When The Bough Breaks

11

"All right," said Milo. We were sitting in an interrogation room at West L.A. Division. The walls were pea-green paint and one-way mirrors. A microphone hung from the ceiling. The furniture consisted of a gray metal table and three metal folding chairs. There was a stale odor of sweat and falsehood and fear in the air, the stink of diminished human dignity.

He had fanned out the folders on the table and picked up the first one with a flourish.

"Here's the way your nine bad guys shape up. Number one, Rex Alien Camblin, incarcerated at Soledad, assault and battery." He let the folder drop.

"Number two, Peter Lewis Jefferson, working on a ranch in Wyoming. Presence verified."

"Pity the poor cattle."

"That's a fact — he looked like a likely one. Number three, Darwin Ward — you'll never believe this — attending law school, Pennsylvania State University."

"A psychopathic attorney — not all that amazing, really."

Milo chuckled and picked up the next folder.

"Numero cuatro — uh — Leonard Jay Helsinger, working construction on the Alaska pipeline. Location likewise confirmed by Juneau P.D. Five, Michael Penn, student at Cal State Northridge. Him we talk to." He put Penn's file aside. "Six, Lance Arthur Shattuck, short-order cook on the Cunard Line luxury cruiser Helena, verified by the Coast Guard to have been floating around in the middle of the Aegean Sea somewhere for the past six weeks. Seven, Maurice Bruno, sales representative for Presto Instant Print in Burbank — another interviewee." Bruno's file went on top of Penn's.

"Eight, Roy Longstreth, pharmacist for Thrifty's Drug chain, Beverly Hills branch. Another one. And — last but not least — Gerard Paul Mendenhall, Corporal, United States Army, Tyler, Texas, presence verified."

Beverly Hills was closer than either Northridge or Burbank, so we headed for Thrifty's. The Beverly Hills branch turned out to be a brick-and-glass cube on Canon Drive just north of Wilshire. It shared a block with trendy boutiques and a Haagen Dazs ice-cream parlor.

Milo showed his badge surreptitiously to the girl behind the liquor counter and got the manager, a light skinned middle-aged black, in seconds flat. The manager got nervous and wanted to know if Longstreth had done anything wrong. In classic cop style, Milo hedged.

"We just want to ask him a few questions."

I had trouble keeping a straight face through that one, but the cliche seemed to satisfy the manager.

"He's not here now. He comes on at two-thirty, works the night shift."

"We'll be back. Please don't tell him we were here."

Milo gave him his card. When we left he was studying it like a map to buried treasure.

The ride to Northridge was a half-hour cruise on the Ventura Freeway West. When we got to the Cal State campus, we headed straight for the registrar's office. Milo obtained a copy of Michael Penn's class schedule. Armed with that and his mug shot, we located him in twenty minutes, walking across a wide, grassy triangle accompanied by a girl.

"Mr. Penn?"

"Yes?" He was a good-looking fellow, medium height, with broad shoulders and long legs. His light brown hair was cut preppy short. He wore a light blue Izod shirt and blue jeans, penny loafers with no socks. I knew from his file that he was twenty-six but he looked five years younger. He had a pleasant, unlined face, a real All-American type. He didn't look like the kind of guy who'd try to run someone down with a Pontiac Firebird.

"Police." Again, the badge. "We'd like to talk to you for a few moments."

"What about?" The hazel eyes narrowed and the mouth got tight.

"We'd prefer to talk to you in private."

Penn looked at the girl. She was young, no more than nineteen, short, dark, with a Dorothy Hamill wedge cut.

"Give me a minute, Julie." He chucked her under the chin.

"Mike?.."

"Just a minute."

We left her standing there and walked to a concrete area furnished with stone tables and benches. Students moved by as if on a treadmill. There was little standing around. This was a commuter campus. Many of the students worked part-time jobs and squeezed classes in during their spare time. It was a good place to get your B.A. in computer science or business, a teaching credential or a master's in accounting. If you wanted fun or leisurely intellectual debates in the shade of an ivy-encrusted oak, forget it.

Michael Penn looked furious but he was working hard at concealing it.

"What do you want?"

"When's the last time you saw Dr. Morton Handler?"

Penn threw back his head and laughed. It was a disturbingly hollow sound.

"That asshole? I read about his death. No loss."

"When did you see him last?"

Penn was smirking now.

"Years ago, officer." He made the title sound like an insult. "When I was in therapy."

"I take it you didn't think much of him."

"Handler? He was a shrink." As if that explained it.

"You don't think much of psychiatrists."

Penn held out his hands, palms up.

"Hey listen. That whole thing was a big mistake. I lost control of my car and some paranoid idiot claimed I tried to kill him with it. They busted me, railroaded me and then they offered me probation if I saw a shrink. Gave me all those garbage tests."

Those garbage tests included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and a handful of project ives. Though far from perfect, they were reliable enough when it came to someone like Penn. I had read his MMPI profile and psychopathy oozed from every index.

"You didn't like Dr. Handler?"

"Don't put words in my mouth." Penn lowered his voice. He moved his eyes back and forth, restless, jumpy. Behind the handsome face was something dark and dangerous. Handler hadn't misdiagnosed this one.

"You did like him." Milo played with him like a gaffed stingray.

"I didn't like him or dislike him. I had no use for him. I'm not crazy. And I didn't kill him."

"You can account for your whereabouts the night he was murdered?"

"When was that?"

Milo gave him the date and time.

Penn cracked his knuckles and looked through us as if zeroing in on a distant target.

"Sure. That entire night I was with my girl."

"Julie?"

Penn laughed.

"Her? No I've got a mature woman, officer. A woman of means." His brow creased and his expression changed from smug to sour. "You're going to have to talk to her, aren't you?"

Milo nodded his head.

"That'll screw things up for me."

"Gee, Mike, that's really too bad."

Penn threw him a hateful look, then changed it to bland innocence. He could play his face like a deck of cards, shuffling, palming from the bottom, coming up with a new number every second.

"Listen, officer, that whole incident is behind me. I'm holding down a job, going to school — I'm getting my degree in six months. I don't want to get messed up because my name's in Handler's files."

He sounded like Wally on "Leave It to Beaver" — all earnest innocence. Gosh, Beave… "We'll have to verify your alibi, Mike."

"Okay, okay, do it. Just don't tell her too much, okay? Keep it general."

Keep it general so I can fabricate something. You could see the gears spinning behind the high, tan forehead.

"Sure, Mike." Milo took his pencil out and tapped it on his lips.

"Sonya Magary. She owns the Puff'n'Stuff Children's Boutique in the Plaza de Oro in Encino."

"Have you got the number handy?" Milo asked pleasantly.

Penn clenched his jaws and gave it to him.

"We'll call her, Mike. Don't you call her first, okay? We treasure spontaneity." Milo put away his pencil and closed his notepad. "Have a nice day, now."

Penn looked from me to Milo, then back to me, as if seeking an ally. Then he got up and walked away in long, muscular strides.

"Oh, Mike!" Milo called.

Penn turned around.

"What are you getting your degree in?"

"Marketing."

As we left the campus we could see him walking with Julie. Her head was on his shoulder, his arm around her waist. He was smiling down on her and talking very fast.

"What do you think?" Milo asked as he settled behind the wheel.

"I think he's innocent as far as this case goes, but I'll bet you he's got some kind of dirty deal going on. He was really relieved when he found out what we were there for."

Milo nodded.

"I agree. But what the hell — that's someone else's headache."

We got back on the freeway, heading east. We exited in Sherman Oaks, found a little French place on Ventura near Woodman and had lunch. Milo used the pay phone to call Sonya Magary. He came back to the table, shaking his head.

"She loves him. 'That dear boy, that sweet boy, I hope he's not in trouble.'" He imitated a thick Hungarian accent. "She verifies he was with her on the fateful night. Sounds proud of it. I expected her to tell me about their sex life — in Technicolor."

He shook his head and buried his face in a plate of steamed mussels.

We caught up with Roy Longstreth as he got out of his Toyota in the Thrifty's parking lot. He was short and frail-looking, with watery blue eyes and an undernourished chin. Prematurely bald, what little hair he did have was on the sides; he had left it long, hanging down over his ears, so that the general effect was of a friar who'd been meditating too long and had neglected his personal grooming. A mousy brown mustache snuck across his upper lip. He had none of Penn's bravado but there was that same jumpiness in the eyes.

"Yes, what do you want?" He piped up in a squeaky voice after Milo gave him the badge routine. He looked at his watch.

When Milo told him, he looked as if he were going to cry. Uncharacteristic anxiety for a supposed psychopath. Unless the whole thing was an act. You never knew the tricks those types could come up with when they had to.

"When I read about it I just knew you'd come after me." The insignificant mustache trembled like a twig in a storm.

"Why's that, Roy?"

"Because of the things he said about me. He told my mother I was a psychopath. Told her not to trust me. I'm probably on some whacko list, right?"

"Can you account for your whereabouts the night he was killed?"

"Yes. That's the first thing I thought of when I read about it — they're going to come and ask me questions about it. I made sure I knew. I even wrote it down. Wrote a note to myself. Roy, you were at church that night. So when they come and ask you, you'll know where you were—"

He could have gone on that way for a couple of days but Milo cut him off.

"Church? You're a religious man, Roy?"

Longstreth gave a laugh that was choked with panic.

"No, no. Not praying. The Westside Singles group at Bel Air Presbyterian — it's the same place Ronald Reagan used to go to."

"The singles group?"

"No, no, no. The church. He used to worship there before he was elected and—"

"Okay, Ron. You were at the Westside Singles group from when to when?"

The sight of Milo taking notes made him even more nervous. He began bouncing up and down, a marionette at the hands of a palsied puppeteer.

"From nine to one-thirty — I stayed to the end. I helped clean up. I can tell you what they served. It was guacamole and nachos and there was Gallo jug wine and shrimp dip and—"

"Of course there'll be lots of people who saw you there."

"Sure," he said, then stopped. "I — I didn't really mingle much. I helped out, tending bar. I saw lots of people but I don't know if any of them will-remember me." His voice had quieted to a whisper.

"That could be a problem, Roy."

"Unless — no — yes — Mrs. Heatherington. She's an older woman. She volunteers at church functions. She was cleaning up, too. And serving. I spent a lot of time talking to her — I can even tell you what we talked about. It was about collectibles — she collects Norman Rockwells and I collect Icarts."

"Icarts?"

"You know, the Art Deco prints."

The works of Louis Icart went for high prices these days. I wondered how a pharmacist could afford them.

"Mother gave me one when I was sixteen and they—" he searched for the right word — "captivated me. She gives them to me on my birthday and I pick up a few myself. Dr. Handler collected them, too, you know. That—" he let his words trail off.

"Oh, really? Did he show you his collection?"

Longstreth shook his head energetically.

"No. He had one in his office. I noticed it and we started talking. But he used it against me later on."

"How's that?"

"After the evaluation — you know I was sent to him by the court after I was caught—" he looked nervously at the Thrifty's building — "shoplifting." Tears filled his eyes. "For God's sake, I took a tube of rubber cement at Sears and they caught me! I thought Mother would die from the shame. And I worried the School of Pharmacy would find out — it was horrible!"

"How did he use the fact that you collected Icarts against you?" asked Milo patiently.

"He kind of implied, never came out and said it, but phrased it so you knew what he meant but he couldn't be pinned down."

"Implied what, Roy?"

"That he could be bought off. That if I bribed him with an Icart or two — he even mentioned the ones he liked — he would write a favorable report."

"Did you?"

"What? Bribe him? Not on your life. That would be dishonest!"

"And did he press the issue?"

Longstreth picked at his fingernails.

"Like I said, not so you could pin him down. He just said that I was a borderline case — psychopathic personality, or something less stigmatizing — anxiety reaction or something like that — that I could go either way. In the end he told Mother I was a psychopath."

The wan face screwed up with rage.

"I'm glad he's dead! There, I've said it! It's what I thought the first time I read about it in the paper."

"But you didn't do it."

"Of course not. I couldn't. I run from evil, I don't embrace it!"

"We'll talk to Mrs. Heatherington, Roy."

"Yes. Ask her about the nachos and the wine — I believe it was Gallo Hearty Burgundy. And there was fruit punch with slices of orange floating in it, too. In a cut glass bowl. And one of the women got sick on the floor at the end. I helped mop it up—"

"Thanks, Roy. You can go now."

"Yes. I will."

He turned around like a robot, a thin figure in a short blue druggist's smock, and walked into Thrifty's.

"He's dispensing drugs?" I asked, incredulous.

"If he's not in some whacko file he should be." Milo pocketed his notepad and we walked to the car. "He look like a psychopath to you?"

"Not unless he's the best actor on the face of the earth. Schizoid, withdrawn. Pre-schizophrenic, if anything."

"Dangerous?"

"Who knows? Put him up against enough stress and he might blow. But I'd judge him more likely to go the hermit route — curl up in bed, play with himself, wither, stay that way for a decade or two while Mommy propped his pillows."

"If that story about the Icarts is true it sheds some light on our beloved victim."

"Handler? A real Dr. Schweitzer."

"Yeah," said Milo. "The kind of guy someone might want dead."

We got on Coldwater Canyon before it clogged with the cars of commuters returning to their homes in the Valley, and made it to Burbank by half past four.

Presto Instant Print was one of scores of gray concrete edifices that filled the industrial park near the Burbank airport like so many oversized tombstones. The air smelled toxic and the flatulent roar of jets shattered the sky at regular intervals. I wondered about the life expectancy of those who spent their daylight hours here.

Maurice Bruno had come up in the world since his file had been compiled. He was now a vice-president, in charge of sales. He was also unavailable, we were told by his secretary, a lissome brunette with arched eyebrows and a mouth meant for saying no.

"Then give me his boss," barked Milo. He shoved his badge under her nose. We were both hot and tired and discouraged. The last place we wanted to be stalled was Burbank.

"That would be Mr. Gershman," she said as if discovering some new insight.

"Then that would be who I want to talk to."

"Just one second."

She wiggled off and came back with her clone in a blond wig.

"I'm Mr. Gershman's secretary," the clone announced.

It must be the poison in the air, I decided. It caused brain damage, eroded the cerebral cortex to the point where simple facts took on an aura of profundity.

Milo took a deep breath.

"We'd like to talk with Mr. Gershman."

"May I inquire what it's about?"

"No, you may not. Bring us to Gershman now."

"Yes, sir." The two secretaries looked at each other. Then the brunette pushed a buzzer and the blonde led us through double glass doors into an enormous production area filled with machines that chomped, stamped, bit, snarled, and smeared. A few people hung around the periphery of the rabid steel monsters, dull-eyed, loose-jawed, breathing in fumes that reeked of alcohol and acetone. The noise, alone, was enough to kill you.

She made a sudden left, probably hoping to lose us to the maws of one of the behemoths, but we hung on, following the movement of her swaying butt until we came to another set of double doors. These she pushed and let go, forcing Milo to fall forward to catch them. A short corridor, another set of doors, and we were confronted by silence so complete as to be overwhelming.

The executive suite at Presto Instant Print might have been on another planet. Plush, plum-colored carpets that you had to bargain with in order to reclaim your ankles, walls paneled in real walnut. Large doors of walnut burl with names made of brass letters tastefully centered on the wood. And silence.

The blonde stopped at the end of the hall, in front of an especially large door with especially tasteful gold letters that said Arthur M. Gershman, President. She let us into a waiting room the size of an average house, motioned us to sit in chairs that looked and felt like unbaked bread dough. Settling behind her desk, a contraption of plexiglass and rosewood that afforded the world a perfect view of her legs, she pushed a button on a console that belonged at NASA Control Center, moved her lips a bit, nodded, and stood up again.

"Mr. Gershman will see you now."

The inner sanctum was as expected — the size of a cathedral, decorated like something conceived in the pages of Architectural Digest, softly lit and comfortable but hard-edged enough to keep you awake — but the man behind the desk was a complete surprise.

He wore khaki pants and a short-sleeved white shirt that needed ironing. His feet were clad in Hush Puppies and since they were on the desk the holes in their soles were obvious. He was in his mid-seventies, bald, bespectacled, with one of the sidepieces of his glasses held together with masking tape, and potbellied.

He was talking on the phone when we came in.

"Hold the wire, Lenny." He looked up. "Thanks, Denise." The blonde disappeared. To us: "One second. Sit down, fix something." He pointed to a fully stocked bar that covered half of one wall.

"Okay, Lenny, I got cops here, gotta go. Yeah, cops. I don't know, you wanna ask 'em? Ha ha. Yeah, I'll tell 'em that for sure, you momzer. I'll tell 'em what you did in Palm Springs the last time we were there. Yeah. Okay, the Sahara job in lots of three hundred thousand with coasters and matchbooks — not boxes, books. I got it. I give you delivery in two weeks. What? Forget it." He winked at us. "Go ahead, go to someone local, see if I care. I got maybe one, two more months before I drop dead from this business — you think I care if an order drops dead? It's all gonna go to Uncle Sam and Shirley and my prince of a son who drives a German car. Nah, nah. A BMW. With my money. Yeah. What can you do, it's out of control. Ten days?" He made a masturbating motion with his free hand and beamed at us. "You're jerking off, Lenny. At least close the door, no one will see. Twelve days, tops. Okay? Twelve it is. Right. Gotta go, these cossacks are going to drag me away any minute. Goodbye."

The phone slammed down, the man shot up like an uncoiled spring.

"Artie Gershman."

He held out an ink-stained hand. Milo shook it, then I did. It was as hard as granite and horned with callus.

He sat down again, threw his feet back up on the desk.

"Sorry for the delay." He had the joviality of someone who was surrounded by enough automatons like Denise to ensure his privacy. "You deal with casinos they think they got a right to instant everything. That's the mob, you know — but what the hell am I telling you that, you're cops, you know that, right? Now, what can I do for you, officers? The parking situation I know is a problem. If it's that bastard at Chemco next door complaining, all I want to say is he can go straight to hell in a handbasket, because his Mexican ladies park in my lot all the time you should also check how many of them are legal — if he wants to get really nasty, I can play that game too."

He paused to catch his breath.

"It's not about parking."

"No? What then?"

"We want to talk to Maurice Bruno."

"Morry? Morry's in Vegas. We do a lot of our business there, with the casinos, the motels and hotels. Here." He opened a drawer of the desk and tossed a handful of matchbooks at us. Most of the big names were represented.

Milo pocketed a few.

"When will he be back?"

"In a few days. He went on a selling trip two weeks ago, first to Tahoe, then Reno, end up in Vegas — probably playing around a bit on company time, not to mention the expense account — but who cares, he's a terrific salesman."

"I thought he was a vice-president."

"Vice-president in charge of sales. It's a salesman with a fancy title, a bigger salary, a nicer office — what do you think of this place — looks like some fag fixed it up, right?"

I searched Milo's face for a reaction, found none.

"My wife. She did this herself. This place used to be nice. There was papers all over the place, a couple of chairs, white walls — normal walls so you could hear the noise from the plant, know something was going on. This feels like death, you know. That's what I get for taking a second wife. A first wife leaves you alone, a second one wants to make you into a new person."

"Are you sure Mr. Bruno's in Las Vegas?"

"Why shouldn't I be sure? Where else would he go?"

"How long has Mr. Bruno been working for you, Mr. Gershman?"

"Hey, what's this — this isn't child support or something like that?"

"No. We just want to talk to him about a homicide investigation we're conducting."

"Homicide?" Gershman shot out of his chair. "Murder? Morry Bruno? You got to be kidding. He's a gem of a guy!" A gem who had been excellent at passing rubber checks.

"How long has he been working for you, sir?"

"Let me see — a year and a half, maybe two."

"And you've had no problem with him?"

"Problem? I tell you he's a gem. Knew nothing about the business, but I hired him on hunch. Hell of a salesman. Outsold all the other guys — even the oldtimers — by the fourth month. Reliable, friendly, never a problem."

"You mentioned child support. Mr. Bruno's divorced?"

"Divorced," said Gershman sadly. "Like everyone. Including my son. They give up too easily nowadays."

"Does he have family here in Los Angeles?"

"Nah. The wife, kids — three of 'em, I think — they moved back east. Pittsburgh, or Cleveland, some place with no ocean. He missed 'em, talked about it. That's why he volunteered at the Casa."

"Casa?"

"That kids' place, up in Malibu. Morry used to spend his weekends there, volunteering with the kids. He got a certificate. C'mon, I'll show you."

Bruno's office was a quarter the size of Gersh man's, but decked out in the same eclectically elegant style. The place was neat as a pin, not surprising, since Bruno spent most of his time on the road.

Gershman pointed to a framed plaque that shared wall space with a half-dozen Number One Salesman commendations.

"You see — jawarded to Maurice Bruno in recognition of voluntary service to the homeless children of La Casa de los Nines' blah blah blah. I told you he was a gem."

The certificate was signed by the Mayor, as honorary witness, and by the director of the children's home, a Reverend Augustus J. McCaffrey. It was all calligraphy and floral intaglio. Very impressive.

"Very nice," said Milo. "Do you know what hotel Mr. Bruno was staying at?"

"He used to stay at the MGM, but after the fire, I don't know. Let's go back to the office and find out."

Back in Office Beautiful, Gershman picked up the telephone, punched the intercom and barked into the receiver.

"Denise, where's Morry staying in Vegas? Do that."

A half-minute later the intercom buzzed.

"Yeah? Good. Thanks, darling." He turned to us. "The Palace."

"Caesar's Palace?"

"Yeah. You want me to call there, you can talk to him?"

"If you don't mind, sir. We'll charge it to the Police Department."

"Nah!" Gershman waved his hand. "On me. Denise, call Caesar's Palace, get Morry on the phone. He's not there, leave him a message to call—"

"Detective Sturgis. West L.A. Division."

Gershman completed the instructions.

"You're not thinking about Morry as a suspect, are you?" he asked when he got off the phone. "This is a witness thing, right?"

"We really can't say anything about it, Mr. Gershman." Milo paid lip service to discretion.

"I can't believe it!" Gershman slapped his head with his hand. "You think Morry's a murderer! A guy who works with kids on the weekend — a guy who never had a cross word with anybody here — go ask around, I give you permission. You find someone who has a bad word to say about Morry Bruno, I'll eat this desk!"

He was interrupted by the intercom buzzer.

"Yes, Denise. What's that? You're sure? Maybe it was a mistake. Check again. And then call the Aladdin, the Sands, maybe he changed his mind."

The old man's face was solemn when he hung up.

"He's not at the Palace." He said it with the sadness and fear of someone about to be torn from the comforting warmth of his preconceptions.

Maurice Bruno wasn't at the Aladdin or the Sands or any other major hotel in Las Vegas. Additional calls from Gershman's office revealed the fact that none of the airlines had a record of him flying from L.A. to Vegas.

"I'd like his home address and phone number, please."

"Denise will give it to you," said Gershman. We left him sitting alone in his big office, grizzled chin resting in his hands, frowning like a battered old bison who'd spent too many years at the zoo.

Bruno lived in Glendale, normally a ten-minute drive from the Presto plant, but it was 6 p.m." there had been an accident just west of the Hollywood — Golden State interchange, and the freeway was stagnant all the way from Burbank to Pasadena. By the time we exited on Brand, it was dark and both of us were in foul moods.

Milo turned north and headed toward the mountains. Bruno's house was on Armelita, a side street half a mile from where the boulevard ended. It was situated at the end of a cul-de-sac, a small, one-story mock Tudor fronted by a neat, square lawn, yew hedges and sprigs of juniper stuffed in the empty spaces. Two large arborvitae bushes guarded the entrance. It wasn't the kind of place I would have imagined for a Vegas-haunting bachelor. Then I remembered what Gershman had said about the divorce. No doubt this was the homestead left behind by the fleeing wife and children.

Milo rang the doorbell a couple of times, then he knocked hard. When no one answered he went to the car and called the Glendale police. Ten minutes later a squad car pulled up and two uniformed officers got out. Both were tall, beefy and sandy-haired and wore bushy, bristly, mustaches under their noses. They came over with that swagger unique to cops and drunks trying hard to look sober, and conferred with Milo. Then they got on their radio.

The street was quiet and devoid of visible human habitation. It stayed that way as the three additional squad cars and the unmarked Dodge drove up and parked. There was a brief conference that resembled a football huddle and then guns were drawn. Milo rang the bell again, waited a minute and then kicked the door in. The assault was on.

I stayed outside, watching, waiting. Soon the sound of gagging and retching could be heard. Then cops began running out of the house, spilling out on the lawn, their hands to their noses, an action sequence in reverse. One particularly stalwart patrolman busied himself puking into the junipers. When it appeared that they'd all retreated, Milo came to the door, a handkerchief held over his nose and mouth. His eyes were visible and they made contact with me. They gave me a choice.

Against my better judgment I pulled out my own handkerchief, masked the lower part of my face and went in.

The thin cotton was scant defense against the hot stench that rose up against me as I stepped across the threshold. It was as if raw sewage and swamp gas had blended into a bubbling, swirling soup, then vaporized and sprayed into the air.

My eyes watering, I fought the urge to vomit, and followed Milo's advancing silhouette into the kitchen.

He was sitting there at a Formica table. The bottom part of him, the part in clothing, still looked human. The sky-blue salesman's suit, the maize-colored button-down shirt with blue silk foulard. The dandy's touches — the breast pocket hankie, the shoes with tiny tassles, the gold bracelet that hung around a wrist teeming with maggots.

From the neck up he was something the pathologists threw out. It looked as if he'd been worked over with a crowbar — the entire front part of what used to be his face was caved in — but it was really impossible to know what the swollen bloody lump attached to his shoulders had been subjected to, so advanced was the state of decay.

Milo began throwing open windows and I realized that the house felt as hot as a blast furnace, fueled by the hydrocarbons emitted by decomposing organic matter. A quick answer to the energy crisis: Save kilowatts, kill a friend…

I couldn't take any more. I ran for the door, gasping and flung away the handkerchief when I reached the outdoors. I gulped hungrily at the cool night air. My hands shook.

There was lots of excitement on the block now. Neighbors — men, women and children — had come out of their castles, pausing in the middle of the evening news, interrupting their defrosted feasts to gawk at the blinking crimson lights and listen to the stuttering radio static of the squad car, staring at the coroner's van that had pulled up to the curb with the cold authority of a parading despot. A few kids rode their bikes up and down the street. Mumbling voices took on the sound of ravaging locusts. A dog barked. Welcome to suburbia.

I wondered where they'd all been when someone had gotten into Bruno's house, battered him into jelly, closed all the windows and left him to rot.

Milo finally came out, looking green. He sat on the front steps and hung his head between his knees. Then he got up and called the attendants from the coroner's office over. They had come prepared, with gas masks and rubber gloves. They went in with an empty stretcher and came out carrying something wrapped in a black plastic sheath.

"Ugh. Gross," said a teenage girl to her friend.

It was as eloquent a way to put it as any.