Blood Test

11

Neither the Swopes’ disappearance nor Richard Moody’s rat fell under Milo’s jurisdiction. Out of friendship he’d helped me with both and I was reluctant to bother him so soon with the information on Valcroix.

But what Beverly had told me the night before was disturbing. As Raoul had claimed, the Canadian was unethical and a drunk, and his familiarity with the Touch visitors fleshed out the suspicion of a conspiracy to remove Woody Swope from treatment. I felt some obligation to let him know what was going on, but I didn’t look forward to it because he was sure to flip out. Before the pyrotechnics began I wanted to consult a professional.

Milo, bless his soul, sounded genuinely glad to hear from me.

“No sweat. I was gonna call you anyway. Fordebrand went out to the Bedabye to breathe on Moody but when he got there the asshole was gone. Left behind a room full of b.o. — it would have been a battle of the stinkers — and candy wrappers. Foothill will keep an eye out for him and I’ll have the boys here do the same, but be careful. Also, I got a call back from that Carmichael character — the one who messengered with the Swope girl. Normally I might have just talked to him on the phone but this guy sounded very uptight. Like he’s sitting on something. He’s also got a record — busted for prostitution a couple of years ago. So I’m gonna head out and do a face to face. Now what’s on your mind?”

“I’ll go with you to Carmichael’s and tell you in the car.”

He absorbed the information on Valcroix while speeding along the Santa Monica Freeway.

“What is he, some kind of stud?”

“Far from it. An old, ersatz hippie. Saggy face, flabby body, kind of a slob really.”

“No accounting for taste. Maybe he’s hung like a horse.”

“I doubt the appeal’s strictly physical. He’s a scavenger, Milo. Moves in on women when they’re under stress, plays Mr. Sensitive, gives them what passes for love and understanding.”

He put a finger to his nose and sniffed.

“And a little blow, too?”

“Could be.”

“I’ll tell you what, after we’re finished with Carmichael we’ll head out to the hospital and interview him. I’ve got a little slack because the gang thing resolved nicely — confessions all around. The shooters were fourteen years old. They’ll end up at the Youth Authority. The liquor store cutting’s due to close any day — Del Hardy’s interviewing a snitch who looks promising. The main thing pending is the stomach-shitter. We’re praying to the computer on that.”

He exited at Fourth Avenue, headed south to Pico, took Pico to Pacific, and continued southward into Venice. We passed Robin’s studio, an unmarked storefront with the windows painted opaque white, but neither of us mentioned it. The neighborhood changed from sleazy to slick as we approached the Marina.

Doug Carmichael’s house was on a walk-street west of Pacific, half a block from the beach. It resembled a landlocked cabin cruiser, all peaks and portholes, narrow and high, and wedged into a lot no wider than thirty feet. The exterior was teal blue wood siding and white trim. Fish-scale shingles graced the gablelike peak above the door. A planter brimming with nail-polish pink geraniums hung from the sill of the front window. A white picket fence ringed the dwarf lawn. The door was inlaid with a stained-glass window. Everything looked clean and well tended.

This close to the beach the place had to cost a pretty piece of change.

“Fulfilling fantasies must be paying well,” I said.

“Hasn’t it always?”

Milo rang the doorbell. It opened quickly and a tall muscular man in a red-and-black plaid shirt, faded jeans, and topsiders flashed us a smile saturated with fear, introduced himself (“Hi, I’m Doug”), and asked us in.

He was about my age. I’d been expecting someone younger and was surprised. He had thick blond hair, layered and blow-dried to look dashingly mussed, a full but neatly trimmed reddish-blond beard, sky blue eyes, artist’s model features, and poreless golden skin. An aging beachboy who’d preserved well.

The interior walls of the house had been torn down to create a thousand square feet of skylit living space. The furniture was bleached wood, the walls oyster white. The scent of lemon oil was in the air. There were maritime lithographs, a salt-water aquarium, a small but well-stocked kitchen, a partially folded futon bed. Everything in its place, neat as a pin.

In the center of the room was a sunken area half-filled by a bottle green velvet modular couch. We stepped down and sat. He offered us coffee from a pot that had already been set out on the table.

He poured three cups and sat across from us, still smiling, still scared.

“Detective Sturgis—” he looked from me to Milo who identified himself with a nod—“over the phone you said this had to do with Nona Swope.”

“That’s correct, Mr. Carmichael.”

“I have to tell you at the outset, I’m afraid I won’t be of much help. I barely know her—”

“You messengered with her several times.” Milo pulled out his pencil and pad.

Carmichael laughed nervously. “Three, maybe four times. She didn’t stick around very long.”

“Uh huh.”

Carmichael drank coffee, put the cup down, and cracked his knuckles. He had iron-pumper’s arms, each muscle defined in bas relief and roped with veins.

“I don’t know where she is,” he said.

“No one said she was missing, Mr. Carmichael.”

“Jan Rambo called and told me what it was all about. She said you took my file.”

“Does that bother you, Mr. Carmichael?”

“Yes, it does. It’s private and I don’t see what it has to do with anything.” He was trying to assert himself but despite the muscles there was something preternaturally meek and childish about him.

“Mr. Carmichael, you were pretty keyed up over the phone and you’re just as nervous in person. Want to tell us why?” Milo sat back and crossed his legs.

It’s always pathetic when someone physically impressive starts to fall apart, like watching a monument crumble. I saw the look on the blond man’s face and wanted to be somewhere else.

“Tell us about it,” said Milo.

“It’s my own damned fault. Now I’m going to pay.” He got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with a bottle of pills.

“B-twelve. I need it when I’m stressed out.” He unscrewed the lid, shook out three capsules, swallowed, and washed them down with coffee. “I shouldn’t be taking in so much caffeine but it calms me down. Paradoxical reaction.”

“What’s on your mind, Doug?”

“My working at Adam and Eve has been a — a secret. Until now. I knew all along it was risky, that I might run into someone who knew me. I don’t know, maybe that was part of the thrill.”

“We’re not interested in your private life. Just in what you know about Nona Swope.”

“But if it leads somewhere and ends up in court I’m gonna be subpoenaed, right?”

“Could happen,” admitted Milo, “but we’re a long way from that. Right now we just want to find Nona and her parents so we can save a little boy’s life.”

The detective went on in great detail about Woody’s lymphoma. He’d retained everything I told him and was throwing it back in Carmichael’s handsome face. The blond man tried hard not to listen but failed. He took all of it in, obviously pained. He seemed a sensitive one and I found myself liking him.

“Jesus. She told me she had a sick brother but she never said how sick.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“Not much. Really. She didn’t say much about anything. Talked about wanting to be an actress — the usual delusional stuff you hear from most of the girls. But she didn’t seem depressed like you’d expect with a brother that sick.”

Milo changed the subject.

“What kind of gigs did you two do?”

Returning to the topic of his work made Carmichael anxious again. He tangled his fingers together and twisted. Knots rose on the heavy arms.

“Maybe I should get an attorney before we go any further.”

“Suit yourself,” said Milo, pointing to the phone.

Carmichael sighed and shook his head. “No. That would only complicate things even more. Listen, I can give you some insights into Nona’s personality if that’s what you’re after.”

“It would help.”

“But that’s all I’ve got. Insights, no facts. How about you forget where you got them from?”

“Doug,” said Milo, “we know who your father is and we know all about the bust, so stop dancing around, okay?”

Carmichael looked like a stallion in a burning stable, ready to bolt despite the consequences.

“Don’t panic,” said Milo. “We couldn’t care less about that stuff.”

“I’m not some kind of pervert,” Carmichael insisted. “If you traced me that far back you know how it happened.”

“Sure. You were a dancer at Lancelot’s. After the show one of the ladies in the audience picked you up. Sex for money was discussed and she busted you.”

“She entrapped me. The cunt!”

Lancelot’s was a male stripper joint in west L.A. catering to women who thought liberation meant aping the crudest aspects of male behavior. The club had long been the object of neighborhood complaints and a couple of years back the police and the fire inspectors had paid it lots of attention. A harassment suit by the owner had ended that.

Milo shrugged. “Anyway, daddy got you off, the file was closed, and you promised to behave yourself.”

“Yeah,” said Carmichael, bitterly. “End of story, right? Only it wasn’t that simple.” The blue eyes burned. “Dad commandeered my trust fund — money left to me by my mom. It was illegal, I’m sure of it, but the lawyer in charge of the trust is one of Dad’s California Club buddies and before I knew it the old man had all of it under his control. And me by the balls. It was like being a kid again, having to ask permission for everything. He forced me to go to school, said I had to make something of myself. Christ, I’m thirty-six and I’m in junior college! If I get good grades there’ll be a place for me at Carmichael Oil. What a crock. Nothing’s gonna change me into someone I’m not. What the hell does he want from me?”

He looked at us beseechingly, wanting support. My instinct was to give it to him but this wasn’t therapy. Milo let him cool down before he spoke.

“And if he finds out about your current job, kaput, eh?”

“Shit.” Carmichael stroked his beard. “I can’t help it. I like doing that kind of thing. God gave me a great body and a great face and I get off on sharing it with other people. It’s like acting but private, so it’s better, more intimate. When I used to dance I could feel the women’s eyes on me. I played to them, treated them good. I wanted them to cream right there. It felt so — loving.”

“I told this to your boss and I’ll tell it to you,” said Milo, “we don’t give a damn who fucks who in this city. It only becomes a problem when people get cut or shot or strangled in the process.”

Carmichael didn’t seem to have heard.

“I mean it’s not like I’m hooking or anything,” he insisted. “I don’t need the money — in a good week I pull in six, maybe seven hundred bucks.” He dismissed that kind of money with a wave of his hand, operating from the distorted value system of one born into wealth.

“Doug,” said Milo, with authority in his voice, “stop defending yourself and listen: we don’t care about what you do with your dick. Your file will stay sealed. Just tell us about Nona.”

The message finally got through. The look on Carmichael’s face was that of a child who’d received an unexpected gift. I realized that I kept thinking of him as a big kid because, except for the manly outer husk, everything about him was childlike, immature. A classic case of arrested development.

“She was a barracuda,” he said. “You had to hold her back or she got too aggressive. The last time we worked together was a stag party for an older guy who was getting married for the second time. A bunch of middle-aged men, salesman types, in this apartment in Canoga Park. They’d been drinking hard and watching fuck films before we got there. We were doing jock and cheerleader that night. I had on a football uniform and she was wearing a jersey top, a little pleated skirt, and sneakers. Pompons, her hair in pigtails, the works.

“Those guys were harmless old farts. Before we got there they’d probably been talking big, hooting at the movies like guys do when they’re nervous. Then we walked in, they saw her, and I thought a few hearts were gonna give out. She wiggled at ’em, batted her lashes, showed a lot of tongue. We had the skit all planned out but she decided to ad lib. The script says we do a little minor league fondling while trading suggestive lines — you know stuff like I ask her how she’d like to be my wide receiver and she says ‘Do it again, we like it, we like it!’ She was a lousy actress, by the way, real flat, no emotion. But the audiences seemed to dig her — her looks made up for it, I guess. Anyway, these old guys were eating it up and she got off on it. That’s probably what gave her the idea of getting really outrageous.

“All of a sudden she reached into my pants, grabbed my cock, did a bump and grind, started jerking me off, all the time gyrating at them. I wanted to stop her — we’re not supposed to go past the script unless we’re asked to.” He stopped, looked uncomfortable. “And paid to. But I couldn’t do it because it would have ruined the skit and been a downer for all those old guys.

“They were staring at her and she was groping me and I was smiling through it all. Then she let go and waltzed over to the guy who was getting hitched — pudgy little fellow with big eyeglasses — and slipped her hand down his pants. Everything got real quiet then. He was red as a beet but he couldn’t say anything cause it woulda made him look like a wimp in front of his friends. He got a sick look on his face, forced himself to smile. She started tonguing his ear, kept yanking his chain. The other guys started to laugh. To relieve their tension. Soon they were yelling out lewd comments. Nona was high, like she was really getting off on groping the poor sucker.

“Finally I was able to ease her away without it looking like a hassle. We got out of there and I yelled at her in the car. She looked at me like I was nuts, said what was the matter, we got a big tip, didn’t we. I could see it was no use talking to her so I gave up. We got on the freeway. I was driving fast because I couldn’t wait to get away from her. Then all of a sudden I felt her pulling at my zipper. Before I know it, my cock is out and she’s got it in her mouth. We’re going seventy and she’s sucking me off and telling me to admit it, I love it. I was helpless, just praying the highway patrol wouldn’t pull us over — that would be my balls, right? I asked her to stop but she had me and she wouldn’t let go until she finished me off.”

“The next day I complained to Rambo, insisted I wouldn’t work with her anymore. She just laughed, said Nona would be great in films. Later I found out she’d left, just walked out.”

Telling the story had made him sweat. He excused himself, went to the bathroom, and came back freshly combed and sprayed and smelling of aftershave. Milo started questioning before he sat back down.

“And you have no idea where she went?”

Carmichael shook his head.

“She ever talk about anything personal?”

“Nope. There was nothing personal about her. She was all on the surface.”

“No hint where she might be headed?”

“She never even said where she came from. Like I told you, we did three or four gigs, then she split.”

“How’d she connect with Adam and Eve?”

“No idea. Everyone gets into it differently. Rambo called me after she caught my act at Lancelot’s. Some find out by word of mouth. She runs ads in the underground papers and skin mags. Gets more applications than she wants.”

“All right, Doug,” said Milo, standing, “I hope you’ve been straight with us.”

“I really have, Detective. Please don’t pull me into this.”

“I’ll do the best I can.”

We left. Back in the car Milo checked in with the dispatcher. There were no important messages.

“So what’s the diagnosis on Surfer Boy?” he asked.

“Off the cuff? Personality problems, probably narcissistic.”

“Which means?”

“That he’s got low self-esteem and it expresses itself in self-obsession — muscles, vitamins, constant attention paid to his body.”

“Sounds like half of L.A.,” he growled and turned on the ignition. As we pulled away, Carmichael came out of his house in swim trunks carrying a surfboard, a towel, and tanning lotion. He saw us, smiled, waved, and headed toward the beach.

Milo parked in a no parking zone near the entrance to Western Peds. “I hate hospitals,” he said, as we boarded the elevator and rode up to the fifth floor. It took a while to locate Valcroix. He was examining a patient and we waited for him in a small conference room off the ward.

He came in fifteen minutes later, gave me a disgusted look, and told Milo to hurry, he was busy. When the detective began talking, he made a show of pulling out a medical chart, perusing it, and writing notes.

Milo’s a skilled interrogator but he struck out with the Canadian. Valcroix continued to chart, unflustered, as the detective confronted him with knowing the Touch visitors and his affair with Nona Swope.

“Are you through, Officer?”

“For the time being, Doctor.”

“What am I supposed to do, defend myself?”

“You might start by explaining your role in the disappearance.”

“That will be quite simple. There is none.”

“No collaboration between you and the couple from the Touch?”

“Absolutely not. I visited them once. That’s the extent of it.”

“What was the purpose of your visit?”

“Educational. I’m interested in communal societies.”

“Did you learn much, Doctor?”

Valcroix smiled.

“It was a peaceful place. They have no need for policemen.”

“What were the names of the people who visited the Swopes?”

“The man was called Baron, the woman, Delilah.”

“Surnames?”

“They don’t use them.”

“And you’ve only visited the Touch once or twice.”

“Once.”

“All right. We’ll be verifying that.”

“Feel free.”

Milo fixed him with a hard stare. The Fellow smiled contemptuously.

“Did Nona Swope tell you anything that would lead us to her family’s whereabouts?”

“We didn’t talk much. We just fucked.”

“Doctor, I suggest you rethink your attitude.”

“Oh really?” The squinty eyes became hyphens. “You interrupt my work to ask me stupid questions about my personal life and expect me to have a good attitude?”

“In your case personal and professional seem pretty enmeshed.”

“How insightful of you to notice.”

“Is that all you have to say, Doctor?”

“What more would you like to hear? That I like to fuck women? All right. I do. I crave it. I’m going to fuck as many women as I can in this life and if there’s a life thereafter I hope it will provide an endless chain of warm, willing women so I can keep fucking. Last I heard, fucking was no crime, or have they passed a new law in America?”

“Go back to work, Doctor.”

Valcroix gathered his charts and left, dreamy-eyed.

“What an asshole,” said Milo walking back to the car. “I wouldn’t let him near my hangnail.” There was an illegal parking warning from Hospital Security taped on the windshield. He ripped it off and put it in his pocket. “I hope he’s not typical of what they’re passing off as doctors nowadays.”

“He’s one of a kind. He won’t last much longer here.”

We headed west on Sunset.

“You going to check out his story?” I asked.

“I could ask the Touch people how well they know him but if there is some kind of conspiracy they’d lie. Best thing is to call the sheriff down there and find out if the joker’s been spotted more than once. Small town like that the law tends to notice things.”

“I know someone who might be familiar with the Touch. Want me to call him?”

“Why not? Couldn’t hurt.”

He drove me home and stayed for a minute to look at the koi. He was transfixed by the colorful fish and smiled as they gobbled down the pellets he tossed them. When he tore himself away to leave, his big body seemed heavy and slow.

“Any longer, I’d stay here till my beard turned white.”

We shook hands, he gave a little salute, turned and ambled off for another afternoon of witnessing the human animal at its worst.