of chocolate soup got wider, caught a crack in the concrete, and one satellite stream oozed its way toward Roger’s left foot.

  “Careful it don’t get on your boots,” Aggie said.

  Roger backed up a few steps. “The boots are fine,” he said. “More’n I can say for my…” His lips started to form the F-word, but he caught himself. He had given up profanity for Lent. The results had been spotty at best, so on Easter Sunday he made a silent vow to try and hold off cursing another fifty days till Pentecost. “More’n I can say for my dang shirt.”

  He looked down at his right sleeve, sopping with the kid’s juices. “Darn kid spurted. Got blood all over my good Roper.”

  “Told you ten times not to wear that shirt,” she said.

  “I must not have heard you,” he said. “And it was more like a hundred and ten times.”

  “Don’t worry. I can get it out. I’ll take it to a laundromat tonight.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “And make sure you buy a big box of that new Tide with DNA Remover.”

  “I can get out the blood.”

  “Blood’s not DNA. Trust me, this muchacho’s genetic code is in this shirt till I burn it. Besides, a lot of these laundromats in Los Angeles have security cameras, and I don’t want to star in no movie about you and me washing blood out of no shirt.”

  “It wouldn’t be you and me in the movie,” she said, “because when in the past twenty-seven years did you ever help one time with the washing?”

  “Same amount of times you ever split one stick of firewood.”

  Aggie looked down at the body. Eighty feet over her head she could hear the hum of tires rolling along concrete. She inhaled a noseful of freeway fumes and caught a whiff of garlic. The kid’s last meal, probably.

  Roger knelt down beside the body and tightened his grip on the knife. It was a seven-inch Ka-bar, the same Marine Corps fighting knife he had carried with him since Nam. “Let me get this over with,” he said.

  “Don’t,” Aggie said, grabbing his arm. The shirt was wet and sticky, but she didn’t let go. “Leave him be.”

  “Ag,” he said, “we decided.”

  It had made sense when they were planning it. Make the murder look like a rival gang did it. Mutilate the kid’s face beyond cosmetic repair, so that even his own mother couldn’t look at him. Street revenge.

  “It ain’t necessary,” she said. “The cops won’t investigate a dead gangbanger. How old is he? Fourteen? Fifteen? You gav
e some poor woman a dead son. At least give her one she can bury in an open coffin.”

  “I don’t know why I bother planning, if you’re gonna change everything last minute.” Roger felt the F-word welling up in his throat. “Fine,” it came out.

  She released the grip on his arm and rubbed her hands together to dry off the blood. “Thank you. You saying he got his DNA in your shirt?”

  Roger stood up and slipped the Ka-bar back into its leather sheath. “Yep. Never get it out.”

  “Then fair is fair. We should leave him a little DNA of our own.”

  She puckered her lips and sucked them in and out, gathering up a generous gob. She let it fly. The frothy mix of saliva and bile hit the kid’s vacant left eye and trickled down his brown cheek toward an ear.

  A few minutes later, they were in the Chevy pickup creeping along the freeway with the rest of the rush-hour traffic. He could feel her eyes on him. Reading him. “You upset?” she finally said.

  “About what?”

  “About the high cost of chintz in China. You just cut a boy’s throat. You upset about killing someone?”

  Roger forced a little laugh. “No big deal. I’ve killed people before.”

  “But that was always in the line of duty.”

  Roger wiped one watery eye with a wrinkled blue bandana. “Yeah. Well, that’s what this was, Aggie. Killing this little fucker was the line of duty.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  If you’re looking to get rich, being a cop is not the way to go. Especially the honest variety.

  Last year I made ninety-three grand working homicide for LAPD. My partner, Terry Biggs, who is one pay grade lower, managed to make eighty-eight with overtime. Not bad money. Except that my plumber cleared one-fifty. And he didn’t get shot at. Of course, I don’t have to snake toilets. Life is full of tradeoffs.

  Then one day the phone rings and some guy offers me and Terry fifty thousand dollars to option our last big homicide case for a movie. I hang up. It’s a con job. Ever since we cracked the Familyland murders and got our minute and a half of fame, every cop we know has been busting our balls.

  The guy calls back. He swears he’s Halsey Bates, the director. “Sure, you are,” I say, as I Google him. “Where’d you go to college?”

  “Penn,” he says.

  “Wrong,” I say and hang up.

  Next day Halsey Bates shows up at the station house, in the flesh. “You might have solved a big murder case, Detective Lomax,” he says, “but you don’t have a clue where I went to school.” He holds up his college diploma. “Universitas Pennsylvaniensis. Penn.”

  “Hollywood Online says Penn State,” I tell him.

  “They also say Clay Aiken’s dating a supermodel. Let’s talk.”

  Two weeks later, Halsey hands us each a check for twenty-five big ones. “And that’s just your first taste,” he says. “This movie catches fire, and you boys will be building yourselves swimming pools.”

  “I already have a swimming pool,” Terry told him.

  “This one would be for your money.”

  “What if I just drained the pool I have?” Terry said. “How long would it take you to refill it with cash?”

  “Depends on how long it takes me to find someone with sixty million bucks to bankroll us.”

  “I got three daughters. The twins are starting college in September.”

  “It took ten years to find the money to make Forrest Gump,” Halsey said. “How were you planning on paying for college if I didn’t option your story?”

  “Mike and I were going to stick up the Wal-Mart over on Crenshaw. My other choice was to sell a kidney, but Mike refuses to part with one.”

  “Well, if you’re in a hurry, we could sell our souls to the devil,” Halsey said. “I have his home number.”

  The devil, in this case, was Barry Gerber, a legendary industry prick. Over the years he made dozens of films, zillions of dollars, and zero friends.

  “I hear he’s a real Hollywood asshole,” Terry said.

  “That’s redundant,” Halsey said. He gave us both a big toothy smile and ran his hand through his thick, straight, dirty-blond hair. The hair is the only thing straight about him.

  I’ve met a lot of schmucks in the movie business. Halsey Bates isn’t one of them. He’s a decent guy, with an ugly past.

  Seven years ago he was directing a movie and met Kirk Jacoby, a struggling young actor who had the three basic ingredients guaranteed to make him a star. He was talented, great looking, and bisexual. Kirk would sleep with anyone if he thought it could help him get ahead in the business.

  They spent the day shooting at an LA country club, first on the tennis court, then the locker room, and finally the showers. Halsey was so hot for Kirk he wrapped early, and they drove to Halsey’s house, which was well stocked with booze, dope, and condoms.

  Jacoby had one agenda. He wanted a bigger part. Halsey offered him a few more scenes, but Kirk wasn’t stupid. He knew they’d wind up on the cutting room floor, so he said goodnight and staggered toward his car. He was not only too drunk to drive; he was too drunk to walk. He cut across the lawn and fell into the koi pond. Halsey offered to put him up for the night, but Jacoby insisted on leaving. Absolut logic prevailed, and they decided that Halsey should be the designated driver. Jacoby flopped into the director’s Saab convertible and immediately fell asleep in the passenger seat.

  He never woke up. They weren’t the only drunks on the road that night. Heading east on Beverly Boulevard they were T-boned by a young couple in a pickup running a light at Highland. Jacoby, unbelted, was thrown 120 feet and killed instantly. The driver of the pickup had his chest crushed and his girlfriend’s head was severed when she went through the windshield.

  Even with the best lawyers money could buy, Halsey spent the next four and a half years in prison. But it was time well spent. From his jail cell he used his clout, his talent, and his ingenuity to raise enough money to open a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in downtown LA.

  By the time he got out he had added a rescue mission and a battered-women’s shelter, and his charity, One Brick At A Time, had become as popular among the rich and famous as Japanese hybrids. Hollywood is nothing if not forgiving.

  The day he got out was a media gangbang of O.J. proportions. TV crews from around the world were camped outside the gates. The first one to welcome him back was Barry Gerber. He announced that he was hiring Halsey to direct his first post-prison film. He then whipped out a contract and a pen, offered up his back, and the cameras rolled while Halsey signed on the dotted line. It was a great stunt, and the media gobbled it up.

  “What’s the movie about?” half the reporters yelled at once.

  Gerber just smiled. “I can’t say.”

  It was an old Hollywood ruse. Tell them what you’re trying to pimp, and you’re lucky if they print a word of it. Don’t tell them, and they’ll invoke the First Amendment.

  “Come on, Barry,” a woman from People demanded. “Give us something.”

  Gerber held his hands up and shook his head. The man was a master at getting millions of dollars’ worth of publicity without spending a dime.

  The press refused to take no for an answer.

  Finally, Gerber acquiesced. “Alright, just a taste. It’s about a good-looking, charming, successful man who makes a terrible mistake,” he said, putting his arm around the good-looking, charming, successful man, who had spent four and half years paying for his own terrible mistake.

  “What kind of mistake?” came the inevitable response.

  Gerber grinned. “He kills his boyfriend.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  It took the better part of a month for Halsey to set up a meeting between us and Barry Gerber. Living legends have busy schedules, so I figured we’d be lucky to get five minutes with him in his office. But that wasn’t Barry’s style.

  “He wants you at the premiere of our new movie,” Halsey said. “Sunday night. The Pantages Theatre. Red carpet, bla
ck tie.”

  “Do you really think we should pitch him the Familyland idea when he’s surrounded by a theater full of people?” Terry said. “Why doesn’t he just meet us in St. Peter’s Square and bless us from the balcony?”

  “It’s the perfect time,” Halsey said. “He loves making deals when he’s feeling triumphant and expansive. I once saw him green-light a feature at a Lakers game. They had just won in double overtime.”

  “Can I bring my wife?” Terry said. “She hates when I go to these Hollywood premieres on my own.”

  “Bring your entire posse,” Halsey said. “We’ll make a night of it.”

  Our posse consisted of Terry’s wife Marilyn, my girlfriend Diana, my father Big Jim Lomax, and his wife Angel. Jim has a fleet of cars, trucks, and production vehicles that he rents out to film crews. He decided that the best way for us to show up at the premiere was in a thirty-foot stretch Hummer.

  Jim is about the size of a Hummer himself, loud as a Harley, and prone to bear hugs. He was sitting across from me in the limo, Angel’s tiny brown hand resting on his picnic ham of a thigh. She’s twenty years younger, two hundred pounds lighter, and at least three times as stubborn. When my mother died six years ago, Angel did what anti-depressants, shrinks, and weekly visits from our parish priest couldn’t. She made him smile. I grinned at the happy couple and gave Jim the official Lomax Wink of Approval.

  He caught it, directed his gaze toward the lovely Diana Trantanella sitting at my side, creased one eyelid, and tossed back a paternal wink of his own.

  “So, what’s this movie about?” Marilyn asked Halsey. Marilyn is Terry’s fourth and, I’ll bet every nickel of my movie-option money, final wife. She’s one of those plus-sized women, so it’s ironic that she wound up changing her last name to Biggs. But she’s Biggs and Beautiful, with delicate pale skin, fiery red hair, and a quick wit that lets her go wisecrack for wisecrack with her wannabe-comedian husband.

  “It’s called I.C.U.,” Halsey said. “It’s a thriller, so all I’m going to tell you is that Damian Hedge plays a neurosurgeon who murders someone he’s having an affair with.”

  “I love Damian Hedge,” Marilyn said. “Do you think you can direct him to have an affair with me?”