L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

Author:Robert Crais
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Los Angeles (Calif.), Private investigators, Murder, Mystery & Detective, Ex-police officers, Political, Revenge, Hard-Boiled, Fiction, Suspense, Private investigators - California - Los Angeles, Mystery fiction, General, Elvis (Fictitious character), Cole
ISBN: 9780345434470
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2000-02-01T11:26:33.084127+00:00

Three days later Daryl Haines scowled at the envelope and said, “Fuck this shit.”

It was five minutes before 8 P.M. at the Shell station. Daryl was sitting on the hard chair he kept out front by the Coke machine, leaning back the way he did, snug in his down jacket, but pissed off about the letter. It was a notice from the goddamned Army to report for his induction physical.

Daryl Haines, eighteen years old and without the luxury of a college deferment, was 1-A infantry material. He had to take the bus down to the city this Saturday just to have his ass poked and prodded by some faggot Army doctor so they could ship him over to Vietnam.

Daryl said, “This sucks.”

Maybe he should join the Air Force.

Daryl's older brother, Todd, was already over there. He had a cushy job working on trucks at an air base near Saigon and said it wasn't so bad. You got to screw around a lot, smoke all the pot you wanted, and fuck good-lookin' gook women for twenty-five cents a throw. His brother made it sound like goddamned Disneyland, but Daryl figured with his rotten luck he'd probably have to carry a gun and get shot.

“Fuck.”

At eight o'clock, Daryl shut the lights, turned off the pumps, locked the station, and headed down the street, wishing he could stop in a bar. Eighteen years old being old enough to kill gooks, but not old enough to down a beer when you were thinking about it.

Daryl was thinking that he could drown his sorrow between Candy Crowley's legs if the fat psycho bitch would ever come across. He was almost there last Sunday, when the nutty bitch got it in her head to burn a cat. You just had to shake your head sometimes, where she came up with stuff like that. But it seemed to get her righteously damp, and Daryl thought he'd finally get the old ball between the uprights, as it were, when that weird kid spoiled the deal. Another fuckin'nut. That kid had taken the best beating that Daryl Haines ever dished out, and he just wouldn't quit. Didn't cry, either, not even after Daryl scrambled his eggs for him. You'd think the goddamned cat belonged to the kid, the way he carried on, but Daryl had stolen it from Old Lady Wilbur, his next-door neighbor.

You just had to shake your head.

Daryl was still thinking about it when this voice said, “Daryl.”

Daryl said, “Yeah?”

The kid stepped out from behind this big azalea bush, his face swollen and lumpy with bruises. A big piece of tape covered his nose, and black stitches laced his lip and left eyebrow like railroad tracks.

Daryl, feeling righteously cranky because he'd been drafted, said, “You want some more, you little fuck, you picked the right time. I'm goin'to Vietnam.”

But that didn't impress the kid, who suddenly had a Louisville Slugger baseball bat in his hands and hit Daryl on the outside of the left knee as if he was swinging away for the green wall at Fenway Park.

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